Online Book Publishers

Zimtok

OK,
I didn't find much when I did a search so I thought I'd start a thread...

What Online book publishing sites has anyone used?
What are your experiences with them? (good/bad)

I'm looking for one to do a medium size book 25-50 page.
My first book will probably be black and white photos that I want to be at least 8x10 in size.
I'm thinking that the photo info would be printed on the back of the photo page so the photo could stand out on it's own.
My first run of the books will probably be under 50 copies.



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sirensofsong

After about two weeks of researching, I just made my first photo book. I went with Adoramapix after trying out Blurb, MyPublisher, and one other I can't remember the name of. I read a lot of good reviews on Adoramapix and eventually went with them because of their reputation, use of photo paper, lay flat binding, and software (plus they had a 20% off sale!) I wanted to have the freedom to easily move, crop and resize photos on the page and Adoramapix had the best software for that hands down.

I ordered the book on a Monday and it was shipped the next day. I was extremely nervous about the ridiculously quick turnaround b/c it made me think the quality would suffer, but it didn't. Some of the photos weren't as sharp as they are on my computer screen, but that's probably more because I didn't apply enough sharpening for print. I'm working on another book with them now.

Definitely check out http://www.photobookgirl.com/reviews/
They offer in-depth reviews on several companies and let you know which ones are running discounts. It also doesn't hurt to download the software from a few companies just to see what layouts they have and how well the software works for you. You don't have to pay anything until you actually place an order.

Good luck!

LeeHawkins

Blurb: Good Enough for a Wedding Client?
Hahaha! I just posted a very similar question yesterday, right here: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=210044&highlight=blurb

I'd love anyone else's suggestions on which companies make great photo books... I just finished creating a book in BookSmart, but alas...I am probably going to start redoing it today so I can print it somewhere other than Blurb :-/

Dogdots

I use mycanvas .. my first book turned out so good that I had 2 printed this year. The photos printed out in the book just like I view on my screen.

Zimtok

Thanks for all the responses...

I am going to try the BLURB publisher website...
The main reason at this point is that I can work on the book offline because you download the software onto your computer.
With it on my computer I have access to all of my text Fonts.
The online book software is very limited with the text Fonts.

Only when you are finished do you connect and upload your project to the Blurb website for processing.



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Dogdots

Zimtok wrote: »

Thanks for all the responses...

I am going to try the BLURB publisher website...
The main reason at this point is that I can work on the book offline because you download the software onto your computer.
With it on my computer I have access to all of my text Fonts.
The online book software is very limited with the text Fonts.

Only when you are finished do you connect and upload your project to the Blurb website for processing.



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I didn't know you could work offline with Blurb .. definitely a good option if you can use your own fonts.

CCoop

Popular Photography magazine did a review and comparison of ten online book publishers, including Blurb, Adorama, Kodak and others. The results are published in their print edition earlier this year, and online at

http://www.popphoto.com/gear/2011/02/best-services-printing-your-photo-books




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sissyfoto

I have encountered a serious issue with the importing of my photos from SmugMug to MyCanvas. I am going back and forth with MyCanvas and SmugMug. I have spent many many hours creating a wedding book for a client and the photos showed up fine while I created it. The first issue I had was when I emailed the client to preview in the MyCanvas Viewer. About a half dozen pages did not display to the client AT ALL!!! Imagine how embarrassing to me when they called about this! I sent an email to MyCanvas support and the next day the view was fine. Now they contacted me to say about 9 of my images in the wedding book are low quality with this response:
"When we pull a file from SmugMug, we are supposed to be given access to the large file size, so the pictures a crisp and clear. In some cases, we are not able to access that larger file, so the resolution of the smaller files is not as crisp. We are looking into this and trying to resolve this problem. It is difficult, though, because it is only happening sporadically, so it's hard to determine what is causing this. I'm sorry for the frustration this has caused. Please know that we are working with SmugMug to try to resolve this as soon as possible. Until then, you may want to upload your pictures directly from your computer just to be safe.”

This email was received a few days ago and I just now have time to sit down to start to RE-UPLOAD those images directly. NOW MOST OF THE PHOTOS ARE BLURRY IN THE PREVIEW!!!!! ARGGGGGGGG…… This is obviously NOT a sporadic issue and they should absolutely remove MyCanvas option from SmugMug until this can be resolved. I do NOT have time to re-upload the entire book right now!!!!! Another DGrin user has posted the same problem in creating a calendar. I am deeply frustrated right now and I really do not know what to do~ I have emailed MyCanvas and SmugMug support… again.

daylightimages

I'm working on my first book now, and I'm going with Blurb for a variety of reasons. First, they allow PDF-to-print, so I can do all my own layouts (in Quark) with my own fonts without being locked into their templates (Quark requires setting up your own pages, but Blurb has full PDF templates for folks using InDesign). Second, their pricing model (priced by page count ranges, not individual pages) is actually less per page than the others I've looked at. Third (and most important), I have actually seen some Blurb books and they are stunning. A friend of mine did a fine art b&w book that is gorgeous -- he loves it and he is really particular about quality.

Looking at the Pop Photo comparison, I noticed that it was done before Blurb added their better papers and better endpapers.

Anyhow, my book is my favorite photos of 2011, so by definition it won't be ready until sometime in 2012 (January, I hope). And since it's coming in at a pretty chunky size (2011 was a very good year for me photographically) it's probably going to have to wait for a Blurb 25% off sale before I order it.

In the meantime, I may make up a softcover book with all the images that will be in the big book, but with the images reduced in size and ganged several per page, just for a hard color proof.

BradfordBenn

I went with Blurb for two gifts for Free Loot Day. Overall I was happy but it is not without its flaws. I did soft proofing and tweaked things, some pictures came out dead on. I mean even better than I expected based on the results I got from Bay Photo with their color correction enabled. Other pages the pictures were not as I envisioned. The darker prints, we had a Newfoundland dog, were not as expected. I even did test prints here and my inexpensive Canon Pixma figuring if I could see hair variation on there, well the better printer would be just that - better.

However other images were beyond expectations. The gifts put smiles on the recipients face - heck brought tears to one of them - so they were successful prints in my opinion.

Dogdots

I was a big supporter of mycanvas. The photos turn out just like I see on the computer. To me that was really important. This year I received my 2 books and the papers were wrinkled, book cover looked like there had been water on it and wiped off. Then there was a nick in the back of one of the books. Contacted them and they reprinted them for free. Sent photos so they could see what I had received. Even put a rush on one book since I needed that to ship out myself. This impressed me and I was thinking "Great" they are a company I really like dealing with.

But ... when I received the new printing the black paper they use as the front and last page was wrinkled still. That in turn wrinkled the photo pages. First book they rushed to me first I sent out figuring it will 'pass' as ok. Still was not happy tho. Then I received the 2nd book. The black papers they use for the front and back page were worse. Again I didn't contact them, but tried to press it out myself. Couldn't of course. This was really bursting my bubble on how good I thought mycanvas is for printing books.

Emailed them finally about what I had received again mentioning to them that the black paper they're using is the cause of the problem. Even sent them the inspectors number that was in the book along with mentioning how much I had liked their product, but now I doubt I'll use mycanvas again for my book printing needs. This was a week ago or so. Have not heard a response back from them.

Gretchen

Blurb Crashes
For those of you who use Blurb- I am having an issue with them and there is no resolution. I've opened a help ticket with them, and every thing they instruct me to do does not fix the issue. Namely, every time I try to upload photos, be it from my computer directly or Smugmug, the app crashes. I respond to to the error message, but nothing gets fixed. I also can't delete the books that I've created. I've completely removed their software and reinstalled. Doesn't fix it.

After Christmas I decided to try again and was able to create a new book, thinking the new version I installed had fixed the problem. Half way through the process, I got the crash warning AGAIN and worse, it only saved a 1/4 of the 56 pages I had created!

I'm so frustrated with them and their lack of response to correct the problem I am giving up on them.

Has any one had this problem with them and were you able to fix it on your own?

Thanks!

daylightimages

Just wanted to post an update -- I got my first Blurb book today, a 10x8 image-wrap hardcover with 240 pages that absolutely blew me away. The color is great, the shadows didn't muddy up, no artifacts or banding -- overall I am 100% pleased!!!!

One small caveat I will toss out, though -- I shoot trains and don't have to deal with skin tones in my color photos. However, from what I can see on my train colors, there are no issues. On the other hand, when dealing with steam locomotives you deal with a lot of black that can go muddy, but all the blacks held detail well. Now on to the second project!!!!

At the risk of sounding like a commercial message (not my intent) those that are curious about what 237 train photos look like in a book, you can see a full preview here: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2947206

Art Scott

daylightimages wrote: »

Just wanted to post an update -- I got my first Blurb book today, a 10x8 image-wrap hardcover with 240 pages that absolutely blew me away. The color is great, the shadows didn't muddy up, no artifacts or banding -- overall I am 100% pleased!!!!

One small caveat I will toss out, though -- I shoot trains and don't have to deal with skin tones in my color photos. However, from what I can see on my train colors, there are no issues. On the other hand, when dealing with steam locomotives you deal with a lot of black that can go muddy, but all the blacks held detail well. Now on to the second project!!!!

At the risk of sounding like a commercial message (not my intent) those that are curious about what 237 train photos look like in a book, you can see a full preview here: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2947206

Where is the Blurb Logo on the books...would you mind posting a pic for wherethey place it...I have looked all thru their samples and not seen it yet.

Thanx

daylightimages

Art Scott wrote: »

Where is the Blurb Logo on the books...would you mind posting a pic for wherethey place it...I have looked all thru their samples and not seen it yet.

Thanx

Blurb logos appear in only two places -- the first is on the copyright page. The second place is the last page of the book, which is completely blank save for a Blurb logo at the bottom center. If you do a PDF-to-book you can design out the copyright page logo (all books done through Booksmart must include one of the Blurb copyright page templates and they all include the logo; going PDF-to-book eliminates all Blurb templates). The last page is always a solitary Blurb logo unless you pay extra to have it removed. There are no Blurb logos anywhere on the outside cover of the book.

My link in my previous post goes to a full preview of my entire book. Check out pages 2 and 240 for Blurb logo placement.

Art Scott

I have now seen 2 Blurb books done by local Pro Photogs and both were stunning, one was with a
dust jacket and the other was image wrap...all colors were fantastic...
The 2nd book was at a Gallery Opening for the Artist/ photog and contained the same images as
what was hung in the gallery so I was able to scrutinize the color reproductions...and again I will
say..it was fantastic.

I did see the logos, not a distraction really, small and mostly unobtrusive....

I just wish they did not have such low page counts, but I guess they were not intending for photogs
to use them as proof books or complete wedding albums with 1000's of images at large sizes...

sara505

My first and only book, a 10x13 (I think) book of one of my grandkid's first year, I made via Blurb. There was a learning curve, and uploading the photos was a bit time-consuming, but I learned a lot. The book came out great - photos and paper were very nice quality - and I will most likely use Blurb again, but will create more of my own templates next time rather than use theirs. But yeah, for first time, I was very happy.

I think Blurb offers a lot of options in terms of sizes, styles, fonts.

I thought I saw an option to upgrade, thereby eliminating the logo, but I never figured out how to choose that option.

Art Scott

Very Happy with BLURB BOOKS
I just received my 1st Blurb book and everyone that has seen it says it is great....I was surprised at how easy it really is ...clap
the quality is great and i will be publishing my portfolios using them and I googled for discount coupons and found a 25% off coupon,thumb
so that helped a lot.... the clients get the book 1st of next week...it was a small book of about 380 images and 225 pages.

sara505

Art Scott wrote: »

I just received my 1st Blurb book and everyone that has seen it says it is great....I was surprised at how easy it really is ...clap
the quality is great and i will be publishing my portfolios using them and I googled for discount coupons and found a 25% off coupon,thumb
so that helped a lot.... the clients get the book 1st of next week...it was a small book of about 380 images and 225 pages.

Hey, that's great, Art.

I'm looking forward to using LR4's new book tool, simply dragging the images out of the tray below clap
(I don't care how easy slurping from SM was purported to be - it was very time-consuming and cumbersome)

Patti

I'm working on my first book via Blurb. My beef is the inability as far as I can see, to change the size/dimension of the photos on the page. So many of my India photos won't fit the set crops available and therefore can't be used. It's very disappointing.

sara505

I believe you can create a page template with any size photo you want. I'm not at my cimputer but if I remember correctly, go to Edit page, then grab the corners of the box and drag and reshape to your heart's desire.

Patti

Thanks Sara. I figured it out.

Peano

How about CreateSpace?