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Previously, when I tried to use Blurb.com on two occasions, my efforts were defeated each time by Blurb's BookSmart program. Frankly the program was a HUGE pain in the ass.
I have a big problem with poorly coded applications, and this one was one of the worst offenders. It was extremely slow to load and it had that hated "working underwater" feel where you click something and the app take a good 3-5 seconds to catch up and actually do what you wanted it to do.
After a couple of hours of this, I finally got around to looking at the system requirements. Turns out my machine was not up to snuff for BookSmart's needs. Never mind that the same machine happily runs Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator (well, no machine happily runs Illustrator), 3 programs that do a helluva lot more than BookSmart.
I just think that Blurb's engineers were overworked with the task of creating this application and it was a chore to work with.
That's why the news that you can now format your own pdf, upload it and make your book that way is such a great deal. As far as I was concerned, I was never going to use Blurb as long as BookSmart was a factor. This news has at least put Blurb back on the table for me as an option, and probably for a lot more people.
Some more good news is that they have some templates at the ready for InDesign users. No word on Quark users yet, but that's gotta be coming, soon I would think.
Anyway, although it seems that most people use Blurb for photo books or portfolios, there are some who have cranked out some text novels using the service. If this pdf submissions works out, they could be well on their way to truly competing with the Lulu.com's out there.
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