A LONG STORY LONG!
The TOKYO BLUES Photo Book Project
The life cycle of the production of a photo book “live” for you to follow.
Stay tuned for updates.
PHOTO BOOK PROJECT
2021 – Not a brand new idea is the Photo Book Project, actually I’m carrying around this thought for quite some time. I see fellow photographers publishing their shots in books all the time in all possible formats, shapes, styles, paper types, colors, narratives.. and I always thought I should do that too.
But you know how it is, life happens. No time here, another cheap excuse there, and month by month flys by.
January 2022 – I can’t recall if it was a sub-conscience New Year’s resolution or just the fact that I waited for waaaaaaay too long. However, I started to search, screen, check, sort, and rank my loose pile of photos. Not by far as easy a task as I thought it will be. The photographs are scattered through all kinds of devices, folders, backup directories, cloud repositories, you name it. Unfortunately some of my older shots I wasn’t even able to find at all.
However, a Beginning has been Made.
February 1st – What will it be? A photo book, trade book, lay-flat book, magazine or eBook, softcover or hardcover (with or without dust jacket), landscape, portrait or square, offset or digital, glossy or matte finish, UV or laminate? It seems there’s an endless list of decisions to make, so I went to the biggest bookstore in the neighborhood and touched every single book on their shelves. Alright not all of them, but a fair amount to see and feel what others are doing and what are the Pros and Cons.
February 6th – I managed to bring enough light into that “darkness” of my photo collection, to be able to make a selection for the photo book. Also, I decided on a format and paper quality. Of course, I was imagining a bling bling jacket over a fine linen hardcover, A3 and 500 archival-quality photographic pearl texture, ultrabright white, high opacity paper pages with luster finish, same as Helmut Newton would have done it. ‘Hold your horses!’ I thought I need to keep my feet on the ground.
Tadaaaa: A4 Magazine with matte text 118g paper and a semi-gloss 216g softcover, 150-ish pages.
February 13th – I just realized, that the collection I listed on OpenSea will end in a few days. It seems quite some people had a look at it and liked the work. But in one and a half months, not a single sale was made. This obviously has many reasons, to name a few, I’m new to the NFT markets, have no reputation, minimal reach in CT, and my marketing leaves a lot to be desired. So I was thinking about what to do with all those fine pictures living on the chain, and I came up with an idea. Nothing ventured, nothing gained is what they say, right.
Additionally to the “regular” edition of the photo book, there will be a Limited NFT Edition, which will come with extra content and will be limited to 100 copies, numbered, stamped, and signed. Purchasable via NFT only.
February 16th – Yesterday night I had a moment.. where it felt like everything makes absolute sense. I call this day the Official Kick-off! The Photo Book Project is on.. I’ll set targets, deadlines, and quality gates to measure the progress. You will be able to follow the development here and in the metaverse. 😉
February 17th – It is early days, the cover below is just a draft. I was thinking back and forth.. should I or should I not put a photograph on the Front Cover.. and/or the back cover? I mean literarily everybody is doing it. So I assume that it is kinda expected of a photo book to present a hero visual to the potential reader, to make clear at first sight what this is all about.
I experimented a while with several photos, many filters and styles.. days.. weeks.. and I came to the conclusion that my photo book needs to be different! Plain, minimal, back & white! So here it is! I know it looks super simple like I ran completely out of ideas and put the logo I already had just in the middle of a black page.. adding the name above and the genre below, done. — But this is the result of a long design and thinking process.. and eventually, I liked it the most.
February 19th – After many unsuccessful attempts, the manuscript passed the pre-flight check. The resolution, bleed, spine.. everything seems finally good to go for the regular and the NFT edition.
However, I reckoned without my host regarding the Shipping Costs for the proof copy I was just going to order. For the printing vendor, I followed the recommendation of a photographer friend who ordered his photo book there, but obviously, he got a special deal, which I am not eligible for. Now the shipping would have been more expensive than the copy itself.. c’mon! I contacted the support team.
February 23rd – The support team finally replied, telling me to contact another support team within the same company.. c’mon! So I’ll have to Look for Another Vendor to print the book!
February 26th – Here is a very Minor Update on the front cover, spine, and back cover. The NFT edition will get some color.. I was thinking of this for NFTs typical turquoise with a slight gradient towards a blue-ish.
I’m also planning to provide this to a group of “judges” to get some feedback and possibly advice and ideas.
March 1st – I collected a Long List of printing companies; many thanks go to all these supporting and helpful people out there, who shared their experiences and recommendations. I am 80% through this list, checking pricing, shipping conditions, formats, and materials they offer. I’m working on it.
March 6th – Oh dear, I thought this would be easier! I narrowed the list down to 4 possible printing services. However, all of them have something in their offers, which doesn’t fit my idea and plan. Be it the minimum print volume, the monochrome/color options, the binding, or the maximum page count.
So, tomorrow I will need to call them and Clarify Open Points.
March 15th – I’ve got to admit that I am Stuck a bit. On top of getting somewhat busy at work, I also struggle to decide which printing company to choose. Please bear with me!
March 21st – HAPPY SPRING!
Today I signed up with an eCommerce and Online Payment service. I also Implemented a Shop into the homepage and started internal testing.. very promising so far.
Additionally, I narrowed down the list of printing vendors to ONE. That’s a huge step in the right direction even if a few open questions remain. But I’m convinced we’ll come to an agreement.
March 23rd – Another setback.. I am so sorry! This ONE vendor (mentioned above) turned out to be a huge disappointment. I gave him 2 calls today to clarify open questions and details. In the first call, he seemed nice and supportive. He enabled me to compare different materials, print options, and prices depending on my input in his (a wee bit complex) online quotation system. But I got what I needed and was very happy. A few hours later I called him again to see if I could come to his store and check (touch and feel) some zine samples before I make a final decision. Here he obviously figured out, that he was going to do business with a non-Japanese (me) and pulled back. He told me, that he had business with a foreigner before and that they ran into some sort of misalignment. So he decided to not accept foreign customers anymore and that I shall go somewhere else!
I am shocked! So here is a small request to y’all:
This is the company -> inuuniq – Inunik Co., Ltd. – 株式会社イニュニック – inuuniq.co.jp
Please STOP any kind of business with them immediately, NEVER ACCEPT RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION!
Now I have to look for another company to print the books.. again! 😔
April 5th – The sakura season kept me busy.. on the one hand with taking photos of all these beautiful hanami people and on the other hand with being a hanami person myself. Tokyo is covered with an ocean of cherry blossom petals.. to me the best 2 weeks of the year.. every year over again.
What I try to say is, that I didn’t progress on the project. All these setbacks took a toll on my motivation. Today I wrote an e-mail to my “Last Straw“, if this company is not able or willing to work with me, I’ll have no other choice but to go with the very first company and face the high shipping fees or to put this project to rest.
April 10th – No Reply!
April 13th – So I contacted the very first company again. You remember, the one with the high shipping costs who told me (after 4 days of waiting), that I shall contact another support team within the same company? This other support team replied within a few hours, what a positive surprise. Unfortunately, the answer was a Standard Reply and didn’t help at all.
April 20th – I gave up and surrendered to the ridiculous shipping costs. It seems that I have no other choice. I will have to deal with the consequences later when I start putting it for sale. Not that I wanted to get rich with this project, the idea that people own a book with photos shot by me is actually rewarding enough, but this will become a 0¥ turnaround situation. Anyway, I just Ordered a Proof Copy. I paid a little extra for the express delivery (since it doesn’t matter anymore), and they promised that I will be holding the test issue no later than April 28th in my hands.
April 25th – The proof copy arrived this evening.. that was fast!
However, even if it looked OK at first sight, quality-wise it didn’t give a very good first impression. And yes, already after browsing through it 2 times, Signs of Wear became very clearly visible.
April 29th – Today I met some photographer friends at a gallery opening. I got 2 more possible contacts for print services.. Let me Check.
May 14th – I haven’t checked the printing companies yet.. I probably will try another product, a Hardcover, from the same service and see how that works out.. keep your fingers crossed.
July 4th – It has been a long time.. I know, but today I Ordered 3 Proof Copies of hardcover photo books with different paper quality and print specifications. July 13th they said, but last time they were pretty fast.. so maybe I’ll have them by end of the week already.
I prepared the master files over the last 2 weeks, I selected many new photographs and replaced many, I rearranged the page order, and I also changed the entire cover concept to match the style of the key visuals I use for advertising my current series in web3.
July 10th – 3 days early.. not bad.. and guess what.. the Books Look Actually quite OK. However, I found a wonderful paper type I am going to use.. at least.
A few minor quality issues are still there, so I’d say those are close to acceptable. Still, the main pain point is still the ridiculous shipping cost. I mean, I never planned on making any profit anyway, so let’s see if this may work out if I’m ordering larger batches.
So, the next steps will be fine-tuning the tiny little things like the alignment of the spine print on the dust jacket, flap content (..or should I leave it blank?), front and back cover adjustments, tackling the preflight findings, and the color of the linen and end sheets. I’m on it!
July/August – But first things first.. Summer Break! I’ll be shooting Okinawa for a while.
September 1st – I’m running out of excuses, my Motivation is Close to Zero, and the web3 activities as well as the new series keeping me quite busy. Yes I know, I know!
November 27th – Wishing you a Merry 1st Advent!
January 1st, 2023- Happy New Year!
March 21st – Yes, I am still alive, the book project however reached the End of the Road, I’m afraid.
July 15th – A year of Nothing has passed, kindly accept my apologies.
November 25th – It’s a Beautiful Autumn Day in Tokyo, going for a walk with my camera. 😉