I subscribe to the notion that too many authors on a book will probably make for a bad book, but some advice and encouragement along the way could probably help. After reading this article on WEBooks, it's not very clear to me what side of the spectrum this web service is (perhaps if covers the entire spectrum). Despite whatever this article says about everybody being an author via this service, it doesn't seem to me that is what this service does. It looks like the works are vetted by self declared experts and the participants on this site decide what gets published and what does not. Those that are not selected to be published can “self publish”. I guess this yet another avenue for first time writers, but given the throughput quoted in this article, I'm not sure how different this is from a traditional publisher other than it's wrapped in the novel cloak of being on the web and “crowdsourced.” I do like the idea, though, of aspiring authors forming a community for mutual support.
Category Archives: self publishing
My Blurb Book is so CUTE!!!
My Blurb book is so CUTE!!! *Squealz* It’s a 7×7-in little hardcover book with a full color dust cover that I made using Blurb’s BookSmart tool. Blurb generated a title page and a copyright page and for added specialness I put pictures in the cover flaps. The construction of the book is very professional and it smells like a professional book too (sometimes I forget how important the smell of something is). The interior page are printed on a nice weight, off white, calendered media. For a text blog like mine, the 7×7 format makes for easy readability and portability. I really, really like my little book and I can’t wait to show it to my parents this weekend when I visit them. I’m thinking about having a few more copies made for my parents, little brother, and my grandmother using Blurb. It’s too bad it craps-out with photo-blogs because I would love to make a keepsake book to commemorate a vacation.
Google's Blog2Print Barfs on Photos Laden Blogs
I recieved the following error message while trying to turn my co-worker’s blog into a book using Google’s service:
Sorry!
The following error occurred processing the blog you selected:
The posts in blog ‘getoutside.blogspot.com’ from your selected dates contain 1510 photos. Unfortunately, our supported maximum is 200 photos at present.
To continue, please go back and change your selections.
Looks like this is a dead-end unless I choose to use only a few of the most recent blog entries. I will try again and use only the last 3 months of blog entries.
How to Make Custom Page Size PDF
Are you banging your head against a wall trying to get Acrobat to spit out the right sized page for your book? Here’s a method I stumbled upon after 5 attempts.
How to make a custom size PDF from a word document using Acrobat Distiller
- Print to “Adobe PDF”
- Choose “Properties”
- Choose “Adobe PDF Settings” tab
- Choose “Add” to add a new profile
- Give the profile a name and enter the page dimensions
- OK out to the print window and then hit print
Alright! Hopefully, now, Amazon will take my book and I can get a properly formated book from Lulu and Blurb ;).
Blog 2 Book Expt. 4: Google’s Blog 2 Print (Beta)
For users of Google’s Blogger service, Google Blog 2 Print is drop Dead Simple to use. Unfortunately, the resulting book is very expensive, starting at $29.95 for a 20-page hard cover book.
I found Google Blog 2 Print by searching “blog to print book” in a Google search window. Of course, the Google service came up first. So I clicked on it. After doing this, the service presented me with a choice: move straight ahead to purchase a book or take the web service for a test drive. I decided to take a test drive so I entered in the address of one of my Blogger blogs — you know the one. I also uploaded a cover image to use and entered that I wanted all of entries to be used (the tool also has a way to input a date range) and then pushed “next.” Within 2 or 3-mins the web service presented me with a preview of my book and asked if I wanted to personalize it. I did and then it was at this point that the program prompted me to register as a user. Once I registered, I was taken to a nother easy to use tool that allowed me to either choose a pre-rendered cover or to upload my own. I chose a suitable pre-rendered cover and moved on to do a full preview of the finished booked. Satisfied with my creation, I purchased 1 softcover book. The whole process took me less than 10-mins. It should arrive here on November 27th. I’ll let you know how it turns out. The cost was pretty steep, though, at $29.95 for a 40-page soft bound book.
Oh, it looks like you can’t sell your book to the public through this service. It’s purely a vanity service.
More Rambling 