Photographers that print your work or make photo books, but don’t have enough of a following to sell them… What do you do with them?
I really liked printing my photos in collage when we would do critiques, but since then I haven’t really printed anything because the cost hasn’t felt worth it. I like the idea of doing books or zines, but don’t have anyone to share them with (friends/family will flip through once, but are otherwise not that interested). I’ve thought about looking into local art fairs, that kind of thing, but am not sure my work is good enough to sell. I simply can’t afford to print 100 copies only to sell one or two haha!
What do you all do? Or is having the physical copy for yourself enough?
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I put them on a shelf and enjoy them. Not every hobby needs to be monetized.
Selling prints or even just random digital photos is extremely hard these days. The market is extremely sarurated: millions of stock photos, hundreds of thousands of photographers, AI-tools that can create photos better than the average Joe,… Unless you have a dedicated following or are very good at online marketing, there’s little chance of selling prints or digital copies of your work, no matter how good you are.
If you want to make (decent) money with photography you have to work-for-hire. Just shooting things and then trying to sell them is… very often not worth the time and effort.
You could just add them to your digital portfolio or just store them offline somewhere.
I made greeting cards so that I could use them as greeting cards. Please note I’m a better photographer than a business person. I mean I’ve sold a few to a store and have them on comission in another but it’s nothing to shout about. I have way more that are unsold than sold but I guess that also means I won’t need to buy greeting cards for awhile!
I also used a recent show as an excuse to print & frame some of my most recent faves. I knew I’d probably not sell many and would just redecorate at home with the rest. Turns out none of the framed stuff sold - just one greeting card and two box sets of cards.
So I guess my advice is to print within your budget and have fun looking at your fave images - whether framed or in a book - and try not to focus on making money.
In the past year I’ve self-published four photo books. It cost me a little bit of money but honestly, I could have done it almost or 100% free.
I spent $50 for Affinity Publisher to help lay my books out. I purchase a proof copy before publishing. The price of the proof will depend on book size, page count etc.
For example: 8.5" x 11" @ 200 pages on “premium color” paper is less than $20 for a proof. Premium in quotes, because this is being printed by Amazon or Barnes & Noble and the Premium paper is good but not great.
So I’m in at $70 so far, but I’ve also ordered author copies to give away to friends/family etc.
You can forgo the proof copy if you like and go ahead and publish, and you can also just use Word or Google Docs, etc. to layout your book.
Doing it this way through Amazon or Barnes & Noble or a handful of other companies you can get your book printed, it will be out there for sale, and you can order author copies basically at cost to sell on your own or give away. You don’t have to have any inventory, you don’t have to manage shipping etc. The profit for books isn’t that much per copy. But if you’re just looking to get some copies printed this is a great way to do it, and also potentially get some sales, and get your photos out there.
I only make 50 copies
For high-quality one-offs you can use Blurb or Cewe or Saal or (my favourite) Fujiprint. Then after that you Print on Demand, in other words you only have the printer print more copies as you sell them, or even only after you’ve sold them. When you want 10-20 or so copies, have your local print shop make you bound booklets on glossy paper (softcover).
But forget about selling them, it’s basically never going to happen, unless your market/audience is very niche indeed.