Now anybody with a home computer can produce a professional, high-quality, hardbound book with a full-color dust jacket for less than $30, thanks to Blurb.com’s revolutionary online book-design software for the Mac and PC. The concept is wonderful, and since I am a Mac user, that makes it even more enticing. I can't think of a better way for artists to promote their work and their life as an artist than through a tool such as this. They make great gifts too!
(Above Right: Ghosts of the Great Highway by Robert Mars)
The books look as wonderful as if a professional publisher had created them without the publisher overhead. All you do is download the application to your computer and either use their tutorial to work your way thru the creative process, or "wing it" and figure it out on your own. The good thing is that they have over 70 templates to choose from and each page can be your own creation. Drag and drop pictures make it easy to create each page.
A Blurb book comes in various sizes - 7x7 (Square), 10x8 (Landscape), 8x10 (Portrait), and 13x11 (Landscape) and your choice of hardcover or softcover with high-quality paper and a nicely bound spine. It is indistinguishable from a mass-printed volume, and its color quality is first-rate. Once you download the software to your computer, you will have the ability to use all the fonts on your computer making your book a truly personal creative process.
According to Eileen Gittins, the founder and CEO of Blurb.com, making a 150-page book shouldn’t involve a huge time investment. “Art books are usually 90 percent image content, with perhaps a text introduction and captions,” she says. “If page layouts are individually selected and images dragged and dropped in, it shouldn’t take longer than five to six hours to complete.” Gittins notes that Blurb.com also offers auto-flow software that allows users to let the computer drop in the pictures in a predesigned fashion. “Making a book this way takes half the time,” she says. “Once the book is uploaded to the Blurb site the author can expect the finished book to be delivered in seven to 10 business days.”
Obviously, much depends on having digital images of artwork available. Otherwise, “People do not need any special kind of equipment,” says Gittins. “Any modern digital camera of three megapixels or higher will produce high-enough resolution images for a full-bleed image. Some people do use photo-editing software, such as Photoshop, but it is by no means required. The concept behind Blurb is that regular people should be able to use their normal tools to make a fantastic-looking book.”
Prices start at $29.95 for a hard-covered book of 40 pages or fewer, and soft-covered books start at less than $20. A 160-page hard-covered book costs $39.95, and the prices go up to $79.95 for a 440-page book. There are modest discounts for orders of 25 copies or more, and, of course, there are shipping fees. If you give this some thought, one of these books costs less than a good set of slides, and it’s a much more impressive product to give to a gallery or a client. Because Blurb.com allows you to have as few as one book at a time delivered, you can use the book as a highly directed promotional tool.
Blurb.com enthusiasts include art collector Gregory Peterson, who used the service to make a handsome catalog of his ever-growing collection of contemporary realist paintings. “The response has been extraordinary,” he reports. “It gives me the opportunity to show my collection to people in a way that’s somehow more authoritative than just having it on my website. If people want a copy for themselves, they can order it directly from the Blurb website, and a single copy will be printed just for them. And, because I can print as few as one copy at a time, I can even customize the book or change the cover for a particular individual. If I acquire another painting, I can simply add another page to my book the next time I print one.”
In addition to printing services, Blurb.com is working on marketing tools for people interested in selling their books. “You can market and distribute your books in your own bookstore on Blurb.com,” says Gittins. “And soon we will be announcing a very attractive royalty payment program whereby Blurb authors can set their own prices, and we will send payments against orders received. People are already buying their own ISBN numbers, placing them on the backs of their books, and offering the books through distribution channels, such as Amazon.com. In the future, Blurb.com will facilitate this with a premium marketing-service upgrade.”
Blurb.com is a great example of how digital technology can empower individual artists, by cutting intermediaries, such as book publishers and gallery owners, it allows artists to have complete control over how their work is presented, as well as providing a means to reach prospective collectors and galleries directly.
To learn more about Blurb Books go to www.blurb.com
Susan
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