Hannah and Peter’s first Blurb book arrived just before the Deepavali public holiday yesterday. This is the seventh book I’ve worked on, with a two year gap from the sixth book. Funnily, every time I finish one, I tell myself I’ll want to do the next one in a year – largely in view that I take so many pictures of our kids that I need an annual schedule to keep up, or be forced to drop a lot of pictures that should go into their printed photo collections. For the next time round though, I’m gonna have to figure out a way to make sure I do get Book VIII out in a year’s time, hopefully easier since we should have plenty of great pictures to select from our upcoming family vacation at year’s end.
The new Book VII covers the period when we’d just returned from our Telunas Beach Resort trip in 2012, up till early October this year. The new book is also just a shade thinner at 214 pages than the one before, which finished at 220 pages; though there are a lot more pictures in the new one – 346 versus 289, largely made possible because there are a lot more multi-picture page panels, and also by reducing the number of blog posts included in the book’s appendices. The cost of book production has gone out significantly on the other hand. Two copies of Book VI, and printed using all the best print and paper options on offer – ProLine Pearl Photo paper, ProLine Black End Sheets, ProLine Charcoal Linen, hard cover with dust jacket – cost US$218.84 two years ago, and two copies of the slightly thinner Book VII cost US$263.18 now – an hefty 20% increase. Ironically, right after the books arrived, the store ran a 25% discount for printed books. Gaah. If I’d only waited for a fortnight more.
The book as arrived continues to feel very premium. Great photo paper quality, and no printing errors. I didn’t feel as satisfied with the photos inside it this time though. There were odd color casts in a couple of pictures that I didn’t observe in the on-screen previews before I sent to print, and my workflow has not changed from the last book. Or maybe it’s also that the work on this book was a little rushed, and more thought should have gone into the selection and touch-up of the pictures.
Still, the effort was justified against the outcome. Hannah was thrilled with the book, and enjoyed going through each page of pictures of her growing years. Peter can’t quite enjoy the book yet – he’s more likely going to lick, or worse still, chew on the pages if he has his hands on it – but in a year’s time, he should be able to.:)
These are really fabulous productions. I can only imagine what they’ll cost to produce ten years from now!
I hopped through the above link to the Telunas Beach blog entries. It’s hard for me to believe it’s been well over two years since then. Looking back, that is one sharp looking staff t-shirt the egg chef is wearing in one of the pictures in entry 7. I wish I had talked someone there into selling me one.
I have a Telunas beach shirt, bud – just not the one the chef in the picture was wearing. Hardly ever wear it though, as it’s a little too big for me LOL.