Blurb is an ideal solution for authors, publishers and other businesses that sell and distribute books. However, blurb offers high-quality, professional design and print services for multiple types of books, including family photo books, comic books, cookbooks, children’s books, portfolios and more.
Features
- Photo books
- Trade books
- Magazines
- Ebooks
- Book sales and distribution – Sell through Blurb, Amazon, Ingram, Apple iBooks Store or Kickstarter (pre-sell)
- Book warehousing and fulfillment
Ease of Use
To create a book through Blurb, you have a few options. You can design your book online through Bookify, design offline by downloading BookWright, or use Blurb’s mobile app to design on-the-go. All of these tools are free to use. You can also use your own tools such as Adobe InDesign or Adobe Photoshop. If you wish to use a different app that is not compatible with Blurb, you can upload a PDF to Blurb to print your design. BookWright allows a lot of control over your design, while Bookify and Blurb’s mobile app are very limited in sizes, layouts and design flexibility. If you are using BookWright or InDesign, Blurb offers a library of downloadable professional templates. You may also hire the Blurb team to design your book for you, as well as for editorial and marketing purposes. When your design is complete, Blurb has a preview mode to carefully review your book.
Support
Blurb’s customer support team is available via chat or through submitting a request form online. Blurb’s Help Center provides tutorials, help articles with the ability to search through topics, frequently asked questions, and a community board with questions and answers. Blurb also offers sample projects for inspiration, and a blog with book design and selling tips.
Sample Pricing
- Photo books – Starting at $14.99 for 20 pages
- Trade books – Starting at $2.99 for 24 pages
- Magazines – Starting at $3.99 for 20 pages
- Ebooks – $9.99 conversion fee for fixed layout for iPad; $4.99 for PDF file, viewable on most devices
Volume Discounts
- Photo books
- 4-9 books – 30% off
- 10-19 books – 35% off
- 20 or more books – 40% off
- Trade books
- 10-19 books – 10% off
- 20-49 books – 20% off
- 50 or more books – 25% off
- Magazines
- 10-19 magazines – 10% off
- 20-49 magazines – 20% off
- 50 or more magazines – 25% off
Upgrades for cover type, paper type, additional pages, removing the Blurb logo and other features are available at extra costs.
Pricing varies when hiring a Blurb expert to assist you.
Pros
- Blurb gives you the option to print as many copies of your book as you want at once, or you can print copies of your book as it sells.
- Blurb’s Refer a Friend program offers 30% off your next book and $20 off your friend’s first book when he or she makes a purchase.
- Blurb offers complete design control if you are using your own tools or Blurb’s offline design platform, BookWright.
Cons