Friday, April 9, 2010

Blog Book

For months now I've been intrigued with the idea of turning the blog into a book. I've seen several other blogger Moms who have done it successfully and now I want to do it. The problem? I don't have the time or energy for such an undertaking. You see, the process is pretty daunting at best. The route that I want to do is to go into Blurb.com, download their book editing software (already did this step), and to "slurp" my blog into a book format. You may be asking what "slurping" is? Slurping is where the software automatically takes all the information on your blog and places it either directly into a book format or into a library where you then take each post and place it into a page layout. Since I've got something like 700 posts (!?) I'd have to break them up into years. So I'd have a 2007, 08 and 09 book. I like this idea and I had planned to do this until I actually sat down and started on it last weekend. The software bogged down my computer, there was an overwhelming amount of text and photos (many of which weren't the correct resolution...thus causing me to go search through pictures from 2007), and I was tired and just not enthused about it all.

So, I looked at option number two.

My friend Jessica ran across a website that will take your blog and automatically turn it into a book with just a few simple steps (like three clicks of the mouse). Seriously easy. The site is Blog2Print.com. You literally go to their website, enter a web address of your blog and hit enter. It will take your blog info directly off the internet and make it into a book. This option is quick, painless and super cool. It does lack the customization that I'd like. It won't let you have any creative reign....you can't select different fonts, page layouts and such. But for someone who just doesn't have the time this is a great option. To do each year (some 250 entries/pages) it would run around $110. This is right around the same price as the Blurb.com option yet I would be able to design that book completely...although it will take me forever. Decisions decisions.

Either way we go I think this is a neat idea. To have a book of our lives to show to our children sounds like a fun idea. They can, quite literally, watch themselves grow up through the pages.

1 comment:

Stacy said...

Very cool. Nice that you are doing all this research. I have been wondering how to do this myself! Now that I know (and will continue to monitor your progress) I will definitely pursue it one of these days. Berkley is about to turn 1 -and I've probably got less than one post per week...might be reasonable. Thanks!