MyPublisher versus Smilebooks and a few other publisher/printer reviews

by Sharon

My photo books are mostly nature chronicles from various expeditions (India, Antarctica, Africa, etc). The other type of book I've done is vacation travel. I started doing books about 4 years ago when there were just a few publishers to choose from. Here's who I used and a few comments on them:

MYPUBLISHER Overall, the finished product is the best I've seen, but it takes quite a bit of effort to get there.
PLUSES:
(1) book size choice. I make 11.25 x 8.75 panoramas. The slight extra size over 11x8 or other books around that size is quite noticeable.
(2) Translucent rice paper fly sheet. This is a really wonderful feature, making for a very finished, professional looking book. I generally create something colorful to put behind it as a first page. Mypublisher is the only one offering this type of flysheet (I think).
(3) Replaceable Dust jacket. Can't say enough good things about this option. Again, it makes for a professional-looking finished product. Plus, with mypublisher, you can create just a dust jacket, so if you don't like the first one, or it gets damaged or worn, it can be replaced without building another whole book.
(4) Customer service is extremely responsive and helpful.
(5) Paper and print quality are quite good.
(6) This is a BIG one - can create books with over 100 pages. Most of your 5-star publishers have an upper page limit of 50 or 60 pages. Most of my books are longer than that.

Minuses:
(1) The software allows the least flexibility of any I've used. Until very recently, only a few fonts were offered. That's now been expanded, but font color choice is still black or white. Very limited choice of backgrounds which don't cross book-style. Totally fixed templates - no ability to re-arrange or add. Limited template choice. Can't stretch photos across pages without doing it yourself, which is dicey because of the gutter and page cropping. Can't use photos as backgrounds. There's lots more..... I've been making many of my pages in Photoshop, then importing them into mypublisher and using them as full-bleed pages. This is a pain.
(2) The software is quirky. Last year, I lost an entire book and had to recreate it.
(3) No add-ons, such as clipart.
(4) No borders, frames, or drop shadows.

BLURB I only used once 2 years ago, so things may have changed
Pluses:
(1) You can sell your books
(2) Fairly easy to use
Minuses: a friend and I did nearly-identical books, one of us using mypublisher and one using Blurb. The colors in the mypublisher book were more saturated and appealing, as was the photo sharpness. Also, the book size choices are unappealing to me.

SMILEBOOKS I just found this publisher and I LOVE them!! Easy to use, totally flexible, lots of art and backgrounds. Can use any font on your computer, can color match it to anything, can even outline it! Can stretch photos across pages. Great!! Fast, fast delivery. Very heavy paper and excellent print quality. Can go up to 130 pages.
MINUSES: These are big ones to me. 11x8 is too small, and 12x12 is too big. Smilebooks is built on European size standards. Only 1 cover option for the 11x8 book. It's a glossy photo cover. Because of the smaller book size (11x8), the finished product looks similar to a children's story book. A dust cover would be ideal for this size book. You can only add pages in incremets of 8. So, you have to plan very, very carefully to hit it on the nose.
For me, Smilebooks will only work for vacation books, and not for the more serious journals. I just made a very small (5.5x5) "birthday book" for a friend.... it was a kick to create and looks wonderful. If Smilebooks would add 1 more book size, a dust jacket, and a ricepaper flysheet, they would be perfect from my point of view.

SNAPFISH Easy to use, fairly good options, good print quality. I used them once to create a vaction book. The size options were ok, and they offered a dust cover, which was great. The slightly smaller size (as compared to MyPublisher) and lack of a rice-paper flysheet were the deal-breakers for me. However, Snapfish is a good option for someone who wants to build a colorful book without a lot of custom work.

PICABOO Same comments as for Snapfish.