Did you know the “creator economy” is now worth over $250 billion dollars? Yes, that’s right, billion with a b. That’s according to research from Goldman Sachs, which predicts this segment will roughly double in size by 2027. By using Blurb, you are part of this growing economy. Whether you’re still dreaming about your first sale or you’re already a thriving small-business owner, an important secret to monetizing your creative projects starts with repurposing your work.

Take that series of photos you’ve been steadily adding to for years: 101 Views of Paris, you might call it…or Street Cats of Europe. Or is it 67 Seascapes to See Before You Die? At Blurb, we’re here to help you design, print, and sell your books, sharing your creative vision with the world—and getting paid for it. You may think Blurb can only help you print a polished photo book. But that same book can be repurposed, reimagined, and turned into so much more! This is what we call a content repurposing strategy. 

Reimagining and repurposing: different book formats

There are lots of ways to build a book with us. Using our free bookmaking software Blurb BookWright, it’s easy to try out different formats using built-in book templates. We also offer a fully compatible Blurb plugin for Adobe InDesign or a Blurb book module for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic if you’re more comfortable in those programs. If you already have a PDF ready to go, it can be uploaded in just a few clicks and turned into a book!

Let’s use the example mentioned above: 101 Views of Paris. You’ve got 101 stunning photographs, beautifully sequenced and arranged in a file on your computer. For months, you’ve thought this series would make for a beautiful hardcover, large landscape photo book. You may just have a bestseller on your hands. By using Blurb, you can easily transform this project into several different formats—and also, different revenue streams. Here are just a few ideas to get you started.

A layflat book

In the example above, you had 101 photos you put into a photo book. Now, what if you put 30 of those into a layflat book? What exactly is layflat? It’s also a photo book but, as the name indicates, the binding allows it to literally lay flat when you open it and turn the pages. Now your breathtaking images can spread fully across the page without having to worry about that pesky gutter. With the widened canvas, you could put a short block of text on the right or left side of the page: a paragraph about what you were thinking when you took the shot; a bit of local lore you uncovered about this historic building; or a small hand-drawn map so that your readers might someday go to the spot where you took your photograph. 101 Views of Paris becomes A Photographer’s Guide to 30 Hidden Gems in Paris. Voilà! Same project, whole new product, holding a different appeal to fellow photographers and travelers alike.

A trade book

Maybe you want to incorporate more words or are looking for something a bit more affordable than a coffee table book? Trade books are a great solution, balancing high-quality printing, terrific hand-feel, and rich colors—but starting at a much lower price point. Many cookbooks, for example, are made using the trade book format. You could combine your love of food photography with your passion for cooking—The Markets of Paris Brought Home: 40 Easy Recipes. Give the book a hardcover if you want it to feel like a reference. Or give it a softcover if you don’t mind it getting a little messy in the kitchen.

A magazine

Books last forever, but magazines bring a totally different dynamism. In a magazine format, you can accompany your images with more text, different layouts, and a livelier format. Maybe the Paris issue of the magazine is just the beginning: Paris: A Photographer’s City Guide is later joined by Athens, Mexico City, Sydney, Bali…With an ongoing series, you might ask a few friends to contribute their own short stories from their travels. Your personal project has transformed into a collaborative one—Tokyo: Seen Through the Lens of 11 Photographers. In a future issue, you could reach out to a guest editor. Ask your favorite travel photographer or local guide if they would consider guest editing. 

Magazines are easier to ship than hardcover books, too. Plus, they open up the possibilities of a subscription model, allowing you to think about ways to create a subscription-based revenue stream for your creative practice. Offering a monthly or quarterly magazine can both instill discipline in your workflow (nothing like a deadline!) while fostering deeper engagement with your audience. You’ll also have the chance to offer exclusive editions or extra content to subscribers, creating a more dedicated following. As you go, you might want to make digital copies of your magazine available for free which will help get your work out to more people.

A notebook or journal

You might also consider making a notebook or journal. You could include them as thank you gifts with book purchases or magazine subscriptions or sell them individually. A simple idea using our 101 Views of Paris example would be to take 52 of your best shots from Paris (one for each week of the year) and place a photo or quote on the left-hand page and a blank page on the right. You could fashion it with the title A Year of Intention with the City of Light and sell it as a goal-setting journal, for example. Now, your work has become the jumping-off point not only for your own creativity but also others’ pursuits. 

All this from a series of photographs that were once stuck on your hard drive. Making full use of Blurb’s tools, your photos could be in people’s hands, in different forms, all over the world.

The Blurb ecosystem: moving from BookWright to the Blurb Bookstore (and more)

Blurb is about more than just book making with design tools. We’re also about book selling through our very own Blurb Bookstore (not to mention access to Amazon and Ingram). By listing your products in the Blurb Bookstore, you are charged zero distribution fees and zero commission. Whether as a photo book, trade book, or magazine, our distribution options offer global fulfillment with on-demand printing, meaning you won’t have to worry about where to store your inventory. For larger orders of 100 books or more, we offer end-to-end service and our best discounts. Either way, you can focus on the bookmaking, and leave the logistics to us.

One inspiring example 

The best sellers in the Blurb Bookstore come in all shapes and sizes. The Southern Sweets cookbook, for example, was started as a website by Judy Yeager in 2008. In 2023, two of her daughters Leigh and Anne Walkup joined forces to turn it into a full family affair. In October 2024, the sisters took over 100 of the best recipes on their website and turned them into a beautiful hardcover cookbook. They also made sure to put out a softcover edition at a more affordable price. The sisters also publish a magazine, Front Porch Life, which prints four seasonal issues—Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall (shown above). The Walkup sisters chose to list their book in the Blurb Bookstore as well as on Amazon and Ingram, all of which they were able to do from the Blurb platform.

[Read more about their story in our interview with Anne]

Monetizing your creativity: from content to profit

So, you’ve transformed your original project into a photo book, a trade book, a magazine, and a journal. You’ve put your work for sale on the Blurb Bookstore. You’ve listed your photo book on Amazon. Your trade book is on Ingram. Your magazine is slated to come out once a quarter and you’ve already signed up a first group of paying subscribers. So, your work is done, right? Not quite. Creativity extends to how you get paid for your work.

Now that you’re comfortable repurposing your work and producing it in different formats, think about how it could be packaged and sold in different ways. A timely, themed collection can create a sense of urgency: 50 Best Street Photos of 2024 or Top 10 Travel Destinations for 2025. Think about exclusive print runs, limited editions, or extra benefits for the early-bird buyers. 

For example, many photographers include a signed print in the first 100 copies of a book they sell. You could make things simple and only include prints in the first 10 copies. Before listing your book for sale anywhere else, you could create an exclusive, limited-time offer for your fans and followers. Once you sold out, you would order the 10 books from Blurb, have them shipped to you, add the finishing touches yourself, and then send them off to your most loyal customers. Sure, there are a few more steps required, but knowing that your work has already been sold means you’re not doing it for free. This is a great way to cultivate urgency and scarcity with your work, raising its value. Cookbook authors could include a hand-written recipe; illustrators might offer a small pencil sketch inside. Including your signature and a little something tactile really highlights that special touch.

You don’t necessarily have to go in such a crafty direction though. Lots of people have great success monetizing their skills and expertise into mass-market educational guides. These are great examples of creative business strategies that can boost self-published book sales. As a creator, don’t take for granted that you’ve become an expert in your own process. Other people might benefit by learning from you. Making some “how-to” guides on something you know well is a great way to repurpose content and create something valuable for a new audience. Compile your knowledge into an affordable trade book or a magazine with bright, easy-to-understand illustrations—not everyone wants to sit and watch a 45-minute tutorial on YouTube. With Blurb, you can quickly create and distribute such guides and then consider creating supplementary online courses to complement your physical books.

[If you’re looking for more marketing tips, we’ve got you covered with 60 ideas and tips for self-publishers.]

Going from digital to print and back again

At Blurb, we believe in the power of print. But we recognize that making your work available in digital formats is also important for reaching new audiences. Selling digital products is an important part of any creator’s sustainable business model. We already mentioned how you could offer part of your magazine in an electronic format to reach more people. Print books are no different: offering an ebook gives you access to a totally different, mobile-first audience. Digital formats allow people to engage with your work with a much lower barrier of entry, expanding your reach. 

Moving back and forth between digital and print is essential. Photo editor Stacey Baker, for example, took pictures of women’s legs in New York City when she was on her lunch break in Midtown Manhattan. She always asked permission from her subjects and in the process, managed to produce a portrait studio out of the chaos of a New York City sidewalk. Over time, the project became her excuse to practice making her own pictures (instead of only looking at other people’s work). It also became a lens into the fashion, style, and diversity of the city she called home. After posting her favorites on a dedicated Instagram feed for three years, Baker had amassed over 75,000 followers. That’s when she decided to publish her book, New York Legs. 

Many other recent bestsellers have started as social media content, blog posts, or newsletters. The secret is to be flexible about how to present your work. Thinking about how to reimagine, repurpose, and ideally, monetize your work should all be part of your creative process.

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Have a great photo series that you’ve been looking to publish? Been sitting on a project for a while that’s been itching to get out into the world? Blurb has all the design and publishing tools you need to get your work off the screen and into your hands. Don’t stop with just one format: a single project can be multiplied, reimagined, and repurposed in a dozen different ways. Get creative and get paid for your work. Blurb makes it easy. Start today!