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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Photo books
Debra L Rothenberg, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 7:34 AM on 08.18.09 |
->> does anyone know of a company where you can have photo books made, set your own price, and where people can order the books and it will be shipped directly to them?
Prefer a company where captions are an option
thanks
DLR |
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Max Waugh, Photographer
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Bothell | WA | USA | Posted: 7:50 AM on 08.18.09 |
->> I believe Blurb allows you to do most of this, except that you have to pay their minimum cost to put the books together (based on book dimensions, number of pages and binding/cover type). You can mark up beyond that though and people can order your book from their site, as far as I know. Overall, their prices seemed pretty good compared to some other printers. I've put together 20 page books elsewhere that cost me $30, while a 120 page book will only cost me $12 more on Blurb.
I'm in the middle of making my first Blurb book now, but my wife has done a couple (though not for re-sale) and has been satisfied with the results.
Max |
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Luis Moreira, Photographer
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Toronto | ON | Canada | Posted: 8:00 AM on 08.18.09 |
->> I agree with Max, Blurb has a pretty good system. I just finished a book and posted it in their bookstore. It's nice that you don't have to put any money down upfront and your customers can purchase any book type, ie. softcover, hardcover, hardcover imagewrap, that is available in your chosen book size. Their shipping rates are quite reasonable as well.
Luis |
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Debra L Rothenberg, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 8:04 AM on 08.18.09 |
| ->> with Blurb you can set your own price? I don't see where to do that on the site |
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Wally Nell, Photographer
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CAIRO | EG | EGYPT | Posted: 8:10 AM on 08.18.09 |
| ->> You can also look at lulu.com. I published a calendar through them. Not sure how pricing compares to Blurb, the calendars became quite pricey to sell. I finally had to go to a local company here in Cairo to publish. But check them out, it might or might not work for you. |
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Debra L Rothenberg, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 8:11 AM on 08.18.09 |
->> Wally,
are you on a PC or a MAC? I looked at lulu (I am on a MAC) and for the life of me I couldn't get the images to fit on the pages-and all were resized correctly.
Any tips? |
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Ken Blaze, Photographer
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Cleveland | OH | USA | Posted: 8:55 AM on 08.18.09 |
| ->> blurb definitely lets you set your own price and forms a link to your book |
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Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Urbana | IL | USA | Posted: 10:09 AM on 08.18.09 |
->> I also recommend Blurb for the production end.
I'm not sure about the pricing of other companies (I stopped looking after my third Blurb book) but at one time most were cheaper if you stayed under 20 pages. If your book is over 40 pages Blurb has the best prices I've seen so far.
I've never had an issue with quality. Early on, I had problems receiving damaged books - the 13x11 sizes weren't backed well enough to handle the rigors of FedX handling, but I got them to change the packaging and that issue has since disappeared.
The latest software download is suppose to be faster and better now. I design all my books in InDesign. You could use PhotoShop to layout your photos and text as well and in either case you can save the book as a PDF for upload to their site instead of having to do the page by page setting and then upload.
You can create your own storefront for your books if you accept PayPal or another online payment processor. Instead of using their storefront I created my own online bookstore on our site so my clients don't have to go to the Blurb website or be subjected to their branding.
There are a lot of players out there, Debra. So far, I've been really happy with what Blurb delivers. |
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Allen Murabayashi, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 10:28 AM on 08.18.09 |
->> I just designed two books with Blurb with their (new) PDF printing. Like Clark, I used InDesign because I didn't want to use their stock templates. The other pros were that I could color profile the images (by contrast, the book software converts to sRGB), and sharpen at size (I used Nik Sharperner 3.0).
The results were quite stunning to be honest.
The price was a little bothersome -- I guess it's all relative, and the notion of creating a book to memorialize photos is pretty awesome, but I did their largest book at 40 pages and it was $56. With tax and shipping, it was $71 for a book. |
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Wally Nell, Photographer
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CAIRO | EG | EGYPT | Posted: 11:23 AM on 08.18.09 |
->> Debra, I use a PC.
I also have only tried publishing a calendar through them, no books yet. The calendar had issues in that I had a thin border around the pictures, i.e. white for 1/4 inch and then a very thin red border. I also made sure my pages were the exact size it needed to be for printing. However they cropped the red border out and sent the sold ones out without the borders. Since I tried doing this from outside the US, I was not able to see the finished product. So by the time I found this out, 20 had already been bought and sent out. They sent me a PDF of the calendar, and it looked OK without the borders, but the PDF did not show where the holes for the calendar would go, etc. In the end the text on the calendar ran into where the calendar folds. If the borders were there, this would not have happened. So the result was that I was only able to see what a finished product looked like, until I was able to get one shipped here. If I was in the States I would have been able to contact them right away and have it corrected.
So, that was my experience, but I also know from talking to publishing people here, that having borders around pictures, pose problems in printing. What do I know!
So, I probably don't think I answered your question. If you are able to design your own pages, that would be a big plus.
Good luck with your endeavour! |
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Alan Look, Photographer
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Bloomington | IL | United States | Posted: 2:54 PM on 09.05.09 |
->> anyone care to help me decipher Blurbs pricing? It's pretty meaningless to me the way it is posted.
Say I want to put together a 35 page standard portrait sized book with an image wrapped hard cover and make it available for people to order. I want to get one of the finished product. What's the cost to me? What do I make if they sell one for me? I assume I get paid somehow? |
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