NEW STYLE OF SOUVENIR BOOK SERIES IN PRODUCTION – STARTING WITH PNG

I usually use the lull of January to embark on at least one personal creative project to begin the year, drawing from the images I’ve accumulated earlier.

Last year it was my Tribal PNG coffee table book and the series of fine art prints for the associated exhibition. This month, in keeping with my priority to develop three new passive income streams,  I’ve spent time conceiving a new souvenir book template which we’ll now apply to several destinations I’ve photographed.

Papua New Guinea being one of my strongest libraries, is the first cab off the rank.

The new, hard cover book will be larger than our earlier souvenir publications – more prestigious in design I’d like to think, created in a square format with single, stronger images on each page, illustrated maps to show where each photograph has been captured and extended captions to tell the story.  As we did last year, we’ll print a full mock-up of the book through Momento and I’ll use it to secure orders before printing at least 3,000 copies off-shore (hard not to when it’s one third the cost of printing it here). We’re working through stock options at the moment, expecting to add a few “bells and whistles” to the cover (embossing, gold foiling, maybe even spot celo-glaze to the pictures) to lift the design before it heads for  the presses). Distribution, again, is likely to be our biggest challenge, though we’ll approach it differently this year and look to secure business partners in each of the countries to build a solid souvenir range.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the first book in the series. Using the same template, the other two books (different destinations) should role off the production line over the next six months.

Otherwise, back to work in a week, with eight assignments ready to go.  Looking forward to heading off again.