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What are the best printers if you want to self-publish a photo book?
Posted by liveBooks
RJ Shaughnessy, Your Golden Opportunity Is Comeing Very Soon. Via eyecurious
On Tuesday we started a cross-blog conversation about the Future of Photobooks, the first wave in a multi-week, crowd-sourced project to see if we can collectively figure out what of the more difficult questions facing our industry: “What will photobooks look like in 2019?”
In the course of that conversation, J. Wesley Brown at We Can Shoot Too came up with the great idea of putting together a list of all the best printers if you’re looking to self-publish a high-quality photobook.
J. Wesley says: “I suggested http://diyausa.com/ on my post because they printed R.J. Shaughnessy’s book, “Your Golden Opportunity Is Comeing Very Soon” and I think the quality is great for the price (at least in B&W – I’d have to see a sample of their color work before deciding on a color book).”
Dalton says: “I have heard good things about this place, which has a much more hands-on process on and is tighter with the QC. http://editiononebooks.com And the prices are very good, especially once you start looking at 10+ copies.”
@JSandifer says: “OR you could decide to buy a Vandercook and do it all by hand! http://www.themainemag.com/workshop/1167-david-wo… David Wolfe prints books, portfolios, and stationery by hand.”
Marc Feustel says: “I have been collaborating with a Kyoto-based printing company, Benrido, that has combined nineteenth century colotype printing techniques with digital technology to produce a series of portfolios with truly exquisite results.”
Joerg @ Conscientious wrote a post a year ago about “Richard Renaldi and Seth Boyd’s Charles Lane Press and their first book Fall River Boys.”
That’s just a very short list to get us started. Please leave other printers you know about or have worked with in the comments and let us know if you have experience with any of the ones above. We’ll include these results in our final Photobook Resource page :)
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December 12th, 2009 at 2:12 am
J. Wesley Brown
Well done, Miki!
December 12th, 2009 at 2:37 am
Francesco Gallarotti
I have recently discovered that many talented photographers use either Japanese or Chinese printing houses for their work. The quality seems excellent and the prices I assume to be worth. Does anyone have any online contacts for such companies?
December 15th, 2009 at 5:33 am
ResolveAdmin
Just found Benrido – http://www.benrido.co.jp/new/ueda_calendar_e.html – from reading eyecurious' post. Might check with him about printers in Japan to contact. http://www.eyecurious.com/some-more-fuel-on-the-p…
December 15th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Francesco Gallarotti
Yes, thanks for the link. i was looking at it yesterday, but I don't think it's in my price range… have you seen what's the price of Shoji's calendar? $10,000!!
December 15th, 2009 at 6:06 am
ResolveAdmin
Wow. Nope, didn't see that. I'm sure there are more affordable options out there. Do you know Ernesto Bazan's Cuba? I know he looked at several printers before settling on one in Italy. He might be worth checking in with. It was a learning experience for him, so he's happy to share information :)
December 12th, 2009 at 4:36 am
john hildebrand
i needed this i am trying to publish a photo book right now over 300 pages
any tips
December 12th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Nick Turpin
"What are the best publishers if you want to self-publish a photo book?"
Not sure I understand this question, if you're self publishing then you don't need a publisher surely? You are the publisher, I started Nick Turpin Publishing in order to publish PUBLICATION magazine….you will need a good designer and a good printer, a list of those could be useful.
Sorry if I'm splitting hairs here ;-)
In that spirit PUBLICATION was printed in London by PUSH who were recommended to me because of their sensitive handling of photography.
Roy at push is fantastic at guiding first time publishers through the process.
http://www.push-print.co.uk/
December 12th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
ResolveAdmin
You're right, Nick. I meant printers. The fact that I conflated the two probably suggests how much new knowledge it requires to even undertake a self-publishing project. I've changed the headline to "printers" to be more precise.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Twitted by gallarotti
[…] This post was Twitted by gallarotti […]
December 14th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
ResolveAdmin
Here's a good interview with Alan Rapp about self-publishing that we just included in the main post.
http://www.heyhotshot.com/blog/2009/08/20/self-pu…
And details about digital offset printing from Daylight Magazine here.
http://www.beikey.net/mrs-deane/?p=3095
December 14th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Marc
Hi. Just a couple of minor things (my name is spelled with a c and not a k, Marc). Also the details about digital offset printing are provided by Mrs Deane and not Daylight Magazine.
December 24th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Becky Christensen
I have found that creating and or publishing a photobook or "storybooking" as we call it – as Personal Heritage Makers Consultants – can and is done very easily with our Studio 3.0 – simply by creating an account – uploading your photos, choose the size and kind of product you want to create and publish. I would like to invite any to contact me or visit my website – http://www.yourstorybooksonline.com for more information. Have a great Christmas! Our goal is always to put a "story" under every tree. Everyone has a Story, and there is a Story behind every picture! Photos are for capturing a moment in time…… our history, our stories and our legacies……
January 5th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Matthew Craig
http://www.fastbackbooks.com/ – A small publishing house in NY that offers DIY options – Oliver, the owner, looks after each project closely.. is flexible with deadlines.. and puts out a quality product.
If you're in New York he should be your first option. If outside of New York, i'd leave time to review a proof copy.
February 20th, 2011 at 11:03 am
Todd Walker
I’ve done a couple of zines with MagCloud (http://www.magcloud.com) and have been happy with them as experiments, but the print quality is more along the lines of mass-market magazine publishing, not what you’d want in something more permanent.
I’ve been looking for what to try next. Lots of Indie Photobook LIbrary submissions have been using Blurb. I also ran across http://www.oddi.com/, an Icelandic publisher. It looks like a fair number of American galleries are using them for short-run exhibition catalogs.