Blurb giving SmugMuggers 500 Free books!!

Ham1 · November 6, 2007

Hi Everyone,

To start off our new partnership with Blurb, they are giving SmugMug customers 500 coupon codes for a free book! :barb

To get your coupon code, go and download the Blurb software and create an account from this page: www.blurb.com/partner/smugmug The coupon code will come in an automated response email after you register.

Once you get the coupon, you are golden. However, you must purchase the book by Nov 20, 2007.

FINE PRINT:
** Coupon code is valued at $29.95
** Only 1 coupon code per SmugMug customer
** If you have problems getting the coupon code, please post here, I'll get you sorted out

Thanks!
Markham

BeachBill · November 6, 2007

Thanks Markham and SmugMug!

I've got my coupon code, now to figure out what photos to make into a book.

dogwood · November 6, 2007

Cool. Blurb definitely has a stellar marketing department and this certainly is a solid move on their part!

Just check out the positive plug for them in the current issue of American Photo magazine.

I'm in no way affiliated with blurb, but I did order a book a while ago. It arrived fast (within a week of ordering it). The print quality was what I'd expect for a book-- not fine art portfolio but plenty good enough for a quick look-see book.

So for what it's worth, even if you miss out on this deal, a regular, non-discounted blurb book is still a bargain.

Giphsub · November 6, 2007

so no coupon for those of us who have already ordered a book from blurb?:cry

schmoo · November 6, 2007

Got my code - I'm VERY excited about using this because I've already been getting my shots together to make a book and this is just very nicely timed.

colourbox · November 6, 2007

Giphsub wrote:

so no coupon for those of us who have already ordered a book from blurb?:cry

It's right on the linked page: "Already a Blurbarian and on SmugMug? Even if you’ve already downloaded BookSmart, we’ll still include you in the book love. Email us your Blurb and SmugMug usernames and we’ll send you a promotion code for a free book."

Giphsub · November 6, 2007

ah, my bad. I was going on the above post. Will check it out. thanks.

denisegoldberg · November 6, 2007

Ham1 wrote:

** If you have problems getting the coupon code, please post here, I'll get you sorted out

Markham

Well, I'm either your the first problem child, or I was too late to get the coupon. (Or perhaps I'm just the impatient type and I believed that the automated response would be quick...)

I signed up for blurb when I saw your post, created an account (from www.blurb.com/partner/smugmug), and downloaded the software.

I received an email at 7:15PM EST that was a confirmation.
I receved a second email at 7:33PM EST that was a welcome to blurb.

Neither email included a coupon code.

blurb login is deniseG.

Thanks for your help.

--- Denise

colourbox · November 6, 2007

denisegoldberg wrote:

I received an email at 7:15PM EST that was a confirmation.
I receved a second email at 7:33PM EST that was a welcome to blurb.

I'm just another user but I can say that those two emails are standard, everybody gets those right after set up, or at least I got those two a few months ago after signup. I would not be concerned yet. I'll bet there will be a separate email specific to the promotion still to come. (I'm waiting for mine.) If it requires human intervention from the Blurb home office, well, they have probably all gone home at this hour.

Llywellyn · November 6, 2007

I was already part of Blurb and e-mailed yesterday about the free book coupon code (found it mentioned elsewhere on the main SmugMug site). Haven't heard anything back.

Allen · November 7, 2007

Looks like it will not download photos from a passworded gallery. Remove the
password and it works.

Ham1 · November 7, 2007

Llywellyn wrote:

I was already part of Blurb and e-mailed yesterday about the free book coupon code (found it mentioned elsewhere on the main SmugMug site). Haven't heard anything back.

If you didn't get your coupon code, email Blurb for it. If you don't hear back from them in 4 hours, please PM me and I will get you a code.

Thanks,
Markham

BeachBill · November 7, 2007

denisegoldberg wrote:

I received an email at 7:15PM EST that was a confirmation.
I receved a second email at 7:33PM EST that was a welcome to blurb.
Neither email included a coupon code.

Here is the order I received my e-mails in (all PST):

4:27PM Special Offer: Make a free book with Blurb! (the coupon code)
4:28PM Confirm your Blurb Account
4:34PM Welcome to Blurb

Maybe check your spam folder for the coupon code?

denisegoldberg · November 7, 2007

BeachBill wrote:

Here is the order I received my e-mails in (all PST):

4:27PM Special Offer: Make a free book with Blurb! (the coupon code)
4:28PM Confirm your Blurb Account
4:34PM Welcome to Blurb

Maybe check your spam folder for the coupon code?

Thanks for the thought - but I already checked there. No coupon code.

--- Denise

DJ-S1 · November 7, 2007

Sweet! Got the code, but I have a question. Is it the first 500 who respond that get a code and that's it? Or is it that thousands can get a code, but only the first 500 to actually order will get the discount?

Ham1 · November 7, 2007

denisegoldberg wrote:

Thanks for the thought - but I already checked there. No coupon code.

--- Denise

Thanks for the PM Denise. I just PM'd you one

Markham

Ham1 · November 7, 2007

DJ-S1 wrote:

Sweet! Got the code, but I have a question. Is it the first 500 who respond that get a code and that's it? Or is it that thousands can get a code, but only the first 500 to actually order will get the discount?

They are only giving away 500 codes. Anyone who gets a code is guaranteed to get a free $29.95.

Remember it is only good until Nov 20th.

Markham

Llywellyn · November 7, 2007

Ham1 wrote:

If you didn't get your coupon code, email Blurb for it. If you don't hear back from them in 4 hours, please PM me and I will get you a code.

Thanks,
Markham

PM sent.

Giphsub · November 7, 2007

Got my code last night

Thanks guys

cdonovan · November 7, 2007

I sent an email but never recieved a reply

Andy · November 7, 2007

cdonovan wrote:

I sent an email but never recieved a reply

Follow the directions here, get the software, register, and you will get the code from Blurb

http://www.blurb.com/partner/smugmug

bkatz · November 8, 2007

now offering free shipping

Andy wrote:

Follow the directions here, get the software, register, and you will get the code from Blurb

http://www.blurb.com/partner/smugmug

They gave out 500 codes already but are giving out free shipping for the smug muggers who didn't get one good until 12/31

Justiceiro · November 8, 2007

The 500 are up? That sucks. I have a book I've been working on Since February that I'm finally ready to order. How do I get the free shipping?

peluna · November 9, 2007

No code

bkatz wrote:

They gave out 500 codes already but are giving out free shipping for the smug muggers who didn't get one good until 12/31

I sent mine info in yesterday morning, no response. Are we supposed to get a code for the free shipping?

Dee · November 9, 2007

Got my code today
Guess I was lucky... Now to hurry up and re-layout my other pages or create new ones. I think this will be my month of making photo books:D

Yay!

Thanks SmugMug and Blurb!

Ham1 · November 9, 2007

Justiceiro wrote:

The 500 are up? That sucks. I have a book I've been working on Since February that I'm finally ready to order. How do I get the free shipping?

Just PM me your nickname and blurb login, I have some extra Free Book codes left. I can hook anyone up that didn't get one.

Markham

Ham1 · November 9, 2007

Anyone that didn't get their free Book coupon, can PM me their details.

I have a few left and will distribute.

Markham

Elysium · November 10, 2007

Is their BookSmart program ridiculously slow for anyone else? My computer hasn't been top of the line for years (P4 3.2, 1 gig ram) but processing RAW files and using photoshop is generally pain free, yet this book program CRAWLS doing something as simple as dragging a photo to move it an inch.

Ham1 · November 10, 2007

Ham1 wrote:

Anyone that didn't get their free Book coupon, can PM me their details.

I have a few left and will distribute.

Markham

I have been handing out a bunch of codes yesterday and today.

I still have some left, please PM me if you have not received yours!

Markham

cjyphoto · November 19, 2007

Blurb does not seem yo be honoring the promo code. Uploaded my book this morning. Went to order and when i entered the code that was given to me 11-07-2007 it said, "The promotion code is not valid. Please check that you've entered promotion code correctly." Well I copied and pasted the code so it had to be entered correctly. I sent them an e-mail this morning and no response. Any ideas on how to get them to honor the promo code?

UPDATE: It did work for me the next day. Weird. it did not work at all on the 19th and I tried all day. On the 20th I gave it another shot and it worked just fine.

darryl · November 20, 2007

Elysium wrote:

Is their BookSmart program ridiculously slow for anyone else? My computer hasn't been top of the line for years (P4 3.2, 1 gig ram) but processing RAW files and using photoshop is generally pain free, yet this book program CRAWLS doing something as simple as dragging a photo to move it an inch.

Yes, ridiculously slow for me too and I don't really think my computer is that slow. (1.7MHz Pentium M w/ 1.0GB RAM).

It's gotta be Java. I don't think it was meant for this kind of image/graphic manipulation.

Anyways, I just *finally* finished a 21-page book. What an ordeal. About a week ago I had a free code for a Shutterfly book (an incentive for migrating over my 2 photos from the soon-to-close Sony Imagestation).

So I culled through a years' worth of photos down to 200 "good ones", and then had to deal with uploading the ones I wanted to Shutterfly. Yes, that was a pain (the Shutterfly uploader actually kept dying, so I ended up uploading to Phanfare and then having *them* transfer to Shutterfly. Ridiculous.)

BUT... once the photos were there, the web application was nice and snappy (UNLIKE Blurb), and while it sucked not being able to drag-and-drop photos, there seemed to be more layouts friendly to simply photo books (no captions or text), again, unlike Blurb.

But I won't gripe about layouts. That's all personal style and how much the book company wants to "help" users make pretty books.

What I will gripe about is how horrible the BookSmart app was. I must've wasted an hour because clicks did not register. Clicks like highlighting a photo so I could adjust the crop. Clicks to select a page to change the layout. Clicks to move to the next page. It was really really frustrating, and if I wasn't getting a book for free (and what's with UPS shipping only? What's wrong with ye olde USPS?), I wouldn't have trudged through.

Heck, at a certain point it didn't even feel worth it for a free book.

But I do want to see the quality. The Shutterfly book I got (which came wicked fast via First Class US Mail like 2 days later in great shape) was nice, although upon a close examination of the binding you could see that it was nicely printed sheets but they were all glued to a center spine. It wasn't a fancy bound book. But hey, it's $30. That's not too bad. (And I wonder if Blurb is any different. I realize now that they're doing dustcovers so that they avoid the problem of printing covers. Shutterfly gets around this by using covers w/ cut-out "peek-a-boo" holes, which actually is a nice effect for photo books.

But even if Blurb's print quality is way better, for the purposes of Christmas gifts to my son's grandmothers, I really don't care. I want it to be fast, and I want it to be easy. Despite the upload and picture picking pains, Shutterfly was both fast and easy.

If they live up to the hype, I'm sure the Blurb book quality will be great. And this might be good for Pros that want to sell books.

But if I was a Pro, I would *hate* the extra time and frustration it takes to use just use this app. As Elysium states, compared to Photoshop, this thing is a slug. And it would drive me *mad* trying to deal with this on a regular basis.

I can't imaging trying to "lay out" a real book with text and such into the tool. Maybe the automatic importer would be the way to go there.

But man, most Pros probably have InDesign with their Adobe Creative Suite. Lay it out there and print it at Lulu.com or something. Hey, you can get an ISBN number from them too. And they can do casewrap (images are actually bound to the cover, as opposed to a dust-jacket) bindings. Nice! :-}

Blurb giving SmugMuggers 500 Free books!!

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