I'm finally here with pictures (and a review) of my
Blurb book. Here is a quick-run down of my book:
- I made a 12 x 12 hardcover book with image wrap cover and premium paper.
- I used the online book creation tool, Bookify, which has a 160 page limit.
- Instead of doing full-bleed pages, I chose to use the large square layout that is within their software, and I chose the border to be black. I didn't want to worry about trimming for full bleed, and I also had several two-page spreads. I thought the border (which actually measures at 9/16 inch wide) would be a good fit for my needs. See photos below.
- I chose a white spine to match my front and back covers, which also had a white background.
- All of the jpgs I uploaded were 3600 x 3600 pixels, saved at a quality of 10 in photoshop, except for the front and back covers which were 3702 x 3675 pixels (this was the size of the cover images that I made last year, and I just did the same.)
- Shipping was really fast. I received the book 6 days after placing the order, several days earlier than their estimate.
- I love my book. The quality is great, although there were two issues that I saw: warping of the cover, and print quality of thin text. See photos below.
Let's get to some pictures. Here is the cover. The white background actually has a very subtle texture, which is barely visible in the finished product. I had actually anticipated this, and almost decided to go back and make the background completely white, but out of laziness I didn't bother.
My title page
Some colorful pages
Some black and white (mostly) pages
Some more pages
Some more mostly black and white pages
My last page, which I call my Time Capsule
The binding
The spine
I had estimated that the 1/2 inch border all the way around would allow two page spreads to be visible without any part of them being hidden in the binding. I was pretty close, but some of the black border does show in the middle. It doesn't bother me. I wasn't expecting perfection.
These next two photos show the two quality issues I have with my book. First, the front cover has some warping. My book was delivered on a rainy day, and I've wondered if the humidity was a factor. This photo was taken about a month ago, and today the warping is not as pronounced. Perhaps it will continue to flatten. The Blurb book that I printed last year had no warping.
Finally, there is a slight issue with some of the text. I often chose hand-written fonts with very thin lines, and the printing process created text with uneven or jagged edges. It was difficult to photo and is more pronounced in life. But I think this photo shows the effect fairly well. It does not bother me immensely, but I do notice it when I look at the pages. It was only noticeable on really thin fonts.
Overall, I LOVE my book. I am happy with the black borders, although I was a little worried about that when I ordered the book. I had seen a few other books printed with black borders and thought it looked fun and dramatic. You can also pick a white border, and I believe they have several colors to choose from. In fact, I changed the border to white for my calendar pages at the end of my book:
I think I actually like the black border better than the white border!
I will continue to use Blurb for all of my book printing. The biggest beef I have with them is that they occasionally run promotions (like 20% off), which supposedly they send out in their newsletter to let people know about them. I am signed up for their newsletter and have never received notice of these promotions. I missed the Valentines Day 20% promotion, but I was able to use the NEWBLURB coupon code for 20% off. I had placed a previous order, but I think the NEWBLURB code can be used once per customer. So if you place an order, I'd say give that code a try. It saved me about 25 bucks.
Next Friday I will be in Las Vegas for Digiscrap-apalooza! It will be the first time I have been away from my son for more than a couple hours. And he has slept in the same bed as me from birth, so this is some serious separation that's coming up. He's four and I'm thirty-five, so I think we can handle it, right? Yeah, right.
