tunalegs
Pretended Artist
Actually I got my projects mixed up - this was the 10K one I was involved with: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...or-comics-and-art-help-support-o/posts?page=3
Self-publishing your photo book
- Thread starter sanmich
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Actually I got my projects mixed up - this was the 10K one I was involved with: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...or-comics-and-art-help-support-o/posts?page=3
mdarnton
Well-known
The first thing you need to do if you want to sell some books is start promoting your image, because I really want to see what you do now to see if I'm interested, BUT you don't have a real name, nor links to any photos.
bonatto
looking out
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
Yes as tedious as it is - for this sort of thing you really need to have some sort of web presence.
sanmich
Veteran
Thanks for your curiosity but I wouldn't like this thread to turn into a a PR exercise for my book.
__--
Well-known
I have two book projects that I probably will not be able to get published. If you are interested in seeing them, here are the download links for Paris au rhythme de Basquiat and Other Poems and Bangkok Hysteria.
I would consider Blurb or another service but none of them offer a size that works for what I want, which is 3x2 format with the photos bled out to the margins. No of the sizes available would allow this without a margin. I've had four copies of each printed on a digital color press with a page size of 10x6.7 inches (25.4x16.9 cm), but that is too expensive for distribution.
—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Obvious [WIP]
Eggleston said that he was "at war with the obvious"...
MIkhail
Well-known
Good luck!
sanmich
Veteran
Andrea Taurisano
il cimento
I just received copies of my own "The Japan book", made on Blurb as a trade book. It isn't glossy and shiny as a typical photography book, but the paper I chose suites very well my relatively gritty / contrasty BW stuff, and obviously makes the book extremely cheap to produce. In fact, pricewise a relatively easy seller, provided people like my photography style. I would recommend to give Blurb at least a try.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Unless you have lots of connections and are a big name celebrity, my take is that you will find it very difficult to get a publisher and distributor interested in your book. An Aperture Press or a LensWork Publishing might be interested ... certainly talk with Brooks Jensen at LensWork if you have a book idea that you think is worthy of higher end publication, he is very approachable and has much to offer even if he's not particularly interested in your project. (ModernBook Gallery in San Francisco is another potential publisher, if you're book idea is saleable and of the quality that they have in mind.)
But as far as I'm concerned, going the self-publishing route for your first book, or first few books!, is a far better way to get into the market and make some sales. If nothing else, if you do a good job of it, it leaves you with a nice book to use to promote your work to other, higher end publishing houses and galleries.
After having about two dozen casually laid out photobooks done by the Apple book printing service, by lulu and blurb, I decided last year I'd get serious about it and took a workshop on the subject. We used blurb.com as the publishing/printing venue and went through a LOT of very useful details on how to properly design and proof a book concept, how to register copyright, what content SHOULD be in the book, etc. The workshop culminated in a book signing event at ModernBook Gallery.
It was a terrific experience and I learned a lot from doing it. My book pre-sold 30+ copies prior to the book signing event, and I've sold another 30 in the past year (with very little to no promotion work). While these numbers don't amount to a hill of beans profit-wise, profit is not the reason I want to produce photo books...
Be aware that the VAST majority of photo books sell in numbers like 800-1000 copies, total. The standard press run for a higher end publishing house give you a saddle point of printing costs to production around 2000-2500 copies of the book to achieve a reasonable price for a book ($30-$75 is the saleable range). So in addition to fronting most of the money, you'll need to deal with storing your inventory, returns due to damage, etc etc.
Self-published works have very little of these costs. You do the development work, you pay for the copyright registration and a couple of proofs, you buy a copy or five for your own purposes, and you market the heck out of them. Set your price to make a five or ten dollar bill on each copy you sell, be happy with that to start with. Sell a lot, that's the key.
Good luck!
G
(oh yeah, if you want to look at my book, it's available on Blurb.com at
http://www.blurb.com/b/3339394-ways-together and still for ordering. I just sold three more a month ago. My goal is to have the next book up by the end of this year... Hope I make it! 🙂
shadowfox
Darkroom printing lives
Why not?
It's hard enough to get any attention out there, even with excellent images.
Any good exposure helps.
russelljtdyer
Writer
A Commercial Sense
A Commercial Sense
Michael, this topic is very much in my area since I am a published writer and an editor, and have some experience with self-publishing. I do very well, better financially than most writers. I'm able to do so well because I have a good commercial sense about writing and publishing. I'm not bragging. I'm just presenting my credentials to you so that you might appreciate more so what I'm advising.
I don't know who you are outside of this forum. I don't know if you're as famous as Steve McCurry. So forgive me if I sound like I'm not respecting your work: I just don't know it. All I know are the facts, or at least have a sense of the statistics, of the publishing business. If you're not famous, regardless of the artistic quality of your photos, you will have difficulty selling one thousand copies of your book. If someone like this Justin Bieber took 100 photos of fans waving at him and put them together in a book and published it, he'd probably sell 100,000 copies.
Without major notoriety and the assistance of a large publishing house to distribute the book, you will probably sell less than one hundred copies of your book--maybe as few as ten. The only way you'll do better is if you hustle to promote your book heavily, if you're good at marketing. That will be labor intensive, though, and will thereby add significantly to your cost.
The simplest and commercially best route would be to see this as a fun project and a learning process. Forget about the print quality being the best that money can buy. Use one of these print-on-demand services that a few people here have suggested. Learn as much as you can from the experience about layout, printing, etc. Forget about raising the $20,000, but hustle to promote your book. Then take a bunch of pictures to create another book. Go through the process again and learn more, and market your book more. Do it a few times.
When you have plenty of experience and you have some numbers to show a publisher, approach one with an idea for a new book, better than the previous ones. If they see that you know what you're doing and that you have potential, they may publish it. If they'll sponsor it and market it for you, you'll sell many more copies than you ever could on your own. If that goes well, you can pitch the publisher on another book, or you can see if they want to reprint your first book--the one you want to do now. They'll probably do the layout differently and have you tweak it or update it in some way. But they'll again sell more than you could on your own.
That's my two cents, which probably aren't worth a dime.
-Russell
A Commercial Sense
Michael, this topic is very much in my area since I am a published writer and an editor, and have some experience with self-publishing. I do very well, better financially than most writers. I'm able to do so well because I have a good commercial sense about writing and publishing. I'm not bragging. I'm just presenting my credentials to you so that you might appreciate more so what I'm advising.
I don't know who you are outside of this forum. I don't know if you're as famous as Steve McCurry. So forgive me if I sound like I'm not respecting your work: I just don't know it. All I know are the facts, or at least have a sense of the statistics, of the publishing business. If you're not famous, regardless of the artistic quality of your photos, you will have difficulty selling one thousand copies of your book. If someone like this Justin Bieber took 100 photos of fans waving at him and put them together in a book and published it, he'd probably sell 100,000 copies.
Without major notoriety and the assistance of a large publishing house to distribute the book, you will probably sell less than one hundred copies of your book--maybe as few as ten. The only way you'll do better is if you hustle to promote your book heavily, if you're good at marketing. That will be labor intensive, though, and will thereby add significantly to your cost.
The simplest and commercially best route would be to see this as a fun project and a learning process. Forget about the print quality being the best that money can buy. Use one of these print-on-demand services that a few people here have suggested. Learn as much as you can from the experience about layout, printing, etc. Forget about raising the $20,000, but hustle to promote your book. Then take a bunch of pictures to create another book. Go through the process again and learn more, and market your book more. Do it a few times.
When you have plenty of experience and you have some numbers to show a publisher, approach one with an idea for a new book, better than the previous ones. If they see that you know what you're doing and that you have potential, they may publish it. If they'll sponsor it and market it for you, you'll sell many more copies than you ever could on your own. If that goes well, you can pitch the publisher on another book, or you can see if they want to reprint your first book--the one you want to do now. They'll probably do the layout differently and have you tweak it or update it in some way. But they'll again sell more than you could on your own.
That's my two cents, which probably aren't worth a dime.
-Russell
Godfrey
somewhat colored
I agree. I have purchased two books that I first heard about here on RFF, one of them a Kickstarter project. Both were published with Blurb.com, and both are excellent quality.
G
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Russell,
It's good to hear someone else echoing what I feel on the subject. 🙂
G
It's good to hear someone else echoing what I feel on the subject. 🙂
G
x-ray
Veteran
A long time friend and I published a book last year. I work with a very high quality printer that Ive worked with for many years. We do small runs which cost more but it's the way we like to do it. We run 150 books at a time. We make ten dollars a book on the wholesale price and $20 on retail sales. In ten months last year we sold about 3000 books. We also sell through amazon and they print their version and pay us royalties. We've made very good money and sales are still strong.
Our book is about the legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton. My friend and I spent three years documenting his life and moonshine operation. He wound up getting busted by the lay and sentenced to prison but killed himself a couple of days before shipping out to jail. His fame and the moonshiner show on TV has helped with sales.
Our book "The Making and Marketing of a Hillbilly Hero" contains about 70 very fine B&W images a good bit of excellent text. My friend who worked on it with me is a professional writer of fifty years. My wife designed the book and is a retired creative director and graphic designer.
We sell through small book stores, amazon, museums and at lectures and book signings. We plan to expand as time allows. Tower books was selling it as well as Barnes and Noble on line. The weren't interested in carrying it in the store.
We've considered another book but feel without a name like Popcorn it would have little appeal. There are thousands of beautiful books on the market that do not sell ecause there's nothing unique about them.
Our book is about the legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton. My friend and I spent three years documenting his life and moonshine operation. He wound up getting busted by the lay and sentenced to prison but killed himself a couple of days before shipping out to jail. His fame and the moonshiner show on TV has helped with sales.
Our book "The Making and Marketing of a Hillbilly Hero" contains about 70 very fine B&W images a good bit of excellent text. My friend who worked on it with me is a professional writer of fifty years. My wife designed the book and is a retired creative director and graphic designer.
We sell through small book stores, amazon, museums and at lectures and book signings. We plan to expand as time allows. Tower books was selling it as well as Barnes and Noble on line. The weren't interested in carrying it in the store.
We've considered another book but feel without a name like Popcorn it would have little appeal. There are thousands of beautiful books on the market that do not sell ecause there's nothing unique about them.
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
I would echo Russel's advice, except that I would say that if this material is really what you want to do - and you feel it is important that you go all the way with it - then don't publish it right now.
Come up with a small project and make a book just so you can gain the experience of making a book. You can do it as cheap as you want, try printing with different printers, and learn what works best for you. Buy an ISBN for it so you can have that under your belt. Being able to put an ISBN on your project resume so others can actually look up your book if they want to is I think very important.
Come up with a small project and make a book just so you can gain the experience of making a book. You can do it as cheap as you want, try printing with different printers, and learn what works best for you. Buy an ISBN for it so you can have that under your belt. Being able to put an ISBN on your project resume so others can actually look up your book if they want to is I think very important.
russelljtdyer
Writer
A Good Example and Formula
A Good Example and Formula
That's an excellent example of what I'm saying. In addition to the quality of the photos and the printing, this book has notoriety associated with it from the story behind it and from the television show. This book was made by people with considerable experience in creating and designing books--in addition to the photographer. And then they're promoting it to a small distribution network of bookstores and museums, and giving lectures and book signings.
That's the simple formula: good photos and printing (i.e., product); notoriety of photographer or topic; expertise in every aspect of book publishing; a distribution network coupled with the execution of a good marketing plan. You have the good photos. You said that about $20,000 will get you the quality printing. But that's only the first component--a good product. Unless you have the other components, you're going to be disappointed and will waste the money.
Basically, you're trying to create a product and then look for a market to buy your product. In this example, the market was created by the activities of the moonshiner and the television program. In the midst of that, they brilliantly created the product to sell to that market of people already interested in learning more about this moonshiner.
-Russell
A Good Example and Formula
That's an excellent example of what I'm saying. In addition to the quality of the photos and the printing, this book has notoriety associated with it from the story behind it and from the television show. This book was made by people with considerable experience in creating and designing books--in addition to the photographer. And then they're promoting it to a small distribution network of bookstores and museums, and giving lectures and book signings.
That's the simple formula: good photos and printing (i.e., product); notoriety of photographer or topic; expertise in every aspect of book publishing; a distribution network coupled with the execution of a good marketing plan. You have the good photos. You said that about $20,000 will get you the quality printing. But that's only the first component--a good product. Unless you have the other components, you're going to be disappointed and will waste the money.
Basically, you're trying to create a product and then look for a market to buy your product. In this example, the market was created by the activities of the moonshiner and the television program. In the midst of that, they brilliantly created the product to sell to that market of people already interested in learning more about this moonshiner.
-Russell
shadowfox
Darkroom printing lives
Exactly,
I've sold a few copies of my blurb books right here on RFF.
There isn't a whole lot of other forums out there whose members appreciate the type of photography that I do and "we" collectively like here.
MIkhail
Well-known
Russell,
Thank you for your notes, make a lot of sense.
I attended one of Alex Webb's workshops last year, during which Alex and his wife Rebecca went thru a lot of details of creation of their books.
Based on what they were saying there are not that much money in the books, considering the time and efforts that took them to put the books together.
However Alex loves books more than he loves prints (his words) and so they do it. Of course, granted, Alex does not need an advertising, his name speaks.
Still he is skeptical of making money off books. What should unknown person hope for then?
Also, I read that Alex Sosh, broke into photo business by making self-published books first and promoting them. Others did the same too.
So your words do resonate with everything that I have heard on the subject.
Myself, I published couple of books on Blurb, as a part of small series of art photo books, sold few copies.
http://www.blurb.com/b/438900-mikhail-steinberg-photographs
I did not promote it anywhere, probably I could have made this number a bit higher… It’s OK though, no worries
sanmich
Veteran
Thanks for the information and insights, everybody (I hate it when I don't get notifications 😱)
Great, I'll try them. Do you mean Aperture or Aperure Press
?
I understand what you, Godfrey and other are saying here. Really, I do. But in this case, I will try to do it that way. It's not that I am more pretentious than others (or maybe I am?) but this is a ten years work. It has been presented in pretty decent places and appreciated but famous photographers. This specific project have convinced a major writer to write a foreward to it. And most of all, I think it has an audience. So I hope, again I'm not too pretentious but I think this is the one project I could be able to publish on high quality offset printing.
But this is it: the crowdfunding platform allows me to check the water without too much risk.
What exactly am I going to lose if I don't raise the money?
not much...
Of course, I take the whole pretty seriously, and the campaign too. I really want to give it my best shot. But hey, if after that I come to the conclusion that I was just a pompous ass, and that my work is not able to interest enough people, so be it...
Great, I'll try them. Do you mean Aperture or Aperure Press
?
I wanted badly to take David Alan Harvey's workshop, but I can't do the (long) trip. Care to share what workshop you attended?
Almost 🙂
you don't
I understand what you, Godfrey and other are saying here. Really, I do. But in this case, I will try to do it that way. It's not that I am more pretentious than others (or maybe I am?) but this is a ten years work. It has been presented in pretty decent places and appreciated but famous photographers. This specific project have convinced a major writer to write a foreward to it. And most of all, I think it has an audience. So I hope, again I'm not too pretentious but I think this is the one project I could be able to publish on high quality offset printing.
But this is it: the crowdfunding platform allows me to check the water without too much risk.
What exactly am I going to lose if I don't raise the money?
not much...
Of course, I take the whole pretty seriously, and the campaign too. I really want to give it my best shot. But hey, if after that I come to the conclusion that I was just a pompous ass, and that my work is not able to interest enough people, so be it...
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