[krazeemaillegineer]

Hi all,

Just wanted to share with you this cool website I found that might be of interest to someone around here.

I recently designed a jewelry portfolio at Blurb.com and all you pay for is the printing cost of your book (and of course sales tax and shipping). You download their free book making software and then upload your pictures into it and start designing. You have 4 choices of books and then decide if you want it in softcover or hardcover. I found a review online and it seems to get a lot of positive reviews. My book is scheduled to arrive tomorrow and I'm really excited. According to UPS tracking, it is somewhere in the San Fernando Valley.

It could be a really awesome marketing tool if done right. But it's also nice to see all your hard work in print... more bragging rights. :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: I'll give you a real review when I get my hands on my portfolio...

[Victoria]

krazeemaillegineer, on Jun 12 2008, 01:10 AM, said:

Hi all,

Just wanted to share with you this cool website I found that might be of interest to someone around here.

I recently designed a jewelry portfolio at Blurb.com and all you pay for is the printing cost of your book (and of course sales tax and shipping). You download their free book making software and then upload your pictures into it and start designing. You have 4 choices of books and then decide if you want it in softcover or hardcover. I found a review online and it seems to get a lot of positive reviews. My book is scheduled to arrive tomorrow and I'm really excited. According to UPS tracking, it is somewhere in the San Fernando Valley.

It could be a really awesome marketing tool if done right. But it's also nice to see all your hard work in print... more bragging rights. :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: I'll give you a real review when I get my hands on my portfolio...

Hi!

what a great find!!! I bookmarked...I'm looking forward to reading your review....you are so right...could be a really awesome marketing tool!!!! That is just so kewl (my California voice 0;) :lol2:

Thanks for sharing!!
Victoria T. Flaherty

[rocknwow]

Great idea...I'll be looking for the review too.

[BeadSire]

Great link - thanks for sharing.

[rocknwow]

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This is a previous post, on some other alternatives, for the same thing.

[Dianne]

I used Blurb to create a portfolio book of my Year of Jewelry projects. Here's the book page. The preview shows the dust jacket and the first 15 pages or so.

My reason for trying this site was a) I wanted to try it out and compare it to the others I've used; b ) I wanted to create a hard copy record of my YOJ in case something happens to the electronic version.

Again, like Mixbook, this company ships to Canada only via UPS. I ended up having the book sent to a friend Stateside, and she mailed it to me via USPS.

I liked the templates and the layouts - there were LOTS and LOTS of them. Font style was a bit limited, and I had to play around a bit to get the layout exactly the way I wanted it.

One *very big plus* for Blurb is that you can use low-resolution photos, and the program will tell you whether or not the photo will print well at the size you've chosen. You can then make adjustments to the size until you get to one that will print reasonably well. Most of the photos I inserted were from my blog, so they were all under 100k. Now that said, if you use low-res photos, don't expect crystal clear images, even at a small size, but they're good for giving a general idea.

There are several different formats available for books, and you can choose hard or soft cover for the final version. Definitely a good choice if you're looking for an easy to use program. :thumbsup4:

[Iris]

I have to say this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I had no idea you could create a book like this! Diane, I checked out your YOJ book. What a spectacular way to document your experience - and what a wonderful keepsake for you and your family! Great jewelry too!

Krazeemaille - Please do post your review when you receive your book!!

[Silver Mist Studios]

I sent this to my friend, she is just starting trying to become a photographer... it would be inexpensive for her to make a portfolio! I would only have a few pics that I would feel would be good enough for print.

[G&S Lampwork]

Thank you so much for this incredible website link. It has given my new inspiration.
Dianne I absolutely love your book!! What a fabulous idea.

[krazeemaillegineer]

Alright, I'm here and I've evaluated the results...

And here's a preview of it...

I bought all 3 versions of the book, but let's start with general things... (Note: This is the 7x7 size)

Each book is individually wrapped in its own shrink wrap. It is a very nice feature considering how things are shipped and handled with very little care these days. You have to be careful before sending it to print because human error will come up with a few typos here and there, but overall it's at a minimum. My only quaff was the inside title page being the wrong font and I didn't capitalize a letter in my header that's on every other page. But who's going to notice? With that said, I'm very happy with the results so far.

The printing quality is just wonderful, assuming you have good pictures to begin with. I noticed a few needed to be re-taken later on, but I really have to say that the printing is awesome. The paper is semi-glossy, fairly thick, and generally good. Just keep in mind that this is a bound book, so try not to place pictures and text on the inside too much or else you're going to want to squash the book down and crease the pages to get the full effect.

Now on to the paperback...

I have a 40 page book and it really doesn't look like 40 pages. The cover is a little bit glossy and overall very neat and clean due to the layout I picked for this particular book. I should have put a picture on the front cover, but one thing I do have to say is that the templates are a little bit limited, but workable. Overall, the paperback is well worth the $12.95 price plus shipping and sales tax. It would be a great promotional piece of marketing.

Hardback with Dust Jacket...

I am in love with this one... it's a standard looking book, but the dust cover is super glossy. I only have one picture on the back cover, but it just looks so much better that way... glossy is the way to go. ;-) The inside flaps are customizable, so I put in some more pictures and some text, then on the back I added my contact information and it just looks really nice and classy... not the tacky, "Find out more here!"

Hardback with Image Wrap...

The imagewrap is not worth the extra 2 bucks. The cover is matte and I think the only nice thing about it is the title and author printed on the spine, but go up to about 80 pages and you can get the spine printed on both the softcover and the hardback with jacket. Bleh I say to this one. I'll find a friend to give it to.

Overall, I am happy with the results. This experience has helped me see where my photographer's eye needs to be and has somewhat inspired me to keep the creativity going and making more pieces for the portfolio because I want a bigger one with more pages. Now I just need to keep copy editing before I send it to the printers.

[sheryl]

WOW this is great! Thank you!
Sheryl

[G&S Lampwork]

A fantastic review, thank you so much for going to so much work! Now I'm even more inspired

[Cheekytrendy]

Wow thank you so much for letting us know about this and for going to all the trouble to review and explain it all. I couldn’t see anything when I followed the last link but your post was so informative that I didn’t really need a picture.
Once again thank you guys so much for letting us know about this and your thoughts on it – very very cool

[krazeemaillegineer]

Oh, I just had to share this with the forum. It's a great marketing tool (which I desperately need) and generally a great way to showcase all our hard work. Someday I will make the coffee table book. :bounce:

Sometimes you need a little something to get back into the flow of things... this has definitely helped.

[LFCookie]

Thanks for this great information!

[Glass Addictions]

What a cool idea! Thanks for the info and the review. I will have to keep this in the back of my mind for the future.

[SC Steph]

oh how incredibly cool!!! That would be really neat to make of kids too . . . I have never seen that before!!! what a great site!!! Thanks so much for sharing!!!