Blurb Forums

Any conflict or advice if I want to take my Blurb-designed book to another publisher?

Not sure if this is the right forum for this but, here goes.

 I’ve done one book with Blurb, but it’s not up for sale yet in the bookstore as I’m waiting on the "final" copy to be shipped to me. In the meantime I will edit it one last time and then plan on announcing it for sale publicly in the Blurb store.

I want to send a PDF manuscript of my book to a local state-run publisher. I am worried that they will "find out" about it already being "published" with Blurb and wont’ accept it. Then again, everything I’ve read and as far as I can tell, I am under no contract with Blurb and that I own outright my book contents (just can’t do anything with the software or Blurb’s logo, etc.).

 Is this accurate?

Part of me thinks of "coming clean" with the state publisher (they are pretty big, and might reject me anyway) and tell them I am "self-publlishing" online….or should I not? OR…should I perhaps send them the PDF and NOT do my book here? I already have it all together, it’s 80 pages, and several people that are waiting for it to be available.

I just worry that if I tell them that I’ve published it here, they will turn me down and/or think I am under some sort of contract…which I am not, correct?

 When someone gets published, are they normally under contract like that? Like you can’t publish elsewhere? If so, why isn’t Blurb like that??

 Thanks!

BlackDoll,

I will try my best to answer your question. In two words, probably not. If you make a book through BookSmart app, then it is only good for Blurb printing in/by itself.

If you really want to create your “own” customized book design other than Blurb, there are pretty plenty of self-publishers out there. If you have Adobe InDesign CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Illustrator CS3, you could create your own customized book design on your own. Of course, you might want to check with one of those self-publishing companies that offers your own customized book design project, they can also offer a pointers on book sizes and stuff and the uploading procedure. Because it is different from self-publishing company “A” to “B” and “C”.

Some offers PDF upload procedure and they can print PDF straight to the printers. Some only offers their own software development (similar to Blurb BookSmart) to do the book-making project.

Perhaps someone else, or hopefully Blurb Staff chime in and offer some help better than I do. If you need a response from Blurb about some clarification, perhaps that you want to submit email web support submission for their assistance.

Good luck.

Hey BlackDoll – This is an interesting question. You’re right in that we don’t "own" your book content in any way. Its yours, and you can do whatever you want with it.

It should be noted that taking a screenshot of each page of your book in BookSmart probably won’t produce the results you’re looking for since each image would only be 72dpi. That’s not high resolution enough for most printed books. 

Exporting to PDF is also fine, but as Michal pointed out, a Blurb watermark is added to each page. We’ve invested a great deal into BookSmart, but offer it for free to anyone that wants it. We insert the watermark to show that the book was created and designed in BookSmart. 

Obviously, you should feel free to use any of your content that you’ve previously put in a Blurb book with any another printer. But, Brian is correct that you’re probably going to need to rebuild the book from scratch using a page layout or image editing tool.

A local print of your book through BookSmart will also have the watermark. The purpose for the local printing is to provide a way to proof your book on paper, rather than on screen, before you publish.

Keep in mind that once you’ve ordered and received your Blurb book, you’ll have the cleanest, highest resolution "print out" of your book that you could hope for! 

Jack 

.......or just take your Blurb book and scan 20 pages or so at the resolution you prefer- put it on a cd and send it to them. Present it as a ‘proposed layout’ only- publishers like to shape and design a book according their reading of the market.