ISSUU: a new application to publish [photo]books online

February 16, 2008

I like to share with you a new application that is an interesting option to display your photography online creating electronic photobooks. The name is ISSUU, and it is a web based application that allows the display of pdf files at any website (help on making pdf files) in a format that most resembles a "real" magazine/book. See some examples: example 1, example 2.

It works beautifully, it is very easy to use and it is free. The only think I have not been able to manage well is the color profile/rendering ... I did a try with some of my images and the pdf looked perfect but the rendering at ISSUU was not good (colors were off).

This is an ideal platform to distribute online magazines, books, or any pdf documents; for photographers I think is an interesting -and free- way to do a variety of things like for example:

Publish a portfolio in an electronic book like format and distribute it easily for marketing promotions of your work and services.
Create an online gallery that is beautifully designed for image viewing.
If you like to sell a photobook you can promote it using issuu, and provide a view exactly as the published book looks like.
Publish a reportage of photography, very useful for personal photojournalism.
In a blog you can embed the issuu code to display a number of images without having to scroll down the post.
Share images from a trip or event with friends and family.

You can choose to easily share the document by e-mail or add it to community sites/blogs like FaceBook, MySpace, Blogger, Friendster, TypePad, LiveJournal, or you can choose the html [that they provide for your book] and embed it in any website, but starngely it does not work well with Wordpress. Hopefully they will resolve the issue with Wordpress soon.

Miguel Garcia-Guzman

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