(This is an unpaid review of My Publisher, by the way!)
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In the last six months or so, several My Publisher photo book daily deals have popped up, and I’ve snagged them almost every time.
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Before this, I’d never made a photo book except by scrapbooking, and now I’ve done five. So, I thought I’d let you all know what I think so far.
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The My Publisher software, which is free to download, is pretty easy to use, and it allows for quite a bit of customization. I’ve gotten a little better at using it as time has gone along, so my later books look better than my first.
There are lots of different templates and page layouts, so even if you haven’t got a good sense of how to arrange photos on a page, you could definitely do this.
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You can get pretty fancy, but so far, I’ve been leaning toward a more minimalist look.
This is definitely faster than traditional scrapbooking, and the books take up a lot less space than scrapbooks, so that’s a plus.
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I do feel like I have more creative control when I’m scrapbooking, but on the other hand, it’s not like I was getting any scrapbooking done recently.
So, by choosing to do these books, I’m not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Once you make your book, you’ll get hit with a lot of upgrade options during the checkout process.
You can get regular pages, which curl like this:
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Or you can get lay-flat pages, which are awfully nice, I must admit.
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Another choice you’ll make is between regular paper or super glossy paper. I’ve ordered one of my five with regular paper, and I regret it. The pictures are not nearly as sharp and clear on the regular paper, so I’d recommend springing for the glossy paper.
The lay-flat pages and glossy paper cost about $10 apiece, but when I was paying for my books, I found that if I kept on clicking “no”, eventually a pop-up screen appeared, offering me lay-flat pages and glossy paper for a discount. I have no idea if that happens all the time, but if you get that pop-up, take it! It’s a great deal, and those are two upgrades that are very worth it.
You’ve also got several cover choices. The linen cover, which I’ve done for four of my books, is available at no extra charge, and you can also choose a dust jacket cover, a leather cover (which is WAY expensive), or a photo cover. One of my daily deals included the photo cover at no extra change, and I really like it.
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I’m not sure I’d pay a ton extra for it, but for no extra fee, I was all in.
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The nice thing about the photo cover is that you can put the title on the spine, and that makes it easy to pull out the book you’re looking for.
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This is faster than scrapbooking, but is it cheaper?
Well, if you get a daily deal, I’d definitely say yes. I paid around $10 or so for my books through the deal, and then I spent another $10 on upgrades, and I know I couldn’t put together a 20-page scrapbook for that little.
And really, even if I paid full price for the photo book, it would probably still be cheaper than a scrapbook because there are lots of costs even with cheap scrapbooking (at the very least, you need an album, paper, and photos.)
I don’t know that I’ll officially give up scrapbooking, but My Publisher is definitely helping me to work through my backlog of unscrapbooked photos, and for that, I’m grateful.
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Joshua’s 365 post: Cubi Item Rubik Scriptor (I had no idea what that meant either!)
Leila
Friday 9th of December 2016
I don't recommend My Publisher to my worst enemies! I wish I could give 0 stars for My Publisher, actually negative stars.
I have been a customer with My Publisher from the very beginning. I have done several books and it was always excellent service, full support and great products.
Now If you are looking for an unreliable company, talk with employees who make promises they are not willing to keep and are not willing to help you or go the extra mile for the customer satisfaction My Publisher is the right company.
I had to escalate my problem to the supervisor after wasting my time talking with an employee named Yvonne who is supposed to be very knowledgeable and experienced.
She made promises she couldn't keep and after talking to another supervisor named Margaret she also was not willing to help. She asked her supervisor named Danilo who is supposed to be her boss and he said that they don’t make exception. All I needed was a Saturday delivery, I was promised Saturday delivery by Yvonne.
I called UPS and gave them my tracking number and was willing to pay the extra charge. UPS couldn’t make the change, the request had to come from the sender.
I offered to pay extra when talking to Margaret and again she said no. We don’t make exceptions. We don’t call UPS. She probably thinks that she is too important to talk with a delivery company.
All it would take was a quick phone call to UPS to make sure that the book would be delivered on the scheduled that it was promised, Saturday. The book was meant to be given on a very special occasion to a very special client and now not only it won’t be delivered on schedule but it will be delivered on Monday, when it would be too late.
Nobody will even be at that location. I trusted My Publisher, I trusted Yvonne when I shouldn’t.
I just wished I had not used My Publisher for my order, they were unreliable, unfriendly and operates on a computerized manner.
A customer service who is not willing to think outside the box in order to help a customer has definitely chosen a wrong job.
Murilo doesn’t understand the meaning of customer service. Actually the mistake comes from his boss who is not keeping an eye on him to make sure that he is trying to help a customer. To do his job.
When I started making books, My publisher was the only company in the market, the only good one.
No wonder so many new competitors are out on the market now; with time they were not able to keep up their place on business.
They don't deserve to be number 1 anymore and I only used them again due to good memories from old times when I was treated with respect and attention.
My husband was against me using My Publisher but I insisted. I remembered when I was not just one more client.
I am so disappointed and I so wished I had listened to my husband and had not trusted them for such a special occasion. My mistake, i should not have been loyal to them and now I learned my lesson.
A very, very unsatisfied and frustrated customer
Leila ORDER#M8479507"
Zoe
Monday 6th of June 2016
I just might be jumping on the mypublisher bandwagon. A few questions for you though: Is the paper of archival quality? How about the ink?
I understand that mypublisher is under the umbrella of shutterfly, and if I am not mistaken, you mentioned that you checked out someone's snapfish/shutterfly book and you were not impressed.
I am in Canada, and I don't know if I will get such good deals here or not, so, if you could answer my questions, that would be really appreciated. Thank you!
Kristen
Tuesday 7th of June 2016
I think the MyPublisher books are better than Shutterfly, even though I know they're the same parent company!
MyPublisher's paper and ink are good, but if you really, really want great photos and paper, I'd go with AdoramaPix photo books. The photo quality there is EXCELLENT. They're a little more expensive than MyPublisher, though, so it all depends how important print quality is to you.
Stacy A
Monday 7th of March 2016
Just completed an order for a My Publisher book. After reading everyone's comments, I hope it will turn out just as I submitted it with no problems. Over 200 photos of a dream trip to New Zealand, so it's a very special book and I'll be bummed if there are issues.
I'm here because I was researching to see if anyone else thought the software was frustrating to use (seems like some folks did). I didn't like that I could only mirror layouts, not turn them upside down, and the layout options were fairly limited. It was annoying that I couldn't create a photo box and then duplicate that box on a page so I could make sure I had the same sized photos. (On several pages I had to make my own layouts because the options didn't fit the photos I had/style I wanted.) A couple of times when I checked back through the book photos had just disappeared and I had to load them back in.
I've used Shutterfly before and it was a heckuva lot easier to use, with more options. But I think in the future I will lay out my albums in Photoshop using digital scrapbooking templates and then simply load each one as a full-page photo on any photo book site I use. The limitations these sites have are just too frustrating.
editaD
Friday 26th of February 2016
I have been working on my wedding album for the past 3 years but when I was about to place the order on Feb 10, 2016 their system crashed. I called on Feb 11, 2016 and was advised tech ticket was created, and that technical support will call me. I followed up with 3 more phone calls ( and emails) as nobody was calling me to fix faulty software, and finally my call on Feb 25, 2016 we started working on fixing their crash. After being on the phone for 2 hours and 38 minutes of troubleshooting, I was advised the latest version of my album can not be found (half the album was lost!!), and that I will need to recreate it again. I was advised by Tina that I will be given a compensation of 300$.
Of course I will not be using MyPublisher’s services in the future, however I needed to be smart about my time, so I decided to re-create my album and use that 300$ towards it. I stayed up at night and re-created my album, however I did not find any 300$ credit on my account when I was ordering. Today, after spending another 27 minutes on the phone, I was advised there are no notes about 300$ compensation, but they can offer me a DISCOUNT.
I had a HORRIBLE experience with MyPublisher, they have faulty software that crashes and their customer services does not follow through with what they promise to do. Deeply disappointed.
Jane
Tuesday 29th of December 2015
First, I'd like to express my thanks for all the great comments on this site. I've learned some good points from all of you who have written. Very helpful. :) Second, for those who don't know, in 2013, Shutterfly purchased MyPublisher, although it appears that they continue to maintain separate printing divisions. My experience with MyPublisher: Although I've made several photo books, I consider myself a novice. My other books were all made via Shutterfly & I was happy with the results, but I had a discount for MyPublisher & thought I'd give them a try. The software & making process was a bit different from Shutterfly so I had a learning curve to overcome; I also missed the multiple background choices, embellishments, font selections, & the dozens & dozens of photo arrangements available from Shutterfly. I created my book & then poof, it disappeared! I religiously 'save' my projects so I wasn't worried until I wasn't able to access my book under 'my account' because I hadn't yet purchased it (what a Catch-22!). I contacted customer support & they were able to help me locate it (as it turns out, it was on my desktop all along). When sending my book, tt took a very long time for the ~160 pics in my book to upload (almost exactly one hour). I went with the basic book, photo covers, regular paper (which I was pleased to find was heavy), & the layflat pages (first time I've chosen that option, & now that's all I'll get from now on, especially when having lots of pages ... VERY nice feature!!). I placed my order for two books, then was offered the option to purchase a third for $30 which I did. And as others have posted, shipping is definitely pricey. My total for the three books was $125 which included tax & shipping. My books arrived 9 days later & although overall they were beautiful, there was a problem with the font & text ...font was very small & text was shifted to the left side of the page / not centered under the photos. This detracted from the otherwise high quality of the books. As these were gifts, I didn't want them to have this defect. I contacted MyPublisher & learned that the text-shifting is a known problem that happens on occasion. Hearing that, I was hopeful that my books would be reprinted without any additional charge. (Spoiler alert: yes, MyPublisher reprinted my order at no charge!!) After three phone calls & the problem persisting, my case was referred for 'tech assist' & from that point forward, all contact was with "Brian L". He was very responsive to my emails & very helpful in resolving the problem. I was directed to resend my .dime file; Brian reviewed it, then I had to review it on the website & approve it before the books could be reprinted. Eight days later, I received my three beautiful, perfect books. Pros & cons: I found it a bit more difficult to use the My Publisher software, missed not having more variety for photo layouts & fewer options for backgrounds, embellishments & font choices, had problems with uploading/exporting the completed book, & had the problem with the shifted text, necessitating multiple contacts with customer service. I will say that absolutely everyone with whom I had contact in customer service was very friendly, kind & knowledgeable, Brian especially. My problem was resolved, but it was 5 weeks from when I placed my initial order until I received the final, corrected version of my photo books. The books are very nice quality, I was happy with the covers, the 'regular' paper quality is very good, I love the lay-flat pages, & the colors & print quality was good. Bottom line: I will probably use Shutterfly for future photo book purchases as I feel more comfortable using their software & like the larger selections & options they offer. In my estimation Shutterfly & MyPublisher both offer comparable, high quality photo books. Although I had a problem with my initial order, the staff at MyPublisher were all friendly & helpful & resolved the problem to my satisfaction. I appreciate their customer service.