As the product manager for BookSmart I am happy to announce that today we released BookSmart 1.5. And we’re super happy to now offer softcover books in time for the holidays. These are identical to our hardcover books except for that they lack flaps, and that they are soft.
We are also opening up our Blog-to-Book slurper for anyone using WordPress.com or TypePad blogging platforms. The slurper enables you to make real tactile books out of your blog entries. Imagine, now you can be a published blogger within minutes.
In addition to the above key features, the 1.5 release also includes: new travel themes, sorting capabilities in the project content library, better text handling, and improved overall performance.
Our product development goal is to create an application that empowers you to make fantastic books. The process should be simple, intuitive, and fun.
We believe that the greatest products are co-produced by passionate consumers and agile developers. So please let us know what you really like with the latest release and what the areas for improvements are.
Leave your comments below or post them to our suggestion box.
The Product Team
14 Comments
Is there a picture somewhere of what the softcover’s cover looks like? It’s glossy like the hardcover’s slipcover or more matte like?
Good question. We’ll have an image on the site on Monday. The cover laminate is a semi-matte, but it looks glossy to me.
Um, any chance you guys will be adding Blogger.com (or Blogspot) to BookSmart’s capabilities? That’s where my blog is, and your nifty-looking software is much less useful to me if my blog is off-limits. Thanks!
Tom
Tom, check out our Blog Book page — http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook — Blogger is on the short list for the next blog-to-book update.
Excellent! Thank you! Any chance it’ll be ready to make books for this Christmas?
I wouldn’t count the Slurper being ready for Blogger in time for Christmas. It might happen, but we are advising everyone to order their books sooner than later to avoid the traffic jam at the printers.
Hey,
I suppose the softcover is like a paperback right?
It’s not really suitable for a photobook. I saw some photobooks with a cover like a hard cover (it couldn’t be bent) but it was printed and it felt like a soft texture. If that’s not what the softcover is like I still opt for the hardcover.
Thanks for clearing this as you still haven’t posted any decent photo of the softcover on the site.
Peter
Hi Peter - You can see what our softcover looks like by clicking on the Bookstore Quality button (page 2 of 4) on http://www.blurb.com/create/book/explore.
Any plans to support non-WordPress.com, WordPress blogs? I would love to blog-to-book my site :)
Cheers.
Thanks for the question, Eric. Plans? We have lots of plans. I can tell you we’ll add support for the major blogging platforms during 2007.
As we are now in 2007 is there a time scale re adding support to other blogging platforms ie blogger. Thanks
Hi Craig - In mid-February, we’ll be supporting two more blogging platforms. Stay tuned.
ooo i wonder if they rhyme with curd-dress and logger ;-)
It’s 2009, any word on this supporting Blogger?