Publishing a photo book

Thanks to the two books that I made this year as part of my assignments, I realised that I really want books to become a substantial part of my future projects. I found in books the perfect means to tell stories, because they allow me to have a designed space where I can play my own rules and express more freely. When looking at a book, I can see a project as finished and I feel like you have more control of it, since all your work, all the information are in there together.

For this reason, I want to get to know better how the photo books industry works and I started making some researches.

Considering the traditional option of approaching a publisher, the Trolley Books ' director Hannah Watson recommends to check publishers’ submission policies, and trying to get a face-to-face meeting.

“Sending a pdf by email will usually just get lost in the ether,” she says. “Portfolio reviews are a good way to meet people, or workshops. Nowadays, if you are active on Instagram publishers can find you first.”

She explains that, when approaching a publisher, you don’t need to have a finished layout or dummy, the publisher will want to be involved in the process of change, they don't want something already finished.

Unfortunately, book publishing can be extremely expensive. In fact, publishers expect you to pay for most, if not all, of the production and finding funding for it is another challenge.

One of the best way to get funding support is through pre-orders. In this way, you minimise the risk by having the book paid for in advance. Another popular option is obviously crowdfunding.

By acknowledging this, it is obvious how our presence on social media is fundamental in order to get visibility and, consequently, people interested in supporting our work.

Considering the option of self-publishing, our online presence becomes even more crucial. In fact, while cutting the production costs, we don't have a clear path to the possible buyers, unless we already built a community of people interested in seeing our work, in most of cases our followers.

The other option is entering photo books awards, which are becoming more and more popular. Some of the most interesting ones for my practice are:

First Book Award

Unseen Dummy Book Award

Aperture Photobook Awards

Anamorphosis Prize

Unveil'd Photobook Award

Mack’s First Book Award

Doing researches into the photo book industry, I have found this book which is very recommended and I will definitely get in order to start making a solid plan for my future books publications.