Lewis Land: The Book

Remember that blog book I talked about a couple of weeks ago?

Well, I ordered it about ten days ago, and it arrived yesterday.

The thought to print my blog came soon after the discovery of missing blog posts on more than one occasion. Plus, I just liked the idea of having a hard copy in hand. 

All the companies that I checked out seemed to have fairly positive reviews. I was leaning toward a company Blog2Print since it seemed to entail the least amount of work. I didn't want to have to go through and edit and add or delete posts. I just don't have time for another time-consuming project.

As I read reviews, I found that the biggest complaint about this company seemed to be that you didn't seems to have much creative control. That's usually a big deal for me, but all I wanted was to print out what I posted in book form.  I really didn't mind if the photos were small or there was a heading on one page and the post on the next. (I know, I was surprised by my lack of concern too.).

Basically, I didn't have to do anything but plug in my blog address.  They "slurped" the posts right from my blog.  You actually give them the range of dates you want printed.  For instance I specified I wanted to begin October '08 (when I began the blog) through December '09.  Next year I'll just do 2010.

You get to pick the cover (hard or soft) design out of some pretty decent options.  I chose one with 2009 on the cover even though there were a few months of 2008 included.

The book itself looks like a really nice high school yearbook. I have to say that I'm really impressed.  For some reason I thought it would be smaller, but it measures about 9 x 11. Seeing the book in it's finished form is inspiring me to tweak my blogging habbits a little bit in the future.  For instance, when I post a video or slideshow (which obviously don't translate into book form) I'll try to post at least one individual photo and a little bit of text relating to the topic. That way won't just have a title listed.  (You can acutally delete and add any posts you want, but as I said, I didn't want to mess with all that.)

The book included 188 posts and took up about 240 pages.  It cost right around $100. (It was my Christmas present from Max....my dog.)  It sounds like a lot of money, but the way I see it, it's a piece of our family history and the time I took in building this blog is AT LEAST worth $100 bucks. And if you're anything like me, you don't go back and read your old blog posts.  This is such a fun way to look back.

I let Gianna hold the book just so I could take a few pictures of her with it - and to my surprise...

She was mesmerized!  She pointed and named people and objects.

I thought that she'd really enjoy it a few years from now, but who knew she'd be so taken at this young age?

Two enthusiastic thumbs up from this Mommy Frogger Blogger.

* This morning Gianna somehow reached the book off the counter and brought it to me.  We spent 20 minutes looking through pictures and naming people and things.