Digital printing has lowered costs and other barriers to desktop publishing, small publishers continue to come up with exciting projects, and photographers are exploring new forms and formats for artist’s books. opening editor lesley a. Martin told PDN in 2018, “The beauty of where we are now is that there are so many different options for making a book.” At the same time, the challenges have also increased, thanks to bookstore closures and price pressure from online retailers hoping for a discount. Because photo book print runs are small and production costs are high, many publishers now expect photographers to cover production costs, especially if the photographer is looking for additional photos, specialty papers, or other design elements. that increase the cost. For a photographer seeking exhibits or credibility in the eyes of clients, a photo album can be “the most expensive business card you’ll ever produce,” says photographer Lindsay Morris, who published her first book, You Are You (Kehrer verlag), in 2015.
To understand what options photographers have for publishing a photo book and what kinds of deals they can make with book publishers, PdN has spoken with publishers who review photographers’ submissions and photographers who have experience in submissions, publishing and marketing. your photo books. Here are excerpts from articles that cover multiple aspects of the publishing process. pdn subscribers can read the full versions of these stories and find information on how to edit and design a book at pdnonline.
You are reading: Self publishing photo books
what to consider before launching a photo book
pdn spoke to five experienced editors and book publishers, from both specialist photography book publishers and large commercial publishers, to get their views on what photographers should consider when thinking about submitting an idea. for a photography book. Compiling their feedback, PdN laid out five questions every photographer should ask themselves before attempting to publish a book, along with a flowchart to help you determine if your project is a book and the most appropriate route to publication.
Of the five questions photographers should ask themselves, the most important might be: who is your audience? Researching and understanding your audience will not only help you pitch your project to publishers, it will also help you understand what form (cut size, quantity, price point) makes sense for your book. eric himmel, vice president and editor-in-chief of abrams, says that to promote a trade publisher, “you need to have some kind of connection with an audience, but i don’t think it has to be a very large audience. I think it has to be a super engaged audience.”
To learn more about how to assess your audience and determine the type of publisher that might be interested in your book, check out the full story.
photo book proposals that attract the attention of editors
Saved book publishers say it takes more than compelling visuals to get them to evaluate a book proposal. Here, chronicle book professionals Damiani and Kehrer Verlag describe the elements that go into every successful book proposal, and discuss the little extras that ensure the photographer’s understanding of the book’s potential audience. They describe some recent proposals they accepted and how the book was guided from proposal to design to publication. To read more about how photographer book proposals were edited, designed and published photo books, read the full story.
what to expect after publishing your book
Photographers Jesse Burke and Lindsay Morris were under no illusions that they would make a lot of money from the books they published in 2015. What surprised them was how hard it would be to win each book sale. both worked tirelessly for months on promotions, with modest sales to show for it, but both said they received other benefits. burke used his personal workbook, wild & amp; precious, to take her career in a new direction. Morris, whose book You Are You discusses a camp for gender non-confirming children and their families, used the press for the book to advocate for transgender children.
burke worked with daylight books to release wild & Precious in October 2015. “The reason it got so much exposure was because we marketed it for a year, starting shortly before publication,” Burke says. Her marketing team included daylight publicist Andrea Smith and her studio manager. advertising built “like a big snowball,” she says.
burke was given 500 books to sell on his own. but he wasn’t soliciting sales directly. he explains, “my overall goal was to get the word out about the project,” which he hoped would generate invitations to exhibit his work, raise environmental awareness, generate assignments, and last but not least drive book sales. “Galleries are more willing to give you an exhibit if there’s a book,” she said. the book, made up of images she took on road trips with her daughter, attracted new kinds of commissioned work.
morris covered most of you are you’s publishing costs by raising $41,665 from 437 backers on kickstarter. that freed her up “to focus on the message” of the project, she says, “and not obsess about profits.” still, there were 3,000 books to move. she said, “I have aggressively gone after the press around the world.” a cover story in the new york times magazine featuring her images and an interview with the bbc generated opportunities for a traveling exhibition. her next goal, she said, was to travel with the exhibit to regions that are more resistant to accepting gender-nonconforming children.
See Also: 34 of the Best Books On Writing: These Will Inspire You to Write
For more on the books burke and morris produced, see the full story.
leading book publishers with attention-grabbing leave behind
jeanine michna-bales had spent years researching and taking photos of landmarks and safe houses along the underground railroad, the route slaves followed from louisiana to freedom north of the canada border. published his book of hunches, night photos of stops along the route, through darkness to light, in 2017. in an article about the making of the book, he told pdn that before signing a contract with the Princeton Architectural Press, he got advice from editors and consultants he met at portfolio reviews in 2013. He used their advice to put together a packet of information on the history of the Underground Railroad and began looking for more portfolio reviews.
At the end of each review, he provided a package that gave publishers time to absorb some of the information his book presented. It included a statement by the artist, a synopsis of his research, thumbnail images, and examples of some 19th-century ephemera, such as maps and newspaper advertisements, that he intended to include in the book to give historical context to the painting. photographs of him.
michna-bales says her leave behind package was inspired by her previous experience as an art director for agencies like tbwachiatday and mccann in san francisco. to pitch campaigns to advertising clients, “you had creative briefs, so you talked about target audiences and unique selling points. I had that in the back of my mind,” she explains. “[I thought] who the book would appeal to.”
To see a pdf of michna-bales abandonment and to find a link to the story of how he chose his publisher, see the full story on pdnonline.
book publisher michelle dunn marsh talks about what photo books do and don’t sell
michelle dunn marsh, the publishing company created by veteran publisher michelle dunn marsh and her partner steve mcintyre, has a unique business model: each of her projects must pre-sell 500 copies within six months in order to be printed. if it’s a minor matter and the artist can’t generate those 500 pre-sales, the book doesn’t get published. Those who purchase a book during presale are considered “co-publishers” and receive credit on the book if it goes to press. three years later, pdn asked dunn marsh about the role marketing and personal networks can play in helping to sell a photobook, and the reasons why some photobooks fail to find an audience.
“It can be really hard to know when something finds its audience and inspires people to take the action of buying, rather than just a ‘like’ on facebook,” he said. she noted that books by mid-career photographers who have created an audience engaged with her work and have “a support network to buy and promote the book” have sold well. when it comes to advertising and sales, she said, “the artist is the best possible sales tool.” She referred to events promoting Lisa Leone’s book on hip-hop and Alice Wheeler’s Outcasts & Innocents: Photographs of the Northwest, featuring images of Seattle’s youth culture and music scene in the 1990s. “A combination of our promotion and the artist saying why a book is important to them draws people in.”
See the full story here.
selling and scheduling photo books: what to know before submitting an idea for a book
When publishers evaluate a photo book proposal, they want to make sure the photographer can and will help market the book. To truly understand what it takes to sell a book now, Alexander Galan of Damiani Books says it’s essential to understand the workings of the world’s largest bookstore: Amazon. Amazon’s algorithms and data detection assess “how many people are viewing a book page on Amazon before the book comes out,” he says. Amazon creates a page for every upcoming book about six months before publication. When the page of the book turns up, says Galán, “it is very important that photographers and artists activate their communities, that they know that they are making a book.” offers examples of how photographers have driven traffic to their amazon pages. For some promotional ideas and an explanation of how publisher cycles can influence how your book is marketed and when it sells, read the full interview.
resources to self-edit your photobook or exhibition catalog
educator and consultant mary virginia swanson has selected resources that may be helpful to anyone considering self-publishing a photo book or exhibition catalogue. her full list includes custom digital and offset printers, a newsprint producer, and several on-demand printers. she also suggests various ways she can learn about bookmaking, book design, and book sales, including educational resources and workshops, book fairs, and book contests.
If you want more, check out the gambling books on his reading list and click here for the full list.
photographers share details of their book deals
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in 2014, pdn asked photographers to explain the deals they had made with book publishers. the goal was to compile a list of terms and conditions that any photographer should consider when negotiating a contract with a publisher. arrangements varied not only from publisher to publisher, but also within book publishers, depending on variables such as the photographer’s reputation and publication history, book design and specifications, target market, and other factors.
There were photographers who did not contribute to production costs or only paid for pre-production steps, such as scanning images and matching prints. some photographers chose to hire a freelance editor or designer. others contributed between $18,000 and $35,000 to pay for the production, including special design elements they stipulated, such as fold-out pages, specialty papers, and varnish. photographers typically received 50 free copies of their book. a photographer decided to buy 500 books at 50 percent of the retail price and sold them “because he knew I could move a lot of books on my own.”
See the full story here.
Book Publishing: The Costs and Benefits of Creative Control
ryann ford’s experience publishing his first book, the last stop, about America’s disappearing highway rest stops, underscores the tough decisions and compromises photographers have to make to get their first book published . with the help of an agent, she sent the pitch to 20 or 30 publishers, most of whom wanted to produce it in a $24.99 paperback edition. says ford, “it all came down to my dreams and visions for the project. I really, really wanted the book to be a masterpiece.” Eventually, Powerhouse Books said yes, “but they needed to make sure it would be profitable for them.” Ford was asked to run a Kickstarter to gauge interest in the project and to subsidize publication. with hard work, she raised $35,000. when she signed with powerhouse, she specified the designer she wanted. the publisher also paid for a publicist. advertising helped sales, but interviews took away his interest in paying assignments.
Based on the success of the last stop, Ford says it may now be in a position to “get a much better deal” with a publisher for a future book. but he is not in a hurry to publish another, due to the investment of time and money that he requires. If he has a particular creative vision for his book, says Ford, “then sometimes he has to compromise like I did.”
Read the full story to learn how Ford found its designer and agent, and how customers reacted to the book.
related links:
how to submit your photo book to commercial publishers
how to present your photo book to publishers
the art and process of sequencing your photobook
veteran photo editor mike davis talks about editing his own work