So many of my favorite things are those I’ve stumbled across on Instagram and Chatbooks is no exception. These fantastic little books are a great way to make a tangible record of your Instagram feed, along with the dates and captions. They’re compact and perfect for little hands or tossing into a bag to share with relatives who don’t follow you on social media.
You have a handful of options with Chatbooks – you can link to your Instagram account and subscribe to a “book series” to have a book printed every time you reach 60 photos (you can edit the photos and captions at any time until the book goes to print) or you can create a “custom book.” Custom books can pull photos from social media or your phone and you can have up to 366 pages!
There are a lot of other ways to customize your Chatbooks, like adding contributors, choosing between hardcover and softcover options, editing what information is included with each picture (captions, dates, locations, etc.) and there are usually a variety of design collaborations that include special covers and coordinating art that can be used throughout your book. It’s also really easy to print multiples or reprint books to toss into memory boxes or share as gifts.
Finally, there is also the option to have square prints of your favorite photos included with your subscription or purchased separately. We like that they’re sturdy enough to tape on the walls but not so precious that we’d hesitate to put a bit of washi tape on them.
Most of our Chatbooks are from an Instagram series, where I’ve usually edited the photos a bit and added my account name to discourage people from reposting, so the image quality isn’t always amazing. This does show up in the printing, making the photos in our books and prints a bit grainier than they might be if I had the full resolution images printed on photo paper.
That said, we’ve been really pleased with the quality overall, especially for the price! We stuck with the softcover books and have them on a little shelf in our living room – can you spot them in the top image? I also created a custom book for our daughter with all of the ultrasound and pregnancy pics, as well as the first few weeks after her birth, which we’re so happy to have. And I’m hoping to make the most of the 366 page limit to create a custom book with one photo for each day in 2017.
Finally, for those of you also in Japan, Chatbooks has really reasonable international shipping – currently just $3 per book. It’s such a relief when these cool services from overseas are also available to us here!
Do you print your photos? If so, what’s your favorite way to do it?
Kxx
