Creating Books

Creative people couldn't be living at a better time.
Our techie counterparts have made it soooo easy for us to take our ideas and make them into interesting and memorable products that can be used for ourselves, shared, and sold.
I'm talking about books. Picture books. Word books. Work books. And play books.
The internet abounds with places to put your creative works on paper.

Photography lovers have a multitude of options for creating picture books that are of artistic nature, or just a photo album for the family or to commemorate an event. I'm no photography buff, nor am I a graphic artist, but I was able to make a photo book for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary in minutes using apple's program straight from my iphoto library.

There are so many times these sites would be a great resource: weddings, birthdays, art portfolio, kids' artwork keepsake book, and I recently saw someone who scanned all of her concert tickets and made a book of concert memories. (Makes me wanna scream "freebird!") And how about a cookbook with photos? So many ideas, so little time. (a Right Brainer's curse) And for all you bloggers, you can turn your blog posts and photos into a book on blurb as well. (see example on their site)

Just a few resources for creating photo books are:
blurb
snapfish
ophoto
flickr
bighugelabs - lots of fun products
apple - using iphoto
lulu

For the writers, there are countless websites that allow you to create anything and everything you want in book form and on some there is no cost at all besides the printing and shipping. And what I love on many is that you can print one or thousands.
I have used lulu.com myself for a workbook, tips books, and a coloring/how-to playbook for organizing. But there are so many places to go if you want a printed book of your own poetry, comic strips or any other writing.
Some options are:
lulu
iuniverse
booksurge
xlibris


Information about Publishing and Printing on Demand
http://www.publishondemand.net/
http://www.sfwa.org/BEWARE/printondemand.html


If you are planning to sell your product to the masses, be aware of new policies that Amazon.com is putting into place.

Have you made any print on demand books???
Tell us about your book and the experience!