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Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Build A Book To Blow Away The Buyers

Promote your photography with a short-run publication

Apple users aren't the only ones who can benefit. MyPublisher is another service that features similar products and ease of use. Produced on glossy, acid-free papers, both services offer a range of sizes and styles with prices starting anywhere from $4 to about $30. Apple offers its largest book at a size of 11x8.5 inches, while MyPublisher provides not only a 9x12 size, but also a 12x16 book with full-bleed photographs for $59.

Apollo Photo Imagizing offers books in sizes ranging from 3.5x3.5 to 13x10. Pricing begins at about $15, and the books are available with a soft, hard or padded soft cover with the images printed on archival glossy paper. A photograph can be mounted on the cover.

One-off and short-run books made by AsukaBook are a good way to get a polished presentation out to clients and potential clients as well. AsukaBook runs your project with a Digital On Demand process that renders a final package with the look and feel of a book from an offset press, and 100-pound glossy paper gives your images the look they deserve. Books are available in various sizes. Page design is up to the individual photographer.

If you want greater control over the look of your promotional books, Bind-It Corporation provides materials and tools to professionally bind a book yourself. Its Desktop Perfect Binding system creates softbound and hardbound versions of your work. In addition to having total control of the design, you can choose to print your images on any style or quality of paper, rather than being limited to those provided by an online service.

Making The Most Of It

Even at their reduced costs, these books involve an important investment. In addition to producing a quality book, it's essential to determine to whom you'll send it. A blind distribution to even a hundred clients is expensive, with no guarantee that there will be an interest in viewing your portfolio. A strategy for sharing your short-run books is paramount.

“I choose to send these books to the people who I'm currently working with, to share with them some of the different things that I do,” explains Dole. “Ninety percent of the clients I work with may think of me only as a still-life photographer. I'm using these to share my latest work and also show them the different categories of work that they may not necessarily know me for.”

Dole's first attempt produced only three books. He sent them out to his clients, who responded favorably to the design and the content.

“I've sent thousands of postcards and never gotten one phone call,” he says. “But I sent out three of these and got three phone calls.”

While speaking to students recently at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif., Dole was surprised to find that many of the students were using these very same services to create showcases of their work. He realized that there was a whole generation of photographers for whom this technology was as natural as a camera.

“Soon, everybody is going to be using this or a similar process. The commercial world and the art directors are going to be flooded with them and then it's going to come back to content,” Dole explains. “My only advice is that as long as your visuals are strong, your presentation is going to work. No amount of computer-generated, short-press runs are going to fix images that aren't beautiful or unique.”

Resources

Apollo Photo Imagizing (800) 747-7371 www.apollo-imagizing.com
Apple (800) MY-APPLE www.apple.com
AsukaBook (866) 330-1530 www.asukabook.com
Bind-It (800) 645-5110 www.bindit.com
MyPublisher (800) 432-8290 www.mypublisher.com