Now that digital scrapbooking is getting very popular, there are quite a few How To E-Books popping up all over the web. Some are free, some are reasonably cheap, and one is quite expensive. Are they worth it? I guess that depends on how new to the craft you may be. But here is my round-up of the books I’ve found out there. Prices are at point in time, and obviously may change. And yes, I think many of these are helpful and well-written introductions to the world of digital scrapbooking. 

Digital Scrapbooking for Dummies.

This is the ebook form of the printed book in the “For dummies” series. It’s available for $19.99 from eBooks.com, and downloads as a  large PDF file. As it’s an exact copy of the print book, the ebook has been done professionally, meaning its table of contents drop down and allow you to click and go immedately to where you want to go.

With 370 pages of content, it’s sad that this ebook takes the normal path of dummies books, and there are no photos to help out. If you’re looking for specific instructions on how to use your particular photo editor application of choice, this book is not for you - it’s generic enough to form a very good introduction to the craft itself, although it could have done a lot better than the two pages of web resources put on as an appendix - many of which are now out of date. 

The book does deal with some good subjects, however - from digital photo editing, to exploring scrapbooking themes, and some styles, and sharing your layouts with others. It also has a chapter on adding multi-media components. It’s advanced chapter breezes through special affects with plugins and filters, and Chapter 19 - on keeping your computer healthy, is often something many new digital scrappers do not reckon upon. As a good solid background for new digital scrappers, this book might be worth the purchase - provided you can’t find a print copy at your local library.
 

Link to purchase : Digital Scrapbooking for Dummies
Preview Book contents online : Preview
Cost : $19.99
Size : 8.7 MB for the PDF
Summary : good generic book, provided you aren’t hampered by not having photographs.

Secrets of the Designers

This ebook seems to be the latest out, and is currently advertised through the June/July ‘07 edition of Digital Scrapbooking Magazine. This book is a hefty $45, for which you get some bonus downloads of a lot of digital kits and an overview of Photoshop for Digital Scrapbookers also. It’s written by Sarah Benson, and the download kits  and photoshop instruction also come from her.

This 185 (191 in total) ebook promises to introduce us to digital scrapbooking, and if we want - how to be a designer within the industry.  The book makes use of Sarah’s own layouts as examples, and is pretty photoshop-centric, with instructions shown using either Photoshop or Elements. The digital elements which come down in the very large zip file actually have some useful content (even for me, as a medium-advanced digiscrapper) but it’s possibly Sarah’s content that actually make this a winner if you’re after information a-plenty.

Sarah’s graphic design work shows through in the format of the actual book, with a great contents list, pull-quotes throughout, and particularly in Chapter 9 - on using type within scrapbooking. This chapter goes into just enough detail for scrapbookers, towards kerning, alignment, sans and serif fonts and various types. She deals with scanning, printing and archiving work perhaps in a two brief chapter of a few pages, but the book also describes using some of the latest tools, overlays, templates (two are provided in PSD format), and some image enhancement techniques. The ebook closes off with a brief chapter on starting up a scrapbooking business, and a gallery of layouts describing why they work.

What Sarah hasn’t fallen for is using links to other websites for information, as most of the ebooks I’ve seen are listing out-of-date links for websites which no longer are live.  

Link to purchase : Secrets of the Designers
Preview Book contents online : Sneak Peak of Secrets
Cost : $45
Zip Size : 272MB (includes the bonus digital elements and kits)
Summary : Extremely expensive, so many will pass it by, Photoshop-centric, but very very good information. Comes with bonus kits, and a smaller book on using Photoshop.

Digital Scrapbooking Made Easy

 This 17 page PDF file is available all over ebay, for a pittance of money (I picked mine up for 40p), and normally with digital resale rights - in other words, you can setup an ebook shop on Ebay, and resell it. The 17 pages have some (for me) odd content within - it starts off explaining digital scrapbooking by using traditional scrapbooking online sites and a discussion over these. The ebook also lists plenty of lists to supposed free resources such as templates from the book, except these links are no longer live on the ebook emporium website.

It does link to some live digital sites, and plenty of older now-gone sites also. It has an interesting page centred on using online galleries, or keeping the layouts private to yourself. The entire book looks like it may have started off as a traditional scrapbooking ebook, and then Tracey Yates, the author stuck in a few bits of digital content. But without checking out the other scrapbooking ebooks available via the same means, I can’t confirm my feelings.

Whether it’s really helpful for anyone looking for digital scrapbooking information is beyond me - but at least a few of the real links to digital online stores work.

Link to Purchase : Check out ebay and do a search.  This one is listed any time you search for digital scrapbooking and an ebook.
Price : You can pick this up for $1.50 - $4
Zip Size: Alone, it’s only 411 bytes, but often can be found with groups of other ebooks also.
Summary : More traditional than digital, but at such a cheap price, maybe worth a shot.

15 Things You Need to Know to Become a Great Digital Scrapbooker

In the same edition of Digital Scrapbooking Magazine as the Secrets ebook was advertised, was this one. This is Roz, of Scrapgirls ebook - it’s been around for a few months, and although centred on Scrapgirls kits and content, it’s free, helpful and has a good range of content. And did I mention it was free anyway?

With the book, as a separate download, you can pick up a free digital warning label.  

Roz covers everything from what other equipment you may need, to using galleries, how to learn digital (using the ScrapGirl training courses), organisation, a discussion over whether digital is expensive or not, and uses a large section of the middle as a gallery for preview images for ScrapGirls goods, together with layouts created from these kits. What makes this ebook of further interest is Roz’s writing style - it’s informal, humourous, and welcomes the digital-explorer into her store, and the world of digital scrapbooking.

Link to Purchase (it’s free) : 15 Things you Need…
Price : Free
Zip Size : 52.6 MB
Summary : Great content, free, although sometimes the kits and layouts shown slant it as a marketing device for ScrapGirls. Must Have. 

Designer Digitals It’s All in the Details

Just recently out, and not strictly for the newbie, is Designer Digital’s ebook entitled It’s All in the Details. This book provides design suggestions and example layouts using some of the latest digital element themes, and products from it’s store shelves. It doesn’t provide instructions for a newbie, but the layout examples put it into the realm of being a helpful idea book.

On opening each page, it does take a small wait for the images to form, which can be annoying, and hopefully something the DD designers will fix for their next ebook. But it’s very much up to the latest market trends, and the images of layouts used are a great inspiration. 

Link to Purchase : It’s All in the Details
Price : $9.99
Zip Size : 27.9MB
Summary : Great Idea Book, lovely images, up to the market.

 Not Really Digital, But Helpful Ebooks None-the-Less

• Computer Scrapbook.com has long had a range of ebooks available, and has quite a comprehensive selection now. Check out the floor plans ebooks (sketches to use for design help) and ebooks on traditional organisation. The ebooks range from an average of $7 to up to the $11 mark for the newest organisation ebook.
  
• Scrapwow offers it’s paid members not only a homepage website, some digital goodies, but also a downloadable ebook containing 77 scrapbook sketches, and one containing quotes and sayings. Annual membership is $19.95
  
• Katie the Scrapbook Lady sells seasonal quote and idea packs, themes and links for each month of the year as a downloadable pdf class file, available as one full year’s pack for $80 or individually for $8 per month - available via A Cherry on Top
• The Happy Scrapper ebook is 154 pages on getting you and your scrapbooking organised. It’s full of worksheets, and organisational methods. Written by professional organiser,  Aby Garvey, who has been published in scrapbooking magazines, and I recommend this particular ebook. For $19.97, it’s a good read.

Others Not Looked At

• Ebay and the internet are full of scrapbooking ebooks, some similar to the Digital Scrapbooking Made Easy book above, with master reselling rights. Searches constantly bring up Become a Scrapbook Pro ,(a video download, with several bonus ebooks) and Brett McFall’s How to Make Money Scrapbooking
  
• Like Digital Scrapbooking for Dummies, eBooks.com also sells a PDF copy of a print book, Teach Yourself Visually Scrapbooking. Full of photos, no doubt, and available for $24.99. Available here are quite a lot of books for digital photography also.
• Scrapbooking Made Easy sells like many of those big one-page ebook sites, with bonus packages. Available for around the $20 mark. So does Memorable Scrapbooking by Maree Galt, complete with bonus downloads. And then there’s Scrapbooking Life’s Great Moments by Ryan and Jan Sawyer.
  
• Scrapbooking Online: Crafts - The Interactive Internet Computer Guide to Scrapbooks for Beginners & Others by Emille Ellsworth promises for $6 to be up to date with links (for fonts, borders, clipart) and to include instructions.
   

  For the Business-Orientated
  

• MyMommyBiz does a couple of ebooks along the lines of getting into a scrapbooking business.
• Angie Pedersen, the Book of Me author, has launched a couple (3 at this point) smaller scrapbook business ebook reports available from Scrapbook marketing. They sell for $7 each.

Originally published May 14 2007 on the Scrapability Blog