Creating Blog Books

With a quick Google search, I ran into some helpful blog posts about printing blogs and making books out of blogs.  This one was the first one I found, and it was quite helpful.  The comments were as informative as the actual post.  From that article, I looked into a few options:  Blurb (too complex and time consuming for what I wanted), BookFabrik (easy and looked great but didn't keep my text and pictures ordered properly), Blogbooker, and Blog2Print.  The latter two have my recommendation, and I am actually using both:

Blogbooker.com

This is a free, simple pdf.  You simply export your blog (they tell you how), put in your blog link, and they create a pdf to download.  (TIP: Once the page says it's completed, scroll down to see the link that enables you to download the pdf.  It will not automatically download.)

I actually did this once and realized that some of my pictures weren't showing up.  I checked my blog and discovered some of my html coding was off, so an hour later, all the images were fixed, and I created another pdf within a few minutes.

Pros:

• Quick and easy
• Free, so you can update it at any time, no cost
• Great LINKED table of contents
• You may choose to include comments and footnoted links.
• This is a good option for having a back-up electronic copy of your blog that is viewable and user-friendly.

Cons:

• The format of the posts is not pretty.  It's not really something I would want to print.  Margins and images and text are all over the place.  Image sizes vary throughout, depending on the type of image and coding used.
• You cannot choose dates or posts to exclude.  You get the entire blog.

Blog2Print.com

This service was definitely the highest recommended among fellow bloggers, and it quickly became obvious to me why.  Last night, I discovered it, created a book (still in process) to cover blog posts from pregnancy to Nathanael's first birthday, and created another book (just ordered) of my letters to Nathanael during his first year.  This is really a great, quick service.  After having a few issues, I ran into this tutorial which I wish I had read first as it would have saved me some time.  I'll address those shortly, but first the pros and cons.

Pros:

• It's not difficult to use, especially compared to a program like Blurb.  Of course, Blurb gives you a ton more options, but Blog2Print is better for the blogger who doesn't want to spend months (or even hours!) creating a book.
• Options!!!
• Choose dates, posts, comments, additional pictures, additional pages...
• You can even choose posts by labels which was a wonderful feature for me in making a book from my "Dear Nathanael" letter posts! 
• You can share your books through email or html code.  Ideally I would include the book here, but the coding wasn't seamless, so maybe this "pro" isn't as great as it sounds...

Cons:

• It's easy to get caught up into customizing a book, spend time choosing posts, comments, etc, and then you realize you didn't include something you wanted.  You have to start all over from the beginning if you didn't initially include a post or comment.
• It's not free.  The pdf cost is reasonable (around $8) for the quality of product.  The actual books seem a little expensive to me, but I'm not sure they're more expensive than having it printed at your local copy store.  Color prints often run around 50 cents per page at those stores, and that can add up with a couple hundred pages plus binding!
• No reordering of pages that I could discover.  I would've liked to have added a page at the beginning instead of at the end (still easy to do if I choose to print from the pdf).  And I would've liked to have reordered some of my posts (which I could do in blogger if I wanted, but I'm lazy).

Now for a few tips:

1. I found this random blogpost from someone after I made the same mistake, so I suggest you follow her suggestions as well.  ESPECIALLY THE PART ABOUT KEEPING YOUR FORMATTING, even though it will add more pages.  This was important for me since I often just post a few pictures with descriptive text above and wanted them to be in the correct order.
2. If you're picky, expect it to take a few tries to get it how you want it.  Save any text you write (such as the dedication) in another program so that you don't have to come up with it again.  Make a test book first so that you can see all the program options.  The books are easy to delete from your account, no charge.
3. Before creating your book, make sure all your images are appearing correctly on your blog.  For some reason, some of the image coding on a few month's worth of my pictures was messed up slightly, and I had to go back and fix those.  I should have checked that before getting into this process.

Once I receive my small book, I'll post a picture.  I still haven't decided what to do about the entire blog.  I'll probably end up buying the $8 pdf and find some cheaper way to print it and bind it on my own.  I like the idea of a three-ring binder so that I can cheaply add additional years' posts in the future...