REVIEW: Publish Your Photography Book (3rd Edition)
This edition has been completely reworked to reflect the many recent changes in photobook publishing.
“A man is known by the company he keeps.”
This familiar expression derives from a fable written by Aesop over 2500 years ago. In the story, a man purchases an ass on a contingent basis to see how well it will fit in with his herd. The man quickly returns his purchase to its original owner, however. When asked why, the man explains that, on entering his pasture, the new animal immediately befriended the laziest and most gluttonous ass in the herd. Judgment of the new ass’s character was thus ascertained, and the animal was deemed unsuitable for service.
This always struck me as a rather hasty decision, but I suppose the man’s harsh appraisal simply reinforces the fable’s moral: Fairly or not, people will judge you, and quickly, by the company you keep.
I was reminded of this story when reading the third edition of Publish Your Photography Book by Darius D. Himes and Mary Virginia Swanson. Laziness and gluttony are not really at issue here, but concern for the careful selection of one’s publishing companions pervades every chapter.
On reflection, I think the authors probably have this right, but it’s hard to wrap your head around the idea as a publishing outsider. That’s because the company you keep when attempting to publish a photobook exists on multiple levels, and those levels aren’t always easy to see clearly. Therein lies the value of Publish Your Photography Book. It’s like a travel guide where the authors serve as a pair of experienced, no-nonsense advisors navigating you through the Byzantine and often bewildering streets of Photobookland circa 2023. They’re not simply tour guides, though. You have to know your preferred destination before they can really help you, and that requires some extensive preparation on your part. Fortunately, this is not a book of pat answers devoid of context. At bottom, it’s a book of better questions that will guide you to places you might not even know you really wanted to go.
I wouldn’t normally write a review of a book’s third edition, by the way, but this particular edition was ten years in the making and has been thoroughly reworked and rewritten to reflect the enormous changes the photobook market has undergone in recent years. You can’t swing a cat without hitting a photobook fair these days. That’s new. And the growing influence of the Academy-Gallery Complex on all creative photography endeavors can’t really be overstated either. That feels new, too. Or impossibly old.
Anyway, with this new reality in mind, the first level of “company” the book invites us to consider is the superordinate one. Let’s call it the Fine Art Photobook Community (FAPC). I think we’re principally talking about a United States phenomenon here, and I think that because Europe — while chockfull of photobook makers — doesn’t have the same robust tradition of university MFA programs that America has.
MFA students and alums are pretty clearly the lifeblood of the American FAPC (independent makers exist here, too, of course, but they’re more diffuse and harder to monetize), so it is little wonder that these very same Masters of Fine Arts appear to be the principal audience for the authors of Publish Your Phototography Book.
That makes sense, really. If you look to the submission guidelines of any of today’s top-tier photobook publishers, you’ll likely find that they request, if not require, an attached curriculum vitae. There’s nothing nefarious about this, of course. It’s just business.
Fine art photobooks are expensive to produce, and the lion’s share of them are probably sold to other photobook makers, or would-be makers, with deep connections to the FAPC. Still, if you read this book cover to cover (and you really should before you innocently enter the fray) you’ll discover a persistent emphasis, particularly in the first half of the book, on publishing as “professional development,” on professional networking, and on other professional/professorial assumptions and admonitions that are likely to scare the bejeezus out of the merely talented but elsewhere educated or the quasi-casual photobook-curious enthusiast.
If you resemble either of these descriptions, don’t go running for the hills just yet. The second half of the book does offer hope for aspiring but uncredentialled creators. That hope comes in the form of self-publishing, and, paradoxically, this means embracing a different kind of company.
The phrase “vanity publishing” was once a hurtful pejorative used to describe independent books published outside of traditional channels. These days, that phrase appears to be on its way out of the lexicon. Multiple respectable avenues now exist for getting your dream photobook printed, packaged and available for purchase. If, that is, you have the money and moxie to go that route. It’s a lot of work. Chapter 4 of the book — an entirely new addition to the third edition — walks you through some of these possibilities with the help of several interviews with self-publishers of every stripe. One common thread among them, however, is the value of collaboration.
Print-on-demand services have opened up a world of possibilities, you see, but good editors and designers are still worth their weight in gold. Fortunately, you can now hire one of each for a surprisingly affordable hourly rate. Be sure to budget generously, however. You really do want true collaborators — creative confidants with some skin in the game — when trying to create a quality (i.e., marketable) photobook. Locating the right collaborators is the conundrum here. One solution is to pursue a kind of hybrid publishing approach. If you have the up-front financial resources, or can somehow raise these funds (think Kickstarter, for instance), you can hire one of any number of well-established small publishers to assist you. We’re talking really small publishers here, not your traditional publishing houses. The book’s authors point out that there are now “dozens, if not hundreds, of small publishers, often run by photographers or designers with small staffs” who are eager to help would-be photobook authors realize their visions. That’s good to know, isn’t it?
Another way to identify the collaborative company you wish to keep is by simply reading the credits found inside contemporary photobooks you love and admire. This leads us to our third level of company:the photobook genre. Never forget that you won’t be publishing your photobook in a vacuum; you’ll be entering into an ongoing conversation — and a competition of sorts — between all the other photobooks currently on the market as well as with all the photobooks that have ever been published before yours. Ever.
Let me put this another way.
Have you ever met a successful writer who says that he or she doesn’t really read much? No, neither have I. Photobook authorship is no different. You really need to understand the context in which your work is being enjoyed and judged in order to gauge how best to contribute something your audience will value. Once again, the authors of Publish Your Photography Book bring home this point better than I ever could, and they do so rather ingeniously. They do so with a questionnaire.
Inside the back cover of the third edition, you’ll find a tipped-in workbook. It’s a little blue affair, about 7x10 inches. Inside that, you’ll find a series of questions followed by blanks for writing your answers. If you’ll take the time to answer these questions — all of these questions — honestly and thoughtfully, you’ll be miles ahead of the game. I won’t spoil them for you, but I will tell you that you will be quizzed about your favorite photography books. Do you know why you love the photobooks you love? If you’re not sure, or can’t think of many, it’s time to do some homework. Don’t worry. It will pay big dividends creatively. At least it has for me.
— — — —
Looking back over this review, I think I may have stretched Aesop’s intended moral beyond any reasonable interpretation. No matter. Being thoughtful about the company you keep is still generally good advice. Nevertheless, I probably should have started with one of Aesop’s other illustrative asses.
In the fable “The Miller, his Son, and their Ass,” a father and son are driving their ass to market. Neither is riding the animal because they think they can fetch a better price if the ass is well-rested. As they walk together along the road, some travelers begin to mock them for walking when they could ride. The miller hates being laughed at, so he tells his son to climb up and ride. Soon, the boy begins drawing the ire of passing merchants for making his old father walk. At this point, the father and son switch positions. Once again, however, the miller draws criticism for making the poor boy lumber along beside him. He then tells the boy to just ride with him the rest of the trip, but they are soon jeered at for overburdening their poor donkey. Flummoxed, the miller and his son decide to simply carry the ass the rest of the way to market. Unsurprisingly, things go quickly awry. The unwieldy animal tumbles into the river and is tragically drowned. End of story.
The moral here is arguably threefold. First, I think we can all agree now that ass ownership is highly overrated. Avoid it if at all possible. Second, to thine own self be true. You can’t please everyone, so don’t lend too much credence to the knee-jerk criticism of strangers. Third, and I may be going out on another limb here, consider consulting your donkey. I’ll explain.
Since I first read this fable in Mrs. Burgamy’s 8th grade English class, I have been convinced that the miller overlooked another possible solution to his dilemma. Why not just ask the ass if he minded carrying the two of them? This is, after all, Aesop’s Fables. Not only can animals speak in these stories, they tend to do so frequently and with surprising candor. If the donkey were to respond that he could easily handle the load, the miller and his son could save some shoe leather while confidently dismissing their roadside detractors. Of course, the reason this donkey questioning never occurred is because the miller was wholly unaware of the full and fabulous context in which he was operating. One can hardly blame him for that, I suppose.
You and I, however, have no such excuse. When it comes to navigating the challenges of photobook publishing, we have a pretty good primer for understanding the context in which we’ll be operating. This primer is called Publish Your Photography Book. If we don’t bother answering the questions it poses, or if we don’t ask the right questions after reading it, we really have no one else to blame.
Finally, if your dream has always been to publish your own photobook, take heart. There are countless options available today that simply weren’t there a few years ago. Your dream really is within reach if you want it badly enough. Go get ’em. But first, go get this book.
