Blurb Bookify can make a bound book from your Facebook photos including your friends

Blurb self-published book from Facebook photos, including captions and comments if you wish

Blurb sent an email touting “The Facebook photos you like in a book you’ll”.

That might be a good idea – a real book of Facebook pictures. You can even include Facebook pictures of friends. 

Of course, some people argue that books are dead but we all like books and magazines to hold and look at. People really like seeing themselves in a book.

Blurb promised the process would be easy and I have to agree it is fairly simple to create a book.

A bound book with less than 200 pages will cost $40 for a soft cover and $60 for a hardcover book. There is also a $2 iPhone / iPad book.

Preparation is key

Blurb Bookify is a cloud based application that you allow to link to your Facebook photos. You can also include pictures you have “Liked” from friends.

It would be a good idea to get permission before you add Friends’ pictures since you don’t want to be a stalker. If your book is for sale, then the permission must in writing.

Once Bookify has found  your which only takes a few seconds, the next step is to pick the best ones for the book.

Slow down and spend some time deciding if you really want each picture in the book. A good yardstick for interest is photos that have lots of comments and likes are going to make your book more interesting.

Now is the time chose because uploading takes time – you can go have lunch while 200 pictures upload. Once the pictures are in Bookify, it is harder to cut duplicates and shots that don’t look good. Believe me. I just uploaded everything to save time I thought. Then I wasted time trying to delete photos I really didn’t like.

Editing the book layout

Bookify makes some smart decisions on how to layout the photos and where to put in your friends comments. You can just published the book like that but you might want to experiment with something different on a few pages to jazz it up.

The choices are comprehensive but here is where I prefer the Blurb Booksmart program to the online Bookify. With Booksmart you can create awesome formats and are professional level. With Bookify you are accepting the formats given.

Of course, if you are developing a professional photo book, you are not starting with Facebook photos which are highly compressed.  You would use the raw photos on your computer and Lightroom or Adobe Bridge to prep the book.

I am off on a tangent here since the idea of a Facebook photo book is to capture both the photos and your Friends comments. Bookify is perfect for this and the project can be done in a few hours, most of the time being spent picking the right photos.

The finished product

Blurb books are beautiful to hold and look at. They are as good as something printed by a professional publisher, only you did it.

I did a 10-year photo album last Christmas and it was a treasure to the people who got it.