Interview - Dewi Lewis HonFRPS

Interview by Mark A Phillips ARPS

Dewi Lewis Publishing is a partnership owned and run by Caroline Warhurst and Dewi Lewis. Founded in 1994, its photography list has an international reputation and has included books by leading British and international photographers such as Laia Abril, William Klein, Martin Parr, Simon Norfolk, Fay Godwin, Tom Wood, Sergio Larrain, Frank Horvat, John Blakemore, Paolo Pellegrin, Simon Roberts and Bruce Gilden. The aim of the company is to bring to the attention of a wider public, accessible but challenging contemporary photography by both established and lesser known practitioners. The company has a worldwide distribution network and is recognised as one of the leading photographic publishers in the world. It publishes around 20 new titles each year. Dewi Lewis Publishing also works in close collaboration with a number of European publishers and was a founding member of The European Publishers Award for Photography, which ran from 1994 to 2016. In 2014 Dewi Lewis Publishing received the PHotoESPAÑA prize for Outstanding Publishing House of the Year.

Dewi Lewis was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 2004 and in November 2009 he was awarded the inaugural Royal Photographic Society Award for Outstanding Services to Photography.

Dewi Lewis HonFRPS - photo Caroline Warhurst

When did you first get interested in photography? And in photobooks?

I became interested in photography relatively late on. My first interest was in theatre and music, and early jobs included working for the Edinburgh Fringe and setting up a performance based Arts Centre in North Manchester. But I became increasingly interested in the visual image side, partly through theatre and partly through music. By the 1970s both were starting to incorporate more visual elements, particularly with people like Bowie and others, and that sparked some interest. Caroline’s family were also an influence. Her father and her grandfather before him, were both press photographers at The Times. That introduced me to photojournalism. So I started to get more interested in photography. The move into photobooks started much later. In 1982 I had begun work on setting up an Arts Centre in Manchester, Cornerhouse, which focused solely on visual arts and film. We opened in 1985 with three cinemas and about 6000 square feet of gallery space over three floors. It was there that my interactions with photography grew. From discussions with photographers it struck me there was a real issue that photobooks were not being produced in the UK. That was the start.

What made you decide to start your own photobook publishing? Why do you see them as important?

My own publishing started later, but my involvement with publishing began at Cornerhouse where I was Director. Working with me were exhibitors and film programmers but whilst I was involved, I was no longer directly programming – something which I had always done previously. I began to explore the possibilities of publishing and in 1987 we decided to go ahead. It gave me an avenue for continuing to programme, whilst still running the organisation. We set up Cornerhouse Publications which I ran for the next 7 years until 1994.

At Cornerhouse, we brought back The Americans (Robert Frank) which had been out of print in the UK for an extremely long time and we worked with Martin Parr and Paul Graham. We also did the first Elliott Erwitt Dogs book in partnership with a Japanese publisher – a great project, but we didn’t sell it properly and so it failed commercially. The very first book I did at Cornerhouse was John Davies’ A Green and Pleasant Land. I continued as Director of Cornerhouse but increasingly felt that I wanted to focus solely on publishing.

How have photobooks evolved since you first started?

Massively. When we first started there were very few photobooks being produced. In the UK, apart from Cornerhouse, there was really only Thames and Hudson and Focal Press for more technical books, and in the USA, there was Aperture and some university presses. It was very hard for a photographer to get published. It was also expensive and technically difficult as repro costs were very high. It probably cost us more to produce a book then, than it does now, in real terms.

It wouldn’t be unusual for 1,500 copies of a book to cost £15,000 to £20,000 in the late 80s and early 90s. Interestingly, retail prices then were often around £25 to £30 – not so different from today. The key changes have been due to technology: items such as bindings have become more complex, and books are far more object based and multi-layered. Before, books were all about content, the images and the edit, and were presented in a straightforward way. Now different layers can be added to them.

Originally the need was to have work seen. That has now changed and there are far more opportunities to exhibit, more magazines, and of course the internet. There are other ways for people to see your images which weren’t available back then.

On the press with Dougie Wallace

It seems every photographer wants to publish; do you think this diminishes the medium?

It is problematic. I see a long term value in books. When I’ve given workshops over the years, one of the things I often say is that in 100 years’ time your great-grandchildren could ask to see your book in the British Library. Wouldn’t you want them to be proud of what you’d created? So, make sure it is a good book. It’s about legacy. It’s not about the next six months.

Technology makes it much easier and cheaper to produce things today. In some ways this is a golden age of photobooks. There are certainly an awful lot of them out there now, many self-published. But affluence is a big factor, and in my view, it skews what is produced. If you have money you have a real advantage, you can keep producing, you can create books every year. But until you are established, or have a really extraordinary project, you are going to have to find funding for a fair amount of the costs. So, it is less democratic; access to money can aid you in establishing your access to the photo world.

There are many books produced each year, do you have any particular favourites (other than your own, of course)? Or from the last year? Or is there a book, you wish you’d published?

One recent book by an Indian photographer springs to mind… Soham Gupta’s Angst, (published by Akina Books). It explores people on the margins of society, at night, in India. It is definitely a book I would have been happy to publish.

Do you collect many books yourself?

I do buy quite a few books. But I don’t really collect them, I buy those that interest me in terms of design or more often, the content.

If someone is thinking about creating a photobook, what is the most important questions they should ask themselves?

One thing they should never say is “everyone says it should be a book”. My only plea is about a true self-awareness. They need to understand whether there is anything special about the work and if there really is an audience for it. So, they need to be quite self-critical, and ask themselves questions:

Why a book? What format? What is it trying to say? Who is it for?

As an example, I’ve seen marketing proposals talking about large audiences but often they are horrendously vague and make sweeping and unsustainable assumptions.

What should they be asking a publisher?

First of all, they need to be clear on project funding. What is the basis on which they want to work with a publisher? Be very up front and ask what the commercial basis is. They also need to do some homework on the publisher and their business model, and where their incentive is. The publisher must want to get the book out to an audience and not simply to get paid for producing it. But it is also important to understand that even if the photographer does cover all the print costs, there are other costs for a publisher. Printing might cost £10,000, but then you need to consider that they will spend a further £2,000 or so for press, promotion, sending out press copies etc. And this doesn’t even account for staff time. Ultimately, though, the relationship is the most important thing. Can you work with them and do they really believe in the work?

What is the value of using a publisher versus, say, self-publishing?

It is very much personality based. So, if you are the sort of photographer who can really go out and push, and talk to potential customers, and do the selling, you can probably do as well as a publisher in terms of selling the book.

If you are the type who is not defeated when rejected, time and time again, you can probably do at least as well. With a distributor you have the advantage of broader distribution. But a strong individual can often do it better, because it is their baby.

However involved publishers are, they are not engaged in the same way as the photographer. We, as publishers, have better access, and it’s less hard work for the photographer – but someone who is determined can also do it. But before they start, they need to ask themselves some hard questions: Why do it? To do it properly is going to take six months of their lives, more or less full-time, certainly something like 20 to 30 hours per week, just focused on that project.

Always remember that publishers and galleries have several projects running at a time, so they are under continual pressure from other projects. So, even if you use a publisher, do not sit back and leave it all to them. You need to be involved, fully engaged and moving it forward. Someone like Homer Sykes is a good example: Homer is always online, on Facebook, and he is actively involved in selling at events and book signings.

What should someone have in terms of material and content before approaching a publisher?

They need to have a completed project, in terms of the images. There are no publishers I know who are going to commission photobooks. So you need it to be finished, though of course, after talking to the publisher, you might identify that a few more images are needed. But you have to start by feeling it is complete, that it is finished work. The text is less important. You also need to sequence the work so that it tells the story that you want it to. You could give me 100 or 200 images and I could do an edit, but then it is ‘my book’, ‘my story’, but using your images. You need it to be your story; the story you want to tell.

Do you do the edit and design, or do you involve others?

There are some projects that will come along that are pretty close in terms of the sequence. But the role of an editor is to challenge the photographer, to ask: Why is that image included? Why is this image next? Why is it a good image? The photographer will bring all sorts of other things with them: their own memories, they will remember the day, and how they felt. They often think that what they want to say is apparent and it is being transferred through the image. But sometimes it isn’t.

In practical terms we design around 90-95 per cent of the books we publish. There are a few photographers with graphic design experience who come with a clear design or have worked closely with a designer. There is often a need to bring the artwork up to print quality, which is more on the technical side. I do most of the design work myself; something that goes right back to my early involvement in the arts and the need to produce posters and leaflets for events – the days of working with Letraset. And to later experimentation, at Cornerhouse, with computers and the emerging page layout software of the time. I’m not formally trained but have learned through many years of experience.

Most professional books these days seem to need a grant or Kickstarter campaign with them, any advice on conducting such a campaign?

Yes, Kickstarter is important these days. There are some straightforward things about using Kickstarter, a key one is not to be too greedy. On Kickstarter, £10,000 is still quite a high target. So, if there is any way you can try and find some of the funding, say £3,000, so that you only ask for £7,000, it’s worth it. When you launch the campaign, you have to have money coming in early on and you then need to have a couple of people who are there to put small amounts in, if it flags, to nudge it along.

You also need an exit plan, if the money doesn’t come in. So, if your target is £8,000 but you are stuck on £7,000, you need to know what you are going to do to complete it. You need someone to come in – often they will need to buy the more expensive of the rewards. So, you need a campaign with rewards at different levels, and some high-end ones. With Kickstarter, the campaign is a set period. You need to complete the fundraising in that time, or it won’t happen. There is also a Kickstarter campaign psychology. If something is moving too slowly early on then it can cast doubt on whether it will actually happen, and that can discourage others.

On the press with John Blakemore HonFRPS

What is the typical time from agreeing to publish to actually having books to sell?

There is no typical time, really. It is more to do with the photographer and their focus and planning. For us, realistically, 6 months is generally possible.

Many larger publishers work at least 12 months in advance. If, for example, you plan to sell through Waterstones then you often need a 9-month lead time, at which point they’ll want to see the cover design and know the price. Trade publishers generally work on a 12 month timeline, though with our distributors we can work with less notice, sometimes a few months.

You work with new artists and also big names, like Martin Parr? What are the differences? Does it present different challenges?

Martin Parr is usually pretty relaxed about ‘process’, he has done so many books over the years. He still wants control, but you don’t get the moments of panic, which you might from a first-time photographer. Part of the problem is not about experience but about personality. Some can be very led by opinion; they might get conflicting feedback and ideas, and this can lead to indecision and uncertainty. With many of the photographers with whom we’ve done a few books there is a level of trust on decisions: we recommend something such as paper, book size etc and they will generally accept the advice.

Where do you see photobooks going in the next few years? Are there trends? Or fashions? Or new challenges?

There are some trends, but things do change quite regularly. Trends can be relatively short lived. As you say, there are many books at the moment with just text on the cover and often not even the photographer’s name. To put it rather simplistically, what is important for us is that it does what it says on the tin. There has to be a reason why someone will stop and open the book. Normally it is a cover image or the photographer’s name. Imagine Martin Parr’s The Last Resort, but without an image or his name. Far fewer people would pick it up. But it does depend on where you are selling. If it’s on-line or in specialist photobook shops then it is less of an issue, but with mainstream bookshops it is. In these shops there are so many other books vying for your attention. Intrigue doesn’t do it, because people tend to respond to things that are familiar.

Dewi Lewis Publications is currently celebrating 25 years as photobook publishers. Their website and on-line bookshop can be found at: www.dewilewis.com

On the press with Mimi Mollica