Blurb, Inc.

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Blurb Inc.
Type	Private
Founded	Incorporated 2005
Headquarters	San Francisco, CA, USA
Key people	Eileen Gittins, CEO
Industry	Publishing
Products	BookSmart
Employees	unknown
Website	www.blurb.com

Blurb is a company which provides a print on demand publishing service for the general public. It offers a free downloadable book layout software client, BookSmart, with which potential authors create their books using their own text and images. The completed book layout can then be uploaded to Blurb's web server, after which copies may be ordered for printing and delivery. Blurb also allows authors to sell their books to anyone and retain a mark-up on the printing costs as author profit. An ISBN number can be obtained through any ISBN provider and added to a book for distribution through third party retailers.

Blurb prints books in full-color, with hard or soft covers, in four different sizes and formats.

The company was founded in 2004 by Eileen Gittins and funded by Canaan Partners and Anthem Venture Partners. Blurb's headquarters are located in San Francisco, California.

1 BookSmart
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

[edit] BookSmart

Blurb's BookSmart software tool is designed to allow users with no experience in publishing layout or graphic design to lay out a professional looking book. It contains multiple templates, into which users can drag and drop images and text. BookSmart is capable of importing content directly from blogs, one's computer, Flickr photo sets, iPhoto albums, Picasa web albums, and SmugMug. A major consideration is that material can only be imported, not exported. The only output is paper books purchased from blurb.com and locally printed pages with a watermark superimposed on them indicating they are proofs.

BookSmart runs on Windows 2000, Vista or XP, and on Mac OS X. Blurb released the beta version of BookSmart in May 2006, following a trade premiere at the 2006 DEMO consumer technology conference in February 2006^[1]. Nearly 10,000 individuals signed up to receive BookSmart while the software was still in its beta-testing phase^[2].

In contrast to competing print-on-demand publisher Lulu, Blurb does not provide the capability to upload an arbitrary PDF file for printing. All books designed for printing with Blurb must be laid out using BookSmart. However, the software provides full bleed blank page templates which allow bookmakers to add their own page designs, imported as jpgs from any graphic design application.

Time Magazine named Blurb one of 2006's "50 Coolest Web Sites,"^[3] and the service has been featured in the New York Times^[4], Wired News^[5], USA Today^[6], and elsewhere^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11].