Comments on: Blurb Revenue Grows 2900% in 2 years

By: Tom White

Tom White — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:48:03 +0000

That’s because they have a ton of charges. They not only charge you a minimum price on each copy they print, they also take a percentage of the profit margin you place on the book. I did a 60 odd page 7×7″ softcover book as a catalogue for a group exhibition. I charged $20 for the book, blurb take $16 of that per copy, plus they charge $5 processing fee when they mail you a check, which they will do every month, provided you make at least $25 profit. If you don’t they money will sit in their account until that $25 minimum is reached. For my example, I’d have to sell 7 books a month in order to receive a $20 check. And it costs almost $10 postage to order 1 book, going up to almost $30 when you order 100.

All those small charges add up to one great big profit!

Self publishing is great, and the blurb books I’ve done have been decent for what they are, but the only way as a photographer to make any money off it is to order a stack of books yourself and sell them on. Or charge the same amount of money you’d pay for a proper professional publication. Otherwise, you’re just paying blurb to make you a nice promotional tool!

By: Timothy Schenck

Timothy Schenck — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:27:57 +0000

It is a fantastic business model and I’m all for empowering the individual. If they could only get their qaulity control issues sorted out, they’d really be on the golden path.

By: Marie

Marie — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:04:21 +0000

It’s not surprising that blurb and amazon grew its revenue. All companies that offers cheap products in comparison to its competition will be favored in this economic climate. Plus the book creation concept is new and on the rise.

By: lisa

lisa — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:41:38 +0000

perhaps this is why their customer service and quality declined precipitously in the last year.

By: cinemascapist

cinemascapist — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:19:04 +0000

@Richard Louissaint,

I concur. All I shoot is panoramics, so I had a ton of work to do making a book without a “spread” option.

By: Richard Louissaint

Richard Louissaint — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:48:16 +0000

@Mike Barash, now just give us paypal option
lol
and easier to put photos on two page spreads

By: geoffrey mcallister

geoffrey mcallister — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:34:57 +0000

i’ve published a few books through blurb – its very easy but i’m not thrilled with how the colors look. they do have great customer support though – one of my books had pages glued together (http://geoffreymcallister.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_archive.html) and they were very nice and have since sent me 2 books to replace the 1 that was messed up.

By: B5

B5 — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:55:24 +0000

that’s fantastic! That’s the service that is treating people as creative partners not as sheeps! So web 2.0!

By: Mike Barash

Mike Barash — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:33:52 +0000

@cinemascapist – thank you!! i did not concept the idea – it was a team effort like most things here at blurb – but i will gladly accept the raise you suggest!! =)

@adrian – in this case revenue actually does come with some profits – we’re profitable now too! woo hoo!

@neil walker – i sure as shit hope so, because we’re all WAY committed to it.

all best,
mike

By: Neil Walker

Neil Walker — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:19:45 +0000

Will it continue?

By: Adrian

Adrian — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:21:16 +0000

Soaring revenue does not necessarily mean profits.. just sayin’

By: the cinemascapist

the cinemascapist — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:35:45 +0000

I hope they gave Mike Barash (marketing director at Blurb) a big raise if he came up with and put together that competition last year? It would be interesting to compare how the other POD publishers did over that same time.