Tester book: Ordered

I decided to give Blurb a try anyhow - and so proceeded to fight with their program to create a mock up of what my book would look like so I could get a feel of how the quality of the pictures and the pages were. I published only the posts I had currently created - but that only equaled to ten out of the minimum of twenty pages - so I added in another ten of nothingness. Three chapter pages, seven maps of our stops, and one page full of clouds - just because :) Those twenty pages cost me approx $25 so averaging about $1.25 per page when ordering soft cover. I can't remember how much the hard cover was. I'm thinking that I'm going to be keeping the blog for about 8 months, 3-5 posts a week, one post per page so that equals to...160 pages at $1.25 per page...so about $200. That's definitely expensive - but if it's a book about 8 great months of my life then I don't mind :) I'm a story teller - what can I say?

It should be here within two weeks, and I have to admit I'm excited. The more and more I used the program the easier it became (not better, just easier) and I learned to adapt and edit my posts where it was needed. I'm excited because if this prints out as nicely as I'm hoping it does then I'm going to be even more encouraged to keep the blog up as we're planning the trip. If it doesn't work out... well I'll be very active right before the trip and right after.

I feel so defeated!

The whole reason I started this blog was so I could dedicate a space to my Scotland trip but also so I could eventually use Blurb to publish the blog into a book. I thought, "What a great idea! Two birds with one stone!" Well I have news for anyone who has been considering doing this: Blurb sucks. Sure, the idea was nice but the execution of the idea was so half-fulfilled. A blog is supposed to be full of writing, right? But it's also supposed to have photographs, right? Well how the hell do you expect me, a long-winded, picture posting self to fit onto one page when you have margins the size of NEW YORK?!

Seriously?!

To top it off, all of my pictures are either too big or too small for their template so I either get a message that says "this photo will print poorly at this resolution" or a get an image the size of a postage stamp.

Who is this blog-to-book supposed to be for anyhow? People who just write? People who just post images? Where is the happy medium?! And why can't I move the text boxes or make the bigger?! I HATE WASTED SPACE COMMONLY WRITTEN OFF AS MARGINS!