Photography book stuff

sineadw

Thought I should start a new thread..

We need to sort a few things out very soon if this is going to be ready for SSF;

Pictures - we need server space somewhere where they can be FTPd an stored. Anyone? Bear in mind maybe 100 images @ up to 5 or so megs each (assuming JPEG).

Printer - I've heard two people say the colours in blurb book can be a bit funny. Anyone know anything about this? The only book I've seen was largely b&w stuff.

I've been talking to the other half about this - he's a writer and has published stuff both digitally and offset. He's going to ask around his illustrator contacts to see if he can get recommendations. Anyone on here have suggestions?

As for the print run itself - it depends how big or small we want to make this. We have several options that I can think of:

A - We stick to pre-purchased sales here. People pay in advance for their book and we set the price a printing plus maybe a fiver on top to go to SSF.

B - We take pre-purchased sales here, and with the fiver extra we order extra books to sell. We could have an offer that if you pre-purchase you get the hardback but if you wait (ie get one of the funded ones) you get the softback at the same price? Or something We can sell them on boards, its a big audience. If we get some advanced copies we can show them at any boards beers that might be up and coming. We could even try to sell storefront or get some external PR going; I can think of a few bloggers who might push the idea for us and then before you know it its in the press (blogs are a HUGE influence on printed press these days).

C - We can try to get some backing or sponsorship and do a larger print run, with all proceeds going to SSF. Obviously this would have to be quite a large admin undertaking. I don't know how the PTB would feel about that? I've worked in these type of projects before and would be willing to give time if SSF thought it was a goer. For offset printing AFAIK the minimum run for commercially viable offset is about 500? I know it seems like a lot, but there are already about a hundred interested here and I don't think we'd have too much of a problem shifting the rest? Quality of offset is higher, although we can still stick to digital printing with this option...

Just a few ideas. What do you guys think? I do think we should get moving on this though.

thebaz

just wondering has a theme been put forward for the book, which will also determine the images we donate ?

I've bought a few books over the year , and all the best ones have a common theme .

the theme could be anything from Halloween , to Sport , Dublin to Rural ireland, Nature to Music -- just something common !

challengemaster

There is no theme, barry, that's the point. You get to choose which picture you put it, ie. your favourite or whatever

I'd be tempted to go with B myself,C would be fairly risky imo.It's hard to tell whether this would be a seller outside the boards.Will the average photographer/shopper be interested in this sort of book? Market research will definitely have to be done,just to see do we have enough interest to run with option B or option C.If not we can always fall back on just selling to the signed up photographers but the money going to charity here would be quite small.

Just one question,what does the money given to SSF go towards? If we knew what charity it was going towards this could be printed on the book i.e "All profits going towards...." This would increase sales dramatically (if it was a recognised charity.) Printing "All profits going towards Santa Strike Force" we would lose out on a large number of these sales as most people have no idea what it is.I'm a boardsie and I still don't know what the money is going towards.

Oh, and I'd agree that we shouldn't have a set theme.This would really limit the number of photographers included and no matter what theme we picked it wouldn't suit everyone.We would be easily down to under 40 photographers.

challengemaster

You don't know what SSF is?

Look here

nilhg

I would think that for the first try at this it would be better to keep it simple, so I'd suggest option A.

A possible option might be that maybe some of the more established of us might be prepared to buy an extra copy of the book which could be sold in aid of SSF, even if they didn't sell then the fivers would be going straight to good use.

Ah,ok that is quite a good cause

RoryW

challengemaster wrote: »

You don't know what SSF is?

Look here

and here I was thinking SSF stood for "Sineads Slush Fund"

eas

sineadw wrote: »

Printer - I've heard two people say the colours in blurb book can be a bit funny. Anyone know anything about this? The only book I've seen was largely b&w stuff.

have a look here for a good bit of detail of how to get the most from blurb

www.bonsai-photography.com/blurb-color-management.pdf

ThOnda

Eventually, now I know what SSF stands for.
Thank you Sinead for thinking ahead.

sineadw

Ok how about this - we go with option A and see if there are enough funds/interest to go with B? We can always order extra. It'd be a good way to generate extra charity funds.

C might be an option for next year, depending on how this goes

Thimblefull has kindly offered server space (thanks thimbleful - I'll check it later when I'm on my own PC).

I'll have a look at that link to blurb later too. Anyone here used them before? How difficult or otherwise is it to do the layout?

Oh and +1 for no theme! I know it works better aesthetically but it really would limit it. For me part of the pull of this is the random democracy of it

sineadw

RoryW wrote: »

and here I was thinking SSF stood for "Sineads Slush Fund"

Its Sinead's Sigma Fund - I want the 105 macro..

whyulittle

The Boards.ie Random Photo Thread Book - Mark I

ThOnda

What would be the best way to commercialize the book? We should get the photographs first, then link to the web page with the photographs and provide information about the book?

sineadw

Hmmm.. a website? Good idea! Shouldn't be too hard to set up. Once we get a design theme for the book a bit of CSS and a lightbox gallery?

sineadw

whyulittle wrote: »

The Boards.ie Random Photo Thread Book - Mark I

Exactly

rahtkennades

Perhaps the answer to which way to make extra money from the book is to go with option A for now, including a mandatory €5 donation to SSF for each book purchase, then to put the book up on the Blurb (or equivalent) bookstore. This can then be advertised on a website if one is set up for the book, and also on Boards. Any money from purchases of the book would go directly to charity. Sound like a way to go?

thebaz

ok forget theme , but for submitting our image , do we just submit the best image we think we have put up here on boards , or are there any other considerations , to take into account ?

kjt

thebaz wrote: »

ok forget theme , but for submitting our image , do we just submit the best image we think we have put up here on boards , or are there any other considerations , to take into account ?

Your best shot really no conditions that I know of.

mehfesto2

We could ask for a sticky to be put up in all forums regarding the book. That way you'd get more photos and more potential buyers too.

Also, is the website only for the hosting of the images until they're taken up by blurb?

ThOnda

I was thinking about flickr or pix servers to have the pictures accessible by the book designer(s). And also to use their copyright reinforcements.

mehfesto2

Yeah, that's why I asked.
Would we be linked to this page, or wold it be kept secret so that the finished book is a surprsie?

One more Q: do we get one page each or two? i.e. just one photo page with text underneath OR one phot page and one written page?

ThOnda

In my opinion, one page per paying contributor would be fair.

mehfesto2

Just seeing the other thread now, ThOnda. It's grand!:o

sineadw

Tinkerbell has already offered to host the images:) If it were flickr would it not be too easy just to have a browse and that's it? I dunno?

I didn't realise there's a blurb bookstore - got to go look that up - that sounds like it could be the perfect solution?

sineadw

Actually - http://www.blurb.com/learn_more/share - that looks like exactly what we need? And their collaborative software will host the images for us? I can't read much now - just installed Linux and I'm having a bit of a nightmare with the wireless tools

MartMax

as for sales, we could take various payment methods. bank transfer, cheques, credit card and paypal.

we could also setup a quick on-line site using shopify.com (but they'd take some %) or use something else to ensure organised inventories.

i also have spare linux hosting (plenty actually) if required.

CabanSail

The other decision that will need to be made is if the book will be Landscape or Portrait.

If we, say, go for a Landscape format then an image taken in Portrait would be lost on the page. Should we allow 1 page per person & they can then have 1 Landscape or 2 (smaller) Portrait images?

This would also work the other way if a Portrait format was selected (1 Portrait or 2 Landscape).

ttcomet

Just a very small point, who ever is going to organise the print will have to be granted a single non exclusive, transferable (cause it will be blurb/photobx or who ever that actually prints it) right to store/print/use the image. Each person submitting an image should be asked to agree to this in writing or something similar.

And if you are going down the selling it to others route you may want to include a clause saying that the images can be used for promoting the book as well.

This way the person and the printers will be protected by any misunderstandings in the future.

In my rather bitter experience it is better to get any legal formalities sorted out now before you need it rather then later.

smelltheglove

Seems to be coming together well through everyones input.

I think landscape may work best but I gues it is a personal preference so maybe a vote on it.

sineadw

The image I want to use is landscape. End of. I'm sure there are equally a lot who want portrait though. Which is why I thought square would work best. Perhaps having two smaller images if its not your preferred orientation would work well though? Leave it up to the individual?

Pigwidgeon

I think the 2 smaller images seems very fair. But seeing as you are essentially paying for your page you could end up with peoole having 3 or maybe even 4 images on their page. Matbe would be best to limit it to 2 images per page to avoid clutter?

mehfesto2

There are 'square books' on blurb. Bit small though at 7"x7".
The pricing is:

Page Count Softcover
0-40 €9,95
41-80 €11,95
81-120 €14,95
121-160 €18,95

It's an option to suit the majority, but within those dimensions, there's really little room for any script. However it is more affordable and we wouldn't need too many people to be involved for it to be cost-effective in itself. The discounts are: 10-199 copies : 10% and 200-400 copies: 15%. At those prices we could slap $5 onto it for charity and it still would look reasonable.

Personally I feel we should aim the book as being as affordable as possible and to be honest, small enough. If we're aiming for the Xmas market to sell it, we have to acknowledge i's only going to be a 'stocking-filler' present. So it would make sense to keep it as small as possible.

I think this size is a great place to start with for both the people involved and the people who will be buying it - and if it goes well, then next year we should take a step up. Walk before we can run, etc.

It's only a suggestion, but I think it's best that we don't fail spectacularly on our first attempt and not want to approach the topic again.

sineadw

kateos2 wrote: »

I think the 2 smaller images seems very fair. But seeing as you are essentially paying for your page you could end up with peoole having 3 or maybe even 4 images on their page. Matbe would be best to limit it to 2 images per page to avoid clutter?

+1

any more than 2 would look like crap..

Ballyman

I think the landscape option or two protraits option would be best also. I think it would be difficult for everyone to provide images that would suit a square format.

Pigwidgeon

in general though i prefer photography books to be landscape for some reason, i don't know why though. just prefer it, even though the photo i have in mind is a portrait one

labbad

Option A
Landscape
Loads of dosh for SSF

melekalikimaka

well i'm going to say portrait or square