The rise of the scrapbooking hobby has produced a web-based offshoot: creation and printing of polished, bound books that place your memories at the centre 
of coffee table conversation.

Let’s face it, for most people nowadays, pictures have two destinations: aboard an SD card in 
a digital camera, waiting indefinitely to be downloaded for viewing, or loaded onto a computer hard drive, where they sit untouched. 
At a push, they might even form part of a digital picture frame.
 

This isn’t new, just different. Much 
of my childhood sits on Kodak paper inside cardboard shoeboxes. 
I think my first Little League home run is a keepsake in a box of size 
10 Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars. Occasionally, photos made it into 
a photo album, giving them a more organised resting place. But even then, most ended up forgotten.
In the last decade, the creative juices – of mothers, predominantly – have given rise to the scrapbook. Thematic stickers, photos cropped with fancy-bladed scissors and assorted adornments, make some of these truly breathtaking endeavours. It’s a hobby, and a fine one for the artistically inclined.
But what about the artistically disinclined, such as myself? I love pictures. My beautiful wife, three adorable, funny kids… memories are daily occurrences. What do I do to make my pictures presentable for all who enter the house without huddling around the laptop?
 

Welcome to Blurb.com and the world of online publishing. If you have the photos, you can make it happen, 
and do so with as much or as little personal creativity as you like.
 

Getting started
Blurb.com provides proprietary software, called BookSmart, which provides users with the functionality 
and tools to create virtually any type of photo portfolio, wedding album, or yearbook.
 

If you’re new to the concept of ‘online publishing’, it’s not necessarily about sending your product out 
to the masses. Here, it is produced solely for your possession – and perhaps for certain family or friends.
 

BookSmart is compatible with PCs or Macs and, by virtue of being downloadable software, isn’t susceptible to random web problems that can plague the 
photo project process at other 
sites, such as Snapfish.com.
 

First, users select their book size, which can range from a square 
7 x 7 inch setup to a 13 x 11 inch spread. Blurb lays everything out for you in a polished, easily accessible manner. The site’s Book Ideas page shows projects others have done, to provide you with core ideas as well as base layouts. Planning a yearbook or portfolio? There are more than 70 page layouts to choose from, and you can adjust these on a page-by-page basis so you’re not locked into 
a single design for the duration.
 

Most of these programmes tend 
to have a problem serving both the casual and the intricate. BookSmart, however, manages to let users customise the minutiae, from themes to colours and fonts, while being robust enough to 
do practically everything on its own if necessary. 


 

In Focus
A photographer all her life, Eileen Gittins wanted to create a photo essay book that looked like a book you’d buy at the bookstore – but she needed only 40 copies. She completed the task independently, describing it as “remarkably painful, expensive, and time-consuming”. That being unacceptable in her eyes, she founded Blurb. “I have yet to have a conversation about Blurb where the other person does not start talking – animatedly – about ‘their’ book,” Gittins says. “Whether it’s an archive of rare movie posters, a collection of favourite blog postings or favourite Italian recipes, a trip to the Amazon rainforest, or the story of a beloved grandparent’s journey through Ellis Island – it seems every person has a book in mind. And there is nothing in the world like seeing that book printed and bound for the first time.”
 

That feeling is the essence of 
Blurb.com – the personal, heartfelt creation of handheld memories to share easily with others. You live it, you feel it, you want to share it with others, and you decide how to creatively express it.

Selling Your Snapshots
While many people turn to Blurb with the objective of sharing on the small scale, the site’s capabilities make it suitable for more extensive publishing ventures. In the list of subcategories on Blurb – which allows for the sale of created books right on the site – Travel encompasses nearly 13,000 works. Weddings? More than 8,500. Sports and Adventure? More than 2,400. And although these include books created with small batches in mind, the best-sellers are a broad mix as well.
 

Operation Smile: A Journey of Miracles looks at the project’s mission to remedy cleft palate in Vietnam. Wolverines on the Edge of Alberta’s Rockies covers research and photographs of the elusive creature. Dusty’s House looks at the 19th- and 20th-century antiques maintained in a Chicago Victorian house, and the stories behind them. Simply, you can create – and find – anything.
 

If you can imagine it, conceptualise it, and – necessarily – photograph it, then you can make it with Blurb.com. So unleash your creative side. There’s little in life more rewarding. in business
 

Lulu

If you’re really interested in self-publishing works and getting your work noticed, the best online bet may well be Lulu.com. Started by Red Hat founder Bob Young, Lulu can act as an exclusive publisher, 
a co-publisher, or even 
as a printing press. But 
its grandest use is aiding individual writers who lack the resources to use other publishing companies outside of Lulu. Authors are not assigned a contact person, thereby reducing support and editing costs. Because of this, writers/photographers who would otherwise be unable to afford a vanity press or find an accommodating conventional publisher can still get their work
to the marketplace.

Wordclay

Along the same lines aS Lulu is Wordclay, a similar site with different strengths. While Lulu offers more printing options – such as hardcover, brochures or e-books – Wordclay is generally regarded as providing more extensive premium services and cover templates. Wordclay was created by Author Solutions, parent company of iUniverse – 
an online publishing house devoted specifically to established self-published authors with money to invest in their ventures. This background gives an air of credibility that the advice and guidance obtained through Wordclay is genuinely beneficial. 
And for the upstart, that faith goes a long way.

A Photo Journey Through Fascinating Turkey
By Michael Toh

Photography
By Kurt Denison