This is a reissue of a blog I wrote a while ago that was up on the site briefly, then replaced by another one.

In this post I will write  about one of my books, called Above. And how it is marketed, or isn't.

It's a really good book (modest aren't I?). It is aerial photographs of Martha's Vineyard, designed once again by the incredible Andrea Greitzer and printed beautifully. Maybe it's our best on-demand book yet but it's also got a problem. Actually all the on-demand books I've done have a problem. Because of my "no compromises" philosophy, which when wedded with my wish for these books to be large makes them too expensive. Even taking advantage of My Publisher's (the company that prints these books) seeming to always have sales or discounts, the cheapest of the books cost me about $75. So, yes, a little pricey but a great book. This all works okay if I sell them at no profit. Lately I've been selling them at $80 or $85 to at least cover shipping. Worth it? Yes, in that I am putting them into the hands of people that want them and appreciate them. This is one of those times where I do something for the "greater good". Meaning the greater good of getting my books into the hands of people who want them.  The sale of the books is also good for my career. Making money? Not so much.

But all this falls apart when you ask a bookstore to carry one of these books. Why? Because they can't put one on their shelves unless they make something and if you know anything about retail sales of books you know that a 100% markup is pretty standard. So now, in this case we are talking about a $75 book going for $140. Yup, that's exactly right.

Case in point: 

When I was on the island in early May I took the Above book to the two largest book retailers on the island. At Bunch of Grapes in Vineyard Haven I was asked to leave it overnight so that the buyer could take a look at it. The next day when I picked it up I was told by the buyer that it looked like a very nice book. When I asked him if he'd looked at it he admitted that he hadn't but that he thought the cover looked good. Clearly they weren't interested and, after that, neither was I. I then took it to Edgartown Books where I was also asked to leave it overnight. The next day I met with the owner Susan Mercier who said that she liked it very much and that she wanted to carry it. We discussed the price and she said that it should sell for $140. I said that I didn't think it would sell costing that much and she said, "you don't know my customers." She was right. It is selling, sitting behind the cash register where the higher end books are on display.

Okay, a modest success up against a track record of significant failure. I know, that is a little harsh and it is important to state I have no regrets about the books I've made. But perhaps there is a new paradigm that can serve in this world of on demand publishing. Next up we will try a few books, smaller in size and in number of pages  and therefore cheaper, that address specific series. They might be slipcased so that when on a shelf there are several sitting side by side in a box. If this sounds like a good idea and you are a publisher and are interested in taking this on, please get in touch. 

Will this be a sell-out success? First of all in the on demand publishing world there is no sell out as there are no real editions, unless you arbitrarily establish one. Secondly, I would be surprised that in this scenario I would make any money. I would hope to break even.

All those years I ran a photography program at Northeastern I was often accused of being too centered on photography, wanting improvements, resources, faculty, staff, etc. for Photography and not caring enough about the rest of the Department which was Animation, Graphic Design, Video, Art History and Multimedia. I developed several defining  phrases while there and one of them that has withstood the test of time was, "if you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards". I believe that applies very well here too in terms of books of my work.

We will continue to move forward.

Books of photography occupy a unique place in the publishing world. Photographers want to have a book of their own work but publishers traditionally have had a hard time making money with them. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part photo books don't make money.

My experience with making books of my work doesn't fit a very traditional mold. After being bruised earlier in my career with publishers wanting to make a book idea of mine into something very different than what we intended, I shied away from publishers when it came to making a book of my pictures in 2005. "American Series" was my first book and it was printed conventionally in Hong Kong. The book's editor was my friend Henry Horenstein and we used his press Pond Press as the publisher. Finally, Consortium Books Sales and Distribution (Consortium) was used to distribute and warehouse the book. I cobbled together my own funds and a couple of grants to pay for this book.

Since then I have worked with friend, colleague and designer Andrea Greitzer to make on demand books. To date there are six of these with another being worked on now. We use My Publisher (MyPublisher) for these as they make a book that is large at 15 inches across and their books are well printed on heavy stock. 

On demand books have many advantages. One of these is that you don't have to pay for books until you need them. If I get an order for a book from my site or my gallery I will order that one book and have it sent directly to the purchaser. This avoids the inevitability of ending up with boxes of books to store after your conventionally printed book has become remaindered, which is the underbelly of the publishing world...the reality that for most of us our books aren't going to the top of the NY Times Top Ten Books list. 

My advice is as follows: if you are new to  books of your work, try a book or two with an on demand publisher. There is little to lose here as you can have just one printed at a time. The quality is not bad and improving all the time. You will be using their software as a template to click and drag your pictures into the book and you can choose paperback or hard cover, smaller or larger sizes, colored pages, your images with text or without, etc. The biggest plus here may be that you will end up with the book exactly as you want it.

I have found, as much as I would like to be one, that I am no designer. Andrea Greitzer seems to sequence my work, lay out a book's pages, design the type and the over all layout in her sleep and yet it always impresses with how very well she does it. Work with a designer if at all possible. 

Who distributes your book? You do. Some on demand publishers will take this on too, for an additional fee. What I do is have the relevant book on display at shows I have and also sell it through this site. Sometimes I will use a book as a leave behind to a curator I hope will purchase work for the collection or a gallery where I'd like a show. And I do give them as thanks to people who have shown me a big kindness on my travels or have been a help to me. 

Finally, books can be a great portfolio. A short story to illustrate my point. A few years ago, while on sabbatical leave I spent about five weeks living in Austin, Texas. I decided to drive to Houston a few hours away to visit the Rothko Chapel (a simply wonderful place on the campus of Rice University) and called Anne Wilkes Tucker  to ask if she had time to see me. She did. Anne is the curator of photography at the Houston Museum of Fine Art and perhaps one of a hand full of the most important and influential curators of photography anywhere.

As I was traveling and photographing I had no portfolio with me, just the "Wheat" on demand book we'd made the year before. She and I talked for a bit and then I showed her the book. As she went through it she said that she liked two of the images very much. I asked her if she would like those two photographs for the museum's collection and she said yes, that she would. I said okay. I would send them along when I got back to Boston. I then asked her if she felt that there was anything deficient in what I had just shown her, could the presentation have been more effective had I brought prints instead of this book? She said no the book represented the work very well. 

Enough said.

We are starting work on a new on demand book and I thought it might be informative to  write about the process. This will be the seventh we have done. Andrea Star Greitzer is the designer, Patrick Philips is the writer of the intro and I am using pictures made either on or above Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts for the book's content. Andrea was a colleague of mine at Northeastern and has designed all of these books. Patrick is the editor and publisher of the magazine, Arts and Ideas.

All of these books, printed by My Publisher, are organic projects that involve quite a bit of back and forth between Andrea and myself. I would describe the books we've done as being collaborative projects. We will discuss, debate and negotiate back and forth for several weeks, trying different versions of ordering the photographs, eliminating pictures or replacing pictures with other pictures, until the book begins to fall together. 

The Vineyard is a difficult place to make pictures that avoid cliché, redundancy or are just too pretty. So far we are working on defining the story I will try to say with my pictures and we are thinking of trying to speak to the struggle entailed in doing a book from such a beautiful and over photographed place. 

Of course, having no editor, no real publisher and no large financial restrictions helps things along quite a bit. This means we are free to make a book just as we please. Also, you can print just a few and then go back and print them as you need to.

Progress update from a couple of weeks ago when I first  posted this. I have now made another flight over the island and we will incorporate some of the new pictures in the book. I also have a far better idea of the story we will tell. It is far too easy to lose sight of just what the island is, to assume it is the same as any other seaside community. But from the air, the place's sheer beauty is inescapable. 

Once published we will post the book for sale on the site. I will be showing some of this work next summer at Featherstone Gallery on the island next summer.