Creating a Photo Book

Old Chain of Rocks Bridge

In 2014 the St. Louis region celebrated the 250th birthday of the City of St. Louis. A major portion of the festivities involved the placement of 250 (plus a few to grow on) fiberglass birthday cakes around the area. Painted by local artists, the cakes were placed primarily in locations of historical significance. The Cakeway to the West adventure was part scavenger hunt and part history lesson. It took me to places in the St. Louis area that I never knew existed as well as locations I had heard about but never visited. At the end of the journey, over 4,000 photographs had taken up residence on my hard drive, and three of them ended up in a juried art show! I knew that I wanted to put together a book that would have one cake on each page, meaning I was looking at printing a 250+ page, full-color book.

The online print on demand companies such as Amazon's CreateSpace or Lightning Source have gotten poor marks for the quality of color photos in their books. There are, however, numerous options for producing photo books online. They are mostly designed for casual photographers who want to turn their photos into a keepsake book - not one that they intend to sell. While these services produce photo books you can be proud of, they are an extremely expensive option. Most of them have page limitations that ruled them out for this project. I put together a comparison of the most popular companies.

photo book comparison  

From the illustration you can see that there was only one company that was capable of producing the desired number of pages for my book. With Blurb, you can either produce your book online, which is how the other services work, or you can download their software and work on the book on your computer directly. While I have used both Shutterfly and Snapfish in the past, I have never worked with Blurb before. I tried both their online service as well as the software, and I never quite got the hang of either one of them. Trying to add additional text boxes or photos to the pages was difficult, at least for me. In the end I decided that because this project was so immense, I did not want to take the time for the learning curve Blurb was presenting. I do know other people who have used the service and have seen some of their books, and Blurb does offer a high quality product.

I went with Snapfish due to the fact that they offer a maximum of 150 pages, so I knew I could get my book done in two volumes. Both volumes are now complete, and I have received Volume I. The book looks great, and I am pleased with the result. If you are looking to create a photo book of your own adventures, there are some good choices available for you.

Cakeway to the West book cover

Cakeway to the West interior page

Cakeway to the West interior page

Thinking about Writing a Book?

Have you been thinking about writing a book? Most people that I talk to say, "I want to write a book!" when I tell them what I do. Having published three books, I would encourage you to look first at why you want to write a book. Because it is on your bucket list? Because you seek fame and fortune? Because no one else has written on the subject you are passionate about?

The second thing you need to consider quite seriously is who is your audience? Despite what you might think, the answer is not "Everybody!" Even the Bible is not read by everybody. If you intend to make money from your book, then it is important to know who will buy it. Because the reality is that writing a book takes an enormous investment of time and energy, not to mention expense. Yes, there are ways to minimize the cost of producing a book but there is no way to generate a quality book for free.

Because I write books that are geared towards a very specific, niche market I know that my books will not make me rich. Or get me on any best-seller list. And I am okay with that, because I think they contain information that is useful to the market for whom they are intended. But that also means I am going to be smarter about how I approach my books in the future. For example, I have been researching John Murdoch for several years, and have a sizable amount of information and documentation about his life in St. Louis from 1838 until 1880 when he died. But I have to ask myself a) is it enough for a book and, b) who is the audience for the book?

At this point I believe a print book is out of the question due to all of the expenses involved. An ebook might be a possibility, except that I would want to include the maps, deeds of trusts, plats and other documents that really help to tell the story of John Murdoch and early St. Louis history. Ebooks are not quite there yet, with the exception of those in PDF or Apple  product formats.

Gateway Magazine

What I am considering at this point is submitting a story for possible publication in Gateway, the magazine of the Missouri History Museum. On their website they offer submission guidelines, but I also wanted to see the actual magazine to get a feel for what their articles look like. Unfortunately they do not have any past issues online, so I went to the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park yesterday to purchase a copy. What I found in looking at the magazine is that it is only published once per year. I suspect the 2014 issue will be chock full of articles about the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis, so it might be difficult to be published this year. But I believe I can put a spin on the article to make it fit. After all, Murdoch was an early settler in St. Louis.

So if you have a story but are not sure that it is ready to be told in a book, I would encourage you to look at newspapers or magazine as an option for publication. It gets your story out there, and you can gauge interest in your topic to help you determine if a book is something to consider down the road.

While I was at the Missouri History Museum, of course I had to photograph their Cakeway to the West (as well as a few others in Forest Park). If you are unfamiliar with the cake project or all of the other activities taking place in St. Louis this year, head on over to stl250.org.

Missouri History Museum