Sam from Blurb.com next to Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House

It’s fun and challenging working with clients in different time zones, so it is good for the relationship when you can catch up in person. Samantha Howe (pictured) from Blurb visited Sydney in March to spend time with the Pollenizer Blurboz team; attend Blurb sponsored events; and catch-up with Blurb’s partners. I interviewed Samantha Howe, Marketing Account Manager (Global Partnerships and Business Development) for the Pollenizer blog.

What is Blurb?

“Blurb is an online print-on-demand creative publishing platform which enables anyone to creatively express their individuality through a professional coffee-table quality book.”

Who is Blurb for?

“Blurb is for everyone! It’s your content in a printable book form. It is your poetry, your design, your writing, your photography.”

Why is Blurb so cool?

“We never say we’re cool but others do. I think it’s because our platform is creative and accessible and there are no boundaries. Blurb.com has worked hard to remove barriers to making a book. We’re passionate about enabling people to see their work published in a book.”

Blurb.com at 2010 Semi-Permanent Sydney Design Conference

What is Pollenizer doing for Blurb?

“Pollenizer is our eyes, ears and voice in Australia and New Zealand. This means the team is actively ‘seeding’ the market, talking about Blurb.com with cultural and creative influencers and organisations, and creating opportunities for Blurb.com in the marketplace.”

Tell us about the range of books in the Blurb bookstore.

“Blurb.com prints a book every 10 seconds. We have over 40,000 titles in our online bookstore. We see all kinds of books – photographs of dogs in bow ties to artist exhibitions to stunning graphical illustration, photography and brand books.  Everyone uses our platform for different purposes: as a business tool, agency creds book, writing fiction, photo books, fund-raising. Some titles do raise our eyebrows. As long as the content is not illegal there’s a market for it.”

Billy Blue Design School Students at Blurb.com Presentation

What have you been doing while you have been in Australia?

The team and I went to Semi-Permanent Creative Conference in Sydney as a sponsor and exhibitor.We spoke to creative professionals and students about Blurb.com can be used for portfolios, story-telling, brand books and more.

During this week we hang out with Blurb partner Art Whats On; caught up with potential partners; and met with local Blurb Nation designers.

I then flew to Fremantle in WA for the launch of month-long photography festival, Foto Freo, where Blurb was a sponsor and I did Magnum Workshop presentations. While we were in town, we ran a meet up for our WA Blurb bookmakers. Over 80 people squeeze into a small Fremantle bar to talk about book-making, share stories and show-off their books.

Melbourne was the last stop to to visit partner Red Bubble and cool global utility bag brand Crumpler.