Comments on: Blurb book review (II)

By: Guaira

Guaira — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:51:42 +0000

I agree with the folks that express dissatisfaction with Blurb. I just created a book of one of my daughter’s collage stories, and ordered one copy: looked great. Got excited and ordered 10 copies: looked great too, and friends, family and co-workers all wanted one. When I ran out of the 10 copies, I ordered 10 more. YIKES! Should’ve read the comments on this page earlier and counted myself lucky to get 11 copies that were not messed up. These last 10 copies are terribly finished, with the hard cover improperly glued to the body of the book (the white paper that glues onto the hard cover–front and back–is full of bubles, as if my 4 year old had glued it). Contacted customer support and they were very nice, and agreed to send me a new set… and asked me to return the deffective ones to them! HUH?! What are they going to do with them? It makes me feel that, even though I sent them photos of the issue, they do not believe me. Also, it is the first time EVER that when ordering something that is custom-made, and having an issue, I am asked to return it to the seller/manufacturer. It is just a TERRIBLE policy. Makes the company look cheap and distrustful of its customers. Plus, even though they will–in theory–be sending me a UPS label to pay for the shipping, who is paying for my time to take the darn box of books to the UPS store?!
That’s it for me, I will NEVER do business with Blurb again. I will start looking into the services listed in this page (thanks everyone who has listed one!)

By: Caroline

Caroline — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:37:43 +0000

I am right there with you all. I just spent $1,500 on 50 books that I needed on a tight deadline; I am a photographer and pretty savvy at making books (have made with MyPublisher and Apple) and felt the printer version was very high quality and expected better from final copy. WRONG. VERY DARK, cut off 1/4 inch on the inside pages on full bleed, no phone number, takes 48 hours to respond. I wrote and actually BEGGED them to pick up the phone and call me so we could discuss and I got a response from Mike saying “we do not currently offer phone support.” I imagine this is two guys with no office outsourcing printing with no quality oversight. never again. A waste of money. These books were for a Charitable Event so I gave them out anyway and then remade the order with MyPublisher. The quality difference is night and day. Blurb’s customer service is so bad…..they didn’t offer anything and told me to mail the books back and they would “make a determination”. I can print outstanding photos but they can’t print anything even remotely close, even though I ordered premium paper. I am reporting to BBB.

By: Mus

Mus — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:13:02 +0000

The blurb software is so crap. An absolute nightmare to use.And now when i try to publish the book it doesnt work, after all the hours iv spent formatting my book i cant even buy it. anyone else having this problem?

By: Nicole

Nicole — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:49:54 +0000

I purchased a book of 110 pages. I liked the blurb software and liked all the options they provided. I am extremely disappointed with their customer service. There is no contact number on my invoice and my book came damaged. A torn corner sleeve and 50 plus pages of bent up corner pages. The book was a gift for our photography teacher who spent hundreds of hours teaching students about photography and environmental awareness and it was his end of the year gift. It has been almost two weeks and no one at Blurb has responded or replaced my book. I sent pictures from my iphone with in the hour I opened and received my book. It cost me $115 dollars for a damaged book! I would never recommend them to anyone. It is very strange to have no phone contact on their website or on their invoice. Two Thumbs down as a dependable service! I plan to file a complaint with the better business bureau and the Action Line.

Nicole

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:25:48 +0000

I agree. The Blurb books are lately very very tight. I don’t like that at all and have stopped using Blurb. For full page photos you lose almost half an inch due to their tight binding and its hard to page through the book.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:23:57 +0000

Blurb cares little about quality!!! I doubt if they even check the quality before they ship it.

I have ordered now 6 books, and they had to replace 3. Go figure. 50% is pretty bad!

The latest problem (which they don’t even want to rectify with a replacement book) is their extremely tight binding so I lose a good inch of my photos and the book is hard to open. Obviously way too tight

I am now very keen to try another company.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:27:51 +0000

Add me to the list of pissed off people. I made my book as a guest book for my upcoming wedding. I previewed the book 10 times in their crappy software and everything was FINE. When the book came in, 85% of the pictures were just black squares. I was floored when I realized there was no phone number! I agree, who does that for customer service? I emailed back and forth with a woman who was rude and kept putting the blame on me, telling me the preview would have shown the pictures as black. IT DIDN’T! She also told me to plan better for personal deadlines. She was rude and unprofessional. I’m waiting for my reprinted book and am praying it gets to me in time for my wedding, which is in a week and a half. We’ll see

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:16:54 +0000

Blurb.com is a joke. I ordered large format books of all of black and white photographs and most of the photographs in the books i received have large pink and light purple blotches on the photographs. The quality is very bad. Also, I ordered premium paper and it does not look like they were printed on premium paper. I would not show these books to anyone.

I was trying to get final draft of this book so that I can order 300 copies, but I continue to encounter major quality problems with Blurb.

I am returning these books and removing the charge from my credit card.

By: Pasha

Pasha — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:57:51 +0000

I think we should sue Blurb for false advertisement!!!! I still haven’t received my book and have received several emails stating that my book has shipped a shipping tracking number, then another email staing that they had a processing delay and my book was on hold??????? Didn’t I just get an email with a shipping confirmation??? What a joke this company is and I should have known not to use a company that has no contact number, I will stick to apple iphoto books like I should have in the first place. The limited sizes are sooo worth the hassle of Blurb that I have experienced thus far. Is there a management contact for Blurb? Does anyone know? If I don’t get my book soon I will be filing a complaint with the better business bureau and FTC Bureau of Consumer Affairs……anyone want to join me? This type of service really pisses me of and I can’t stand nor will I tolerate incompetence. http://www.dca.ca.gov that is the website for California Consumer Affairs since that is where the idiots are located.

By: Krisalis

Krisalis — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:46:20 +0000

HORRIBLE HORRIBLE experience with Blurb. After spending days and days working on a project for a Christmas present, the files failed to open. “Customer service” and “technical support” got back to me A WEEK AND A HALF LATER and “helped” me to recover only about half of what I had worked on.

Then, my “estimated ship date” is not until December 30 (uh, when is Christmas again?) Stress, waste of time, horrible HORRIBLE service. Unacceptable.