More and more ways to go literally from blog to book seem to appear all the time. These technologies allow you to get your blog content–your blogged book–off your blog and into a book format. Blurb, a San Francisco-based creative publishing and marketing platform, is the latest to enter the field by giving Ipad users a way to turn their blogs into interactive eBooks.* That’s right, enhanced ebooks. So, if your blog has video, audio and lots of photos, this might be the ticket for you–especially if you use an Ipad.
Currently the Blurb ebooks are available only on the iOS platform. An Android version is planned for the future.
Pocket-lint interviewed Eileen Gittins, CEO and Founder of Blurb. Gittins said all the tools provided through Blurb’s online eBook editor can be used by bloggers to embed audio, video and hyperlinks into the virtual pages. These can easily be added directly from a computer or smartphone. Any material you produce can then be sold (or given away for free) via the Blurb website, with Blurb taking a 20 per cent profit on any sales. Blurb will also help authors submit their eBooks to the Apple iBookstore, though this depends on Apple giving the green light to any submissions.
Blurb produces ebooks as well as high-quality color print on demand books. According to Gittins, Blurb can deliver physical versions of your ebook in about a week, depending on how many you order. Any videos you may have embedded into your eBook will appear as still images on the relevant page.
Let me caution you, though. These technologies might appear seamless, but they are often used by bloggers booking blogs, repurposing existing posts into a book; these books need more editing than blogged books. Blogged books are comprise of blog posts that fit a content plan for a book; they need less editing. In both cases, the books do, indeed, need professional editing.
Please, do not just dump your blog posts into one of these systems and send your work of to Amazon or somewhere else. Please.
*I, in no way, endorse this product. I have not used it. I just wanted to let the Ipad users out there know about it. I have, however, seen the lovely printed books produced by Blurb but have not worked with the company personally and have no experience with them.
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If you live in N. California, consider attending this one-time-only small group workshop in the Santa Cruz Mountains on How to Blog Your Way to a Book Deal on October 27.
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