So Much More than Photography in print

So Much More than Photography book is going to be available on Amzon soon but you can already get it in print from CreateSpace: www.createspace.com/3477770

(8X10, 172 pages. love the quality!)

Book contents [pdf]
Book preview [pdf]

More than Photography book published!

Publishing a book with Blurb print on demand (review and also blurb vs. Lulu)

Now that I’m holding in my hands a book that was printed with Blurb I have to say I’m undeniably impressed!
The book I put together using BookSmart which is Blurb’s bookmaking software, is titled
Chasing George Washington – Road trip in Virginia & Pennsylvania
I created the book for personal purpose and also to test blurb and so I’m not planning on selling it.
Working in BookSmart was quite fun and simple and maybe the main advantage of this software is that it leaves lots of room for creativity. It lets you layer backgrounds, images and text, much like inDesign.
Once the book is ready it can be uploaded to Blurb from within BookSmart. After I ordered a copy I waited 4 days until the book was printed and ground shipping took another week or so.
The price of the book was quite reasonable; a Standard Landscape 10×8 inches premium printing Hardcover ImageWrap 80 pages is priced at $43.95.
The book is printed on a premium paper and the print quality is excellent! As I mentioned, I’m very much impressed with the whole process and mainly with the high quality of the actual printed book.
And finally as a bonus I discovered BookSmart makes it possible to create a pdf file from the file/print menu (printing as a pdf using a pdf writer such as CutePdf) and though the pdf file has the blurb watermark on it, it is certainly a plus.

The Conclusion:
If I had to choose between Blurb and Lulu then my choice will depend on my objective.
I would definitely choose Lulu (and/or CreateSpace) for publishing a standard book but for a coffee table/portfolio type of book I will absolutely go with Blurb;
1) Blurb’s BookSmart software permits more room for creative design and layout which is rather limited with Lulu Studio.
2) Another bonus point Blurb gets over Lulu Photo Book is the price: the same book mentioned above will be prices at $54.99 with Lulu (instead of $43.95 with Blurb) even though it will actually have somewhat a smaller size (9X7 at Lulu’s instead of 10X8 with Blurb)
3) The ability to create a pdf file with BookSmart is a nice feature.

Related:
Publishing a book with Lulu Studio
What Print on Demand should you choose?
Print on Demand photo books / part one
Print on Demand books / part two
The process of writing a book – part one
The process of writing a book – part two

Publishing a book with Lulu Studio

Totally L.A., the book I published with Lulu Studio Photobook, had arrived yesterday in the mail. How exciting!
It’s a 9×7 Landscape, casewrap hardcover binding photo book/portfolio printed on #100 white silk stock paper.
In the book I arranged some 80 color images plainly and genuinely depicting Los Angeles, or at least genuinely as I see it. (I say it because in the past I got email from someone who claimed the Los Angeles I was portraying in my photographs is far from being the real L.A. since I did not actually photograph in South Central or any other such bad neighborhoods. This is true; I only took some few pictures at the fringes of these areas. But sadly I stay away from these lovely districts and so I’ve never had the good fortune to take pictures documenting the life and activity of the numerous gangs in the area. but like I always say, L.A., like some other big cities, has many faces and so the Real L.A. is always something personal based on one’s experience) Now back to the book:
I find the book to be similar to what I’ve designed on the screen using Lulu Studio. The cover is in full color and looks quite appealing. The interior paper is premium quality and the printing is finest quality, vivid and just superior to any book I’ve published in the past.
However, the one thing I don’t like about this book is the PRICE.
I think compared with bookstore prices a small coffee table such as this one should not cost more than $25.00.
This is probably the main downfall of Print on Demand.

self publishing a photo book

This weekend I published a photo book using Lulu Studio Photo Book.
The main difference between this book and the previous books I published with Lulu is that in the past I used their standard method for publishing books by creating my own PDF file and uploading it to Lulu once the book was ready to be published.
The standard printing is a good solution if you want to create a book that is NOT meant to be a portfolio of your work, as the paper they use for this type of book is 80# matte white text stock. This paper is just fine for many types of books including a photography book (i.e. a book about photography, techniques, cameras and such.)
It is a perfectly good plan to use their standard publishing method for a photography book mainly because the price for this type of book can be kept low even if your book includes something like 150 pages.
However, this is not a good solution if you want to publish a Photo book (i.e. showcasing your wonderful photographs).
In order to publish a premium portfolio you will want to print it on a higher quality paper.
Lulu can print your Photo book on what they describe as a 100# “silk coat” finish paper; OK, I’m not sure what kind of paper it is but it is presumably heavier paper that is more suitable for printing photographs.
Setting up the book with Lulu Studio was quite simple and in fact it took me just about a couple of hours to create the book. (wow!)
So this is how it works: you begin by choosing the size and a theme for your book, you then upload your photos, and finally you drag and drop your images into a nice selection of page templates.
You then add some text and voilà you’re done! Your book is ready to be published.
You will probably want to limit the number of pages as the book’s price starts at $15 for a 9X7 20 pages landscape and with .50 for any additional page after that.

The book I published is called Totally L.A. and it includes some distinctive color images of Los Angeles. I am going to offer the book for sale on my Los Angeles website; I suppose it will make a nice gift for someone during the upcoming holidays.
I have ordered the book myself so I can examine its quality first hand; obviously I’ll let you know the outcome once I get the book.
Next, I am going to try out publishing other quality photo books using Blurb and maybe some other similar print on demand services.

My next bestseller

I’m in a process of putting together ideas and plans, much like a blueprint, for my next book.
The book will include some thoughts about street photography and many of the techniques I use in photography; some that are featured in my last book (I am not an artist) and a bunch of new ones.
If there is something you want to see in the book, if there is a technique you think needs further explanation or if you have any other suggestion, I would love to here from you.
You can leave a comment here or if you want it to be private you can contact me directly.

Btw, You will find most of the techniques I use featured in this blog, here to the right under “Categories”. A list of the chapters and techniques in my last book is available on this page (on the right).

What Print on Demand should you choose?

When it comes to Print on Demand one of the first questions the future-bestseller must answer is; which Print on Demand service is the right one for them?
In the last few years the number of POD services grew a lot which is great as it created a larger spectrum of choices but it is also confusing because it created a larger spectrum of choices.
So basically your first task is to scan through these services, see what they offer, read reviews, and choose the right one for you. Essentially conduct your own little research.
It is very much recommended that you choose your publisher before even beginning laying out your book because you want to make sure you are designing your book according to their requirements.

Some of the POD services, like Booksurge , Xlibris and others, require that you to purchase some kind of a publishing package from them, basic package starts at $799 at Booksurge, I’m not really sure what’s the point of it, but whatever, I’m sure it somehow works for someone.

Other POD services, like Blurb and mypublisher require that you design your book using their desktop application which I find to be quite limiting since all your design work is confined within a file that can only be used with their publishing services.
Not such a good idea.

This leaves us pretty much with Lulu and CreateSpace.
Both services let you create your own PDF, DOC, RTF etc, and then upload your content to their server. Both don’t charge you anything upfront and they print your books once they are purchased. You keep your share of the loot and everybody is happy.

There are two main differences between these two:
1) Lulu offers to sell your book as a download which makes your book available for just about everyone because the price of a download can be kept low. For example, my own bestseller,
No Rules Streets Photography is sold as a download 4 times more than its print version. CreateSpace doesn’t offer a download version.
2) When you publish your book with CreateSpace your book is automatically assigned an ISBN number and is published on Amazon and as a part of the service it also includes the “Look inside” the book feature. Lulu offers an ISBN number and the Amazon promotion only if you purchase their Distribution package which costs around a $100, takes forever to establish and you need to do some work, like adding the “look inside” feature on your own (which btw, a pain in the neck!)

OK, so the Grand question now is which one should you choose?
And the answer is….both!
Yes, actually, why not? Since both of them accept a PDF file, with just a little bit of adjustment your file will work just fine with both of them.
This way you get the benefit of offering your book in a download edition while also enjoying the exposure (and sales) through Amazon without any further expense or effort on your part.
And this should never be an under-rated quality.

Read this or else!

The following is a commentary I wrote in the last part of my book I am not an artist.
I think everybody should read it, not because I wrote it, but because there are a lot of people who just don’t know how good they are and/or they let fear and criticism stop them from doing things they really enjoy and wish to do.
So just in case you didn’t buy or download my book, here it is.  
I know it’s a little long but I hope you will be able to read through before falling asleep.
The text, by the way, was written by me but edited by Ryan, my favorite editor.

And finally some final thoughts

So if you actually read through this book page by page, it ought to be apparent to you by now that all methods, practices, and suggestions presented here are simple and can be easily done, even by someone who considers themselves artistically challenged, maybe someone just like you.
It’s true that often people who see my work claim “you are a true artist!” but I know they are wrong; I am not an artist. What I am is an imaginative (Ok a dreamer) (but always resourceful) person whose brain does not stop coming up with ideas, sometimes just weird or impractical, but always pure fun.
And this is what it’s all about: F-U-N
In the first few years I just took pictures, for my pleasure no doubt, but also mainly because I felt like I HAD to. I tried photographing simultaneously to the energetic pace of the streets. It meant photographing while on the move without paying too much attention to the common rules of photography (you can read all about it in my previous book: No Rules Street Photography).
This has not changed much.

However, as I entered my fifth year of taking streets and city pictures, I became weary and even, yes, well, bored.
Not all the time though; when I traveled to new places it was great and exciting and I took pictures like there is no tomorrow. But around home things just did not feel so thrilling anymore. And even though I was slowly loosing interest, quitting photography was never an option. Instead I began looking for new (and possibly more stimulating) ways of taking pictures. I went to bookstores looking for the right book (didn’t find any). I visited many photography sites in search for new ideas. At my lowest I even read through a few discussions on a couple of photography forums (yes, those places where people sign up to complain about various obstacles in their fascinating life.)
But the solution, as so often happens, hit me in an entirely unexpected place.
It happened while standing in line at our local drugstore.
It’s actually quite simple: while standing in line, I noticed they were selling Polaroid cameras over there.
“That is it!” I said to myself, “New and fun cameras! This is exactly what I was looking for.”
Obviously, I bought the Polaroid, and it did not take long before I began shooting medium format film in toy cameras and hunt second hand stores and garage sales for classic cameras.
While shooting toy and classic cameras I realized the final photo does not have to be at all perfect, and I began looking for new ways to present my photos in non-traditional ways.

One mistake people often do is they think that just because they have no known artistic ability they cannot approach their work in an artistic manner.
In fact, I believe the fact I have no artistic education whatsoever, along with the sad reality I cannot draw, paint, sculpt, or even make a straight line, provided me with the freedom to experiment with non-standard and unusual (not to say bizarre) approaches to my photo presentation.

So, that’s all I have to say. Don’t be afraid to explore, experiment, fail, and discover, no matter what others (or even you), might say about your limited abilities.
It’s about time to toss away and forget about the memory of your sixth grade art teacher and her opinions about what is good art.
Find your own style. In fact, you don’t even have to precisely follow any of the methods presented in this book but you can use them to inspire and jumpstart your creative thought to develop your own unique direction.
Sometimes people show me images they processed that were inspired by one of my techniques; however, if I can be blunt here, what they come up with has little similarity to what I do, and that’s the beauty of it. Whatever you make will be a one–of-a-kind creation based on your own unique experiences and viewpoint.

The process of writing a book – part two

Because my books are essentially photography books, I usually like to create pages in my journal to choose the layout and see how the photos are going to work with the text. I get a really nice sketch notebook with heavy pages at a similar size of the book I’m working on. I then print out the photos place them in the journal and add the text. Its much better than seeing the pages on the screen as it gives me an actual feel for the layout.
I use Adobe InDesign to create the book. This program gives me total freedom to design and arrange the book any way I wish and work on each individual chapter at a time. Once the book is done I convert it to PDF which is usually the preferred format by the print on demand publishers.
Lulu is, for the most part, my preferred print on demand, especially since they let people purchase my books in a download format. These downloads are priced so reasonably and make my books accessible to just anybody. Though I was quite hesitant at first to sell photography books in a download version, a large number of my books were purchased in a download format instead of print since I made this option available around a year or so ago.
At the same time of publishing the book with Lulu I also upload and publish my book through CreateSpace. The main reason is that they assign an ISBN number and list the book on Amazon within a week.
Amazon is not a bad place to sell your book.

The next step in the process is sitting back and enjoying all the praise

The process of writing a book – part one

Every once in a while I get questions about the process of writing a book, so I thought I’d share with you the typical path I take when I write my books.
Typically the idea for a book comes out of nowhere when I’m in the shower or riding my bike and such activities that free the brain, but really the ideas and plans do come from somewhere. Usually the idea for a book comes after some time of practicing some method or another as well as writing and sharing thoughts. Eventually there’s a need to gather all this data, the methods, the ideas and photos into one place, and what’s better than putting them all together in a book?
The second step for me is choosing a working title which can obviously change as the book progresses. But the reason I always want to choose a title is that I have a general direction for the book.
At this point I’ll usually look around the net, searching for other related books. I just don’t want to write a book that’s already have been written. Duh!
Once the reason for the existence of this book is established I draw the general outline of the book and make a list of the topics I’m going to write about. Something like a temporary index. However, I do sometimes write without planning the topics ahead and I just go along with the flow of ideas. That works out just fine too.

To be continued in the next post…

Is Amazon price gouging or do people enjoy complaining about big companies?

One of the reasons I like selling my books on Amazon is that Amazon puts them on sale, which obviously makes them more attractive to the potential buyer, but also because it makes my books’ prices more reasonable.
Over at Lulu, on the other hand, the prices are fixes. Sure, I can change these prices any time I feel like it, but I’m limited to the basic price set by Lulu.
So now you can find my book No Rules Street Photography on Amazon for $33.08 (while it’s $45.95 on Lulu) and I’m even happier with the price of my book
I am Not an Artist – $21.12
trust me, its quite a bargain!

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Meanwhile I discovered some people take offence in Amazon constantly changing book prices. (try searching “Amazon price gouging” in Google)
Apparently Amazon uses a mysterious variable to control and adjust book prices. I’m not quite sure where the problem is. Dynamic pricing is often a good practice for the consumer and at times will give us the opportunity for a really good deal. As it is, Amazon’s book prices are often the lowest around, not to mention the frequent convenience of purchasing a used copy for a really great bargain. And by the way, most of the time, the changes in prices are between a few cents to a couple of dollars.
boo hoo.

A couple of pages from my book I am not an artist: unconventional and creative photography

Another book on Amazon Whooo-hoooo!

This is my second book on Amazon and by far the road to Amazon this time was much faster, not to say simpler. As I mentioned in a previous post, I published this book with CreateSpace instead of Lulu, my usual publisher for a few years now.
So to follow up: I received the proof from CreateSpace a few days ago, loved the book and approved it.
Once I approved it, the book is sent to Amazon and other distribution channels.
I am told the retail page on Amazon is built in stages over the course of fifteen business days, so you will see parts of it appear over time, rather than all at once.
Surely, it is not complete yet, for instance, the “search inside this book” feature is still missing.
The main thing I like about it is there’s no additional distributors’ fee to cover so the book can be reasonably priced.
So to everybody who’s interested in publishing a photography book I recommend CreateSpace.com
go for it.

createspace.com – Alternative Print-on-Demand

Recently I found out about createspace.com, yet another Print-on-Demand site.
It’s actually a lot like Lulu; they offer a variety of print sizes without set up fees or minimum orders, pretty much the books are printed as the customer orders.

So if it just like other POD services, why even consider CreateSpace?
Because they give more!
1) Free ISBN number
2) Your book is listed on Amazon within a week or so.
3) Use Amazon’s Search Inside! feature for your book

Listing your book with Amazon and getting an ISBN number through Lulu’ costs around $100 for what they call a “distribution package” and is a bit of a tedious process.
Therefore CreateSpace offer seems very attractive.
Another turn-off about getting the “distribution package” from Lulu is that you must increase the price of your book by $10-$15 and this is obviously a major draw-back in book sales.
However, with CreateSpace there’s no distribution fee which helps keep a reasonable price for your book.

In order to test this service I published my book with CreateSpace and currently waiting to receive the proof, approve it and see first hand how the process takes place.
I’ll keep you updated.

My book on Amazon

If you publish your book with Lulu you can also purchase the distribution package they offer. This package includes an ISBN number for your book which is then listed with major global book industry databases. Once your book is listed it is automatically picked by different retailers, online and offline like Amazon.com, Borders, and Barnes & Noble.
This package costs less than a $100 but it takes looooong time for your book to be visible so be prepared to turn on your patient mode. Once the book is visible there are a few things you can do to help its presentation and visibility.
On Barnes & Noble, for instance, the book is published without any description or any other details so you need to do it yourself by emailing them a file with your book’s data.
On Amazon you can add the key words for your book and also participate with the “Search inside the book” program which not only lets people peek inside your book but also boosts the odds your book will be found through a site search.
For example, if you search on Amazon or Borders (same thing), for “Street photography” my book comes back 3rd on the first result page along with an excerpt from inside the book.
Amazon is currently displaying the wrong image for my book
In any case of such inaccuracies, it is up to you to notify them of their error.
Barnes & Noble on the other hand, currently selling my book for a lower price than any other seller and that’s another advantage because Lulu has a fixed price but these sites often offer better prices which obviously help to make the book more attractive.
Talking about prices, this is the one thing I didn’t like about this whole distribution package: making my book available to different retailers meant these retailers want their share of the pie as well, which meant the price of the book had to be raised.

One thing I’m not yet sure how it works is the royalties for the sales of my book through these different outlets so stay tuned for part two of this post in the future.

and another one

Here’s a preview of my latest book:
I am not an artist – unconventional and creative photography.

Issuu

If you are interested in displaying your book, magazine, article or any other document in a neat way, issuu.com will let you do just that.
I don’t even remember how I stumbled upon this site but right away I liked the fact that each and every publication displayed on this site looked good, and possibly even better than the real thing.
So basically its a stylish way of publishing your PDF document to the web, while you can get feedback from your visitors and also dynamically embed the document on your site just like I did here.

Print on demand books / part two

The first nice thing about Lulu and other POD publishers is that it is free. It’s free to publish a book and its free to create your own storefront. Lulu gives you a storefront which you can customize to your taste. So you can publish a book and if nobody ever buys it, you didn’t lose anything.
In fact,you don’t even have to purchase your own book
To publish a book with Blurb you need to download their software, BookSmart, and use it to create your book. With Lulu you can work with any software you wish as long as the final book is in PDF format. (I designed my book with InDesign which is, in my opinion, the best software for writing books.)
When your PDF is ready you need to upload the file to your account on Lulu and assign it to your book project.
Paper back book sizes available at Lulu are 8.5 X 11, 6 X9, 9X7 and more. The prices are good as well: only $19.53 for an 8.5 X 11 full color interior, perfect bound, 100 pages.
There are 3 binding options: Perfect Bound, Saddle Stitch and Coil Bound

You can design your own book cover or use one from their vast free gallery of book covers.
The quality of these books are pretty good. They are bookstore quality which means they are printed on white interior paper (80# weight), which is not a heavy photographic paper, but yet quite nice and good quality.
The only thing you must remember with Lulu is to print your books in full-color interior ink, even for black and white photo book because their black and white ink is poor quality and suitable for poetry books and such but not for photo books.
Lulu’s turnaround is quite good. It takes about 3 days from your order to the time the book is shipped to you.
After approving your books you can set the price and begin selling it through your storefront.
Lulu also offers to purchase an ISBN number for your book in case you want to sell it in stores or online bookstores like Amazon.

Print on demand photo books / part one

When talking about publishing a book one needs to make a distinction between putting together a photo book and writing a photography book.
There are lots of print on demand sites out there; Blurb, MyPublisher, Picaboo, sharedInk, and others. For the right price, they will put together a photo book for you.
And the price is somewhere around $25-$40 for 20 pages. These books mostly resemble a photo album or a portfolio and are probably the best choice for any photographer who wants to put together a portfolio of their work.
Seems to me the high price tag on these books will make it quite difficult to sell them, and so they are probably more appropriate for personal purpose.
But if you are interested in writing and publishing a book about photography or maybe have a selection of your photos printed into a store quality book you should consider other options, such as soft cover books of standard sizes which are offered by most of the POD publishers. And since their prices are competitive you should definitely consider printing your book with Lulu.com
Some book-on-demand publishers, such as Xlibris and iUniverse require you to purchase a certain amount of books when you publish with them and with a steep price attached.
The only POD service I found that is somewhat similar to Lulu was CafePress, but their printing quality is poor and not suitable for photo books .
Next time: writing the book, publishing choices, prices, quality and turn around.

My new book is here!

I AM NOT AN ARTIST – Unconventional and creative photography

My new book is now available for sale here
Topics in the book include: image transfer, film and scanning, textured layers, aging photos, cross-processing, using Polaroid, toy and classic cameras, mixed media collages and more.

If you are wondering why I decided to title the book “I am not an artist”, it’s because everything I share in this book, is simple and easy to do and does not require any special skills, or talents.

If you buy this book, I would love to hear from you. Any comment you might have, maybe a question or even if you found an error of some sort. No promises but I might even listen to some advice and suggestions

The pains of publishing a book

Today I uploaded my latest book to Lulu.com and sent it out for printing (Yay!)
I created this book using Adobe InDesign CS2 (recommended!) and when it was done I could export the book’s separate chapters into one PDF file.
The tricky part about publishing the book (well, other than actually writing the book) was uploading this large PDF file (307MB) to lulu.com.
My ISP provides me with a great downloading speed and I can download large files in just a few minutes, but uploading is a whole different story and can take forever at a rate of 30kbps
(and if you’re bored you can have fun calculating how much time it actually takes).
But the main problem with uploading such a big file is not the time it takes (which was no doubt quite frustrating,) the real issue is that the connection to the server at Lulu.com was timed out or totally lost every 15 minutes or so. Every time it got disconnected I had to start uploading the file all over from the beginning. This whole experience made me feel like Sisyphus of cyberspace. Ridiculous!
To solve this difficulty I decided to look for ftp software which can resume an upload from the point it stopped. In the past and for many years I used WSftp as my ftp software of choice for its simplicity. But now I needed something more capable. So I found FileZilla (recommended!) which is free open source software that supports resume and transfer of large files up to 4GB. Problem solved!

So I ordered a proof of my book and needless to say I can hardly wait to hold it.
After approving it I will make the book available for sale to the public.
So stay tuned.

Book details -
Title: I am not an artist – unconventional and creative photography.
Size: 8.5″ x 11″
Binding Type: Perfect-bound — Bookstore-quality, standard paperback

Price: Print $32.00
Download $12.00

And now, on to the next book!
just kidding; even I can use a break sometimes

Greenwich Village, NYC
[cross-processed and extreme scanning]

Distributing a book

At last I decided to order the Lulu distribution pack for my book
No Rules Street photography.
With the distribution pack the book is assigned an ISBN number and is then submitted into the global marketplace. This marketplace includes international bibliographic databases as well as leading wholesalers and retailers including Amazon.
You might have noticed that I have made a new cover page for the book but other than that everything else is unchanged.
I’m really looking forward to see if being in this promised land of Global Marketplace will translate in a meaningful increased in the sales of the book. It takes about 6 weeks until the book will be available through these online and retail book outlets. I will make sure to keep you informed.

And speaking of photo books

Like I mentioned a few posts ago, I put together a hard cover book of my black & white photos taken during 2000-2007 in various cities around the US.
The main reason for putting out yet another photo book out there (hence the title of this book: “Just another photo book”), well, actually there were two reasons:
1) To try and see what a hard cover book is like.
2) To collect my photos into one nice form of presentation.

It’s true that the final price of the hardback is a bit on the high side ($42) but I must admit that holding a hard cover book in my hands feels completely different and more like a real and an actual book.

Get this book here

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And to everybody who’s waiting (and I do thank you for your patience not to mention your interest;) my recent book about photo-art techniques is getting close to be done and ready to be published. Possibly another week or so. I will keep you posted.

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something about photography books

Whenever I enter a bookstore I’m naturally always drawn to the photography section.
I know I’ve mentioned (or should I say complained about) it before but what is it about photography that makes people keep writing the same stuff over and over?
Excluding books about specialized printing processes, most photography books out there offer the same tedious advice on how to make great pictures that sell.
Yeah, yeah yeah, we already heard everything about composition, light, camera settings, angles, lines, textures, colors blah blah.
It almost seems they all find their information and inspiration at the same source…
Not too creative I’m afraid.
All the rest of the books out there, including a couple of toy camera books I found, for the most part fall under the category of collecting and displaying of photos.

So if you know of any CREATIVE photo making books, with something new to offer, I would love to hear about it.
Meanwhile I will keep my eyes open

The Presedio, San Francisco. Inkjet transfer.

Adobe InDesign

In the past I used Microsoft Word in order to put my books together.
Not only I could never really get the pages looking exactly like I wanted them to but also I have wasted precious time fighting Word which is famously the most inflexible program out there. Sometimes it seemed like it had its own agenda and ideas and no matter what I said it did not make Word cooperate and listen to me.
Recently I found out about Adobe InDesign and all my troubles were gone. (and I do apologize if this sounds anything like a cheap advertisement, I do mean well, you know )
It’s a very friendly program, and by friendly I mean it didn’t take me much time to figure it out.
And it actually lets ME layout the pages any way I want to!
So pretty much if you’re designing a photography book and would like to have last word this is the best program for this purpose.

Google book search

Today I did a Google book search for books about street photography. I was, and I guess I shouldn’t be, surprised to find my book somewhere in the top results.
For some reason Google indexed the old version of the book, which is much the same like the new version, only it was a square format and the current edition is a nice 8.5” X 10”.
On the right, there’s a list of places where the book can be purchased, however, at this time my book can only be purchased through Lulu.com the publisher. So I’m not sure what purpose it serves to list all the places (like amazon.com) where you CAN’T get the book… (well, other than to get the desperate and exhausted user to buy another book)
By the way, most of the books under the ~street photography~ search results seem like good books HOWEVER, they were mostly books with collections of street photos or books about photography which happen to mention Street photography, but none of them was actually ABOUT street photography.
Think about it.