Blurb in the News

Recent Stories

CreativePro | June 24, 2009
Blurb's new PDF to Book workflow
"The new PDF to Book workflow gives creative professionals complete creative control to design books using the application of their choice, save the file as a PDF, and upload it directly to Blurb. Blurb has created pre-made templates for Adobe InDesign users and has developed guidelines and specifications for users of other design programs."

Cool Mom Picks | June 9, 2009
The 2009 Father's Day Gift Guide
"Decorate his coffee table with a professionally bound book from CMP fave Blurb ($12.95 and up) - you provide the images and the words. And the Kleenex."

Associated Press | June 5, 2009
One Frugal Bride Reveals Her Secret — The Internet
"We took a chance on our friends - and the Internet. We signed up for a pro account at Flickr.com ($24.95) and asked our guest to upload all their pictures. We collected more than 3,000 shots, many of them exceptional. Later, I used Blurb.com to design our album ($64.95). In the end, we were happy to write the checks. Instead of feeling ripped off with overpriced flowers and booze, we had an unforgettable, four-day celebration in a magical place, and didn't feel that we were skimping on a thing."

GalleyCat | June 4, 2009
The Revolution Will Be Customized
"In this video interview, Gittins shared her company's newest project, The Obama Time Capsule - a customized book that allows readers to mix their own content alongside images from more than 140 professional photographers and essays from General Colin Powell, Joe Klein, Auma Obama and Arianna Huffington. Blurb's innovation in the print-on-demand publishing market has helped drive the printed one-at-a-time model that is revolutionizing the way books are created and sold."

Mediabistro Fishbowl NY | June 2, 2009
What's Next For Digital Publishing
"Eileen Gittins' company allows anyone to self publish a book -- including bloggers who can upload their blogs into book format using Blurb's "slurping" tool. Gittins says every author needs a blog in order to promote the book, find the audience and get feedback. Self publishers like Blurb allow authors to update books and publish second, third and fourth editions effortlessly. With this technology, books are becoming the starting point of a conversation, not the end point."

National Geographic Traveler | June 2009
How to Make a Good Photo Book
"Turning your vacation snapshots into a book is easy, thanks to services such as Blurb that let you upload your digital images and drop them into templates."

Income Diary | May 12, 2009
Top 30 Female Internet Entrepreneurs
"Eileen Gittins: Eileen is the co-founder and CEO of Blurb, a print on demand publishing service. The company's revenue grew from $1 million to $30 million in two years."

Fast Company | May 2009
Netting a book deal; don't wait for Random House to give your book the go-ahead
Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb: "People are producers now, not just consumers. They have whole mountains of digital content — images, recipes, and poetry from wikis, blogs, and Flickr — that want to find their way into books. There's a lot of content that wants to be shared and remembered, and you can't gift a Web site. I realized — hello! — e-commerce should meet desktop publishing and print-on-demand technology. Moving from the digital world to print as everything else moves in the other direction may seem contrarian. But people want physicality, especially as more and more of our lives are lived virtually."

New York Examiner | April 14, 2009
Publish Yourself!
"In the past, having a book of your photographs printed was hard to achieve and the cost prohibitive. These days, it's super-easy and affordable with printing on demand on the web. Blurb's 7" perfect bound photo book was precisely what I wanted."

Baltimore Sun | April 14, 2009
Websites let anyone put their photo book together
"Ever wanted to be a published photographer, to see those pictures that everyone tells you are so great put into a book that can then be given an honored place in your home library? With Blurb.com, no number of pages is too few. It offers an online store where you can put your photobook up for sale; your dust jacket can include pictures and blurbs on the flaps (a service other sites charge extra for); it offers the quickest delivery time; also, there's a link that, with one click, puts the same border around all your pictures."

Time Out Chicago | March 20, 2009
Netting a book deal; don't wait for Random House to give your book the go-ahead
"Using Blurb's Booksmart software, you customize every aspect of the book's design—from general layout to background and borders—yourself. The site comes chock-full of inspiration for book ideas, should you start to flounder in search of creative fodder."

Publisher’s Weekly | March 16, 2009
Eileen Gittins: Blurb founder marries self-publishing, photography
"'I've always been a geek and a reader,' says Eileen Gittins, tech entrepreneur and founder of Blurb.com. After the Web 1.0 crash, she found herself in-between jobs and with some time to return to photography. She gave herself the project of photographing and interviewing her former employees and colleagues. The year was 2003 and self-published books were still expensive and inconvenient to produce. It was then that she knew what her next startup would be: Blurb.com, an online company that would make it easy for content creators, in particular photographers, to self-publish high-quality books in small print runs for low cost."

San Francisco Chronicle | March 15, 2009
Computing Q&A
"Q: My mother passed away a few years ago, and I have boxes and boxes of her recipes. I would like to be able to key them in and design and print a cookbook of her recipes for my family members. What would you recommend?
A: Blurb is for self-publishers of any sort of book - and accordingly, offers a wider choice of sizes and formats. You can include your own photos with your recipes and choose a photo or other image for the book cover."

Fast Company | February 2009
The Most Influential Women in Technology
"Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb: Gittins's book self-publishing platform is lean and green and has unleashed the insta-author (and book retailer) in everyone from amateur photographers to big brands like Lexus. With a million-plus books created, Blurb is also -- ahem -- profitable."

Daily Candy | February 9, 2009
DIY Kids' Books at Blurb.com
"You've got yourself a real storyteller. There's the one about the dog that ate his homework. And the one about the vase no one saw fall. Help him weave his stories into a book at Blurb, an online publishing platform that enables anyone to design, share, and sell quality books."

F2 Freelance Photographer | Feb / March 2009
Eileen Gittins, Blurb.com founder & CEO
"Eileen Gittins is the founder and CEO of Blurb.com. F2 caught up with her to hear about the problems that brought Blurb into being and the fact that, from the ground up, it was built with photographers in mind."

USA Today | January 28, 2009
Photo books a hit in the down economy
"Blurb, the San Francisco company that makes flashy self-published photo books, sold nearly $30 million worth of books in 2008, 800,000 books altogether. That’s some rare good news from techland these days. Eileen Gittins, the CEO of Blurb, says Blurb is now profitable. 'I think there was a real pent-up demand to create your own books. It's quite extraordinary.'"

New York Times | January 28, 2009
Self-publishers flourish as writers pay the tab

Unclutterer.com | January 26, 2009
Preserving digitized photographs
"I used Blurb in December and was very impressed. The quality of the Blurb book is leaps and bounds ahead of Apple’s product. The books I ordered from Blurb were hardcovers with glossy jackets, full color interior, and 100-pound silk-finish paper. Their quality appropriately matches the price."

American Photo | January/February 2009
Blurb: Easiest User Interface
"The company‘s downloadable design application is truly user-friendly and allows automated 'slurping' from Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, SmugMug, and blogs. Blurb also incorporates community and social networking options and allows customers to sell their books through its website."

Springwise | December 31, 2008
This year‘s top 10 media & publishing ideas
"Smart concepts will continue to provide entrepreneurs with plenty of inspiration and opportunities in 2009! Featuring both startups and new concepts by established players, here’s our pick of media & publishing ideas…
4. Blurb – Marketplace for bookmakers."

CNBC.com | December 22, 2008
Where the "D" in DIY Stands for Digital
"Everyone has a novel in them. The difference is, yours will get published thanks to Blurb.com, a self-publishing web site that makes bookstore-quality books. Wouldn‘t that be a great gift – your book? The bookmaking software is free. Books start at $12.95. And if you know a budding author, you can always give her a gift certificate so she can make and order her own."

Washington Post | December 10, 2008
For Giving This Season, A Cookbook By You

The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet | December 4, 2008
Christmas on a Budget
"This is the most amazing gift... so thoughtful. The site is Blurb.com. You download their software. You feel like a publisher of high-end coffee table books, because you are. Make one and order it for the whole family."

Entertainment Weekly | December 4, 2008
Holiday Gift Guide
"Surprise mom with a book of bound photos and clever captions to go with them; you can also make your own storybooks, cookbooks, travelogues – even convert blogs to books in minutes – by dragging and dropping text and images onto professionally designed pages."

Hartford Courant | November 30, 2008
Thrift Gifts for the Tech Freaks On Your List
"Anyone wishing to preserve holiday memories can become do-it-yourself book publishers by downloading the Blurb.com software, arranging photos and text, then ordering the final product in book form. The softcovers start at $12.95, the hard-bound books at $22.95."

Real Simple | December 2008
Memory Keepers
"How many times have you noticed a heap of old snapshots or letters and promised yourself – this time, finally – you’d do something special with them? Meet five women who went way beyond the dating and filing; they found inspired and heartfelt ways of preserving their family histories... All in the Family was published using software on Blurb.com."

The Guardian UK | November 13, 2008
Rewriting the book on profitable publishing
"It‘s a publishing company with nobody from mainstream publishing: "We‘re from Kodak, Apple, Google, Yahoo," Gittins says...One can see huge vistas opening up for Blurb's model; where Lulu.com focuses on authors wanting to publish manuscripts, Gittins has focused much more on the high end, where quality matters."

Islands | November 2008
Holiday Gift Guide
Holiday Gift Guide: Blurb books are "a beautiful way to preserve island memories."

Kaboose | November 2008
Editor’s Gift Guide Pick
"Download Blurb’s free BookSmart software on your PC or Mac and you can whip up a professional-looking book all by yourself. Drop in your own photos, text, and art into some of the pre-designed layouts, or create your own from scratch."

Creating Keepsakes | November 2008
Dear Lizzy – Blog Away
"Did you know that you can turn your blog into a book? My blog readers told me about www.blurb.com, a site that will do this, and I was jumping up and down with excitement! This awesome company will transform your blog posts and photos into a beautiful bound book."

Chile Pepper | November 2008
Holiday Gift Guide
"You’re the author with a make-it-yourself cookbook. Preserve spiced-up family recipes and pass them out as gifts."

The Next Women | October 20, 2008
Female Heroes Interview: Eileen Gittins
"Blurb was founded from Eileen's passion for photography and from the realization that the idea for Blurb was 'the idea that doesn't leave you, that comes back to you while you are under the shower.'... More importantly however, it is a company to which many can relate; artists, families, photography hobbyists, and even Eileen's mom."

ReadWriteWeb.com | October 9, 2008
Blurb Doesn't Need VC Lectures
"Blurb is just an old fashioned story. The key points that came from Eileen Gittins don't sound terribly interesting, except that in today's world they are so unusual: 1) A 'seasoned' management team; 2) Aligned with their VC; 3) Willingness to make trade-offs; 4) Being contrarian to some degree. Blurb grew in September and the last quarter looks very strong."

Sport Diver | October 2008
The Joy of Sharing
"One of the unique advances in printing was the evolution of self-publishing services. A handful of websites, such as Blurb.com, offer a variety of POD services ranging from printing hardcover or softcover books, to limited sales and marketing support."

Scholastic Parent & Child | October 2008
Hot Pick: Blurb Books
"Turn your next vacation into an instant classic with Blurb.com. Download the free software, drag and drop your photos into the layout of your choice, caption and decorate, and you’re done. You can even slurp images or text from your other accounts, including Flickr, Picasa, and Typepad."

Photo District news | September 2008
The Book Issue: Master Printing
"Nowadays, the introduction of the digital press permits a photographer to run off just a single copy for less than $13, and with the new color-managed B3 photo book service launched by Blurb, top-class results are easily achieved."

Business Week | August 22, 2008
How Six Companies Energized Their Employees
"Eileen Gittins says that being creative and collaborative in RockBand jam sessions encourages employees to be creative and collaborative in their work. In hiring, she says, she ‘looks for people who are passionate about the things in their lives, like music or photography, so they can bring that energy to Blurb.’"