Blog/Blurb Book Pricing...

I have been asked about printing my blog into a book using Blurb.  Click here to read about how to take your blog and turn it into a blog book.  I am often asked how I can afford to print off these books every year.  Many assume they are pricey.  For the prices click here.  Remember this link shows prices for the classic portrait book (8X10).  These books can be pricey depending on how big your books are, and mine are always 200+ pages.  But I have 2 reasons to why the price shouldn't matter.

 1) I don't scrapbook so I figure the money I save in scrapbooking supplies and printing pictures probably equals or is more than I would spend in these books.  Plus these books are nice and compact (not big and bulky like a scrapbook). 

2) I almost never pay full price for my blog books.  I will wait to print them off until I find a coupon on them that Blurb will usually do such as free shipping or 20% off your order.  And keep your eyes out for Groupons or Jasmeres.  I am completely caught up on printing my blog books out because of an amazing Groupon deal that happened last year where for every $20 you spent you got $60 worth of Blurb books.  I of course scooped up 4 of these babies because that deal was too good to pass up on.  Just be careful with buying these since they all have expiration dates.  Don't buy 10 thinking you can slowly use them.  You usually have a few months to use them all up.  And save up to buy these books.  These are a very great investment.  My husband does not mind one bit any money I spend on these books.  He realizes the value of these books and enjoys them so much and appreciates me greatly for doing them.

At the end of each year I will download my blog into Blurb, spend the time formatting it to my likes and then print out 1 family copy in a hard bound book.  I do my family copy in the more expensive hard bound image wrap.  I like to have a nice copy for myself. 

Yep that is right I have 4 volumes so far.  My 2010 was so big I had to split it up into 2 volumes.

I then print out a copy for each child that was alive during that year in a cheaper softcover book.  So my 2007-2008, and 2009 blog books I only had to print 2 copies out since I just had my boys.  But in 2010 I had to print 3 extra copies out since we added a little princess that year.  My hope is that my kids will each get a blog book (journal) every year that they can then take when they move out and they will have not only their journals but our families journals as well.  In 2010 I decided to print each kids book out in their favorite color.  My oldest is obsessed with Orange so his books cover is in orange.  This way he will know that in 2010 his favorite color was orange (since our favorite colors can change throughout the years). 

Although I printed my hard bound family copy into 2 volumes for 2010, I made the kids 2010 books into 1 volume still.  It would of been too much moo-lah to have to print 6 extra books for 2010 instead of just having to do 3 copies.

Another question I get asked is if I delete posts and make each kids book just about them.  Absolutely NOT.  I don't do this for 2 reasons. 
1) It would take forever to individually make each kid their book.  Instead I can format their book and print 3 copies of it (of course I do change the color of their cover for each but that takes 2 seconds to do).
  2) The second reason and the most important is that I think the kids will enjoy not only reading about themselves but reading stories about their siblings.  And if by some chance they aren't interested in reading about them, then they can skip over their stories.  But many of their stories involve a few of them and when they get older and they have kids they might read in their books and realize their kid acts a lot like this or that sibling.  I just overall feel strongly that they will love reading about their siblings as well. 

 Lastly I consider their books as a late Christmas gift every year for them.  My boys are only 5 and 3 but they already love the books.  In fact I catch my 3 year old looking at them all the time.  And I have to admit that I love to look back at them and reminisce.  They truly are priceless and I hope my children will treasure these books as much as I do. 

My 3 year old looking through a blog book.  I promise I keep my house heated.  You just need to know my 3 year old to understand why he is wearing a big jacket in the house :) And most likely he is shirtless under that jacket :)

My family history shelf in my living room.  It contains my blog books as well as ancestors histories.  I truly cherish this particular shelf.