Self Publishing made Easy

Show the world what you can do

There is something quite special about seeing your work in print.  As a photographer I am usually looking at images on my camera screen or on my computer or phone, but when these images are actually printed in hard copy as a physical photograph, poster, piece of art or in a book, that really is something else.

I have had a handful of books published in the past and have recently used Blurb to create a book of my favourite landscape photographs taken in the last year from around the UK and Sicily.

Landscapes

By Liz Mitchell

Blurb has a book creation tool called BookWright which I used. I found it quite straightforward to use, however there are some video tutorials that will help if you get stuck.  The format of the book can be softback or hardback, a photo book, trade book, magazine or e-book.  You can mix text and images in pre-designed layouts or create your own. There is a new lay-flat format too.

If you are an Adobe InDesign user there is a Blurb plug-in for this and Lightroom has a Blurb powered book creation tool too, which I have yet to try.  There is also an easy way to create books from your Facebook or Instagram images using drag & drop.  All in all, Blurb make it very easy to create your masterpiece.

Another cool thing is that Blurb can generate a barcode for your book so that it can be sold on Amazon.  If you go for this option you will obviously have the world as your marketplace but Amazon do add a fee so the book price will increase.

I would like to pass on an important piece of advice.  Make sure you thoroughly check the contents before you upload your book for publishing.  I once made the mistake of putting an incorrect date on the cover of a book and didn't realise until I received the printed copy.

My latest creation arrived in the post yesterday and, thankfully, I haven't made any mistakes! I'm really pleased with the results, I'm sure you will be too with your own works of art. You can see my bookshop preview here.  This link takes you to the US store, if you are reading this post in the UK (or elsewhere) change the country on the Blurb site by hovering over the flag at the top right of the page and selecting the one you need.

If you want to give this a go for yourself following through from the link below will send a small commision my way and I would be very grateful.

To find out more click below:

If you do create your own book this way leave me a comment below and I'll take a look at your masterpiece. I'd love to see what you created.