I've seen it all now. You got to pay for pics of the Mosconi Cup.
Anyone have feelings about this?
Before writing anything, let me introduce myself : I'm the author of the book you mentioned.
I've been shooting pool pictures since 1997 as a hobby, and since 2004 as a professional. Professional means that I invest in my own gear, and spend the time making all the necessary things to create the pictures : traveling, preparing the gear, shooting and editing the pictures, and sorting hundreds of them during a tournament.
This is not my main income as this industry is a very small one and it's simply impossible to make a living out of pool pictures. But as I'm a freelance graphic artist/photographer, I have the time and gear needed to shoot professional pool pics.
The purpose of making this book was for me to see if outside of our industry, people would buy such a book, solely based on the appeal that "pool" and "usa/europe" would create.
This digital version of the book took me three days to create. I had to learn the software (iBooks author), and convert a book that I had made last year (hardcopy) that took two weeks (about 5/7 full days) to create.
Now you can add the 5 days of work during shooting and another 2 days of editing. That's in total somewhere between 12 and 14 days of work. Some are paid by the promoter of the event, some are on me.
Would you ever ask the same question if it had been the work of 20 SI photographers and two editors ? probably not, because you don't question big businesses and companies the same way as smaller sports.
And just to let you know, I earned 70% of the tax-free price, which is just below 4 dollars per book.
I could have put the book at 20 dollars like most photography books, but I figured that was too much of a gamble. I wanted this to be as low as possible so people would buy it without having issues with the financial aspect.
Now, I can tell you I not only have the (very low) numbers but I also have a sense for the market there is for this kind of stuff. It is nonexistent.
What can I say ? I learned my lesson and people only want to pay when it's for a football or tennis yearly book.
People want free stuff. Thanks Google for making everything available and help destroy all creative businesses
... And to all the people who are *****ing about Apple, I'm just saying : between a 6 dollars ibook and a free PDF on Android, I was just trying to get a (little bit) money to finance my labour. My intention was never to hammer people with a 20 dollars thing. But I'm also not able to work for days unpaid.
I hope this can explain some of the reasons why I tried to get pool out there, on the biggest digital book market there currently is.
Don't search for a 2012 version of the book, I have other things to do than waste next week working on it. Go to Google.
In the meantime I'll call Nikon to see if they can replace my 3-year old camera for free.
