Places to have a book made

[Carole]

I've been writing articles as the Puget Sound Marine Life Examiner on Examiner.com. Well, I wrote an article on an orca named Lolita who was captured out here in 1970 and is still in a tank at the Miami Seaquarium, which is MUCH too small for her and is according to the Animal Welfare Act illegal. I got such a response that I ended up writing Part 2, then Part 3, etc. Today I published Part 13 :smile: I've gotten emails from all over the world that have been very supportive.

What I'd like to do is to publish all the articles in book form. Just one copy now for me, but it might possibly be a book I'd like to publish and have the Whale Museum and a few other places sell so that people can know her story.

I'm looking for suggestions on places to have the one copy done, and also a place to possible get 50-100 copies done (depending on how it turns out). I want the pages to be a good quality, not junky.

Thanks,
Carole

 

[bobhoge]

Hi Carole,

I've been happy with single copy books from Blurb.com. They might be too costly for the 50-100 copy printing, but they do have lower prices for a text only size. They do a nice job with photos if you plan to include them in the book.

They do offer the option to set a price above their cost and send you the difference.

Here is a link to a book I just finished last month if you want to take a look.

Bob

 

[IsamuM]

+1 on Blurb.com. I haven't used them personally, but I just got a beautiful book by Dave Black entitled, The Way I See It. Everything is very professional and the book is beautifully done.

 

[Bob Walters]

I've had several of my photo books printed by Blurb and I couldn't be happier. Their layout software is very good too.

 

[TOLady]

Hi Carole,

I've been happy with single copy books from Blurb.com. They might be too costly for the 50-100 copy printing, but they do have lower prices for a text only size. They do a nice job with photos if you plan to include them in the book.

They do offer the option to set a price above their cost and send you the difference.

Here is a link to a book I just finished last month if you want to take a look.

Bob

Bob, that is one slick travelogue! Well done. You've placed a great map at the beginning to show the reader where on earth you travelled, and you've got some stunning panos throughout the book. Question on the panos: how did the placement in the software translate to real-time printing? In other words, did you lose any of the pano at the centre where the book is stitched, or did you have any little vertical white lines at the centre where the pano overlaps the two pages? I haven't seen a Blurb book with a two-page pano and always wanted that question answered by a customer before proceeding to do any travel books. I've seen a few Blurb books and I'm amazed at the quality for the price. I have a few hard drives full of travel pics which I need to get into book form.

 

[LB Jefferies]

I haven't tried blurb yet, but I can put in a plug for the White House. http://www.whcc.com/
I just had one made up with a photo cover (metallic paper, too) that is awesome. :biggrin:

 

[bobhoge]

Question on the panos: how did the placement in the software translate to real-time printing? In other words, did you lose any of the pano at the centre where the book is stitched, or did you have any little vertical white lines at the centre where the pano overlaps the two pages? I haven't seen a Blurb book with a two-page pano and always wanted that question answered by a customer before proceeding to do any travel books. I've seen a few Blurb books and I'm amazed at the quality for the price. I have a few hard drives full of travel pics which I need to get into book form.

Hi Sandi,

To do the panos I dropped the same photo into the photo containers on the opposing pages. Then I did a drag on the left page photo to put the left edge of the photo at the left edge of the page. Then drag on the right page photo to put the right edge of the photo on the right edge of the page. Then adjust the zoom of each photo until the middle shows just a bit (maybe 1/4 inch +/-) of the same image on both photos. You will have to keep moving each photo to keep the edges of the photo at the edge of the page. If you adjust the photo size by clicking on + or -, the images will stay the same size with the same number of clicks.

On a full bleed page, a bit of the photo is lost down into the gutter (that's the part of the sheet where the pages are bound together). The amount lost probably will vary a bit with the number of pages in the book. By having a small part of the photo duplicated on both pages, that part gets bridged over. Your eye seems to connect the two photos.

I thought my panos came out quite well in the printed book. I think it would be content dependent, it might not work as well if there is a key point of the image right in the middle, like a big building, since the stitch point might be right at the center doorway of the building.

I do like Blurb's new software that allows you to design you own page templates. If your photos are processed and ready to drop onto the pages, and if you don't do a lot of text, it really goes fairly quickly.

For the recent 200 page book I would guess I spent maybe 4 hours selecting photos and loading them onto pages. The only problem was I had nearly 300 pages. Moving some of the photos from single pages to multiple photo pages took maybe 3 hours which got it down to maybe 235 pages. Going through again and deciding what to cut was maybe another 3 hours. Once I was down to the 200 pages I wanted, I went back and started on the text which took about 5 hours. Checking spelling and reading through it a couple of times about another 3 hours. The upload took a couple hours. About 20 hours total, not counting 4 photos that needed more work in photoshop.

Bob & Nan

 

[Carole]

Hi Carole,

I've been happy with single copy books from Blurb.com. They might be too costly for the 50-100 copy printing, but they do have lower prices for a text only size. They do a nice job with photos if you plan to include them in the book.

They do offer the option to set a price above their cost and send you the difference.

Here is a link to a book I just finished last month if you want to take a look.

Bob

Thanks, Bob! I just checked out your book and it looks beautiful! I do plan to include a few photos :smile:

Carole

 

[Carole]

I've had several of my photo books printed by Blurb and I couldn't be happier. Their layout software is very good too.

Thanks, Bob. That's good to know on the software. Some of them I've looked at had me buggey eyed!

Carole

 

[Prettym1k3]

Tried Mixbook? Pretty great company.

 

[TOLady]

Thanks for that explanation, Bob, very well written. Once I get a few things sorted out around here, I'm going to sit down and make some books. The quality is certainly there, nowadays.

 

[Carole]

Tried Mixbook? Pretty great company.

Thanks, but they seem to only have photo books. My book will have a LOT of text with just a few photos to illustrate some points.

Carole

 

[Carole]

Thanks for that explanation, Bob, very well written. Once I get a few things sorted out around here, I'm going to sit down and make some books. The quality is certainly there, nowadays.

Me too. I just posted Part 14 of "An Orca named Lolita" and I still have a few more chapters in mind. I'm thinking there might be a Volume 1 and a Volume 2 for when they finally let her come home.

Carole

 

[tdtaylor]

Here is an article Dave Black did on .blurb.com on publishing his book.

http://www.daveblackphotography.com/workshop/06-2009.htm

He give a good overview and why he prefers it.

 

[DM Rosner]

Try CreateSpace (owned by Amazon.com).