My first post here.

I’ve been using Blurb for a while now, made a few books, 7X7 Hardcover and Softcover, Standard Landscape Softcover and most recently my first 12 X 12 Hardcover. They are beautifully done; I have nothing but good things to say. The 12 × 12 rivals anything I’ve ever seen in quality of printing and this being a photo book, the photos at that size take on an entirely different nature than at smaller sizes.

I love printed books, but I do use E-books. I’m not sure that when it comes to photobooks that E-books will ever match print, but for some things E-books have some advantages over printed books. Especially reference books and cookbooks, because you can search them, cut and paste snippets, etc.

The thing is, print on demand books (compared to mass produced books) are still relatively expensive. My 12 × 12 book, with no markup is over $100. Sure I could make smaller versions, which – while more affordable – are simply not the same thing. Even a 7 × 7 version is upwards of $30, plus tax and shipping. I understand why they cost what they do; I’m not complaining at all, it just makes them out of reach for a-lot of people. At over $100, I personally can’t even print very many of my 12 X 12 to give away.

This is why I am thankful that Blurb has the "online preview" feature and allows the entire book to be viewed online, not only does this make it so others can view the book without purchasing it – it works on any machine and doesn’t require an E-book reader. I’ve been following your blog on the new E-pub developments and agree that books based on HTML5 would solve a-lot of problems with compatibility and even production.

I would like to see you offer E-books, or at the very least, offer the option in BookSmart (even if it has to be unlocked for a fee). Even just giving us access to an E-Pub ready PDF output from BookSmart so we could make our own elsewhere would be immensely helpful.

Not only would this open up a-lot of distribution avenues for everyone, it would allow people to give their books away or sell them at much more accessible prices, and people could own them and view them without having to go online or even have an Internet connection at all.

My 2 cents.

- Nate

My Blurb Book:

Kentucky: A Culinary (Photo) Journal
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1897750

Hi Kathy

I give the thumbs up to eBooks – certainly in principle. In the end it would depend on the cost, of course. Blurb printed books are not cheap, however quaity is excellent and I’m always proud to show people my books.  As long as eBooks are competitively priced  I would certainly be interested in producing some.

Wendy

Ebook is a great idea.

Believe it or not, I think the IPAD is going to make children’s ebooks a viable market. I’m looking to make my book here on Blurb an ebook (epbub format because it’s universal ) to be sold in the ibookstore – it would look amazing in its full colour on the ipad, and I am sure ipads or something like it are going to be used in schools.

Anyway, my book is just now out in sofcover and hardcover but I did want to find out if you guys are thinking about giving a service to convert to epub – I’d be interested in that. 

Sincerely
Heather Grace Stewart

http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/2101489

I’ve been writing poems for scrapbookers for a number of years and they are all over the world. I’ve done a number of Blurb poetry books and little digital design books and the postage is especially high for my overseas friends. Some have said they would buy a number of them if they were ebooks. I am so pleased with your Trade and Pocket books for those of us who just want print and no frills. 

I am in talks with a  publisher to do one of my Blurb books as an ebook. Hope that works out well.

Sincerely,

Thena Smith

I’ve now created 3 photo books which are publically available through Blurb . It’s enabled me to release what is a niche interest book to the world which is fantastic . I would certainly be interested in making these available as E-books both as a way of sharing these further and increasing the returns on the work done . absolutley count me in

 Martin

I’ve already contributed my ten pennyworth to this thread but have returned to agree with Jakerome’s last sentence .. "if you try to take too big a cut it will turn off many people." 

After receiving an order from a bookshop for 250 copies of my BW trade book I found that the shipping cost to Europe for these books is sadly way beyond my pocket and so in the past week I’ve managed to create my own test ebook from scratch and have just published it on Amazon. Once I’d cracked the quirks of the html required (for page breaks, paragraph formatting, etc.) uploading it to Amazon was very straightforward. To be honest, for me it was almost easier than coping with the quirks of formatting text using Booksmart (sorry, Blurb – your fotobooks are fab!). 

So far the only cost to me has been my time and I think that in future this will be my solution to publishing text heavy books.

The test ebook (Lakeland Hunting Memories) is quite short as my aim for this first attempt was to produce something reasonably well formatted and to find out how to do it – the quantity of content was of secondary consideration at this stage. Have a look and see what you think …

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ZMVWYM   (for the .com version)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=lakeland+hunting+memories&x=0&y=0  (try this one for the .co.uk version)

Your feedback will be welcomed.  Email me at frejus107 (at) hotmail (dot) com

Having managed that one there are several more in production!

Best regards

Wendy

I am in favor of ebooks. I’ve been asked if my Blurb hard copies were available as ebooks and have missed some sales because they weren’t.

Peace,
Ed Book
http://edbookphoto.com

Desperate to connect to Kindle etc, It’s the obvious way to go Blurb. Please can we hear if you are even working on it please

Sean

I’d really like to be able to Publish to Kindle and ePub.

Hi mwfoto,

We are looking into offering an ebook format of your book along with supporting various ebook formats. Stay tuned in the coming months for updates on this.

-Craig