Blog book...

I've had several questions about where I print my blog book, how much it costs etc.  Over the years I've printed books off at Heritage Makers, Shutterfly and Blurb.  Though there are a lot of places to print off your blogs or make books (has anyone tried My Publisher?  They have a ton of promotions I just haven't used them yet), anyway, I find that for my blog, Blurb has the best prices hands down for the amount of pages you get (my last book having the maximum of 440 pages).


I've learned some things over the years of making my blog books so if you're interested here are a few tips:

-Create bigger picture pages instead of trying to get as many pictures as you can on a page (which is what I did in my first blog book and it doesn't look as nice).  Blurb just added, this year, a full spread page where you can have your picture extend across both pages.  It's a fun one.  I just like the variety of options in creating a page (this is not a scrapbooky looking book, though you do have some options for background color.)


-I have made several books over the years, and my favorite is still the plain white background because I feel it give your picture the opportunity to stand out and be the real focus; though I have seen some nice books with colored backgrounds (adding individual backgrounds adds a LOT of extra time in production in an already long process).


-Take it slow and gradually work on your book.  For instance I usually download from my blog towards the end of October for the current year I am working on so I can get a start on it and I just work on it when I get the chance.  Then I add my individual posts for November and December to the end of the book.  This way but the first of the year I have a good start on my book.


-Every computer is a little different but a general rule of thumb is to turn your screen on your computer down to at least half of the brightness so you get a truer version of what your photos are going to look like when they are printed off, which is true for how they will also look when sending them to a printer (that was a big lesson learned after my first two blog books and several photos printed off that looked way darker than on my screen; my third book was much better!)  I would suggest calibrating your monitor as well.   


-Something I didn't even think about until after the fact, but what I will do from now on, is print our family copy off in hard-bound book (seems like a no-brainer since I want my kids to feel free to leaf through the pages; which they love to do).  I will be doing that next year.


-Sign up on their website to receive their e-mails.  Blurb doesn't do promotions often so when they do I take advantage of them (probably because they are one of the best priced out there).  Usually during the first part of the year they run a 20% off coupon for your total order.  For instance, with the coupon, I paid about $70 for each of my books for 440 pages instead of $85.  A pretty good deal when I'm buying 5 books!!  That's why I try to get a head-start on my book so I can take advantage of the coupon.


I hope that when each of our kids get a their books, when they leave home, they will be a treasured gift to them and their future family.

Happy book making!