Grandad’s Book
Back in September 2008, I posted an entry called Tribute to Tom, which showed some of the reporoduction photos I’d done from the collection of my recently deceased father-in-law, Tom Sharp.
I wanted to make something of a lasting tribute so I turned Tom’s memoirs into a published book. There are lots of places where you can make photobooks, such as Photobox - where I previously created a photobook - but I decided to go to Blurb.com as they cater for text-type manuscripts as well as specific photobooks.
Tom had written his memoir down in 1996. It forms about 20 pages of A4 typed manuscript, so not too unwieldy.
The process to create your book is pretty similar whichever publisher you go with. You generally download the software, create your boom on your own computer & then upload it back to the publisher’s website. Some days or weeks later your book pops through the letterbox, all neat & professional looking.
I had chosen & processed the photos to go in the book and the manuscript was already written so it was just a case of laying everything out & splitting the text up into chapters. Uploading the book was a little more problematic in that it kept failing. I resorted to checking out the Blurb support forums where someone suggested that uploading from a laptop over a wireless connection could cause problems, so I transferred the file to one of the desktop PCs and it uploaded fine.
Once the book was uploaded & paid for, it was a case of sitting back & waiting for it to arrive. I wasn’t disappointed. I’d opted for a hardback with dustjacket & premium paper & am really pleased with the product. Sitting on the bookshelf with my (large) book collection, you’d be hard pressed to tell it wasn’t a normal published book like all the others on the shelf.
The book cost about £18 although the postage pushed it up to about £30, which isn’t for a self-published book of this quality. But then the book did come from the USA.
The book was a present for my wife. I’ll possibly get softback versions for the kids as once the book is created on the Blurb website, you can order copies of it whenever you want.
Posted under Photo Projects
