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By Root 4030 0

most lucrative books you could be asked to produce would be a book about a business. Often, these are books that rely in large part on original photography, taken at plants and properties around the country or throughout the world. These books are used in the company's many waiting rooms in offices everywhere, used in sales presentations as leave-behinds, and even sold in company bookstores and gift shops. These books can also be produced by cities, counties, and states around the country to promote their locale or region as a good place to invest or open a business, or they can be used as gifts to visiting dignitaries. Philanthropic organizations, nonprofits, and other organizations like this also will commission smaller books to attract donors and to use as thank-you gifts. Whether for a business, a nonprofit, or a government entity, although there are a great deal of planning and details to arrange, these books are among the most economically viable for you to work on when you are commissioned to do them. On the other hand, working on a long-term book project with a charitable organization can be a great pro bono project as well.

Co-Published and Retrospective Pictorial Books

A growing trend amongst established pictorial book (also referred to as coffee-table book) publishers is an instance where the publisher will commit to a project but expect that you will contribute $5,000, $10,000, or more to the costs to produce the book. In some instances, the publisher will only take on the book if you agree to buy 100, 250, 500, or more copies of the book—in essence, underwriting a significant part of the book yourself. In these instances, the publisher, knowing how hard it is to just break even on a pictorial book, will hedge the likelihood of a loss by getting you to commit to a quantity of the book yourself.

As you get older and carry a well-respected name, you may find yourself in the rarified air that is a retrospective book about your work. Often these are an overall retrospective of your life's work, or they are about a large body of work that you did. Usually, getting 250 or 500 copies of the book for you to give away or sell on your own is not unheard of and can often be in lieu of any payment for your photos in the book. Usually, however, you are not paying for a part of the production, as you are with a co-published pictorial book.

Chapter 32 Charity, Community, and Your Colleagues: Giving Back Is Good Karma

Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends & Influence People, had posted the following over his bathroom mirror as a daily affirmation and perspective to act from:

I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Robert Fulghum, author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, outlines these seemingly simple rules that really apply to all of society (or should):

Share everything.

Play fair.

Don't hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don't take things that aren't yours.

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life—learn some and think some and draw and paint and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

To me, that's a mantra for life. Take a minute to reread that. It really rings true.

Charity: A Good Society Depends on It

When a natural disaster strikes—from a tsunami, to a hurricane, to an earthquake or a terrorist act—it is human nature to join together and help those in need. It's obvious that it's necessary, and that it's a good thing. Following the terrorist strikes of 9/11, the American Red Cross and several other charitable organizations reported record donations, so much so that there was a concern among other charities for ailments and other worthy causes