Blurb.com’s revenue has gone from $1MM to $30MM in two years. Self publishing is apparently insanely profitable and still growing.
According to this twitter feed: Media is Thriving.
Blurb.com’s revenue has gone from $1MM to $30MM in two years. Self publishing is apparently insanely profitable and still growing.
According to this twitter feed: Media is Thriving.
12 Comments
I hope they gave Mike Barash (marketing director at Blurb) a big raise if he came up with and put together that competition last year? It would be interesting to compare how the other POD publishers did over that same time.
Soaring revenue does not necessarily mean profits.. just sayin’
Will it continue?
@cinemascapist – thank you!! i did not concept the idea – it was a team effort like most things here at blurb – but i will gladly accept the raise you suggest!! =)
@adrian – in this case revenue actually does come with some profits – we’re profitable now too! woo hoo!
@neil walker – i sure as shit hope so, because we’re all WAY committed to it.
all best,
mike
@Mike Barash, now just give us paypal option
lol
and easier to put photos on two page spreads
@Richard Louissaint,
I concur. All I shoot is panoramics, so I had a ton of work to do making a book without a “spread” option.
that’s fantastic! That’s the service that is treating people as creative partners not as sheeps! So web 2.0!
i’ve published a few books through blurb – its very easy but i’m not thrilled with how the colors look. they do have great customer support though – one of my books had pages glued together (http://geoffreymcallister.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_archive.html) and they were very nice and have since sent me 2 books to replace the 1 that was messed up.
perhaps this is why their customer service and quality declined precipitously in the last year.
It’s not surprising that blurb and amazon grew its revenue. All companies that offers cheap products in comparison to its competition will be favored in this economic climate. Plus the book creation concept is new and on the rise.
It is a fantastic business model and I’m all for empowering the individual. If they could only get their qaulity control issues sorted out, they’d really be on the golden path.
That’s because they have a ton of charges. They not only charge you a minimum price on each copy they print, they also take a percentage of the profit margin you place on the book. I did a 60 odd page 7×7″ softcover book as a catalogue for a group exhibition. I charged $20 for the book, blurb take $16 of that per copy, plus they charge $5 processing fee when they mail you a check, which they will do every month, provided you make at least $25 profit. If you don’t they money will sit in their account until that $25 minimum is reached. For my example, I’d have to sell 7 books a month in order to receive a $20 check. And it costs almost $10 postage to order 1 book, going up to almost $30 when you order 100.
All those small charges add up to one great big profit!
Self publishing is great, and the blurb books I’ve done have been decent for what they are, but the only way as a photographer to make any money off it is to order a stack of books yourself and sell them on. Or charge the same amount of money you’d pay for a proper professional publication. Otherwise, you’re just paying blurb to make you a nice promotional tool!
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