BLOG BOOKS! (A Review of blog2print.com)

I have been blogging away for 3 years now. For me, blogging is about writing down our family experiences in a journal-type format. For that reason, the thought of losing our blog because of an Internet problem has always made me really nervous. I finally decided to do some research and have my blog printed.

I used the site blog2print.com (partnered with Sharedbook) for my books. I am THRILLED with how they turned out. I got them in the mail yesterday and was so excited to see all of my time and effort over the last 3 years in a hard copy that we can save forever. There is just something really cool about having something to hold in your hands instead of reading it from the computer.  If you are considering having yours printed, here is my review:

1. Ease of Use:

* If you want to download your posts just like they were published on the blog, this is a great site. All I did was put in my blog address, choose the option to "keep same format," and pushed download. After it is downloaded, you get to preview the entire book to see exactly how it will look. I didn't have to worry about reformatting all of the pictures and text. It was really easy. (The only differences I noticed were that all of the pictures are automatically made to be the same size, and my picture captions ended up left justified rather than centered... minor things, but they were different than on the blog)

*There are also options of including user comments (which I did because I love comments :), deleting certain posts, choosing the title and cover of the book, etc.

*One really nit-picky thing that I noticed was that they allow widows and orphans, meaning that sometimes the title will be at the bottom of one page and the rest of the post will be on the next instead of keeping it all together. You can't change it (that I am aware of), so I just accepted it and moved on.

*If you want to make more complex changes to your book or to individual posts, this site doesn't really work that well. I researched other sites (blurb.com and others) that allow you to completely change around your posts. There are also sites that make them into scrapbook-type pages with different backgrounds. I wasn't really interested in that look or the extra work, so I went with the simple option.

2. Quality:

*I have only had mine for 1 day, so I can't vouch for the long-term quality, but I was very impressed by what I saw. The covers seem very durable and the bindings seem strong as well. I was also quite impressed by the photo quality on the covers. So far, I really don't see anything that would strike me as a problem.

*The inside pages are printed on good paper, but it isn't photo paper. For this reason, the inside photos aren't as crisp and clear as they might otherwise be. This doesn't bother me at all because they are plenty good for my purpose, but if you are really picky about picture quality, you might try another site.

3. Cost

*I believe that hardcover books were $24.95 for the first 20 pages and $0.35 for each additional page and softcover books started at $14.95.

*I haven't used any other sites, so I can't compare the prices, but I felt that blog2print was reasonably priced. I ended up with 3 books, one for each year. The largest (over 160 pages) was $72.  Maybe it is a little pricey, but it was worth it for me. The smallest book (around 80 pages) was $45.

*If you are patient, you can get a good discount. Go to blog2print and set up an account and agree to receive their promotional emails. When they are having a sale, you will get an email and can buy your book on sale. I ended up with a 15% discount on my whole order, which saved me $30. I also got free shipping and handling, so that also saved me some money.

So, there you have my two cents. No matter which company you go with, I think you will really love having a hardcopy. I know I LOVE mine.