Blurb’s Vetted Dream Team Now Available To Help Authors And Businesses Publish Their Own Books And Magazines

Industry experts in editing, design, cover design, illustration, ghostwriting, and more improve project quality and completion rate for indie authors and businesses

San Francisco, Calif.— November 07, 2014 — Blurb, the independent book and magazine publishing platform, today announced Dream Team, a marketplace of creative industry professionals with expertise in copy editing, developmental editing, book design, art direction, illustration, photography, cover design, ghostwriting, ebook conversion, and more. Authors and businesses can now assemble their perfect team of collaborators to help them both complete their projects and improve them along the way. Higher quality books and magazines will drive more demand and promotional opportunities, ultimately increasing sales and revenue for Blurb authors. Businesses of all sizes will benefit by producing branded books and magazines that help meet critical deadlines and are highly professional.

Introductions to the vetted Dream Team collaborators will be available free of charge as part of the most extensive publishing platform available to independent authors and businesses today. “We are fortunate that we have strong demand within our community and thus will financially benefit from increased title completion rates as well as higher unit sales, which allows us to offer the service for free,” said Blurb founder and CEO, Eileen Gittins.

Blurb has tapped publishing industry veterans Richard Nash and Molly Barton to handpick and vet the Dream Team collaborators, populating the group with a range of experience that offers a commensurate range of price points while meeting the Blurb community’s quality expectations.

“Just because one is self-publishing doesn’t mean one should do it all by oneself,” said Gittins. “Over the years Blurb has been asked for personal recommendations for editors and designers, so when it came time for us to launch a service we decided to continue with the same individualized approach. We feel strongly that hiring an editor or a designer is a deeply personal thing. I can’t imagine being assigned to someone or worse yet, assigned a number of hours of editorial help as part of package,” Gittins concluded.

While Dream Team is an obvious fit for authors looking to sell their books, it is also ideal in the B2B space for those who wish to publish magazines, books, and ebooks for business development, fundraising, advertising and promotion, sales support, gifts, and more. Dream Team can help businesses complete their projects faster, and ensure that the finished product is excellent.

“As business books continue to make up a growing percentage of our revenue, having the right programs in place to support this community is critical,” said Gittins.

Blurb’s inaugural Dream Team is composed of 50 experts concentrated in the United States, the UK/EU, Canada, and Australia, many of whom offer expertise in more than one category. There are some collaborations that will benefit from face-to-face opportunities to meet, thus the goal is to have geographic dispersion. Additionally, at launch the Dream Team experts will support projects in English, French, and Dutch.

Dream Team collaborators are a highly curated group of professionals who have supplied references, links to publicly available examples of their book/magazine work (digital and/or print), plus a bio and photograph of themselves. Blurb users will be able to access the profiles for each of the experts and then fill out a project description requesting an introduction. Blurb will automatically forward the requests to the respective Dream Team collaborators; at that point all communication will happen directly between collaborator and author/business. The parties will agree to their own terms and fee structures.

Blurb will expand its Dream Team group as it learns where demand is greatest. Prospective collaborators are welcome to submit their qualifications via the Blurb website. In addition to expanding within the existing expertise categories, Blurb will add new categories in subsequent phases. “Our first group of Dream Team collaborators are focused on publication creation; the next phase will expand to include the business side of publishing, including business managers, publicists, social media, and marketing professionals, and the like. These folks will help drive discovery, audience development, and book/magazine sales,” said Gittins.

For more on this news, please visit www.blurb.com.

About Blurb®
Blurb® is a self-publishing platform and creative community that enables individuals to design, publish, share, sell, and distribute photo books, trade books, and magazines in both print and digital formats across the globe using its free, innovative book creation and layout tools. Founded in 2005 by Executive Chairman, Eileen Gittins, Blurb has nearly 2 million independent book authors worldwide, resulting in 3.9 million unique book titles, with more than 14 million units shipped to 80 countries around the world. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and can be found online at www.blurb.com.