The two Blurb Vol. 8 books arrived a few days before the scheduled delivery. The interiors were perfect – well, aside from a small quarter-page photo that was accidentally repeated. The exterior however was a very different story. Check out the books’ spines:
I’ve printed about a dozen Blurb books over eight years now, and the jacket covers have always been correctly aligned, so this is the first time I’ve seen such a thing happen. So, an email got sent to Blurb support asking them to check – which they did in short order to explain that it was user layout error. This picture was included in their reply:
So, I checked the source version that I worked on and see what they meant. The incorrect layout against book spines however were extremely easy to miss, and the warning messages in BookWright not helpful enough for users to have realized it. And I thought I was a fairly expert user already. Finally, I didn’t remember BookWright’s Expert PDF Proof showing the misaligned cover pictures in this fashion too.
In any case, fine – my bad. I did not however need both books to be reprinted as the contents themselves were fine – just specifically the dust jackets were in error. So, I asked how I could reprint just the jackets.
To which Blurb replied nein, not possible to print just the dust jackets. To get the correct jackets, I’ll have to fully reprint both books again, but here’s a 35% discount coupon to offset the several hundred dollars I’ll have to spend to get them redone. And even with that, I reckon I’ll have to spend about SGD300.
Frankly, even though BookWright’s UI made it very easy for users to miss the layout anomaly, I admit I goofed the layout here. But I just don’t see why book jackets can’t be re-printed separately: the books themselves are fine.
So, in conclusion, reminders to self that in future:
Check again, and again, and again.
Do not use Blurb again. Not because of their printing quality, but their lack of satisfactory remedies when things go wrong.
I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t simply print the dust jackets for a fee, even if their margins are minimal.
Exactly, bud. I admit it was my oversight, but the all or nothing problem solving approach offered from Blurb isn’t right either.
In any case, I’m ready to explore other printers for my next book, though that’ll also mean that the next books might not be quite the same size and form as the previous eight volumes now!