The site walks you through the five-step building process with helpful instructions. First, personalise the tome with a title and cover colour. You can also add a dedication or opt for gift wrapping. Next, choose one or more destinations. At press time, Booktailor offered only a dozen, though more were planned. You can select, say, all of Italy, or certain cities, such as Rome and Paris.
From there, you pick topics of interest, ranging from food and drink to history to shopping. Booktailor then lists the articles and book excerpts (culled from sources such as Frommer's and Lonely Planet) that match your choices, allowing you to preview and remove selections you don't want. There's some overlap in the content, and it's easy to hit the maximum book size if you have multiple destinations.
Finally, Booktailor displays your table of contents, estimated page count, and final price. The latter is presented in British pounds.
The finished spiral-bound product takes about a week to arrive. Our sample book on Venice came packed with useful information, but it could have used some illustrations or photos to break up the text. Subject dividers would have been welcome, too.
Nevertheless, Booktailor has potential. The site makes ordering simple. With more destinations and some organisational improvements to the books themselves, Booktailor may become a logical first stop for the overseas traveller.
Booktailor
Company: Booktailor
Price: From approximately AU$27, postage AU$20.
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