Self-Publishing Done Right

SELF-PUBLISHING
DONE RIGHT
© STEPHEN GILL
© NOBODY BOOKS/PHOTOS BY ANDREY TARKOVSKY
As the self-publishing impulse grips a growing number of photographers,
PDN gets the lowdown from 5 bookmaking experts on why you should, what you should,
and how you should self-publish. By Conor Risch
WHY SELF-PUBLISH A BOOK?
Hint: The answer is not, “Because you can.” Yes,
print-on-demand (POD) technology is a wonderful
thing, and the quality of HP’s Indigo digital printers, which are used by many POD companies, is relatively high. But whether they are using POD
services, traditional offset printers, or hand-making a zine at home, photographers who want to
self-publish books that other people might like to
look at or even buy should think carefully about
why they want to publish a book and what it takes
to create something interesting.
Photographers who self-publish don’t do so only because traditional publishers won’t publish
their books, says Bruno Ceschel, who formerly
worked with publisher Chris Boot, and who founded Self Publish, Be Happy, a curated Web site and
shop dedicated to showcasing and distributing
self-published books. “They are people who had
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PDN | March 2011 | pdnonline.com
Above: The cover and interior spreads of Bright, Bright Day, a book of Andrey Tarkovsky’s Polaroids edited and published by Stephen
Gill. Opposite page: The “danger yellow” cover and an interior photograph from Gill’s first book, Invisible, a series about construction
workers, traffic police and others whose conspicuous safety clothing are so ubiquitous that they blend into the cityscape.
something to say, and they found in the DIY publishing world a way to express this.” For instance,
some of the books Ceschel has received from photographers are personal, diaristic projects. A selfpublished book is “the perfect place for this kind
of photography because it is quite intimate,”
Ceschel says.
The appeal of publishing artists’ books, says
Catherine Krudy, the executive director of Printed Matter, a New York City bookstore that deals
exclusively in artists’ publications that are either
self-published or produced by small, independent
publishers, is that “a few hundred dollars can
give you extreme freedom over how [your] work
circulates in the world.” Self-publishers can sell
some of their books, and give some away to
friends or curators.
CONCEPT AND CONTENT
Many self-published books, even those by “interesting” photographers, fall short because they are
simply albums of their best work, says Joachim
Schmid, who has self-published his books about
photography since the early 1980s, when he created small editions using Xerox machines and the
first generation of Macintosh computers. Creating
a book concept should be “quite similar to making
a convincing exhibition,” Schmid relates. “Come up
with a clear concept, leave the stuff out that
doesn’t play a role, edit it in a convincing way, se-
quence it in a convincing way.”
It may seem self-evident, but rule one of creating a photography book is having photographs
worth publishing and an interesting editorial concept. “Just putting things together is so easy,” says
Schmid, who primarily uses found photographs to
create his projects, and is a member of Artist Book
Cooperative, a group that distributes a curated list
of self-published artists’ books online. He publishes primarily using POD services.
Echoing Schmid, Krudy says that the titles they
decide to stock at Printed Matter are self-con-
tained artworks, rather than catalogues or surveys
of an artist’s work, which are the domain of more
traditional publishers. “It’s not a history book, it’s
not just reproductions of other work, it’s not secondary material; it really is the work in itself,”
Krudy says, making the distinction between
artists’ books and art books.
The “idea of making books that are the finished
piece of work rather than a shell to house photographs,” is what drove photographer Stephen
Gill, who has published several titles under his Nobody Books imprint since 2005, to publish his own
© STEPHEN GILL
LONG LIVE PRINT
© STEPHEN GILL
SELF-PUBLISHING DONE RIGHT
Above: Covers of Stephen Gill's many published books, including Unseen UK
(far left), a series of snapshots by mail carriers that Gill edited. Gill edited
Hackney Wick, Trinidad (which was hand-assembled by Gill and friends),
and The Wick. Left: An image from Hackney Flowers. Opposite page: A portrait
from Richard Renaldi's Fall River Boys, the self-published book that launched
books. “You can do what you feel is right for yourself and the
subject [of your book],” Gill relates. “This way the leap from your
head to the finished book is small, and fewer feelings are lost
or distorted along the way.”
Richard Renaldi self-published Fall River Boys as the first project of Charles Lane Press, an imprint he co-founded with partner
Seth Boyd in 2008. Renaldi had published a book of his work with
Aperture in 2006, Figure and Ground, which was “more of an
overview” of his color photographs, he says, even though much of
the work in it was project-based. After his experience working
with Aperture taught him the fundamentals of book publishing,
he decided to publish Fall River Boys, his series of black-and-white
portraits of young men in an economically depressed city in Massachusetts, because he “had the drive to publish a self-contained
project that came organically from within me.”
© STEPHEN GILL
HOW TO PRINT
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PDN | March 2011 | pdnonline.com
Once established, the concept for a photographer’s book should
guide how it’s printed, says Printed Matter’s Catherine Krudy. In
evaluating books, “We’re interested in the relationship between
material choices and the final presentation of the book,” she
says. “If it’s a beautifully done photocopied book that the artist
has put a great deal of time into, that’s a very successful book.”
Printed Matter receives submissions from a lot of people who
pour money into their books, Krudy relates, but often the presentation is overblown and inappropriate for the content. “It’s
ultimately about the overall constellation of choices and content and materials, and the final object itself.”
Though there may be occasional exceptions, self-publishers
who try to mimic the work done by traditional publishers like
Aperture or Steidl are generally unsuccessful. Traditional publishers have editorial, design and printing expertise that photographers don’t, and they are also in a position to invest more
than most photographers are. “Don’t try to imitate traditional
books,” advises Bruno Ceschel. “To do a Steidl book you need to
be Steidl. There are all sorts of other ways to put your work together in book form that are more effective within the limitation of your budget and your set of skills.”
Ceschel says that a lot of the self-publishers whose work he
has followed begin with small, zine-like projects created on their
© RICHARD RENALDI
Charles Lane Press.
personal printers, “then become more bold in the way that they publish, start are very clear about the specs and the kind of book you would like,” Gill coungetting some money in [from selling their work] and do something more so- sels. Printers hear from lots of people and having a clear idea what you want
phisticated.” Ceschel says he’s received artists’ books from photographers who makes it easier for them to respond.
While many photographers who work with offset printers will provide diguse services like Magcloud, an on-demand magazine publishing platform, and
ital files of the images based on the printer’s color profiles, Gill says he prefers
Newspaper Club, a UK-based on-demand newspaper printer.
Stephen Gill has used traditional offset printing for many of his books, but to send C-prints for the printer to scan. That way, “They are scanning your
he has also hand-crafted his books or added handmade touches. “In a time master prints on their scanner that’s calibrated with their offset printing mawhen we’re producing things in volume and mass amounts, I love the idea chines,” Gill says. Though it requires a lot of energy, paying attention to all
that you can also make things by hand in volume too, and it’s nice to hang the “little things” can “add up to the distance between a good book and a
onto that,” Gill relates. When he first began printing his own books, he looked great book,” he adds.
“You just spent [a lot of time and energy] making work, so it’s worth tagat other books, requested paper samples and spoke with friends, printers and
ging another six months or a year onto that [to produce a
a designer he’s worked with to determine the materials, vargreat book],” Gill says. “I think for me it’s also staying loyal to
nishes, page numbers and other elements he’d like to use.
See PDNOnline.com
the subject.”
Gill printed his first book, Invisible, in Italy. He got in touch
this month for more from
In producing Fall River Boys, an offset-printed monograph
with the printer and explained that he didn’t know much
our experts on how
with high-end production values that mirror those of tradiabout the printing process. They were friendly and talked him
to distribute your
tional publishers, Richard Renaldi and partner Seth Boyd were
through it, he says. Part of what helped was that Gill had alself-published
photo books.
smart enough to know what they didn’t know. They enlisted
ready thought out what he’d like the book to look like. If you
several publishing experts, most of whom they met while
want to use an offset printer, “Wait to email them until you
pdnonline.com | March 2011 | PDN
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© JOACHIM SCHMID
SELF-PUBLISHING DONE RIGHT
Above: An aerial photograph
of a gasoline station from
Twentysix Gasoline Stations...,
a book Joachim Schmid
created as an homage to Ed
Ruscha’s artists’ books using
images found on the Web.
Right: Covers of Schmid’s
print-on-demand books.
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working on Renaldi’s Aperture book, to assist them in the
process, including an editor, designer, production coordinator
and a pre-production professional to handle their scanning and
separations. “If it were just us and the printer, I have no idea
what would happen,” Boyd relates.
Edition size, however, is a concern for those who want to go
the traditional offset printing route. Many printers won’t consider working on an edition of fewer than 500 copies, though
Joachim Schmid says some members of the Artist’s Book Cooperative have found printers that will do editions of 50 or 100,
PDN | March 2011 | pdnonline.com
which he says are essentially on demand editions, though those
books are probably smaller and less expensive to make than the
books from Charles Lane Press, which is now producing monographs by other photographers.
CHOOSING HOW TO PRINT
Choosing a printing method that fits the subject matter is a
guideline that should also apply for photographers using printon-demand technology, says Krudy. “People who think it’s a
shortcut to producing a traditional photo book, it’s not an ap-
© JOACHIM SCHMID
SELF-PUBLISHING DONE RIGHT
Above: An image from
Joachim Schmid is Martin
Parr—Martin Parr is Joachim
Schmid, a Blurb book Schmid
and Parr created in which
each assumed the creative
identity of the other.
This image of a woman at an
art fair was made by Schmid
posing as Parr.
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propriate avenue for them,” she relates. Most of the artists using POD technology haven’t “hit their stride yet,” she says. “It’s
still in the novelty phase.”
Gill agrees. Though he’s seen some POD books in which the
content is so rich the printing doesn’t matter, “I haven’t seen
that many that I really love as objects,” he says, but adds, “The
great thing about print on demand is that it’s opened doors to
so many young people with so much energy.”
Though he’s not young, Schmid is one artist who Krudy says
has used POD in an interesting and fitting way. Because his work
utilizes mostly found photography, color and reproduction are
often less important. For instance, his project Pictures From the
Street, which is a collection of nearly 1000 images that he’s
found on the street over the course of 28 years, would never be
realistic for a traditional publisher, and it wouldn’t be financially
viable for him to use offset printing—the audience who might
buy it simply isn’t big enough. POD is the perfect solution, he
PDN | March 2011 | pdnonline.com
says. The found pictures have already been affected by the elements from being outside, so little color issues are not a problem. So far he’s put out the first two volumes of the project, with
the other two to follow shortly.
POD was also a fit for a whimsical project Schmid created with
photographer and curator Martin Parr, for which Schmid photographed an art fair as if he were Martin Parr, and Parr selected and edited found images as if he were Schmid.
When he first began using POD technology, Schmid published
the exact same book with several different different POD services to test the quality and see which one he liked best. He’s
overdue for another test he says, noting he did this two and half
years ago and the technology has improved since.
Schmid says he got into self-publishing because “I like the
idea of making those dirty little books. You just forget about
what other people do and the mainstream does and what a publisher might expect, and you just do what you want to do.”