Experimenting with print-on-demand book

Very soon, we would be down to our last few copies of A Little Daily Dose. Would we run another crowdfunding campaign? Probably not. Ideally, it would be great to print a second edition. We have written to several publishers but not having high hopes of receiving a reply (in three to six months).

In the meantime, out of the ten thousand things that I could be doing, I decided to experiment with Blurb .

Back when A Little Beijing got a feature in PSFK’s Good Design in 2009, I was excited that one hardcover book with dust jacket flew from the United States to Singapore – just for me. That was how I came to know about Blurb.

Today, it has evolved into a sophisticated book publishing website and Good Design in 2009 remains available on Blurb.

I am very impressed with the speed of things. In five days, the book was printed and bound in Tukwila, Washington. Another five days later, it arrived in San Francisco, well packed in a corrugated fiberboard book wrap.

The side of the book was slightly dented but quickly resolved after I tried to smoothen it out with my thumb.

As I flipped through the pages, I still prefer the original cream paper over the new white ones. The beauty of the original exposed spine binding enables the book to lay flat while the perfect-bound book feels tight. The latter, however, could accommodate the title printed on the spine – something I would have liked on our original version but was risky. I am not too sure about the glossy cover but it has its merits.