Not so fast, dear Author. Even if it is hard to believe, some things cannot be done in a hurry if we want them well done, for example: pregnancy, sleeping, reading… editing and publishing are also among them. Turning a project into a physical object is a shared adventure that requires a slow process of good communication, mutual comprehension and making decisions by consensus. Every person that creates images is lost in their own story, that is the reason why they look for their own shelter, a place where they can be understood. That is the most important task of the Editor: to build up a bridge and mediate between the Author and their potential Buyer.

The starting point

The basic requirements for a first meeting between Author and Editor are mainly three:

1. The set of images is complete and there is a project idea.
2. The set of images is complete but there is not a project idea.
3. The set of images is not complete.

I believe an Editor should accept the offer if the first requirement is met, even if the second requirement looks nearly as good by giving the Editor the chance to nearly become the Author. If there is something for sure is that the third case is just a waste of time.

If we leave our ego and our wallets behind, the choice is clear: we will only work with books that have well developed projects that the authors had spent a considerable amount of time planning. As it is expected, usually the Author thinks that they are already on the first requirement, but the Editor believes otherwise. Its our job to tell the truth, and concerning time management, we should always answer with one of these three options:

1. Let’s go, we will be finished in nine months.
2. Make a few improvements and we will talk in nine months.*
Keep working on it and we will talk in nine months.*

* Use it as much as you need.

The first months

In the best of cases the Editor likes the project and the Author feels that the book might be somewhat succesful in the future. What is the next step? Why would they need, at least nine months? For starters, it is because the Author and the Editor are going to meet several times. There’s no hiding from an intense meeting each three or four weeks, though. It will be a constant fight that in the end, will do more for the book project than an Editor who thinks they know best, or an overly excited Author. They will have no choice but to work together, and still, they will feel as if they ad to give up some of their ideas. The moment they find their balance they will be able to move towards the next step: the Designer.

In three months the images will be already selected. The Editor and Author will have created as well a sequence and order for the pictures and will have put limits to their work: a determined size, a format, and number of pages that are appropiate for that project without changing it completely. Threesomes have never been easy, but that third party will help to dissipate doubts, take a stance and solve any lasting issues.

Three months later and they have been together for half a year. After the layout and formatting, the images selected may have been modified. The sequence may also have suffered some modificiations to highlight the book’s narrative.Nevertheless this is the result of an agreement and the changes had been accepted by all parties. They start developing a prototype and nobody’s feelings get hurt.

In the publishing world, printing sheets are the equivalent of a letter to Santa Claus. A file in which the Designer, with the understandable enthusiasm of the Author and the not-so-excited Editor, asks for eight kinds of ink, two classes of varnishes, the most beautiful paper in the entire universe and a binding cloth made from the finest silks beyond the mountains and the sea. And of course, this is never cheap, and the only one to blame is the Publisher. They and the Editor may be one and the same, or maybe not; if they are, the only one who can put an end to the conflict is the future buyer of the book. If they are not, and they are a new character in this drama, they will surely stand by the Editor’s side.

Printing problems

Time passes and we are reached the seventh month, it is about time they realise that the outline of the book is not the final copy, and cannot be treated as such. Publishing is to make something public, to create a media object whose fate is to be sold, something that has to work without the Author’s present, and whose story must make the buyer feel some something. Therefore, it is not made to collect dust on a warehouse, or to be accesible to only an exclusive few, in fact, it should be reprinted over and over again, as long as they have the money to it and there are still Buyers interested.

On the eight month it is time to do some math: everyone likes the object-prototype but its manufacturing costs are way too high to make the project-book economically viable. The budget is difficult to negotiate thanks to the undetermined mathematical skills of the printing house and to the difficulty of giving up something that is close enough to reach. Author, Editor, Designer and Publisher must come to terms with the fact that they are going to release a producto that operates under the basic rules of capitalism: there are only two ways of making money, either by margin, or either by volume. Once we take off the volumen of the equation, since there is barely any photobook Buyer, we should not cross the line with the margins.

Sometimes, some of the agents involved in the matter may act like there is no relation between the manufacturing cost and its retail price. They may say they want what’s best for the project: to catch their attention during production with an expensive book, and sell it for a lower price, even if that is suicide. Is at that point of production where several anomalies that make the photobook market difficult to understand begin to appear: authors that pay for publishing their own books, even when working with publishing companies; high priced productions that confuse prices; speculation due to supposed premature sold-outs; some Distributors and Sellers whose sell offs look shady and pay late or rarely the few sells they make… So, basically, it is the Wild West.

A scene that makes a lot first books from authors and publishing houses, some second editions, and very few third and fourth editions. The lifespan of this sector is very short and there is a high rate of mortality, but that’s a story for another time…

Shall we or shall we not?

Let’s not drift away now. Ninth month. The budget has finally been accepted. The industrial process is closely supervised. Mistakes are corrected thanks to the application of trustworthy control mechanism, and quality protectors spawn from every corner. Thank God. The result may not be perfect, but at least is something. Author, Editor, Designer and Publisher have managed to create an object that transmits in the best possible way an interesting project at a reasonable price that is just waiting to be bought. Die is cast. Habemus book.

My bad

Is it possible to do all of this in less than nine months? How can we stop things from going wrong if there’s no time to react or even think? Is true that there are masterpieces that have been done without time, money or even a team, but there are also tons of photobooks that would have been better if the Author had lasted a bit more, had put a little more effort into its development, had looked for help, had managed better their resources and had really thought about the Buyer’s interests.

This time Iam not going to fall in the topic of seeing the speck in my neighbour’s eye, I seize this opportunity to admit that there has been times where I have not followed my advises: I have entered projects that didn’t have enough time and fearing the worst, I’ll admit i believed that I could save projects that I didn not have much faith into, I’ve accepted my defeats before the dangerous mix of Author and Designer, I confess I have done projects without certain agents either because of the price or the rush I was in, I acknowledge that sometimes a book I was working in turned out to be too expensive or too incomprehensible (or even both) and, specially, I regret letting enthusiasm take over me and having taken part in trivializing the importance and complexity taskssuch as editing and publishing have.

I wrote this article as a reminder of my mistakes, to keep making books, and to stop the “crash” that comes after the “boom”.

How to cite:
VALBUENA, Juan, “If people always say time is the best editor, why won’t we let it do its job?”, LUR, 25^th Novembre of 2019,  https://e-lur.net/investigacion/if-people-always-say-time-is-the-best-editor-why-wont-we-let-it-do-its-job

Juan Valbuena (Madrid, Spain, 1973) is a photographer and founder of NOPHOTO agency, the director of the publishing house PHREE and a teacher in the International Master Degree of Contemporary Photography at EFTI. His projects mix other disciplines like editing, filming and literature and are related to travelling, territory and memories. These days his interests lay in telling stories about the connection between human beings and photography and in exploring the narrative limits of the documentary genre.

Translation by Núria Durán Romero