Tuesday, January 10, 2012

How to turn your blog into a book

A few weeks before Christmas, as I was floundering about in my usual search for the perfect Christmas gift for The Builder, I had a moment of, well, to put it politely, genius. I'd make the Fibro blog into a book for him. A nice little precis of our lives over the past couple of years.

Right. Now how was I going to do that? Initially I had visions of reformatting every post into Word and... well, let's just go no further down that long, winding and difficult path. Instead, I turned to my best mate Google and typed in 'blog to book'.

Voila! Several enticing options for me to simply press a few buttons and have a neatly printed book appear. But which to choose?

I had one false start with a company that seemed to offer exactly what I needed but... well, let's just say the program turned out to be way too difficult unwieldy to think about in the middle of the night (my natural working time). Then I stumbled across Blurb.com.

Despite the fact that I couldn't quite work out how much it was all going to cost, I followed the instructions, exported my blog, imported my blog, edited my blog (Blurb has an advantage over The False Start in this area), removed posts that were not relevant, added photos that were relevant, dillied, dallied and dithered and, after several nights of hard work, discovered that I had created a 320 (!) page hardcover book. Eek allores!

Taking a deep breath, I uploaded the whole thing and then awaited the final costing (you don't pay until you get that figure, so no stress - just lots of work wasted if it turned out it was going to cost an arm and a leg). And I was surprised. Pleasantly surprised. Very pleasantly surprised. The whole custom-made thing, including shipping, cost less than some of the gift books that come out around Christmas (email me if you want the exact figure - The Builder reads my blog every day and I don't want him knowing how much Santa and his elves spent).

I pressed publish. I pressed private (you can choose to have your book publicly sold). I waited anxiously to see what the quality of the whole exercise would be like.

Again, I was pleasantly surprised. There are some limits to the design process, which may be less pleasing to those with a more discerning eye than I, but for what I wanted - a wholly personal and meaningful one-off gift - it was perfect. It's a tangible record of all this ephemeral writing. A tangible record of those tiny moments of family life that are otherwise lost to memory (despite an extensive archive to wade through).

It reminded me that, while the Internet is forever, holding a book in your hands makes your words so much more... present.

If you're a blogger, give yourself a present and visit Blurb. I really recommend it*.

*Not a sponsored post. Just saying.

27 comments:

  1. What an awesome idea. We did a Blurb photo book for my mother-in-law for Christmas 2010 and she loved it. And you're right. The quality is great!

    Did he like it?

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  2. Whoops! Yes, forgot to mention that. He loved it!

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  3. I am totally going there right now. Thanks for the recommendation. I've been thinking I should get one made of our road trip and now I will.

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  4. When I told my dad a few weeks ago that I had started a blog he had a read of a few posts and rang me saying 'thats great, you should print it out and stick it in a folder for the kids'. This would be a way fancier version (and yes, we all had a good laugh at him)

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  5. What a great idea... how splendiferous and cool. Must have a look at Blurb.

    Was lovely to meet up last week... you will be concerned to hear that I am yet to visit a pub... but only three weeks until I drop off all my darlings and head off to get tipsy briefly.

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  6. What a fantastic idea. We all put so much time and effort into our writing. Creating a keepsake is a wonderful and precious gift to give ourselves. I'll be saving Blurb's details for some day in the future.

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  7. Oh how I love this idea. So much better than the little pile of A4 print outs sitting on our office shelf. Brilliant recommendation.

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  8. I love love love Blurb... I do a family alphabet type book every year for the grandparents (eg s is for sisters with images of the cherubs snuggling), and as macabre as this sounds when my grandparents died I turned their eulogies and photos into books for their children.

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  9. Oh that is so brilliantly ORGANISED! I am falling over impressed with the fact that you actually DID it. So cool and such an amazing way to record a very special period of time. Like holding history in your hands and passing it around. Very beautiful.

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  10. That is a great idea. Thanks for the recommendation. I can think of way too many uses for a site like that.

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  11. That would have been handy for my first blog, which was very much a mummy blog!! Good to know for future reference, too.

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  12. Thanks for the recommendation! I have wanted to do this for a while. I'm going to check it out :)

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  13. Thanks for the heads up, I've been thinking of preserving some of my blog for posterity, the "delete" button on Blogger scares me!

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  14. What a fantastic idea!

    Will definitlely give it a go one of these days. I've decluttered everything else..

    Happy 2012!

    SSG xxx

    Sydney Shop Girl blog

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  15. I've done this too, but through what I suspect is the "other" company you didn't go with. Will email you.

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  16. Hey how cool! Nat from Mummy Smiles was looking for just this the other day.

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  17. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.

    Onto it! American road trip, for starters....

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  18. I love this! Thank you. *puts thinking cap on*
    Michelle

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  19. I love Blurb, but didn't know about the import function - ingenius!!

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  20. That is the best idea for a blog to turn into ever! I had never heard of it, but am going there right now for a squiz. Good on you!

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  21. Thanks for sharing. It's a fantastic idea, one I will file away for future reference.

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  22. I love this! What a great idea. I created a little book of 'our first year' for my husband for our first (paper) wedding anniversary, so this could be a great follow-up. Thanks for sharing.

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  23. So glad to see you have done this - what an amazing gift. One day... I dream, but from dreams reality is created.

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  24. That is really cool! I will definitely be looking into this!

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  25. What a wonderful book you must have! Thank you for this, I've thought about it before and assumed it was much too big of a task to be at all reasonable. Your blog is lovely!

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  26. Oh i love blurb and did a post about it too as I love it that much! I did a photo book of our Europe trip, got two copies and gave one to my mother in law (who accompained us!) and well, she loved it. You are so right, there is nothing like holding a book in your hand...and for it to feel real and professional! I love that you published your blog posts! what a great idea!
    xx

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