Blurb Book Maker for the Professional Photographer
This post was created in partnership with Blurb.
I always feel like it’s a shame to travel, spending time taking lots of photos and then never doing anything with said photos. I used to store my photos in albums; I’d take my USB drive to Target, print out what I wanted and then frame my favorites and put the remaining in albums. Then I decided to take on scrapbooking. You guys know what I’m talking about: large albums with acid free pages and plastic covers, cutout tools, and lots of money spent. I never invested in it quite as much as some of my friends but I had the card stock in a million colors, stickers for every country and funky cutting scissors. Admittedly, we loved the results. But scrapbooks take hours to create, too much time for someone who is always traveling. The list of trips to scrapbook quickly grew, and dejectedly I told A that regardless of how much we loved looking through the albums, I had zero time to create albums for every trip. I will note that my albums were always overkill. I covered every trip to the nth degree because that’s just who I am, and looking back, I realize that I should’ve included half the number of photos. Either way, too much work = impractical. Then began my obsession with digital photo albums. The stickers, frames and page embellishments were reminiscent of physical scrapbooking but the computer did the entire cutting and pasting job for you. And the results were perfect. However, as my photography improved, I realized I needed something that would showcase my photos without all the extras. I just wanted my photos printed in a book with top-notch paper and excellent photo quality
Enter Blurb book maker. Blurb is an independent book-making and self-publishing platform that you can use for personal and professional purposes. Making photo books with Blurb is easy and efficient and takes just a few shorts steps and the end result is absolutely beautiful (assuming you played your part well and took good photographs :)) Below, I’ve listed a few simple steps to guide you through this easy process!
1. Order a swatch kit
If you’re planning on ordering from Blurb, you may as well request a swatch kit. The swatch kit cost of $7.95 is applied towards your book purchase so essentially it’s free and it’s 100% worth the few minutes it takes to order it. You’ll want to see the types of paper available because initially, I wouldn’t have thought ProLine Pearl would be my top choice but after seeing and feeling it in real life, the decision was a no-brainer.
2. Download BookWright
You’ll want to download the necessary tools to create your book: BookWright, the Blurb plug-in for InDesign or the Lightroom Book module. Then you’ll be asked to choose the size of your book.
3. Upload your photos
Surprisingly the upload process is smooth and speedy – much faster than other software album tools I’ve used. I uploaded about 30 photos to BookWright and they were already organized by location so it was easy to arrange them afterwards. Make sure your photos are crisp and clear (zoom in in Lightroom or Photoshop and make sure they are not blurry). I made the mistake of NOT doing so and ended up with two blurry photos, which wouldn’t have been noticeable except that they were printed in large form.
4. Create your book
Once your photos are all uploaded, you can begin to arrange them. There are plenty of layout options to choose from and the click and drag method is straightforward and easy. Be sure to heed any cautions or warnings that appear in your book draft – these generally signify photo run-off and cropping that you may not want. If you do want your photo to be cropped on the edges, then ignore the warning.
5. Order your book
This is the stage where you choose your paper, preview your book and decide whether or not you’re going to sell it (through Blurb, Amazon or Apples iBooks store). You can assign an ISBN to it if you decide to market it or you can opt out. Books take 1-2 weeks to arrive depending on the shipping option chosen.
Be sure to check out my Instagram for a quick preview of the inside of the book!
