Blurb

A while back, I told you about Blurb. It is a site that can transfer all of your blog posts into a book. The books come in all shapes and sizes, soft cover and hard, and can be hundreds of pages long. The Blurb software is free to download, and the prices for the books are very reasonable. My book is roughly 90 pages, and it will be a little less than $50 (not including shipping and handling).

I have decided to create a book for each year. I started to blog at the end of 2007, but I only posted a few times before Charlie was born. So, those posts are getting lumped together with all of 2008. I just finished the book the other night, and I am so excited to see the real thing when it comes in the mail. I haven't ordered yet, because I want to do one final proof reading before submitting the order. I promise to let you know how the final product turns out.

All in all, the process was very easy. And remember, I am NOT good with computers or anything that has to do with technology (It is the Christmas Miracle that I finally figured out how to send a text message). The toughest part of the whole process was formatting the book to be the way that I wanted it to look. Blurb literally sucks up everything from your blog and puts it into a book in chronological order. It is not perfect, however. You will need to go through and make sure you are happy with the way your pictures look and whether or not you want a post on one page or several. My book started off with 160 pages, and I was able to edit it down to 90. It took me probably five hours total to get it looking perfect. There are a few things that I wish I had known before starting, and I am going to share them with you. So, here are some tips for transferring your blog to Blurb:

1. Blurb lumps all text and all pictures together. In other words, captions that might be under your pictures on the blog, will not appear that way when they are transferred. You can cut and paste your captions, and put them under the pictures if you want. I found this to be too time consuming, so I ended up deleting my captions. Next time, I will probably go through the blog and delete the captions before I transfer. This is only because I am much more comfortable with Blogger than I am with Blurb.

2. Depending on how your blog is set up, the date for each entry might look like this:
Fri Jun 03 EST 11:00:45 2008. This was by far the most annoying thing to edit, and I am sure, had I looked a little harder, I could have found a way to edit all of the dates at once. Instead, I edited each date as I went along. Annoying? Yes! The end of the world? No.

3. If you have linked to another site in a post, the website URL will appear at the bottom of the entry. No biggie, but you will definitely want to delete it.

Other than that, like I said, it is pretty straight forward and easy to use. Now that I have one book under my belt, I am sure the next one will go even quicker. Although, I have become quite the blogger this year. I started off blogging 2-3 times a month, and now I average about 15 a month.

I am just so happy that our family will have all of the wonderful memories that we have created together in beautiful books. I can't wait to sit with my boys some day and read them stories about when they were little babies. If you ask me, the blog is one of the best things I have done for our growing family. As I looked back through 2008, I was reminded of so many details that had already become hazy. With our crazy, hectic lives it is so great having all of the memorable moments bundled together in a common place.

I hope you enjoy making your book as much as I did! And, let me know if you have questions.