Hi All,
I'm looking at the POD (print on demand) option and wonder if you who have tried it would share your impressions?
I've always thought of well produced photo oriented books as cherished objects.
Professionally I've had several books published under different circumstances. In all instances - no matter how much the book benefited an other party (the subject) I had to drag them across the finish line on my back. Typically a $40- retail book will gross the retailer about $20-, the publisher $20- and the photographer/author $1-. Pretty pathetic. Book income is largely a function of volume. My most successful has sold around 10,000 units over a very long time.
For my most recent outing I self published. There just wasn't any way the book would happen if I didn't do it myself. The finished product is excellent all around. check it out at: http://www.colonialtheatrebook.com/
But the cost was staggering and the sales have been disappointing. I'm not looking for marketing advice. I've tried a lot ideas and I have to accept in my market a $40- book isn't going to break even. I plan to deep discount the price to get the books in circulation - and recoup a bit of my investment.
It appears to me that the old model of getting your book into publication is defunct. Which brings us to POD books. I've looked at some Blurb books and have been perusing their site. As of this writing there are around 7000 photo books in their catalog. They seem to be the physical equivalent of web sites. Anyone can have one. Some are pretty good most are mediocre and there are some pretty poor ones too. As with the www the mob has gone around the gatekeepers. There is democracy but the product is diluted. The obvious advantage is you can produce what ever you want and with no upfront investment. This used to be called vanity publishing.
Here are some disadvantages. I've actually handled a few Blurb books. They seem a bit home made. Some pages not quite sharp. Inconsistent design decisions, - amateurish. Hang that on the producer/author. Posts to the Blurb site complain about poor color matching and mediocre quality. But others are pleased. And they are doing more with providing profiles - so let's imagine reasonable quality is possible.
Price. When all is said and done you can have a 10x8 inch hardcover book of 80 pages for about $40-. You can have Blurb sell them for any price you wish - so let's say we sell it for $45-. $5- per book is a much better deal than I've had before. But you can't go the retail route. There is no margin left. Even if you sold your $40- book at cost the retailer would have to price it around $80- and that just ain't gonna fly.
So there is no retail support. No physical presence in the market place. You could put a copy of the book with a show and people could order their books directly. You'd get 5 bucks and the gallery would get nothing. Yet again the www has made an end run around brick an mortar retail.
With POD books we enter a new paradigm.
And for that matter, in the age of the screen, can fine, image oriented books even find a market?
My professional brethren; thoughts, impressions, experiences, ideas?
Thanks,
Nick
http://nwphoto.com/
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