Frequently Asked Questions

About Us & Publishing Proposal

Snap Collective is an innovative and unconventional publishing concept, founded by Dr. Philipp W. Müller, specifically designed to help to bring to life portfolios of international photographers and artists. The idea behind Snap Collective is to give artists a possibility to publish a photo book or a portfolio of their work without enormous efforts, offering a streamlined platform with some of the best printing and distribution partners, support of a design team and more.

We are a diligent, creative and motivated team that will respect the artist’s vision and will ensure an efficient, high-quality publication. Every service we offer will start with a conversation.

We work with the Print-on-Demand technology, which means there is no financial risk involved and that allows artists to print books as they’re ordered. From us the artist receives a substantial discount on all the purchases.

For each book project we first create a book cover and together with the artist launch a pre-order campaign to determine if the book has a potential.

You don’t need to invest anything – just your time.

From our side we provide free of charge book publication and distribution – basically we help you to create the product with no investment from your part. More than that – you will get free copies if the pre-order campaign is successful.

From your side however you would need to collaborate with us to create a pre-order campaign and promote your book via social media channels in the form of videos, posts and/or texts.

You as an artist know your target audience the most and have direct connection and contact to them. After all, every book is not only a piece of art but also a commercial project and we are working together with our artists to make it successful.

💡For our part – we create the product, publish and distribute it. From your part it would be the promotion and marketing for your book. This is a collaboration.

We do not want to take money from our artists as we sincerely believe that we do not need to. We are happy to publish and market a large number of high-quality works and we would like to keep it that way by applying this business model.

Book publication process with us is easy, fast and straight forward. We have our own online platform where you can upload all photos and other information needed for the publication (e.g. book title, format, text etc.).

For each book project we first create a book cover and together with artist launch a pre-order campaign to determine if the book has a potential. The artist will get automatic email notifications about every single book order during the campaign. If minimum of 25 book orders have been placed, campaign was successful and we move forward with the book design. In just a few days you will get a design proposal for your book and if you are satisfied with the result we can finish the book. After, your book will be published with an ISBN number and available worldwide.

Also, if you wish to order some printed copies of your book we can offer a significant discount up to 40%. Many artists require books for exhibitions or for reselling purposes but this is up to you – purchasing book copies is of course optional.

That depends on many factors. First, we start a two-week pre-order campaign with the book cover. As soon as this has been successfully completed, we move on to the creation of the book block – the decisive factor here is how quickly you, as the artist, have uploaded all works to be published to us. Furthermore, the time we need together to agree on the final book content is crucial. From the moment you have approved the final print version, the printing process begins. Please note, however, that our book production has to meet high standards and involves a number of manual activities, so that simply aiming for the best possible book in the end may lead to further delays. Best quality simply takes time. Your patience will be more than rewarded.

 

It depends on how many book copies have been sold during the pre-order campaign and how many free copies artists get in addition or if artists require more printed copies themselves. If the campaign was successful minimum amount is around 30 book copies.

Pre-Order

For each book project we first create a book cover and together with the artist launch a pre-order campaign to determine if the book has a potential. If a minimum of 25 book orders have been placed, the campaign is considered to be successful and we move forward with the book design.

During the Pre-Order Campaign, the book can be ordered for 2 weeks for 79 EUR. After that, the price will change to 89 EUR.

You as an artist will get automatic email notifications about every single book order during the pre-order campaign.

If your book project reached at least 25 orders during the pre-order campaign you will receive free copies – as more books have been sold as more free copies you will receive.

Royalty:  You will receive a share of the sales success of your art book in the form of complimentary copies as follows:

25 books sold – 4 free copies

35 books sold – 8 free copies

50 books sold – 25 free copies

100 books sold – 50 free copies

200 books sold – 100 free copies OR 50 free copies + 750 EUR

300 books sold – 150 free copies OR 100 free copies + 750 EUR OR 50 free copies + 1500 EUR

400 books sold – 200 free copies OR 150 free copies + 750 EUR OR 100 free copies + 1500 EUR OR 50 free copies + 2250 EUR

If a minimum of 25 book orders have been placed, the campaign is considered to be successful and we move forward with the book design.

You as an artist will get automatic email notifications about every single book order during the pre-order campaign.

Pre-order campaign lasts 14 days.

If not enough books have been ordered during the pre- order campaign (below 25 orders), then we either stop the publication process or you can order the rest of the needed amount to be able to finish your book. It is very important that you are actively promoting your book during the campaign to your contacts, followers, friends etc.

Book Promotion

We mostly use our social media platforms and webpage to promote Snap Collective books. Main part of the marketing however is done by the artist himself as he knows his target audience the most and have direct connection to them. We expect that our artists have commercial thinking and are working together with us to market their book. As we offer free of charge publishing service there are no additional marketing campaigns or advertisement possible.

Artists don’t benefit from our marketing actions, they benefit from their own audience, followers.

Don’t worry. We prepared a list with recommendations what you can do to promote your book.

This is an automated process, and all sales are recorded. 

Distribution

Yes, you can use your social media account, official webpage or specially created link/page for the book purchase.

As soon as your book is published, it can be ordered on our online shop (shop.snap-collective.com) and shipped to any country in the world.

The Book

You can choose between A4 landscape and A4 portrait.

Our books have between 128 and 192 pages including text/blank pages. Normally to create a book you need around 100 to 180 photos.

How many photos are inside the book depends on the layout. You could do less than 100 photos if you chose to add double spread pages, add more text or blank spaces or you could add more than 200 photos if you chose to put several photos in one page. It’s up to you and the book design.

We have publisher agents worldwide (e.g. in Paris, Düsseldorf, Warsaw, USA, Chisinau, Riga, Tbilisi, Berlin, London, Budapest) and if you live nearby it is possible to arrange a meeting with one of our publisher representatives to see our books and check the quality.

Our book price is  89 Euro and book pages range from 128 to 192 pages.

Various factors contribute to the price level of our books. First, all books published by our publishing house are printed on demand – digital printing of a single book is more expensive than offset printing of a large print run and the hardcover of the book is handmade. Secondly, we offer our publishing services completely free-of-charge for our artists. To ensure this, we must rely on the book’s price to cover the publishing costs. Free-of-charge services to artists can only be provided if we are able to cover the publishing costs and guarantee a certain profit.

Book Design

You can choose between A4 landscape and A4 portrait.

That’s wonderful! Then you may prepare the references and clear instructions on how you see your cover. Please, note that you may have 5 corrections.

Don’t worry. Our designers can offer you 2 variants of the cover which can help to choose the direction of the style design. Please, remember that there will be 5 corrections available.

Each book cover should fulfill certain legal requirements.

On the front cover following details should be included in the cover design:
– Title
– Author
– Logo of the publisher

On the back cover:
-ISBN (International Standard Book Number) which is a unique identifier for each book, this number will be provided by us.

Your work with the designer starts from the cover. Here you can make 5 corrections. When the cover is put on the Pre-Order Campaign and it is successful, then the designer starts to work with the core of the book. In this part of the process the artist has 40 corrections. You can change 10 pages 4 times or change 40 pages once and so on .

 Yes, you can work with your designer. Ask your publisher agent for more information about the design requirements.

Our designers are working with Photoshop and InDesign.

The weight of the paper is about 170g. We use premium matte paper.

There are limited options available as we have a free of charge publishing service and we want to keep this as a main part of our concept, yet we offer premium quality and format which in our experience is the best for both artists and readers.

Yes, we can create a text for your book if you send us some key words or guidelines.

Copyrights

No, we will not own your photo rights, you only give us printing rights.

Of course, you can republish your work elsewhere. This means that you always have the right to further publish parts or even your whole work with another publisher at any point in time with no restrictions.

Please contact all the people from your photographies you intend to use in the book and inform them about the upcoming book publication. It is enough to get a simple written email as approval that they have no objections.

You can also use this contact opportunity to ask if they would be interested to have a printed book copy of their own when the book is published, these people are potential buyers.

Sure, it’s standard in all our books. This information is placed in the page along with the information regarding publisher, ISBN etc.

Agreement

Modifications of our publishing agreement are not possible because a publication free of charge and the worldwide distribution of the title will not be possible otherwise. Just as any other company, our internationally operating publishing house has to work profit oriented.

You are welcome to compare our offer with those proposed by other publishing houses — we are sure that you will not be able to find a better one in terms of the conditions, benefits or convenient and easy publishing process that we offer.

We strongly believe that you won’t find a better option than the one we are providing. We offer free of charge publishing services which is a quite unique business model. Before you take a decision towards our offer, please consider not only the Terms and Conditions of those other publishers, but also the aesthetic qualities of their books and catalogs and also their book distributors.