Coming Up: Call for Work

N.b.: This is not a call for work! Thank you, but do not send anything yet!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Very important!

This is, rather, advance warning that I will be making a call for work in the near future, for our first book.

(You can tell from the above that I know some people are going to ignore my pleas.)

My publishing company still doesn't have a name. I'm heartbroken that I can't name it "Bayard Books," after Hippolyte Bayard. Hippolyte Bayard was an independent inventor of photography who was beaten to the punch by Daguerre and Talbot and never got credit for his researches. He later made a satirical self-portrait of himself as a drowned corpse, implying that he was driven to suicide by his undeserved oblivion and the treachery of those who wronged him.

Unfortunately, there's already a publisher called "Bayard Canada Livres" which I'm sure would object.

However, we now do have a printer (in the good ol' USA), a fulfillment house, sufficient capital (made possible in part by people who subscribe! Thank you!), and a production management team. We soon might even have a schedule, which, according to the TV shrink Dr. Phil, is the surest sign that a dream is turning into a plan.

Anyway, our first project—which I'm thinking of as a sort of test bed or trial balloon—will be a collection of photographs by different photographers, and we will be looking for submissions of quiet color art photographs. Among my "touchstones" for the kind of pictures I'm looking for are these two pictures from our long-ago Reader Contest:

Photo by Leigh Perry

Photo by Bill Hanson.

They're both "straight" pictures despite their ambiguity: Leigh's, of the floor and wall of a parking garage, with "found" marks that happen to echo each other; and Bill's, of an abandoned storefront through its front window.

Note that I'm not looking for pictures just like these two, but rather for pictures that look like they might go with these two. The only real requirement is that the pictures should have rather muted color. I have so far picked only six pictures, and the book will have 30 reproductions, so there are slots yet to fill.

Again, do not send anything yet. I am not set up to handle submissions yet.

You'll be able to suggest your own work, or the work of others—either way. We'll make the call for work some time after the end of the upcoming print sale, and well before October 1st, when we have another big announcement planned.

Just wanted to give you some advance notice so you can be mulling it over.

(Oh, and if you happen to be Leigh Perry or Bill Hanson, I'll be trying to get in touch....)

Mike

P.S. Please just be thinking about pictures you might want to nominate. Don't send anything or contact me about this yet. (I hope I've said that enough times.)

P.P.S. This publishing venture, quixotic as it might yet turn out to be, is very exciting. I'm really psyched about the possibilities and I often find my mind racing with ideas for future projects. I know not everyone is interested in reading about this stuff very often, so I'll try to keep updates to a minimum, but there's a lot going on behind the scenes here at TOP these days and it's really got me goin'. This is going to be a whole lot of what I call fun.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Comments

[Andrew Molitor]

If you're unwilling to clutter up ToP with updates, but are bursting with the desire to generate updates, consider an alternate channel! Some of us are bursting with the desire to hear updates! Maybe a twitter account dedicated to the publishing house?

[expiring_frog]

Love the Bill Hanson photo.

[Bryce Lee]

Quick Nurse! The Screens!

We don't want to expose the ublisher to too
many outside influences, or do we?

[Christopher Lane]

No, no! Please no twitter. My facebook account got hacked after just a couple of months. No "social media" for me. Are contributors from the distant past barred from participating?

[Joe Dasbach]

What about HBayard Books? or Hippolyard Books — but its pronunciation would likely get mangled.

[Stan B.]

Quiet color, straight and ambiguous- got it! Kinda like like mutually palatble politics.

Piece o' cake!

PS- All shttin' aside, get the (near) equals of the two above, and it'll be one helluva book...

[toto]

What?! No hyper-saturated and super-sharp images? The book will never sell, I'm telling ya.

(S.A.)

[Rowan Lamb]

But Mike, you didn't tell me how to send you the 3-400 pictures of mine that you should see!!!!

I kid, I kid ;)

Good luck with this. I too am very excited, and would read as many updates as you care to write.

[Jim Simmons]

When you open the submissions floodgate, please specify reproduction size, as that might effect our choices.

[Manuel]

Why not calling it "Hippolyte Books", then?
Whatever the name, good luck with your venture!

[Hans Muus]

Great idea, looking forward to joining in! If I may, one request: would you please allow participants to submit a maximum of three pictures? Each one of us is no doubt a good judge of our own work at a wider level (rejects will be rejects and portfolio quality will be portfolio quality in almost everyone's book), but often not at a micro level. I think you may miss a lot of reallly good pictures, well suited to the atmosphere of the total collection only you have in mind, when we are allowed to self-select only one. And you being an excellent, experienced judge (see Ctein's one-before-last sale, when he gladly left the final choice to you), I actually don't think it will take you a lot more time. But IMHO it will quite likely increase the overall quality of the book.

[pedro-rafael]

Yes. Please. No "twiter", no "facebook", no "socialmedia" and etc. Thanks a lot...Please!!!

[david]

Mike,
Your publishing company could be named after that ol' Cole Porter tune: "You're the Top Publishing" - You're the top! You're Mahatma Gandhi. You're the top! You're Napoleon Brandy. . . It's a little cheesy, I know, but it's positive!

[Martin Doonan]

Wow. Colour the way it used to be! I took a shot just last weekend right in that line, too.

[GaryB]

It would be interesting to know how many submissions you still receive despite your emphatic requests not to do so.

[Andrea B.]

Marque Bayard
Chateau Bayard
Hippolyte & Fils, Fine Books

Just put book publishing updates in a Sidebar? It would satisfy our curiosity and keep it out of the main area.

[Ed]

How do you plan to deal with analog submissions? Preview scan or print for submission then a real drum scan for repro?

[I'll have to deal with that when I deal with it, which I haven't yet. --Mike]

[Sarge]

Michael JohnsTon Publishing Unlimited

(The uppercase T is for TOP. Alternatively, there can be a *star* in there somewhere, like Zeiss' or Pentaxes'.)

[Dony]

Mike, how about naming it TOP Bayard Books or Hip Bayard Books or Bayard TOP Books?

[Bruno Masset]

Mike Johnston wrote:
> My publishing company still doesn't have a name.
> [..]
> This publishing venture, quixotic as it might yet turn out to be [..]

"Quijano Books" might be a possibility, then ;-)