[rich d]

Hi I've written my kids a book for xmas. Anyone got recommendations or experience of printing just one book for them. (Not into vanity publishing) google seems to be recommending lulu.com
Cheers Rich

[tomtom]

Father in Law uses blurb for making loads of brochures(books really) for art expos, photo albums, holidays etc.. Not text heavy more focussed on pictures so not sure how relevant that would be..?

[tomtom]

Nice idea by the way.. Bet they'll be chuffed

[robertostallioni]

stick it up here, rich and we'll give it some proof reading 

[rich d]

No idea how to put a pdf onto here so I've just copied and pasted the text - working on pics at the moment. All comments welcome, my kids are 4 and 6.

The Christmas Croft

The Croft is furry and very soft,
He usually lives in Santa's loft.
Mischievously he hid himself away,
On Christmas Eve under Santa's sleigh.

The sleigh flew on over different lands,
The croft couldn't hold on with soft furry hands.
He fell down into a world he didn't know,
So he found a place to hide out of the snow.

Snuggled up, he slept until the summer sun,

When he was woken up by Rebecca and Imogen.
Their newfound friend was all alone,
So together they decided to find his home.

Rebecca took the lead as she knew the most,
And by bus and train they made it to the coast,
Hidden in a backpack with the sandwiches and tea,
Imogen carried him carefully on a boat across the sea.

Back on land they followed the Northern Lights,
Towards the Pole they travelled through the night.
And here The Croft came into his own,
As they neared his icy northern home.

Frost magic called great snow bears to ride,
And furs to wear, and igloos in which to hide.
Through arctic storms and blizzardy blasts,
Icebergs and glaciers were soon all passed.
Until they found themselves at Santa's door,
Their little friend was away from home no more.
And as the elves and reindeers gathered round,
They heard a deep, laughing, jolly sound.

"My long lost Croft" shouted Santa Claus,
Swinging the little creature around by his paws.
"As my way of thanking you, you'll always see,
A special Santa chocolate hanging from your tree"

And on every Christmas morning that ever comes around,
On their tree Santa's promise will always be found.

(PS The girls have always had a chocolate santa on the tree that Santa must put there when he drops off the pressies.)

[tomtom]

That's wonderful

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Good work.  You could just create a photo book and have verses as captions.

[Dave Flanagan]

I recently used Lulu for a draft copy of  book I'm working on. It was very cheap €15 for 100 page, a5. The quality was pretty good, the paper was a little light but overall the book was very well put together.

[rich d]

Cheers guys. I'll work on the pics over the weekend and play with Blurb and Lulu.com both are going to look better than my printer and staples! I've used photobox for a photbook (album thing) before.

[cofe]

I was disappointed with some Blurb ones I had done 18 months ago. Photobox are ok, no frills.

[dave]

I keep hearing mixed things about Blurb, some people rate them. If you've got a mac you can also order books directly with Aperture - don't know who actually does their stuff though, if its UK based or if they ship them over from the states or whatever.

[Paul B]

Cheers guys. I'll work on the pics over the weekend and play with Blurb and Lulu.com both are going to look better than my printer and staples! I've used photobox for a photbook (album thing) before.

there's another one currently on TV with an offer on your first book, it starts with an A but I can't remember past that. If I see it again I'll post it up.

[Johnny Brown]

I was disappointed with some Blurb ones I had done 18 months ago.

You're a pro word, your standards are too high. I thought they were surprisingly good for the money.

[Duma]

 

 

[Jaspersharpe]

Nice one rich d!

[andyd]

I heard that blurb has reduced the quality of the paper (?)

[fatneck]

Awesome Rich!! 

[rich d]

Cheers for the positive comments guys, I'd just like to confirm that no knee bars were used during the writing.

[abarro81]

But did you use a pen with a rubber grip?

[andy_e]

You still uploaded that video of you blow-torching a previous draft though...

[rich d]

trying to post the first pic I've done, but can't seem to get it to link. On the wife's just works pad so having to use Flickr app... Piece of crap that it is.

[rich d]

Bit of a chrimbo update, after the book thing last year (that we now read as a tradition (if that's possible in a year) over Christmas) I've set up a fake Rudolf Reindeer on facebook, so my kid's think their mum is friends with Rudolf, which makes her  .
Rudolf is basically updating his profile daily with some photos of the training he's doing before the big evening and on xmas eve. I was planning on sending some messages to the kids/tagging them on a couple of photos of the sleigh with their presents, aerial POV photos of the house sort of thing. Send a friend request to https://www.facebook.com/rudolf.reindeer.712 or search for Rudolf reindeer in facebook.
Also if anyone else fancies posting updates as Rudolf PM and you can have the log in details, so that we can make it more realistic - widespread.

PS. If you're a miserable bah humbugger then don't bother.

 

Rich and Rudolf