Photo book

Inspired by thingsihaveseen I am working on a photo book for self publication. For the last three years I have been photographing people and events at the local allotments which they use for publicity in their fight against the sale of their site for development - by the Church of England no less. Spurred on by the news that the planners, against the wishes of the parish council, have accepted in principle the site for new housing, my first idea was to have an exhibition of the best pictures but that cannot happen now. A new study by the University of Sheffield has shown since the pandemic that allotments benefit mental and physical health for young and old through working outside and by social interaction, which is what I am aiming to illustrate.

So, the idea of a photo book instead came to mind which, if and when a planning application is made, would be sent to each member of the planning committee and if all else fails it would be a record of what had been lost. An acquaintance has made lots of books using her photos on various themes using Blurb so with their software I am working my way through, which is a great way to fill cold wet days! The great thing with these self publication sites is you can print as few or as many as you like, and with Blurb this can be done on nice quality photo print paper.

What a lovely idea and project to immerse yourself in and for a very worthy cause. I wish you good luck in your mission.

Hi RobL, with you on this. I can attest to the benefit of well being of oneself by sowing and growing even small amounts of vegetables. i have been doing it in my back garden for 4 years now . i even got my other siblings interested after they received some of its produce. even if you only have a balcony you can grow a few garlics , onions ,spinach maybe even kale all in flower pots . you won't taste anything sweeter. Best of luck with the project

Well I have taken the plunge and sent my file to Blurb for one book to see how it comes out, it was a toss-up between Blurb and CEWE and it might be helpful to explain. In the reviews I looked at by photo magazines CEWE came out as favourite so I duplicated my book on their software, and although they are similar I found the CEWE software preferable and much easier to line up and place photos on the page. The big difference is that Blurb is primarily an online publisher so they will market your book and you set a commission. The downside is if you do that you cannot make changes afterwards unless giving the book a new title, so it is best to get a proof copy first before ticking the “publish” box. As far as I can tell Blurb books are printed by subcontract printers and there are some complaints online about the occasional quality issue and the long time in getting it looked at.

CEWE on the other hand is an international printing company so everything is done in-house, and as a bonus for me the U.K. branch is about five miles away so I could call in person. They don’t however publish your book online like Blurb. Pricing is the big difference between the two: initially they are not dissimilar but Blurb gives a 35% discount for first order, ten books get a 20% discount and 20+ books get a 40% discount so a big incentive if you are planning those numbers of copies. CEWE does reduce the price per copy for larger orders but nothing like the Blurb rates. So if you want just one or two copies for yourself then I would say CEWE is probably a better option but we shall see.

I've done two books via blurb (for family consumption only) and both were fine. I bought a few from them too, and again they were fine. The fact that you can get them to sell it print-on-demand so that you don't have boxes of books hanging around the house is something that I find an attractive idea.* I'm vaguely planning a book on the work my team of volunteers have done, and it seems easier than trying to take pre-orders and then getting a batch made.

*My house is bursting at the seams with my library without adding boxes of unsold books to the chaos!

Thanks Womble that’s good to hear. The postage for the one item is £8.99 which is a bit steep so for a few there would be cost benefits (CEWE is free above £30.00).

RobL, I've used CEWE quite a number of times and have been very happy with the results, but always for one off's.
Womble, I have to adopt a strict one in - one out policy for books because I can barely move in my work room as it is.

Getting rid of books is about as foreign to me as getting rid of lenses... Many of them (most of them?) are work books. Given I cannot access the University library at the moment, I'm reaping the benefits of having my own. Most frustrating is that about 1/3 of it is in my office at work...

Thanks for this Rob. I had considered doing a photo book before but never got around to it. Based on your information I downloaded the CEWE software and had a play with it. Great fun and a bit addictive. Over the past few days I have compiled and ordered four different books. Just waiting for delivery now to see how they come out.

Well my Blurb book has just arrived from the Netherlands (so that’s why postage was £8.99) and it is looking really good even if I say so myself! I could get a taste for this. It is now left casually on the coffee table, shame we don’t get any visitors at the moment.

Well here is a surprise, I left a copy of the book with the allotment committee and they have asked for the cost of up to 150 copies!

Result! Congratulations.

Nice one Rob