WHAT DO YOU DO?
We publish what we consider to be the middle ground between an inexpensive zine and a high-cost offset publication. What we produce are short run, digitally printed books - which tend to centre around photography-based projects. We work within our means (and yours) to find creative solutions to make our publications shine, without the need to apply for large grants or seek external funding. We design and edit publications, select the right materials for the project and manage the publishing process from start to finish.
DO WE BELONG TOGETHER?
Like any good relationship the best place to start is with open and honest communication.
We wanted to put out our personal projects in book form, so we started our own company to do so. We largely publish in-house or selected projects, but we're also open to working with others. Here are some good questions to ask when thinking of making a book, and working with us:
What do you want your publication to achieve? Who is the audience you're trying to connect with? Are you telling a new visual story? Why is a book the best medium for what you want to say? What is your deadline for publication?
If you want something out soon that you can hand out yourself or print on demand we suggest www.newspaperclub.com or www.parabo.press - both of which have easy to use software to layout your own book.
If you want a high end, offset printed, fabric cover, classic photo book, we suggest www.kopa.eu
With a low-run publication schedule, Better Days is ideal for people who have something unique to communicate to their local community, more in line with the mode of an artist book, or for those seeking to produce a high quality book dummy to send to larger publishing houses with the aim of getting the release produced in a larger run.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE A BOOK?
Here at Better Days we all have full-time jobs to support our love of book making. We also have a small number of printers that have the capacity to work with what is essentially not a very profitable job for them, as we try to keep print costs low and (politely) ask for a lot of attention to detail.
This means a book will generally take around six months to produce from initial concept to production, and are scheduled about 18 months in advance.
CAN YOU PUBLISH MY WORK?
After you have read 'do we belong together' and 'how long does it take to make a book' and figured out if we are the right fit - we invite you to get together a sample of your work plus a written overview of the themes the project is unpacking, and send them over to us via our Instagram page, @betterdaysbookclub
With limited time and resources, we mostly adopt a "don't call us, we'll call you" method to selecting work. Not because we're elitist jerks, but because realistically we can only work on around three books a year, and any spare time we have goes towards our own practices. If we can't publish your project, we are always happy to give you advice on where might best suit to print your project, and share contacts of our preferred printing houses.
For a small fee, we can also offer one-hour feedback sessions on your project, to help start sequencing your work, and provide advice on where you may like to develop your publishing project.
WHY DO YOU ONLY SELL ONLINE?
Because we try and keep our end price as low as possible for the tasteful book-buyer we don't produce books at a cost low enough to wholesale to bookshops. We try and work with friends and book fairs to make them available IRL when the project suits.