Best Business Practices for Photographers [250]
Book Publishing
For the most part, there are three types of photographic books published—those that are self-published (often called vanity press) and those that are commissioned by a client, publisher, or author.
Vanity Press
When you have been working on a project for some time, or you have an idea for a really great project, it is only natural that you will get so close to it that you can't take a rational and realistic look at the commercial viability of producing the book. Then, when you approach a few publishers, hoping to get them to underwrite it or buy into your project after the fact with an advance, and you get rejection after rejection, it is only natural for you to get frustrated.
Enter vanity press. Simply put: No one who is legitimately in the publishing business with a track record and an understanding of the market thinks your book can be profitable, so you decide to design and publish it yourself, hoping to prove them wrong.
Good luck.
Underwriting the costs for design and printing of your book can be very expensive up front. I am not speaking here of a book like this one, but of pictorial books. The one saving grace to all of this is the rise of print-on-demand books that are arriving on the scene, which allows you to do all the design work and upload it to a service and then market the book. Then, when the book is ordered, in just a day or so it is printed, bound, and shipped out.
There are rare exceptions to this, where a photographer becomes successful with his or her own self-publishing efforts, but you're better off playing the lottery than thinking you will be the exception rather than the rule.
Publishing a vanity-press book then allows the photographer to say, "I just published a book," or otherwise expect that he or she will be honored (or at least respected) by the publishing community. The problem is, the publishing community in large part looks down on vanity press because those books did not pass through the appropriate academic and stylistic filters that are normally associated with the prestige of being a published book author. To that end, books such as Jeremy Robinson's POD People: Beating the Print-on-Demand Stigma (Breakneck Books, 2006) have been written. There are many other resources for being a print-on-demand author. Just go to Amazon and do a search for "print on demand" or execute the same search on Google. Realize, though, that vanity press is titled as such for a reason.
Commissioned Photography Books
From sewing books to cookbooks and educational projects for museums, I have had calls and submitted proposals for what I would charge to be the principal illustrator of these books with my photography. To date, I have produced three commissioned books for the Smithsonian, for which I was paid for all elements of the production of the book, from shoot days to travel days, travel expenses, time spent editing, and time producing the final prints/digital files. Further, I retained copyright to my work.
Often for cookbooks or other similar books, your name shares the front page as "with photographs by" alongside the name of the author. Generally speaking, the work you will do with the author and/or designer should be able to give you a good idea as to how many dishes (or whatever the subject is) will be photographed, from full-page images to smaller detail shots. Generally speaking, you should be looking for a single lump-sum amount to be paid for your work up front, regardless of how many books of that edition get sold. However, be sure that those images are for that first edition only, and be sure to provide a schedule of rates for second editions as a part of your contract, so you know the number is fair, and the author won't feel like you might hold the images hostage if the book is a hit. Taking the project on speculation and hopes of royalties is a very risky proposition and one that requires a lot of due diligence on your part so you know what you're getting into.
One of the