Do you want to make a book of your travels?

Problem
You want to make a memory book of your travels. What are your choices?

Answers
1 PHOTO BOXES
Stick them in a shoe box with card dividers by date or country. I visited the head of a photographic society in new Zealand. He had a room the size of a library full of photos of his lifetime's travels. How did he keep track? He filed everything in date order. Everything was numbered by first the date and then consecutive numbers. So 1990's first photo was 1990/1/1/1. The first of January 1991. It was in the box kept in date order.

He kept a second index by subject. So photos ofMount Fuji or whales would be listed by the subject and date. For example, Whales 1990/1/1/2. The second photo taken on Jan 1st 1990 would be a whale. he could get out a dozen photos on a subject, and later replace them, and later still find them again.

Most holiday records will be for yourself and friends and family, a hen party, stag do, or club, about 25 people maximum, meaning printing about 25 copies, rather than selling to the public. You can also do a one-off book for yourself, as insurance against losing your phone or computer or website.

2 PHOTO CALENDARS

3 PHOTO BOOKS
Yesterday evening June 7th 2017, I sat with a friend looking at the prices of producing a book. We found:

On Lulu.com a paperback book, black and white photos inside (colour cover)
for 100 pages black and white photos inside would cost £2.95 to print.

For 115 pages black and white would cost £3.17 to order a printed copy.
A colour book for 115 pages would cost £16.98.

Postage was expensive. Depending on whether you wanted just royal mail, or were wiling to pay extra for tracking. The highest postage rate was for next day delivery plus tracking. Why would you ever be in such a hurry? You should order well in advance. What tends to happen is you decide three weeks before a conference that you need to print a bon You spend a week planning and writing. Then the book arrives. You diced to rewrite it or write a second book. Deadline approaches. To be sure of it arriving in time you have to pay extra for fast postage.

I went back through my gmail folder labelled Lulu to see the emails of offers I had been sent in the previous year. Offers included, 10% off. Then 15% off if you ordered one book. Thirty per cent off if you ordered five. Spend £40, save14% (that doesn't look right?) and get free ground shipping.

Save £40 on five or more books (five copies at 115 pages, for £16.98 is a toal of £85.90 but after the £40 discount it costs £45.90 plus shipping.

The next offer was save £40 on 25 or more books. 25 copies of colour at 115 pages would cost £425, with 40% off that is reduced to £169.80.

We also looked at ISSUU.
ISSUU

My friend wanted to know how I produced a book from Facebook.
BLOG2Print
Then we turned to Blog2 print which prints books from Blogger, Wordpress, Typed and Tumblr.

Not Facebook? Why was next?

BLURB
Blurb was charging Us dollars $14.99 for 20 pages and 20 centre per extra page. Going to a currency converter site we saw that was £11.57 for a twenty page book. Only 20 pages! Not enough. My friend had lots to say, as well as producing illustrations.

My Social Book
MySocialBook.com makes books by extracting your posts from Facebook or Instagram. The cost was £30.60 for 324 pages? with free shopping but covering only April to June of one year with was 2 months, at £10.??

We had been going to look at e-books but we had been going for two hours and stopped to go our separate ways and eat.

The exercise was sufficient to show my friend that if she wanted to produce a book to show to her club, she could display one book on a welcome desk, then tell people, perhaps through a flyer, that they could order the book on line. That reduced her expenditure to under 325 including postage and allowed the public to buy a reasonably priced ebook.

You could do the same kind of comparison exercise again for yourself. If you are taking notes in a lined book, I suggest you make four or five columns, to compare black and white, colour, 100 pages, 115 pages, one copy, 25 copies discount of 10%, and add shipping costs.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share my posts.

Travel diary, notebook, pen, storage box. Possible gifts.

TRAVEL DIARY AND NOTEBOOK

One of the things I pack for any travel trip is a notebook and pen and pencil and rubber.

If I have a long trip or side trips, I pack at least two notebooks, to be sure not to lose the entire trip by leaving my jacket on the plane on the way home. I photograph highlights, business cards and addresses. If I have a base in one country and a weekend away, I take a fresh notebook just for that weekend. 

An alternative would be to have a Filofax. 

I like a notebook with an elastic band around it and a pencil attached. Another aid to travellers is a pocket in the back cover. You can buy a diary or 'travel notebook'. A friend bought me a travel notebook as a gift. 

If a hardback notebook is too big and heavy, leave it behind and write up your scrappy notes in neat handwriting on a dull or rainy day when you are stuck at home.

Notebook Storage

Where to store all these vital records? A shoe box will do. Label it with dates. keep all diaries and travel diaries together. 

(Something to leave the children, be sure your diaries are kept and not chucked out in a garage sale of books. Keep notebooks near photo box to be sure you take them with you have a quick clear out when moving house, downsizing or moving to a retirement home.)

 Cover your storage box.  With what? How about all those luggage tags and boarding passes, which will make a quick record if you want to check where you went and when.

An idea for a Christmas present for a traveller or items for a Christmas stocking (or Hanukah stocking - they come in blue)? A travel notebook, diary, photo box, pen, photo key ring, a box covered in travel tags you have rescued from the waste bin and taken off old suitcases. 

Speaking of key rings and photos, Staples in London, UK, has 3D key rings and photo cubes and pendants. I've seen the same in Singapore shopping malls. I'm sure the same are in America and Australia and all over the world. You'll see them in stationery shops and kiosks in shopping malls.

Staples, Watford, Herts, England. Copyaprint. 3D laser photo in glass.

If you are willing to splash the cash, dash to an outlet and order your notebooks and pens. If you are looking for a bargain, try the Pound shops. 

DIY Travel Diary or Notebook

1 If you are artsy and crafty (in both senses), or a parent or teacher, you could make a gift or get the children or grandchildren to make a travel notebook, diary, or travel diary. You could make a whole travel notebook, making the paper, the cover, binding the book, or using thick card for the front and back, making a collage on the front, cutting two holes with a hole punch, tying the pages through the two holes with ribbon etc.

2 You may be able to buy a diary with attached notebook or ribbon or a cheap notebook with an elastic closure. Check your options then add what is easiest for you to add.

3 For DIY, add a piece of elastic as a marker, attached at both ends, top and bottom of back cover on a hardback book. 

4 Stick a photo on the front. 

5 Add a loop of elastic around the middle of a pen and stick the elastic to the inside of the notebook or diary back cover.

6 Make a pocket on the inside back cover. You need not just a thee quarters page of thicker than the pages card. it needs a concertina at the top and bottom, one fold inwards.

An Italic pen and calligraphy set? If you already have a calligraphy set, time to use it to make a DIY Xmas card or New Year card including photos of the year and your hand-written message.

And if you are home alone whilst the others are away travelling at Xmas, lots of free time to organise you travel photos and diaries. 

(See previous post on stationery week next April.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.