"When somebody comes to me with their great idea for a photo-book, I try to tell them two things. One is that any photography book, if it is even moderately well reproduced, will cost at the very least three or four times more to print than an equivalent book that is text-only. And print costs account for only one-tenth to one fifth of the sales price. Yet the market for most books of this sort is really tiny. If you can sell 2000 copies, that is considered good business. The second thing I tell them is that most of the photo-books that are now seen by the collectors market as really valuable were not a commercial success when they were first published. Most were remaindered. They then usually decide that perhaps this is not the fast route to fame and fortune they had thought it was."
--Anonymous photography book publisher

The British-born photographer Michael Kenna, well-known for his highly graphic landscape and architectural images, uses the limited edition book as one of many routes to getting his pictures to their audience. "It is very expensive to produce beautiful books in large quantities! Publishers have to charge more, and there is a limited demand for those books. I make limited edition original prints, in the darkroom. They are limited primarily because of the amount of time it takes to make each finished print. Limited edition books cover certain areas that other media might not reach. They have been, and hopefully will continue to be, a very valuable source of exposure for specific bodies of work."

The term "limited edition" suggests exclusivity and access to the world of the collector for the buyer, and a justification of higher prices and artistic kudos for publisher and photographer. In practice it covers a variety of things, from a numbered and signed short-run edition, to a work offered only to subscribers who commit in advance to the purchase, and printed in very small quantities, to a hand-made portfolio edition comprising perhaps hand-pulled gravure and letterpress pages presented with a signed and editioned print.

Although usually the province of small and specialist presses such as Lodima Press, Nazraeli Press and 21st Editions, some very large publishers such as Taschen have entered the limited-edition domain - though with books that may be rather gimmicky in concept such as Helmut Newton's Sumo: a massive book in every respect. Coming in at 50 x 70 cm (20 x 27.5 inches) and weighing approx. 30 kg (66 lb.), the book contained 480 pages, which Taschen claimed breaks any previous record. This was hardly, though a really limited edition - 10,000 signed and numbered copies were produced and it even came with its own table legs, at $10,000. 

This trend for publishers issuing books in limited, numbered editions comes on the rising market for two commodities. The first is  iconic photo-books, the classic works of great and even some lesser known names in photography. Even little-known publications are now quoted at stellar prices: a signed copy of Martin Parr's Bad Weather (1982), an indifferently printed cheap little work in soft covers, is currently offered by Harpers Books at a startling $750 for a signed copy. Inscribed copies of Cartier-Bresson's (1952) Decisive Moment/Images à la sauvette and (1955) Les Européens now command prices in the £5000/$10,000 bracket. Crucially none of these were initially considered to be "limited editions" - but have become rare and highly sought.

The second big trend of recent years has been the art market's fervor for photography. There is a seemingly ever-expanding market for vintage and contemporary photography alike. The record is held by a Thomas Gursky picture of a 99cent store, sold in 2007 for a cool $3.5million. This market has another dimension to it: for photographers now make 'artists books' - short-run hand made books in editions of 10 or 15 for purchase by museums and collectors, that typically sell for upwards of $2000 per copy.



If you put the two things together - a clear demand from collectors for photo books that are considered iconic, and a thriving market for photographic prints by recognized or even up-and-coming photographers, the conclusion is that if you can get the formula right, a well-produced book sold in small numbers but with a print or set of prints thrown in, can be an attractive option to both publisher and photographer alike. As Sumo showed, even big names like Taschen have dipped their toes in this market. But to offer a "limited edition" is a sensible strategy for a smaller press that can get a reasonable return on investment on a high price, low print-run volume.

Photographer Michael Kenna's first steps in this direction were taken with Arion Press in San Francisco on a limited edition Hound of the Baskervilles in 1985. They also published his Le Desert de Retz in 1990 and The Silverado Squatters in 1996. Subsequently the majority of his books have been made with Nazraeli Press, a publisher that has a long tradition in making such books, where a limited edition of his Hokkaido retails for $1000. But Kenna's lovely series on the French island of Mont St. Michel, has recently appeared in the form of a portfolio/book, published by 21st Editions, in an edition of 60 numbered copies with 14 bound, plus 1 fully signed and free-standing, platinum prints. Typically such a "collectors-edition" book (and 21st Editions list of titles includes such names as Sally Mann, Joel-Peter Witkin and Flor Garduno whose work sells well in galleries) is illustrated with original platinum prints, silver gelatin photographs, or hand-pulled photogravures. The prices reflect such exclusivity, and the hand-made nature of the work.

It is odd that sub-prime and credit crunch fears do not seem to be have had much effect on this market so far, hence perhaps a clear trend for publishers and photographers (who are sometimes the same person, as in the case of Lodima Press proprietors and landscape photographers Michael A. Smith and Paula Chamlee) to produce their work as both limited books and as editions of photographic prints. Indeed Michael A. Smith is one of the leading exponents of panoramic and mammoth-plate photography, with his work being produced on 8x20 and 20x24 Deardorffs.

"I got into this business in 1981 because I wanted to produce a book for a retrospective exhibition of my work, and I couldn't get a publisher to do the book in time. I think Ansel Adams had shown that the model of a book plus a limited edition print could work well, when his "Yosemite and the Range of Light", was sold with one of his Hasselblad images from the book, (actually a fairly ordinary picture). Despite this, it sold-out very quickly."

"I produced a two-volume slip-cased book, with tipped-in letterpress prints in a signed and numbered edition, which was financed by pre-selling a print from the book along with it. I'd figured that there was a problem with the Ansel Adams model - what if the potential buyers don't like the image of the single print that is offered? - so I gave them the option of choosing between five of my 8x20inch prints. It worked very well. And the book, Michael A. Smith: Landscapes 1975-1979, won le Grand prix du Livre at the Rencontres Internationale de la Photographie at Arles in July 1981."

Lodima Press, based in Revere PA, publish work in small editions largely using the subscription approach by which the books are in effect pre-sold and thus the edition size can be readily calculated on the basis of demand, and which ensures that they can finance the high costs of the remarkable quality of the reproductions in their books. Some are sold with prints, others as fine, limited run editions, with prices ranging from a most reasonable $135 for the hardbound edition, and going down to an amazing $29.95 for series subscribers on the softbound version - of which only 1000 are printed.

The Portfolio series are thus beautiful, but affordable photography books of previously unpublished work by leading and emerging contemporary photographers. These include Paul Caponigro, Marilyn Bridges, Nicholas Nixon and Robert Adams. They are printed to very high standards. Each book in Lodima's Portfolio series contains from 10 to 18 photographs and includes a statement by the photographer. Although modest in terms of size and number of illustrations, these books look like amazingly good value as potential collectors items, especially considering the range of photographers who are involved.

Another series by the Lodima Press aims at a slightly different market and is a complete set of the 16 Portfolios of Brett Weston, originally produced between 1939 and 1980 as print portfolios of original photographs. Weston believed passionately in the power of his original prints and chose the portfolio as the way to reach an expanded audience while still maintaining control over image quality. Nowadays the original portfolios are rare, expensive, and relatively inaccessible in museums, archives, libraries, or private collections. Many of the photographs in these new books have never before been reproduced, and in Lodima Press's edition the photographs in the complete series have been reproduced actual size in many cases to match Weston's original portfolios. The Hardbound Edition is published in an edition of only 250 numbered copies, only to subscribers to the entire series and sells for $135.

As Michael A. Smith, concludes, "we are aiming to put something back into the world of photography with our books, and hopefully break even in the process."