I've used a whole bunch of software to make books, and I have to say that there is no true alternative to using InDesign- it is the most widely used in industry for a reason, but that's primarily because it is way more powerful than any of its alternatives and is primarily designed for the professional publishing houses. I also have to disagree with the steep learning curve idea, it is actually one of the simplest pieces of software to use, primarily because the user interface is designed with professional use in mind.

That being said, there are still a lot of good alternatives out there. No photo-editting software is as capable of photoshop, but lots of people don't have or need it.

The most common alternative is obvously the built-in part to iphoto and aperture, which I dislike because you get almost no control over page layouts. Lots of people use Blurb, so BookSmart is an option for them, but I find the interface a little clunky and slow. Pages is another option, I find it a bit slow (especially with a lot of full resolution images), but is overall not too bad. Finally, there is PowerPoint, which is far more capable than most people think. I would say it runs better than most of the other options here, and is at least as powerful than any of the other options barring InDesign. Any of these options will work, but I would say that if you want to do this frequently, you should just get InDesign and save yourself the trouble. I would avoid any web-based tools, as they are much slower than anything else.

i have printed one and I can tell you that the main issue is price. the good ones are very expensive (here in new zealand), the cheaper ones are, well, cheap.

1st work out what size you want (only the expensive printers do books of a reasonable size), then what cover you want, then what paper you want, then how much you are willing to pay.

i used , which is the same as. they are all printed in malaysia as far as I know, but the turn around is good, and they keep you up to date with where your order is.

good service, i would use them again, especially when they have 50% off like they did when i ordered.

Can you ask them to print at a quality less than 300 dpi?

I've used a couple and found that MyPublisher makes the best quality.

Just saw this topic. Looking to do a photobook myself. In fact I've been doing a lot of research on it. Software is really only part of the issue with photobooks, obviously. Seems like the "best" photobooks out there is based more on the service than the software.

The best article i found on it is here:

http://www.digitalhomethoughts.com/news/show/97676/the-great-photo-book-round-up-review-who-makes-the-best-photo-books.html

If apple has gotten it right then the oranges will follow. its a matter of time. :D
the days of spending 100s of dollars in software will fade as richer apps get created for devices like ipad and the like of others.

Democratizing is here to stay but that also fragments the market as we start shelling out 20 bucks for every modular based app in the market.
Time will tell.
After all gravity was not discovered by a falling APPLE or by NEWTON. Its is a law that exists. Newton just happened to be observant of the fact.

I wish lightroom had this, qwerty. I actually love Indesign, but I think it would be great if adobe included a photo book module to lightroom so that you can do it without leaving the program, not to mention that Indesign is expensive.

I've seen aperture and iphoto have simple modules that help create photo books.
I haven't seen this in Light Room yet?

I hope some one from Lightroom is reading this to help add this as an extra modules besides the existing ones.

My question is is there a simple software that could help me achieve a photo book rather than going down the huge learning curve route of exploring Adobe's Indesign?