At the end of the week, I’m heading off with the girlfriend to some island off of the Florida coast called St. Kitts, basically a place where everyone goes to lie in the sand and drink free drinks. Well I plan on doing this, but I’m also bringing along a camera, so I should have some nice pics to go along with last years Cozumel ones. I’m also going to have a funny July, as a couple weeks after I get back I’m heading off to the Bahamas to shoot a wedding- so basically I’m going to be traveling and shooting a lot.

I sold another Roomkeeper book today, which was nice as I’m trying to get rid of the stock I have in my house- I’ve sold a bunch since I got them, and I have some fun postcards to throw in as well from my gallery show I had awhile back. This inspired me to make a section on my new iNationalPark.com site for ‘Artist’s Publications‘, basically anyone the site represents [only me right now] can post their books on there for sale. The AJAX really shines for it too, as you can flip through page samples and really get a good idea of what you’re getting for your money. Pretty neat I might say.

If I haven’t mentioned it yet, you should check out Shopify.com, which I’m using to host inp. Basically they have no hosting charges, take care of all the ecommerce and only charge 3% of the final bill. Totally a good deal, and you can use your own domain name, though today I finally figured out the CNAME garbage- which is what lets you kind of mask your name over theirs.

Folks, the day has come. I just got my proof book in the mail and it’s far exceeded my expectations in quality. So, with that said- I’m ready to start taking pre-orders for my portrait photography book ‘The Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Society’! While I’m making one last change on the final version as we speak, I plan to start releasing the book tonight at 12am to the public, so that will give me enough time to finalize any changes and get it out to you fine people! You have two options for ordering this fine photography book. First, you can order it directly through Lulu.com who is my printing company, or you can order it through me and get a signed copy for the same price of $19.98. Keep in mind, if you order it through me it’s going to take a little bit longer, especially the first people who order it because it has to be shipped to me and then I ship it back out to you. Order early for the Holiday season for a really great and unique gift!

[click on the cover for a heavily compressed Lulu.com preview ]To buy a signed copy from me, click on the image below:
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or buy it unsigned through Lulu.com:
CLICK HERE

With book design complete, my test copy of the book is out the door! Within a week or so I should have my book in hand and can better gauge the quality- nevertheless, it’s made, done, and it feels nice. It’s honestly a really kickass looking book and something I’ll be proud having other people own, so that’s really all one can ask for.  Not to mention, this project has been a few years in the making so it’s about time it gets wrapped up!  Here is a screen-shot from my distributer Lulu.com [mostly because I’ve been on a screen shot posting kick lately]:

just got my photo book’s proof layout from my graphic designer- a few little changes here and there, but the overall design of it is fantastic. the first page is of a 3d viewmaster card and then goes into roughly 21 images [i think i might be expanding this before all is said and done] with nice rough borders like they came from inside the viewer card. you’ll see, it’ll all make sense. also, i think the final price of the book is going to be $19.95, pretty inexpensive for a photo book i think and it will be ready for gift-giving season coming up if all goes as planned.

once the last changes are made this beast is going out to the printer and all the fun publicity starts! press releases! galleries! loads of good fun for everyone. here’s a nice um barely visible pdf book layout:

well folks, the production of my portrait book is really starting to go into overdrive! seriously, its getting better by the day- which leads me to the all important title decision! i give you… ‘The Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Society’.

here is a copy of the new bookcover image, along with a sample image with the border i’m going to be using:

For a good long while now I’ve been ‘collecting’ portraits of random people I meet on my trips, and for the last year I’ve been talking about putting together a little b+w book of all of them. This has sadly gone on without anything materializing, mostly because I am yet to find an inexpensive publisher than can reproduce photographs halfway decently. I place most of the blame on my illfated apple book publishing fiasco. Recently I’ve been exploring Lulu.com though and looking at what they have to offer. JPG magazine uses them for their magazine printing as well as plenty of other photographers- it looks interesting, and for the cost of putting this book together I wouldnt be losing much in giving it a try. I’ve also found a new graphic design friend who offered to put all of this together for me; so between all of this, the project is now off of hiatus.

Out of the old directories of photos comes some samples of my new design for them.