Blurb Forums

Hi Brian.

While you can choose to remove the Blurb logo  through our Custom Logo Upgrade option, every Blurb book is printed with a small bar code. We have to do this for business purposes. Depending on which printer we use for your book, the bar code either goes on the backcover (in the lower right corner) or on the Blurb end page (where the small Blurb logo appears). If this changes, we’ll post back to this thread.

Your question has inspired us to write an FAQ about this. It will be up on our site shortly.

-Allison, one of the Blurberati 

I would like to know as well

Any possibility to mark in booksmart  the place where the barcode will be?

So that we are sure it doesn´t mess with important info?

Please please have an option to remove the barcode at the back of the book.. As a wedding photographer I am worried now that my clients will not like this on the back sleeve cover of the book.. I don’t mind the inside.. Is there a  way we can request an option to have it printed inside?

Please oh Please.. I don’t want to have to swtich companies 

I agree the quality is there.. Isn’t there a way it could be on the last page of the book ( I know some companies do this) rather than on the sleeve of the book ? This is for someones wedding album..

I will have to see what happens, what clients will say.. now that have a the largest sample album to show them.. I was showing the midsize one before without the barcode..

 I guess I am pretty worried about this..  

I have just received a small test book. There is no barcode printed on the dust jacket.

However, if this is going to become the standard for all books then I have great reservations. The lower right of a book back cover is normally for the ISBN – not some internal production code!

I think Blurb should seriously reconsider this. I don’t see other POD publishers forcing users to have a barcode on their covers that is of no use to anyone but the printing house. 

After many hours tweaking layouts, proofing text, updating all the page numbers by hand, and whacking all the page headers individually because the "apply to whole book" pulldown didn’t work, I just uploaded and ordered my first book last night.  It is a collection of photos of my daughters, the proof copy before the full Christmas present print run.  I was pretty happy until I saw this thread about the barcodes.  Kind of irritating since the back cover of the book is a studio portrait of them playing with a bunch of brightly colored toys on a white background.  (Used with permission, for all you copyright sticklers.)  But I can think of no other picture in the whole book that will highlight a barcode better than that one.

If there’s going to be barcodes on the layouts, Blurb, then you ought to just man up and show where they are going to be in the layouts.  A FAQ entry isn’t good enough for any kind of precision work, the kind of work that your forum-goers are trying to do.  That’s a good stop gap measure, but if the bar code is required, then the layouts should be updated.  Please also add a back cover layout that gives you a single picture, as large as it can be without getting any barcode on it.

Alternatively, please throw it inside the back flap, as suggested above.  The back cover is a key place to showcase your subject matter.  For a book that will not be sold through the regular publisher-distributor-bookstore supply chain, there is no reason to clutter up the design of the back cover with commercial extras.

Hi Folks, the production barcode has been on our books since Blurb’s inception as a way to assure "content/cover" match and to allow for shipping after the books have been shrink wrapped (why the inside the flap option won’t work).  We all agree we would prefer to not have it and we are working with our print partners that are still using it with a goal to eliminate it in early 2008.

The reason we don’t show them on the layouts is that they do not appear on products from all of our print partners.  For now my advice is to keep a "safe area" around the lower righ-hand bottom of the back cover of your dust jackets and soft covers to make sure the production barcode is not encroaching on your content.

Best,

—bw 

Hi Bruce! I love it when staff shows up on the forums. It makes me feel like you guys care. : )

Are the above mentioned dimentions roughly accurate? (2 1/2"x3/8") If you could confirm, it would make planning the safe area easier…

Thanx 

Sure, glad to.  The original was from an earlier post and since we’ve been getting a lot of feedback about it we are working with our printers to see if we can change the process to allow the triggering of the shipping function.  Just trying to be responsive!

Best,

—bw

Bruce, Great news. The Announcements section seems like a great place to say something like "Blurb working with printers to eliminate barcode in 2008" or something similar. Shows you’re listening  in a positive way. Like the new Forum setup.

Here is a message I have submitted to Tech Support that I thought everyone on the forums should be made aware of.  I will post Blurb’s reply, but in the meantime I would welcome your thoughts and comments.  Has this happened to you, and are you concerned over this? Message to Blurb 2008-01-14: 

<font face="Times New Roman" size="3" color="#000000">First of all I want to thank you for the incredible quality of the two books I recently received. After the binding problem with my first book, I wanted to re-try the quality of both a hard & soft-covered book, and I can say the results are spectacular. After the binding issue I had with my first proof in December, I was pleased to see the binding was excellent on both the hard and soft cover books.  I had also read some chatter on the forums about laminate quality on soft-cover books, and again I can say that the quality on the one I received is excellent.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="3" color="#000000">You can feel a “but” coming here can’t you? </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="3" color="#000000">But…</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="3" color="#000000">I am very disturbed to find that these two books both have barcodes printed on their back covers, and inside the back page.  I did not expect this, and nowhere in BookSmart was there any indication that that these would appear.  The blurb logo is clearly fixed on the back page, so I know to expect it and allow for it.  But there is no such warning for this barcode. </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="3" color="#000000">I am in the process of finalizing a commercial version of a book and have my own ISBN barcode placed in the required bottom right-hand corner, which is exactly the same position where this rogue barcode is placed.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="3" color="#000000">I do not want these barcodes on my book, and am concerned that they will overlay or clash with my correct ISBN barcode. Since I plan to allow people to buy direct from your website, (at no profit to me I might add, because I live in Canada – that is another issue for another day) I am deeply concerned that my customers may receive books with this rogue barcode corrupting my ISBN barcode.  And since they are buying directly from you, I have no means of checking if this is happening.</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="3" color="#000000">You need to stop this practice of placing barcodes on books without the author’s permission. What assurance can you give me that when people order my book from your site they will not contain this unexpected barcode?  Will you recompense me for books that do place this barcode over my ISBN barcode? </font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="3" color="#000000">I did notice that the last two books appear to have been printed on the West coast, while my first printing was from the East coast. Does this mean that your printers are not consistent?  If so can I specify which printer I want to use to prevent this from happening?</font>

<font face="Times New Roman" size="3" color="#000000">I love you service, and am happy with the quality and the customer service I have received, and wan to continue to use Blurb.  However, you have to iron out these quality control problems quickly.</font>

Bruce,

How can you say that the production barcode lives in harmony with ISBNs? The standard for placing ISBNs is clear and internationally accepted as the bottom right corner of the back cover, the same place the production barcode is being placed. Why not simply accomodate this by moving the production barcode someplace else?  I think ISBN trumps procuction barcode.

Glen

For your information, I contacted the International ISBN Agency, and asked them about barcodes.  Below is their reply to me.
 
Thanks – Glen
———————————————————————————————————
You are correct that the barcode should be placed on the bottom right of the back cover.  It is not part of the ISO 2108 ISBN standard but has been internationally agreed to avoid point of sale staff having to waste time looking for it and enable automatic scanning systems.
 
You will find reference to this on page 22 of the ISBN User’s Manual (downloadable from http://www.isbn-international.org/en/manual.html )
If you are in the US, you will also find guidelines from the Book Industry Study Group at http://www.bisg.org/documents/barcoding.html
 
Regards.
 
Brian Green
International ISBN Agency

Where exactly is the barcode located on the hardcover and soft cover books?

Did you have to create your own template to insert your own ISBN #?

If so where did you end up placing it?

 Thanks in advance for this concern.

 -Michael