ronsipus Loc: Mission Viejo, CA

I have been reading some of the comments about which company they have used to print Photo Books and have appreciated the direction.
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has sold their books as to how they priced them and were you able to get a special price from the printing company for either a larger order or the fact that you were doing this from a professional perspective.
I am going to be working with a travel agent who is going to include a photo book of a trip, individual prints, etc. If anyone has done this or some thing similar please bless me with your wisdom and experience.

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

No limited print run of any book is going to be cost effective for you to make a profit. You would need to order in the many thousands to get a good price point. You may find that no matter what price the books were selling, that your customer base might be very limited. That means you would be sitting on thousands of unsold books and have wasted a ton of money.

Better to just use someone like Blurb and sell a book at just over cost and have it printed every time someone wants to buy one.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

I get my wildlife photobooks with 110 pages for $19.95 each (I buy them when my company puts them on a free extra pages and 40% off everything and free shipping). I sell them for $50.00 each.
You will not get rich quick selling photo books, trust me.

Dave.Largent Loc: Puyallup, Washington

Can you tell us the name of your company?

Thanks,
Dave

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

One thing to remember with book printing is that the cheaper the price, the lower the quality of the book from the paper used, the cover materials and the ink used in the printing, not to mention the colour balance and actual printed image. Some get good results but many if not most, get very poor results from low priced companies. If you have experienced both ends of this quality line, then you will know the difference.

Like anything, it depends on what you are happy with, when setting the lowest point you care to go, to keep the price down. With that said, you also need to know what quality is, in order to make a true and valid assessment of the quality you are getting from a book printer. It's no good just asking people if they are happy with what they have received, because you have no idea if they actually know the difference or have held and looked through a quality product, to compare it accurately with what they have paid for and received, in a printed book.

Kind of like asking ten people who just bought their first ever cameras, they will all say... great camera. Now take what they just bought and ask some people to compare it to what they have been using, for the past ten years or so, in order to get a true comparison from someone who hopefully knows that quality is like and you will hopefully get a more accurate representation of what a good camera is, out of the ten cameras these new first time owners may just have purchased. I hope you understand what I mean here.

I feel it can safely be said, that a 100 plus page book of photos that only cost $19.99 is not going to be a quality product. And if it is, I need to know who is making that book. I have seen the books offered at Costco and other outlets who offer book making and I can say without a doubt, that these are rather poor quality offerings. However, for the first time buyer and book creator, they may seem, to them, as great books.

Just like basic cheap restaurant food compared to an excellent restaurant (not necessarily the most expensive restaurant though) for those who have experienced both, they can tell what is great, good and mediocre. But if someone has only ever gone to cheap chain restaurants, then they have nothing to compare the food to and consequently can not be taken as a source of guidance to what is good food.

If you just want some photos printed on paper and made into a book, then go for the cheapest you can find. If you want to sell a quality product, then you will need to be open to paying more for that. Remember that as a photographer, what you sell is your own ambassador out there for ever more. Give out or sell low quality printing and everyone who sees that and know what a quality image is, will immediately judge you as low end and not want to ever do business with you. Sell high end photo products and people who see that will have a completely different opinion of the photographer that created that photo. Hope this helps.

dandev Loc: Enumclaw, WA

I am in the process of creating a photo book for an artist - using my photos of her artwork. I've researched a number of different limited run companies - Blurb, Shutterfly, MPIX, - all seem to have a similar price point. Others like Bay Photo and White House Custom Color look to be 2X the cost - but appear to offer higher quality.
We are looking at printing around 30 - so a high production run company doesn't make sense for this.

The goal of this book is to sell more original artwork - not to profit on the books. We estimate the books to cost around $60 each. (Still working on details.) Quality is important - so Costco is out. (Comments on Costco quality was not good.)
I'm leaning towards Blurb - partially based on past comments from other UHH posts where people thought Blurb was better than Shutterfly. Blurb's layout software looks to be flexible and easy to use. And they can generate a PDF which can be posted on a website.
One disappointing part is that we were looking for a 13 x 9 "portrait" layout which nobody offers. Most offer a 13 x 9 landscape which isn't great for an art book.

I'll give a update and lesson's learned report once this is done. As it's a collaboration - it might take a while. :)

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Shutterfly

ronsipus Loc: Mission Viejo, CA

Thank you for the thoughtful comments. I am not planning on making money on the books as they will be part of a travel package through the travel company. I just want good quality at a reasonable price and great customer service.
As always, you all have been most helpful!!
B

manofhg Loc: Knoxville, TN

While I haven't had a photo book produced, I have had prints made for me at MPix and they were VERY good.