What Is It
Instagram has become a huge and popular thing among lots of users – not only did it take off among teenagers and young adults but mothers and other middle-aged adults have found it a great way to document and share their day-to-day excitement. Take a photo, and you can instantly share it with the world! However, while Instagram is amazing, you may be concerned with only having a digital copy of your life. After all, flipping through photos with your kids in ten years may not have the same effect if you’re pressing the arrow key on your keyboard instead of flipping through a book.
That’s where BooksTo.Me was designed to help you! An automated service, BooksTo.Me sends you a physical copy of your Instagram prints without you needing to organize or lift a finger. Their system organizes and prints the entire book for you, so all you have to do is wait in the mail to receive a physical copy of your life!
You can choose between a 1-month book or a 3-month book. The subscription renews itself unless you cancel, so you easily can continue to have a book sent to you every month without worrying about paying a bill every time. You can cancel your subscription at any time without any fees, though. No matter which timeframe you choose, the book will include every photo from that timespan unless you tag it with a specific hashtag. This ensures that every moment of yours is included in your books. Prices are fixed as well. Whether you have 20 images or 200 images during that timeframe, the price for your book is the exact same.
The books are 8″ by 8″, and they’re a hardcover book with a black cover. They include a slipcover on the outside of the front cover that displays your most-liked photos from the covered time period as well as prints the dates that the book covers. The books are made using Neenah Classic Crest Smooth Digital 100# Text Paper. It’s Green-E certified and Carbon Neutral Plus.
My Opinion
I really love the idea of Books to Me. Not only do I love posting photos on Instagram, but now I have a simple way to ensure that I have physical copies of those photos. It’s entirely effortless, and I just get to enjoy my book without having to worry about formatting and designing a book every month.
I love that Books To Me offers a monthly option as well as a quaterly option. I take quite a few photos on Instagram, but I don’t take nearly enough to warrant having a book shipped to me every month. It’d be a pretty short book, and I’d honestly be a bit sad. Instead, the Quarterly version works so much better for me. The book is larger, it ends up being slightly more affordable, and I still get my photos entirely memorialized in print.
I was a bit worried about the quality of the book, but it turns out that I had no reason to be concerned. This is definitely a good-quality book. The pages are matte-style photo pages, and they feel pretty smooth to the touch. The book is hardcover with a plain black cover. The pages are firmly fastened into the binding. The front of the book includes a white slipcover that slides off of the book if you want. If you don’t want it to slide off, though, it stays pretty firmly on the book without needing to fuss with it.
As for the photo quality, it’s pretty good. The photos are pretty true-to-color, and none of the photos look pixelated or bad. They aren’t the sharpest photos I’ve ever seen printed, but that’s mostly because they were photos that came from a cell phone camera to begin with.
The photo layouts are pretty neat. I’m not sure if there’s an algorithm behind it or if it just randomly decides how to arrange the photos. Sometimes, a photo takes up a full page while sometimes it puts 3 or 4 photos on a page. The book ends up having quite a lot of white space that feels a bit wasteful, but it ends up kinda feeling like it adds to the overall “feel” of the design at the same time.
My only slight complaint is that the spine of the book doesn’t show dates. If the spine of the book had the printed date of the included pictures, you could easily put these on a bookshelf and view any particular album at a glance. Instead, you have to pull out each book and glance at the front slipcover in order to figure out what dates that the book covers. It still works without it, and I’m sure it helps keep the price down, but I hope it’s something they consider for the future.
Pros
The BooksTo.Me Instagram books are high-quality and well-bound. They have good color that’s true to your photos, and the hardback books feel very classy. They come to you each month without having to do any work, and they allow you to have a physical copy of your day-to-day life as seen through your Instagram accounts.
Cons
I wish the dates of the book were printed on the spine of the book as well, but they are printed on the full-color slipcover on the front of the book.
Recommended
If you regularly use your Instagram account and want a way to physically indulge in your memories (believe me, you do!), BooksTo.Me makes it extremely simple. While you may not have as much control over how the book ends up looking in the end, it’s entirely effortless and looks very sleek.
Buy It
You can sign up for BooksTo.Me directly on their website. Remember that they offer monthly and quarterly subscriptions to ensure you find what’s best for you.
WIN IT:
BooksTo.Me has generously offered to send a free BooksTo.Me book to one lucky winner! To enter, simply complete the form below (one entry per person, per method). Info collected will only be used to verify the winning entry and contact the winner. This giveaway will close on December 2nd at 11:59pm EST. The contest is open to readers in the US only.
One winner will be picked randomly through Rafflecopter and I will contact them via email. Winner will have 48 hours to respond with mailing address or another winner will be chosen.
Click on the “Read More” tag below to enter the giveaway if you are viewing from the home page.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Good luck!
Disclosure: No compensation was received for this post and the views expressed here are my own. I received a sample of this product in order to facilitate my review.