Blurb.com is more than just software to convert your blog. I'm going to save the printing info for later when I get into posts on publishing. For now I'd like to look at how to get your blog into a file for editing and massaging.
In contrast to pyxlin which is entirely online, as is LJ Book, Blurb requires you to download their software to your machine. The good news is that it's available for both PC and Mac. And it's free! The downside for someone like me is that the recommended screen resolution is "1024x768 minimum, 1600x1200 preferred."
According to their website, "You can drag and drop your images or autoflow them into hundreds of professionally designed book templates, and BookSmart’s friendly interface lets you edit text as you go." This ought to set off an alarm, a quiet sort of one to be sure, but an alarm nonetheless. My blogs have very few images. How about yours? Is this software primarily for photo sites?
Concerned, I skimmed the page until I found a link for Blog Slurpers. I learned that BookSmart "supports Blogger, LiveJournal.com, TypePad, and WordPress.com blogs." I have one WordPress and several on Blogger so I kept reading. [I would have kept reading in any case because who knows what kind of blog you've got - and you are why I'm writing this :-) ]
Here's the thing I've really been looking for: "Imports and maps blog text, images, comments, and links into a professionally designed template, producing a draft book in real time." Draft is important. PrintMyBlog does what it says. No draft. No fiddling, fixing. Note that it pulls in comments -- I would hope I could turn that off. In fact, since it's come up several times now, can someone give a good reason why you would ever want to include comments? Unless of course you want to respond to issues or criticisms raised there.
It also pulls in links. Evidently, since you can "customize and edit your book as little or as much as you like," you can do something with links as well. [See how that also keeps coming up?]
The software allows you to create a blook up to 440 pages. This means that if your blog has been up for quite a while and you have lots of posts BookSmart may not work for you. Remember when I looked at Melinda Roberts' book, Mommy Confidential, one of the complaints was that it was too long (518 pages)? Coyote Blog went to two volumes even though the page size was 8½ x 11.
I'd really be interested in hearing from someone who has used this software. Since Blurb has a bookstore, I thought I'd go check a couple of titles and try to contact the authors for comments. The first one I saw that piqued my interest was Chicago Colors by ryanmuir. Yes, I could assume that that is his real name, not just a handle, but nowhere on the site does it say that. The link takes you to all four of his books. Note, I didn't say blook because they appear to be photograph albums. [By the way, the images are stunning. You can preview the first 15 pages.]
Undeterred, I found Book Categories and followed the link for Blogs. There are only 11 listed. As with Chicago Colors, most appear to be heavy on images. The exception is I, Slacker by Per Håkansson. There was a link to his website and on the page about his books (he has two) I found "Since I started at Blurb I’ve realized an old dream of mine: becoming a published author." Sounds like he's an employee.
Ta-da! He is. Left him a comment. Maybe we'll hear from him.
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