P: Alternative vendors to Blurb in Book module

I'd imagine you also loose quality

But when will the book module finally be opened for the free market? The book module is old-fashioned and should be overtaken long ago.

Agreed, would like to use a more professional vendor.  However, now Blurb has lay flat books, which is a bit better than before, but unfortunately Lightroom cannot support this within Blurb.  This is quite unacceptable!

Hey Jeffrey ... can you refer us to a vendor that can utilize those JPEG and PDF exports from the Book module? ... Do you know of another firm that employs the same exact print requirements as Blurb? As in page dimensions, margins, gutter and bleed? I haven't found one yet. Besides, if we Lightroom users don't use Blurb, Adobe doesn't get a kickback.

To suggest it's that easy to use other vendors is insulting and indicates a callous attitude toward the problem.

To my knowledge, the Lightroom Book module is the only product Adobe has created that is locked in to a single vendor. It's purely ridiculous in concept and implementation.

Can you imagine how many Lightroom users there would be if Adobe chose to  only support printing to one brand of printer ... or only supported RAW processing for one brand of camera?

It's sad to know there was a time when Adobe emphasized  offering cutting edge solutions that carried the same level of importance as did profits. How times have changed.

and templates could be way more flexible, how about allowing us to design our own page templates?

I agree with Jeff. Blurb books are only quasi-professional with few options for pro photographers. They are too expensive for leave behinds and too low quality to present to potential clients. Some better quality options would be preferable. 

Blub is JUST NOT good enough.

Yes, but that is far less convenient than actually designing the book in the vendors template within LR - The templates themselves needs competition!

Lightroom seems to only have one plugin option for uploading y our books to a publisher. I would like to have more options besides Blurb. The only other options are PDF or jpeg.

Note: you can export as JPEG or PDF for use with other vendors.