Have anyone of you tried to make Books out of your blog? I’ve just seen over on blurb that they offer such a service:
If you use LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad or Blogger, simply select your book size (support for 5×8 B/W Text book coming in next release), select “blog to book,” choose your blogging platform and slurp away! Wondering how hundreds of pages of blog fodder might be translated into a book? Check out Mike Workman’s “Wisdom, Wisecracks & Weener Dogs” (pictured above) to see how great a blog can look in print.
Anyone tried this? If so, what’s the verdict?
I would love to know how this works if you try it. I downloaded the Booksmart software and wanted to convert my Typepad blog to a book, but had a lot of issues with the Booksmart crashing outright. It was one of those things where I would get to a certain part of the process, many steps in, and it would just freeze, every time. I gave up in the end, but from what I see of Blurb on Flickr, the books look SO amazing.
Feb 4th, 2009 / 9:40 pm
I thought they got rid of the Blogger to Blurb feature? I’d check their forums. Last I heard, they ended it but didn’t change the info on their website.
Regardless, Blurb books are great. I’ve made over 8 of them.
Feb 4th, 2009 / 10:01 pm
The Italian design association did a beautiful job putting their blog SocialDesignZine into print. In fact, two volumes! See http://www.aiap.it/libreria.php?ID=341. I think it was printed with good old fashioned offset.
Feb 4th, 2009 / 10:14 pm
I do this every year (my blog is mainly a record of my son’s life that I plan to give him in book form when he goes to college, or something). I love the finished Blurb product. It’s really beautiful and hefty. The program does crash an awful lot and it’s much more work than just importing your blog. But, if you’ve got a few days to spend on the project, it’s really a lovely result.
Feb 4th, 2009 / 11:26 pm
I *really* wanted to try that … but we’re hosting WordPress on our own server so we can run certain plugins … and it doesn’t work for blogs that are hosted outside the main WordPress setup.
Feb 4th, 2009 / 11:45 pm
I created a Blurb book two months ago and after spending HOURS on the project was very disappointed with the end product. I ordered a soft cover book and the pages fell out at the first opening. The binding was horrible. They sent me another one but the pages fell out of that one as well so I won’t order from them again. A hard cover book might yield a better and sturdier product, but I wouldn’t recommend the soft cover to anyone.
Feb 5th, 2009 / 12:05 am
Hi all, thanks for the comments – this is Mike with Blurb, and I’ll be the first to say that our blog slurpers can be a little temperamental. We do our best to stay current with the updates pushed out by all these blogging platforms. These platforms make changes in their APIs from time to time, in essence how their code talks to our code, and BookSmart sometimes can’t recognize those changes.
We updated earlier this week, and all should be working now.
Best of luck and please continue to let us know how we’re doing.
Thanks,
Mike
Feb 5th, 2009 / 12:39 am
I tried this a while ago. My boyfriend and I had a blog of our travels in South America last year, and I wanted to make the blog into a book as a Christmas present for him… but I couldn’t! They say they support WordPress and Blogger, but once you start doing it, you can only choose LiveJournal or Typepad. Maybe it’s better now, as Mike said, but I was very dissapointed! :(
Feb 5th, 2009 / 2:21 am
Thanks for the post Tina, I was thinking about this again recently!
Feb 5th, 2009 / 5:56 am
They’re actually doing a talk later this month in London about getting set up with it for commercial uses, looks interesting…
http://blurbnationlondon.eventbrite.com/
Feb 5th, 2009 / 6:34 am
very interesting idea. it seems that however, most blogs would not work for this because of the style of writing that they have. Also. how quickly would you run into copywrite laws since most images in blogs are from other sources (which they got from other sources, and they got from…and so on). On the web it seems a bit more harmless, but once you print it in a book, and have the ability to sell it in their bookstore for profit, the rules start coming out a bit more.
None the less, i will be making a blurb book in the next few weeks. Just recently went to Aruba and wanted to make books for those who went. I have tried My Publisher, which was good, but wanted to shop around, i like the 7×7 format.
Sad to hear about the person’s soft cover book above since that is what I wanted to create, a 7×7 softcover. I guess we’ll see how it goes and might have to get them replaced as hardcover if they are falling apart when i get them.
For people that have used Blurb. Tips and Tricks? I will be doing full size spreads in indesign and putting them in as full bleed images. Is the “premium paper” worth the difference. Best way to do certain things. How to color correct for it? Anything would be helpful.
Feb 5th, 2009 / 8:42 am
I have a Blurb book!
I went on a mission trip last May and kept a blog (Blogger) with updates and photos for my friends and family back home to keep up with us. After I got back, my dad surprised me with a hardcover book of my blog! It was so professional looking. Others from the mission trip also wanted to order copies.
I highly recommend Blurb.
Feb 5th, 2009 / 11:28 am
Just got an e-mail from blurb last night on their blogging to books feature. Odd coincidence (or did you get it to and this is what prompted the post?)
Feb 5th, 2009 / 12:22 pm
awesome. def on my list of things to do. hopefully it works. any other services that do this?
Feb 5th, 2009 / 12:27 pm
Hi! I had a blog while I was studying abroad in Zurich in 2007 and when I got back to the US I made a 300+ page book from my blog and the photos I took while I was there. I did it partly as a project to complete a whole book and produce it and partly to commemorate my time living in a new place.
I used Lulu to print the book. It was not fun to format it for Lulu’s printers. (It has to be single pages so doing bleeds was horrendous) but it was very gratifying to get this hefty little book in my hands for the first time.
http://tinyurl.com/zuribuch is how it turned out.
Feb 6th, 2009 / 3:51 am
doesn’t seem to work for wordpress blogs (per their video demo).
Feb 7th, 2009 / 1:34 am
I second nvo’s comment. Only WordPress blogs hosted on WordPress.com can be slurped to a book. Shame, would have thought they’d have the same API to facilitate the slurp.
Feb 8th, 2009 / 1:51 am
I’ve never tried the blog to book feature, but I have printed an artbook through Blurb before (http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/428407). We did a test print last year and another one a few months ago. They changed the printers for the 7×7 book to a much better one between these prints, and the text and pictures came out amazing the second time!
If you do print with Blurb, I highly recommend the hard cover over the soft. The finished product is so much nicer. The biggest problem with the soft cover is that the paper cover they print on warps and curls over time (like, within days/weeks). We, fortunately, did not have a problem with the inside coming out. I do hope they continue to improve things; it’s a really great service/product.
Good luck with your printing, everyone. :)
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