DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY NEWS

Blurb Becomes SmugMug's Book Partner 

Blurb Brings New Bookmaking Capabilities to SmugMug's Consumer and Professional Photography Communities 

San Francisco -- Blurb, the creative book publishing service, last week announced a strategic partnership with online photo sharing and photo storage application, SmugMug. This partnership lets SmugMug customers create, publish, share, market, and sell professional quality books.

Photographers are always searching for easy and creative ways to display their work. SmugMug customers can use Blurb’s new SmugMug Slurper to automatically “slurp” full-resolution photos from their SmugMug account into Blurb BookSmartÔ software. Users then create a book on their own, or invite others to contribute to a community book project that captures their shared passions and experiences.

“We are fiercely protective of the brands we put in front of our customers, and partnering with Blurb is a no-brainer,” explained Chris MacAskill, SmugMug President. “Our customers have been asking for books for a long time, and we are thrilled to give them a premium service that is simple to use and provides a new creative way to share their photos.”

“SmugMug customers are seriously passionate people who are devoted to quality and creative expression,” remarked Eileen Gittins, Blurb’s founder and CEO. “Introducing them to true bookstore-quality books opens up a new level of creativity. We can’t wait to see their work in print!”

To publish a book, users download Blurb’s free BookSmart software straight from blurb.com. Customers can keep their books private or announce them to friends and family, and include them in Blurb’s public bookstore for others to see and purchase.

About Blurb

Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the power of books: making, reading, sharing, and selling them. Blurb’s creative publishing service is simple and smart enough to make anyone an author – every blogger, artist, marketer, photographer, traveler, entrepreneur, poet, everyone. Additionally, Blurb’s bookstore and online marketing tools let Blurb authors sell and promote their books, and keep 100% of the author’s markup. Blurb’s community features – designed to encourage collaboration and communication – are defining social print media. Founded by Eileen Gittins in 2004 and funded by Canaan Partners and Anthem Venture Partners, Blurb is bringing book publishing to the masses. Blurb BookSmart™ software is free for Mac or PC; users pay only when they publish their books. The software is available for download at blurb.com.

About SmugMug

Founded in 2002 by father and son Chris and Don MacAskill, SmugMug was created based on the duo’s love for both the Internet and digital photography. SmugMug is the largest independent profitable photo sharing site, one that continues to follow its vision for a destination free from outside pressures. With more than 350,000 paying customers and 200 million photos, the company continues to grow annually, adding new services and functions for its customers. With a great sense of responsibility for the photos stored on the site, SmugMug has become the trustees for the priceless images of families, passionate amateurs and professional photographers all over the world. For more information, log on to SmugMug.com

 

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