Well, – the boys are back in school leaping with great joy into the new school year (sarcastic!) so that means we have been back in the Ol’ France now for a full year. And how it has slipped by!

Now, normally 12 months is just about the amount of time needed to put together a hard copy book of such a momentous trip but in this instance, shirking such manual drudgery, we have taken the path less traveled. We have put together a service to put together the book automatically. With the service ready, a click of the mouse turns the blog into a book and two weeks later it turns up in the letterbox (we have a large letterbox).

We call it PixxiBook – easy blog to book. And I’ve got to say we are very pleased with the printed result: hardcover, A4-ish, about an inch thick, 232 pages, photo quality.

Everything is automated with options for article selection and customisation of cover elements: colour, image, blurbs, etc. Removing all of the decision points makes the process very quick and keeps the interface simple. I wrote a haiku about it.

PixxiBook is now feature-complete and publicly available so anyone can make their own book. But in so much as this appears to be a marketing message, we have not done any actual marketing which is the next step. So we ask you to please tell everyone you know who has a travel blog, or any other blog really, about it. We’re ready for customers, feedback (no matter how harsh or sycophantic), bug reports, creative input, and whatever! Needless to say, we offer a hearty family and friends discount plan – just ask.

Want to know more? Drop me a message or check out the Sample Gallery. There we are – marketing done! Don’t set our servers on fire.

So this one took a year but the next time we make a Tour de Quelque Part we can print the book on the way home from the airport!