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1 stars
Version: Blurb 1
"Poor printing quality, overall bad experience"
Pros: SmartBook is the only thing I enjoyed about my very bad experience with Blurb. Do check out other providers and if you're a pro, use an off-set or real life digital professional printing service. At the end of the day, you'll save money and won't have to go through emotional distress.
Cons: "Blurb guarantees your satisfaction with the workmanship of your book."
Blurb.com
Sadly, they don't exactly follow this.
If you're an art student, faculty member (well, some of my professors were not that happy with my idea of using Blurb to print my thesis book), or a professional artist, Blurb is not the place to get your work published.
I initially printed my book with them and had to return all the books. The book had strong cyan (turquoise) and green casts. They have serious problems with the printing of the covers (extremely dark), because the same file I used for the cover I used inside the book and the difference in printing is dramatic. To add more book drama to my case, the cover also curled.
The quality of the paper was fine, but nothing to write home about.Their software is fantastic, though; the only nice part of this experience was working with their BookSmart application.
My mistake? Not ordering a "demo" book. I didn't do it based on a couple of peers' previous experiences of ordering one single book to see how the printing quality was, and then ordering more books and getting something completely different. After this happened to me, I've seen a ton of reviews complaining about this particular issue. "I got a demo and then got completely different books in my second order" I thought it was a waste of time.
The grand closing of my case is the customer support. Very nice and polite, I have to admit. However, I initially got the promise of a full refund (minus one of the books I kept for my archive), and then surprise, surprise! Because my customer support agent bought a book in a bookstore with a "slight curling on the cover" apparently similar to mine, he and his boss decided I didn't deserve the full refund, but only two-thirds of my money back. Wow! OK. So you promise something, treat a workmanship defect that your product has as something minor, and then you drop your offer? OK.
For the $20 I paid for each paperback book, I expected a flawless product, as you should for any expensive product. I didn't get anything close to that.
I will never use them again.
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