Text in Blurb

by Deborah Khora
(Placerville, California)

Who profits from Baum's Wizard of Oz today?

Tales From the Enchanted Forest, POD by Blurb, soon to be published by XLibris.

I don't have the answer to my question above. If I did, I would not have asked it. That was just a hook to reel you onto the lonely shores of my blogspot, where my book is displayed, self-published by Blurb.com. But, I promise, I'll do the research and find out who is profiting from The Wizard of Oz today. We all know it isn't author Baum! And actually, he published many, many books and it was definitely not his writing that got him published, it was his imagination. Go see for yourself in the local library. His writing is not so hot!

I have somehow always had this idea in my head long before I wrote and published my book: that I myself would probably not profit. This helps to temper my expectations. Of course, we are all truly inspired by authors such as J.K. Rowlings who are benefiting from the fruits of their labors in their own day.

But I don't intend for this post to be about me, or my book really. I am here to share my self-publishing experience with Blurb.com, in retrospect.

I think, in retrospect, Blurb is really meant for photographers to publish their books with small "blurbs" of text describing the details of their pictures. The text-making aspect of Blurb is far different than Microsoft Word, or Word Perfect, and it is difficult to use. Editing can be extraordinarily difficult if one is dealing with large blocks of text, as in my book. A picture book would work just as well at Blurb, but again, with small blurbs of text. Blurb utilizes templates. You choose a page layout design and must work within the format. They, like Apple, appear to place greater value on graphics or photos, rather than text.

The printing, binding and shipping, in our case, was excellent. The graphics were sufficient, although we are aware of a graphics enhancement feature. We can improve the quality of the graphics, but there is very little we can do to improve the quality of the text except re-block it, rather than organize it in standard paragraph form.

The text justification feature is not worth using. It cuts off letters at the end. For instance, if a word ends with a g, you'll probably only see a half-g in print. So, basically in the end, everyone comes out pretty happy...except the author, who specializes in text. Probably the most valuable advice I can offer if you publish with Blurb is to order one demo copy for yourself first before opening the book up to public sale. Do NOT order multiple copies of the first run! The savings you earn on a 10-book purchase is not worth the grief when you realize how faulty the editing feature is, and you'll have to edit a second, or even third time. Afterall, the text is a reflection of the author's skills.

As for marketing, Blurb does offer coupons, which I can offer to customers. In spite of the existing obstacles at Blurb, I do have faith in them still, and do tend to believe they will not leave us entirely abandoned floundering on these lonely shores. We are their meal-ticket after all. I wrote Blurb an e-mail informing them that I promote them nearly every day on Facebook. I am a political activist interacting with literally hundreds, if not thousands of parents and grandparents fighting the corruption in family court. I am always suggesting these people publish their stories, or create books of their children, by their children, and for their children. I mentioned to Blurb the least they could do in compensation is offer more coupons.

The book has been out for two months and we have sold 10 books. Only one customer used a coupon so far. Overall, I recommend the program. If nothing else you finally have something to show for all your hard work. And, now that you know how difficult this is, do you really, really want to be a writer?

Visit Deborah Khora and Tales from the Enchanted Forest.