I'm posting this to bounce ideas off the other creative types here. Friends and family think what I want to do is not a bad idea, some like the idea more than others, but I'd like some objective input as well, which is why I am posting here. I'll get to my ideas in a few moments, just giving some background info.
During the last few years I've been thinking about making living or at least a chunk of my income through photography. I want to do this, partly because I could never see myself working in a big office behind a desk, but I'm no wedding shooter, realistically I couldn't see myself doing that either. I'm not a people person per say, so I don't think portraiture and fashion photography are not the ticket either. I've been trying to come up with some ideas for what I can do, based on what I love to do. Which includes, hiking, camping, along with nature and wildlife photography. I do enjoy teaching others about photography and technology in general as well. I have taught people who are not technically inclined to be at least, somewhat proficient with their devices several times.
Now here area a few of my ideas, and this is where I'd like to get some input. I've got a few ideas for writing books about different subjects, with photography being a big part of them. I'll expand on that, one such idea is to write a book about nature and wildlife photography in Southern British Columbia, based around visits to regional, Provincial and Nation parks. In many ways the book would be a mix of a journal of what I did, and talking about the challenges of photographing in those locations. The book(s) would of course be filled with images.
I do wonder however, if I should focus purely on the photography aspects in the book, or go broader than that. I want to do most of the leg work in the next few years and then publish an eBook, since I don't want to try and deal with publishers, at least not at the start. The only issue with eBooks is I'm not sure how to go about doing that, other than having a website with a paid PDF download, or shipping out a CD with the PDF. I also wonder what it would take to get published with things like Amazon kindle or the Apple eBook store. My second idea, once the book(s) are done, I would hopeful use any attention gained from that to start doing photography tours, teaching others about nature and wildlife photography in the parks. As much as I do not like the idea of going back to school, I think I may need to take some business or marketing classes if that is the kind of stuff I want to do.
This is kind of a turning point for me in some ways, because as I enter my mid 20's I am starting to feel the need to get a career going, and I'm getting to the point that entry level work just does not cut it anymore, both in terms of cost of living, and enjoying what I do. So I guess the only question is, do people think there would be any interest for the type of book I want to write? I'm I out to lunch, unable to see that there are either, too many books on that subject matter already, or that people just are not interested? If those are not things that people would be interested in, I might just turn back to my more technical side and pursue a computer science degree, since I'm not inclined to do much else.