Let’s Publish a Coffee Table Book.

[Kestrana]

We could do that too. Let anyone who wants their photos considered submit them somehow. Either to a flickr group that we make or right here to this site.

Well that’s where we were going with it before, so I already made a flickr group that can be used if we want to do it this way.

Also I don’t think anyone is interested in making money off of this project. However, as much as I love projects like this and am willing to help in any way I can to get it off the ground, I don’t know I would buy the finished project if it was in the realm of $100. But that’s just my $.02 and if I actually had a lot of pictures worth including in it, I might feel differently.

I think before we really plan too much we probably should seek Drew’s permission/advice about the project. If for whatever reason he can’t give his blessing to it, then there’s no point in putting together a huge project that goes nowhere. If he is interested, maybe he’ll have some resources that either make the page count insignificant or other suggestion from a general fan perspective of what would be good.

[Kestrana]

So I actually messaged Drew on Facebook about this idea today. Let’s see what happens

[Kestrana]

actually I really like the idea, in fact I’m contractually obligated to do another book with the current agent and wouldn’t mind running this thru them to get out of it if that’s cool with you. Just lemme know what you guys need and I’ll get the ball rolling with an established publisher

I condensed the questions we had in this thread and replied but it looks like we may actually be able to go big time(ish)!

[orionid]

Awesome!

I’m so in!

[staplermofo]

Score one for regrettable contractual obligations.

[lokisbong]

This is very cool news indeed.

[Kestrana]

Ok here are the questions I asked and Drew’s responses, we can decide where we want to go from here:

Kes: First about the licensing aspect of photographs. It was suggested that as part of the TOS for fark, one released certain rights to the picture by posting it, but clarification is necessary. The last topic of discussion was making it a “2009” edition using top 10s and other images as vetted by the Farktography forum as some of the older contributors have disappeared and may be difficult to track down if we actually need to solicit permission from the individual photographers.

Drew: I can assign the farktog mod to locating those people. If we can’t find em we can’t use it, if we can we need permission.

Kes: We’d also want to know how many pages the publisher was interested in or how many photographs. Between 578-1106 photographs has been debated but the total would depend on the size and price point the publisher was willing to print at.

Drew: I can find out the pagecount, can you (plural) write up a book proposal for it? Consists of 2 things 1) a short description of the book and why it will sell and 2) a sample chapter. My guess would be smaller is better, or for a better idea check and see around what size is typical for this kind of thing. Finally, we’ll get a headcount of folks who will commit to buy so we can throw this over the edge. Because if we have buyers, it doesn’t matter if they’re convinced it’ll sell or not – becomes a moot point then

Kes: Will we do the book design ourselves or will they have someone do it for us, we just provide content or something in the middle?

Drew: It’s probably better to design the book in house, publishers have folks who can do it but they generally suck ass. They’ll tweak it anyhow so it’s good

Kes: Should we have textual blurbs from the photographers talking about fark/photography or just images? I think you might have to write us a foreword :DDD

Drew: I have no idea there. If it looks good and helps the book, then yes

Kes: Our plan for book revenue had been to donate to charity, obviously if we’re fulfilling your contract that’s part of your livelihood but I don’t think any of the farktographers expect to be paid. That may open them up to doing a larger book that would include more people at lower cost to themselves because we are voluntarily giving up rights for the book but I’m no expert in how these things work, so we’d have to learn about that too.

Drew: fulfilling my contract is good enough for me, I think we should probably skim off a little and have a big ass party somewhere but that’s totally up to you guys. I don’t need any money as this won’t cost me anything (probably). If anyone wants to be paid that’s fine by me too, I really am not worried about it one way or the other

---

So what does this mean?
– We need to decide on the format of the book/how we’re going to choose pictures.
– We need to write up a proposal for the book and create a sample chapter.
– We need a commitment from people over how many potential copies they might purchase so we can give the publisher some idea of their sales.
– We need to plan a Farktography book launch party!!!! (ok not so important but yay)

[SilverStag]

I hope we can do better than the CaptureIndy people did:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pjern/sets/72157622561483647/

And if we do have a party, I vote for Indianapolis: Centrally located and close to home for me !

Oh, and I’ll write blurbs at the drop of a hat.

[Kestrana]

orionid suggested pictures and brief bios about the photographers in the index

[orionid]

I was thinking something along these lines instead of a traditional index.

[olavf]

Another self-portrait theme would be a cool way to do that. OTOH, I think the decriptions would need to be shorter, or else that would be half the book 😛

[olavf]

And thanks for picking up the ball Kestrana I’m more than willing to help and do stuff, but my organizational skillz are teh suxx0rs

[LeicaLens]

Wow. That sounds exciting.
Hope it all pans out.

I have a couple of top-ten entires…

[staplermofo]

Since text is cheaper than color, I think we should get together and write a little bit about the various aspects of popular internet photography, how internet contest photography is unique, amusing anecdotes about what trying to photograph stuff got us into, the dynamic of community within a community which somehow manages to be more accessible to the general public (i.e., “My friends are strangers online” vs “I’m in this weekly online photo contest”) and the deep, scarring pain of the capricious nature of internet voting. Also, we’re a generally amusing bunch.

Kinda like how Drew supplemented commentary on mass media with amusing comments from Farkers.

[Kestrana]

Yeah I was thinking in the car that relating what we do to the overall function of fark would be difficult because really it doesn’t have anything to do with the concept of “fark” itself but those are actually some good ideas. We definitely need an introduction to the book and we’ll need that explanation for the publisher why the book will sell.

I should see if I can pull some statistics of people who participated in 2009 out of the FSM to get an idea of sales.

staplermofo do you have time/inclination to do any writing on that note? Maybe you and SilverStag could work together if you need help since he enjoys writing and mentioned he likes to blurb.

Also are you guys ok with me pushing this forward? It would be nice to have everybody saying “yeah let’s do this” even if you don’t have the time/energy/motivation to do more than sign the piece of paper letting us use your photographs. Conversely, is anyone downright against this and doesn’t want to be included?

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