Blurb to offer ebooks for the iPad

An Open Letter from Blurb‘s CEO

Hello Customers, Partners, and Friends,

This is only the second time I have written one of these open letters, so I guess it takes something special to get me to put pen to paper, or in this case, fingers to keyboard.

Recently, I was rummaging around on my hard drive for the very first slide deck we created to pitch the Blurb idea to the venture capital community. The file was datedSeptember 2004, which means that fully seven years ago we were either prescient, or we seriously lack imagination — either way, we have come to this vision, now.

Of course the “Digital Airwaves” naming is a little weird, but hey, you can see where I was going with this. The idea was that Blurb should help you to publish to any medium whether print, mobile, or digital.

That “future” is now. It’s a big deal for our company and we think for you too.

Within the next month, each of you will receive an email announcing our Blurb ebooks for the iPad®. Transforming your carefully designed book into an ebook that faithfully captures your formatting and design choices is remarkable. We are democratizing ebookmaking in the same way that Blurb has democratized print bookmaking. Woot!

But it gets better. You don’t have to create anything new. Really. Any book you have made — or will make — using Blurb Bookify™ or Blurb BookSmart® will auto-magically transform into a downloadable book for your Apple iPad or iPhone® (PDF to Book folks, please stay tuned). We’ve deployed a small army of people over the last months to work all the magic in the background. And yes, you’ll be able to sell your ebooks in the online Blurb Bookstore too.

This is our first ebook introduction and, like all first models, it’s, well…a first. There will be more — much, much more — to come. Together, we can define what a book is in the 21st century! That’s a big vision and a big deal and we hope you will join us.

Happy bookmaking and storytelling, all.

Best,