Staci uses Blogger. I use Wordpress. I figured that blog publishing services would be a sort of one-size-fits-all proposition. Turns out, not so much.

Below are the services I found:

1.  Blurb is supposedly the gold standard for converting blogs to books. When I visited the site, however, the "slurping" algorithms are broken for Blogger and Wordpress.  It still works for other blog platforms, such as TypePad and LiveJournal. To create a book, you have to install their BookSmart client to install on your computer. Because I run Wordpress blogs, however, I was unable to see functionality and comment on layouts, etc.

This site is good for most run-of-the-mill bloggers who are not computer geniuses, the lack of Blogger/Wordpress functionality is problematic because most run-of-the-mill bloggers use either Blogger or Wordpress. They say this will eventually be fixed. It better be if they want to stay in business.

2.  A good option for Blogger, however, is SharedBook . All you have to do is put your blog address into the form on the main SharedBook webpage, tell it whether you want the whole blog or a certain time period. It then creates a book for you and tells you how much dough you need to cough up to get the book. Three limitations I saw are (1) it will not print a book with an excess of 350 pictures 500 pictures, which means that picture blogs will need to be broken up into smaller periods of time;  (2) it forces comments to be printed; (3) there are no options for formatting to make the book really snazzy like the other sites. That said, the default layout was great and I appreciated the simplicity of the site. You literally will have your book ready to preview and order in two minutes.

SharedBook didn’t work for my Wordpress blogs.

Update

Carolyn from SharedBook weighed in. Because I don’t really solicit comments on this blog, which means readers are unlikely to see her comment, I copy her comment below.

Hi. Just wanted you to know that SharedBook has lifted the 350 picture max and expanded to 500 the number of photos that can automatically be loaded. Also, you can remove all or some portion of the comments by personalizing your Blog2Print book (you can also add more photos).

It looks like that in addition to super ease of use of SharedBook and great default layout, you are also likely to have a hands on experience with the operators if any issues need to be resolved. Sometimes that alone is worth using a service.

3. Lulu . This is for real die-hards. It really isn’t a blog book printing site, but has an amazing array of utilities for printing books from cookbooks, to comic books, to wedding books, to text books. If you want to sell your content, this is place to do it, but creation of a book here will take some elbow grease because there is no automated feature for blogs. I.e., there will be a lot of copying, pasting, and uploading. Pictures are uploaded using their slick Lulu Studio that is able to import from Flickr or Photobucket. Lulu is an ideal site for aspiring professional photographers to make proof books or demo books.