Blurb 1

Try It Now

Publisher's description of Blurb

From Blurb: Blurbs BookSmart bookmaking software is the centerpiece of Blurbs creative publishing service, which turns blogs, business plans, recipes, photos, email, wikis, or any other content into a bookstore-quality book. This bookmaking application allows users to drag and drop pictures and text into professionally designed book templates, with dust jackets, customizable backgrounds, page layouts, and color palettes. Learn more about webware at Webware.com!

See more CNET content tagged:

blurb

User reviews of Blurb

• Average user rating: out of 3 votes
• Your rating: Write your own review

This software version | All versions

• [+] Expand review

  Blurb

  Poor print quality

  by: DeniseAck on 07-May-2008 07:50:50 AM

  Pros: Way less expensive than most print on demand companies. Prices are for a range of pages ie:20-40, 41-80, 81-120. Offers up to 440 pages, whereas most have a capacity of 100 to 160 pages. Not sure if this diminishes quality or durability though.

  Cons: I just made a book with Blurb. I wanted to try a small softcover project to test their quality before I put tons of hours into something. I must say I was soooooooo disappointed! I chose to not make my pages in Photoshop, but do them directly in their program to see the â??virginâ?? quality. My images are from a 10MP DSLR with each photo being about 2-3 MB each, so the input quality was fine. Their output was dark, grainy, oversaturated photos. I was floored. Iâ??ve heard such glowing reviews that I couldnâ??t believe it. I contacted Blurb and they offered to remake the book for me, indicating that they can only keep prices so low by not recalibrating the printer after each book. They figured mine was one of the 3% of books that were toward the end of the run. So, they sent me another book and it was the same. What a disappointment.

  I have a full Excel spreadsheet comparing companies if anyone wants.

  Was this review helpful? Yes | No (1 of 1 users said yes)

  Flag for offensive content Reply to this review (0 replies)

• [+] Expand review

  Blurb

  Poor service, late shipping, mediocre print quality

  by: gfrenchy on 21-Jul-2008 06:54:31 PM

  Cons: No telephone support to resolve simple issues, shipped item 3 days after informing me that it was shipped and still charged 2-day shipping, images were dark. Will not use them again

  Was this review helpful? Yes | No

  Flag for offensive content Reply to this review (0 replies)

• [+] Expand review

  Blurb

  Poor printing quality, overall bad experience

  by: ValenVitols on 17-Jun-2008 06:18:27 PM

  Pros: SmartBook is the only thing I enjoyed about my very bad experience with Blurb. Do check out other providers and if you're a pro, use an off-set or real life digital professional printing service. At the end of the day, you'll save money and won't have to go through emotional distress.

  Cons: "Blurb guarantees your satisfaction with the workmanship of your book."

  Blurb.com

  Sadly, they don't exactly follow this.

  If you're an art student, faculty member (well, some of my professors were not that happy with my idea of using Blurb to print my thesis book), or a professional artist, Blurb is not the place to get your work published.

  I initially printed my book with them and had to return all the books. The book had strong cyan (turquoise) and green casts. They have serious problems with the printing of the covers (extremely dark), because the same file I used for the cover I used inside the book and the difference in printing is dramatic. To add more book drama to my case, the cover also curled.

  The quality of the paper was fine, but nothing to write home about.Their software is fantastic, though; the only nice part of this experience was working with their BookSmart application.

  My mistake? Not ordering a "demo" book. I didn't do it based on a couple of peers' previous experiences of ordering one single book to see how the printing quality was, and then ordering more books and getting something completely different. After this happened to me, I've seen a ton of reviews complaining about this particular issue. "I got a demo and then got completely different books in my second order" I thought it was a waste of time.

  The grand closing of my case is the customer support. Very nice and polite, I have to admit. However, I initially got the promise of a full refund (minus one of the books I kept for my archive), and then surprise, surprise! Because my customer support agent bought a book in a bookstore with a "slight curling on the cover" apparently similar to mine, he and his boss decided I didn't deserve the full refund, but only two-thirds of my money back. Wow! OK. So you promise something, treat a workmanship defect that your product has as something minor, and then you drop your offer? OK.

  For the $20 I paid for each paperback book, I expected a flawless product, as you should for any expensive product. I didn't get anything close to that.

  I will never use them again.

  Was this review helpful? Yes | No

  Flag for offensive content Reply to this review (0 replies)

Submit your review for Blurb:

Step 1: Rate this software:

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Step 2: In one line, summarize your review:

Step 3: Tell us what you like about this software (leave this field blank if there's nothing you like about this software):

Step 4: Tell us what you don't like about this software (leave this field blank if you like everything about this software):

Please log in to complete this action:

Forgot password?

Not a member yet? Sign up now! (why join?)

Close

You must be 13 years of age or older to submit personal information to CNET Networks. In compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, CNET Networks does not accept name and e-mail address information from users who are under 13 years of age.

All submitted ratings and written comments become the sole property of CNET Networks, Inc. (CNET) and may be used at CNET Networks' sole discretion. Ratings and written comments are generally posted within two to four business days in batch groups, not in real time. However, CNET Networks reserves the right to remove or refuse to post any submission for any reason. You acknowledge that you, not CNET Networks, are responsible for the contents of your submission.

CNET Networks is not responsible for the content of the publisher's descriptions or user reviews on this site. We encourage you to determine whether this product or your intended use is legal. We do not encourage or condone the use of any software in violation of applicable laws. CNET Download.com does not sell, resell, or license any of the products listed on the site. We cannot be held liable for issues that arise from the download or use of these products.

Step 1: In one line, summarize your review

Step 2: Enter your reply comment

Close

If you believe this review is offensive or violates the Download.com code of conduct, you can flag it for our review below (this will not automatically remove the review). We will not modify reviews that compare products, contain garbage text (such as asdfghjk), or that a person disagrees with.

Select the type of offense:

• Advertising Spam
  Marketing language and links to third party sites or services

• Offensive
  Sexually explicit or offensive language, hate speech, threats

• Illegal activities
  Promotes cracked software, MP3s, or other illegal activities.

Your information:

Cancel reply