10 Things You Should Know Before Building A Photobook
If you’re thinking about making a photobook, there are a few key things you should know.
You see, for a photographer, making a book is a big deal.
It’s something that defines your work and plays a key role in shaping your voice as an artist.
Now obviously you don’t have to be that serious about it.
A book is a book and you get to decide how you go about it.
It could be as complex as expressing something through photography or as simple as a fun book of nice pictures.
However my latest photography zine “The Sinking Sun” was one of those more serious projects for me - so we’ll speak about it in this context.
Building this book was much harder than I expected:
It forced me to think about photography in new ways.
I had to make sure psychologically and emotionally everything was stable, so I didn’t get too in my own head about my work.
And logistically, it was the biggest project I’ve done yet.
But in doing this - I learned a ton about myself and the creative process.
You see, I’m fascinated by the creative process.
When making stuff I often wonder what it’d be like to look into the minds of some of the great artists of the past and see what they were thinking about, what struggles they faced, and what they learned from making or doing things.
If I was able to know the thoughts they had as they went through their own challenges, I think that would have given me a clearer path when facing mine.
Now we can’t do that obviously, but I can at least document what I remember while it’s still fresh, and share them with you as we progress along our creative journeys together.
So that’s what we’re doing today.
Here are 10 things you should know when building your first photobook.
1. You Don’t Need Permission
It’s often that people, myself included, feel like we need permission or approval to do something.
That permission can be granted by either fame (number of subscribers or followers), skill level (whether or not we feel good enough), or others (people saying “you’re ready”).
And that if we don’t have any of those things we are not “qualified” to do something.
This applies to any creative project, not just photography, and not just making a photobook.
It’s an imaginary barrier that prevents us from making the stuff we want to make.
Lets break this barrier today.
You don’t need a million followers to make a photobook.
You don’t need to be the best photographer out there to make a photobook.
You don’t need tons of people lining up to buy your photobook to make a photobook.
You don’t need someone to tell you “that’s a good idea” for you to make it.
Those are all imaginary barriers in your head.
Because the only real requirement for making a photobook is to make the photobook.
Putting in the effort and actually doing the work is all it takes.
And if you recognize that, you can explore whatever idea excites you, rather than waiting for an idea that’s “worth making”.
As for more “physical” barriers, self publishing today is easier than ever.
Before, you used to have to go through a publisher, they have to approve your project, it has to be marketable, etc, etc.
Which meant that many photographers would never make a photobook.
Because the only people who’d make a photobook are ones who are already successful.
And everyone else is stuck thinking, “What’s the point?”
But nowadays you don’t have to go down that route.
You can build a photobook, submit your pdf to any online printing company, and then distribute your book accordingly.
You can create whatever you want however you want.
Which also means you’re not limited on creative freedom.
You can pick and choose the topics that actually interest you as opposed to the topic your editor thinks will sell.
And when you work on the stuff you actually care about, you end up creating something better.
It’s more true to your nature, it’s more real to you, and therefore more real to your audience.
You also don’t have to sell or share your book if you don’t want to.
You can simply make one just for yourself.
The point is, you don’t need permission to make a photobook.
If you want to make a photobook, make a photobook.
2. Don’t Wait to Make a Book
What many photographers don’t realize is that book making is a skill.
What does this mean?
This means that just like photography, you get better at making books by making books.
And you can’t expect to become an amazing photographer and make an amazing book if you’ve never made a book before.
Because there’s more that goes into making a photobook than just the photos.
Meaning you shouldn’t wait until you’re a “good photographer” to make a book.
But rather you should be making books side by side, with your photography.
That way both skills can improve together.
Otherwise, you’ll be an expert photographer with amateur book-making skills and a weak photobook.
If you wait to get good before making a photobook, your new limiter will be your “bookmaking skill”.
The sequencing, theme building, text and copy, etc.
These are all important book skills that are underdeveloped because you’ve never done it before.
Furthermore, making books actually improves your photography.
Book making can teach you about your photography and bring light to your weaknesses.
These two skills can go back and forth and develop tangentially, not independently.
I certainly felt this when I built “The Sinking Sun”.
Making this photography zine made me better as a photographer.
It forced me to take photos in a new way besides the usual street photography and documenting my life.
It gave me purpose to go out and take photos every day - because I was actually building something with the photos.
And I also learned just how subjective art is.
Everyone is taking different photos for different reasons.
Meaning it’d be silly to compare my sunset photography to my street photography.
Different purpose, different vision, different point.
The idea is, don’t wait.
Start with a smaller project like a zine, and develop your book making skills alongside your photography, not after you feel qualified.
3. People May Judge - And That’s Okay
If you’re doing anything creative, and you have eyes on your work, people will judge.
They’ll question what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and whether it’s worth doing.
Some feedback will be positive, some will be negative.
And that’s okay.
Because you’ve got to understand that they’re looking at your work through the lens of themselves.
They may think things like:
“Me personally, I wouldn’t make something like that.”
“A photography zine about sunsets - how original.”
Which is warranted, because people have opinions - but it really doesn’t matter.
There will always be someone who doesn’t like what you’re doing.
Who cares - make it anyways.
Because the people who are critical of your work (even if they’re right) are probably not doing anything anyways.
The ones who are actually working on their own creative projects are simply too busy to worry about what other people are doing.
And the doers themselves know just how much time and effort it takes to make something.
Meaning, making something is often more impressive than what you make.
Action, effort, and hard work warrants respect even if it’s “not your cup of tea”.
So obviously I’m talking about more than just constructive criticism.
If you’re a creator, artist, photographer, and you’ve got some judgement - good.
That’s normal.
You can’t please everyone.
So remember who you are, why you’re making what you want to make, and then make it regardless.
4. No One’s Gonna Make it For You
I feel like many artists struggle with this.
They have some great idea or dream of what they want to make but never do anything about it.
They rely on bursts of inspiration or motivation to be productive instead of taking full responsibility for their own projects.
Because at the end of the day, it’s your job and your job alone.
It sounds obvious, but no one’s going to make your projects for you.
I had this great idea for a zine about sunsets, time, and the philosophy behind action.
And no one gave a damn about making that - but I did.
So clearly, I had to be the one to take action.
And the idea would always remain an idea until I took action.
Ideas without action are worthless.
So keep this in mind if you have certain personal projects or ideas you want to develop.
It is your job and your job alone.
You can’t outsource your art.
The sooner you accept this reality the sooner you can get working on the project.
The sooner you start working on the project, the sooner the project will complete itself.
And then you can move onto the next.
That’s the creative process in a nutshell.
5. The Idea Comes to Life as You Work On It
Once you’ve accepted the amount of work you have to do as the price you have to pay to create what you want to create, things actually get easier.
The moment you stop avoiding the work, looking for shortcuts around the work, and spend less time fantasizing about what you’re going to do, your ideas actually come to life.
Because the idea you have at the beginning isn’t fully fleshed out - and will never be.
It changes, alters, and goes different ways based on the feedback and things you realize from working on it.
And that’s the point.
The idea comes to life as you work on it.
This for sure happened with me for “The Sinking Sun”.
When I started I had a completely different vision for the book.
I thought it was going to be some nice flip-through art book with the best sunsets I’ve collected throughout the past couple of years.
But as I started to lay the groundwork, I realized I needed something else to hold the images together.
There was an underlying motivation for myself philosophically about why I wanted to make this in the first place.
Keep in mind this was after already making 2-3 full drafts.
When I accepted this new change in direction, I began to write.
I wrote about sunsets, what they meant, why they were important, what they were a reflection of, etc, etc, etc.
And I played around with this idea back and forth until I eventually had the right supporting text to match my images.
And then things started making sense.
So that’s what I mean by “the idea comes to life as you work on it”.
Creative work is like building a puzzle.
You start by assembling all the pieces.
Then you start to put the project together.
Some pieces don’t fit and you have to put them off for later or find different places for them.
But eventually, as you keep working on it, the puzzle comes together and the idea begins to take shape.
Once you realize this, you’ll realize how important it is to get over all this “pre-project planning”.
Because the puzzle only makes sense as you work on it, and you can’t plan every step of the project.
So the sooner you can start, the sooner you can put the puzzle together.
Start laying things down before you feel ready.
Don’t wait for the idea to be complete in your head before you start.
Because the idea can easily end up completely different from what you initially thought it was gonna be.
But if you just get started, the processing time can begin and the project can come to life on its own.
6. Expect It to Take Longer Than Expected
Many creative projects will take longer than you think.
Many creative projects will be more difficult than you think.
Meaning, you might think it’ll be done in just a few months but it can easily take much much longer.
And it’s often we grossly underestimate how long something takes to make.
Sure if you just whiffed up a first draft and let it go, you could be done within a few days or weeks.
But if you want to make it as good as it can be, you have to keep working on it.
And you also must be willing to remake it as much as possible.
For this photography zine, the idea was born almost 2 years ago.
Gathering images took 1-2 years.
Building the zine took roughly half a year to a year.
And then even when I thought the zine was done I had to go back and remake it several times.
I took the zine from 100 pages, to 66 pages, to 96 pages.
I added, removed images, re-added images, and deleted sections.
I dealt with printing issues, and trashy draft versions.
I made multiple versions upon multiple versions until it was finally done.
So however long you think it’s going to take, expect it to take longer.
However hard you think it’s going to be, expect it to be harder.
Because quality projects take quality time.
You must be willing to restart as many times as necessary to get the thing right.
And don’t fall temptation to say “This is good enough.”
That can easily become a trap of “settling” on your creative work.
Obviously this applies to the bigger more important creative projects.
Smaller things like a YouTube short or TikTok, you don’t have to beat into perfection.
But a book I think many would agree is a bigger and more important project.
Okay, so if a project is going to take longer and be harder than expected, how do we account for this?
A phrase I like to repeat to myself is:
“I have no sunk costs.”
In this context, “sunk costs” is the time and money you’ve already spent in building this project.
And the dangerous part about having sunk costs is it makes you committed to this thing because you’re already halfway there.
But sometimes the idea needs to be scrapped, changed, redone to become better.
So having no sunk costs means, it doesn’t matter how much time and effort I’ve already invested into a project.
If I need to remake it from scratch, I’ll make it from scratch.
If I need to scrap the whole thing, I’ll scrap the whole thing.
Being willing to restart and redo to make the book as good as it could be is very important.
And we’re often not willing to do this because we’re so rushed to get the thing done.
But if we tell ourselves “I have no sunk costs”, then we are reminding ourselves that we are committed to remaking this thing as many times as necessary to get the best form out regardless of how much time we’ve already spent on it.
And this results in better work.
7. You’ve Gotta Talk About It
You’ve gotta talk about your book.
If no one knows about it, no one can buy it.
Regardless of whether or not you’re trying to sell your photobook, if you want people to see it, you’ve got to tell people about it.
And this is not to be confused with “Less Talk, More Work.”
“Less talk more work” is a phrase I’ve mentioned before which means to focus on doing the work rather than talking about it.
So this may seem contradictory - but they’re different.
I don’t mean: telling everyone about your great fantastic project and then never working on it.
I mean: when your project is almost done, start sharing it with people who may be interested.
This gives people who might actually want to buy your thing, a chance to buy your thing.
And I get it, many artists are iffy about the idea of marketing and selling.
From the artist’s perspective, we made this thing to make this thing, not to make a quick buck.
But understand that if you don’t talk about it, no one’s gonna know about it.
If no one knows about it, people can’t buy it, even if they wanted to.
For me, the objective of this book wasn’t to sell.
I wanted to make the book on its own and that was the most important thing for me.
And of course I wanted to make it available to you guys, but if no one ended up buying it, making of the book was still a win of it’s own.
So that’s how I created an internal win with this project.
But I still knew it was important to market as if I was trying to sell it.
That way I can learn and gain experience from doing so, and get the book into the hands of the people who actually want it.
Which meant talking about it.
A lot.
I made videos, posts, shared a bunch of bts, and tried to integrate this book into as much of my content as I could.
And I did so in a way that added value like this blog here.
That way I didn’t have to be too “salesy”.
So understand that you can market in a way that fits your values.
And don’t underestimate how much you need to share you project to get on someone’s radar.
People have busy lives - and they’re not thinking about you and your little project.
So market more than you think.
Because there are many people who are probably reading this right now thinking, “You made a book?” even though I’ve been talking about this for months.
So that’s the point - talk about your project or no one will know about it.
And also thank you to everyone who picked up a copy - I really do appreciate the support.
8. Many of Your Good Photos Aren’t Going to Make It
This is something you’re going to have to get used to as you make photobooks.
Many of your photos aren’t going to make the cut.
Why?
Because as you go through the building process, the project will take different directions.
And as you understand the project more, what makes a “good photo” will also change.
In the context of a book, a good photo is one that fits.
One that matches and makes sense, not one that simply looks nice.
Not simply a photo with the best composition, exposure, and colors.
But one that suits the theme, adds to the message, and improves the book as a whole.
It’s about finding the right image not the best image.
The right image provides synergy and makes the book work as opposed to a random standalone image.
Realizing this changed my view of photography.
If you’re thinking of making a photobook, you have to pick images that make sense, not ones that just look nice.
Of course if that’s your purpose for the book - that’s a different story.
But regardless, not every photo will make the cut.
You’re going to have to pick between many of your favorites.
And you have to get used to saying no to many photos you like.
This means killing a lot of “art babies”, as they call it.
9. Nothing Done Well Is Insignificant
As I’ve progressed in my photography journey, I’ve moved to bigger and more challenging projects.
I’ll always consider myself an amateur but photography is something I’ve become more serious about as time passes.
I’m doing new projects, facing bigger problems, and doing harder things.
And it’s often I sit there and wonder:
“Why am I doing all these hard things?”
Because although the creative process is fun, it can also be very stressful.
Not just photography, but the YouTube channel, and writing this newsletter as well.
Part of it’s fun and part of it’s work.
It’s tedious, monotonous, stale, and boring.
It’s the same thing over and over and over again.
And although I enjoy this, not every day is a buzz.
So sometimes I sit down and ask myself:
“Why am I doing all of this?”
“Why am I trying so hard?”
“Why do I keep showing up everyday?”
Because there has to be a deeper point to it, otherwise I wouldn’t do it.
My current understanding right now is: that I have to.
It’s as simple as that.
Photobooks, YouTube videos, blog posts - these are all projects that I have to make.
Kind of like the point we made earlier: No one’s gonna make it for you.
Even if my mind keeps telling me “Chill, enjoy life a bit”, the drive to make the thing outweighs my desire to not do the thing.
And so I make the thing and I keep making the thing.
And fulfillment in life comes from conquering challenging obstacles.
It doesn’t come from laying around all day and doing nothing.
That might sound nice but could get boring quick.
My big takeaway being, “Nothing done well is insignificant.”
All of this work and effort that you put into your creativity may feel pointless, but it’s not.
It’s worth it.
Why?
Because doing the thing and doing it well is the point.
Making something is the point.
And doing difficult things makes you better.
It may feel insignificant to create something that few will care about, but it’s not.
Because the actions, the act of creating, the bettering of yourself is the significant part about it.
Creative projects are simply vehicles for self-improvement for both you as a creative and an individual.
And the better you get, the bigger projects you can tackle.
And the more things you do, the better you’ll feel about yourself.
Because the feeling of accomplishment lies on the far side challenges.
Fulfillment comes not from external outcomes, but from doing something that you’ve deemed worthy of your time, and doing it well.
Aka nothing done well is insignificant.
10. Once It’s Done, Let Go
When you’ve been working on a photobook for a long time, it’s difficult to know when the project is done.
And if you’re anything like me, there’s a bit of perfectionism within you.
Part of you wants it to be just right, and you have to keep hammering away until the thing is what it’s supposed to be.
The problem is, you can hammer away forever and never actually finish the thing.
So a practical way to know when a project is done is when changing a variable no longer makes it better.
Rather, adding and removing photos only makes the photobook neutral or worse.
Anything and everything you do to the book with your current skill level simply doesn’t improve the project.
That’s a good lead indicator to know when your book is done.
Because there’s nothing more you can do.
So this is a skill you have to build.
Don’t half ass the project but learn to know when it’s done.
And when it’s done, it’s done.
Let go and move on to the next project.
Lets wrap this up.
If you’re thinking about building a photobook, here are 10 things you should know:
You don’t need permission to make a book.
The work is all that’s required, self-publishing is easier than ever, and you don’t need someone to tell you it’s a good idea.
Don’t wait to make a book.
If you want to make a book, make one. Book making is a skill that must be developed alongside your photography, not after you feel good enough.
People may judge - and that’s okay.
This is your project, not theirs. This is something you want to make - trust in that.
No one’s going to make it for you.
If you have a great idea to do, it’s your responsibility to do it.
You can’t outsource your art.
The idea comes to life as you work on it.
Start by laying down pieces of the puzzle and you will see the bigger picture.
Expect it to take longer than expected.
We greatly underestimate how long challenging projects take.
Plan accordingly.
You’ve gotta talk about it.
When the book is done, tell people about it.
If no one knows about it no one can buy it.
Many of your good photos aren’t going to make it.
Get used to killing off many of your favorites.
Because a good photo is about having the right image, not the best looking one.
Nothing done well is insignificant.
The work you put in will be worth it.
The outcomes are irrelevant but your actions have value.
Once it’s done, let go.
Lay this idea to rest so you can move onto the next.
Thanks for reading, if this helped please share this with a friend.
Also grab a copy of “The Sinking Sun” if you’re interested.
It’s my first photography zine that I spent a lot of time working on that may help you out with life.
Thanks again.
