SourceCode: For Self-Publishing, Blurb's the Word

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

I have always been somewhat obsessed with the idea of publishing a book. In the dark ages, before we had technlogy like the Internet or cloud computing or even printers, it was a very expensive and labour intensive proposition. Not anymore, thanks to a service called Blurb.

Send a completed draft to a vanity press, select from generic artwork and spend thousands of dollars for copies of a book that might just end up collecting dust in the basement with all the other discarded dreams and hobbies.

Today, self-publishing is not only easy but affordable since you can create a book on a service like Blurb and print on demand or sell the book and have them print each time a copy is purchased, the best thing is that Blurb will even convert books for use in tablets like the iPad and even get writers in the door to Apple's iBooks Store so that they can reach an International audience, now that's an innovative spin.

Robing Goldberg, SVP of Blurb wants to share the power of self publishing with the worldWe were fortunate enought to speak to Robin Goldberg, Senior Vice President, International Markets for Blurb who gave us some insights on the service.

Goldberg explained that Blurb now has partner printers in Canada. "Which means that Canadians who want to create their books can get them sooner without having them cross the border," she says.

Godlberg says that the books are a great way for people to create family heirlooms, wedding mementos and even realize personal projects like photobooks and recipe books. They also make highly personal and unique presents for the holidays.

The way Blurb works is that users can download software to design and layout their books which are then uploaded to Blurb which initiaties the printing process.

Starting at $20 for a 20 -page softcover book, Blurb offers a wide variety of choice in size, paper and binding treatments. 

Here’s how it works:

1. Make a book using one of our three bookmaking tools and upload it.
2. Purchase a copy for yourself in each format (printed book or ebook) in which you want to sell your book.
3. Enroll in our free Set Your Price program. It only takes a few minutes.
4. Decide how much profit you want to make per copy. For ebooks, decide if you want to submit them to Apple’s iBookstore™.
5. Announce your book to colleagues, friends, family, and fans using our free promotion tools. Use Blurb BookShow™ – our book preview widget – on your website, blog, or Facebook page.
6. Earn money when people buy your book.

"It has never been easier to put a bookstore quality book together," Goldberg said.

Blurb also offers a variety of apps that can be used in book creation. Aside from their Windows and Mac app, users can get plugins for Adobe Lightroom in InDesign as well as Microsoft Word.

Beyond print books, Blurb also offers way to publish to the iPad which makes sense since tablets are a great way to read books.

 to create a visually rich ebook had to hire a software developer to produce it, costing hundreds if not thousands of dollars and taking many weeks. With Blurb’s new ebook offering, the file conversion happens automatically in moments, and costs just $1.99 per download, saving Blurb authors considerable time, money and frustration.

“This is not just an ebook offering, it’s way more than that. Blurb now lets authors create their book once and then output their book to either print or ebook formats, from the same file, quickly and automatically. Fans and customers can then buy whichever version they prefer at the Blurb bookstore. That’s game-changing,” said Eileen Gittins, Founder and CEO.

Blurb ebooks include all the design and interaction benefits of Apple iOS® technology: two-page spreads, pinch and zoom capabilities and uncompressed images, providing a stunningly rich visual experience, with no quality compromise.

Like all Blurb books, ebooks can be listed for sale at the Blurb bookstore. Authors can set their own price and keep 100% of the mark-up from sales.

More information about ebooks can be found at: http://www.blurb.com/ebook