And now for something completely different. Anyone who thought releasing two books within three months might be overdoing it will have no doubts about that being the case when they see another appear a week later. But this is a different kettle of fish. Really. Six of Each is a collection of photographs drawn from the previously published travelogues. Each of those travelogues is available in two forms. There is a black-and-white printed version and a color digital version. Photo-quality color printing is still relatively expensive in the low-volume print-on-demand world. Printing the books in black and white keeps them reasonably priced. On the other hand, color in digital files is free. Offering B&W paperbacks and color ebooks isn’t ideal but it keeps the books affordable and color at least available.

I had pretty much given up on being able to offer any of the travelogue photographs in printed form at anything close to a reasonable price when I saw the chance to steal another idea from Jim Grey. Jim is an excellent photographer and successful blogger whom I’ve stolen from in the past. He is responsible for what became “Trip Peeks” to fill posting commitments with minimal work. Jim has published two photo “magazines” on the Blurb platform. One is in color and the other black and white. Both look quite good and they are not outrageously priced. Magazines are available in a single 8.5×11 inch page size and have a few other restrictions. The quality is not quite up to offset printing standards and the cost is not a match for black and white but both are much more acceptable than other print-on-demand products I’ve seen.

So what I’ve done is pick a half dozen pictures from each of the existing travelogues and combine them in a Blurb magazine. The magazine is only available through Blurb (that’s one of those magazine restrictions) and there is no digital version available (that’s my restriction). It’s also more expensive than it seems a 32-page “magazine” ought to be. But it does let me see what some of my photographs would look like using something besides black ink on stationary paper. And it’s there for anyone else who would like to look.

Six of Each, Denny Gibson, Trip Mouse Publishing, April 2019, paperback, 8.5 x 11 inches, 32 pages, ISBN: 978-0368444654

Preview or purchase at Blurb.

Take a look at Jim’s books here. My reviews are here and here.

I made a comment about seeing my photos “using something besides black ink on stationary paper”. The truth is I’ve seen some of my photos reproduced via some pretty high-grade offset printing in two books by Brian Butko: The Lincoln Highway: Photos Through Time and Greetings from the Lincoln Highway (Centennial Edition and newer).