Our Blog Book!

A little over three years ago I created our Nelson Family blog.  It started as an easy way to share pictures and keep in touch with family and friends. Perfect!  It quickly became a hobby for me.  It developed into a journal, a scrapbook, a social outlet. Then about six months ago I realized that it had become a priceless possession. One that I didn't really possess. 

With one wrong click of a button, I almost deleted the whole thing!  It was gone. I panicked. My heart stopped.  And somehow I recovered it.  That's when I knew that having it online wasn't good enough. I needed something I could hold and put on my shelf. 

Fun fact: The word "blog" is short for "web log."    

Is it silly to print something that was created for the web? Maybe. But I started looking at different publishing companies.  I finally chose one, made the necessary changes (apparently they can't print a video clip?), and ordered my blog book.  I crossed my fingers, hoping for good quality, and today it ARRIVED!  

I am SO happy with how it turned out!  I love the cover with our family picture.  The blog book is a hardcover and the size of a textbook.  I did all three years together so it was 400 pages. It came in two volumes, which I wasn't expecting, but they are labeled as such and very classy.   

The pages inside look really nice too. The pictures are good quality and I love that they kept my blog format.  I created a dedication page and contents section, and all of the pages are automatically numbered.  It is beautiful! 

Oh and get this. On the back cover there is a ... barcode!  I'm a published author!

Several friends knew that I was working on this and wanted to hear how it turned out and why I chose the company I did.  The rest of this post is for those friends. (The rest of you can stop reading if you want, with no guilt, if you're not interested. It's going to be long.)   Thanks for being excited about my blog book!  I know you are!

I looked at quite a few publishing companies. Some didn't seem appealing at all.  The two that stood out to me were Blurb and SharedBook. I tried out both and couldn't decide for several months. Yes, months. Haha. They both had pros but major cons.  I thought I decided on Blurb. But in the end I just couldn't give up something that was important to me. I switched back to SharedBook and decided I could live with their problem and knew they were right for me.  It might not be the best for you though so here's what I learned about each and you can decide for yourself:

BLURB  Pros- They have software you download for free and can customize everything.

 - Their blog "slurper" puts it straight into their software.

- They cost less.  For my whole blog it would have been $70. (A lot, but think of all the pictures!)  

BLURB Cons - They cost less because the pictures are smaller, unless you change the layout one by one.

- The "slurper" puts all of the pictures in and then all of the text in. They stay within the correct post, but not in position to each other.  For example, as a default all of your pictures will be on the right margin and all of your text will be centered. This means that if you want it to look just like your blog with picture, text, picture, text, etc, the ONLY way to do it is to upload each photo one at a time and arrange the layout of each individual page.  So basically you're creating a book from scratch! (I couldn't believe this was true at first. I contacted customer support several times and they confirmed it.)  If you don't mind having all your pictures small on the margins, then you'll be fine just slurping your blog and printing it, with no changes. I couldn't do it.

-Blurb does not specialize in blogs. If I ever want to print a normal book, I will use them. But I feel like they would have "ruined" my style of blog.

SHAREDBOOK Pros - They were way easier to use. 

-They are tailored specifically for blog books. They kept my blog format of text, picture, text, picture. This was the ONE deciding factor for me.

-My pictures turned out much larger.

SHAREDBOOK Cons - There are less options for customizing. You choose the cover style, photos for front and back, and which posts are included. Beyond that, you have very little control.

- The main drawback for me was that I couldn't adjust spacing between posts.  So in a few instances, there is the title of a post at the bottom of one page and then the post itself on the next page.  I thought it would drive me crazy (I'm picky) but in the end I decided I could live with it. I can - it looks fine in the printed book.

There you have it. If anybody else has other opinions or companies to tell about, please feel free to do so in the comments! 

And if you decide to go with SharedBook like I did, here is some very useful information - A lot of it that I found out the hard way!  If you're not picky at all, just make your book and ignore all my tips. You could be done in less than 20 minutes.  But if you want it to be PERFECT, keep reading:

+  I found SharedBook by going to http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/.  Gmail gives them access to private blogs when you enter your password.  They quickly save it to their site and then their access is ended. You'll create a SharedBook account. I still went to them through the above link every time. If you go straight to SharedBook.com you have to look around for awhile before you get to where you want.

+  BEFORE you create your blog book, go through your actual blog and make any changes there. If you used videos or slideshows, they will be skipped in the blog book.  The post will still be there, but not the video. What I did was put a picture right after the video, to represent that video. For example, I couldn't print the video of my daughter taking her first steps, but I inserted a still photo of her from that same experience. If you don't have anything to represent it or don't care, you later have the option to not include that post in your book. You do NOT have to delete every post that you don't want in your book.  (I did delete about 10 dumb posts from my blog, and there were about 20 that I left on my blog but did not include in my book. That option comes later after you create your book.)  This all sounds overwhelming but I fixed three years' worth in one afternoon!

+They make it seem like you can do a lot to change your posts. You can't.  You can replace pictures within a post, but you can't add new ones. You can add text, but it is more like you're commenting on the post - not adding and deleting text from the post itself. You'll see what I mean. Don't waste too much time trying.

+ As you are making changes on your actual blog, look for places where you might cut down on pages.  For example, when my kids had their pictures taken, I originally labeled each picture with a number and it took up 5 pages in the book.  But by going back on the blog itself and taking out those labels (that I didn't care about) I was able to condense the pictures down to one page in the book. The pictures were still the same size, but they were able to go side by side, etc.  I saved myself four pages of book space!  There were also some posts where I had used a lot of spaces and it didn't hurt anything to combine into one paragraph. I think you get the idea. If you're not worried about keeping your pages down, you don't have to make any changes. Keep it simple!

+  Decide how you want your book to be. Do you want one book per year? Keep in mind that it is $25 per hardcover, plus pages.  So by making my three years into one book, that saved me $50 (by not having three separate books).  But if having one per year is important to you, do it.  Also, you can do hardcover or softcover.  Hardcover has a limit of 400 pages.  I did have to delete a few posts that I would have otherwise kept. It was worth it to me to save $50. Once you have your blog made into a book, it will show you the price for softcover and the price for hardcover.  You can switch back and forth deciding until you actually publish the book.

+So I know you're wondering what it cost me.  My hardcover book of 400 pages was $168.  Gasp.  But it included over 1,000 full color pictures and is put together well. I wanted it to be something my kids can hold and look at. I woudn't trust the soft cover as much but it IS less expensive. SharedBook also gives you the option of ordering a digital copy of your book for less than $20 I believe. It would be a good way to save it, just in case.  But I know that if I did that to print it myself, I would spend a LOT of money on color ink and not have anywhere near the quality.

+ I noticed that the font on the cover changed depending on which cover I chose.  For example, the black cover has a more formal font and the blue cover has a cuter font. (Or was it the other way around?) Aside from that, I don't think there is a way to change font style or any of those things.

+There's a bunch of other things I figured out as I went. I probably re-created my blog book about 20 times. I hope I saved you from doing the same thing! If you have any questions, I'd be happy to help.  I'm not an expert but I spent WAY too much time making it perfect. Like I said, you could do the whole process very quickly.  Next time I bet I can do it in less than an hour - because I will do my blogging more book-friendly in the future!

Are you exhausted from reading? I think my instructions were very thorough. =o) Whatever company you choose, I highly recommend that you print your blog right away!  I felt a huge relief as I opened my box this afternoon.  My blog book is my new favorite treasure. I'm sure you're busy with life, but waiting on this isn't going to make it any easier or better. Start today!  I'm so happy I did.