Early this year we were introduced to HotPrints, a startup that lets you print out color photo books at a very low price. Where other photobook printing services cost around $20-$30, HotPrints sells its books for a mere $2.99 plus $0.75 shipping to the United States. Given the low price it’s little surprise that the service has started to get some significant traction, with over 20,000 books printed. And tonight, the company is sweetening the deal even more: HotPrints is now offering everyone one free photo book per month (you don’t have to pay shipping, either).
The new free program is advertiser supported, which means books will come with removable inserts from sponsors (none of the ads will actually be printed alongside your photos). To help make the deal more appealing to advertisers, HotPrints is using demographic information from Facebook, like your region and profile content, to pair users up with appropriate brands (it can also use contextual data like the theme a user chooses for their photo album). However, while HotPrints does its best to match advertisers with users, the company says that sponsors are never actually given anyone’s private information. The ads themselves will be placed as full-page removable inserts in the center of the book.
Building a HotPrints book is easy: the Facebook application will pull in photos from your Facebook friends, which you can drag and drop to place (there’s also a Bebo application available). Books consist of eight sheets of glossy stock paper, or 16 printed pages, each of which can fit multiple color photos. You can also tweak the background colors, titles, and borders. My only issue with the process is that it can take some time for the various designs to load, though it was never more than a few seconds.
Don’t be surprised if the service takes off quickly — these photo books can serve as great gifts or mementos, and only take a few minutes to make. And that $0 price tag won’t hurt either.
Very Groovy Indeed! Never used the site before but this is the kind of offer that’s hard to pass up. Thnx for the FYI
I’m having trouble figuring out what a photobook is . . . and am too lazy to dig deeper.
http://www.traderbots.com
its a book..with photos…
but nice try with your spam link.
Totally cool – got to try this out! Earlier did the Kodak photobooks which cost me an arm and a leg!
I’m going to try this out and post a review on my blog with the results when it comes in. Excited to see a finished product!
Anyone know why craigs list does not respond to emails and is now just deleting posts with out explanation
wow free printing and shipping. They have to put a lot of ads in the printing books to cover the cost.
I can’t imagine how slim their margins are.
Their margins are negative. There’s no way this is profitable.
Probably a loss leader. Buying publicity.
http://www.traderbots.com
Wow, that’s amazing.
You get what you pay for… books with ads look cheap.
I predict that this company will crash & burn based on an unsustainable business model….
Hello All:
The print quality of the photo books are the same as the majority of the photo books on the market. We are using the same types of printers as the leading photo book services. By having a soft cover and automated process we can keep our cost down.
Also we optimize the image sizes in the books to facebook and bebo resolution, so the pictures are sharp!
Try it and tell us what you think.
sounds like a good deal … for the consumer.
sounds like a very expensive direct mail campaign for advertisers.
removable ads? their clients are actually buying this?
Hello…me again.
Good questions on the business model.
We offer a very targeted direct mail which people are eager to receive, this creates a near 100% open rate.
We do not want to have all the fun, so contact us about our closed beta print API. If you have content, creativity or a facebook app you would like to integrate print functionality into, let’s talk.
I just tried, we will see the quality. But good or bad, I don’t see how they can make profit, let alone break even.
It’s a great little app, but it’s such a shame you have to use these pathetic themes with such tiny photos. I want to see my photos, not some garish pink MS clipart monstrosity.
If the books just were flip-books of photos, i would buy one a week.
Blah, I’ll go with Lulu.com and make my own.
I’m a huge fan of blurb.com. I’m going to try it and see how they compare.
Check out these guys, they have a great photbook product, with nice templates , you also have a doodlepad to customize these templates, do check them out
http://www.itas...rodPhotobook.do
i don’t understand the need for these services. why not just use ms word or powerpoint to pull in your pics, lay them out, apply effects, write in captions, and print on your own printer or at kinkos?
blurb, etc., are expensive, require you to wait to receive the product, and limited in what they offer you. i certainly don’t see them offering more functionality than word or powerpoint or frontpage or whatever. is it really that hard to create a theme or template or background?
if cost of paper was an issue, i guess i would go with hotprints, but i am wary about the quality and ms clipart nonsense one commenter warned about.
seriously, though, why use these services instead of doing it on word or powerpoint and printing at home? if print is your thing. i have three wi-fi enabled electronic picture frames that pull in my albums from the network drive i store my pics on.
i can see the point of printing for gift-giving, i guess, but so far i have been able to find equally tacky gifts in stores for reasonable cost.
Custom printed books free!! That is the most ridiculous unsustainable biz model I’ve ever heard. It’s venture funded strategies like this that waste everybody’s time and confuse consumer expectations.
you’ve never heard of buying publicity? and exactly how much do you pay for all the google stuff you use? i guess google’s model is pretty unsustainable and a waste of everyone’s time as well.
think before you post.
Looks like it couldn’t handle the load. The app is no longer on Facebook.
I received my HotPrints book in the mail today it looks really nice.
Made my book today but can’t figure out how to get it for free?? Anyone. Love the idea. I can’t wait to see the ads taht they picked for me