A Hard Copy
I have to say I love my blog. I’ve kept it for over three years now, and it’s really served as a kind of catch-all journal, travelogue, life record, etc. Of interest to many people? Surely not. But of great interest to me. I may often rail against the internet (doom of humanity, thief of childhood, etc etc), but I do like blogging.
Let me revise that. I do like blogging, but as much as I like it and have liked it and enjoy now and then revisiting stories from Spain and beyond, my enjoyment is tarnished by a fear of having the blog suddenly disappear. Who knows why this would happen—a crash at Blogger, a crash of the internet, it could be anything, and then it’s gone. Of course, I write all my posts in Word, so things wouldn’t be lost completely, but cutting and pasting hundreds of posts into some kind of single record would be annoying. Possible, but annoying.
What I’m getting at is this: I like my blog, but what I really LOVE, in general, are hard copies of things. And I see now I’m not alone. Turning one’s blog into a book—a physical, for-the-ages object—is possible now, thanks to companies like Blurb. The internet may be wonderful, but at the end of the day, you just want a hard copy. In five years, ten, no one will even know what a blog is anymore. At the end of the day, you just want a hard copy.
And so, you might ask, have I made a blog book?
You betcha.
I made a book encompassing all the posts from our time in Spain, up to June 2007. Skipping Town, Volume I. And I am bowled over. I spent hours assembling the book—the blog is imported automatically, with no cutting and pasting required, but there are endless things to do with page layouts, picture-uploading, and picture-captioning. I included hundreds of pictures—tons more than I ever included on the blog itself—and the final product is more narrative photo album than blog book. The book is very high-quality, with an image-wrapped hard cover and professional binding. It is a comprehensive record of our trips, my Spanish adventures, our life together as new cohabitators. The best part? Beyond the fact that it’s such a pleasing product and so nicely produced? It’s a hard copy. If I lose every file on my computer and all my backup drives, and if the internet disappears, I still have a hard copy. I cannot express how pleased I am with the whole thing.
I can’t wait to leave California so I can start Volume II.
Get a preview of my blog book here.
Let me revise that. I do like blogging, but as much as I like it and have liked it and enjoy now and then revisiting stories from Spain and beyond, my enjoyment is tarnished by a fear of having the blog suddenly disappear. Who knows why this would happen—a crash at Blogger, a crash of the internet, it could be anything, and then it’s gone. Of course, I write all my posts in Word, so things wouldn’t be lost completely, but cutting and pasting hundreds of posts into some kind of single record would be annoying. Possible, but annoying.
What I’m getting at is this: I like my blog, but what I really LOVE, in general, are hard copies of things. And I see now I’m not alone. Turning one’s blog into a book—a physical, for-the-ages object—is possible now, thanks to companies like Blurb. The internet may be wonderful, but at the end of the day, you just want a hard copy. In five years, ten, no one will even know what a blog is anymore. At the end of the day, you just want a hard copy.
And so, you might ask, have I made a blog book?
You betcha.
I made a book encompassing all the posts from our time in Spain, up to June 2007. Skipping Town, Volume I. And I am bowled over. I spent hours assembling the book—the blog is imported automatically, with no cutting and pasting required, but there are endless things to do with page layouts, picture-uploading, and picture-captioning. I included hundreds of pictures—tons more than I ever included on the blog itself—and the final product is more narrative photo album than blog book. The book is very high-quality, with an image-wrapped hard cover and professional binding. It is a comprehensive record of our trips, my Spanish adventures, our life together as new cohabitators. The best part? Beyond the fact that it’s such a pleasing product and so nicely produced? It’s a hard copy. If I lose every file on my computer and all my backup drives, and if the internet disappears, I still have a hard copy. I cannot express how pleased I am with the whole thing.
I can’t wait to leave California so I can start Volume II.
Get a preview of my blog book here.
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