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Comment by Rob Neufeld on April 9, 2009 at 9:39am

There's a noteworthy small press program program coming up at Malaprop's, and Kevin is one of the speakers! This would be a good place to learn more, have a good discussion, and build our network, I think. See program info. Spread the word--you can invite people to this group, too. /Rob

Comment by Kevin Morgan Watson on March 12, 2009 at 7:31pm

I'm not familiar with Blurb, and I've seen a few Lulu books. I know Lulu is more expensive per book than traditional publishing, but if you only want enough for family and friends, then it's a good option. For your purposes, Jenny, I don't think you want to go there. You could, realistically have a full-color, hardcover book printed for less than $6 each, provided you deliver all the files print-ready and order a couple thousand. You could then sell these books for $30-40 each, so your break-even point is lower. Lulu would probably cost close to $20-30 each (just guessing). I use Lightning Source, the POD division on Ingram, and their color books are way up there in price. So if you want to sell a few and make a little, Lulu is a good option. If you want to sell a lot of books, tradition printing is your best bet.

Comment by Jenny Bowen on March 12, 2009 at 7:24am

Rob & Kevin, good advice, thanks.

Has anyone here ever worked with print on demand books like Blurb or LuLu? I've not had any experience with them and I was wondering about the value and ease of using services such as those.

Comment by Kevin Morgan Watson on March 11, 2009 at 11:19pm

Rob, y interest is mainly poetry and short story collections, reprinting classic out-of-print books, an occasional novel and memoir.

Jenny, have to considered a blog where you can post an occasional photo and talk about it and your project? If not, I would consider it. I think it's a great way to share what you are doing and build interest. We have a local blog that started out as one woman just noting things of interest around the city. Her blog now gets 11,000 hits a day! Numbers even half that good will make publishers interested in your book. Plus, it's a great way test your market. Someone may approach you about financing the project. You never know.

Comment by Rob Neufeld on March 11, 2009 at 10:18pm

By subscription, Allan, do you mean advance sales? I wonder if we can present various books/projects on the website, advertise heavily (e.g., in print newspaper), see the extent of advance interest; then use that as a prompt to get some funding/support.

Otherwise, we're talking about print on demand. Will that work--and will that work with high quality photography books?

Kevin, what are you interested in as a publisher? And what's your big wish at present as far as improving business and readership is concerned?

Comment by Kevin Morgan Watson on March 11, 2009 at 9:51pm

One option is to get the community behind it, excited about, and ready to buy it. Here is an article that gives one example: http://bcm.bc.edu/issues/summer_2001/works.html. To expand on the story, Tom is one of our authors, but he knew finding a publisher for such a project would be difficult, so he did it with some friends. They borrowed the money to print the books and paid it back, plus interest, in three months.

Comment by Allan Wolf on March 11, 2009 at 9:18pm

Ya'll may have already covered this, but would Asheville Arts Alliance be of any use? Or here is a very CREATIVE idea: what about a subscription funding like they used to do in the old days? That may be nuts but this forum is meant for that, right?

Comment by Jenny Bowen on March 10, 2009 at 1:01pm

Kevin -

Looking at Carl's work is impressive, but our styles are totally different. His work is good stock landscape photography, which I could see being difficult to getting a book publisher behind.

Mine style is photo documentary through interesting portraiture, and there is a timeliness in getting out to the public. No local publishers that I know will take on the costs of printing 360 color images, even if there are 4 to a page making it a 45-50 page book.

I've spoken with the photographer Rob Amberg who did not give me much hope when working on publishing anything. He spoke in ten of thousands of dollars in self start-up costs and years of editing and layout - and this was with a publisher backing him.

I can't imagine trying to self-publish in any manner other than print-on-demand books such as Blurb.com or LuLu.com (I hear the latter has better print quality) but you can expect to make little to no profit by publishing books in that venue.

Not that profit is necessary - but I have got to stop giving my talents & trades away for free or little gain. It often seems like I am barely squeaking through on my means in this world, and there is nothing more frustrating than to know you have something everyone wants but also something that few are willing to pay for.

Comment by Rob Neufeld on March 10, 2009 at 12:55pm

Jenny, your project is especially book ready, I think, because people like looking at faces that tell stories. But there's not a national market, unless your Annie Liebowitz or Richard Avedon.

Let's get more people in this group. The folks at Captain's Bookshelf should be involved; and the Archives and History people (NC Dept of Cultural Resources), who published Bruce Roberts' photo book.

From the photographer's point of view, what are the specs for good photo repro?

And are there any thinking-out-of-the-box formats? Serial publication? Tipped plates for mounting? Book-and-postcard combos. I'm just brainstorming. I'm not saying every idea is good.

/Rob

Comment by Kevin Morgan Watson on March 10, 2009 at 12:42pm

Finding a publisher willing to take on that kind of expense could be tough. I was on a panel recently in Winston-Salem with Carl Galie, who self-published his second book of photography (http://www.carlgaliephotography.com/175%20Paces.html). He had to do all the layout and photo prep, but he had complete control and kept the price down. That might be your best bet. We don't publish color photography at Press 53, but I've heard several success stories from photographers who have done it themselves.

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