Blurb has been around for roughly a decade. Much has changed in that timeframe, including Blurb’s offering, which has added things like magazine, trade books and eBooks in addition to our photo-book standards. We’ve also added paper types, software options like plugins for Adobe InDesign as well as distribution options like Amazon and Ingram. In a nutshell Blurb has turned into a well rounded publishing platform.
As a field person, one of the things I often encounter is someone telling me, “Oh ya, I know all about Blurb.” Then I ask about the above items and I’m met with a blank stare. One of THE most overlooked options at Blurb is our “Large Order Services” division. What is this? Well, you can follow the link and find out about project management, expert advice, quotes, expanded print options, but in photographer terms I would simply describe this as a dreamy option where I, or you, can make a custom, offset book which affords me dramatic cost savings over printing one book at a time. And this option starts at 100-copies!
As most of you know, I’m a serial bookmaker, have been since 1993, and I’m a true believer in how important printing and bookmaking is for ALL photographers. We live in a digital age, and for this reason print has taken on an entirely new level of relevance. Print is still king, especially when dealing with the highest level people in the actual, real, Earth-based photography industry. The book is still considered the definitive statement of making it as a photographer. Sorry Instagram.
Most of the time I do print-on-demand style books, meaning one at a time, but I have at least THREE projects I am thinking of doing in higher volume orders. Being able to do these books on my own, without having to find and pay a traditional publisher, is something I’ve dreamt about since I first began making pictures. If you don’t know about this then take a moment to learn a bit more.
Comments 2
Does the offset printing process offer better print quality in any interesting ways?
I’m not a print quality nerd, but this is the kind of question likely to come up if I start talking up offset at
blurb (which I *DID* know about, so there! It’s not top-of-mind though..) Is the color gamut bigger? Is it color
managed? Are the black blacker? Can I do “spot color”? Blah blah blah, insert more printer bullshit I barely half
understand.
I pitch blurb a fair bit, with, I assume, very little success because I am a raging asshole. I mean. Iconoclast. Same
difference.
Author
AM,
Historically, offset was always the best quality but digital has not only caught up, in some cases I’ve seen it look better than offset. You can do all kinds of special printing with offset but you gotta pay for it, and most people see those customization fees and they can’t pull it off.