The Art of Shannon McRoberts: Now in Book Form

After much research I finally gave up on trying to find an economical way to produce a full color art book and just went with what I knew:  Blurb.   I don’t advertise the books I am about to show you very often b/c I always figured that they were too expensive.  I certainly will not be able to have a supply of these on hand, but I did order one to have as a sample.  I’m in love with “imagewrap” cover printing.  The interior printing is pretty good too.  I customized most of the layouts myself.

Some of my friends have encouraged me to advertise the books even if they are expensive.    You can find my new hardcover art book here: http://www.blurb.com/b/7789955.  At the end of the page for the new book you can also see the first art books I put together.  I can vouch that they do print beautifully. I just wish they didn’t have to be so dang expensive.


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  1. Your art is fantastic.

    Color art in POD books is expensive. Did you price your book on CreateSpace? Their books aren’t hardcover, but they would be less expensive for your customers, and you can do 8.5×11 size, if I recall correctly. A 34-page color booklet on CreateSpace would cost significantly less than $45, I’m pretty sure. Also, have you considered using Patreon to get a regular subscriber base that you create items for on a recurring basis? Just curious.

    • Thank you! I was trying to price a book for CreateSpace, but I was never able to quite figure out how to lay it out. That is why I just broke down and went with Blurb for now. I want go to with CreateSpace, but I have to figure out how to lay it out first. Patreon…have no experience with, but I have seen it briefly. Do you use it?

  2. CreateSpace has done well with the PDFs I’ve published in the past, some of which included images. CreateSpace will honor your precise layout for books created as PDFs. How it looks to you in the PDF is how it will look in the printed product. If you have a tool for creating PDFs, then I’d go that route.

    If you don’t have a tool with which you typically create PDFs, you might try using MS Word. I’ve created PDFs with Word before, but never tried publishing them on CreateSpace, so ymmv. I don’t know how much you know about using MS Word to create PDFs, so here are the basics:

    First, look to see if your version of Word allows you to Save As… PDF or Export PDF. If so, proceed.

    Check on CreateSpace to see what different dimensions of PDFs they support, and choose the one that works best for you. Create a Word document with those dimensions. If you will be placing images to the edge of the page, you’ll want to go with the document dimensions that take Bleed into consideration.

    When creating the document, set the margins you want for your text, if you have any text. When you put images in the Word document, change the Wrap Text setting for them to Square or Top and Bottom or Tight or pretty much anything other than In Line, then size the images how you want and position them where you want. If you don’t change the Wrap Text setting, the images will probably be stuck inline, which probably will not be where you want them. If you run the images to the page edges, you’ll want to make sure you don’t have any important bits of the image within a certain distance of the edge of the page, because the edges of the document are going to be trimmed off if you use the Bleed settings when you publish. CreateSpace documentation should inform you about this.

    Once you get the Word document the way you want, use the Save As… PDF or the Export PDF command in Word to create your PDF file. Then you’ll need to create a cover, but if you can get the book interior the way you want, I’m sure you can figure out the cover.

    As for Patreon, I know some people who (try to) use it. Some have good success with it and some have had no success with it. It appears to depend on how trusting people are that you will actually produce something of value on a fairly frequent basis. It doesn’t have to be on a set schedule, but if you’re only coming out with something new for your audience once a year, Patreon might not be what you want. It appears to work well for podcasts that deliver something for the money every week. Those are the extremes, so figure out where you lie between them….

    Best wishes for many successful projects!

    • Thank you. I checked out Patreon and am attempting to use it. Good to know about the PDFs. Covers I have no problem making as CS has a nice one I can make a large picture for and write on the spine that way and it wraps it around (almost like cheating hehe). Thank you for your help!

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