Turning Your Blog Into a Book

I decided to give myself a Christmas present this year and printed off my blog in book form.


I had heard about this when I first started blogging, so the thought of doing it has been in the back of my mind for awhile. After a year of posting, I decided to get serious and found out it's really quite easy!

I couldn't find a lot of sites that print blogs, but one that kept popping up was Blog2Print. It works with both Blogger and WordPress. Basically, you enter the web address of your blog and it creates a book that you can then edit and order to print. There are several options for customizing your book and you'll want to spend some time experimenting with what works best for you.

Let me tell you, I'm thrilled with how my book turned out! It's 300 pages and includes 69 posts with comments. You can choose to print your posts without comments, but they felt too special for me to leave out. 

Here's a few pictures of the pages in my book. So fun to see a whole year's worth of work in one place!


Not everything prints exactly as your blog looks onscreen. You can see in this picture that the photos that aren't separated by words in a post are printed as a group in the book.


Also, captions aren't printed directly under photos as they are on a blog. You can see here that they show up in a sentence below, as if you're starting a new paragraph.


I chose to include the comments in my book which added considerably to its length, but it's fun to look back and see what other people said about each post.


There are several different pricing options for the books. For example, my full color book with comments ended up costing me about $125, but if I had printed it in black and white and left out the comments, it would have only been about $20. Also, you don't have to include every post on your blog. You can choose the ones you want and all of them are listed in a Table of Contents with their corresponding page number. I chose to not include link party posts and posts that didn't have a personal meaning to me. 

As I said before, I'm very happy with how my book turned out. It's nice to know that even if I stop blogging, I'll have a record of what I've written. Seeing my thoughts in printed form was motivating and made me think of why I really have this blog. It's a great way to document our family life! I hope to have plenty of material to print off next year, too!

Have you ever thought about turning your blog into a book? Think it might make a good Christmas present for you or someone you love?




27 comments:

  1. I would love to do this - with a book for each year my blog has been up.

    It looks so nice Marie!

    Thanks for sharing... I'll be investigating this for myself.
    xoxo

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    1. I hope you it works for you too, Jennifer!

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    2. I really would like to get the colour version... although maybe I could save a bit by not including the comments... but then the comments are awesome to look through. SO many decisions!

      Thanks for sharing (and for linking up to the #Christmasbloghop)!

      Wishing you a lovely weekend.
      xoxo

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  2. I have heard of this but have never seen it! It looks fantastic! What a wonderful idea x

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  3. Oh great! I hope it works better for you, Dana!

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  4. What a great idea - I had no idea about this! Thanks so much for sharing the information.

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  5. I didn't even know you could do this - so thanks for sharing, your book looks fabulous. I did publish an e-book of selected blog posts & this was relatively simple to do.

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  6. I knew this was a possibility, but I didn't know how to go about it! I think when I hit my one year blogging anniversary I'll make the special posts into a book! :) How fun! I've posted stories and pictures on my blog that I haven't necessarily shared anywhere else, so it would be fun to have it printed hard copy. And what a fun keep sake for your kids!

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  7. Oh my gosh this is amazing!! I love it. I didn't know this was a possibility. Thanks Marie!

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  8. Great idea! I would love to easily take my recipes and put them in a book. Perhaps I should look into the company you used to see if this is possible. Thanks for sharing!

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  9. What an awesome idea, and a great gift for a blogger. I wish I had known about this before my Secret Santa gift to a blogger, this would have been perfect, there is always next year :)

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  10. I'm so happy and excited to read that you printed your blog!
    I wish to do that when my little girls grow up so that they can read/see what their mom was up to while they were busy growing up:0)
    Loved reading all that you shared about your book!
    Thanks so much for sharing!!
    Suzanne

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  11. What a grand idea! I never thought about turning my blog into a book just straight from posts. Perhaps when I've got a year under my belt.

    Visiting from the Shine Blog Hop Christmas Party

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  12. What a fantastic idea, I would love to do this x #CHRISTMASBlogHop

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  13. I had no idea you could do this, what a lovely idea... A book for each year, I like that, I'm going to have to look into this now :)

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  14. I actually have thought of doing this just recently! And to come across this post....is it fate? It's good to know that it's not expensive, without the comments, of course. Thank you for doing the research and sharing. Visiting from #SITS sharefest

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  15. I had read about this a while back, and wondered how it would turn out. Yours sounds fantastic. Too late to ask for it as a Christmas present, but my blog turns One in March ... maybe Mother's day?!

    Thanks for writing about this!

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  16. You know, I didn't realise you could do this and having just stopped one of my blogs, it's a perfect idea for that one. And this one too! Thanks :) #sharewithme

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  17. What a fabulous encouragement for anyone thinking of doing this! Very nice of you to include a link for us.
    Your book looks wonderful Marie.
    Blessings,

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  18. What a great idea! I'm considering doing similar with my pregnancy diary :) x x

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  19. That's definitely a fun way to be able to keep a record of everything you've blogged over time!

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  20. Thank you so much for sharing! I'm so behind in making our family shutterfly album this year. I think I'm stuck way back in March! I have so many photos! I am checking out that website now! Great work -- and now you not only have your blog backed up, but it is now a family heirloom! Beautiful! :D

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  21. What a neat idea! I love the idea of having it on paper and to be able to hold the words :)

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  22. What an absolutely awesome idea. And since I am just over a year I think I might copy you and do the same. What a great thing to do at the end of each year and have that memories and moments there forever to read both in print and digitally. I love it. Great that you can include comments or not and you can customized it too as I wouldn't want to include reviews! Love this. Thanks for linking up to Share With Me, for all the continual blog support throughout 2014! Happy Holidays! #sharewithme

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  23. This is thrilling. I am excited to hear about this. Thanks for sharing, Marie.

    http://purposefulandmeaningful.blogspot.com

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  24. Oh, great idea! I love the thought of having a hard bound book with my work! I've heard about this but it's nice to read about this experience and see the finished product first hand! Thanks for sharing with the Saturday Soiree Blog Party. You're featured this week!

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Thanks for taking the time to comment. I love hearing from you!