Very soon, we would be down to our last few copies of A Little Daily Dose. It would be great to print a second edition but do we want to run another crowdfunding campaign? Probably not. Out of the ten thousand things that I could be doing, I decided to experiment with Blurb.
How I got to know about Blurb
Back when A Little Beijing was featured in PSFK’s Good Design in 2009, I was thrilled that a hardcover book with a dust jacket flew from the United States to Singapore — just for me.
Today, Blurb has evolved into a sophisticated book publishing website and PSFK’s Good Design in 2009 remains available.
The Blurb experience
In five days, the book was printed and bound in Tukwila, Washington. Another five days later, it arrived in San Francisco, well packed in a corrugated fiberboard book wrap.
The side of the book was slightly dented but was quickly resolved after I tried to smoothen it out with my thumb.
Flipping through the pages, I still very much prefer the original cream paper over the white ones. The original exposed spine binding allows the book to lay flat while the perfect-bound book feels a little stiff. The latter, however, could accommodate the title printed on the spine — something I would have liked on our original version but was told risky. I am not too sure about the glossy cover but it has its merits.
Overall, this digitally printed book turned out way better than I had imagined. It is awesome to know that there is a company out there that could deliver one single copy of our book to someone.
Originally published at http://linzybearswings.wordpress.com on December 20, 2019.