Blurb Mobile also lets you print a 7×7 photo book directly from the iPhone. Authors can share stories via social media and send stories to friends, family or colleagues via a private link. This has a lot of potential for fun, for events, travel, and even for serious journalism. Add captions and even an audio soundtrack. Books on the Goįinally, a Blurb Mobile bookmaking app for the iPhone lets everyone be an author by creating a story sequence from the photos and video clips on the iPhone. If you already have a PDF, Blurb offers a PDF to Book tool. There is an “add-in” for Microsoft Word that I can see would be useful in conjunction with a book designed in Word, such as with an Amazon CreateSpace template or, better yet, one of Joel Friedlander’s more professional-looking Book Design Templates. The Blurb e-book tool allows authors to edit books for reading devices and add multimedia, too. I know a lot of professional photographers who use LightRoom, and I think they will be thrilled with this new ability to easily create portfolios and to collaborate on books with their customers that, for example, combine shots from a product launch with promotional copy. There are over 100 layouts to choose from and the print book can be converted to a fixed-format EPUB using the Blurb e-book tool. For Pro Photographersįor professional photographers I recommend Blurb for LightRoom, which integrates with the program to add just another step in the photo management and editing workflow. If you’re a pro book designer you might suggest that clients first sketch out a book concept in Bookify or BookWright to save time, money and miscommunication.

Bookify and BookWright users can import their files into Blurb for InDesign. At any point in the process you can generate a fixed-format EPUB to see what it looks like on the iPad. “If our moms can use it, then it’s good to go.” For InDesign Prosįor the pros, I recommend Blurb for InDesign, a plugin that allows authors and professional designers to design books directly within InDesign. How easy? “All of us here at Blurb have put BookWright through the ‘Mom Test,’” Boyer told me.

Blurb says this will be the tool of choice for most authors because of the customization options and ease-of-use. (Bookify users will be able to upgrade, too.) BookWright includes over a dozen pre-designed templates (novel text layouts, cookbook templates, magazine layouts, photo and portfolio) that you can use as-is or heavily customize.

It replaces Blurb’s BookSmith tool though current BookSmith users will be able to switch to this tool once their project is finished. My best recommendation for most authors though is BookWright, a desktop app with a WYSIWYG editor that builds a fixed-format EPUB at the same time as your print book. When you’re done you can create a fixed-format EPUB using their e-book editor. Import photos from your computer or iPhoto, Instagram, Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, SmugMug, 500px and Zenfolio. Simply choose a template, fill in the blanks, and you have a book that’s ready to publish, print and distribute. My recommendation for complete newbies or the tech-shy is Bookify, a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) cloud-based book design tool that lets you choose from six predesigned templates.

Bookwright blurb