Photobooks

[petermarrek]

This is probably a well-done topic but does anyone have direct and personal experience with selfpublished books such as Blurb or other companies like them? Peter

[SecondFocus]

I have used Blurb. I can say that I found that my photographs displayed better than I expected in the books I have done. I have also found their customer service to be great. I had one book where the binding failed. They had me send a photo of it and promptly send me out a replacement, no questions asked. Also I have seen lots and lots of other Blurb books, all impressive. It would be nice if prices were less but the quality is there.

[Mike Guilbault]

I did one book with Blurb and was quite pleased.  When I used to shoot a lot of weddings I used AsukaBook.  Much more expensive, but so was the quality... and more options. 

[iluvmycam]

I am self publishing, but with short run printers. (200 - 400 copies)

Still learning ins and outs.

[digitaldog]

The first book I had printed out of Lightroom to Blurb was pretty bad. But I had one printed last week, with many of the same test images and it was quite good.

[Graham Clark]

Hello Peter,

Every year I print a small book and send it to galleries as an update token. In years prior I've experimented with most of the major online printers, and this year I did a run of 200x 24-page medium softcover books through Aperture. You can see images of the quality here.

Pros

• Inexpensive at approximately $12 a book
• Fast Shipping (ships from OR)
• Easy layout, converts any typeface to PNG for printing
• Good quality paper and ink 8/10
• Full-res export as PDF allows you to send file to any shop for printing

Cons

• Some images could be too small without Aperture telling you (always drop hi-res)
• The layouts have a bit more bleed margins than Aperture indicates, as do nearly all template-to-book applications

Graham