The DEAD Partner With Blurb(R) to Create Collectors’ Edition Concert Books From Each Stop on the Band’s 2009 Tour

Blurb introduces Personal Covers – fans can upload their own cover image for each DEAD concert book

bobweir2009_mr
Bob Weir

In an unprecedented collaboration between a musical group and its fans, iconic rock band The DEAD – featuring original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann – and longtime Grateful Dead photographer Jay Blakesberg have teamed with creative publishing and marketing platform Blurb(R) to create professional-quality concert books to commemorate The DEAD’s 2009 U.S. tour. The DEAD plan to create a total of 17 books, one to document each tour stop on the schedule.

Phil Lesh
Phil Lesh

Furthering the ongoing collaboration between The DEAD and its fans, Blurb is enabling Dead Heads to create personal covers for each book by using their own photograph for a cover image in place of the standard cover offered. As a thank you to its fans, The DEAD are covering the $5 per-book fee for personal covers through June 30th. Books from each DEAD show will be available in the Blurb Bookstore at www.blurb.com/thedead within 72 hours of the final encore of each show.

Mickey Hart
Mickey Hart

“The band wanted to enable the Dead Heads to visually experience the show in a totally new way,” said Jay Blakesberg, photographer for the upcoming DEAD tour. “Extending the concert experience via personalized, professional-quality photography books, available within days following each show, is unlike any band merchandising I’ve ever seen. The speed of Blurb’s publishing platform meant we could create books with unique content for every tour stop. By also allowing fans to add their own magic to the cover, The DEAD are once again breaking the rules with this awesome new technology!”

Bill Kreutzmann
Bill Kreutzmann

Blurb developed its Personal Cover option to allow fans of The DEAD to customize the front cover with their own image in place of the standard cover. This can be done in minutes using a web-based cover creation tool on the Blurb website.

“Working with The DEAD presents an exciting opportunity for Blurb to help a band create a new, cool type of merchandise item,” said Robin Goldberg, SVP of Marketing and Business Development, Blurb. “This partnership was attractive to The DEAD and to Blurb because we’ve been able to allow Dead Heads to work with licensed content but still add their own personal touch to each book.”

To create and publish a Blurb book, start by downloading Blurb BookSmart(R) software from www.blurb.com. The Blurb BookSmart software is free, runs on a Mac or PC, and offers a wide variety of book layouts created by professional book designers. Blurb delivers the permanence and impact of commercial-quality books, with the speed and flexibility of the Internet. Using Blurb, customers enjoy complete creative control, no minimum orders, edit on-the-fly capabilities, mass customization, and global distribution.

Source: Blurb
Web Site: http://www.blurb.com/

Author: Paola