naftalina007's Posts

I held off n comments as I wanted to be absolutely sure to give an objective comment

As someone who has used blurb to print the same book in 3 different versions: softcover, hardcover with dustjacket and hard cover with imagewrap I do feel I ma entitled to share my disappointment

When my books both  in softcover and hardcover with dustjacket arrived, the initial reaction was WOW. I recently wanted to get the book printed for those special friends and customers – this time with the imagewrap but all I could say when it arrived (SPEEDY DELIVERY AS USUAL, thanks Blurb!) was YIIIIKES!

cf247 hit th enail on the head

cheap or cheap-ish was the first word that came to mind

I like a matte finish so that’s not the issue, but I just do not want to give or sell the book in it’s image wrap version as it looks completely un-professional where as the other versions look really good. It even has white stains (handling?) and scratches  all over it; both front and back  – I did not even touch the book and already it looks and feels as if it was handled by dozens of people. Binding is also not as expected.

really not acceptable for the extra cost so i will need to contact customer service

By the way quality of the printing is of the same quality as the other books ordered previously , printing and delivery was also very fast so overall happy with blurb, don’t get me wrong. 

I am now just stuck with 10 books I can neither sell or give away 

I’m still on the fence. I know that the fact that the book arrived damaged in the upper left corner is coloring my opinion. It makes me wonder if the book will hold up to repeated handling. There are also white flecks on the cover- but that’s due to the printing process and I’ve had issues with that on many of my Blurb books.

count me in as a very happy customer  (as already mentioned on some posts). book arrived BEFORE expected arrival date and quality was MUCH BETTER THAN EXPECTED

fschling – same here, this was the only downside but BLURB did replace my faulty copies (printed in the NL) with new ones

thought about this too but the admin and the extra step scares me a little … what if EVERYONE wants to buy a copy  ? :):)

Important to share the good news !

Though I am frustrated with the batch of books arriving with pages just coming apart indicating a serious binding issue and NOt having my xmas presents and portfolio ready in time (Grrrrr) I have to say that I received an immediate helpful response from blurb’s customer service understanding my frustration and showing the desire to solve the issue. I have sent images of the problem and am now anxiously awaiting the reprints. 

in all fairness to blurb: shipping date for my book was 19/12 but it actually got shipped out on the 18th and I already have it; what a great surprise

however, binding sucks and pages are coming apart. there is also a blu-ish glow on the BandW pics and some finger marks in the first of the 15 copies I received today so I guess I’ll need to contact customer service

but overall I am a happy camper

ouch, shipping date for my new book is 19/12 which should allow for the 15 copies to arrive before xmas. You got me scared now

I have to say that my first test book started shipping 3 days BEFORE the planned shipping date so that was a really cool surprise. In all fairness to blurb,  the opposite happens as well!

is there a difference in shipping and processing for orders that get printed in the netherlands? (which was the case for my first book) 

damn, this looks good !!!! and it’ s exactly what I wanted to do based on the fact that my first 15 pages are NOT representative of the 130 following ones (black and white where once after page 15 colours start coming in)

 Would you mind sharing how this was done. I have downloaded some free software to make flippable previews but unfotunately the .book extension does not allow for a good results

pleaaaaazeee….

Could not agree more. Blurb has helped me organize my thoughts, arrange my images in such a way they come out as a "whole" not just a series of photographs. So far no glitzes, quality is as good as it gets. I will be using booksmart for many more books to come: not cheap but it’s convenient , allows to apply personal style, have us present  our work in a pro way without having to have endless discussions with printers, share online and is relatively quick

my first test book arrived and made me want to make a second , more serious attempt to "tell a story" in images

Only reason the first one wasn’t that great is because I did a sloppy lay outing job – can not expect blurb to solve this for me:). Overall the test version still came out better than expected

Can’t wait to the 20 copies of  my second book  which I am sure will turn out great and will make the perfect xmas present for friends who share the same passion and who forced me to make an effort to "finally do something" with my work

thank you

2 requests though

The functionalities i am really looking for is

- to be able to share the book in process on line and have others work on it. (to improve lay out, change fonts  etc). Any chance of this in the future?

- choice of 15, 20, 25 , 30 etc preview pages in pdf as my first 15 pages are not really representative of the complete book experience (starting off with B and W, then gradually going into vibrant coloured pages)

- a canned electronic version of book that can be sent (the .book extension is one that can not be used by many)

I’d welcome this too and in the meanwhile would like to know how many of my book have sold – just as info

BTW – my test version of the first book arrived and it looked better than expected.

I did a pretty lousy job on layout and am now preparing the final version and a new 150 book. You have allowed me to organize my images and thoughts so thank you!

cheers Lee, for some reason I never spotted the little arrow. I just KNEW there was sth … cheers and thanks for the swift response

Just published first book and would like to add it to a bookstore category (Arts and Photography) but can’t seem to find how to do this. Anyone?

hey same as MMANUS, just published first book and to my surprise there are people who actually want to buy it:)

Would like to see a functionality where we can show FULL book preview in PDF, secured of coure either by sending a different url to selected audience or password protected

Can we generate a pdf of the full book offline. Tried but did not seem to work. Would like to have the full book preview on my pc

many thanks in advance

Veerle 

same here. Anxiously waiting for vs 1.9 to finish work as 1.8.1 still has hick ups

Suspense as there is only 1 week left in September:)