Self-publishing your photo book

[sanmich]

Hi all

I am in the process of (trying to) publish my first photo book.
The starting point is not bad at all: I have what I think is a good subject, what seems to be some good pictures (by other's opinion, not only me).
I have even secured a foreword by a very prominent writer/thinker.

Yet, I see so many potential pitfalls in the process. And I know that if it doesn't work, it will probably be only my fault.

Crowd funding: If I don't raise the money. quite a lot of money (estimate of 20,000 $) end of story. No book.
Editing the pictures, translating and editing the texts. I don't really know how to do it. quite worried on this front.
Graphic design, choices of paper, printer, printing technique (duotone?). If I choose the wrong persons/company, the book will not look good.

So, I am searching the web about all these steps.
I thought that I might not be alone, and maybe we could have a thread where everyone that has a piece of information, both first hand or from a web link, could share it.

I would like to start with the post of Vicky (lilserenity):
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115689

and this one:
http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/how_to_make_a_photobook/

 

[shiro_kuro]

Not sure where you are located but this might be of some interest to you ...

http://www.burnmagazine.org/workshops/

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

How about using a print on demand service like blurb? The cost per book is higher but you don't have to pay thousands up front to buy a big print run. Image quality is pretty good.

 

[majid]

I got this book for an uncle who is in the same position as you:
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/art-design/photography/publish-your-photography-book.html
It covers primarily the business and marketing aspects, not the creative or desktop publishing skills, i.e. the hard part. Like Chris says, Blurb or LuLu are good options to test the waters. If successful you can have a print run. The whole publishing industry is in meltdown right now and it is very hard to break through.

 

[sanmich]

Not sure where you are located but this might be of some interest to you ...

http://www.burnmagazine.org/workshops/

Thanks, I contacted him just two days ago.
I would love to be able to participate, and I'm still somehow considering it, but with long distance flights and stay, I think it would cost about 1500$, and I still even don't know if it can be done (work schedule). So chances are really thin.

How about using a print on demand service like blurb? The cost per book is higher but you don't have to pay thousands up front to buy a big print run. Image quality is pretty good.

Thanks Chris. I did print two samples of a draft of my book through Blurb.
The quality was so-so, and it cost quite a lot. To the point no benefit can be made at all. If I don't succeed in raising the money upfront, I will probably create a Blurb version of the book just for fun. I still hope not to get there...🙂

 

[sanmich]

The whole publishing industry is in meltdown right now and it is very hard to break through.

Thanks Majid
care to elaborate?
Meltdown doesn't sound too good...

 

[tunalegs]

Thanks Majid
care to elaborate?
Meltdown doesn't sound too good...

Book stores closing, the internet and e-books eating into book sales, self publishing meaning fewer are even bothering to go to publishers in the first place... it's a bit of a mess right now.

I am curious though where you got your estimate for $20,000? What exactly are you doing with this money? I've been involved in two crowd-funded book projects which had goals of $10,000 and $14,000 respectively. One which was full color, and one which was black & white but over sized.

 

[mathiasprinz]

First of all: Best of luck with your book-project, i sympathize with your difficulties a lot as i have them myself.

Honestly, 20 000$ is quite a lot, if you want to raise that kind of money by crowdfunding without having a name and fanbase in the self-publishing-scene, your project has to be extraordinarily well made and you'll have to market it very well. Even for the most sucessful crowdfunded photobooks, 20 000's quite a number.

Depending on the topic of your project and the country you live in, you should also take foundations, scholarships and similar into consideration, there´s a lot of money lying around on that side.

This paragraph:

Editing the pictures, translating and editing the texts. I don't really know how to do it. quite worried on this front.
Graphic design, choices of paper, printer, printing technique (duotone?). If I choose the wrong persons/company, the book will not look good.

totally speaks to me. While it´s very easy to find thousands of camera reviews and studio lighting tutorials on the internet, there is nearly no information on how to choose paper for a printed book. On the whole it´s still more of a »figure it out on the way« kind of process.

A simple creative technique that i always forget is that sitting around musing about is often less efficient than just starting out with something, even if you feel like you don´t know what you are doing. You could, for example, just try to contact a printing house and ask them if they´ve done projects like yours before, if it´s close you could visit and get to know the process of printing. Or you just start and print out pictures, lay them on a big table and move them around, or put them in a blank book to see what happens. Or you contact a book designer (if you don´t know anybody you could find out the designer of an indie-book you like and contact him/her) and tell them about your project and so on and so on.

 

[sanmich]

The 20,000$ is indeed high.

It roughly breaks into one third for production and graphics, and two thirds printing 1000 copies, hard cover, 120 pages/ 80 pictures, about 28cmx33cm. The estimate is actually a bit lower (17 k$) but since it doesn't include additional costs (translation to English, crowd funding fees etc.) I guess 20k is about right.

Now that's one critical decision I have made, although I can still change it if my assumptions where very wrong:

assumption 1: The printing phase is crucial, and needs close attention. I should do it locally, or in a country close enough so I can flight for a few days (Europe).
assumption 2: 80%-90% of the potential buyers will be located in the US. Shipping the book from Europe is very expensive, I better do it locally and be done with it.
Assumption 3: I thought I could learn some basic InDesign basics to prepare the book myself. That was preposterous. It's not a job for an amateur, unless I want the book to look amateurish.

So I'm limited in my choices about quality and costs, and it doesn't surprises me that costs are higher than in the US for example.

I'm worried by the lack of local choices when it comes to art printers. I would love to find a way to choose the best printer, but that will create the problems mentioned earlier. I am in contact with a good guy who has some experience printing museum catalogs. I've seen some results, and it's not bad at all, but I have shown him a book from "La Martiniere" in France, and I'm not sure they can reach that quality level.

 

[tunalegs]

If you cannot reach your funding goal the quality of the printing is beside the point.

If your book costs too much for people to buy it the quality of the printing is beside the point.

You must simply find the best you can afford, rather than the best you can't afford. I would not get too hung up on searching for the best possible, and less so on where it is printed. I worked with a limited run art magazine and the first issue was printed in China and was printed very well. To save time we printed the next issue in the U.S. the cost was about the same factoring in shipping, but the quality was a bit lower. Not bad, but noticeable. The hard part is finding which trade offs are acceptable for you.

 

[sanmich]

If you cannot reach your funding goal the quality of the printing is beside the point.
If your book costs too much for people to buy it the quality of the printing is beside the point.

agreed 100%
but you must add:
If it reaches the goal because it's low, and I end up supplying a disappointing product to people that paid good money for it, now that sucks big time...

It's an equilibrium, and I know it.
I wish I knew where it should be set...

 

[bonatto]

assumption 1: The printing phase is crucial, and needs close attention. I should do it locally, or in a country close enough so I can flight for a few days (Europe).

Agreed. I've ordered enough books from blurb to get a variety of paper and printer samples (books ordered in the US shipped from CA, books ordered in Brazil shipped from somewhere in europe, books ordered in the UK shipped from elsewhere in europe).

The consistency was spotty at best. There were a couple of great prints, others I refuse to show/sell. I doubt I will use them again for anything other than rough-drafting any future projects.

If I print anything now, either I do it myself, or I make sure I'm able to be there for at least the initial part of it to make sure colors, quality, etc are all in order. It takes time and costs money to do this, as you are already aware.

assumption 2: 80%-90% of the potential buyers will be located in the US. Shipping the book from Europe is very expensive, I better do it locally and be done with it.

I guess this is dependent on your target market. I know a lot of stuff sold in europe is printed out of Germany (Steidl) or Italy (Phaidon). These books do cross the atlantic, and generally cost more than their chinese counterparts.
It really depends on the level of printing/binding you're looking for,.

Assumption 3: I thought I could learn some basic InDesign basics to prepare the book myself. That was preposterous. It's not a job for an amateur, unless I want the book to look amateurish.

How much time do you have? InDesign is like any other Adobe tool. Once you learn the keyboard shortcuts and know what exactly you want to do, you can use it very efficiently. Like any other Adobe tool, there's a learning curve. In the end of the day....you will have learned InDesign, a great skill to have, and even if you don't execute the lay-outing 100% by yourself, you'll be able to sit next to a designer and tweak to your tastes.

I'm worried by the lack of local choices when it comes to art printers. I would love to find a way to choose the best printer, but that will create the problems mentioned earlier. I am in contact with a good guy who has some experience printing museum catalogs. I've seen some results, and it's not bad at all, but I have shown him a book from "La Martiniere" in France, and I'm not sure they can reach that quality level.

I quite like the results from both Phaidon and Steidl, I'm not sure who prints though...Museum catalogs are great, but generally are intended to be low cost books.

Do you have an idea of final pricing for this book? You can up the price a bit by having a signed silver print in the middle, and different bits that you can do, like a fine art edition vs a regular edition.

Lastly, what's the general subject of the book, is it a specific project or is it a "retrospective"? This could help you target the funding crowd better.

 

[tunalegs]

agreed 100%
but you must add:
If it reaches the goal because it's low, and I end up supplying a disappointing product to people that paid good money for it, now that sucks big time...

It's an equilibrium, and I know it.
I wish I knew where it should be set...

If your funding exceeds your goal you can always use the excess to pay for better printing. 🙂

 

[bonatto]

Also, forgot to add, is the 17k estimate from a printer already?

 

[squareshooter]

My experience with crowdfunding is that you pretty much have to raise the dough yourself. I tried it it and did not get the time of day from the well known crowdfunding site. Henry J. Kaiser wanted to be the next Ford and build a line of cars. He said he knew he would have to throw $100 million into the pond but did not think that sum of money would sink without a ripple. I think you need to do a lot more research and get that $20,000 number lowered. I hate to say it but it looks you have a dream, not a plan. Good luck.

 

[sanmich]

If your funding exceeds your goal you can always use the excess to pay for better printing. 🙂

I prefer to see it the opposite way: after having put so much time, energy, gear and film in this project, if I'm close to the target, I'm ready to put some money in it to see it printed as it should. That's not to say that I wouldn't be happy to see the budget go down, but at the expense of quality...

Also, forgot to add, is the 17k estimate from a printer already?

the 17k is about 5.5k for the production, graphic designer, pre-print and quality inspection during the print period, and 11.5k for the printer.

 

[bonatto]

the 17k is about 5.5k for the production, graphic designer, pre-print and quality inspection during the print period, and 11.5k for the printer.

You can get the 5.5k down if you layout yourself then..

 

[sanmich]

You can get the 5.5k down if you layout yourself then..

I'll try that.

found that too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY5EfaF61hI

 

[tunalegs]

My experience with crowdfunding is that you pretty much have to raise the dough yourself. I tried it it and did not get the time of day from the well known crowdfunding site. Henry J. Kaiser wanted to be the next Ford and build a line of cars. He said he knew he would have to throw $100 million into the pond but did not think that sum of money would sink without a ripple. I think you need to do a lot more research and get that $20,000 number lowered. I hate to say it but it looks you have a dream, not a plan. Good luck.

It is true, you need to have a lot of friends, who have a lot of friends. I wouldn't even dream of exceeding 3 or 4k on a personal project. It's easier to score money with collaborations or anthologies because you're involving more people who can pull in funders from different circles.

The 14K project I did involved several artists, and the editor for it got a friend to write an article on a big site which helped get the thing funded.

 

[bonatto]

It is true, you need to have a lot of friends, who have a lot of friends. I wouldn't even dream of exceeding 3 or 4k on a personal project. It's easier to score money with collaborations or anthologies because you're involving more people who can pull in funders from different circles.

The 14K project I did involved several artists, and the editor for it got a friend to write an article on a big site which helped get the thing funded.

Would you mind sharing the project?