Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 29

Thread: who do you use to publish your books?

  1. #11
    Paul Ron's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    NYC
    Posts
    692

    Re: who do you use to publish your books?

    Im impressed with the DIY publishing. I did some book restoration back in the day but its mostly a lost art today. My applauds to you sirs for keeping traditions. Im sure your books are collectors for sure.

    But that is the hard expensive way of reproducing many copies. Im sure the quality is unmatched to any self publishing house other than as one poster mentions getting experts to do layout n proofing etc. Pretty expensive but assurance of top quality control.

    As for going cheap... Im still curious about the quality of BLURB n others... anyone go through the process?

    Im not looking to publish at this time but the thought has crossed my mind so the subject keeps popping up when I meet my old buddies from the horse n buggy days. One fellow did publish a few books in the early 70s and told us how expensive it was to make 500 copies... then to distribute was another nightmare finding booksellers to put them on their shelves. Dealing with managers n photo print houses was a task in itself back before digital and internet, it was all word of mouth. The process was complicated and plenty of hard leg work.

    So lets hear about some of those cheapo book publishers and personal experiences?

    Thanks for the insights.

  2. #12

    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Santa Barbara
    Posts
    1,376

    Re: who do you use to publish your books?

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Ron View Post


    As for going cheap... Im still curious about the quality of BLURB n others... anyone go through the process?



    So lets hear about some of those cheapo book publishers and personal experiences?

    Thanks for the insights.
    I've 'published' [makes me snicker to write 'published'...] a lot of Blurb 'books' and the process is pretty straightforward... their software is easy to get used to and previewing is easy... and the quality is pretty dang good.... of course I am the only customer for my books.. but that's cool...I just like going thru my previous work (online galleries/flickr) and coming up on a new or different concept to curate into book form

  3. #13

    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    California
    Posts
    3,908

    Re: who do you use to publish your books?

    I have "published" two books. One by blurb, which when i saw the poor image quality of the first xcopy, I withdrew.I must add that I Have seen many digital "fine art" images. Only those of one well known photographer would I think of buying,and then only an origin,nota boo of images.
    The other, which was my first, is a selection of 20 original platinum or palladium images hand tipped onto 100% heavy rag watercolor paper, enclosed in a velvet binder and slipcover. I made two copies, one of which I retained, and the second is in the collection of a private collector. He,and others, have urged me to make additional books, but frankly such a project is too time and energy consuming. Besides,I have always disliked immensely making multiple copies of a negative. Also, I have too many projects in mind for probably a very few remaining active years.
    I wish you luck if you decide to proceed with your project.

  4. #14
    Paul Ron's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    NYC
    Posts
    692

    Re: who do you use to publish your books?

    Quote Originally Posted by DrTang View Post
    I've 'published' [makes me snicker to write 'published'...] a lot of Blurb 'books' and the process is pretty straightforward... their software is easy to get used to and previewing is easy... and the quality is pretty dang good.... of course I am the only customer for my books.. but that's cool...I just like going thru my previous work (online galleries/flickr) and coming up on a new or different concept to curate into book form

    im sure thats what my friends and i probably will wind up doing... vanity books.

    blurb... are the page counts double sided pages?
    were there any charges other than the cost of the base book price?
    im sure ill have more questions when iget to see my friends next week.

    thanks

  5. #15
    Tin Can's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    22,384

    Re: who do you use to publish your books?

    Tin Can

  6. #16
    Corran's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    North GA Mountains
    Posts
    8,924

    Re: who do you use to publish your books?

    For what it's worth, all the Blurb books I've gotten from various things like small group projects, Kickstarter publications, and the like, seem pretty decent until you actually compare them with a "real" printing company. I suppose they are "good enough" for family distribution or other reasons one might want to simply distribute photographs in a book form-factor, but I would say it's about the same as comparing inkjet prints done on a $100 printer and store-brand paper from an un-formatted JPEG file to a painstakingly handmade silver-gelatin print made with care on fiber paper.

    Perfectly acceptable in some ways but not at all acceptable in others.
    Bryan | Blog | YouTube | Instagram | Portfolio
    All comments and thoughtful critique welcome

  7. #17

    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    California
    Posts
    3,908

    Re: who do you use to publish your books?

    Quote Originally Posted by Corran View Post
    For what it's worth, all the Blurb books I've gotten from various things like small group projects, Kickstarter publications, and the like, seem pretty decent until you actually compare them with a "real" printing company. I suppose they are "good enough" for family distribution or other reasons one might want to simply distribute photographs in a book form-factor, but I would say it's about the same as comparing inkjet prints done on a $100 printer and store-brand paper from an un-formatted JPEG file to a painstakingly handmade silver-gelatin print made with care on fiber paper.

    Perfectly acceptable in some ways but not at all acceptable in others.
    My feeling exactly!

  8. #18

    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Posts
    87

    Re: who do you use to publish your books?

    I published two books:

    One with Burb. The print quality was awful and I will never use them again.

    For my second book I created a PDF "teaser" of my photos, description, etc, and pitched it all major publishing houses (around 20 or so). Surprisingly, they all responded and some of them offered me a book deal. However, the publishing landscape has changed and they all expected me to partially fund some of the print costs myself and expected me to chip in around $5-10k. I decided the for that amount of money, I can print the book myself. So I used Adobe Design to lay out the entire book and had Ninjaprint print them. They have offices in CA and their print facilities in China (like almost everyone else). The entire process and quality of the book were fantastic and I highly recommend them. But one word of caution: printing is the easy part. You need an outreach and sales strategy and possibly hire a publicist. You won't move any books if you can't reach your target audience. That requires tons of work and extra money. I had a Facebook an Instagram campaign, had thousands of followers for my book, had many reputed photography web sites write about it, spent hundreds on advertising but only sold few copies of the book. Selling books is the hard part.

  9. #19
    Paul Ron's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    NYC
    Posts
    692

    Re: who do you use to publish your books?

    giga, since you went through the blurb process....
    you say it was awful... because of something you cut corners on like scans or resolution or poor photoshoping? poor choice of paper quality? or just a lack of proofing? can you be more specific?

    1. are the page counts printed double sided?
    2. is there a way to proof your prints prior to completion?
    3. was there out of pocket expenses and for what?
    4. how did you do scans... from prints or negs?
    5. did you include any text? how did you format n ready it for printing?
    6. did you use blurbs page maker program?
    7. anyone have personal experiance with other self publishing companies similar to blurb?

    these are the most common quesrions we have. these can only be answered from experiance.
    what would you do to make blurb books look their best?

  10. #20

    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Posts
    87

    Re: who do you use to publish your books?

    My biggest gripe with Blurb was that all the b&W photos has a greenish color hue and were not true b&w.

Similar Threads

  1. Publish Your Photos Here!
    By cyrus in forum Announcements
    Replies: 264
    Last Post: 11-Sep-2010, 03:59
  2. Replies: 17
    Last Post: 5-Nov-2006, 17:23

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •