"We have done four books on Blurb. Their software is relatively sophisticated and takes some time to master but the end product is great! All our books were self-published for personal use."
"The BEST quality and the BEST service - - - - PERIOD"
"Fast turn around time...
Easy to work with...
Product arrived well packaged...
Flawless execution."
"I am a professional photographer, and Blurb is a great way to make one-off books. The idea is good, but they have such inconsistent results it makes one crazy!!! Customer support is "good" as long as you realize that you are actually the quality control person yourself when you get your book. (I'll explain more later.) If it's wrong they will make it again, but there's too much lost time with their system.
Each apology starts with "less than 2% of the books have problems ... " blah blah blah, but this forum alone clearly illustrates that the number is closer to 15%. Plus, who knows how many customers miss the fact that the books are wrong as they don't really know anything about printing in the first place.
One book is great and then the next one of the exact same title is crap. They use different printers around the country and therein lies a big part of the problem. The issues vary from crooked page cropping, to oversaturated/faded ink on the images, to alignment issues, and so on.
Once you get past the lower level customer service, it gets somewhat better, but the bottom line is there's no way to get a uniform result, and there's no way to go back to a printer that did things right. WAKE UP BLURB - some of your printers should be fired and the work given to the better ones.
Customer service is also getting much slower, and the catch-all email where you can't easily address someone who knows about you case is highly annoying.
In the end there's one solution for every problem, which is go print another book with this coupon and let's hope it looks better. I think it's time to unlike some of your subcontractors whose printing sucks frankly, and start respecting the time and energy your customers put into their book.
If I get a good book, then let me route my next order to the same printer. That's the way the world used to work, but now it seems everyone is special. Well - they're not :-)"
"My first book was beautiful."
"I have never regretted a choice more than my choice of Blurb. Am not sure I have dealt with a product more terrible. Heavy, slow. No prompts. Useless customer service. I am sickened by the amount of time I have wasted with this company. And, I have had it - moving on to another choice."
"Blurb has been my photobook company from the beginning and I have loved working with them. The program I downloaded is user friendly with a terrific variety of templates and the option to make your own versions. The books have been printed on quality paper and have arrived in excellent time. In the beginning I had trouble with dark prints so called them and received excellent customer service with explicit instructions to correct my problem. They even reprinted a book without question. I have made 10 different books with Blurb and have been thrilled with the results. I highly recommend using Blurb for your photo books."
"Worst customer service I ever had !!!! "
"I wanted to create a cook book for my mother in law and came across Blurb. Everything looked great and so professional. But I looked up reviews and so many were negative. I ended up choosing blurb because it gave me more customization than Tastebook (deal breaker was I could use my own photo for the cover on Blurb). It was a risk I took and I'm very pleased that I have! The key is to print out the proof of your book to give you a better idea of how photos and text will turn out. Also helps with spotting typos.
The book came out beautifully. Rich photos, thick paper and a professional hardcover. My mother in law loved it! Very pleased and I would definitely use blurb again and recommend it to my friends."
"Caution: if you want to make an ebook, be aware that What you see is NOT what you get. When you preview an ebook, it shows the cover; click and the book opens and you can read it, flipping the pages until the end. After the last page you flip to view the back cover. This is NOT what happens when you download however. The book opens to the first page; the only place you can see the cover is in a tiny blurry thumbnail om your iBooks bookshelf. No matter how beautiful the cover or how important a part of the book it is, you and your readers will not be able to enjoy it once the book has been paid for. The back cover is on the same spread with the last page as if it were an end flap rather than a back cover, also disappointing. I thought this must have been a technical problem--who wants a book without a cover? But support assured me this was the way it was supposed to be.
SOOOO disappointing! I had done a printed book with Blurb before and liked it; this project needs both print and ebook. Since the ebook is not satisfactory, I feel I have wasted a huge amount of time and money on the whole project. Without the capacity to make a beautiful ebook that is faithful to what readers think they are getting from the preview--which includes the cover--I will not do another blurb book. My readers would feel ripped off. As I do."
"I can't figure out all these negative reviews. I have ordered 7 photo books from Blurb, some on standard paper, some on premium, some with dust cover, other with image wrap,in both 8x10 and 11x13 sizes. All of them have turned out flawless. I learned early on to prepare photos well (I use photoshop) according to the pixel size recommended for each size picture frame, converting to sRGB colorspace and JPG format. My only observation (which is not a negative) is that no matter how sharp a photo may be when uploaded, it will be a bit softer when printed. Color has always been spot-on with no changes to lightness/darkness. Yes, the books are a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for."
"I am a photographer and often put together photo books. I recently heard about Blurb and figured I would give it a try. I normally do not make suggestions and can figure things out on my own, even if it is frustrating...but you have to be kidding me!
I have spent the last 4-5 hours putting together and re-putting together a simple 20 pg. photo book. Both times, after I have finished the final edits (approx. 2 hours of work) and I am ready to order, it deletes half my photos, texts, and formats, and says that I need to redo my book.
If the photos do not work for the book, don't allow them to upload in the first place!! Or at least inform us that these particular photos will not work for the book.
Unless "Blurb" redeems themselves in some big way, I will make sure that neither I, nor my friends, will ever use this program again. This is frustrating, annoying, and unprofessional."
"I am curently having a horrible time working on getting an issue resolved. I used blurb to create a book as my wedding invitations. The book includes our engagement photos as well as all the information that would be on a wedding invite. I worked on it for months to get it perfect. Finally when it was finished, I read it over, checking to make sure there were no errors, and previewed the book. I got a second opinion and a third and we all saw that everything looked fine. I purchased my bulk order, spending over $300 and the books arrived with a missing word. I went to check if it was my fault and opened the book up in edit. The word was there!! It as also there when I previewed it again! I've sent a request in to get my issue resolved a week ago and still no resolution. They wanted me to send pictures of the problem, which I did, and still nothing. I want an answer and I want my issue fixed. And the fact that I can't call anyone makes me even more upset. I've been a blurb customer before and planned to use them for many more projects, but this is ridiculous."
"Initial Problems, Slow Shipping, Second Copy Better
The first copy of the book arrived with significant problems. It was the wrong version of the book due to software problems at blurb, and it was dark. Blurb suggested a re-do, and gave significant merchandise credit towards that goal.
My overall impression is that if you have a few months to deliver a book, blurb will work with you to get the job done. However, if you are trying to have the book ready in a few weeks, you are better off printing at home.
Why blurb chooses to charge so much for shipping, yet get such slow shipping velocity, remains a mystery. Enhanced shipping means it only takes two weeks to get a book made and delivered? Why not simply use USPS Priority Mail?
"
"Today is Day 3. I received a hardcover book as a gift from my son, it is a book I wrote about our family dog who just died. The pages were out of order. I am trying to find out if the error was my sons error or the publishers error. But NO ONE will respond to my online customer support request on their website. The website says you will get a reply in 6-8 hours, and it has been 3 days with a request sent each day to contact me. Very poor service. Very poor communication. A very easy fix. I want to find out who made the error and then get the book re-published with copies for all my grandkids. But they will not even acknowledge they recevied my request. There is no phone number on their site, there is no physical address on their site so you cannot contact them except on the SUBMIT A REQUEST form in the HELP and CUSTOMER SUPPORT section. And they do not answer those requests. "