A Paper and Ink Version of a Blog?

May 21, 2007 10:29 PM

I'd like to make a nice paper 'n' ink book version of a blog to give as a gift.

My husband has a blogspot blog that's heavy on public domain illustration. He doesn't have a huge amount of entries, but his posts tend to be really long and therefore would need to be broken down into multiple pages. I'd like to print out a paper version for him, preferably with a nice cover and binding, as an anniversary gift. I thought about using my own printer, but it's really not up to the job.
Has anyone else tried to do this? Is there a publisher out there that specializes in one-off books that can convert a blog, or am I on my own?

posted by maryh to computers & internet (5 comments total)

If you convert his blog posts to PDF, you can upload it to Lulu.com and have them print out a custom book.
posted by junesix at 10:42 PM on May 21, 2007

The term you are looking for is Blook - "an online book published via a blog, or a printed book that contains or is based on content from a blog."

AS junesix said, Lulu is a popular publisher of blooks and you might also be eligible to win the Lulu Blooker Prize.
posted by pchere at 11:10 PM on May 21, 2007

I printed up my blog through blurb. I didn't actually use their blog-to-book service, just created it as a normal book. A good service if his blog uses lots of photos.
posted by cwhitfcd at 2:16 AM on May 22, 2007

I'm working on this myself. My approach is to put some time into it in order to gain the best book results possible. You might prefer a different balance of priority - automated services exist, but are typically quite limited at anything much beyond being a text dump. (eg page layout)

Since there aren't too many entries, but they are long, I suggest lulu for printing, after designing the book yourself, by creating it in Word (ie copying and pasting the entries from the site). Because this way, once you have all the text and pics are in the word document, you can go through it and lay each page out nicely, start each entry on a fresh page, make sure the pictures have their own page, or are appropriately placed amongst the text, add in chapter/spacer title pages for each year, add table of contents, etc etc.

There are instructions at lulu on how to go from a word document to a printed book. Read those before you start, as it will save you some headaches to know the requirements as you're setting up your document.

(I'm taking the DIY word approach on a blog with 600+ entries and lots of comments)
posted by -harlequin- at 5:22 AM on May 22, 2007

Previously:

How can I get my old dead blog on paper?

Can I turn my blog into a book

Turning HTML into a book

How to edit and print from blogspot

posted by dmd at 6:07 AM on May 23, 2007