Anyone ever use MyPublisher.com?
 

It's a service whereby you upload your digital photos and they print you a hard-bound coffee table book (ala a scrapbook, but better). It certainly seems appropriate for our safari photos! There are even page templates where you can do a full bleed.

Anyone have any experience with them?

A little on the expensive side, but I was very happy with the results.

MyPublisher.com is the vendor that actually produces the iPhoto books for Apple. If you've ever seen those books, you'll get a good idea of the quality.

Femi,

What kind of paper was used in your book? Glossy photo-quality paper like coffee table books? I purchased a photo book from ofoto/kodakgallery and was extremely disappointed as it looked more like inkjet printing. I would consider using mypublisher if the paper quality was better.

lifelist- i've never seen an iphoto book, is the quality good? I agree with linjudy, if the quality is good it would be worth it.

I've looked at and handled the iPhoto books at the Apple store, and they're of good quality. The binding and covers are nice. The paper doesn't have the same weight you would get from a fine art book, but it's not bad. The pictures looked fine, but these were Apple generated books, so I have no idea how well the print process handled color balance and image quality.

Here's a quote from Rob Galbraith who runs a pro-photographer forum and review website. It's about iPhoto, but as noted they actually use MyPublisher:

"While it could be used to generate, say, a photographer's portfolio (that's among iPhoto's included templates), it's better to think of this function as a great new Christmas gift generator. Sample books on display at Macworld show print quality that is okay, not stellar, but a notch above what I've obtained from online printing services. The feel of the paper, the look of the templates, fonts and the quality of the assembly should be more than enough to impress the heck out of Grandma at Christmas though. And at US$30 for a 10-page hard cover book (printing is only on the right side; the left page is left blank) and US$3 per page thereafter, it's priced right too."

Not having anything else to compare the book to, it's rather difficult for me to describe. Generally, lifelist did a good job of summing it up.

You can choose to have printing done on both sides of the page.

I got a book with a linen hardcover and about 40 glossy pages. Unfortunately I can't remember what I paid for it, but there's a tab you can click on to get an estimate prior to placing your order.
Do keep in mind that you can have anything from 1-12 pics per page.

Just found the receipt. The book I got cost $69. Not as expensive as I remembered. (Includes shipping charges).

Yep, I have used them several times, and find it very easy to use and I love the products.

Sounds great. Now, if we could only decide between the classic and the deluxe!

Ericka

I've been looking at the details on these a lot as I did the photography for a friend's wedding recently and want to get it printed digitally. I'll create pages myself with montages of several photos on each. The costs are quite variable but here are the costs I found:

I'm intrigued by pixbook.co.uk - prices seem reasonable - an A4 leather-bound album containing 40 double sided sheets (80 pages) is just over £40 (GBP) plus minimal postage.

viovio.com offer really nice looking softback books and their prices are also excellent - their largest book size (8.5x11) costs $30 (US?) for a book of 100 pages. I can't work out how much postage is to the UK or even where they are based. They are also a tiny, start-up so it's hard to know how good their quality is and how well they will deal with any problems or issues that arise.

Truprint.co.uk offer photo books too - the cost would be just over £30 (GBP) for a 40 sheet book - I haven't yet worked out what size their books are - rather crucial!

Bagsoflove.co.uk are a little more expensive - a hardback book containing 40 images (which i assume means 20 sheets/ 40 pages) costs £95 (GBP). But that price seems to include all the page layout services which I wouldn't need so I may be able to negotiate a lower rate, I don't know.

Glorious books seems to offer a very polished and professional service and product but their prices (which were a pain to download and which I seem to have lost and am unable to download again) were very high so not really feasible.

Buzznet.com offer similar books (from what I can tell) to viovio - perfect bound softback books - if I understand pricing correctly it's going to cost around $20-25 US for around 40 pages (20 double sided sheets). I don't know what postage to the UK would be.

Mypublisher.com are well known and well established. Their Classic Hardcover albums looks great. Depending on cover they are £30/$40 US for 20 pages and a whopping extra $30 for another 20 pages! They are sized at 12-inches wide and 9-inches high. Shipping is at least $13+ for the 20 page book, probably more for a thicker book.

Totalpix.co.uk are UK based and do offer large size books. They don't seem to offer much leeway on cover pictures/ text/ colour. A 50 page book that is 30cm x 30cm costs £50 (GBP). I can't find shipping costs.

Photoworks.com offer quite a range of books. Their Standard range includes a 9" x 10.25" sized hardback option with linen cover and window through which one of my photos would show. Pricing is $29.95 for 20 pages. I can have up to 50 pages max and that many pages would cost $90.

Lastly, shutterfly.com are pretty well known. Their hardcover 8.75 × 11.25 book is $30 (UUS) for 20 pages and would be another $20 for an additional 20 pages.

just got my mypublisher.com book today. very nice, photos came out clear. not worth the $113.00 price for 65 pages but better than a standard photo album.

To update everyone, we ended up using mypublisher. The quality of the book and paper stock is fabulous. I highly recommend it. We did the largest book (lots of full bleed photos!) and used 99 pages. The total was nearly $300 which shocked us at the time but now that we have it in our hands, we are thrilled.