Blurb
Reviews and Complaints

Blurb.com has continued to sell my books without my consent or permission, nearly four years after the books were deleted from their website and account was closed. When I deleted the PDF file from Blurb.com website in early 2020 they they forfeited any rights to print further copies anywhere, yet Blurb.com has never stopped selling them to this day. Any copies printed after I deleted the PDF and closed the account are stolen. Furthermore Blurb.com is now claiming publishing rights to my stolen book. More details of Blurb.com deception are below;

In 2019, a private investigator uncovered evidence that Blurb.com had been skimming 2/3 of my book sales, a clear violation of my rights as the author and copyright holder. This discovery already raised significant concerns about Blurb.com's business practices and their disregard for intellectual property rights.

Following the investigation, I personally observed my books still available for sale on Amazon.com, even though Blurb.com denied in writing selling my books on any platform and claimed they were not being sold on any platform. Despite waiting for several months to over a year, my books remained listed on Amazon.com without my authorization. In an attempt to regain control over the situation and have my stolen books removed, I signed up for a publisher's account and successfully had the books titled The Sad Reality: Christianity and Islam removed from the platform. However, to my dismay, my books continued to be sold on all other Amazon platforms without my permission or consent.

Repeated requests to Blurb.com to stop selling my books have been met with further deception and lies, leaving me with no choice but to discontinue my attempts to contact them directly. It has become abundantly clear that Blurb.com has retained the PDF files of my books and has been selling them without any legal right or consent. As a result, I firmly believe that their actions constitute a violation of copyright laws and intellectual property rights.

I would like to emphasize that Blurb.com is not the rightful property rights holder of my books. When I deleted the PDF files from the Blurb.com website in early 2020, they lost any legitimate right to print or distribute any further copies of my books. Their continued sale and distribution of my books without authorization is both unethical and illegal.

I gotta say, Blurb is not the best place to get your magazines printed. I ordered 10 of them for my photography business and it cost me a pretty penny, around $130. But when I finally got the product, it was a complete disaster. The magazines were late, and when I opened them up, I saw that some of the text was missing and all of my images were washed out. I can't even send these to my clients, it's that bad.

So, I reached out to customer service and it took them over a week to get back to me. When they finally did, they told me that I should have gotten their more expensive magazine. Like, seriously? I submitted multiple pictures of the defective product and explained why it was so bad, but they didn't seem to care. I even asked if I could get credit for the defective magazines, but they said no. Other photographers I talked to said they had the same issue and got credit, but not me.

To add insult to injury, Terry, the customer service rep, offered me 25% off my next order. Are you kidding me? Why would I want to waste any more of my money with this terrible company? I'm so disappointed and frustrated with this experience.

I gotta say, I used Blurb a couple years back to publish my books and it was a bit of a mixed bag. Some things were clear as mud, like whether or not the "global distribution" included big places like ibooks and Google Books. I've been emailing them non-stop for years now, asking the same questions and getting some real disrespectful folks on the other end. I mean, come on, if I'm asking where else besides Amazon my books are gonna be sold, obviously I know they're on Amazon, right? But no matter how many times I asked, I never got a straight answer. And forget about getting my books published - they just wouldn't answer my questions and treated me like I was a total idiot.

And don't even get me started on their pricing. They charge over $60 bucks for books that aren't even textbooks! Meanwhile, the same book on Amazon is less than $10. What a ripoff, even for buyers! I get that they gotta make their money somehow, but this is just ridiculous. And the worst part is, you only get a measly $1 in royalties per book. No wonder nobody's making any money off this!

Overall, I'd say Blurb is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, they offer a pretty decent platform for self-publishing your own books. But on the other hand, their customer service is terrible and their pricing is way out of whack. If you're looking to publish your own book, I'd say give Blurb a shot - but be prepared to deal with some real headaches along the way.

I gotta say, Blurb's publication interface is a real pain in the butt. I mean, come on, give us some information! I found two different places that said different things about publication and cover sizes, and it ended up giving me a 5x8 book. And then, get this, it only let me choose hardcover and not softcover. What the heck, Blurb? I had to scrap my whole project and start over. And then, to add insult to injury, it wanted to charge me $28 for my book. No way, Jose. I had to scrap it again. And don't even get me started on the fact that there's no way to put the ISBN on the copyright page. That's just basic stuff, people.

But wait, there's more! I had some serious issues checking out with Paypal. I tried twice and the orders got stuck, and they're not even showing up on the Blurb site. So I reached out to customer service over 36 hours ago and haven't heard a peep. I guess they don't care about my measly $200 order. Next time, I'm gonna give Lulu, Cafepress, or Createspace a try. What a waste of time this was! And seriously, this site is so hard to figure out. There's no guidance, no customer service, nothing. It's like they don't even want my business.

I ain't no tech genius, but I know my way around a computer. I stumbled upon Blurb and thought it was the answer to my prayers. I mean, who doesn't want an easy way to create a book, right? But let me tell you, it's too good to be true.

Sure, there's a glimmer of hope with their product, but their customer service is a joke. They talk in a language that only tech wizards can understand. I lost my book content twice because of their poor instructions on their site. And when I reached out to their email support, they beat around the bush and didn't answer my questions directly.

To make matters worse, my computer crashed and I lost all my data a second time. Thank goodness for Carbonite, a lifesaver of a product! But when I tried to retrieve my files, Bookwright wouldn't recognize them. Hours of creativity down the drain.

I asked the Blurb people a simple question on how to copy my files so I could keep them safe off their site. But they couldn't give me a straight answer. And now, I have no files left. Not even the ones saved on Carbonite can be read.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend Blurb to anyone. It's a waste of time and energy. Stick to the good ol' fashioned way of creating a book.

I just tried to buy a book from Blurb.com, and I gotta say, it was a pretty frustrating experience. I needed this book for my college children's book class, and I was willing to pay the $45 price tag for it. Everything was going smoothly until I got to the checkout page. I entered all the correct information for my debit card, but then I got an error message saying that the zip code was wrong. Now, I know for a fact that I entered the correct zip code, so I tried again, thinking maybe I made a mistake with the card number or something. But nope, I got the same error message again.

At this point, I was starting to get pretty annoyed. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, though, until I checked my bank account and saw that there were TWO pending charges of $45 each. What the heck?! I didn't even get an order confirmation or a receipt or anything to show that my order had gone through. Now I'm worried that my book won't arrive on time, and my partner and I won't be able to give it to our young children like we planned. It's just not fair that they'll be left without a book while their classmates get to enjoy theirs.

Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed with Blurb.com. They really dropped the ball on this one. Their communication methods are seriously lacking, and I don't appreciate the fact that they charged me twice without any explanation. I'm definitely taking my business elsewhere from now on. If anyone from Blurb is reading this, my complaint number is *** and I expect to hear back from you ASAP.

Blurb is a printing service that I've used for a variety of book projects, but I have to say that the quality is hit or miss. I've had some books turn out pretty good, but others have been downright mediocre. If you're planning on mass producing books, I wouldn't recommend using Blurb because the quality just doesn't cut it. I've printed with other print houses and my personal work has turned out much better.

Their customer service is also a mixed bag. I've reached out to them a few times and sometimes they're responsive, but other times they're completely unresponsive. For example, I contacted them three weeks ago and never got a reply. Out of nowhere, they closed my request as solved. I messaged them again and again, but never got a reply. I even tried direct messaging them on Instagram, but still no response. It wasn't until I publicly posted on their Instagram post that they finally replied back to me. It's frustrating when you have to jump through hoops just to get a response.

That being said, if you're just trying to print a book for your family or friends using your iPhone photos, then Blurb is "alright". I've printed a total of four different types of books with them, but I don't think I'll be using them again. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but unfortunately, my experience with Blurb has been more of the latter.

I gotta say, Blurb's customer service is seriously lacking. I mean, come on, they don't even have a phone number to call? You're stuck with email, and good luck getting a response in a timely manner. And if you need to cancel a book order, forget about it. You have to do it within an hour or you're out of luck. That's just not fair, man. What if you order it at 6 pm and then realize you made a mistake at 8 pm? Tough luck, buddy.

And don't even get me started on the disclaimer thing. I had to find out the hard way that you have to agree to some terms before you buy your book. Why isn't that made clear from the get-go? It's just frustrating, you know?

And the response time for emails is way too long. I've had issues that they just closed without even responding to me or letting me know what was going on. That's just rude, man. I'm beyond disappointed with this company.

Oh, and to top it all off, my book came damaged. Not even from shipping, but with marks and rips. And they won't even issue a refund? That's just terrible customer service. If you're only going to offer help via email, at least have someone checking it every hour or so. Don't waste your time with this company, folks.

I recently had a book printed by Blurb, a 239-page hardcover photo book. Unfortunately, when the book arrived, I noticed that 56 pages were put into the book in reverse order. Additionally, there was a defect in the cover, with a ripple across the middle of the front and back, as if there was an extra piece of cardboard underneath the cover image. I immediately submitted a support request with detailed explanations and several photos documenting the issues. I was hoping to hear back from Blurb within a few days, with an offer to either reprint the book or give me a full credit for use in the future. However, it has been two weeks, and my support issue is still open with no response from Blurb.

After waiting for a week without any response, I decided to have the book printed again at further expense to me. At this point, I am no longer satisfied with having this book reprinted. It is too late for that. The only fair resolution I can see now is for Blurb to refund my money or, at the very least, to give me a credit for the full amount I paid, which I could use in the future for another book. Unfortunately, after discovering this site and seeing what kind of customer service others have experienced, I am not holding my breath. I am currently looking for another printing company.

Overall, my experience with Blurb has been disappointing. I understand that mistakes can happen, but the lack of response from their customer service team is unacceptable. I hope that Blurb can improve their customer service and take responsibility for their mistakes in the future. Until then, I cannot recommend them to others.

Blurb used to be an okay place to print self-published books, but now I'm not so sure. They do make decent ebooks and a digital book preview and magazines, but there are a lot of issues that ruin the Blurb experience. For one, don't expect to get your revenue from Blurb from orders customers purchase directly from the site. It's been two years and I still haven't received a payout for the purchases made. TWO YEARS! That's a long time to wait for money that's rightfully mine.

Secondly, this last order they shorted me 2 books! I reached out about it, and I haven't got a call or an email response. Additionally, many of the books are damaged. When I reached out about that, no response AT ALL! When you call the phone number, it rings but no one ever answers. It's frustrating to not be able to get a hold of anyone to help with these issues.

So essentially they stole money from me on two different fronts. From the sales I have made, they never payout. And they shorted me in my order. It's not fair to the hardworking authors who are trying to make a living off of their work.

I am very angry. I needed these books for a show, and now I don't have enough books to meet the RSVP requests and I will have to present damaged goods. It's embarrassing and unprofessional.

The Amazon process is also a joke. There is no clear explanation as to how the books get on Amazon or with Barnes and Noble. It doesn't appear to be a solid process, so it makes no sense for them to advertise it. It's frustrating to not know how your book is being distributed and if it's even being sold.

Overall, I'm disappointed with Blurb. They used to be a decent option for self-publishing, but now I'm not so sure. The lack of communication and payout issues are unacceptable. I hope they can improve their processes and customer service in the future.

So, I was in a bit of a pickle when Apple decided to drop Aperture support, which meant that I could no longer create photo books using it. I was looking for an alternative and stumbled upon Blurb BookWright. I must say, it was a bit of a bummer.

Firstly, importing around 170 photos took me a good half an hour, which was a bit of a drag. But I thought, okay, I can live with that. However, when I started adding images to the album, it took another 20 to 30 seconds for each image to be added. I mean, come on, either the import should be slow or adding images to the album should be slow, but not both.

Then, I decided to create my book. On the first page, I wanted to add one image and two text boxes. But guess what? The app crashed. I mean, seriously? I wanted to add three columns of text, but I gave up on that.

A week later, I decided to give it another go. I started adding text and tried to link two text boxes so that it would flow like two-column text. But when I tried to save the book, it refused to save because "there were errors". I mean, what kind of errors? Thanks a lot, guys!

I closed the application and restarted it, hoping to continue where I left off. But when I started adding a few more images on page 2 and 3, it wouldn't let me save the book again, "because of errors". I mean, seriously, what is going on here?

Overall, I would say stay away from this app. It's just not worth the hassle.

I have published a book on Blurb and the book has sold 21 copies on Amazon.com. My profit from that sale comes to $ 290.58 which Blurb must send me a check of.

On November 15, the Customer Service Manager, named Lena, sent me an email saying that she has "sent in a request for the check to be processed and mailed to me." She later sent me another email saying that she would send the check with a tracking number through the Post Office, to which I replied saying that it is a good idea to add a tracking number to it. But up to this day, close to a month later, she wrote me and said the check is still not ready to be sent.

I am beginning to think there is something wrong going on because after about 10 days, I inquired and she said the check was still processing. Then, more than 2 weeks later, I inquired again as to why such a delay, and she replied and said she checked again and found that there was a "formatting error." I don't know the kind of formatting error she was referring to.

Now, the whole thing is heading to 1 month and I inquired again, and she wrote me 2 days ago saying the check is still processing (see attachment of her email statement).

One month to write or fill out a check is too much time and I doubt that she wants to send me my profit payment check, in view of the many complaints I have seen about them on the Internet — including not sending payment checks to the author who painstakingly wrote the book!

Horrible horrible service. I have contacted them many many times to finalize my book project and they never responded. Over the course of several months. I have uploaded my project after 4months of work, and there is no usable link after it successfully uploads to Print Project. Book does not appear in My Projects or My Orders, and there is just no way to print the order. Very very frustrating. Do not order from Blurb.

Blurb claims they sent the profit check Sept 12, 2019. After over a month of not receiving the payment I contacted Blurb through the website.
After a week of playing email tag, I was told a replacement was sent October 19, 2019 and if it don't arrive by Friday October 25, 2019 they would send another.
No profit payment was received. By not receiving either mailings indicates either the USPS stole both of the profit payments and did not cash them and just threw them away, or Blurb never sent them in the first place.
Since the odds and common sense indicate Blurb never sent them, on October 27, 2019 I asked Blurb if profit payments was just a scam and if they never had any intention of sending any profit payments.
Now they will not respond to repeated requests to resolve this matter through the website.

I then tried to call them directly because they wont respond to repeated requests through the website to resolve this issue but Blurbs phone number is fake and leads nowhere (415) 364-6300
Blurbs other number (415) 362-2067 has been disconnected.
Both more indications of deception by Blurb.

ok, blurb, where's your customer service? Do you have issues in recruiting people? Or you only have a machine that sends automatically generated answers and doesn't help at all? And needless to say, my question was simple, I didn't have a hard issue, but I got a copy-pasted answer that had nothing to do with my situation. Are there real people working for you at this department? So disappointed with this.
I only wasted time on your useless service.

This site is horrible, but their customer service is extremely ridiculous! You cannot get an actual person on the phone. You can write tons of emails, but there will be no response. I sent them many emails, but only after almost a month I got my first reply from Blurb. But there was nothing useful there! They only sent me a link where I could find the answer to my question. They also mentioned that I can send them emails if there will be any problems. They told “We are always happy to help our customers”. I messaged them again, but the same happened – no response. They have obviously gotten too big to care about the individual customer anymore.

I only have horrible comments about Blurb's Customer Service team. My two main issues are: (1) Blurb continually prints RED too loud. The REDs are never close to the original pictures. Despite multiple attempts with customer service at resolving it; they did not care; (2) after an order, I asked Customer Service to inform the printer to go outside the standard spec of 20 pages for a SmartBook, but Bruce from Customer Service did not care; he was not willing to entertain contacting the printer for an adjustment; too much effort to place one call and help a customer; he has too many orders to allow for an exception...

We've not had a great experience with Blurb. We spent over $700 to install Adobe InDesign, and then had to reformat our book to fit the specs. Then there were multiple problems with the uploads. Very frustrating! Now, we've got our ebook price being changed without notifying us! Our $14.99 Ebook, went to $12.99 last week (we didn't do it). We reset it to $14.99. This week it jumped to $16.99 (we didn't do it). We've reset it to $14.99. There's no consistency with Blurb. We have to post separate widgets for the Ebook, and Ipad version. Customer's can't click on a full menu of our books multiple-versions. We wouldn't recommend this site.

Blurb.Com is billing me for two photo books due to an error in their online order form. This error was not because I did not check my work. It was because their order form gave me an error message of failure on the next screen after I entered my credit card. This indicated to me that the order was not placed and it had failed. I resubmitted the order using my PayPal next. I now have two books coming and not one. This is FRAUD! It's easy to see that they are intentionally giving folks a failure message in order for them to place a second order.

I just created a book of one of my daughter’s collage stories using Blurb's software, and ordered one copy: looked great. Got excited and ordered 10 copies: looked great too, and friends, family and co-workers all wanted one. When I ran out of the 10 copies, I ordered 10 more. YIKES! Should’ve read the comments on the Internet earlier and counted myself lucky to get 11 copies that were not messed up.

These last 10 copies are terribly finished, with the hard cover improperly glued to the body of the book (the white paper that glues onto the hard cover–front and back–is full of bubbles, as if my 4 year old had glued it).

I promptly contacted customer support and they agreed to send me a new set… and asked me to return the deffective ones to them! HUH?! What are they going to do with them? It makes me feel that, even though I sent them photos of the issue, they do not believe me. Also, this is the first time EVER that, when ordering something that is custom-made and having an issue, I am asked to return it to the seller/manufacturer. It is just a TERRIBLE policy. Makes the company look cheap and distrustful of its customers. Plus, even though they will be sending me a UPS label to pay for the shipping, who is paying for my time to take the darn box of books to the UPS store?!

That’s it for me, I will NEVER do business with Blurb again. I will start looking into other online printing services, which seem to abound... something else I learned when I started looking into the complaints that folks have about Blurb.