Blogging and printing jokes about politics with Donna Troy!

People have their own way of reacting to politics. In fact,  some get angry, some start lecturing others, some don’t seem to care all that much, and some choose to make fun of it.  Donna Troy falls into the latter category!
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Tell us a little bit about yourself : Your passions, your hobbies, your projects…

I work in payroll and that’s very boring.  In my spare time, I like to write, obviously.  I like to crochet and I have an Etsy shop where I sell my crafts.  I also enjoy yoga.

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

My blog has been mostly about making fun of politics in the U.S.  It was my brother’s idea to start the blog.  We were emailing back and forth during the 2016 election and he decided the stuff I was writing would make a good blog.  I didn’t know what I was going to do after the election, but then Trump won so there has been plenty of material.
 

What do you like the most about blogging?

I enjoy making people laugh and having an outlet to make light of things that are troubling.

What part of your blog are you the most proud of?

I think I’m most proud of how my work has progressed from the time I started the blog until now.
 

Why “Namaste, Bitches”?

That started as an inside joke with my friends.  We were all leaving work one night and everyone was talking about what they were going to do that evening.  I said, “Well, I’m off to yoga.  Namaste, Bitches.”  When I began the blog I didn’t think anyone other than my friends would be reading it.  Namaste, Bitches just kind of stuck.

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

I did that for my parents.  They aren’t technically savvy and my brother was sporadically printing out blogs for them to read.  Again, it was my brother’s idea to get the blog turned into a book.
 

How did you find out about BlookUp?

I found it with a Google search.  I tried a few different sites before I settled on BlookUp.
 

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

I enjoyed using BlookUp. BlookUp was the most user friendly of the companies I tried.  I liked that I could preview the layout for each blog after editing.  The other companies didn’t have that option.  Uploading the images was also much easier with BlookUp.
 

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

I loved the final result.  As an avid reader and writer, it gave me a little thrill to see my work in book form.  My family and friends loved it as well.
 

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

Yes to both!
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Huge thanks to Donna Troy for this interview! Don’t forget to check out her blog if you want to have a good time and follow her on social media:
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Textolife turns your SMS into books!

If you regularly visit this blog (and if you have just arrived, welcome to you!), you must know that since 2011, BlookUp is the platform that transforms your blogs and social networks into books and is compatible with a little more than 10 different blogging platforms!

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These are not blooks, as you will discover in this article!

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A single question was the origin of the creation of BlookUp: “What if all my digital contents disappeared suddenly?”. The answer seemed obvious: Go back to the book, the physical object. To the compilation, the collection, the immortalization of our work and our moments spent together on the Web!

Our virtual contents and exchanges can be frail and ephemeral, like our SMS, MMS, chat messages and other short, instant conversations tools. Textolife understood that, and that’s why this online platform offers you (since 2013) to print all your SMS / MMS, WhatsApp or Messenger conversations!

logo-textolife

Sending SMS is a harmless, daily activity, and sometimes the conversations are so long that even your phone can have a hard time going back in history! It is easy to neglect these odinary exchanges, however, small forgotten treasures, sweet words, funny or moving photos are hidden inside them!

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It’s also this idea of sharing good moments and memories that started Textolife, when Yasmine wanted to offer to her family (including her sister Laura, who will also be at the origin of the concept) a collection of all their group conversations! This first book was very tedious to “handmake”, with a lot of screenshots and using Word for layout…

Be assured that today, you just have to back up your conversations using the help provided for Android, IPhone, WhatsApp and Messenger, sign in and start creating your book via a mobile app or directly from the online tool!

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A book of 40 pages costs about €15, and if you only want the PDF version, it will cost you €3.90 (downloadable from your personal account at anytime!).

Sounds great, right? Go ahead, and revive your SMS with Textolife!

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.

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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.

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“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

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“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

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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.”

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Andy Smith, turning 10 years’ worth of paintings into books!

Do you like art?  Yeah we thought so.

In this week’s interview Andy Smith tells us about his love for watercolor painting, the challenge of “A Painting A Day” he took on years ago and the process of making a blook out of his work!

Andy Smith Drawing

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Continue reading “Andy Smith, turning 10 years’ worth of paintings into books!”

Index Update: New fonts and Index Options

NEW FONTS TO PRINT YOUR BLOG!

A font board Your blog has its atmosphere, its personality, and its paper version must absolutely reflect it? After several weeks of testing and researching, we finally found the fonts you needed to make your blook more unique and extraordinary!

In addition to Arial and Times New Roman, choose THE font that will have the honor to represent the spirit of your blog among the 7 new proposed:

Economica, DejaVuSans, Lato, Free Serif, Noto Sans, Noto Serif and Courier New

QUESTIONING THE INDEX…

blook-example-table-of-contentsNot everyone needs a table of content in his or her blook, and we have been asked several times to make this feature optional, or to have the possibility to place the index at the beginning of the book instead of the end.

Weel, starting today, choose to keep your index or not, and to place it before or after your main content!choice-table-of-contents

New PDF files printing formats: Update!

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Do you have a manuscript in progress? Are you about to finalize your memoirs, your novel your recipes book or poetry? Are you demanding about the formatting of your work or do you like to break the codes of conventional layouting?

Your document is ready and your dream is to hold its first physical copy in your hands? What a joy it would be to have this unique prototype created on demand, to finally see what it’d look like, to read it again and again, to share it, to expose it! Who knows, maybe this is just the beginning of a fruitful and triumphant literary career!

In order to help you realize your writing projects and the dream of printing in professional quality your very first book, BlookUp has revised its printing formats!

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Printing formats better suited to PDF files!

Say goodbaye to the not-so-handy “magazine” format and to the “standard” format that can’t be properly aligned with your other books! Now print your PDF files in the following formats:

  • A4 (21×29,7 cm – 8,27×11,70 inch)
  • A5 (14,8×21 cm – 5,82×8,27inch)

No need to adapt your documents manually, you only have to create and import! It’s easy, and it’s now on BlookUp !

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Interview: Melody, life with a dog and a blog!

This week, we have another diary-like blog to share, and we’re sure you will like it!

Melody lives her life with this blog to update, and an ADORABLE corgi dog to pet and care for. She talks every now and then about travels, fitness, or just her getting through life with amily and friends… And of course, her dog.

Life with a dog and a blog - Melody and Gatsby on the sofa again

The cutest couple ever reading their blook on the sofa!

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First, tell us about yourself ! You, your passions, your hobbies, your projects… 

Hi, I’m Melody Pendlebury and I am a really indecisive, mess of a person but I try my best. I am a senior at the University of North Florida as an Elementary Education major. It seems as if I’m ready to graduate and start my career, but honestly, I have a quarter life crisis daily. One thing that’s pretty unique about me is that I’m married. This is shocking to a lot of people because I do look like a 12 year old pretending to be an adult, but I’m actually still young but 22. Even though some people think this is the craziest thing in the world, I’m still a normal 22 year old person and a normal married person trapped into one body. Obviously I’m very passionate about my dog, hence the name of my blog. I am also very passionate about health and fitness. This doesn’t mean that I eat healthy all the time or have a rock hard body, because I like to keep life fun and try not to be too serious. This blog is my first attempt at writing something that I actually want people to read and I still get nervous about every article. I post. Futur projects that I you can expect to see in the future are probably going to be more exercise tutorials and recipes. I love writing about things that interest me and am hoping I’m writing about things that interest other people as well.

What is your blog about? Why? Do you have other blogs? If so, what do they talk about? 

I think my blog (https://lifewithadogandablog.com) is a little scattered brain. If I had to say what the main content of my blog was, it would probably be health and fitness. Other than that, I like to write about vacations I’ve taken, how I have saved money on various things, some lifestyle tips, all while trying to fit my dog into everything. This is the first blog that I have ever written other than my numerous diaries that I never let anyone read growing up. I hope to build and improve my content in the future.
Life with a dog and a blog - Melody and Gatsby rad their blook

“Remember that time when…” -“Oh no, you printed that too?”

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Why did you want to turn your blog ” life with a dog and a blog”  into a book?

in today’s world everything is digital. This isn’t a bad thing because hey, lets save the trees, but sometimes its nice to have a physical copy of something. Since this is the beginning of my first blog I thought it would be good to have something for me to read and show people and hopefully something I can use to reminisce in the future.

How did you find out about BlookUp? 

I found out about BlookUp because their blog followed my blog. I was curious about who they were and started to check them out. I loved how simple and accessible the website was and the the product was something I absolutely loved.

Life with a dog and a blog - Melody and Gatsby on the sofa

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What are the positive and negative points of the making of your blook? 

Making my blook was super easy. All I had to do was press a few buttons and bam, it was finished. The only negative things I could possibly think of about making my blook was that there was not a lot of templates to choose from. This could also be a positive as well because you don’t have to overthink it and you always come out with a beautiful blook.

Do you enjoy the final result? What does your family and friends think about your blook ” life with a dog and a blog “?

i LOVE the the final result! It was so cute and unique and it was awesome to see my blog come to life. My husband also loves my blook and insists that we keep it on the coffee table.

Life with a dog and a blog, cover

Yeah, that’s a geat coffee table decoration!

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Would you recommend BlookUp? 

I would definitely recommend BlookUp to anyone I meet. It is such a unique item and not only can you make your blog into a book, but also your social media!

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Thank you Melody for trying our solution, for answering our questions and for your article on your blog! And also, many thanks to Gatsby for posing with style!

For more pieces of life, more fitness and more dog, also follow Melody on: 

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Print the book of your Facebook Fan pages!

The book of your Facebook Fan Pages - John Lennon, U2, Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe

Well, you already knew that thanks to BlookUp you could print the book of your Facebook profile, of your Personal and professional Pages… But did you know that you can also print…

The book of your Fan pages!

Do you like John Lennon, U2 or Kanye West? Did you hit the “like” button or have you already subscribed to the Facebook page of Charlie Chaplin, the Dalai Lama or Kim Kardashian?

Quickly and easily import all the contents of your favorite Facebook fan page, its publications, photos, videos, comments… Everything you like about your favorite star!

The book of your Facebook Fan Pages - John Lennon

How to create and order your fan book?

It’s very simple, and we even updated our presentation to make the selection of your pages more enjoyable!
Select the time period you want, customize the content, theme color, front and back cover, check your final preview… You like the result? Order your book online and receive it within 15 working days to the address of your choice.

Imagine having the Facebook book of your favorite music group, your favorite star or commercial brand in your hand! Imagine surprising a relative or a friend by offering him/her the compilation of the best anecdotes of his/her favorite star: It’s possible now, thanks to BlookUp!

Transform the Facebook pages you love into a real collector’s book!

And enjoy 20% off your order with the VALENTINEBLOOK coupon code, valid until 02/13/2017 so you can enjoy it until Valentine’s Day!

So what Facebook fan page will you print the book?