self-indulgent me-related post

There is no better month than SaBloBoMo January for my Blurb book to have arrived. I can't remember if I've posted about it, but awhile back Blurb ran an offer for Typepad subscribers to make a book out of their blogs for free, aside from shipping. I signed up, spent far too many hours formatting the thing, and a mere two weeks later, this is what arrived:

Obviously, I picked my other blog ... no offense, okay?

The basic idea is that a person downloads a blog-slurping/formatting software program from Blurb, imports blog entries and photographs, and then assigns the content to various pre-defined layouts (all text, text with photos, or all-photos). Then you proof-read the final product, and upload it back to Blurb, where you can order both soft- and hard-cover copies.

What I liked about my Blurb book:

• the quality of the final product is very nice. I'd say that the dust jacket, binding, and weight of the paper is indeed book-quality. The photos are clear, though I wish the photographer was a little more talented :)
• the book-making software was very easy to use. The blog entries were assigned to pages, photos were placed via drop-and-drag, and the page layout could be changed merely by clicking a new design from a menu.
• the ability to play with the photos added to a layout. I could move the photo around within it's frame to change the focus, add borders, and change the size.

What I didn't like about making the Blurb book:

• the book-making software automatically assigns one post to a page. Well, this was a total waste of space and trees, as I rarely had a post that filled even a third of a page. I ended up copy-and-pasting until I had full or near-full pages. As a result, I have a few double posts. Oh well. Oddly, the line spacing changed for the entries that I pasted. A feature to tweak line-spacing would be nice addition to future versions of the book-making software.
• some of the layout options didn't make sense to me. Why was there an option to have two photos in landscape-orientation at the very top of the page, but not one for the very bottom of the page, for example?
• the software would freeze every time I tried to access Page 19. It was bizarre ...

Comments

[Diana]

So beautiful!!!

[Ani]

That is an awesome idea! I wish blogger would do that.

[Kinnari]

This is so beautiful. It makes me really wish I'd been blogging all along but it seems weird to start now. I've been printing out my relevant IB/ADL entries and keeping them in a binder but obviously that's not nearly as special as what you have there. Congrats.