photograph books and money :)

Which company is good for making photograph books? (I presume that
some spcialise in this sort of thing...)

For example the sort of coffee table hard-back books that are just
(mainly) full of pictures, usually by one photographer.

What are the things to look out for when approaching such a company?

I wonder how much profit is in a print run for them and for the
photographer?

How much money do these photo books make in the end? Any idea $/copy?

I also wonder how much whether the printer of the book usually does
any publicity (i was going to say publishing...) / marketing. Or is
that the work of a separate firm?

Where are these sort of books 'launched'?

Any comments on questions i haven't asked also appreciated

"n" wrote in message
om...
Which company is good for making photograph books? (I presume that
some spcialise in this sort of thing...)

For example the sort of coffee table hard-back books that are just
(mainly) full of pictures, usually by one photographer.

What are the things to look out for when approaching such a company?

I wonder how much profit is in a print run for them and for the
photographer?

How much money do these photo books make in the end? Any idea $/copy?

I also wonder how much whether the printer of the book usually does
any publicity (i was going to say publishing...) / marketing. Or is
that the work of a separate firm?

Where are these sort of books 'launched'?

Any comments on questions i haven't asked also appreciated

You might want to start he http://www.vanitypublishing.info/

Also, there is lots of additional information available via Google.

The thing about a photography book is the cost of printing ... much much
greater than a book of poems!

In article ,
(n) wrote:

Which company is good for making photograph books? (I presume that
some spcialise in this sort of thing...)

For example the sort of coffee table hard-back books that are just
(mainly) full of pictures, usually by one photographer.

What are the things to look out for when approaching such a company?

I wonder how much profit is in a print run for them and for the
photographer?

How much money do these photo books make in the end? Any idea $/copy?

I also wonder how much whether the printer of the book usually does
any publicity (i was going to say publishing...) / marketing. Or is
that the work of a separate firm?

Where are these sort of books 'launched'?

Any comments on questions i haven't asked also appreciated

Have you gone to a book store and looked at some to find the publishers?

--
To reply no_ HPMarketing Corp.

total utter carp asks:

Which company is good for making photograph books? (I presume that
some spcialise in this sort of thing...)


Check Photographer's Market. Avoid vanity publishers at all costs.

I wonder how much profit is in a print run for them and for the
photographer?

Widely and wildly varying. There is no sane way to predict a book's
profitability ahead of time.

How much money do these photo books make in the end? Any idea $/copy?

No.


I also wonder how much whether the printer of the book usually does
any publicity (i was going to say publishing...) / marketing. Or is
that the work of a separate firm?

Depends on the company, but most do at least some of their own publicity--if
they do any publicity at all.

Where are these sort of books 'launched'?

Huh? In the publisher's sales catalog, carted along to buyers by a sales force.

Again, avoid vanity publishers. The publisher pays you, you do not pay the
publisher. Period. Hard and fast rule. If you can't do it that way, don't do
it.

Another good bet: build up a reputation in a photo field and build up a
portfolio in that field before you try selling such a book, which is expensive
to produce. Honest trade publishers want a very strong indication that you can
do what you say you will do when you provide them with an outline, a sample
chapter or two, and a possible delivery date for the rest of the material.

Charlie Self
"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of
nothing."
Redd Foxx

I am fortunate that in my town is a company that has a full print shop, that
is interested in helping local artists, and makes plenty of money from other
sources. I can go to them and ask them to do the printing. Then I just have
the binding to do.

How do you locate such a company in your area? Check with
universities...private ones have a great tax advantage and might want to
help the community. Check with galleries and local publishers. Check with
ink suppliers...maybe they will tell you who is buying ink. If you want to
save money...you will have to spend time.


"n" wrote in message
om...
Which company is good for making photograph books? (I presume that
some spcialise in this sort of thing...)

For example the sort of coffee table hard-back books that are just
(mainly) full of pictures, usually by one photographer.

What are the things to look out for when approaching such a company?

I wonder how much profit is in a print run for them and for the
photographer?

How much money do these photo books make in the end? Any idea $/copy?

I also wonder how much whether the printer of the book usually does
any publicity (i was going to say publishing...) / marketing. Or is
that the work of a separate firm?

Where are these sort of books 'launched'?

Any comments on questions i haven't asked also appreciated

Gene Palmiter responds:

I am fortunate that in my town is a company that has a full print shop, that
is interested in helping local artists, and makes plenty of money from other
sources. I can go to them and ask them to do the printing. Then I just have
the binding to do.

You're not saying they do the printing free of charge, are you? Full color
process is a tremendously expensive print method, and enough pages of a size to
make a coffee table book would cost them a lot of money. Hell, the high quality
glossy stock alone would cost a lot.

Then there's the prep, not cheap for low end publications and much higher for
coffee table quality printing. Who does the type design and, for that matter,
the typesetting (even if it is done by computer, it has to be done well to make
the pages look good--and some text is needed with photos. Just plopping photos
on a page doesn't work). Overall layout needs to be done.

Covers? Who would design and manufacture those? Coffee table photo books are
hardcover.

What type of binding? Coffee table books are usually sewn binding, because
perfect binding breaks easily when used with a large, heavy book.

Of course, once a book is printed, it has to be marketed, something that DIY
and vanity printers seem to forget. There are methods for doing this yourself,
but they are specialized and tend to be fairly expensive. Publicity for the
marketing effort is always a problem (even with trade publishers who pay you an
advance and put a lot of money into the book--a lot by my standards: one rule
is to have enough reputation to get a huge advance, so that the publisher has
to publicize, and advertise, the book to keep from having a money losing year.
Obviously, that doesn't work for many of us).

How do you locate such a company in your area? Check with
universities...private ones have a great tax advantage and might want to
help the community. Check with galleries and local publishers. Check with
ink suppliers...maybe they will tell you who is buying ink. If you want to
save money...you will have to spend time.


It's not all negative if done this way: if the book is done successfully,
design and printing costs are low enough, and marketing is good, every bit of
the profit (once those three things are paid for) goes in the
writer/photographer's pocket (except for what IRS lifts out).

Charlie Self
"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of
nothing."
Redd Foxx

On 19 Nov 2004 13:08:58 -0800, n wrote:

Which company is good for making photograph books? (I presume that
some spcialise in this sort of thing...)

The current issue (Dec 04) of Outdoor Photographer has an article on
self-publishing photo books (see p44).