PDN - March 2012

ART AND CRAFT

raised the price to $475.

There are other options for fundraising as well. By pre-selling books and limited edition packages on Kickstarter, photographer Ken Rosenthal successfully raised over $14,000 to publish his first book, Photographs 2001-2009. Quinton Gordon, a Canadian photographer who just completed his first handmade book, Mile Zero: A Place Uncertain, also funded his project through pre-release sales. “In the first week I sold 60 percent of the edition, which gave me the funds to produce the entire edition,” Gordon says.

Washington photographer Victoria Bjorklund published her book, Blue Midnight, in an edition of six. If you don’t have a large amount of money, or access to grants or corporate sponsorship, you can still publish with minimal costs by binding yourself, keeping the book and edition size small, and even structuring the sales of the book in tiers so that collectors who buy the book with an original print pay for the rest of the edition to be produced. In fact, one of the best aspects of publishing handmade books is that you can publish in an edition of one.

In an effort to expand the typically small edition size of a handmade book, Jace

show the book, and a list of businesses donating services and supplies.

Next, I made a list of all the materials used in the book. I planned to buy them locally from Pro Photo Supply, so I took a dummy in, showed it to as many employees as I could and left it with a salesman. A week later the store manager called to offer me a discount on ink and ask if he could show it to the vice president of sales for Moab paper. Another week passed and I was invited to meet the Moab rep. After showing him how I was using their paper, he suggested I show the book to their head of marketing. After that meeting, Moab jumped on board, providing a discount on paper.

With the grant and discounts from Pro Photo Supply and Moab, the book would only cost me about $1,000. That’s credit card territory. By writing about Displaced on my blog, sending out e-mails with production updates, creating a dedicated Web site for the project, and gathering reviews (one from a recent exhibition of the work and one from the director of a book arts institution) and blog coverage, I pre-sold eight copies for $350 each, making the project profitable before completion. Once I had sold the first 15, I

Lauren Henkin’s Displaced, which was produced in an edition of 60.
Henkin collaborated with a letterpress printer and binder on her book.

Resources for DIY Photo Book Publishers
SUPPLIES

The Guild of Bookworkers Web site has a list of recommended suppliers www.guildofbookworkers.org Hiromi Paper www.hiromipaper.com

Talas www.talasonline.com Hollander’s www.hollanders.com BINDING

Lúz Gallery www.luzgallery.com Monograph Bookwerks www.monographbookwerks.com photo-eye www.photoeye.com

Printed Matter, Inc. www.printedmatter.org Vamp & Tramp Booksellers, LLC www.vampandtramp.com The “Find Members” section of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America lists private dealers www.abaa.org PUBLICATIONS

Parenthesis by the Fine Press Book Association www.fpba.com The Independent Photobook blog www.theindependentphotobook.blogspot.com SCHOOLS THAT TEACH BOOK ARTS