some blog book Q&A . . .

thanks for all the comments on the books ... glad everyone liked them. i got a lot of questions about the blog books. and i'm always great about answering ... but usually just to the person that asked the question. guess that doesn't help everyone else that might be wondering. lol! so i thought i'd answer a few things here ... as best as i can.

do you just create an account and then it just pulls all the info from your blog?
yes, you create an account at blurb .. and then you download their program "booksmart" to your computer. so this isn't actually created online ... just in the seperate program. then you go to create a new book ... picking your size. then you can choose the option "blog to book" ... and then choose what blog service you use and sign in from there. it will pull up everything you have ever posted to your blog ... and you just go in and select what posts you want to include in your book. i did a year at a time ... so i clicked on all the posts from that year. it will then start "slurping" up your blog ... and will pull everything ... text, photos, etc.

what about layouts and things that you've replaced with a "just for pub" sign? and are you allowed to add extra photos?
it will pull whatever you have in your blog RIGHT NOW. so if you have an "out for publication" sign ... it will pull up that. you will have to go in and replace it with your layout. it's easy to do. you can also add extra photos in. you just pull them off your computer or your external hard drive ... and it will add them all to the side bar ... and you can add them in where ever you want. this is also nice if you had a post that linked your readers to another site for pics ... or if you had them linked to a photo album to more pics. you can just add a page to the book where you need it ... and then add your additional photos in.

i always size my photos down for screen - will that matter?
this DOES matter ... unfortunately. lol! when i first started my book ... i choose a larger sized book. and all of my photos were coming up with low-quality warnings. all my photos on my blog are resized. and i do have all my original, full-sized versions of my photos ... but they'd be a pain to switch over. i DO NOT have all the original, full-sized photos of my layouts and projects ... so i can't switch those even if i wanted. that is the reason i ended up doing the 7x7 book ... because all my re-sized photos were fine in that size. and if you're trying to have a photo too big in your book (like say you want to have just one big photo on a certain page) ... it will tell you if it's not going to work. and you have the option of switching to the full-sized photo ... or just making it smaller on the page.

do you include your layouts and cards in them or just photographs?
i include everything that is on my blog. every single post. but you could certainly be choosy .. and only put the stuff that's important to you. so mine is a definate mix of photos, layouts, projects ... and then all my posts without any photos ... just text.

a few of my thoughts on the basic page designs.
it automatically sets your pages up so that every post is seperate ... and all the pages automatically show 4 spots for photos. so that is where the time-consuming part comes in. i go through page by page ... re-doing the page design to allow for how many photos i had. and if didn't have photos ... you can change it to text only. and another thing is to keep in mind that occasionally a post will go just a few sentences to a new page ... and then you'll have all that blank space . so i have no problem going in and deleting a few sentences ... if it means fitting it onto the page. lol!

a few of my thoughts on making progress with your book.
the program will save what you have done every time you close out the program. so you can do a few pages at a time ... a little here and there. it'll pick up right where you left off when you start it up the next time. it's a little bit of a learning curve. but once you get it down ... it's fairly simple. i only used a few basic page layouts ... so i knew exactly what design to use if i had 1 photo, 2 photos, or 4 photos. made it easier when dealing with an entire years worth. lol!

and i know you told me, but humor me would you and tell me how expensive they are?
they're not super cheap. but in the end ... i decided they were worth it. paperback is a bit cheaper ... but i wanted the hardcover just because i think they'll hold up better over the years. my 90-page book was $32.00 ... my 202-page book, it was $50.00 ... and my 286-page book was $60.00.

and my suggestion for starting out and giving it a try.
start small just to play around with it. "slurp" up a month of your blog posts ... and then just experiment and get the hang of it. you can add all the rest in later at any time. but it's not so overwhelming to open up a 20 page book ... than it is to open up a 300 page book. lol!

hope that answers some questions for everyone. if there is something else you want to know ... just leave a comment. and i'll answer within the comment section.

i'll be back either friday or saturday with some info on how i'm doing my "journal your christmas" album this year ... and what products i'm using. i'm really looking forward to it ... and am really simplifying the process this time around. have a great thanksgiving tomorrow!!!

Comments

[Samantha Piette]

Hello!
I was so excited to find Blurb a few weeks ago but was then really disappointed when I found out they only turn Typepad and Wordpress blogs into books. I have a blogger blog and hope they add that feature soon! :-)
Just good for people to know before the download the software for this purpose.
Happy Thanksgiving!!!

[Deneen]

Thanks for answering the questions here on your blog for all of us!

[Mary MacAskill]

this is so helpful! Thank Laura!

[Melinda]

oh no blurb doesn't do blogger- is that true? I was looking forward to this being my new year project.

[Alicia King]

thanks for all the answers Laura!

[Amy]

thanks for sharing, Laura...I want to do this, but my blog is blogspot. I know there are other services out there, but I lost my bookmarks when my computer crashed. If I can find one, I'll let you know so you can tell your readers. :-)
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!!

[Leslie]

This sounds SO cool - makes me want to start a blog!!

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow :)

[KT]

journal your christmas album?!? I can't wait to hear more about that!

[Caryl Hope]

Thanks Laura for sharing... Just decided to print my book since I'm moving to a new blog... BUMMER, currently blurb is not slurping wordpress blogs... :-( Hope they'll be able to sort it out, meantime, I'm looking for alternatives...

[Chelle Greene]

Oh Man I am so BUMMED that it can't do Blogger yet. I'm glad I read this post before I tried. They said they are working on it, so maybe by early next year they will have it completed. (Which is actually good because then I will have some money by then, since all of this paycheck is going to Christmas.)

[Shaun Paddock]

Laura,
Thank you for all of this awesome information. I cannot wait to play around with this.
I hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving!
Shaun

[Susy]

Thanks for answering all of our questions Laura, glad I wasn't the only one with lots to ask,lol.

[KristaLund]

This is my 2nd year for JYC! I used Ali E's Daily Decemeber album idea. It's all finished and I am ready to start JYC ing!