Australian photographers may be familiar with Blurb – the US-based independent book publishing company that targets photographers wanting to self-publish their work.

The company heightened its profile in Australia with a major sponsorship of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. (While local photo companies and associations showed little interest.)

This month, Blurb announced it had teamed up with retail giant Amazon to create an ‘easier, smarter book design and distribution service’.

While the world’s largest online retailer has previously published independent books, it hadn’t covered photography-oriented publications.

The partnership comes only months after Amazon opened its first Australian Kindle ebook store and on the verge of the retailing giant having a greater local presence in other categories.

The new distribution agreement is partnered with a ‘new precision design tool called Blurb BookWright’, which provides ISBN numbers for free and allows ‘authors to design and publish print and ebooks from the same file, at the same time… the only free software tool that does this,’ according to Blurb.

The partnership will open a new avenue for photographers to market and sell their books on Amazon, which caters to a huge international market. At the moment, the distribution covers Australian, Canada, US and UK’, with plans to expand into European countries by the end of the year.

‘Our customers have told us very clearly that they want to make their books available for sale at Amazon,’ said Blurb founder and CEO, Eileen Gittins. ‘By giving Blurb authors the ability to sell on Amazon, we’re unlocking more potential customers – and profit opportunities – for Blurb authors than ever before.’

Enrolment in the Blurb/Amazon program is free for the ‘introductory period’. The set up fee after that will be US$29.99 per book.

Once a book is uploaded via blurb, the author decides on pricing options and a box can be ticked for Amazon distribution. Blurb still handles the manufacturing and shipment process .

Selling a book with Blurb through Amazon’s online shop carries Amazon’s standard referral fee of 15 per cent of the product price.

This partnership comes in the wake of Blurb announcing offset book printing.

‘The number one request from self publishers is to increase profits from book sales, while businesses want reduce book costs so the project comes in within budget,’ Eileen Gittins said. ‘Our new offset print capability can reduce unit costs by as much as 40 percent  or more over single copy print on demand.’

Offset runs begin at 750 units or more with print locations in Hong Kong, the US and Europe and is available for Australian publishers.