Print Your Gift Book

You finished it. You made your book. Hooray!

Now it’s time to print it...and give it to someone special. Or keep it yourself. (Ha! It’s perfectly fine to hoard it yourself and drool over it every so often.)

Who should print your precious book?

There are many FINE companies out there that can print your book. But I can’t tell you how they work or even review them. So I’ll stick with the two companies I use myself—Shutterfly and AdoramaPix. What you learn here will probably help you with other online publishers.

The bottom line is not which company you use, but whether you finish your book and get it printed. But first, a note for class members who live outside the USA.

If you live outside the USA

The videos in this section focus on two companies in the United States—Adoramapix and Shutterfly—but gift book printing companies are available almost everywhere. If you do not live in the United States you should be able to find good resources in your local area. A little web searching using the terms “photobooks” and “photo books” plus your country name (e.g. photobooks South Africa) should bring up several pages of relevant search results.

If you live Down Under, Peter Stone has a wonderful comparison page for photobook publishers in Australia you might find helpful.

AdoramaPix

I’m fairly new to AdoramaPix, but I’m very impressed with them. Below you’ll see a book they printed for me—a Heritage album about my mother.

Since AdoramaPix books have extra thick pages, I'll be using them for many of my children's picture books, especially when they're for really young children.

There is a section following for printing with AdoramaPix.

Shutterfly

I’ve been using Shutterfly for years and love the quality of their books as well as the many sales they run, making it a cost effective company for printing books.

I turn to Shutterfly for the majority of my book printing, but there are a few quirks that need some explanation if you’re not familiar with their system, so check out my tutorials on how to navigate the book making process!

There is a section following for printing with Shutterfly.