Her name: Céline Ravier. She has just written a remarkable book, entitled: ([AUTO] PHOTOGRAPHIC EDITION. Investigation on a mutation.) The book is published by the publisher Arnaud Bizalion. We will publish the main themes of the book in four installments, this is the third one!
The boom in self-publishing and the new status of the photographer
The photographer is indeed a voyeur by nature, he is also a reporter, handyman, spy. – Walker Evans
We speak of self-publishing when an author is responsible for organizing the production, layout, printing, distribution and sale of his work, without going through a publishing house usually managing these different stages. The author then becomes his own editor.
Self-publishing has always existed in one form or another, however. This is the story of artists’ books from the 1960s and fanzines from the 1970s. Self-publishing thus encompasses a variety of manufacturing and distribution practices which makes the terminology porous and often left to the appreciation of the “doing” person.
From the 2000s, thanks to the constant progression of printing technologies (lower costs of offset printing and increased quality of digital printing), to new digital tools for manufacturing, financing (crowdfunding), of communication and dissemination, to a more refined culture for the object book, and faced with a growing disaffection with the press and classical publishing, the democratization of photographic publishing has crossed an additional threshold these last years. Photographers today have the means to present their work on supports other than the traditional media and – sometimes faced with the refusal of publishers – are free to produce and promote their own works with unprecedented ease and autonomy. Self-publishing is today one of the most dynamic branches of the sector and occupies a significant place in the contemporary world of photography books. In terms of content and invoice, many self-published books have largely the same value as those published by publishers.
But if the promise of editorial independence and the personal satisfaction of producing an end-to-end book today push a large number of photographers to embark on the adventure of self-publishing, it is without counting on the challenges of skills, time and energy to be met. During a first self-publication, the photographer-author-publishers must in fact assume a whole range of new skills linked to each stage of the book chain, from conception to sale. Depending on each person’s experience, they can (re) know the mistakes to avoid or the points to improve for a future book. However, everyone agrees that the work of distribution-distribution remains the major obstacle. Photographic self-publishing is a rewarding journey, but one fraught with pitfalls for a photographer who cannot always take on everything for reasons of skill and / or time available.
Céline Ravier
https://www.arnaudbizalion.fr/
