Albelli vs Blurb books comparison

Both book covers

I recently ordered a book on Blurb.com, then a few months later a similar book from Albelli.co.uk. A friend asked how they compared with each other, so here are my few observations and conclusions. The books weren't ordered as a comparison, therefore wasn't intended as a direct comparison. Both were hardback with printed covers, Blurb book ordered with extra cost luster pages, while the Albelli one wasn't. I couldn't use Albelli's software on my mac as I have an older operating system, their online book creation software worked for my simple book design in this instance. 

The print quality of both books is perfectly acceptable for me and the colours matched as close as possible to those displayed on my colour corrected monitor. The first observation is that the cover pictures, which was an extra cost option for both are different. The extra cost with blurb is approx £8.00 and £4.00 with albelli on the book sizes I ordered. With the Albelli book the cover is glossy, while the blurb book is matte (glossy on their softcovers).

While the blurb book was ordered with luster pages as an extra cost option, it's also an extra cost with albelli at 15-20p per page depending on book size. The Albelli book pages were as glossy as the blurb book. The pages in the blurb are thicker, which you can see by the advertised paper weight.

Albelli Book binding

Blurb Book Binding

The other observation is the inside front cover of both book. In the blurb book you can see the stitching, while the albelli book is covered up. On a closer inspection the pages are glued or similar in the albelli book. I did have more pages in the blurb one, there may be a cut off point when they switch to stitching as I have another smaller blurb book which is glued.

Is one better than the other? Should you choose one over the other? I don't think so, they both offer slightly different book sizes. I will continue to use blurb.com for my annual personal portfolio that I have started doing, even if just to keep the sizes consistent. Albelli.co.uk will suffice my other book needs. If you want to be able to offer your books to the public for sale, then blurb is you option as they are the only company that I'm aware of that offer this service. I have used apples book service, via Aperture software, also available via iPhoto. I wasn't so impressed with the quality of that book. Whoever you may use, it's great to look at pictures on pages of a book, rather than on the screen. It's much easier to hand round to other people to look at as well.

Let me know how you get on with your books.