Blog books

So I just discovered the coolest thing. Okay…maybe it’s not new, but it’s new to me. It is www.blurb.com They actually publish your blog for you. The best part is they are very affordable and have great tools to work with. (Being a designer I’m kind of a snob about that).

For the last year or so as I have gotten further and further behind on my scrapbooks I’ve looked into some of these companies that do photo books (i.e. snapfish.com, Kodak.com and Heritage Makers) but I was either turned off because of the price or because of the lack of tools. With blurb.com they have a lot of really nice features, nice layouts, and some good editing tools.

So here is a little comparison of what I found (a little disclaimer… these websites all have different options when it comes to size of book but I just picked the standard size to do my comparison here) …

Heritage Makers — One of my friends became a consultant of Heritage Makers, they have it set up so you can have parties and invite your friends. They have a lot of different backgrounds and sizes of books, but the price is a little high for what you are getting. They recently redid their software so I’m not sure how the new stuff compares, when I played around with it before it was very difficult to get it to do the things I wanted it to do.

Price Comparison 8.5 x 11” hardbound book $69.95 for 26 pages. Additional pages $1.99 for 2 pages. Max pages 78

Snapfish.com — This one is probably my next favorite. It has some good options for photos. My one big problem with this one is the limit on captions (it’s something like 100 characters). Although I don’t like their photo books very much they do have a lot of other really fun photo gifts. When Todd’s sister was on her mission we sent her some notebooks with Hailee’s picture on them. She loved them (and notebooks are always something useful for missionaries). They also have really cute note cards a lots of other fun things. They do have a cute little pocket book that are 2.75” x 3.75” that would make really cute favors for a party or as little presents. (Afterall snapfish is a part of Hewlett-Packard so it’s got to be good right.)

Price Comparison 8.5 x 11.5” hardbound book $19.99 for 20 pages. Additional pages $1.99 for 2 pages.

Kodak.com — This one has a lot of good option (even a new Martha Steward line). It’s really similar to snapfish. So see above.

Price Comparison 9 x 10.25” hardbound book $29.99 for 20 pages. I can’t find where it says how much additional pages are.

Blurb.com … Okay so the things I love about blurb. They have lots and lots and lots of layout options. You can choose what fonts you want (and there are lots of choices). There are several backgrounds you can choose from. They also have a fun feature where you can enter your blog address and it makes your blog into a book (the other ones don't have that option). Importing pictures is really easy (the other ones you have to upload them to the web so it takes a long long time even with a fast internet connection). As a designer this is really the best software that I have found. Really user friendly and nice enough not to drive me crazy with lack of options.

Price comparison 8x10” hardbound book $29.95 for 20-40 pages. Additional pages go up by 40 pages at a time so for 41-80 pages it is $34.95 and when you get up to 361-440 pages it is $79.95. Here is their price comparison list.