📖 Self Publish, Be Happy

An economic and cultural revolution has shaken the photobook world in the last five years: self-publishing. Operating as their own publishers, a generation of photographers have had an instrumental role in today's photobook renaissance. Self Publish, Be Happy offers a do it yourself manual and a survey of key examples of self-published success stories, as well as a self-publishing manifesto and bookmaking tips from the photobook community. The manual portion of this volume offers insight, advice and rudimentary how tos for the photographer interested in self-publishing. The survey offers an overview of the contemporary self-publishing landscape; each case study illustrates a particular theme and genre of self-publishing (such as diary, documentary or conceptual object), and is accompanied by a personal testimony from the artist. Author Bruno Ceschel issues a rallying cry for all those involved in the contemporary photobook revolution, urging photographers to take control of a moment in which the photobook, in all it's manifestations, has never before been so omnipresent in our cultural landscape, nor so critical to the photographer's practice. Bruno Ceschel is the founder of Self Publish, Be Happy, an organization and website that has been promoting, studying and collecting self-published photobooks since it's founding in 2010. Self Publish, Be Happy runs workshops and live events as well as online projects, and it's collection, based in London, contains more than 2,000 publications.