Auto-Pilot

I have a confession to make. I’m going to put the blog on auto-pilot for the next few days. As you may remember, my grandmother passed away, and the funeral is this weekend. We’re going out of town for the visitation and services.

Rather than have Merlin and Jasper be Guest Bloggers again, I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to flip through the book I had published of “The Best of the Blog 2007” and re-post some writings from the past.

So, things are queued up and ready to go. I’ll still be able to check in every now and then on the comments, but through the wonders of technology, things will continue to run smoothly (fingers crossed), whether I’m really here or not.

So, for this first installment, here is the post where I talk about The Casual Perfectionist: The Best of the Blog 2007.

Turning Your Blog into a Book

Published Saturday, March 15, 2008 in the Gift Ideas, Product Reviews, Books, Blog Business and Photos Categories.

Tangible.

I love the fluid and instant nature of the Internet. I can write and get my thoughts out to the world instantaneously. I can go back and revisit or rewrite or edit, if I so choose. I can pull up my blog and my photos from any computer in the house…or the world. I love having that kind of access.

But, I appreciate a tangible record as well.

In my gallivanting around the Internet a couple months ago, I stumbled upon a site that will allow the two to exist in harmony. That’s when I decided to turn my blog into a book.

Blurb will allow you to do that. All you do is download the free software, and you’re off! Create whatever you want, whether it be a photo album or a more substantial book. The possibilities are practically endless.

I decided to create a The Casual Perfectionist: The Best of the Blog 2007 anthology for Claire and her grandmothers.

And, here it is!

You’ll notice the badge that now appears on the sidebar of my blog. Anyone who wants to can preview or purchase the book. (…if you choose to make your book public. You have the option of keeping it private and only inviting certain people.) Selling it for a profit is not my purpose for publishing it, and I really don’t even care if any other copies of it sell. I just love the idea!

Seeing my words and photos in a professionally published book is indescribable, and it’s been feeding my desire to write a real book. Nothing is stopping me, so I’ve decided to get the ball rolling.

In case you’re curious, here are some photos I took of the book, so that you can see a little bit of what it’s like. Yes, there is a preview link in the badge on the sidebar, but it will only show you so much. You can see examples of some of the different page layouts you can choose from. There are SO MANY CHOICES, and these are just a few of the ones I used:

You can click on the photos to enlarge.
Clicking a second time will make them bigger.

Here is the front of the book – the photos represent a good cross section of the year.

Here is the back of the book – all the photos are similar to the ones on the front, but they are Claire from the back. (Get it? The back of Claire on the back of the book?)

Here is the binding.

Here is what the copyright page looks like.

Here is my dedication.

And, here are some of the different text/photo layout options:

So, there it is…192 pages of blog in book form. Pretty cool, huh?

So, what do I think of Blurb? Here’s a little impromptu review, which is not paid for by anyone.

Pros:
The professional publication end-product is amazing. You keep the copyright on the material, and Blurb does the formatting and printing. They are kind of pricey, but the end result is worth it.

The software is free. It doesn’t get much better than that. I use a PC, and it worked fine on my computer (slow, but properly…see below). They say it works on Mac as well, but I wouldn’t know.

The software is easy to use. As with any new or unfamiliar software program, it’s a little daunting at first, but the tutorial is great.

The support you get from the company is timely and helpful. They were quick to answer my questions via email, and I even attended a free webinar! (A webinar is a seminar held online, coupled with a free conference call. It was great!)

Cons:
The software program is so slow that I almost didn’t do it. I dare say it was worse than trying to look at the Internet on dial-up. *gasp* Yes, if I was running the software program on a brand-new computer and was only running that, I’m sure it would be faster. In reality, that’s not going to be the case for a lot of other people out there. Because of the slowness issue, I did all my editing in Word and Notepad and copied and pasted it into the program. The reason it took me so long to finish this project was mostly due to how slow this program ran on my computer, oh, and because I was working a full-time at-home job at the time in addition to chasing after a toddler. But, I didn’t let that stop me.

The “slurping” feature they have where you can have the software automatically download your blog into a book format (you can read more about how it works on their site) doesn’t work for blogs hosted on private domains. They don’t make this clear (or at least they didn’t when I started this project). Looking back, I was attracted to this program because of this slurping feature and I was extremely disappointed when I found out it wouldn’t work on my domain. But, I was already in love with the idea of turning my blog into a book, so I found a work-around and compiled my book from scratch, copying and pasting my content from my blog. In reality, this was a better option for me anyway. Go figure.

The ‘constant auto-save’ feature is convenient on one hand, but really annoying if you make a change that disrupts the whole book, because, it’s really hard to go back. Yes, there is an ‘undo’ feature, but it’s not perfect. I got around this little “feature” by saving multiple copies of my book as I went along so that I wouldn’t lose too much work if I messed something up.

And, that about sums it up. Overall, it’s a fabulous program and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to make their blog into a book, or who wants to create a tangible record of any kind.

I started this project in January, and I’ve wanted to share my trials, tribulations, joys and excitement about this project of mine, but the two main recipients of the end result read this blog, and I wanted this to be a surprise. After two months of formatting and editing (in the midst of everything else), the books are complete, have been delivered to the grandmothers, and now I can share.

If you get a chance, check out Blurb and give it a try…or just peruse the other books there that have been created by people like you and me.

I’ll warn you though…if you spend too much time on the site, you might have the undeniable urge to create your own book!