Print your own Blog
I have been blogging for almost 2 years now. For the first several months I used Blogger, then I converted it to the WordPress platform. I always hosted the blog through my hosting company. The thought that something would happen to the database and loose ALL the posts I have ever written made me uneasy. Also, I realize that there are many people out there that do not/will not/cannot read blogs. Even if they do, they don’t realize the extend of work, reflection, learning, connections, and the process of writing a blog takes.
That realization somehow sets in when they see a book, that was printed from the blog. I have seen in happen after I had the China Blog and Egypt Blog printed out as a physical book. Most people commented, that they just didn’t realize what was behind these scrolling posts.
Having a printed version of my blog work serves as a back up as well as a portfolio item for non-techie people that need to see the work in a media that they are comfortable with.
Check out Blogprinting.com, if you have a WordPress blog (even hosted through your own hosting company), Movable Type and TypePad. You can give your username and password and the wizard will pull every post from your blog and create a .pdf file for you. You can can also upload a front and back cover. I created them in Photoshop with screenshots of the category tags and the blog theme photos. The only disadvantage of blogprinting.com is that it does NOT import your blog’s comments. I had contacted them a few months back and they responded that they are not capable of importing comments at this point in time.
Another company I have used to print blog books is Lulu.com. The website does not import your blog post directly. You have to upload your own manuscript as a .pdf or Word Document. I have done this by copying and pasting each individual post and comments into a Word Document. Very tedious…but worth the effort if you want all your comments included.
I have not found a printing company that allows the automatic import of a non-Wordpress hosted blog AND includes the comments. Please let me know if you are aware of such a service.
Prices to print blog books are very reasonable, I paid ~ U$12, including shipping for color cover with black and white interior print.
Silvia,
this looks great…I’ll check it out and maybe treat myself.
It really looks great Silvia!
Hmm … now you’ve get me thinking … about moving to WordPress from Blogger and printing the blook … hmmm …
Happy Holidays!
Cheers,
Darren
How wonderful – there’s something about an “analog” version of our writings! I commend you for your continued posts – keep on blogging!
This is a great idea – as both a back up and a keepsake. I was talking to someone the other day about the impermanence of all the electronic information we will leave behind someday. I love looking at things my grandmother wrote. It’s something I’ll keep in mind for the future.
Ann
What a great idea. I’ve been blogging for less than one year and this would make a good record. I went to Blogprinting, did the quick print to get an idea of format, but was dismayed to see that embedded videos show as code only. What is the case for the paid version? Do you just get a line of code or a ‘front-page’ view?
Hi Doug,
Even the paid version does not come with an image for the video clips from Blogprinting. If you will go through a service like Lulu.com and create your own manuscript, you can take a screenshot of the video and embed it as an image inside your post.
Thanks for the info. You’ve just sold me on Lulu. Fortunately, as a new blogger, I don’t have too many pages to format.
[...] treated myself to a little Christmas present this year after reading Silvia’s post on how she published her blog. Actually minutes after reading her blog I went to work creating my [...]