Book Printing

michaelm

Apologies if this has already been posted on another thread: I am hoping to have my first exhibition later in the early autumn and am looking into having the photos printed in book form which I would then sell at cost price. From my research so far this loook pretty expensive. Has anyone experience of this?

sunny2004

michaelm wrote: »

Apologies if this has already been posted on another thread: I am hoping to have my first exhibition later in the early autumn and am looking into having the photos printed in book form which I would then sell at cost price. From my research so far this loook pretty expensive. Has anyone experience of this?

What companies have you looked at so far ?

dakar

Since there have been a couple of misunderstandings lately over people's intended tone on the forum, I'll preface this by saying that I mean this in the best possible way, but why would you possibly want to sell the books on at cost price?

I've put a couple together and I know that there is a lot of work that goes into laying them out, presenting the photos well, sorting out text, etc. That's without the time and effort that went into producing the images in the first place. If you value your work highly enough to exhibit it, it strikes me as odd that you then want to effectively give it away. So someone who buys a book has a cheap collection of your pictures, the printing company has a built in profit margin and you get nothing but the satisfaction of knowing that somone has the enjoyment of looking at your pictures? Fair enough but it doesn't seem to me to be very fair on you!

I reckon if someone if willing to pay whatever for the pleasure of owning a book of your images, there's a good chance they'd be willing to pay x+25% or x+€10, at least that way, you get a return for the work you put in.

These prices from photobox, blurb and Shakespeare (to keep it Irish) all look to me like there's room for a little profit margin for a well produced book of good images. Keep it , give it to charity , give it to me , just don't do it all for nowt!

michaelm

dakar wrote: »

but why would you possibly want to sell the books on at cost price?

Thanks for that Dakar - very much appreciated. My reason for selling at cost price or to break even arises from the nature of the project. The focus of my work is my own rural parish where I have lived all my life. Over the next three months I am photographing approx 60 people who in some way are a part of the fabric of the community. The results will be displayed in an exhibition but I would like to make a book of the collection available also. The people buying the book will probably have already been good enough to pose for me. Thanks for the links

dakar

In that case I applaud you wholeheartedly . I think some of the smaller format books from the above companies might make a lovely keepsake for the people involved. To keep costs down, you could look at getting one copy printed, have it available during the exhibition and take orders. I know blurb does bulk discount (I think photobox might too) for single orders, also blurb offers an 'author discount' which you could use to order and pass on the savings.

Finally, with blurb and photobox you can make your publication available for sale if someone down the line needs another copy.