Has anyone here used the self-publishing platform Blurb? If so - how would you grade the platform. Are you still with them? Or do you have any regrets? Would you recommend the platform to other self-publishers? If you use another self-publishing platform, what would you recommend? I'm interested in full array of services: 1. Design tools 2. Reasonable prices 3. Web Bookstore platform to list the final product 4. On-Demand printing - willing to print only one book per order. 5. Fullfillment services Thanks in advance - Cardinal
I have not used Blurb. After following your link, my initial impressions are that (a) they seem to be oriented toward graphics-intensive books (not text-heavy books such as novels or history books); (b) their claim to fame seems to be "lay flat" books. That may be a marketing point for a coffee table photo book but I don't see any value in it for most types of books. I couldn't tell from their web site if they even offer anything other than lay-flat books; and (c) the web site doesn't even mention e-books. Depending on what type of book you want to publish, I think it's probably unwise to go with a printer that only offers print (as paradoxical as that may sound). Awhile ago, in testing the waters for a book idea I had (historical research), I posted a poll on two non-writer forums on which I participate. I asked if people prefer e-books or printed books. The winner was e-books. I don't recall the exact numbers, but it was something like 2/3 e-book vs. 1/3 print.
I’ve published with Blurb in the past - 3 photo books and an illustrated book of song lyrics. I found the quality of the printed books to be excellent, but perhaps best of all, for me, was the opportunity to create and layout a book in my own style, instead of being confined to templates. In addition to listing them in the Blurb Bookshop it was possible to publish them on Amazon and to have them converted into ebooks. However, the printed books were not cheap, although there are plenty of discounted offers. I made bulk purchases and sold them myself which allowed me discounted rates. It was the postage that made them expensive if you were ordering less than 3 copies at a time. You had to purchase your own book (discounted rate for author) before it went into the Blurb Bookshop and it was not possible to edit the book without republishing and repurchasing it. I daresay Blurb has evolved since I used them. More recently I’ve been busy copyediting, proofreading and formatting ebooks for Amazon kdp and Smashwords, which has certainly produced more sales, but I found Blurb provided high quality printed books which I was proud to have created. Not sure that I’ve answered all your questions so do get back if I can elaborate. In the meantime I hope this helps with your decision.
The uses I'm aware of for lay-flat books are as shop manuals or reference books where you might be working with your hands or they might be oily or dirty, but you need the book to stay open and readable. My Gregg Reference manual (poor-man's Chicago Style Manual) is a thick spiral-bound book and I really like that if I'm looking at another book while consulting it. Just throwing in a bit of trivia that might be useful to somebody.
In my iteration as a wedding photographer i used blurb for wedding albums... but I don't think they're a serious contender for self publishing unless you are doing coffee table books with lots of pictures the listing in their own bookstore is going to be nearly worthless because who the hell buys there ? and the pricing is such that it will be very difficult to make a positive return via amazon unless you have a very high value product
I figured I would attempt to test out Blurb. They have you download BookWright, their free book creator tool. While I can say it doesn't seem that difficult to use, I've been having difficulties converting my print book over to it. I had to convert my file to an RTF file and that can cause issues with some things. You can fix it in the tool, but some pages it won't let me click and fix, which is super frustrating! I'm about to throw in the towel on this one. If this was a picture book, I could see that this would be no issue, but to put in an all-text written book into this thing is getting frustrating. I have about 360 pages when I put it in and all it does it is goes super slow and keeps crashing or not responding. It's been difficult. The prices do seem reasonable, but the fact that I'm seeing you have to do all the conversion yourself on this BookWright software is getting to me. I'm not sure if I can finish this as easily as I would've liked if at all.
