Self Publishing

[wilfredo]

I've been getting lots of encouragement to put together a book on my photography. In the past I've run across some threads on this forum on how to get this done. Can I get some recommendations on this please? I want to start working on this project during the next three weeks while taking time off from my day job.

Thanks,

Wilfredo
Benitez-Rivera Photography

PS. I use IMACS

[stunsworth]

I've been involved in a few publications made with Blurb - Make your own book with Blurb - and have been pleased with the results. Their software is template driven and very easy to use. There is a Mac version of the sortware available.

Printing is on demand, so there are no up front costs other than your time.

[ho_co]

Wilfredo--
The LuLa article Private Photographic Book Publishing may be of interest if you haven't seen it.

[jimmy pro]

Somebody I know self-published a book not long ago (not a photo book tho). It's great this can be done nowadays. It used to be you had to shop your stuff to publishing companys and find an editor who agreed with you that your stuff was good enough to publish.

[stuny]

Jimmy -

The current possibilities in self-publishing are quite nice, especially since now it's far more difficult to get a book published than you mention. Years ago, before the advent of desktop word processors, I wrote a beginners guide to photography, went to a bookstore, selected a likely publisher, and six weeks later had a list of edits and a contract – Very much as you describe. Since the vast spread of word processors, and therefore “writers,” publishers no longer want to deal with authors, and insist on agents. Agents, for the most part are only interested in bankable authors, or authors recommended by bankable authors. One can still be clever and persistent to get around that, but it is very difficult. I have a completed m/s of a very humorous novel (and two other projects well underway), but so far cannot find representation.

[ChrisC]

Originally Posted by wilfredo

.... Can I get some recommendations on this please? .....

Wilfredo - Try this article by Michael Reichmann on Luminous Landscape. Hope it is of some use:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/es...00-books.shtml

Good luck.

................. Chris

[wilfredo]

Chris, Stuart, Howard and Steve:

I will look into all these sources. Thanks. I now have somewhere to begin.

I'm wondering if any one of you have sold books through your web sites? Once I finish it, I'll make it available on my web site. I suspect it will be mostly of interest to friends and people in my immediate and next to immediate circles.

I'm getting excited :-)

Cheers,
Wilfredo+
Benitez-Rivera Photography

[stuny]

Wilfredo -

Another approach is to self publish through Barnes & Noble. They do distribution, and if they like your book they hype it.

[wildlightphoto]

I've been very pleased with the book I self-published through Blurb.com. The templates provided by Blurb are easy to use and the customer service in case of a mis-print (when their fault) is excellent.

[delander]

I do publishing, that is using InDesign to layout books with lots of photos in. It is a relatively easy process. If you can use Photoshop then you should not have much trouble learning InDesign to a standard where you can make a nice book.

Once you have your InDesign file (or files if it is a large book) you export them to pdf which is then imposed and printed by your chosen printer.

Using Photoshop and Indesign gives you a fully colour managed workflow. It is much more straightforward than it used to be and you have complete control and pay for only the printing/binding etc.

You could of course use Quark as your chosen dtp package in place of InDesign.

Jeff

PS Books are heavy, 500 books are very heavy and packing and posting out can get very boring.

[stunsworth]

Jeff, the _big_ advantage of using companies such as Blurb or Lulu is that there are no upfront costs. All the printing is done on demand, so while the unit cost for 500 copies produced using Blurb may be higher that if you use a 'traditional' publisher, there's no initial outlay up front. Personally I'd be very nervous about spending the rest of my life with 495 copies of my book lying around the house waiting for buyers - there are only so many Christmas presents to be given <grin>.

[delander]

Steve,

There is an upfront cost in the purchase of InDesign but after that you can get it printed on demand. I must admit I have never tried online publishing but I like to put my creative input for good or bad into the whole book.

In the US or course InDesign is very cheap compared to UK prices.

Jeff

[stunsworth]

Sorry Jeff, I misunderstood. I thought you meant that you'd create the book in Indesign and then send the PDF off to the publisher who'd have a minimum print run . I didn't realise that you'd be using it on a print on demand basis.

Ok, the _second_ main benifit of the online services is that your book remains available, and searchable, to third parties until you remove it <grin>.