For me, travel is about so much more than just the trip. I absolutely love the months and weeks leading up to a trip when I’m learning about a place and planning an itinerary.
And I love the time after a trip when I can look back at photos, relive the memories and reminisce over our travel stories. And one of my favourite ways to do that is by making my own photo book!
These days, everyone has photos on their phones but so few people take the time to print them. It’s old school, but there’s something so special about holding a photo in your hand and taking the time to appreciate it.
Anyone else spend all day creating a photo book of your past travels instead of doing work or was that just me? 😂😅
— Riana | Teaspoon of Adventure (@tspadventure) March 15, 2022
I love photo books because not only do they allow me to print my memories and have handheld reminders of the amazing trips I’ve been on, but they also allow me to walk down memory lane while I put the photo book together.
So if I’ve sold you on the value of making your own photo book, then comes the big question: Which online photo book maker should you choose?
There are so many different online photo book services to choose from. It can be intimidating to make a decision!
And you definitely don’t want to get halfway through designing a book only to find out the price is too high or the software is too frustrating to finish.
Below, I’m going to compare some of the most popular online photo book services: Vistaprint vs Shutterfly vs Mixbook. I’ll share my personal experiences using each of these services, which is best based on your needs, and the pros and cons of each.
This post is not sponsored. I paid for each of these photo books and am writing this post independently, so all of my views are completely unbiased.
All of the books below were ordered between Nov 2021 and Mar 2022, plus I did an additional Mixbook review in March 2024. I’ll compare not only the photo books I made but a sample product across all the brands for a better direct comparison.
So if you’re looking to create a photo book of your travels – or any of your photo memories – stay tuned to find out which online photo book service is the best!
Will Shutterfly, Mixbook or Vistaprint win? What about a local drugstore printer or the fancy Artifact Uprising? Let’s find the best photo book maker!
Quick summary: The best photo book maker awards
Most affordable: Vistaprint
Most user-friendly: Mixbook
Most upgrade options: Shutterfly
Fastest delivery: Shutterfly & Mixbook
Best quality photo book: Mixbook
Vistaprint is one of my go-to photo book services. Over the last couple of years, I’ve created a number of photo albums with them, as well as postcards and calendars.
I order through the Canadian Vistaprint website, but there are American, British and other versions, depending on your country.
Photo book orderFor this review, I used Vistaprint for our wedding photo album! Here are the details of my order:
This will be a common theme throughout this post but it’s important to note that I used a discount code for my Vistaprint photo book.
The price without the discount would have been $227.45 total or $56.86 CAD ($42 USD) per photo book, before shipping. I believe we also received a discount for ordering four books.
Vistaprint photo books are always hard cover and come with 24 pages; we paid extra for the additional pages and to put a photo on the cover.
However, compared to the prices of some other online photo book services, this was awesome bang for buck! Vistaprint is one of the cheapest options if you want a hardcover book with lots of pages.
Another thing I really like about Vistaprint’s pricing is how transparent they are.
It was very easy to find this pricing info on their website and they have the price displayed on their photo book editor while you’re making your book, meaning you can see how much it costs to add extras, like additional pages or a photo cover, as you’re adding them.
Vistaprint photo book sizes and pricing in CAD (2024) Photo book maker: 4/5Vistaprint’s online photo book editor was easy to use. I liked the page layout options and the safety border so you know if your photos will bleed into the margins.
I also liked having all of the photos I inputted on the lefthand side and the pages of the book along the bottom. This felt very intuitive and made it easy to lay out my photos.
There’s another photo book maker I liked better, but Vistaprint’s was pretty good. It’s simple and the format does feel a little dated, but I don’t have any big complaints.
Vistaprint photo book creatorDelivery: 3/5I ordered our Vistaprint photo books on November 28, 2021 and paid for priority shipping ($20.99 CAD) expecting them to arrive by December 13, 2021.
This was super important as we were giving the wedding albums to our parents as Christmas gifts and needed them before Dec 17, when we were flying to Toronto. Unfortunately, the albums were delayed and didn’t arrive until Dec 19, after we had already left for the holidays.
Obviously this was upsetting as we had paid extra for priority shipping and didn’t get to give our parents their gifts in time for Christmas.
However, this was also during some of the worst supply chain delays and intense flooding in BC, so it may have been a one-off issue. We also ordered postcards and a calendar at the same time, which both arrived ahead of schedule.
I’ve since used Vistaprint for gifts for Christmas 2022 and Christmas 2023, as well as a personal book in May 2023.
In 2022, I ordered the book on Dec 10 and expected delivery was Dec 22. Once again, delivery was delayed and the book didn’t make it by Christmas.
Our May 2023 book was early (ordered May 8 with expected delivery of May 23, but arrived May 18). For Christmas 2023, I learned my lesson and ordered early on Nov 23, with the book arriving quickly on Nov 29.
So what’s the takeaway? Vistaprint is hit and miss with delivery times, especially around the holidays. Take their expected delivery dates with a grain of salt and order early.
Product: 4/5I was really impressed by the final product, especially considering the price! Our Vistaprint photo books are a really nice quality. The photos printed beautifully and the pages look really clean.
Despite not having the option to order lay flat pages, the pages all lay quite flat (meaning you don’t lose half your photo in the crease). I think going for a longer book (8.5 x 11″) helps the pages to stay down.
The cover does feel a little on the cheap side (especially compared to another book below), so if you’re looking for luxury, this wouldn’t be it.
But if you’re just after a good quality book at a reasonable price, Vistaprint is a winner!
Pros and cons of Vistaprint photo booksPros:
Cons:
Like Vistaprint, I’ve ordered from Shutterfly a number of times over the years. I used Shutterfly to create a photo book for our honeymoon through Atlantic Canada and Montreal in 2021.
It’s important to note here that I ordered through the main Shutterfly site, which is an American site and prices are in USD, but they do ship to Canada.
There is also a Canadian site, Shutterfly Canada, but it either didn’t exist or I didn’t know about it at the time of ordering.
Photo book orderHere’s what I ordered:
Once again I must begin by saying: I used a Shutterfly discount code that I believe gave me 50% off the regular price. Without the discount, this photo album would have cost $50 CAD ($37 USD) before shipping.
But thanks to the discount, I got a 25 page, hard cover photo book for just $25 CAD ($18 USD) – that’s a pretty great deal!
However, if you’re stuck paying regular prices, the Vistaprint book above is way better bang for your buck (more pages, bigger book, same price).
Overall, Shutterfly is still a good deal and an affordable way to make a photo book. But I do have an issue with their pricing transparency.
The table below is one that I found on their website in 2022. In trying to update this post for 2024, I could no longer find this table anywhere.
It was extremely hard to find pricing info for Shutterfly, which just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I think customers should be able to easily find this information.
Shutterfly photo book sizes & pricing (2022)I did find this next table for pricing on their site in March 2024, but it wasn’t connected to their main photo book page. It also looks really dated, so I’m not even sure if these are their current prices.
Because of that, I had to drop my rating to a 3.5/5 for Shutterfly on pricing.
Apparently these are the Shutterfly photo book prices in 2024 Photo book maker: 3.5/5Like the other online photo book services, Shutterfly’s website is simple to use and offers lots of options.
I particularly liked how many layouts they offered, including ones that spanned two pages to tell a more cohesive story.
However, one big dislike for me was where the photos lived in the editor. Uploaded photos are kept at the bottom of the page, cutting into the space used to build the book.
It was also really hard to see more than 10 photos at a time and scrolling through them became disorienting. I much prefer the photos to be on the side, rather than the bottom.
Shutterfly photo book makerDelivery: 5/5I was extremely impressed with Shutterfly’s photo book delivery, especially considering it shipped from the US and I’m in Canada.
I ordered my photo book on March 14, 2022 and received it on March 17, 2022. Only three days to ship from the US to Canada and I didn’t even have to pay for express shipping!
Not only was delivery extremely quick, but the book was also hand delivered to me from the courier, rather than left in my mailbox or at the front door of my building.
They also included a number of coupons with the photo book, which was a nice touch!
Thanks for the goodies, Shutterfly!Product: 3/5Sadly, I wasn’t super impressed with the Shutterfly photo book quality. The photos all looked a tiny bit blurry, and the cover was super grainy and too shiny for my liking.
While most online photo book makers will warn you when an image is too low quality to look good in print, Shutterfly never flagged any of my images.
I also found that the binding on the book was really tight and the pages didn’t lie flat at all, meaning some of the photos got cut off in the crease.
The Shutterfly photo book isn’t awful by any stretch. But the quality certainly has room for improvement, and was the least impressive compared to Mixbook and Vistaprint.
Perhaps the Shutterfly album would have looked better if I had upgraded the pages or cover, but of course, that’s an added expense.
Pros and cons of Shutterfly photo booksPros:
Cons:
This was my first time using Mixbook after seeing it pop up in my social media ads a few times. I read a couple of reviews and decided to take the plunge!
For this photo book, I put together an epic 51-page album of our year abroad in Prague. Because this was such a huge album of a very special trip, we decided to add some upgrades.
Check out my 2024 review of Mixbook photo books, plus grab my coupon code for 50% off!
Photo book orderHere’s what we ordered:
I’m not going to lie, the Mixbook photo book was expensive! And I had a discount code for 55% off. Without that code, the album would have been $139.75 CAD ($104 USD) before shipping!
While this was certainly a pricy photo book, I did add a lot of that cost with extra upgrades. By choosing a matte hard cover and the lay flat option, I more than doubled the price of their standard book.
Not to mention, the final book was 51 pages and you pay for every extra page after 20. But even with a basic book, Mixbook seems to be more expensive than Shutterfly or Vistaprint.
While I believe Mixbook is an American company, they offer prices in both USD and CAD. This was super helpful for me ordering from Canada.
Mixbook is also quite transparent about their pricing. While they don’t have the price on their Mixbook Studio (so you can’t see what your current book is costing), they do have an entire page laying out their softcover, hardcover and lay flat book costs.
Mixbook hardcover photo book sizes & pricing (2024)Photo book maker: 5/5Of the three photo book services, the Mixbook photo book studio was my top pick. Like the others, it was easy to use and offered even more options and layouts.
You can easily upload photos from your computer/phone or even import them directly from social media or Google Photos. They even have a mobile app if you want to design your whole photo album on your phone.
I found it the most user-friendly because uploaded photos lived on the lefthand side (rather than the bottom) and were very easy to scroll through. They listed the date the photo was taken, which made putting together a chronological book very easy.
I also liked having the pages on the righthand side where I could easily collapse them for more editing room or expand them to see my entire book at a glance.
I used Mixbook Studio again in 2024 and the photo book creator has only gotten way easier and more fun to use!
Mixbook photo book creator Delivery: 5/5I was very impressed with Mixbook’s delivery. I ordered this photo book on March 16, 2022 and received an email telling me I could expect the book by April 8.
However, it showed up in my mailbox on March 24th! So not as super speedy as Shutterfly, but delivery was still quite quick and the book arrived sooner than expected.
It was a similar story with the Mixbook I ordered in 2024. I placed my order on Feb 23 and it was supposed to arrive Mar 5, but showed up early on Feb 29!
Product: 5/5By far, the Mixbook photo book was my favourite of the three books I’m reviewing. However, it was also the one I added the most upgrades to, so maybe you get what you pay for!
When I ordered from Mixbook again in 2024, this time a more basic hardcover book, the quality still really stood out. I’d be interested to see the quality on a softcover Mixbook photo album next!
I absolutely loved the cover of this book. The matte finish and print quality were perfect and felt so luxurious. Inside, the pages were so thick I often tried to rip them apart, assuming it was two pages stuck together.
The lay flat binding was also such a great feature allowing the book to be easily viewed and no photos to be cut off. Some of the photos were a tiny bit grainy, but I think that had more to do with the photo I uploaded than Mixbook’s photo book printing.
Pros and cons of Mixbook photo booksPros:
Cons:
I wanted to include one more online photo book review of a local service here in British Columbia, London Drugs. The London Drugs photo lab is kind of similar to a Walmart photo lab.
I ordered two express books through London Drugs in 2022 and will probably never order photo books from them again!
Having waited so long for our Vistaprint books in December 2021, I thought a local printer with an express option would be the way to go for my next books. But I was wrong!
Photo book orderHere’s what I ordered:
The price for these London Drugs photo books was perfectly acceptable. $25 CAD ($18 USD) for a hard cover photo book that’s ready for pick up in 1-3 days is a great deal.
In the end, we got a 50% refund. So I only paid $25 for two books – an even better deal!
Photo book maker: 3/5The London Drugs photo book creator is clunky. It’s obviously not as sophisticated or user-friendly as other online photo book services.
While I did like that the uploaded photos lived on the lefthand side and the book warned you about the crop zone, I found the creator hard to navigate and didn’t like formatting only one page at a time.
London Drugs photo book creatorDelivery: 1/5Delivery is where London Drugs really let me down. The whole reason I ordered these photo books from a local drugstore was because we needed them ASAP.
The express books were advertised as being ready in 24-72 hours. I called the store at the 36 hour mark, as I was in the area, and they told me the books weren’t ready yet but were out for shipment.
They told me to expect an email that afternoon or early the next day telling me I could pick them up. At 48 hours, I had heard nothing. 72 hours? Still nothing!
Coming up on 96 hours, I called again and a very sweet employee tried to help me out.
She shared that the books are printed off-site and that no, my books were not ready, despite the express order and assurances of the other employee. She offered me a 50% refund and apologized profusely.
Finally, 7 days (5 business days) after ordering, I received an email that my books were ready. I went into the store to pick them up and had to remind the cashier of my promised 50% refund.
But even worse? They only printed one book when I had ordered two! They apologized again and it was another two days until the second book was ready.
So express books that were supposed to be ready in 1-3 days took 7 and 9 days. That was hugely disappointing!
24-72 hours? Not even close! Product: 3/5Unfortunately, the product received was not much better than the delivery/pick up experience. The London Drugs photo books were not great.
The photo printing was adequate but the quality of the book, cover and binding seemed really poor. The binding was super tight, to the point that almost all of our images were cut off and hard to see.
This is especially disappointing since their online photo book creator has a crop warning. Despite keeping all of my images within their stated margins, most were cut off due to the tight binding.
I also didn’t love that there was no option to add a cover photo, as an all-black cover is pretty boring to me.
Pros and cons of London Drugs photo booksPros:
Cons:
I haven’t ordered an Artifact Uprising photo book in a long time, so don’t feel it would be fair to include it in my full review of the best photo book makers.
However, I did want to mention it as Artifact Uprising is a big name in the online photo book service world and I have used them in the past.
I ordered a small photo book from Artifact Uprising in 2014 of a trip through Europe with my mom. While the project was no longer available in my account (so I can’t share the details of the order), I remember being quite impressed with the experience and product quality.
Generally speaking, Artifact Uprising isn’t in my budget. While I want my photo books to be good quality, I’m not willing to pay hundreds of dollars to get that.
In order to afford Artifact Uprising, I’d have to sacrifice on the size, cover and number of pages in my photo book, which I’m not willing to do.
However, if I had a deep discount code, or wanted to create a more high-end photo book, I’d definitely head to Artifact Uprising. They’re well known for their quality and I remember having a good experience with them back in the day.
Artifact Uprising photo book creatorPhoto book showdown: Shutterfly vs Mixbook vs VistaprintOkay, now that I’ve reviewed Vistaprint, Shutterfly and Mixbook (with bonus reviews for London Drugs and Artifact Uprising), which online photo book service is truly the best?
For starters, let’s do a straight comparison of the same product.
If you want to order a hard cover with photo cover, 8-8.5 x 11″ photo book with 20-24 pages, here are the costs without any discounts or shipping fees:
In this scenario, Vistaprint and Shutterfly are tied for the cheapest price.
But, the Vistaprint photo book is actually a little bigger (8.5×11″ vs 8×11″) and includes 24 pages, instead of 20. Plus, because Shutterfly is so bad at sharing their prices, I’m not even sure the pricing data I’m using is accurate.
So I’ll give the win on price and value to Vistaprint!
But let’s break things down a little further:
Which photo book maker is the cheapest?If you’re looking for the absolute cheapest photo book, Vistaprint starts at $15 CAD ($11 USD), Shutterfly starts at $13 CAD ($10 USD), and Mixbook starts at $14 CAD ($10 USD).
However, despite the similar prices, those are all very different books!
If you want a hard cover, Vistaprint is actually the cheapest online photo book service with their $15 option. Shutterfly’s hardcover books start at $30 CAD and Mixbook’s start at $27 CAD.
Vistaprint is also the cheapest when it comes to pages; Vistaprint includes 24 pages (Mixbook and Shutterfly only include 20 pages) and additional pages are only $0.43-0.86 per page compared to Mixbook’s $1.06-6.49 per page and Shutterfly’s $0.50-1.50 per page.
WINNER: Vistaprint
We also ordered our wedding thank you cards & calendar from Vistaprint! What is the best website to make photo books?Mixbook is best website to make photo books. I believe it has the most user-friendly custom photo book creator software.
I loved having the photos on the lefthand side organized by date and the pages laid out on the righthand side where I could easily hide them.
They also offered lots of layouts, graphics, fonts, sharing options and fun extras. The process was very easy, intuitive and enjoyable with Mixbook.
The Shutterfly photo book editor also has lots of layouts, but lost points for where they house uploaded photos. It felt a bit clunky and made making my book more cumbersome.
Vistaprint had uploaded photos in a better area than Shutterfly, but the photos were not dated like they were with Mixbook.
Their photo book creator didn’t seem as modern or intuitive as Mixbook’s, but it was still relatively good.
WINNER: Mixbook
Which photo book service offers the most upgrade options?Both Shutterfly and Mixbook allow you to customize your pages, paper options and cover, but Shutterfly has the most options.
With Shutterfly, you have eight different cover options, including softcover, hardcover, eco-leather and acrylic. You can also add metallic accents, a memorabilia pocket, gilded pages, foil imprinting and more.
Shutterfly also advertises their 24-hour free designer services, which I assume would be a fun extra if you’d like a professional to design your photo album.
Mixbook has upgrades for a lay flat design, which includes a keepsake box. They have five different paper options for their hardcover books and four for their lay flat books.
Mixbook used to offer other cover options, like leather covers or dust jackets, but these don’t appear to be available anymore.
Vistaprint actually has the fewest options. You can only choose from a photo or linen cover and upgrade your pages from matte to glossy.
WINNER: Shutterfly
Which online photo book company has the fastest delivery?Shutterfly has the fastest delivery, with my photo book arriving in Canada from the US only three days after I ordered it.
Mixbook was also quite quick, and beat their estimated delivery time by two weeks.
Vistaprint missed their delivery time, even though I paid for priority shipping, but there may have been some extenuating weather circumstances in Dec 2021.
In later Vistaprint orders, they seem to be pretty hit or miss with delivery.
WINNER: Shutterfly & Mixbook
Which photo book is the best quality?Of the three custom photo books I ordered, Mixbook was definitely the best quality. I loved the feel of the book and cover, the thick, lay flat pages, and the quality of the photos.
Read my full review and grab your own high quality Mixbook photo book with my 50% off code!
However, I did pay for upgrades with Mixbook that I didn’t with Vistaprint or Shutterfly, so it’s not a completely fair comparison.
In my more recent Mixbook order from March 2024, I didn’t upgrade my cover or pages and I still feel that it’s a higher quality book than Vistaprint or Shutterfly.
After Mixbook, the Vistaprint photo book was far better quality than the Shutterfly photo book.
WINNER: Mixbook
Is Mixbook or Shutterfly better?For me, there’s no contest. Mixbook is better every day of the week!
While Shutterfly has more options and super speedy delivery, the creating process with Mixbook Studio and the final physical product is far superior with Mixbook.
Shutterfly may be a bit cheaper than Mixbook, but in my opinion, the money saved isn’t worth the severe drop in quality.
Overall, which online photo book maker is the best?Overall, I think Vistaprint is the best online photo book service. It’s the cheapest option if you want a hard cover book with more pages, the pages lay flat (despite not paying for this upgrade) and the photo quality is very impressive.
The only let downs with Vistaprint are there aren’t any upgrades available and delivery time can be hit or miss. But to me, the decent quality of the final product and the lower price tag beat out those cons.
I very nearly said Mixbook was my top pick and, honestly, it’s a very close second. While I do love the experience with the Mixbook Studio photo book maker more and I think the Mixbook product is better, plus the delivery is so speedy, the higher pricing can be a deterrent.
If you’re happy to spend a little bit more for a high quality product, fun custom photo book creation experience and reliable delivery, I’d go for Mixbook.
If you’d prefer to save money and don’t mind a slightly less awesome product/making experience, and you have the time to wait on a potential late delivery, I’d go for Vistaprint.
WINNER: Vistaprint (with Mixbook just a hair behind!)
Wrapping up: 5 tips for selecting an online photo book maker Our photo books on display!You thought after thousands of words I’d be done talking about photo books? Not quite!
Here are a few more tips for finding the best online photo book service for you:
1) Choose a photo book service that matches your needs and skill level
I love spending hours choosing photos, selecting the perfect page layouts and lining them up perfectly. That’s fun for me!
But if that sounds like a nightmare to you, then skip it! Lots of photo book services offer auto-layouts or designer services so they can take care of the hard work for you.
2) Look for discount codes, coupons and sales
Every single photo book I have ever ordered has been on sale; I have never paid full price for an online photo book.
These companies run sales all the time and discount codes are easily available online (such as in this post of mine with a 50% off code for Mixbook!) or by signing up for their newsletter. If your book isn’t time sensitive, wait it out until a sale pops up.
3) Don’t go wild on extras
The easiest way to blow your photo book budget is with all of the extras, such as adding more pages, increasing the size of your book and upgrading the paper or cover. (My weakness is always extra pages!)
Keep these optional extras in mind when you’re starting out so you have an accurate idea of how much your book is going to cost.
4) Watch out for shipping costs
Especially if you’re ordering from Canada like I am, or a different country than where the company is based, double check what shipping costs will be and if you’re being charged in your home currency or not.
It would suck to spend hours making a photo book only to realize you’ll have to pay double the cost of the book just to get it shipped to you.
5) Order early
While some of my photo books showed up surprisingly quickly, there can be delays.
So if your book is time-sensitive, make sure you order ahead of time. This is especially important if you’re ordering around the Christmas holidays.
Plus, don’t underestimate how much time it might take you to design your book and get it just right. Give yourself extra time not only for shipping, but for designing too.
I’d love to know: Have I convinced you to print your photos and make your own photo book? Which photo book maker would you go with?
Imagine the internet never existed. I know – you’re reading this while on the internet – but bear with me. As a photographer, how would you show your photographs to other people? There would be no Instagram, no Flickr, no Facebook. The reality of this fictional internetless world would leave you with limited outlets for your work. In short, you would have to find a way to physically park your photos in front of the eyes of other humans. Galleries would certainly be an option; magazines and journal publications would be another. Of course, there would be another option; the construction of a photo book.
Aside from a solo exhibition, there is perhaps no better way for a photographer to express their exact creative vision than with a well-executed photo book. Even in today’s elevated climate of digital photography, photo books have managed to keep their foothold as one of the most impactful methods of distributing photographs to the masses, all the while maintaining allegiance to the original photographs as we meant for them to be viewed.
Photo books aren’t nearly as prevalent (or produced) as they once were. However, if you are truly serious about yourself and the photographs you produce, then a photo book might be a wonderful conduit for you to express your photographs – I know it was for me. As paradoxical as it might sound, producing photo books today has never been easier.
In this article, we’ll look at some of the reasons, methods, and considerations you might want to examine if you’ve ever felt the need for something more than just condensing your photographs into social media posts and online galleries.
We’ve already touched on some of the other ways that you might present your work to the public, so why are photo books so special? Well, it comes down to control, fidelity to your original vision, and the importance you place on both.
Photographs are finite in their original incarnations, meaning there was a time when you didn’t always have to guess how your photos would appear on the different devices. Even photos in widely-circulated publications like magazines would essentially be faithful to whatever the final press copy of the image might have been.
Herein lies the immense benefit of photo books; they are an end in themselves.
With final archival quality of inks, papers and bindings, and even the varied perception of our own eyes aside, a photo book can be your final say on how your work should look. Much like a print, the extent of your involvement in the production process of your photo book (more on this shortly) means you can virtually maintain complete discretion on how people view your images.
This means that a person in Singapore will see the same colors and contrasts a person viewing your photo in Australia, Canada, or Wales.
I’ve condensed the steps of producing a photo book into three broad sections. That being said, a book could be written on each one of the steps themselves. So, we’ll just hit the high points.
Of course, this is where any photo book should begin. With some extremely rare exceptions, your photo book should revolve around a central theme or concept. It could be something you care passionately about photographing or something you want to learn more about and show the world. The weird thing about ideas is that they are notoriously fluid, meaning that even though you have a general direction to aim your energy (and your camera), you should remain open to the organic evolution of your initial idea or concept for your book.
In the case of my photo book, “Faces of Grayson,” I initially had no intention of producing a book at all. I was just a person out in the wilderness with a camera. It was only after I examined a few of my images that I instantly knew I wanted to do more with the subject matter and eventually produce a book.
Unless your photo book is strictly for your own personal use and enjoyment, I’d suggest that you don’t approach your idea for your photo book in retrograde. It’s likely not a good practice to simply go through all your photos and force yourself to find a common theme. If you begin with a solid idea that you care about, you’ll ultimately end up with a more cohesive finished work.
We’ll talk a bit more about the actual shooting and choosing of the book images in the next section.
We’ve touched briefly on how it’s usually not advisable to base your photo book on photos already in your image archive. It’s just not a good idea. So, once you’ve decided on the subject of your photo book, approach the acquisition of your content with a Zen-like state of relaxation. Don’t force the work, and don’t force yourself to produce the work quickly.
With that said, pay careful attention that you don’t forget that these images are specifically intended to be part of your photo book. You should always keep the overall theme, feel, and concept in line with your original idea even if that idea evolves along the way.
For my photo book, I shot images for roughly two years. In the end, I had a multitude of photos from which I could choose the absolute best.
There is no time limit for obtaining your images. Please, please, PLEASE don’t rush yourself. A rough estimate of when you would like to see your book finally come to life is perfectly healthy. Conversely, subjecting yourself to a self-imposed “deadline” is not. So if there’s one piece of advice I could give when it comes to shooting the photos for your book, it would be not to rush. Instead, be deliberate, take your time, and get it right the first time.
After you’ve completed the principal photography work for your book, it’s time to put it all together. Ask yourself a few questions: Is your book a narrative? Does the story you want it to tell depend on the order of the images?
Some photo books work very well with sequential arrangements based on the chronology of time and the progression of the subject matter through that time. If this is the case for your photo book, then make sure how you assign your images to the pages conveys this dynamic to the viewer.
If your book is not a narrative and instead is more of a compilation of place or subject with no need for sequential ordering, then the arrangement of the photos become less important. However, it should still remain a focus of great consideration.
Once you have completed the task of choosing and sequencing your photos, it’s time to choose layouts and fonts, image sizing and orientation. Also, chooses the amount of supplemental textual narration you wish to include (or not include) with the images.
The majority of this will be left to your discretion unless you conscript outside help from a designer. Deciding on the final flavor of the book is the most difficult and most exciting aspect of putting together any photo book.
All right. This is where things get truly slippery. You’ve completed work on obtaining the photos for an idea that you absolutely love. The images are outstanding, sequencing is beautiful, and you know every last detail of your final grand vision. It’s all going to be perfect!
Well, I’m sorry to break it to you…
It won’t be.
Yes, I know. That truth hints at an underlying pessimism, but it’s intended to be constructive. You see, the key to sustained success with your photography is to maintain a realistic handle on your expectations. If you enter the printing process believing nothing will go wrong, and there will be no unforeseen challenges, then you will be quite discouraged when these inevitable issues arise.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s look at some common (but not all) options you might have for getting your photo book printed.
Print-on-demand
A commonplace service in the literary world, the print-on-demand model is perhaps the easiest and most cost-effective method for getting your photo book published and printed. It also involves the least investment on your part in terms of personal control.
Print-on-demand means just what the name implies; you provide the finished content design, and a printer/publisher/distributor will print a copy of the book each time a copy gets ordered. This is a wonderfully cost-effective way to print small or large numbers of your photo book with virtually no waste. Your book gets printed only when there is an order. Often this method also includes a free ISBN and other perks.
This is also a great option to get your photo book printed and sold with as little overhead as possible. However, there are some downsides to this process. Namely, you will have little or no creative control over paper types, bindings, inks, and other nuances of the book printing process.
Amazon, Blurb and a growing number of other well-known book merchants have begun offering these types of services to photographers wishing to get their photo books distributed to the masses. For users of Lightroom, you can design and send your book to Blurb direct from the Lightroom software too.
Traditional book printers
If you want to go big with your photo book endeavor and have the financial (and marketing) resources to sit at the table, then you might be interested to know that even independently published photographers can have extremely high-quality photo books printed which offer enormous creative control over virtually every aspect of the printing process. This means that you will usually be able to select paper types and binding materials along with physically proofing prints so that your photos look exactly the way you want them to display.
Unfortunately, this isn’t always the most forgiving option for those who are creating their first photo book or have limited means for producing their published work. It involves the willingness to exercise ultimate creative judgment on all aspects of your book, which can be highly stressful. Furthermore, the majority of these types of printing firms have strict minimum printing runs for all printed books.
So, unless you need and are ready to store and distribute upwards of 1,000 copies of your book, this might not be the best route for your project. At the same time, if you do have the logistics in place and the demand is high enough for the quantity involved, the per-copy price of high-volume printers like these translates to relatively attractive profit margins when you consider the quality versus the cost of the product.
I went via this route with my first photo book. It involved organizing an overwhelmingly successful Kickstarter campaign along with a highly aggressive marketing strategy to source the funds I needed to cover the cost of printing. Would I do it again? Honestly, probably not, at least not this way, which brings me to our next option.
Limited quantity printing
If you’re looking for a careful balance between precise creative control, costs, and volume, this is likely the best choice for your photo book.
You could easily call this printing method could easily “artisan” printing. It involves a low number of meticulously crafted books, often with finely curated materials and craftsmanship, which can be purveyed more as a personal statement than a mass-produced product.
Limited quantity printing is perfect for face-to-face marketing, where the photo book itself becomes an art piece. Printing costs are relatively high, so in most cases, quantities of twenty or more copies could become slightly awkward. However, books of this nature can demand higher sale prices from collectors and impassioned patrons, and rightfully so.
It might be difficult to believe, but there is so much more to say about the in’s and out’s of making a photo book; at least one that you intend to make for the enjoyment of others.
A photo book is more than just making photos and finding a way to bind them into pages. Is it worth it? Does the reward justify the risk? It depends. Have you felt strongly about your subject and feel equally compelled to make photographs of that subject which you then work to compile into a photo book? If so, you’ve already committed a piece of yourself to the project. Anything that carries that much personal investment is, by definition, a success.
So, yes, there is still value in photo books. In a sense, books such as these carry even more value today. We live in a world saturated by the instantaneous. Producing a photo book requires time, deliberate intent, and the willingness to slow yourself down to focus on your true goal.
Will your photo book sell a million copies? Well, it’s doubtful.
However, depending on your expectations, making a photo book could very well be the most memorable, rewarding, and ultimately challenging mission you ever undertake as a photographer. There truly is no other feeling than seeing your own book sitting on your shelf. Believe me.