That Ain't Workin' - My New Book

[vape68]

The book is interesting but £55 + £10 postage + possible custom fees is very expensive (if it's so heavy they won't necessarily believe it's worth only £10)

Isn't the cost of producing it just about £5-8 ? I think you should have kept the profit margin much much lower

Having been involved in the production of small run creative products myself, I find it very unlikely that Chris is getting rich off this.

I agree that Chris won't get rich off this book, that's exactly why he should keep the profit margin much lower and let as many fans as possible get the book while at this price many fans won't buy it because of the price.

His profit could even be higher this way with many more copies sold and surely many more fans satisfied.

[dustyvalentino]

His profit could even be higher this way with many more copies sold and surely many more fans satisfied.

I didn't realise that Donald Trump was a member of AMIT, thank you for the business lesson oh great one.

[JF]

I haven't really told everyone about the book yet, AMIT was first.

I shared the info on web, FB, Insta, X, and even LinkedIn

I hope it will give you more orders

[rmarques821]

The book is interesting but £55 + £10 postage + possible custom fees is very expensive (if it's so heavy they won't necessarily believe it's worth only £10)

Isn't the cost of producing it just about £5-8 ? I think you should have kept the profit margin much much lower

That's so rude.

You don't have the faintest idea of how much work a book like that costs, not only to publish but to made.

It's so rude that you say something like that...

Now it's rude to say that a book is expensive? Honestly, some people here on this forum should live inside a cave in a mountain. That way nothing can ever offend them.
As for me, yes I think it's very expensive for a photo book and I will not be buying it, but I wish Chris all the best with it. I hope it sells well.

[vape68]

His profit could even be higher this way with many more copies sold and surely many more fans satisfied.

I didn't realise that Donald Trump was a member of AMIT, thank you for the business lesson oh great one.

if you think the higher the price the higher the profit you are wrong.

At £100-200 a book the price is higher but the profit is small because he would sells few to none.
£55, the current price, the problem could be similar.
At the right price (I think half that price) everybody wins, he sells many many more copies, his profit could be much higher and many more fans are happy and satisfied. it's quite simple actually.

[Chris W]

Isn't the cost of producing it just about £5-8 ? I think you should have kept the profit margin much much lower

Gotta love a forum!!!

Apart from the fact I spent many spare minutes taking the photos on the tour, instead of sitting in the dressing room sipping a beer. The fact it's taken me two years of work to make the book, which was mostly hours and hours of painstaking work cleaning hundreds of dust spots and scratches one by one on at least 100 images, using software like Capture One and Photoshop. The fact I paid for those software programme's monthly subscriptions for two years while I worked on the book.
The fact is took me four months of work to actually build the book in Adobe's InDesign, which I had no idea how to use in the beginning and spent hours watching Youtube tutorials and made many mistakers along the way..
And even THEN, the book does NOT cost £5-£8 to actually print.
I'm usually eating some of the postage, the shipping boxes cost £92 for the first 150 books. It took me all morning today to sign, pack, drive to the post office and half an hour in the post office filling in custom forms and going through the different nations the books would be going to with the man behind the counter. PayPal is deducting a £3 - £4 fee from most sales too (not all).
In the end, if you have a 106 page book with 80+ never seen before behind the scenes images of a beloved tour that took place 35 years ago, please make your OWN book and sell it for £10. Please do it - LOL

[Chris W]

At the right price (I think half that price) everybody wins, he sells many many more copies, his profit could be much higher and many more fans are happy and satisfied. it's quite simple actually.

I'll take that risk - thanks!
I'm proud of the book, it took many, many hours to produce.
It is already selling well.
It's really NOT purely about profit. I feel I need to be financially rewarded for my hours. In reality probably not even $15 an hour.
I did the book because I had the body of work sitting in a box for 35 years. A lot of people kept ASKING me to do a book.
It ended up being a huge job and I feel I want to have some profit at the end of it. Why would I value myself so low as to give it away?
You haven't seen the book. Hardly anyone has, as I sent out the first batch this morning.
If you touch the book and look at it, you can have an opinion on the price.

The price (for me) is 1) based on the absolute unique, never to be repeated nature of the images. There were NO official photographers on the tour.
2) The quality of the printing.
3) The amount of work it took to take it from dusty film negatives to a professional level photo book.

[Chris W]

I shared the info on web, FB, Insta, X, and even LinkedIn

I hope it will give you more orders

Thank you so much.

[vape68]

Isn't the cost of producing it just about £5-8 ? I think you should have kept the profit margin much much lower

Gotta love a forum!!!

Apart from the fact I spent many spare minutes taking the photos on the tour, instead of sitting in the dressing room sipping a beer. The fact it's taken me two years of work to make the book, which was mostly hours and hours of painstaking work cleaning hundreds of dust spots and scratches one by one on at least 100 images, using software like Capture One and Photoshop. The fact I paid for those software programme's monthly subscriptions for two years while I worked on the book.
The fact is took me four months of work to actually build the book in Adobe's InDesign, which I had no idea how to use in the beginning and spent hours watching Youtube tutorials and made many mistakers along the way..
And even THEN, the book does NOT cost £5-£8 to actually print.
I'm usually eating some of the postage, the shipping boxes cost £92 for the first 150 books. It took me all morning today to sign, pack, drive to the post office and half an hour in the post office filling in custom forms and going through the different nations the books would be going to with the man behind the counter.
In the end, if you have a 106 page book with 80+ never seen before behind the scenes images of a beloved tour that took place 35 years ago, please make your OWN book and sell it for £10. Please do it - LOL

a lot of details but the only one I asked for was not answered, what's your cost to print it ?

I never told you to sell it for £10, so what exactly are you talking about ? I wrote that £27.5 would be the right price for everyone, to have more fans buying it, but you obviously can sell it for any price you want, good luck

[Chris W]

Now it's rude to say that a book is expensive?

It's fine to state an opinion that the book is 'too expensive'. It is kind of rude to make a wild guess at the raw cost (£5 - £8) which is already completely wrong, then base your price opinion on that. Which totally discounts my skill as photographer and the many, many hours I spent editing images, discarding images that weren't good enough for the book, restoring the images that were good enough, meetings with the manager of the printer to get the best quality possible etc, etc.
It's just silly to think you can just cheaply scan 80 negatives, dump them into a file and get the cheapest local printer to make it into a book.

[Chris W]

a lot of details but the only one I asked for was not answered, what's your cost to print it ?

Really? Again?
How do you cost hours, days, weeks, months zapping tiny dots of dust off an image in Photoshop? 100 times over.
If you really think the book is priced on the print cost, you are delusional. This conversation is over.
As I said, put your own book out and you will see the hard work that goes into it.

[Chris W]

I wrote that £27.5 would be the right price for everyone

How did you come up with £27.50 ? ? ? ?

[vape68]

a lot of details but the only one I asked for was not answered, what's your cost to print it ?

If you really think the book is priced on the print cost, you are delusional.

Did I ever say that ? No

[vape68]

Now it's rude to say that a book is expensive?

It's fine to state an opinion that the book is 'too expensive'. It is kind of rude to make a wild guess at the raw cost (£5 - £8) which is already completely wrong, then base your price opinion on that. Which totally discounts my skill as photographer and the many, many hours I spent editing images, discarding images that weren't good enough for the book, restoring the images that were good enough, meetings with the manager of the printer to get the best quality possible etc, etc.
It's just silly to think you can just cheaply scan 80 negatives, dump them into a file and get the cheapest local printer to make it into a book.

Before writing I called a well known and big bookshop in my city and that was the answer of the cost, so it's not a wild guess, let alone rude. You can always tell us your cost, I will believe you.

[dustyvalentino]

Now it's rude to say that a book is expensive?

It's fine to state an opinion that the book is 'too expensive'. It is kind of rude to make a wild guess at the raw cost (£5 - £8) which is already completely wrong, then base your price opinion on that. Which totally discounts my skill as photographer and the many, many hours I spent editing images, discarding images that weren't good enough for the book, restoring the images that were good enough, meetings with the manager of the printer to get the best quality possible etc, etc.
It's just silly to think you can just cheaply scan 80 negatives, dump them into a file and get the cheapest local printer to make it into a book.

Before writing I called a well known and big bookshop in my city and that was the answer of the cost, so it's not a wild guess, let alone rude. You can always tell us your cost, I will believe you.

This is SO god damn fucking rude. How dare you. I can only assume you are trolling at this point to get a reaction, well congratulations, you got one.