There are a lot of ways to self-publish, and I looked around a bit this year when I got started on the book project; I’d done several previous books on Blurb, but wanted to make sure it was still what I wanted to use. Some of the other publishers had photo book templates that looked good, but when I tried them out, they weren’t easy to customize, so if your photos were unusual sizes there didn’t seem to be a way to edit the template, or other things I just didn’t like. So, I ended up back at Blurb.

You have to download their app that “builds” the book, and it takes a little bit of trial and error to figure out how to use it. There are choices for templates and etc. so you can probably find something that fits what you are trying to do. I think you can also build the book layout in Illustrator or InDesign, but I’m not proficient with those programs.

There are options for the finished product – hard- or soft-bound, various paper choices, etc. I’ve only done soft-bound, but have been happy with the results.

The books are expensive, though. The price that’s shown for my book, for example, has a very small profit in it, and it’s almost embarrassing how much it costs. I can get a price break by ordering them myself, but the first break is a 15% discount with orders of 20 books. Also, Blurb only pays the author once there is $25 in profit accrued; I hardly sell any books through Blurb and have yet to get a check.

But, on the other hand, it’s print-on-demand, so you don’t have to carry a large and costly inventory. I used to work for a small book publisher, back in the old days, and we’d have to order one or two THOUSAND books to get a big enough price break that we could price the books where we could make anything off of them.

If you don’t want the Blurb logo on the books, there’s an upcharge. And if you need ISBN codes (which you’ll need if you want bookstores or Amazon to carry them – I guess it’s the same in the UK as in the states) then it starts to get really costly. I looked at getting ISBNs this year, but didn’t look long before I decided the very remote possibility that a bookstore would want to carry the book wasn’t worth the amount I’d have to pay.

Mostly, I give the books away, and sell a few at art shows. One of these days, my granddaughters will have a complete library of them, and, honestly, that’s the main reason I do it.

So, that’s a very lengthy answer; you were probably hoping I’d say something like, “Yeah, Blurb’s OK.”!

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