Seller Of The Week: Andrew S. Gibson - Entrepreneurial e-Publisher

Andrew is a passionate photographer and writer, currently based out of New Zealand. ?He is also a regular author on many photography related magazines and more specifically on Craft and Vision, a community of photographers, which was founded by David duChemin . He is also the technical editor for EOS magazine which as the name suggests is a magazine dedicated to the users of Canon's EOS range of cameras. He is also an eBook author and has published 6 of these so far.

All 6 are available on Craft and Vision and he sells 3 of these on his website.?Andrew has already sold more that 1300 copies of his eBooks and he was good enough to take some time out of his busy schedule and talk to us about his passion for photography, writing and particularly his eBooks. He also shares his experience about self publishing and his experiences as an online seller. Read on to catch Andrew's responses:

Andrew please introduce yourself to our readers.

My pleasure. I'm a freelance writer and photographer, currently based in New Zealand. I make a living writing about the technical and creative sides of photography.

How did you get started with photography/writing as a full time profession?

My writing career began properly when I got a job as a technical writer with EOS magazine (www.eos-magazine.com). It was kind of like an apprenticeship for me. I'd actually decided to become a writer a year or so before that, and had several articles published in photography magazines during that time. But the job was the first moment I was able to say "I'm a full-time writer".

I've been interested in photography ever since I received my first SLR as a christmas present in 1990 (a Ricoh KR-10m ? anyone remember those?) Writing about photography is a nice way to merge my two creative interests.

What style of photography are you into? From where do you draw your inspiration for your photographs?

I describe my work as fine-art photography. I'm quite selective about the subjects I photograph and prefer to take a deliberate, thoughtful approach to image-making. I'm not the type of person who carries a camera around all the time 'in case' they see a good image. When I'm taking photos it's all or nothing for me ? I'm totally concentrated in the moment on making beautiful images.

My inspiration comes from many sources, but at the moment my favourite photographers are Bruce Percy and Cole Thompson (http://www.brucepercy.co.uk/ and http://www.photographyblackwhite.com/).

Please tell us briefly about your writing and also specifically about your eBooks.

I write articles for photography magazines and websites, and eBooks. So far I've written six eBooks for Craft & Vision (www.craftandvision.com) and three that I sell on my own website (www.andrewsgibson.com).

The first eBook that I sold from my website was called 'Square' and is about the square format in digital photography. I learnt a lot from writing and designing that eBook and bringing it to market. I made two crucial mistakes that have helped the next two eBooks do better.

The first was pricing the eBook too low. I priced it at $US5, with a $1 discount to encourage orders in the first few days. In hindsight that was too low. Most of the sales came from affiliate reviews (affilates get a 30% cut of sales originating from their websites) and by the time you take away the Paypal fees that left a little over $2 profit per book. That's fine if you have high volume sales but that's not a realistic aim with the first eBook unless you have a blog with lots of readers or an email newsletter you can use to publicise the eBook.

The second was pricing the eBook in US dollars. My Paypal account is in pounds sterling, and it meant that I was paying to convert the money from dollars to pounds. It makes more sense to use pounds. It also means that it doesn't matter if the dollar loses value in the future.

The next two eBooks are called 'Understanding DPP' and 'Understanding Exposure'. They are specifically written for owners of Canon EOS cameras. The advantage of this is twofold. First, I can go into real depth and explain to EOS users how the controls on their cameras work. If I was writing for all photographers, I could only speak about this in more general terms.

Second, EOS magazine publicise the eBooks in their email newsletter and website. The traffic from that has been invaluable in building up an audience. In many ways the eBooks are aimed at the readers of EOS magazine ? a ready made target audience.

Do you think the advent of ecommerce has thrown open the floodgates for creative people? Share your eCommerce or online selling experience with our readers.

Yes I do. After working for EOS magazine I've experienced the publishing industry from two sides. EOS magazine is a high quality photography magazine with professionally researched, written and edited articles. It's also professionally designed. It's important for any-one who wishes to self-publish that they meet the same high standards of writing and editing. This means it's not as easy to self-publish as you might think. Anyone with a website can do it (thanks to the E-Junkie software) but the people that create the highest quality products are the ones who are thriving. That's the key to success of Craft & Vision and something that I'm trying to do with my own products.

In many ways publishing my second eBook, 'Understanding DPP', was one of the best things that I ever did. It made me realise that I am in control of my destiny as a writer. One of the downsides of freelancing is that you need clients to survive and build a successful business. Now I have my own client ? me, and by extension, the readers of my eBooks. I've created my own job, and that's a good feeling.

Please tell us something about the equipment that you use. Could you please elaborate on both the hardware and the software.

I use Canon cameras and lenses to take photos, and a Macbook Pro to write and edit photos. I use Lightroom and Photoshop CS for photo editing and InDesign for designing eBooks. I also use E-Junkie as the ecommerce software on my website, and WordPress to create my site.

What other photographers/writers do you look up to and why?

The main one (apart from the two already mentioned) would be David duChemin, the creator of Craft & Vision. Not only has he helped get my started on this self-publishing adventure by publishing my eBooks on his website, he's also a fantastic inspiration. He takes beautiful photos and has built a business based on photography, writing and teaching that should be an inspiration to anyone working in the industry.

Another photographer I admire for the beauty of his images and the amount of travelling he does is Mitchell Kanashkevich (http://www.mitchellkphotos.com). His work is beautiful ? he also writes some excellent eBooks.

Another writer whose workrate and success really impresses me is Darren Rowse, the creator of the Digital Photography School and Problogger websites. Not only does he do a phenomenal amount of quality writing each week for these websites, but he also produces high quality eBooks. Another great example to learn from.

If you could peek inside the studio/toolbox of any designer/artist/craftsperson, whose would it be and why?

Hmmm...a difficult question. I'm not really that curious about the way other people work. Although it would be interesting to sit down with a skilled graphic designer and watch them put a magazine or eBook together, and have them explain their thought processes. That would be really cool.

What are your future plans as a photographer? Are you working on any cool new projects currently?

At the moment I'm working on more eBooks for Craft & Vision and for my website. I'm planning to release a new EOS related eBook every three months on my website.

What top advice would you like to give to budding photographers/writers who want to make it big in the online world??

Build a following by creating an interesting blog that people want to read. You should also build an email newsletter list ? a good enticement is a free eBook that readers can only obtain by signing up for your newsletter. That's worked well for me. The standard of both website and free eBook need to be high as this is your shop window. You can sign up for the newsletter on my website to see how this works! You'll receive a complementary copy of 'The Creative Image' when you do so.




Thank you Andrew for taking the time for this interview, we wish you the very best for the future.

You can find out more about Andrew at:

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