Set your own layout in Blurb
Blurb Booksmart software is probably one of the easiest and cheapest ways out there to create a book for yourself. I’ve talked about it extensively before. A minor gripe I have about blurb, is in it’s ease of use, you have to constrain yourself to certain templates that they provide to layout your text and photos.
But, if you want a greater degree of freedom in your blurb layouts, and are willing to put in a little extra effort, you can always make your own pages using a photo editor such as Photoshop, Paint.net or the Gimp
Just layout the page they way you want it to appear, add your text right on the image, use overlays, rotate images, drop shadows, do whatever you want in your editor.
Then add that image to the Blurb library and place it on a full-bleed photo layout page in Blurb.
That’s it. An easy way to break out of the templates that are provided with blurb, but still dead-simple upload and publishing.
Do you have another way to do layout free hardcover publishing on demand? let me know in the comments.
Have you tried this yet? I was concerned about the type quality when printed, since it would be a raster-based image rather than vector outlines.
I am currently working on my third Blurb book and it was after the first book that I began to get away from the Blurb page layouts and create my own. Over 60% of the pages for my new book will be those that I have created. One example of a layout I created is on the cover of the book I published for my mother-in-law (see “Lady G” at Blurb.com). I use PSE 5.0 and begin by ensuring the canvas I start with is 300 ppi for the best resolution and printing by Blurb. One other reason I use my own layout is that I can put more photos on a page (lets say six) and now I am only uploading one photo instead of six! You have so much flexibility and creativity with you own layout. My third book should be done by the end of Jun 07.
CJAYJR
Hi, does this mean I could do the layout in Quark, save it as a PDF then drop it into Blurb?
Sounds too easy:-)
CU
GeTe