So, I figured now would be a good time to get blogging on a little "How-To" for publishing your own art book using
Killer Cuts as an example. Of course, this is just how I went about it, and there are lots of ways to get a project like this done. Also, what I discuss here worked for this project, but is not necessarily applicable for other ideas such as a color or hardcover book.
There is a ton of info on self-publishing over at
selfpublishing.com. They go in-depth into lots of specific topics like ISBNs, marketing, different types of printing, book conventions, and lots more. As with all advice, some of it is for you, some is best ignored so don't accept anything as gospel. They also offer affordable overseas printing.
Throughout this blog entry I'll be inserting images either to illustrate what I'm talking about or just to break up all the text with some images from Ryohei. Lots of his artwork was in glorious color but the book is in black-and-white (other stuff didn't make the final cut) so I'm using this opportunity to show off some of the original art.
Get ready for a lot of fun and excitement. Now, let's start.
The first thing you need is an idea of what you want to help you narrow your research down a bit. What size is the book, how many pages, what type of binding, what type of paper, and so on.
For this project, I was always inspired by the crazy papercut artwork of my pal Ryohei (pronounced "Yo-Hey") Tanaka and I thought it would translate into a book pretty well, so we started discussing a collaboration. Since Ryohei lives in Tokyo, it was agreed that he would supply the scans of his artwork, and I would handle the design of the book and the business of printing. Ryohei and I are pretty close, so we established an informal business arrangement: Basically, I, as publisher, would put up all the money for book production and then I would get all the product in the end, with Ryohei having the option to purchase as many books as he wanted at manufacturing cost. He retained the rights to the artwork, and each of us could sell the books however we wanted and keep whatever profits we made.
This is not the standard for business for this type of thing. Artists often get paid an advance up front and then a small (10% or so) portion of the profits once manufacturing costs are recouped by the publisher. Whatever your arrangement is, make sure it is established in advance and even get a contract written up to prevent problems down the road.
Now that I have my idea, it is time to do some research. Right away I planned to make this a small, affordable, black-and-white book, so I checked in with my favorite local printer to get some price quotes. While it may be cheaper to go overseas with printing (and in some cases with color printing, it may be the only affordable way), I totally recommend working with a local printer so you can easily check-in, inspect proofs in person, not worry about freight shipping, and support a local business.
Print Access is a great resource to find all kinds of printers in your area. Call around and ask questions. It is never a bad idea to get price quotes from several spots to compare.
Thus far, I have exclusively worked with
1984 Printing in West Oakland. Richard and Amy can do one-color-at-a-time offset printing, cutting, collating, and perfect binding all in-house. They also take all the time I need to show me the machines, explain the process and all my options, and answer the many, many stupid questions I have.
So after some research with the good folks at 1984, I decided on creating a 5.5" x 4.25", 64-page book. I don't want to reveal the specific costs, but it was less than I expected for 500 copies, so, with approval from the artist, I was ready to go forward.
A thing to remember about book costs and retail pricing is that if you plan to sell your books through other outlets than yourself, you will be selling wholesale. This mean 50% of retail price. And most book distributors buy books at 40% retail cost. So your retail price should be at least 3 to 4 times the total costs of making the book. This is why color books can be difficult to work with in low quantities. If your book costs 20 bucks to manufacture (this includes marketing and shipping costs), then it needs to be able to retail for well over 60 bucks! This also generally eliminates most "vanity" or print-on-demand printers. Great for making 5 or 10 books to sell yourself, but totally to expensive to make a book to sell through retail outlets.
So - Now that I got my specs worked out and budget in place, it is time to actually design the book. For this project I simply used Photoshop, although In Design and other design programs are great as well. Check with your printer what works best for them before you start designing your book. You should also found out how much margin space they will need on all sides, plus any other limitations you should know about. Saving the printer the hassle of reformatting your artwork will save you time and money in the long run so get as much info as you can before hand.
For
Killer Cuts, I received a fat CD from Ryohei with well over 300 images (way more than I anticipated), many in full color. Ryohei gave me creative control for the selection of what work goes into the book and how it is presented (with some stipulations). While his artwork is phenomenal, his digital images were mostly raw scans, and many of the images, while all high-res, were very small (2 to 3" tall). So a lot of my layout choices were limited by what images were big enough to take up an entire page.
Now I have my design guidelines (page size, format, number, etc.) and my raw artwork... let's get to work.
First, I reviewed all 300 plus images and took notes on their titles, complexity of image, general format (wide, skinny, square etc.), and a ranking on how much I wanted their inclusion in the book. Some images had to be in it, others were the first to get cut. These notes greatly helped me when it was time to decide on the order and layout of the book.
Next up is the tedious task of taking each of the remaining 200+ images that made the first cut and making them print-ready. This means turning the color images into grey scale, getting the contrast right, straightening and centering the images, resizing images when I could, and then cleaning up the many stray pixels and scanning imperfections. This was slow and detailed work and took some time. Here are some before and after pictures:
It may not seem like a lot of work, but doing it over 200 times was no picnic. Here is another example:
Some images took more work than others. Since it is easy to invert an images (switch black for white and vice-versa), I didn't worry about if an image would be with a black or white background yet. I left those decisions to the final layout process.
Once all the images were ready, it was time to layout the book. Each page was a separate EPS file, so I slowly assembled the book two pages (a spread) at a time. It takes some doing to make each page work with the one next to it, plus keep in mind the overall sequence of the pages, all while remembering how many images there are left to fit into the remaining spreads. This is where my images notes helped me out a great deal.
Definitely the hardest part is deciding what artwork doesn't make the cut. I ended up with a few more pages than I needed and had to rework images into previous spreads or eliminate the weak links. Some seriously awesome art didn't make it into this book, but you should always keep the final product in mind. I think a lot of artists, editors, and filmmakers would greatly benefit from an ability to "trim the fat". As we used to say in art school, "Don't be afraid to kill your babies."
Both of the previous examples of "cleaned" artwork made it into the book as 1/4 pages (the pages were more or less 1/4, 1/16th, or full page designs). Check 'em out:
As you can see (hopefully), these images were grouped in themes of "girls" and "plants".
Finally, after much labor and intense decision making, I had my 64 pages. This included a title page and introductions in both English and Japanese. I also designed a front inside-cover with all the publication info, and a decorative back inside-cover. A cover image was designed for the book by the artist, and I used a photograph of a lifesize
papercut from my personal stash for the back cover (with room for the barcode and publisher's logo). I also designed the book's spine with the measurements my printer provided me based on my paper thickness and page numbers.
If you want more info on International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs), the barcodes created from these numbers, the monopoly one company has on selling you those numbers, and why you should have one for every edition of every book you produce,
check out the ISBN FAQ here. Long story short: an ISBN is the number connecting a book to a specific publisher, and all orders and info connected to the book go through this number. You want to control and own the ISBNs for your books.
After checking, re-checking, and re-re-checking all my pages, I burn a disc of the page files and deliver it to my printer. Half of the job is paid for up-front, I'm giving a time-frame of when I can expect proofs and the final product, and then it's time to play the waiting game.
I recently got a fat pack of books from the folks over at Blue-Q, a company mostly known for making bacon air-fresheners and magnets of cats' butts. They have launched a pretty wide line of small-in-size art and photography books that range in price from $4 to $8 each. Not bad. Just at a glance it was easy to see that Mark Todd's Bad Asses was the cream of the crop.
Quickly, off the top of your head, think of a Bad Ass...
What sets this publication atop the huge, huge pile of crudely drawn artworks (so hot right now) is the little tidbits of writing to go with each Bad Ass. Sometime they are simple descriptions or quotes from the films that feature each characters, and other times they are little personal anecdotes from Mark Todd's interaction with the character. Such as the first time he heard a Blondie song (to go with Bad Ass Debbie Harry), or how he used the cape from his Darth Vader costume as a kid to dress up as Dracula the next year.
