Build Your Photo Books With Family and Friends

Method no. 1: Sharing your book

The most common way of allowing some sort of contribution in the creation of a photo book is by sharing the final product with those whom you want to give your books to. In the case of certain photo book builders like AdoramaPix, Picaboo and Shutterfly, sharing means you provide a simple link which directs those in possession thereof to a preview of the work-in-progress photo book. Blurb, on the other hand, allows users to buy the books created by others too.

However, as most of the companies like Mpix also engage in editing activities related to other photo products as well, it is also pretty common that they allow users to only share the photo album with others. Thankfully you don’t need an account to view most of these shared albums, but to make true modifications or to be able to download the photos to a computer, you must create a photo book builder account as well. A huge advantage of creating an account is that new pictures can be added to the work-in-progress book or to your own account in an easier way.

Method no. 2: Providing access to your account

We constantly hear that under no circumstances you should provide access to any of your online accounts. And quite often photo book builders don’t give you the option to at least share the collection of photos you have uploaded to the companies’ servers. However, despite feeling uncomfortable knowing that people with complete access to your photo book builder account could make a convenience of your trust, this is one of the most effective ways of creating a product that satisfies all expectations. Be sure to use a unique password that you don’t use for any of your other online accounts or purposes. And just don’t forget to tell the “contributors” who is really in charge of the account!

Method no. 3: Collaboration by invitation

Despite being the safest and most logical way of contributing in the photo book editing process, this option is not as common as you might think. In fact, based on our thorough research of all photo book builders we have tested, only Mixbook provides a complete collaboration feature. Which is quite incomprehensible, because this way you are basically providing full access to you account – or to be more precise the photo book you and your contributors want to work on. However, like in the case of photo album sharing, collaboration often requires your invited family members and friends to create their own account for the photo book builder, which can be especially handy if they want to create their own books based on the book you and them were working on.