Mike DelGaudio

There are several choices you can make when creating your own photo book. You can make a photobook from most major photo printing services — Kodak Photo Gallery, Snapfish, Photoworks, shutterfly, the list goes on. Most of those services require that you upload your photos top those services, use their web based book creator interface, and often are quite expensive.

If you want a high degree of control over your book, use photos already present on your computer, you have a few options, most popular are Blurb and Lulu. Let’s compare and contrast to see what is the bset situation for your needs:

NOTE: Lulu does offer a photobook option, similar to a Blurb softcover. In this option you must upload your photos to Lulu. For the purposes of this comparison, we will look at the options for creating your Lulu book on your computer. I.E. NOT using the Lulu photobook option.

Cover:
Both services offer both hardcover and softcover versions.
Blurb offers a glossy print softcover, or a cloth covered hardcover with a full-color, full-bleed dust jacket.
Lulu offers a a glossy print softcover, and two types of hardcover:

• Dust Jacket Hardcover: A book bound in navy blue linen with a full-color dust jacket (6×9 book only).
• Casewrap Hardcover: Full-color or Black and white, glossy cover. Does not come with a dust jacket.

Sizes:
Blurb Hardcovers and softcovers can be in 4 possible sizes: (height x width) 8″ x 10″ , 10″ x 8″, 13″ X 11″ and 7″ x 7″
Lulu Hardcovers can be in 2 possible sizes (height x width): 6″ x 9″ and 8.25″ x 10.75″
Lulu softcovers are also available 6″ x 9″, 8.5″ x 11″, 9″ x 7″, 7.5″ x 7.5″ — What size you can choose depends on the type of softcover binding option you select. More Info

Paper:
Blurb uses a glossy, heavy paper.
Lulu uses a matte, heavy paper.

Templates:
Blurb books can be made ONLY using the premade page templates that come with the blurb booksmart software. This limits layout choices, but increases the chances that the book will come out properly formatted and the way you expect it the first time.

Lulu hardcovers do not come with any template, you create every book from scratch. You can create the document in word, or another application like OpenOffice.org and convert the document to PDF (I used Impress from openoffice.org to create my lulu book). This offers a greater level of flexibility, but requires a greater level of expertise, and increases the likelihood that your book could be incorrectly formatted the first time you print.

Pricing:
Blurb books are priced as follows:

Lulu offers a pricing calculator to determine price based on a variety of factors: Type of binding, type of cover, color cover or black and white, number of pages, number of copies etc… These prices are based on results for the calculator:

As you can see the pricing for the two services are very similar.

Quality

Previously, I have given reviews as the quality of books from both Blurb and Lulu.

• Review of a Blurb Book
• Review of a Lulu Book

Important to note is that Lulu and Blurb use different printing techniques. Both are very high quality, with Lulu having an edge on pure resolution. Read the linked reviews above for more.

Summary
In summary, both Blurb and Lulu offer high quality, print on demand services. Which you choose will depend on what you need / want.

Do you want a Dustjacket (Blurb) or Glossy hardcover (Lulu)?
Do you want glossy paper (Blurb) or matte (Lulu)?
Do you want to use a template (Blurb) or have fine control over every detail (Lulu)?

Which is important to you? Do you have a preferred provider? Let me know in the comments!

[tags]Blurb, lulu, photobooks, photo books[/tags]

There are several choices you can make when creating your own photo book. You can make a photobook from most major photo printing services — Kodak Photo Gallery, Snapfish, Photoworks, shutterfly, the list goes on. Most of those services require that you upload your photos top those services, use their web based book creator interface, and often are quite expensive.

If you want a high degree of control over your book, use photos already present on your computer, you have a few options, most popular are Blurb and Lulu. Let’s compare and contrast to see what is the bset situation for your needs:

NOTE: Lulu does offer a photobook option, similar to a Blurb softcover. In this option you must upload your photos to Lulu. For the purposes of this comparison, we will look at the options for creating your Lulu book on your computer. I.E. NOT using the Lulu photobook option.

Cover:
Both services offer both hardcover and softcover versions.
Blurb offers a glossy print softcover, or a cloth covered hardcover with a full-color, full-bleed dust jacket.
Lulu offers a a glossy print softcover, and two types of hardcover:

• Dust Jacket Hardcover: A book bound in navy blue linen with a full-color dust jacket (6×9 book only).
• Casewrap Hardcover: Full-color or Black and white, glossy cover. Does not come with a dust jacket.

Sizes:
Blurb Hardcovers and softcovers can be in 4 possible sizes: (height x width) 8″ x 10″ , 10″ x 8″, 13″ X 11″ and 7″ x 7″
Lulu Hardcovers can be in 2 possible sizes (height x width): 6″ x 9″ and 8.25″ x 10.75″
Lulu softcovers are also available 6″ x 9″, 8.5″ x 11″, 9″ x 7″, 7.5″ x 7.5″ — What size you can choose depends on the type of softcover binding option you select. More Info

Paper:
Blurb uses a glossy, heavy paper.
Lulu uses a matte, heavy paper.

Templates:
Blurb books can be made ONLY using the premade page templates that come with the blurb booksmart software. This limits layout choices, but increases the chances that the book will come out properly formatted and the way you expect it the first time.

Lulu hardcovers do not come with any template, you create every book from scratch. You can create the document in word, or another application like OpenOffice.org and convert the document to PDF (I used Impress from openoffice.org to create my lulu book). This offers a greater level of flexibility, but requires a greater level of expertise, and increases the likelihood that your book could be incorrectly formatted the first time you print.

Pricing:
Blurb books are priced as follows:

Lulu offers a pricing calculator to determine price based on a variety of factors: Type of binding, type of cover, color cover or black and white, number of pages, number of copies etc… These prices are based on results for the calculator:

As you can see the pricing for the two services are very similar.

Quality

Previously, I have given reviews as the quality of books from both Blurb and Lulu.

• Review of a Blurb Book
• Review of a Lulu Book

Important to note is that Lulu and Blurb use different printing techniques. Both are very high quality, with Lulu having an edge on pure resolution. Read the linked reviews above for more.

Summary
In summary, both Blurb and Lulu offer high quality, print on demand services. Which you choose will depend on what you need / want.

Do you want a Dustjacket (Blurb) or Glossy hardcover (Lulu)?
Do you want glossy paper (Blurb) or matte (Lulu)?
Do you want to use a template (Blurb) or have fine control over every detail (Lulu)?

Which is important to you? Do you have a preferred provider? Let me know in the comments!

[tags]Blurb, lulu, photobooks, photo books[/tags]

Perhaps you are trying to decide if publishing a book via Lulu is right for you. I have previously created a Lulu hardcover and here are my impressions of the book.

A while back I wrote a children’s book. Well, not so much a children’s book, but a book specifically for my son. It was based on a bedtime story that had evolved improvisation-ally over a few nights. It got to the point where I had to repeat the same made-up story every night for a few weeks. I thought I would make that fun little ritual into a permanent memory by turning the story into a book.

I had to make a choice on publishing, and in the end selected Lulu for this particular project. Why? One reason. The cover.

Since this was a book for my 4 year old, I knew the book had to be durable, and my normal go-to publisher blurb only offers full color covers as a dust jacket. Dust jackets and 4-year-olds go together like paper and scissors. Its not pretty.

So, if you can actually create a book with Lulu (which in my experience is a lot more difficult than Blurb — you have to know how, and be able, to properly create a PDF to certain technical requirements, for one), it is a good choice if you need a full color cover, and excellent printing.

First, lets examine the cover itself. With Lulu you can opt for a “casewrap” cover. This means that the cover is full-color and glossy, bonded right to the hardcover itself. This makes for an attractive, durable finish. After a year it has stood up well to the abuses afforded it by a young kid. You can feel the ink on the cover. Printed areas, especially black lines make a distinct bump on the page as you slide your finger over it.

Inside of the cover you can see that the binding is a linen or cloth.

Looking inside the book, you can see that the pages are stitched together. Some other book makers (most photo-book producers) just glue the pages into the book.

This is also evident looking at the bottom of the book, you can see that the book is stitched together. A stitched binding is likely to be more secure than just adhesive over the long term.

The printing also seems to be different that in other services. This article on kk.org notes that the printer is a Xerox iGen3, which uses a different process than blurb.

Compared to Blurb, the “dots” that make up the image are much, much smaller. Even the best eyes will have difficulty discerning the individual dots that make up the image. I had to use a magnifying glass in order to get this picture.

The paper used for the individual pages are not glossy or reflective — which is different than the photo book services. This is because Lulu books are not specifically photo books, but more general purpose books. For example, the books could also be used to publish a novel, and you don’t want glossy paper for that. That said, the paper used is durable, bright and not flimsy.

I couldn’t capture a picture of it, but the printing process does have slight variations in the reflectivity of ink/toner used in the printing process. Solid black is EVER-SO-SLIGHTLY glossier than other colors. this is very, very slight. I only noticed it under scrutiny for writing this post. it may be due to the dry-toner process. This may also be true of other solid colors… my illustrations were watercolors so the colors are not as rich as a photo might be.

Once you get the final product, you’ll find a book printed by Lulu is a quality product. I found the actual book creation process to be more difficult than my other photo books, and required more technical expertise to get the book created. It may not be satisfactory for a photo book as the pages are not as heavy or glossy, but the books are well made and are “real” books.

Here are the details on the book, directly from Lulu:
8.25″ x 10.75″, casewrap-hardcover binding, 80# white interior paper, full-color interior ink, 100# white exterior paper, full-color exterior ink

[tags] lulu, blurb, self-publishing, book[/tags]