Self-Published photo books question

Blurb users POV: http://forums.blurb.com/posts

Apparently MyPublisher and SharedInk are worth checking out, the latter being slightly better and more expensive. I’ve only tried books from Apple (pretty good) and one other place that was terrible and can’t remember at the moment.

You might want to contact Paul Treacy here on LS as well; he’s just done a book with Blurb.

Ive used Blurb twice. They were ok, but there are better options out there. The print quality of the dust jackets was bad. The inside pages were too thin for my purposes. Id try Fastback (who is a sponser here) or Asuka, alot more money but the quality is top notch. The software at the time (1.5yrs ago) was horrible. I designed in InDesign and exported my pages as full size jpegs to import into blurb’s program.

My stupid 440 page Blurb book was manufactured well enough to be accepted by a publisher for consideration. Also, I routinely use the cheapest Blurb books as leave-behinds, when seeking new clients. Shutterfly is another option. More expensive and more limiting in terms of layout, but better quality paper and printing.

I had Lulu do a few copies of a book mock up Im working on recently and Im pleased enough with them. Did a 54 page softcover and for $13 bucks I really cant complain. The images were printed a little too contrasty but were acceptable. The cover paper stock was nice enough so no complaints there. I didnt use there drop-in template so i cant really comment on the ease of use. I “learned” In Design just well enough so Id have total control of it, there submission requirements were very confusing at times especially if you are designing your own book, different parameters for every different type of submission and pages & pages of how too’s on their website that started feeling like a maze and made things more confusing then helpful. Overall Id use them again for something I was giving away as a promo item but I wouldnt feel comfortable charging more then $10 bucks for.