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Self-Publishing
How To Publish
Your Own Photography Book
By Andrew Hudson
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"I can't find a publisher for my photography book. Can I publish the book myself? How do I do that?"
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I self-publish all my books and I think it's a great way to go. Self-publishing takes a lot of effort, time, skills, and money, but it is rewarding. You get to make the book you want, rather than the book some publisher wants.
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Also see:
How To Find A Publisher
How To Sell Your Photos
Stock Photography
Publish It Yourself
When I first had my idea for PhotoSecrets I approached several guidebook publishers. They were all very friendly but had the same response: "nice idea, but color is too expensive to print." So I chose to publish the books myself. My first book, PhotoSecrets San Francisco, won the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best First Book and my second project, PhotoSecrets San Diego, won the Grand Prize in the National Self-Published Book Awards. Just tooting my own horn there!
Start With Postcards
Self-publishing is an increasingly popular way to go. It requires investment capital and a lot of work but I highly recommend it to anyone with dedication and determination. A low-cost way to start is with notecards. You can just paste prints onto cards and sell them to giftstores. This is a good way to experience the market and build relationships. Think of a subject that is undersold in your area and go and talk with suitable store owners. My bank considers publishing a "high-risk" business (and they're probably right) so it's a good idea to start small and minimize your risk. Turn your photos into greeting cards. You can move on to custom-printing cards, selling slides, creating posters, etc. as you learn more about your local market.
Also see:
How To Sell Your Photo As A Postcard
Getting Started
Self-publishing books is a real challenge but (and I'm biased) well worth it. The book that got me started was the excellent resource by Dan Poynter,
The Self-Publishing Manual. This is jam-packed with hard information about printing, distributing and selling your book. For more books like this, see my list of books about publishing newsletters and books.
You could self-publish your own text book for about $3,000 - $10,000. Unfortunately, your photography book is probably going to require color and this is a lot more expensive. The paper needs to be of a higher quality, the resolution is more important, and your printer needs to make four "plates" (for the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) instead of one. So both the set-up (fixed) and per-unit (variable) costs are much higher. You could be looking at $20,000 to $50,000 just for the printing, depending on page-count, page-size, quality
and quantity. I typically print 6000 copies, and hope to sell that in a year or two. I get my books printed overseas by Doosan Dong-A in Korea (email) in Korea for about $3 per book.
After printing your book, you will need to get it into the distribution system and market the book. Ingram is the main distributor and they have a small-publisher program which requires a standard 55% discount and free freight. Distributors like Ingram do not market your book, they just fulfill orders if and when they come from bookstores. It's up to you to make the bookstores aware of, and interested in stocking, your book. That's quite a challenge as bookstores are inundated by information on new books (which is one reason to find a very well-defined niche with an obvious marketing angle). I was fortunate to get a contract with NBN, a master distributor with a sales force. I pay a one-time fee to advertise my books with them, and roughly 25% of my gross revenue for sales, storage and fulfillment. If you are a new publisher, it's difficult to hook up with a distributor with a sales force (besides NBN there are PGW, IPG, LPC and others) as they prefer companies with a minimum of about ten titles - a Catch 22 situation.
As you can see, self-publishing is an arduous task, and the financial rewards can be elusive. Contrary to most people's beliefs, the average book sells only about 1,000 to 3,000 copies. Bookstores buy books at a standard 40-50% discount. Another 10-20% may be taken up with distribution costs. So if your book retails for $20 you can expect around $7 per book as revenue. Multiplied by 3000, that's only $21,000. Compare this with the cost of printing a color book and you can see why publishers aren't falling over themselves to publish your photography book.
To make a self-published book work, you've got to beat the averages somehow. The best way is to find a very tightly focused niche. A book about birds, or landscapes, or people, isn't going to sell. You need a very specific, obvious focus, where (more importantly) there's a very specific, obvious set of bookstores that will sell it. My regional books about San Diego, for example, don't sell at all in Wyoming but I market them heavily to a select number of stores in San Diego.
Another requirement for books is that they must give something to the reader. Try and identify why someone will buy your book. A book entitled "Nice photographs I have taken" might look great on your bookshelf, and on your relatives', but it won't find its way to many other bookshelves. My PhotoSecrets books implicitly say "if you buy this book, you can take these photos." A customer is getting something more than a dead tree for their money. These are the same points a publisher would consider if you tried to find someone else to publish your book.
That said, it is very satisfying to see your own book for sale at your local books. And you get to have your images printed the way you want them. Ansel Adams printed his own pictures - who else would have done such a great job?
For more information on self-publishing, see my list of publishing links.
Selling in General
Selling anything takes work. About half my time is spent selling or marketing my books. Fourty percent of my time is spent on publishing functions (presenting the work), and I only get to spend ten percent of my time actually taking photographs. If you want to make money from your photos, be prepared to spend a lot of time and energy promoting them. Call people, research publishers, visit shops where your work might be sold, give talks, write articles, get your name out there. I liken it to trying to push a freight train: it takes a lot of effort every step of the way.
Expect low returns. Most publishers and stock agencies have very narrow requirements, and they may not even be in the market for new work. Even the best targeted mailing typically gets a four percent return so if you want to get one sale, market to twenty prospects. If you want ten sales, you'll need to find two-hundred prospects. It's just a numbers game -- don't take it personally.
Look good. Always be professional. To sell a picture you must present a good image (of yourself). Be courteous and pleasant when talking with people; turn up to meetings on time; write letters on letterhead; have a business card; confidently advertise your business on envelope address labels; get cut-sheets of your work. Make sure everything you submit is clean, simple and well-organized.
Show only your best work. Publishers and most stock agencies are looking for quality not quantity. Edit, edit, edit. I throw away 95% of my slides so that I only have the cream of the crop. If you're in any doubt about a photo, don't show it, don't even keep it. Present only your very best work, so that your average quality is high. Less is better than more - it makes them want to see more of your work, rather than less of you.
Copyright 2006 Andrew Hudson for Photo Tour Books, Inc. You may reproduce this article for personal, educational, non-commercial and non-Internet use, such as in a local photo club newsletter or school project. No Internet publishing is permitted. For commercial use, please email me for permission.
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