Coco at the exhibition meeting

Above is a pic of Coco at her first ever meeting – she was invited to attend because she’ll probably be doing something (TBD) at the Museum of Sydney when the exhibition of 52 Suburbs Around the World opens in a few months time.

It’s all go with getting everything ready for said exhibition and I so hope you’ll be there on the opening day – Saturday July 20, at 11.30am. I’ll be giving a talk as I did with the first exhibition before we’ll go up to the space. It’s going to be pretty amazing to see all those faces and places from right around the world in one room. Please put it in your dairy if you can make it.

So that’s the exhibition.

In other breaking news, Kickstarter rewards will be going out in the next week or so – and they’re looking pretty snazzy.

Now, on to the book front, I was bowled over by your response to my last post, when I asked you all if a, you wanted a book, and b, what some of your favourite images were.

I loved hearing which images appealed but I was so excited to hear that so many of you wanted a book. We all went on that journey together and I for one can’t bear the thought of there not being a book so we can do it all again, as many times as we wish.

In an ideal world, I would ‘ta da’ you with the finished book in a few months and all would be swell.

But as it happens, it’s not going to be that easy.

I’ve been busy getting quotes and it turns out that the only way I’m going to be able to self-publish is if people pre-order the book.

The easiest way to do that is through another crowd funding campaign.

So my next question to you guys is, what do you think, would you be happy pre-ordering a book through a crowd-funding campaign?

The book will obviously be very much based on the blog and I will also include some sample spreads in the crowd funding campaign to give you an idea of the book design. Ie Even though you’d be pre-ordering, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the book will look like.

DETAILS OF THE BOOK

 • A larger format – 260mm x 240mm – which will allow the images to really sing

 • Hard cover

 • Around 330 pages with more than 600 colour photos – so quite chunky

 • $79 (I have tried hard to reduce this. I experimented with a smaller book, less images – but I believe we really need the number of images we have.)

• A small run – this book will be a limited edition

My aim is to make this book beautiful and joyous, fun and full of heart – because that’s what the whole project was like. While I’ve been waiting to get quotes, I’ve been busy working on the book with a designer – and I’m absolutely loving the way it’s looking. The larger format is exciting to work with and the images look amazing. As much as they work in the small size they are on the blog page, to see them that much bigger is just fantastic.

I’m also adding a ‘behind the scenes’ aspect to this book that wasn’t in the last book and nor in the blog, to give you more insight into what happened in the moments leading up to various shots –eg that amazing woman in Istanbul with the green eyes.

Basically I’m pouring my heart and soul into this book, more so than I did with the first book to be honest, which was really just the blog in book format. This one will have all that but it will be more special, more intimate somehow.

But look, please don’t feel under any pressure – I won’t hold you to it if you say yes now and decide later not to! I’m just really keen to test the waters on this before I launch into the crowd funding exercise.

As confident as I am about making this book as amazing as it can be, I have to admit, self-publishing is a big deal. But I’m kind of feeling the fear and doing it anyway – this book has just got to see the light of day!

Anyway, please let me know what you think, would you be happy to pre-order a book? A simple yay or nay will suffice (of course feel free to elaborate, I do like it when you elaborate!)

PS If you are an existing Kickstarter supporter, all Rewards will be delivered before I launch this second crowd funding – it would be too cheeky to ask for your support again before rewarding you for your first wonderful act of support.