Lulu Photo Book Review

ABOUT:

Lulu is a website that through an open publishing platform helps creators sell more content to readers.  Since 2002, more than 1. Million creators from more than 200 countries and territories have signed up and each month 20,000 titles are added.

So Lulu is a website where authors can publish everything from hardcover books to eBooks, photo books to calendars, all for free!  Authors keep the rights to their works and retain 80% of the profit they set when their books sell.  It is a global site and can reach customers just about anywhere, including Amazon.com and iBookstore.  Lulu’s mission is “To help remarkable people create and share remarkable ideas with the world.”

MY THOUGHTS:

Now I am by no means an author or publisher, but when I heard Lulu also does photo books I was intrigued.  The prices start at just $9.99 and go up from there depending on the size, format, and page count.

To create a book through Lulu, I found it to be really easy.  I liked the different design options available and that I didn’t have to download any software onto my computer.  I uploaded photos directly to the Lulu Studio but it is nice to know that you can import photos from popular sites like Facebook and Photobucket.  I choose to use auto fill and then I moved some pictures and changed some page layout to customize it.  The Lulu software really is easy to use and there are a lot of great page layouts available to customize how many pictures or text you want on each page.

My finished book came bound like a regular book, it reminds me of how a children’s picture book is bound.  The cover is sturdy and I love that my picture and text is printed right on the cover.  I have 20 pages of photos in the book and at first I didn’t think that was a lot, but after moving pictures around and creating pages with multiple photos on each made it easy to fit everything I wanted in the book.  As far as the quality goes, it is pretty decent.  I think it looks good, but my neighbor who deals with professional printers and photos thinks it could be better.  For the everyday consumer though, I think it works and would be great gifts for anyone or to just keep for yourself (which is what I’m doing!)  Overall though the book works for me and I am happy to show it off and love that it is durable enough if my kids want to look at it!

BUY IT: Check out Lulu’s website to see what you can make!

Mama’s Money Savers Disclosure: This post was written for Family Review Network & Lulu who provided the complimentary product in exchange for my honest review.