Thursday, February 23, 2012

Blurb vs. Blog to Print

Every year I turn my family blog into a book because, let's be honest, that is the only journal I keep.  Since all I've wanted to do with my free time is sleep or just be lazy, I haven't had much time to work on the blurb book.  A friend suggested blog2print.com as an alternative to save time. 

She was right.  In about twenty minutes I had my book designed, ready to print, and paid for. I think I made four clicks of the mouse. So fast.  I received my book last week sometime and love it.  But I do have some things I don't love. 

Here is my review:

Blurb
-I love how you can put just one post per page, change the fonts, color, etc.  I also like having my pictures a bit bigger so I love having the picture on one side and the actual post on the other side.  My personal preference.
-But the downside is that it takes WAY too long to make.  Maybe it is because I have too many posts but that is not going to change anytime soon so that is a hassle.  It just takes forever for the book to save, sync, load, whatever due to the high volume of pictures and text.
-Another downer is because I like my pictures bigger, some of them don't have the highest resolution on the page.  They are a tad blurry but you still remember the memory.  And I won't lie....practically the only camera I use is my iphone camera so I get what I get, right?
-I like the covers better.  Bigger pictures, more pictures, etc.

Blog2Print
-SO SO SO SO easy to make.  Seriously, four clicks of the mouse and twenty minutes later I was done.  Worth it!
-The blog posts just follow each other.  You may have two,three, or four on a page depending on the length of the posts.  Kind of annoying to me since I like the picture collage on one side and text on the other.  I tried to change this but no luck.  Maybe you guys know how to fix this.
-The pictures are kind of small.  But with them being a bit smaller-still visible- they are not blurry at all.  Kind of nice with my cell phone pictures. :)
-I thought the Table of Contents would bug me but I really like it.  So often, I look back to a picture of how I decorated or want to read something again and it's nice to have what page number it is on instead of looking through whole book.

There is my review.  I have a love/hate relationship with both.  If I have the time I think I will use Blurb but I'm not disappointed entirely with Blog2Print.  They both have their perks so I think it will depend on what I'm in the mood for and what I have time for.

 What do you use to print your blog?

2 comments:

  1. I'm currently in the middle of the very long Blurb process...ugh! But I break it down to editing/styling one months worth of posts per nighttime veg session, so it takes less than two weeks and doesn't zap all my sanity. :) Hip, hip hooray for blog books!

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  2. I use Blurb. I've tried blog2print and while it's easier all of my books for the past umpteen years are through blurb and I can't change a good thing. I can't stand how you can't organize/change/edit the way you want. I try to updated my blurb books once every two weeks so it never takes too long.

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