Deep and Deeper

I received this note from Kelly Sonora today:

Hi Jain, We just posted an article, "100 Useful Tips and Tools to Research the Deep Web". I thought I'd bring it to your attention in case you think your readers would find it interesting.

Thanks, Kelly. This is a great resource. Photo people will find this post on the Read Write Web useful, too. It describes and provides links to some of the Deep Web visual resources available.

Jain's Golden Gate Bridge History Lesson

Advice for Young...and Old?

Yesterday's Magnum Blog post gives advice to those starting out in photography from several members. Many provide the same basic suggestions but I think what Mikhael Subotzky had to say works for those aspiring to be a Magnum-type shooter:

Q: What advice would you give young photographers?

A: Stick to one project for a long time. And keep working on it through many stages of learning, even if it might feel finished. It's the only way to break through what I think are some vital lessons that need to be learned about story-telling and how to combine images.

What do you think is a long time? At what point do you quit a project if it isn't panning out or something better comes along? Should you have more than one project going at a time in order to create portfolio diversity?

How to Untangle Book Proposals

Whatever your book is about, remember the idea has to be sold three times:

1. To the publisher or investor who will finance and produce your book,


2. To bookstores and fulfillment houses that will keep it in inventory,


3. To someone who will buy the book.

Proposals must illustrate exactly how you will communicate to the potential customer. If you have a concept that readers will buy, then the booksellers are more likely to pick it up from the publisher.

This endless loop can become a head scratcher, but there is a way to get it right. Create your proposal as a PowerPoint presentation for your customers. As you move through the slides, are the readers pulling out their wallets before you finish? If so, then the acquiring editor and the bookseller in the same audience will take notice and follow suit.

You will still need to have many other proposal elements developed in order to make the first sale. But if the main impact of your proposal proves you can make the last sale, you significantly increase your chances of landing a great publishing deal.

What's the Deep Web All About?

A while back, I mentioned The Deep Web, and how most all photo researchers know how to use it when it comes to finding images. Several people asked me what that is all about so I thought I'd explain a little more.

The Deep Web has also been called the Invisible Web, Deepnet or the Hidden Web. It is not the commonly seen Web that is driven (indexed/crawled) by search engines. According to some reports, the Deep Web is estimated to be several orders of magnitude larger than its counterpart, known as the surface Web.

What all this means is that the Deep Web provides a way to find databases on the Internet. Researchers can access any topic, such as photography as a broad category and then on to wildlife photography as more specific and so on as they drill down to find databases dedicated to imagery of their current research subject.

Since it is invisible, you will have to do some sleuthing to find it ;-). Give it a try sometime. And thanks for asking!

Pay Isn't the Best, But...

Today I discovered Vewd, "a documentary photography magazine continuing the tradition of storytelling through a visual medium."

I sense that founder Matt Blalock is honestly passionate about photoj. Overall, Vewd is well done and provides another decent platform for image story circulation. My only hesitation is the exposure of your ideas without very much return, unless you bang the hell out of your page clicks. From their FAQs (emphasis mine):

Question: Do I get paid?

Answer: Of course! If we choose your work and feature it, we pass on to you a large portion of our advertising income. We wouldn’t be able to have a site without the advertisers and we couldn’t have it without you! Pay isn’t the best, but we like to think it beats giving your work away. We pay you depending on how many people look at your gallery. Our current rate is $2.50/1000 views - we pay via PayPal or a check monthly. There is a minimum balance of $35 for a PayPal payment and $50 for a check.

Is it clear enough that per click payment is calculated via unique views? I hope if you click on Morgan Hagar's photo here, he will get some cash!

How to Hit a Nerve

Write (photograph) what you know about is good advice but you may know more about something than you first realize. When it comes to subject matter, I like to ask photographers what they feel gives them “authority” to publish on their proposed topic. I’m interested to know about your significant credentials, time spent on the body of work and influential people attached to the project. Equally important to me is your curiosity, passion and intimate connection to the subject. I want to make sure we can convince publishers that you are the very best person to take up this topic.

Case in point: A photographer who is also a parent is certainly qualified to do a photo project about children. Regardless of your parental role, you have a basic physiological component which automatically connects you to your offspring. This causes you to become an authority on children on some level. The key is to take that authority and kick it into a project idea that is so strong it can carry your project beyond just your amazing shooting style with young people.

To create a successful photo book, all of the proposal elements (message, text, design, photographs, visual style, production values, marketing hook, endorsements, etc.) must be perceived as having the potential to touch a common nerve with the intended audience. Defining your audience completes the strength of your proposal.

What if you aren't a parent but have built your career around taking pictures of children? One of my earlier posts with an anecdote about my grandfather I titled, “Chase your DNA.” That is a narrative theme any photographer with an interest in family photography could run the distance with. Equally, a publisher can see the potential to expand the concept into many directions for a comprehensive book: history of the family portrait, ancestry mixes, family trees with a few broken limbs, skeletons in the closet, then and now comparisons of family properties, similarities in the facial features between old generations and newer ones, and so on.

Coming soon: The proposal as a communication tool.

Interview with a Consultant (Me!)

There is a new interview with me on After Capture this week about what it means to be a photographer's consultant.

Part I: What She Does
Part II: How She Helps

Thanks to host Ethan G. Salwen for asking me to particpate!

Topical Use Only

The bulk of my experience is producing and editing documentary books but I have also worked on plenty of single subject titles (i.e., cookbooks, gardens, tiles, wedding design, cars). In either case, the proposal’s topic must initially be perceived as having the potential to connect with an identifiable audience beyond people with an interest in your fantastic photography.

Here is an example. Your proposal is to photograph behind-the-scenes of the next Boston Marathon; from runners chomping down big carb dinners to a cancer patient undergoing chemo treatment the night before. This is a lukewarm idea, so what will make your proposal stronger?

The right combination of the three elements I mentioned yesterday. First, the linking of the concept via the proposed title and subtitle to topics of immense interest: aging and health. Then, to give your proposal additional legs, the first visual must subliminally suggest that hopes and dreams do come true.

Suddenly with these simple improvements of the idea, the proposed book is not just for people who actually run marathons or live in Boston. It has opened up to anyone with a desire to overcome a handicap, to find inspiration to change, to win, to find inner strength and conquer the impossible.

On deck: Do people ever ask for your advice about your proposed topic?

Serious Times; Serious Posts

My next few posts will be dedicated to addressing what I believe is important information about photo book publishing, my professional passion. I am now channeling my frustration over what I felt was thin advice in PDN’s September Book Issue into mini help sessions. Writing proposals is a darling topic of interest and a fine place to start.

Is it a Book?

I have read hundreds of book proposals. When I was an editor at Harper Collins, we received dozens of proposals every week. The vast majority were eliminated for the sole reason they were not books. In other words, the concepts were quickly identified as feature articles, public space exhibitions, photographs of a local event only of interest to that community, conceptual images suitable for calendars or greeting cards, grand schemes beyond financial reality, tabloid fodder or egoist attempts from the photographer you barely broke even on last season who now feels a showcase of their outtakes is in high demand.

To become a photo book, your proposal must have a clear premise and a driving force bigger than the initial concept. This must be expressed right away and here is how to do it effectively.

The book’s proposed title must easily translate into a category. The determination of category is critical to booksellers; they are the ones who decide where to place your book in the store. If you aren’t sure where your book belongs, neither will those who face these decisions daily.

The logline (subtitle or short description) is where to reveal the book’s driving force. Remember the title and logline presented are proposed. As presented they may never see the light of day. Still, the more expert help you seek in getting this part right, the better your chances. Title elements should stand out so sometimes creating a professional logo or branding element is helpful. Also, be aware that subtitles are often omitted from lists and bookseller order forms, but for proposal purposes, use a subtitle to strengthen your idea. Proposals rarely look anything like the finished product but we have to imagine that they could.

Consider the latest book from A Day in the Life veteran author/publisher David Cohen:

What Matters: The world’s preeminent photojournalists and thinkers depict essential issues of our time.

The main title is strong. The subtitle links the title's intrigue and **pow** announces who will be the book's receptive audience. If your proposal only consisted of a two part title (and you aren't David), would an influential person ask to hear and see more?

And then…the first photograph in the proposal must be brilliantly tied to the title and logline. Even though the entire book could, and oftentimes does, morph into something else, in my opinion it is these three elements (title, subtitle, first photograph) along with their independent and collectively unique energy that determines if your proposal will be considered or not.

Coming up: How turn your topic into a great photo book proposal.

More Things You Might Not Know

1. The most successful photographers don’t turn over their entire take to the client.
2. They also don't publish their best frames until years later.
3. SEO is not a new corporate title acronym; it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
4. There is something called the Deep Web and most photo researches use it to find images.
5. I accept credit cards, checks or EFTs.
6. NPOs can and do absolutely pay for photography.
7. On average, 20 percent of your images will bring you 80 percent of your income.
8. The gas tank icon with a hose on the left or right does NOT always tell you which side your car’s tank is on. Darn it!

Gadget Day

I hesitate to post something about items I assume everyone already knows about. Take Google Alerts for example. Surely you all have a Google Alert for your name? Apparently not! Yesterday someone admitted to me that they compulsively conduct searches on their name. I used to do that, too. But I told him about two years ago I started using Google Alerts. He had no idea what I was talking about.

Now I am going to tell you about this cool gadget that I previously assumed most photographers either have or want to have. I certainly want one, but it's not available for my camera model (Canon 40D) yet. I wrote to photographer Joanne Williams asking if I could mention it on my Blog (yes, it's a Blog because I take comments). She said to go right ahead and chat it up!

Screen Shades for the LCD panels on digital Cameras.

At last! You can see the LCD panel on your digital camera even on sunny and glary days! Also protects the UV effects of the sun on the screen. $25 each (add $1.00 for shipping and handling).

Magnifier: (optional) Has the ability to add a 3X magnifier, which quickly snaps on the back of the Screen Shade for easier editing of each image. $25 each (add $1.00 for postage).

Models: Canon 5-D, 30D, MarkII 1DN, Nikon D2x, D200, D2h

Here is the ordering info page. Thanks to Kris Mortensen for her quick reply to my request to feature the LCD Screen Shade on my Blog.

Testimonial

August 6, 2008

We first approached Jain with our book idea because my business partner had spoken with her previously on an unrelated matter and had a good feeling about her. At that point, we had been working on A Journey Through Literary America—an appreciation of twenty-eight of America’s great authors and the places that inspired them—for about a year. We had taken a booth at the Book Expo America, which began in a matter of weeks. It was a critical time for us. We wanted either to find a publisher or to publish this book, which we felt so strongly about, ourselves.

We could not have made a better call. Jain came prepared. She has a grasp of coffee table book publishing and marketing that is a product of experience, no doubt, but that also seems instinctive. She made the machinations of selling a book comprehensible and achievable. She was enthusiastic, charming, never talked down to us, and impressed us with her sincerity. We went to the Book Expo with all of the information and materials that Jain had helped us to produce. But most of all, we went there armed with confidence.

Upon arrival, we found that if the Book Expo in Los Angeles were a map of the world, our booth was in outer Siberia. And yet, despite that handicap, our presentation drew positive responses from Barnes and Noble and other book buyers, members of the press, and other attendees. During the show, Jain took time out of her activities to visit us and it was actually her visit that spurred the chain of events that led to our book deal.

We walked away from the Book Expo America 2008 with an agreement to sell the book to David R. Godine, one of the most prestigious publishing houses in America. I would give much of the credit for that coup to the expert guidance of Jain Lemos.

I would highly recommend her to any person with a well-developed book idea and a desire to get published.

Sincerely,

Thomas Hummel
A Journey Through Literary America