Blurb is what it is. A cheap alternative. But at what cost to your patience?

I have ordered quite a few books from Blurb.com in the past months I think I can now say a few things with an education so you don't have to learn yourself.

1. Quality. Don't expect blurb books to be the best quality in the world. The images can look great and if you are paying attention to your monitor calibration and ICC profiles, the images can come out great. But every now and then it is weird that one image in a group can come out way dark. I have ordered various versions of the same books and seen the difference so I know it isn't just on my end. But, then again. If I wanted superb quality, I would use someone awesome like asukabooks. Asuka is incredible in their quality, but they are very expensive. They only just recently started a larger size of 11x12.5 vertical. Which is better than the 10x10 they only offered for years.

2. Quality 2. They offer two types of paper now. regular and premium. The last books I ordered, I made apoint to order one of each to see the difference. I could not tell. I thought there was an error in the order. So when I emailed the customer service they said to weigh the book. One was slightly heavier (SLIGHTLY). Also they said the contrast was a little more on one than the other. I could not tell the difference. I see it as a waste of $10 and more dollars.

3. Quality 3. I recently had an issue where I ordered 2 books and they both came in with a nasty film on the cover. This is clearly a coating they put on the top to protect the cover, but it was terrible. It looked as if some guy in the factory was in a rush and just brushed a couple times and sent on down the conveyer. Look at the photos for proof.

 

4 Speed. These guys take a long time to deliver on a product. Sometimes taking up to two weeks to receive a book even when ordering overnight delivery. This is a tough pill to swallow. Especially when you have a client that wants to see a special collection of work and you want to mail them something they can keep. 

5. Public books. This is a really cool service where if you purchase a book, you can list your book in their site fro people to order. This is a great marketing technique for a photographer because it is one more outlet for people to see a sample of your work.

6. customer service. I can't really complain about the customer service. They are fairly fast to respond and have had no issues with sending me replacement books. 

BUT... I just got my two replacement books in the mail, only a few days before flying to DC where I will be meeting with an editor from National Geographic, and the books look about as bad as the previous two. I am very upset with this. They understood my problem, sent replacements and STILL the books suck. I am very disappointed.

I will have to just deal with this in this instance and learn that maybe the quality in the Asuka book would be outweighed by their price. First impressions matter. Hopefully the editor will understand. 

Finally, I use Mpix. The prices are nice. The quality is descent and they have a great option of using linen paper which looks awesome. I prefer to actually order the soft-bound books which are much cheaper and get the job done very nicely. The problem with this though is their software SUCKS!!! It is clearly meant for grandpa to throw pictures in templates and hit print. The option I use is to make a template in photoshop and import each file as a background full bleed.