Family and childhood stories: using Blogging to share them !

Many people will say that writing is a great way to escape and think about something else. That’s exactly the case for Brian, who used his blog as a way to share and record his childhood and family stories.

Tell us a little bit about yourself : Your passions, your hobbies, your projects…

I’m married, with two teen children (one boy, one girl). Besides family, my passion is fishing. I live in Seattle, which is an amazing place to satisfy my fishing “addiction”, where we fish for halibut, cod, rockfish, crab, shrimp, and yes, even albacore tuna in the summer.

Brian Leonard holding two fish on a dock

What is your blog about and why did you want to address this subject when starting it?

My blog is about stories from my childhood. It’s extremely personal. I’m almost 50 years old, and as I get older, I’m sure it will become more and more difficult to remember the people, places, and occurrences of my youth. So I set out to spend an hour or two every week to just think about my past, and memorialize those moments in writing, so that my children will know more about me, and why some of the people in my past influenced me in wonderful ways to make me who I am today.

What content (articles, illustrations) are you the most proud of?

I truly enjoy writing. I don’t know why…I don’t know how, but people tell me I’m good at it. I’m really writing with my children in mind, in a way that I hope best connects with them when they’re older. But if I were to look forward 20 years, and saw that my son or daughter was laughing, or crying with joy by what I’ve written, and their memories of me – that’s what I would be most proud of.

What do you like the most about blogging?

Being able to write whatever I want, with no worry about consequences. Most of my writing is work related, so it’s refreshing to write purely for myself.

Why did you want to turn your  family blog into a book?

A few members of my family follow my blog. But last year, I happened to learn about BlookUp, and I had an “Aha!” moment: Let’s make my blog into a book, and send it as Christmas gift to my parents and siblings, who are all in my stories.

How did you find out about BlookUp?

I can’t remember.

What did you think about the making process of your blook? Did you encounter any difficulties or issues?

Very little. The only disconnect was one of culture: In the US, we put our Table of Contents at the front of the book. When I requested this, you made it happen. I would like the ability to be a little more creative with the artwork and fonts. The choices were somewhat limited, but it was good enough.

Do you enjoy the final result? What does your family and friends think about your blook?

Yes, I really liked what I ended up with. Everyone loves it!

Would you recommend BlookUp and/or use it again in the future?

Absolutely!

Thank you so much Brian for this interview, the team is glad you love your blook! You guys can read Brian’s stories on his blog right here!

Turn your blog into a book with BlookUp!

Are you part of the 250 million people who own a blog all around the world ? Whether you blog for fun or make a living out of it, BlookUp gives you the opportunity to turn your blog into an actual paper book.

Make your own blook and join the 12 000 other bloggers who did the same before you!

Printing your blog? But…why? There are a lot of reasons why you should print your blog, here are the main ones.

reading-book-computer

1 – First and foremost, to protect your content

As seen in the news recently, nobody’s safe from a bug that would ultimately delete our blogs.

Unfortunately, we cannot predict what will become of our blogs in the next 5, 10 or 20 years. By then, it is likely that a lot of data will disappear.

2 – There is nothing like a book.

There is something exhilarating in holding the result of countless hours of writing, you should try!

 Once you will receive your blook, you will experience the feeling of flipping through the pages full of articles and pictures, feel the authenticity of the paper under your fingertips and you will ask yourself. “How come I didn’t make my blook earlier?”.

3 -It adds extra value to your work

Printing a blog allows its author to experience it on another perspective.

Very few are those who take the time to dive into their archives full of old pictures, stories and memories.

You will realize what a year, or even a lifetime worth of writing looks like. 

With a book, you see your content in a new light, rediscover your articles and relive your best moments in pictures!

You add something truly unique to your work when you make a book, something that makes you proud and arouses admiration of others. Because making the book of your blog is a unique experience, after all, you are making YOUR book.

Making your blook is a creative process, the bloggers who decide to make theirs customize the cover and page layout thus bringing to life what used to be a digital object and turning it into a  book everyone can share and enjoy. 

The result of this process is truly priceless ! Because blogs are often personal, they are about families and friends, they require a lot of time and dedication to put into them, whether it be for the writing, posting on social media, or even interact with the readers.

The more the authors put time into their blog, the more they want to keep a written record of it. In a world where everything tends to be over-digitized and the content ephemeral, there is something truly special and almost relieving in putting aside the internet for a while and immortalizing your blog in the form of a book.

4 – It is the best way to keep it close to you!

There is nothing like a book to read through your blog posts again and again, sharing anecdotes and remembering some events. All while being comfortably seated on your couch! Say what you want about tablets, kindles and laptops, but nothing matches the authentic experience of a book…plus it is waaay more convivial!

5 – You can share it with the people close to you!

Share your blook or offer a copy to your relatives and your friends and see how they experience your blog page after page. Everything is real and authentic, they will be holding in their bare hands the result of your work and it is more pleasant than having to read the articles on a computer screen.  Also, remember that not everyone in your family (take your parents or grand parents as an example) is comfortable with using devices like a tablet or a laptop, and for them what you call “blogging” is something they might not understand. Luckily for them, BlookUp has THE solution: offering them a printed copy of your blog!

6 – You can sell it!

Your book can have a real monetary value if the content you wrote interests other people. BlookUp, gives you the possibility to make your blook “public”, this way it will appear on the BlookshopYou can sell it at the price you want and tell you friend to check it out on BlookUp and order it online! Who knows, this might be the beginning of your career as a writer that just started!

What will my book look like?

Electric blue paper-wrapped bookWith BlookUp you can make all kinds of books. Here are some tips to help you getting started:

First you have to create your blook by choosing among all the platform the one you want to import your blog from and selecting your favorite articles, or by defining a time period (“Articles from 2016…”  or a theme. You can also choose to only keep the pictures and make an album or remove all of them. Here are all the different formats and platforms you can choose from:

  • 15×15 cm (Instagram only)
  • 15×21 cm and 20×27 cm (blog book formats)
  • 15×14,8 cm and 21×29,7 cm  (PDF only)
  • 19×26 cm (Facebook only)

You  can order a single book if you want to! You can print as many books as you want and benefit from an excellent manufacturing quality thanks to on-demand digital printing. 

Print the books of your Facebook and Instagram!

blook-facebook-first-pageIf you do not own a blog you can always print a book out of your Facebook page or Instagram. Nowadays people like to share everything they do on social media. And while we tend to create more and more content online, BlookUp  takes it the other way around by Immortalizing your digital content in form of paper books.

The Facebook book is available in an exclusive format (20×26 cm) and lets you choose between 2 different layouts (2 or 3 columns). You can choose a time period over which you want to import your content from. BlookUp automatically imports all the content you published on your Facebook page  automatiquement tout le contenu publié sur votre compte Facebook (statuses, photos videos, places you visited, comments…) then you can choose the types of content you want to appear on your blook as well as the number of comments.

That’s exactly the same with Instagram! You can choose the pictures you want to keep along with the time period. Your book will be printed in a 15×15 cm format.instagram-blook-opened-flowers

How can I create my book? Is it complicated?

You can start by importing your blog (Go ahead, you can do that for free!) by clicking on the platform you want to import content from. Then all you have to do is to register and go with the flow!

As we previously mentioned, you can customize your blook in a lot of different ways (Types of content, font, page layout, cover, etc…) Once you are happy with your book, you can order it and you will receive it within 15 business days.

They tried it and they loved it!

Grisélidis, founder of Yes We Blog.

griselidis-yesweblog

“You spend hours writing articles for your blog, taking pictures and editing them. But even though it is a thing in the digital world, you still can’t touch it. It’s not like a good old book you’d be reading at the parc. Having your blog on a book format adds another dimension to this little place of the internet that we love and take care of. I also think that it is a very cute and friendly way of sharing what we do with people who are not very familiar with web-related stuff. Believe it or not, but there are still quite a lot of people that are not so interested in the internet.”

Marion Legras, globetrotter and blogger

marion-legras-photo-blook

“Our blog contains all the 367 articles about the 19 countries we visited and more than five times as many pictures we wanted to keep in the form of a series of books dedicated to this dream come true. It was very important for us to keep a written record of our memories abroad, that all our writings and pictures will not be forever imprisoned behind a computer screen or lost somewhere inside a folder. These books allow us to dive into these wonderful memories at any moment and there is nothing that can match this feeling!”

Pauline Savary, author of “Pauline savary’s daily

pauline-savary-daily“It is an interesting project with a lot of advantages. Whoever is looking for a job and wants to keep a tangible record of his/her blog (assuming that the said blog is relevant for the job), easily readable and enhanced by the paper format and/or with exclusive content, will certainly be intrigued. Blookup will prove interesting to professional bloggers, fashion bloggers and photographers who are very focused on design and visuals. It is also a good idea to offer it a gift. As for the commercial aspect of the books, that remains to be seen…”

Sandra, nerdy mom, author of “Le blog d’une maman geekette

sandra-maman-geek

Blookup is a great way of keeping track and promoting your blog. It can be offered to your parents or grand parents and can also be an excellent memory for  wedding blogs.”

After connected paper, the digital is materialized again!

Paper is approximatively 3000 years old and it’s not ready to disappear.

On the contrary, paper has recently known a renewal thanks to the cohabitation with its sworn enemy!  The digital.

Nowadays, digital and book are no longer contradictory, but they complement each other. `

We all know QR codes or Flash codes. Children books now offer augmented reality, packagings of frozen fish tell us many informations about the product and where it’s been fished, the specie, the receipes you can cook with it.

Connected paper allows the readers, the companies and the brands to use a new space of information and communication thanks to our smartphone’s screen.

A girl on the street taking a picture with her phone

Thanks to digital technologies and databases, printing companies like Maqprint are able to print very customized contents and deliver documents limited to only a few people.

Part or all the elements (texts, pictures, graphs, colors, lay-out) composing a document or a book can be different from one another, allowing to target more efficiently the needs of the customers or readers.

Digital combined to databases opens up to the possibility of various marketing scripts. So, tomorrow an airline company could offer on-board customized magazines to travellers according to their own interests.

Proof that digital and paper mustn’t be opposed is BlookUp 

A paper book connected to a computer

Since 4 years, BlookUp offers to print books from personal blogs.

Today thanks to a reversed technology we lay-out digital flows, texts and pictures to turn them into real paper books.

Reasons to materialize your blog again are numerous. To keep a track of your writings, save it because you are afraid to loose it one day, and to offer it and share your book (books are a great gift!) or to sell it to other readers!

Making your “blook” (contraction of the words “blog” and “book”) is a great thing to do.

So, you can love digital, blogs, social networks… But also the smell of a new book, the touch of the paper, the pleasure to show it to others, commenting moments of your life around a nice and beautiful paper book.

A paper book opened in front of flowers

Mother Book : a book that grows with the belly of the future mom !

We’ve just found the perfect gift for your pregnant best friend : a book that lasts 9 months, and evolves at the same time than the future mom’s body. Let us introduce : the Mother Book :

mother-book-2

This great idea was imagined and created by the Kishokai obstetric department in Japan, and the advertising agency Dentsu. The main idea is pretty simple : the pregnancy and expectation of a child are very important moments in one’s life, especially for mothers. Why not offer them an object that would evolve with their bodies, giving advices about the child and where they could write all their thoughts ?

Each page represents a week of pregnancy : Mother Book contains 40 beautifully designed pages, with a woman’s chest in 3D that grows in the course of the reading. On every page there is a unique design, that helps understand the status of the baby, but also several blank spaces for the moms to write their feelings, and be able to read them later ! You’re free to use it as you want.

A very nice gift to offer to your kid later : the full summary of his life inside the maternal womb. Here at BlookUp we totally love this idea ! The first book of your child’s life, to be completed later by many more, for example by printing the book of your blog to transpose the first years of his life… 

This tiny book is full of happiness !

This is the end of the week. The week-end is almost here, so we decided to share a lovely project with you.

livre-miniature-plaisir-lil

The artist Evan made the tiniest book we have ever seen, untitled « The small pleasures of life ». The idea was to list all the little pleasures everybody can have in his everyday life : drinking a good coffee, reading a book, writing blog articles, watching the stars,… Every little pleasure, memory or feeling is summarized in a few words on one page, and illustred by a very simple drawing on the other page.

plaisir-odeur-pluie plaisir-livre-ballon

This is such a beautiful idea, full of happiness and poetry ! Every one should own this kind of book 🙂

plaisir-enlever-petit-truc-coince-dent plaisir-debarrasser-enveloppe-corporelle

 

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Print a mom blog, the new family album?

mom blogApproximately 1/3 of the world bloggers are moms!

It explains maybe the success of moms’ blogs in the blogosphere because the market is consequent but not only.

A little of voyeurism for a feeling of identification for the just cause.

First of all, the offer in an editorial register is rather didactic!  The press handling with the parenthood the fact often in a very serious way. The advice(councils) on coats(layers), night terrors, diversified food(supply), photos of banks of image it is good but the young mom of today also waits for notices closer to their universe and to their everyday life(daily paper).

It is thus into this crenel(niche) that Mom blogs rushed. The Mom blog is spontaneous and removed inhibitions. Girls as you and I – a little the same principle of the chorus girl next door – how explain you to get back of her evening of the old woman with her baby, how small darling put you really ill-at-ease with the baker, which app to download for 3-6 years or how difficult it is to assume all these roles: woman, mother, wife, working-girl , girlfriend…everyday.

The feelings, fears, moments of joy. This is what all mothers live and this creates a strong link between women, also called “mother ” strong solidarity or identification phenomenon. Who has never thrown a sympathetic look on mom at the supermarket checkout exasperated by his son screaming at whim in the cart, while saying “yes, all the same …” ?

Humor, irony and decline in your mom blog : I feel much better for that

And then there are women’s blogs, which deal with everything but also with the parenthood differently, because this one is a member of their story and thus their territory of expression. A beautiful feather, a highly-rated assumed trash and a sense of the mockery: the keys of the success, for a public so feminine as male. Mockery and humor, key principles in moms’ blogs which work.

Children muses in the collectors sentences

We also count moms’ blogs centred on the creation. Because once mother, we can find the inspiration, the other way in the life than the 35 hours to the office. Fashion designer or serial shoppeuse, photographer or illustrator. The examples are not lacking because the children are also muses.

And then, to speak about her own child, it is completely fascinating. It is the opportunity to post some photos for the family which lives at the other end of the hexagon, while telling anecdotes which we shall have doubtless forgotten in a few months. One of those where we say ourselves, “this one have I to note it”. Then here we are, mom’s blog it is made for it too to remember its history.
Actually, we almost want to assert that mom’s blog is to become the new family album and that fast. It is necessary to make the book, the Blook to offer to birthdays(anniversaries) and begin the annual collection.

A HOLIDAY MEMORIES BOOK JUST FOR YOU!

 

A hammock and the hat of someone on holiday

Holiday memories  saved in a book!

Many of you enjoy the winter holiday memories, and to explore new horizons and come home full of memories, pictures and ideas. With its platform,  BlookUp offers to print the book of  your holiday directly from your blog!

It is created to tell your vacation to your relatives or held throughout the year. Your blog becomes a few clicks of a superb book to pack in your library or to offer.

Currently adopting a novel file (other formats are coming)!  The blook (contraction of the blog and the book) is transformed into a travel book!  Therefore recounting day by day your adventures and illustrate them using the pictures taken during your trip. Also the ones posted on your blog.

Real book, blook suggested to you,  you finally will keep a written record of your trips and vacations and store them directly into your library for out at any occasion.

 

 

SORT YOUR BLOG ARTICLES FASTER!

Sorted blog books stacked

Sort your blog items ?

This can be very useful, especially if your readers are interested in a particular topic of your blog. But it can also serve you on Blook! To sort your a happy snap, first click on “View your categories in blook” (see below). This Will tie Contained icts Each class, and create categories in the Blook. Your blog items will no longer be sorted chronologically but by subject (within each theme include chronological order). Once you select or deselect a category in the table below, the other products will also be selected or deselected.

You can easily remove an entire category of items in your blook as your moods tickets for example.Even better, you can create multiple blooks on various topics, thanks to the categories. This is ideal if you dream of making a collection of your books… travel, decor, photography, cooking! Your articles need to be highlighted!