Interview With Blurb’s Eileen Gittins
We’re lucky to have secured a fascinating interview with CEO Eileen Gittins of Blurb the online book publishing company - which we reviewed earlier this month.
Hope you enjoy it.
1. How did the concept of Blurb come about?
I’m a photographer, and after selling my second company, I had some time to get back into photography. I never stopped photographing since my days studying photography, and that’s how Blurb got started. I wanted to create a beautifully designed and produced photo essay book – something that looked like a book you’d buy at the bookstore – but I only needed 40 copies. This turned out to be remarkably painful, expensive, and time-consuming – and I thought that was just wrong. So I started Blurb.
2. What’s the best thing about being CEO of Blurb?
Seeing the books people create is the best part of my job.
I am truly blown away by the books people make – the quality of the images, the stories people tell, and the creativity of people’s designs is really amazing. Even the bad books are great.
3. Congratulations on being a winner at the 2008 Webby Awards. Where does Blurb.com go from here?
At Blurb we move so fast that there’s barely time to reflect on this achievement before we’re on to the next thing. We’re thrilled to be honoured with such a prestigious award alongside so many outstanding companies. We’ll enjoy the moment and then it’s back to work – we have set some aggressive goals this year, and have lots of exciting things to bring to market. Stay tuned.
4. How do you think the quality of your books compares to those you see in the book store?
Our books are truly bookstore-quality – we offer library bindery, hardcover with dust jackets, printed hardcovers and softcovers. Our paper is very high quality and each book can hold up to 440 pages. So it would be tough to tell the difference between a Blurb book and any other book one would purchase in a bookstore. Blurb differentiates on quality, community and on its end to end fulfillment and distribution. No other company has been able to match quality with price like Blurb has, and nobody else provides all the tools to create, market and sell your book, along with all the back-end marketing fulfillment globally.
Increasingly, Blurb is a popular choice for businesses and creative professionals who create books to promote their products and services. Photographers, business owners, architects, designers, and marketing professionals have unique requirements for integrating books into their business processes, and Blurb’s print-on-demand model, order management, fulfillment services, online bookstore, and attractive prices are driving significant market adoption in this category.
If it’s your brand, the books better be of superior quality.
5. Blurb shares, promotes and sells books. Which book has been your best seller? In your opinion, why has it been successful?
One of our best sellers is a book by an American architect named Michelle Kaufman called Prefab Green. She is well known in the United States as a “green” or ecological architect who is advancing energy sensitive design and construction. We are seeing architects, product designers, advertising agencies, branding firms and artists make books for commercial profit as well as marketing books to advance their business.
Creative professionals of all kinds are making client presentation books, marketing books, business expertise books and fine art books. In particular we are seeing adoption by commercial photographers who are delivering books to clients for portraits and weddings as well as making portfolio books for marketing purposes and “leave-behind” (small softcover books) as a kind of brochure.
6. What tips would you give to budding authors?
Get your work out there. See it in print. Build an audience through Blurb’s bookstore. Solicit feedback and then refine. Don’t wait, just Blurb it.
7. Does Blurb have plans to release any new features?
Absolutely. We release new updates to our web site every 2-3 weeks and new features for actual bookmaking 3 times each year. We will be launching a pretty major release in very late July/early August with some pretty amazing stuff; we encourage our customers to opt-in to our database, as this is how we communicate the news. (We are very sparing with the communication newsletters at Blurb, and only send one out when we truly have news to communicate.)
8. Father’s day is fast approaching. Can you suggest how Blurb could help make a great father’s day gift?
Where else can you find a gift for 20 pounds that’s this personal, and this high-quality? A Blurb book is a great gift for any occasion, and we’re seeing huge numbers of people memorialize family events, occasions and holidays in books.
9. Iconic Gifts is all about identifying the very best gift ideas. What’s the best gift you have ever received?
A Hasselblad camera. When I was an art student photographer I lusted after one of these cameras but of course could not afford one. Many years later, my husband bought me this camera as a Christmas gift. Not only was this wholly unexpected but it paid extra dividends in that I started photographing in earnest again, which lead to the founding of Blurb.
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