Blurb® is a self-publishing and marketing platform that unleashes the creative genius inside everyone. Blurb’s platform makes it easy to design, publish, promote, and sell professional-quality printed photo books, trade books, ebooks, wall art, and more.
Written by the business, not verified by us.
Is Blurb legit?
Blurb (www.blurb.com) has a 3.6 out of 5 rating on OK.one, based on 200 user reviews collected here. It is listed under Hobbies & Crafts and its reputation is mixed. Opinions are polarized: 65% rate it 4 stars or higher while 27% give 1 star; The business has replied to 50% of negative reviews; Reviews mostly discuss Product, Customer service, Quality. Last updated 2026-09-05.
What reviewers say
AI generated
Most reviewers were somewhat happy with their experience overall. Consumers frequently praise the exceptionally high quality of the custom photo books and the impressive print details. Many people also appreciate the fast manufacturing processes and surprisingly prompt delivery times for their creative projects.
Some reviewers were not happy with the poor customer service and extremely slow response times when unexpected issues arose. Customers also mentioned significant delays with shipping, along with occasional flaws in print quality, missing pages, or incorrect addresses on delivered orders. People found it quite frustrating to resolve these problems due to a total lack of proper communication from the support team.
Auto-generated from all reviews of this business. For reference only.
What people say
c
customer · 2 reviews · Experienced 2023-10-01 ·
★★★★★
Excellent on all counts but one... tools glitching!!!
I have several books published on Blurb, some personalized for specific clients, others accessible to public. Every book has been exceptional. Beautifully made, photos and texts excellent. I have had a lot of problems recently with the tools glitching on Book Smart (my favorite since I don't understand the tools on BookWright) James, and Padraic have been extremely helpful and timely in responding to my requests for help, but the glitches have not been fixed. the pages jump around when I'm editing them, and sometimes they lose a whole part of my text. A lot of time is lost and I have at least 12 books in process. I don't want to spend "the rest of my life" creating them. Unfortunately and fortunately, Blurb is the only book publisher where I can entirely create my book myself...writer, artist, poet and imaginative communicator - I'm everything but publisher : ) Service and feed back excellent! Book quality excellent! they replaced a paper back that had come apart, no charge - excellent. Tool glitches - very bad. I need help with the glitches..truly!
C
Carol Clutton · 2 reviews · Experienced 2023-09-17 ·
★★★★★
Terrible customer service
I emailed Blurb initially over a year ago to ask for help with an enhance image error when I was creating a book. There was a very slow back and forth conversation (where I waited a few weeks for a response each time I replied to a question asked about the issue). The issue is still unresolved despite repeated emails from me asking politely for help as my emails are not being responded too now - I am really disappointed with the customer service as I have previously enjoyed creating books. :-( Please Blurb can you respond and help me get this issue resolved so I can create more books?
Reply from Blurb2023-10-09
Hi Carol,
I'm sorry that the correspondence with our team was delayed. I was able to find your support request and see that you had been communicating with a member of our technical team and have been offered a a possible solution. If you have any further questions, please update your support request.
Best,
Blurb Team
J
Jacqueline · 1 review · Experienced 2023-09-16 ·
★★★★★
I am an artist and created several…
I am an artist and created several books on Blurb in 2012.I want to order more of the books but am unable to do that because I cannot access my blurb account at all and I am unable to explain to a blurb real person and get help. : MY email associated with the blurb account was sky.com and has expired.so any email blurb sends with a link to renew my password is pointless- I will not receiveit. Just spent 3 hours trying to explain but just get same repeating response (from non person) to change password on the expired sky account (discontinued by Sky as I hadn’t used it for over six months). There is no-one to speak to on Blurb. Just bots. No phone emergency line to speak to a real person. I have sent many help messages to Blurb, that if they send a link to Sky email for password replacement I won’t get that link and cannot get it. Therefore I am in a catch 22. I need to access my account and give my new email and restore my blurb account access. I urgently need to buy more of my books for sales at an exhibition. However, result. I think because I sent so many repetitive emails continually for about an hour, I finally got a reaction: an email from a real person at Blurb. Answered all my problems. All sorted Thankyou very much
N
Nenya · 14 reviews · Experienced 2023-09-01 ·
★★★★★
Huge fan - one wish
Have been using Blurb BookSmart for the past 12 years. Love all the customizing possiblities, great quality and speedy delivery.
Only once, the product was flawed in printing. Contacted customer service, and got a new book soon after. Very easy and great customer service!
One suggestion/wish: Only issue is some photoes - those already a bit dark - gets very dark on print. I guess it’s the difference between viewing on screen and on paper, but if somekind of enhancement tool could be developed, letting me know what it looks like on print? I’m afraid to mess too much with brightness, again because of the difference from screen to print, and my books are usually around 200$, so can’t afford to mess up too much.
K
Kari Ragan · 1 review · Experienced 2023-07-27 ·
★★★★★
Prompt, HELPFUL Customer Service!!
Recently made a first year photo album for my second son, and was all set to upload when I realized I didn’t have something right about the format (wanted a lay flat option). Reached out to Blurb and then sent me prompt, friendly, personal, detailed instructions that answered my question to the letter. Wow! Additionally, after a horrible UPS experience, I expressed I was anxious about the fact they use UPS and was worried I’d be slapped with another hefty fee (which FYI, never pay - learn about “self clear” when it’s coming to you internationally!!) but no! Not with Blurb, and they assured me of this. YES, they’re expensive but WOW when I received my book in the mail it was perfect. Exception quality, so wonderful packaged. You really feel like you’ve created an heirloom. This is my third album I’ve done with them - one for my wedding, and both my boys first years. I can’t wait for my kids to flip through this newest one. Thank you, Blurb for being ones that still offer real customer service.
S
SS · 1 review · Experienced 2023-07-09 ·
★★★★★
Blurb.com has continued to sell my…
Blurb.com has continued to sell my books without my consent or permission, nearly four years after the books were deleted from their website and account was closed. When I deleted the PDF file from Blurb.com website in early 2020 they they forfeited any rights to print further copies anywhere, yet Blurb.com has never stopped selling them to this day. Any copies printed after I deleted the PDF and closed the account are stolen. Furthermore Blurb.com is now claiming publishing rights to my stolen book. More details of Blurb.com deception are below;
In 2019, a private investigator uncovered evidence that Blurb.com had been skimming 2/3 of my book sales, a clear violation of my rights as the author and copyright holder. This discovery already raised significant concerns about Blurb.com's business practices and their disregard for intellectual property rights.
Following the investigation, I personally observed my books still available for sale on Amazon.com, even though Blurb.com denied in writing selling my books on any platform and claimed they were not being sold on any platform. Despite waiting for several months to over a year, my books remained listed on Amazon.com without my authorization. In an attempt to regain control over the situation and have my stolen books removed, I signed up for a publisher's account and successfully had the books titled The Sad Reality: Christianity and Islam removed from the platform. However, to my dismay, my books continued to be sold on all other Amazon platforms without my permission or consent.
Repeated requests to Blurb.com to stop selling my books have been met with further deception and lies, leaving me with no choice but to discontinue my attempts to contact them directly. It has become abundantly clear that Blurb.com has retained the PDF files of my books and has been selling them without any legal right or consent. As a result, I firmly believe that their actions constitute a violation of copyright laws and intellectual property rights.
I would like to emphasize that Blurb.com is not the rightful property rights holder of my books. When I deleted the PDF files from the Blurb.com website in early 2020, they lost any legitimate right to print or distribute any further copies of my books. Their continued sale and distribution of my books without authorization is both unethical and illegal.
M
Matthew Kneale · 1 review · Experienced 2023-06-21 ·
★★★★★
Terrible printing quality
I recently produced a photo book with Blurb in Europe that was the result of many years of preparation, scanning slides and photoshopping the images. Blurb's design tool, Bookwright is excellent, easy to use and very clear. I chose Blurb's best quality paper for photographs, ProPhoto Pearl. As Blurb recommended, I did one test copy, whose images came out dark, so I adjusted the images and ordered five more, but when these arrived the printing quality was terrible, with numerous images so dark and so red that all colour balance was lost and it was hard to see the detail. Determined to give Blurb another chance I further lightened images a little and ordered a further test copy, but this time many images were pale, washed out and colourless and again detail was lost. Even with discounts, Blurb's prices for a hardback book with good quality paper are high, and I'm sorry to say the printing is so unreliable that the company should be avoided at all costs, as, if my experience is anything to go by, all your hard work creating a book will be rewarded with severe disappointment.
Reply from Blurb2023-07-03
Hi Matthew,
I'm sorry to hear that you were not satisfied with your book orders This is something our Customer Support team can help with. Please click this link to reach Customer Support:
https://support.blurb.com/hc/en-us
Our team is there for you, ready to help as soon as we receive your support request.
Best,
Blurb Team
I’ve been trying to get a magazine printed. Every proof I get has something wrong - creases on all the pages, matte finish peeling off the cover. Discolored images. I downloaded the blurb ICC and I am a designer/photographer so I understand color. Customer service is difficult. I have to keep sending in more photos even though my first photos should have worked. They were clear and you can easily see the green tint on the magazine. Yet they just keep requesting more photos.
Reply from Blurb2023-05-15
Hi Deanna,
I'm sorry your order was faulty. I was able to find your support request and see that you were offered a replacement code. I hope that you're happy with this resolution. If you have any further questions, please feel free to update your support request.
Best,
Blurb Team
H
Hal Blaine · 1 review · Experienced 2023-04-26 ·
★★★★★
Hey Marc Patch I just got your small vintage…
Hey Marc patch I just got your small vintage MIJ Drum book, And I am not very happy, some of the pictures are so dark you can't see any detail. And the book is to see detail of parts! I payed $30.69 Canadian!! I need you to contact the publisher as you know them to make it right. Please let me know what you can do, Thanks,
Reply from Blurb2023-04-27
Hi,
I'm sorry to hear that you're not happy with your purchase. However, it sounds like you're sending a message to Marc Patch via our Trustpilot company profile, which means that you won't be assisted. If you want to reach out to that author, please contact them directly via email or any other means they made available to you. If you need help from Blurb, please submit a support request here: https://support.blurb.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Best,
Blurb Team
S
Stephen Fowler · 1 review · Experienced 2023-04-20 ·
★★★★★
Shockingly bad delivery service
Yet again Blurb fail to deliver my order. This happens every time I order. They blame the courier but they continue to use the same company. Getting a response from customer services is impossible. I am looking for another company to do my future printing.
Reply from Blurb2023-04-21
Hi Stephen,
I'm sorry to hear that you haven't received your order. I was unable to find any recent support requests associated with your name. Perhaps you contacted us from an email address that doesn't contain your name? Or, if you haven't already contacted us about this new order, please submit a support request here: https://support.blurb.com/hc/en-us/requests/new Our team will be happy to look into this for you.
I've also sent you a private request to help me locate your order. Details such as your order number or recent Blurb support request number would help.
Best,
Blurb Team
C
Carl Henn · 2 reviews · Experienced 2023-04-12 ·
★★★★★
Avoid Blurb. They are no better than Amazon print on demand
I was dissatisfied with the printing done by Amazon Print on Demand, so I went online and read some good things about Blurb. Then I ordered my first set of 50 book copies I urgently needed for a book event in a few days. I trusted the online reviews but I was seriously disappointed when the books arrived.
The front cover image was fine, but when I opened the book, all the color photos looked like they were old and the color had faded. This is despite the fact that I sent them high resolution photos with good color quality. When I complained about the problem, they said I had photograph all of the books or “their printer” would not take action. I was shocked. I thought Blurb did its own printing. Nope!
And, they won’t tell you who the printer is. So as an author, you have no control over the quality of the printing, and you don’t even know who printed your books. It’s the same as Amazon. Total anonymity.
This means from one order to the next, you never know who will print your book, and you never know what to expect. Then they try to put the burden of proof on the customer, when the fact is that they take no responsibility for the quality of printing. I am not going to use Blurb again and you should avoid them.
When I went online to check some more reviews, I found that they are rated as low as 2.21 out of 5 on Sitejabber. They have no customer service phone line and the online chat people just deny everything.
They need to take responsibility for the printing and not try to shift the burden onto their customers. If there is a problem, they should take the order back, and THEY should deal with the printers, and leave me out of it.
Reply from Blurb2023-04-28
Hi Carl,
I'm sorry to read about your experience and the inconvenience caused with your first Blurb order. I was able to locate your chat history and based on the points you have mentioned, we would be happy to follow up with you to resolve the issue.
Best,
Blurb Team
F
Filipe Jorge Pombo · 5 reviews · Experienced 2023-04-05 ·
★★★★★
Blurb, issue resolved. tks
Blurb, answer me and resolved my issue.
I am waiting for a new edition of the baby's book. Thank you very much.
Solved!!
I was a Blurb customer for years, the quality was very good and the customer service too. This year I tried the service again with a baby book for a client and the spine of the book had the text off center, which gave a horrible effect. Turns out it's a lightroom Blurb preset, so there's little to go wrong, however, I complained with photos and Blurb's response is that it should have centered better, when it's clearly a misprint, since the preset defines the measurements spine, cover and back cover. I never thought that Blurb would dismiss responsibility like that, now I read Blurn's loss of quality in the service here and I confirm it. I'll take over and not charge the customer for poor print service. To avoid. order 9289440
Reply from Blurb2023-04-13
Hi Filipe,
I'm really sorry to hear that you're not happy with your latest order. I was able to find your Blurb account and see that, indeed, you've been a loyal customer for many years. I can only imagine your disappointment on this occasion. However, I was also able to locate your support request and see that our team explained to you why this happened and they offered you a solution.
When you add text on the spine in Lightroom, you have several options to center the text. My colleague sent you a screenshot showing where to find the Align tools. You also have the option to preview your book in Lightroom before uploading it. Reviewing your book carefully is very important to avoid issues like this. Since we're a self-publishing service and not a publisher, we're unable to do anything that involves reviewing, proofing or approving the layout, design, and content of books printed through us. Therefore, your book file was printed like you submitted it because we're unable to make any changes to the content. I hope this explains what happened with your order. If you haven't already, please have a look at our latest reply where my colleague offered a solution that should work for you. Feel free to update your support request if you have any further questions.
Best,
Blurb Team
n
nick holt · 37 reviews · Experienced 2022-11-11 ·
★★★★★
Helpful service but poor quality Black and White printing
I tried repeatedly to get a good quality black and white printed book from blurb. I went through 3 re-prints (for which they were very obliging) but each time the print quality was too poor to present to my client. I will now have to look for an alternative printers for the project.
ORDER NUMBER: 9171189
Reply from Blurb2022-12-23
Hi Nick,
We are sorry to hear that you were not happy with your Black and White book order. We were able to find your support request and see that you were offered a free replacement. We understand that the results are not exactly what you were looking for but still I hope you will give us another chance in the future.
Best,
Blurb Team
A
Atiba · 1 review · Experienced 2022-12-08 ·
★★★★★
Blurb stole my profit payment and when I complained, they closed my account down
If the minimum number of stars were zero (0), I would give them that! They are THIEVES! REAL BLATANT THIEVES! Read the serious and evident details in the file attached (just that the Internet links are dead once I converted the initial PDF file in to image files). ... Blurb BLATANTLY stole my November 2022 book sale profit payment (royalties) in the amount of $ 329.14 and when I complained about it, they just closed my account. I had to warn them of their risk of receiving spiritual attacks for their violation of natural laws BEFORE they could return it to me! I have now written what I believe is my final warning to them (see files attached) about their continuing to sell authors' books and keeping the money AFTER they have closed the author's account.
Please RUN AWAY from them, whether it be for ordering a book, publishing a book, or anything in-between! You will regret heavily with no way to collect/repair your losses!
The response from Blurb was as disappointing as their product. All my fault. At no point did they admit responsibility for the poor quality of the book they had printed... just made sure that they stated that it was the poor quality of my work that caused the problem. This was an obvious resolution from the first contact with their "customer service" team.
A
ANTOINE · 1 review · Experienced 2022-11-21 ·
★★★★★
Surprise! extra shipping costs
I paid 80$ for a book, plus 34 for shipping and it turns out when the book arrived to my country ups charges another 30 for taxes and 30 as "managing costs" so my book is blocked at customs while I'm left dealing with ups trying to pay... At the end of the day shipping costs more than the book and you can't know beforehand how much you'll be charged... Never had that problem with other online purchases. Wasted so much time in doing the book through blurb while local companies end up being much cheaper...
Reply from Blurb2022-11-30
Hi Antoine,
I'm sorry to hear that you're disappointed with the shipping cost for your order. We have a shipping calculator where you can calculate the shipping cost in advance. See here: https://www.blurb.com/shipping
We also show a warning during checkout and have a Help Center article that explains that orders may incur import fees upon delivery. For more information, please visit this page: https://support.blurb.com/hc/en-us/articles/207794426-Customs-Duties-Taxes-and-Import-Fees
If you need help with your order, please submit a support request here: https://support.blurb.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Our Customer Support team will be happy to assist you.
Best,
Blurb Team
J
JS · 2 reviews · Experienced 2022-10-03 ·
★★★★★
Unethical company
Blurb removed their volume discounts on magazines of 10+ 25+ etc. after I became locked into their proprietary software. When I first signed up, I understood the risk of locking myself into their proprietary design software but went with it for sake of ease. I wasn't, however, aware that they would eventually remove volume discounts on the type of publication I printed (magazine). I just sent them a message indicating my disappointment and suggesting it was highly unprofessional to lock someone in and then remove a key feature like volume discounts. Their response... "we've removed volume discounts on magazines, have a nice day". Word of caution if you're considering Blurb that once locked in, you're at their mercy.
Side note... my first experience in 2020 with Blurb was also a shocker when I discovered they were using practices that as I understand it are illegal. In November 2020 they offered a limited time 50% discount (leaving customers to believe they're getting 50% off), but in reality they had just raised their prices a fews days prior to issuing the promotion. This practice as I understand it violates antitrust laws. I informed them of this (and told them I had been fooled but I received no response from the company).
A
Alex Nelson · 1 review · Verified ·
★★★★★
Easy to do and professionally finished product
Easy to do and professionally finished product!
D
Diego Benavides · 1 review ·
★★★★★
Really disappointed with my last order
Really disappointed with my last order. For starters, the book hadn't even shipped when the "expected delivery date" had already come and gone. Had to email to find out what was going on, only to get a generic response.
Shipping was understandably not free but the delay combined with the shipping fee, and then UPS tacks on duty+brokerage on top? For a book? That costs entirely too much because of the aforementioned fees? Too much. Way too much, too late, and definitely not better than the local competition. If you're in Canada, stay away.
Reply from Blurb2022-08-19
Hi Diego,
I'm really sorry to hear your order didn't arrive by the estimated delivery date. I understand that you're based in Canada, and Canadian customers are not supposed to pay any import fees to receive their orders.
I've checked your support requests and it looks like you haven't contacted us after receiving your order. Please get in touch with our Customer Support team again. We'll be happy to help with those duties and brokerage fees.
Best,
Blurb Team
B
Bill Klosterman · 2 reviews ·
★★★★★
I've been using Blurb for at least 15…
I've been using Blurb for at least 15 years. I don't publish many books, but the ones I have done have been excellent. I'm a photographer and a writer. The last 3 books I have done with Blurb have all been personal travel experiences. I value my photography and so do the printers at Blurb. Honestly, I worked in advertising and marketing communications for 40 years and I would put their work up against any of publishers that I did multiple volume printing. I just received my most recent one today and it's PERFECT!
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