Get the options, distribution, and control to make your book, your way.
Blurb offers many of the same print-on-demand options as Lulu. That includes purchasing printed books at cost, selling through a dedicated bookstore, and services to distribute to all major retailers. Blurb offers fewer size, binding, and print options than Lulu.
If you need improved sales options like ecommerce, Lulu far exceeds Blurb. Lulu offers an App for Shopify (Lulu Direct) and makes their entire network available through an Open API. Lulu also provides a quick path to upload and print books without publishing.
I’ll just add that I’ve had a number of books printed from both Aperture and Blurb using the identical images and files. The tests where such that I deliberately placed the same image on the cover as inside the book as differing print technologies are used. They should match ideally. I printed both color and “B&W� images. The differences in print quality between the two are dramatic and anyone in the Santa Fe area can come take a look. I will say I found LR’s/Blurb’s templates a bit more interesting in some cases than what’s available in Aperture. So it’s not possible to get a 100% identical looking book from both, but you can get close. I’m not very impressed with the print/color/quality from Blurb but only when comparing it directly to the Apple product hence my suggestion for Aperture. Unlike LR, Aperture does send Adobe RGB (1998) to the service site instead of sRGB, not that this is a major big deal considering the gamut of the presses used. If you are handling B&W work, which is rather difficult to print neutral, Aperture wins hands down.
It’s pretty easy to export your images in Adobe RGB out, import into Aperture just to build a book. Also, the books came back from Apple much faster than Blurb by nearly a week but that could be due to the locations of the various print providers and where I reside.