Blog to Book with Blurb
Turning your Blog into a Profitable Self-Published Book
The blog-to-book phenomenon is quickly becoming common for everyone from stay-at-home moms to corporate gurus. Learn how you can get in on the action.
Turning your blog into a book actually sounds easy enough. You copy and paste your blog posts into a word processor, tidy them up a bit, insert some savvy segways, and voila! A book is formed. Easy as it is, a service called Blurb is making it even easier.
Blurb is a self-publishing service that facilitates the formatting process for you with a free software called BookSmart. On your own time, on your own schedule, in the comfort of your own home, you can play around with all the options to design something you love. While they offer a variety of publishing tools, the tool that makes them most attractive for blog-to-book publishing is the seamless and instant download service they offer.
If you use Blogger, LiveJournal.com, TypePad, or WordPress for your blog, you can use Blurb to automatically connect with your blogging service, download your posts, and design a format for you to get started with. Embedded images and even comments are no problem. As much or as little as you like goes right into your book, and you get to choose what to move where, how much to add or delete, and many other formatting options.
Aside from the transitional service, why would you choose Blurb over another self-publisher for formatting and printing your blog-to-book?
1. Software that makes it easy
While self-publishing resources are moving towards the hold-my-hand philosophy, Blurb hits it right off the bat. There is no guesswork on your part as far as what you need to buy, download, or do, and BookSmart keeps the learning curve short.
2. Create a photo finish
Most self-publishing services accommodate images and Blurb downright facilitates them. Whether it's one photo among your text or just a few words among your photos, you get to choose the placement and frequency for your eye candy.
3. Free to try with no commitment
All you need to do to get started is sign up for a free account. Until you are ready, you'll never be obligated to make a purchase. Pay only for what you want to print. This means you can play around to your heart's content and never be pressured by deadlines.
Technically, your blurb book doesn't have to be built from a blog, but baby steps do make it easy. You can use it for picture books, short illustrated children's stories, poetry and photo books, gift books, handmade scrapbooks and memory books, and more. To find out more about how it works, stay tuned! In June I'll be participating in the Script Frenzy screenplay competition (similar to NaNoWriMo) and to give other writers a taste of how the writing lifestyle works, I'll be capturing my day in thoughts and photos for the entire month of June. Look for sneak peeks of this project throughout June, and the finished results in August!
Visit Blurb.com to find out more about turning your blog into a book.
Learn how you can use Blurb to turn your PHOTOS into a book.
