Pages

▼

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

A Blog Book

Have you turned your blog into a book? I have read posts where bloggers have done this. The idea has great appeal to me. I like the idea of a paper copy of my digital research & discoveries but I am unsure of the best tool for this purpose. I've been spending lots of time recently, trying to decide how to do this.



My Publisher. I have used My Publisher to make beautiful books: Christmas Memories, Don’s ADK Hikes, Adam’s Wedding, Alyssa’s Races. I’ve made photo journals of our trips to Disney, South Carolina, Spain, Tahiti, etc. Each book I have made with them is beautiful, full of good memories & receives many compliments from family & friends. I know this program well but each book takes time & care and is best suited for photo based pages.





Mixbook. I have used Mixbook for cards & family calendars. The calendars illustrate our family fun times & chronicle family birthdays and anniversaries. Each Christmas I give them out as gifts. I made a personalized alphabet book for our grandson that has photos of many our family members. I know this program well but I think that adding each blog post and accompanying photos, one at a time would be a slow process.




Lulu. I looked at this website but did not use it. I normally write my blogs in Microsoft Word, copy & paste them into Blogger & then add photos. I keep the word documents in a folder. I think I’d have to add the photos into the word documents and then change each into a PDF before loading to Lulu. It looks like there are lots of size & color options that look nice but this would be time consuming.


Options. It looks like using any of these options for a blog book would take significant time. That process would take time away from research and actually writing blogs.

Blog2Print. Blog2Print is designed for the purpose of printing blogs. I thought I’d give it a try. I decided I need to make a book/volume for each year of my blog. Each volume would start with my blog anniversary. I decided on a black and white paperback version to cut down on costs. I went ahead and followed the steps to make a book of my blog’s first year. My blog entries & photos went quickly into the program. A Table of Contents was automatically created. I could select a cover design, add photos to the front & back covers, and add a dedication with a photo.

Problems with Blog2Print for me are… There’s not a lot of personalization or I have not learned how to do it. I don’t see an option to change fonts. I have added ‘My Pages’ but cannot see them on the preview so don’t know if they are really there.

I went ahead and ordered a book and it looks nice. Should I make more with Blog2Print? It does move the posts over quickly & easily. Am I happy despite the fact I cannot ‘tweak’ it? Is there a better program out there? Would looking for another program take more time than just going ahead with Blog2Print?


Have you turned your blog into a book? I welcome any suggestions.
at

7 comments:

  1. Jana Iverson LastJune 9, 2015 at 1:15 AM

    I recently used Blurb to create my first blog book. I used the Blurb BookSmart software to do this. While it does take time and effort, I think it's well worth it because I was able to create the book to my liking. I wrote about my blog book in a blog post. Here's the link if you'd like to see it ~ http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2015/04/my-blog-book-is-here.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Colleen G. Brown PasqualeJune 11, 2015 at 8:50 AM

      Jana, I will go & check out Blurb. Thanks for the tip!

      Delete
  2. WendyJune 10, 2015 at 7:21 AM

    I recently completed my book and it is being printed right now so I haven't seen the finished product. I used BookWright at Blurb because I wanted more personalization, plus I did not do a blog book. I used some of my blogs but I did more with it. I have a blog similar to this one telling about my experience with Blog2Print, Lulu, and Blurb but I'll post after I see my book. Bottom line -- Blog2Print is the only EASY program; all the others require a great deal more effort.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Colleen G. Brown PasqualeJune 11, 2015 at 8:48 AM

      Wendy, I look forward to reading your post. If I was just a beginner blogger & did not have many posts I would use something where I can be fussy with printing. But, at this point, I have many posts & it would take ages to be fussy with each post.

      Delete
  3. Charlie PurvisJune 10, 2015 at 4:11 PM

    This is a great idea; and a nice addition for the coffee table.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Colleen G. Brown PasqualeJune 11, 2015 at 8:45 AM

      Charlie, let me know what you use if you give it a try.

      Delete
  4. online paper writing serviceJune 11, 2015 at 3:15 AM

    First of all I like to appreciate this great idea. I have not yet thought about this before. I am a blogger and writer hope this idea work better in my career too.. :)

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping by my blog & for leaving a comment. It is always good to hear from visitors, cousins & fellow bloggers. Note that I do not publish anonymous comments.