No, I’m not a bookie. But this post IS about books. It’s about compiling all your blog posts into a beautiful hardcover book (or soft cover if you prefer).
There is now a Blog Book in the works called Virginia Views. It’s a real, honest to goodness, hold- in-your-hand, turn-the-pages, elegant BOOK of my very own posts. You might say it is self published. Why did I do this? Well, I neglected to make hard copies of each blog post and now there are over 200 pages of ‘em. Should I save them somewhere? Definitely.
Maybe Martians will make it to earth and will see my book as a historical hysterical perspective on the complications of human life.
As a result of this odd line of thinking, I went to Blog2print.com, followed the instructions, and the darned service immediately sucked all my posts from May 24, 2012 to February 5, 2013 into a book (which I could even edit!). It was magic! In less than three weeks a hardcover, beautifully bound, glossy paged actual book with all the posts in Volume 1 of Virginia Views will arrive.
How do I know the results will be wonderful? Because I have done this once before. It was for my first blog called Technicolor Day Dreams, an autobiography in flashes of memory I compiled for my grandchildren and gave to the family and friends for Christmas. That book is truly beautiful and something I am so proud of accomplishing.
But now I feel like a real live author looking forward to receiving the one copy ordered of Virginia Views for my library wall! Maybe one day the wall will be covered with Books By Dor! Who will read them all?
I hope those Martians get here soon.
Have you created a book of your blog posts yet? Try it. You’ll love it. And you can be a bookie too.
What a fantastic idea! “Not Quite Old – The Book” may be on its way!
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Yours would be a fabulous book for sure! Go for it!
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Oh, oh, oh!! I am going to do this, and soon! My blogging friend, Debbie at All About Purple just posted about it last week. I’m not sure she used the same “publisher”. And I may have to break mine down, since I’m up to nearly 800 posts (how did THAT happen?!). Thanks for the encouragement!
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Ohhhh, I want to do this so badly!! I actually designed a hardcover photobook of my trip to England and The Netherlands with Bryan’s school, and I love it! Now my next job will be to make a book of my blog because it’s something that I’m actually quite proud of, so I want a permanent memory. I would love to see the inside of yours Dor – I’ll bet it’s just beautiful :).
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Blogtoprint.com will take 400 pages. After that, they automatically create two books and call them Volume 1 and Volume 2. Oh, I do hope you go ahead and do it. What a wonderful gift that would be and another way to share all your beautiful posts and photos. 🙂
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I will read it! I have the first book and it is charming and they are a lovely family to get to know. Fun to read even if you don’t know them you will by the end of the book and, trust me, you will want to know more.
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I’ve been wanting to do this and just haven’t gotten to it. I definitely want to try it! If you don’t mind, I’d like to repost on my other blog, A Daily Life (dogear6.com).
Nancy
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BTW – do you know how to create a hyperlink in your post? You could have used one for the blog2print.com that you typed in here.
http://dogear6.com/2012/01/03/adding-a-hyperlink/
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Oh yes, you should do it Cindy! I will take pics of some of the inside pages of my first book and do another post so you can see. Watch out though – the pics are a bit too small.
And your blog would be better if it really featured the photography. There must be a way to do that though. Good luck. I know your blog book would be terrific!
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Thanks Viv! 🙂 Much love.
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No I don’t mind Nancy. Happy to be of any help. 🙂
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I probably should have done that but I didn’t realize there would be any real interest.
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Hopefully I can start on that project soon! It would really be nice to have all of them in print. Did you choose to print the comments to your posts too? I’ve looked into this before and seem to recall that there was an option to include the comments or not.
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I do think there is an option to include the comments Dianna, but I have opted to leave them out in both books. It’s mainly to save space since the number of pages dictates the cost of the book. I also have opted not to include a Table of Contents. For this new book there would have been 7 pages of contents – a chapter for every post. I may have made a mistake omitting it since one has to “thumb” through to find specific posts. It just seemed sooooo long.
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It seems that it would be a bit complicated. But I think I’ll just “bite the bullet” and include a table of contents AND the comments.
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That’s a good thing! And when you get into it, just keep looking around to see what your options are. One of the nicest things about it is the option to “come back later.” You don’t have to get it all done in one fell swoop, but can take as long as you like and do it until you have it exactly the way you want it. When it’s finally perfect, then you can put it in your shopping cart and order – just like you are buying anything else on line. And to the very end, they are asking if you still want to review your book before finalizing the order. Ooops! I’m getting carried away loving to help on this. 🙂 Lemme know if I talk too much.
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I know what you mean. A lot of my links go unused too, but every now and then someone enjoys it and leaves me a note.
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Not at all!! I appreciate all the advice. I’m going to get started tomorrow. Right now, I’m going to bed! nite-nite!
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You genius! I am copying this post. I want a copy of my posts, not only there when I pay wordpress. Thank you!
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This is gold! I have researched a few self publishers, but this could be just the answer. I think I would take a few of my categories and just do those. What a Christmas gift that would be! Thank you, thank you, Dor!
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Thanks so much for sharing this bookmaking experience. I have been considering it since you mentioned it in a post some time back. You have inspired me. I will check it out.
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Oh my gosh! I love this idea and will check it out. During my first year of blogging, I did print my posts and compiled them in a three-ring binder — not nearly as beautiful as your book! But then, I got lazy and stopped printing them, but kept thinking I really should preserve them on hard copy just for my kids and (hopefully) grandchildren to look back on someday. Thanks for this great info!!
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No genius here. I have a son who is “up” on all these techie wonders and he is the one who showed me the way. 🙂
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Oh yes. I thought it was a truly lovely Christmas gift even though the grandchildren may not have time to appreciate it now. You are so welcome Georgette! Lemme know if I can help. 🙂
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You’re welcome coastalcrone and I hope you find it easy to navigate. It was a little intimidating at first but like anything new, it gets easier and they let you come back and back so you can take your time to get things right. 🙂
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I did the same thing – printed out each post for a while and then got lazy. I haven’t printed anything at all for this blog so am relieved to have ordered the book now. Wonder what cloud computing is and if we could use it for storing our blogs. Eeek. Too much technology right now for my feeble mind. Good luck mama and let me know how it goes or if I can help. 🙂
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Cool! How do the photographs turn out?
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The photos are crisp and clean Lilly, but too small. If you were to do it, you should inquire about the finished size and see if the photos can be bigger. Your photos are too special to be reduced in size.
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Thanks for the input. Right now I print and spiral bind the text as a backup, but the pics would take too much ink and not be good quality. Some day, I may try self-publishing.
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It would be a shame not to showcase your photos! I say “go for it.” 🙂
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🙂
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[…] into downloading my blogs to create a photo album. Dor, over at Virginia Views, tried blog2print.com and was happy with the […]
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