Skye At Night - All Done

A collage of imagery of and from Skye At Night

It seems like an age since I released my first book, Skye At Night, at a launch event at Armadale Castle in Skye. In fact it was less that two years ago on the 2nd of August 2024. Now, the fifth print run is sold out and I won’t be printing any more.

I had hoped that the first print run of 250 copies would sell within a couple of years. In the event it was sold out inside two weeks which completely floored me. Having never created, published or launched a book before, it was all new and I had no idea what to expect. I ended up scrambling to commission another print run while setting up my website to take pre-orders while I waited for another pallet of books to arrive. I established a network of retail stockists around the island and they did a great job selling to everyone who wanted to see a copy in-person.

Online orders went around the world, and the excitement of a new order arriving never wore off. More print runs followed, along with the odd disaster such as one entire print run having four pages in the wrong order, all of which were sold as “seconds”. Finding out how much Amazon take from every sale was an eye opener.

I have donated £6,500 from sales to the Skye Mountain Rescue Team, which is basically all of the profits after printing, distribution and other costs like website operations and payment processing are taken into account. I am overjoyed to support SMRT and all the work their team of 100% volunteers do on the island and beyond.

Huge thanks go to Paddy and Mairi who run the Skyelark gift and print shop at Armadale Pier. They were my global logisitics HQ, handling wrapping, packing and posting for hundreds and hundreds of website orders, as well as producing large-size prints for customers who wanted a piece of Skye on their wall.

Every one of the people that starred in the book can be proud of their contribution. I had such a good time meeting all of you and I learned so much about so many things. From prawn fishing in Broadford Bay to scallop cooking in Stein to blacksmithing in Carbost, the whole thing was just brilliant.

As well as the people, the night landscapes of the Isle of Skye are the other stars of the book. Over seven years I explored the island, perilously descending sea cliffs or scrambling up mountains, often many times to get the right conditions at a particular location. Photographing at night is incredible. Quiet, no people around, just me, my camera, and the world. What a revelation.

As sales have now tailed off from their initial surge to a gentle trickle, I have decided not to do another print run.

Printing a book is a huge investment. I self-published Skye At Night (and my second book Glas) so I had to pay for all the printing up front. This is a serious investment of thousands of pounds every time which I could only hope to cover from sales. Not to mention having many boxes of books to store, packaging to source, payments to handle and website costs to pay.

I had thought I had sold out a couple of months ago but I found another box stashed under a bed (honestly, they were all over the house when the courier delivered the pallets from each print run). The remnants of that last box of copies went up to Waystone Books in Dunvegan a couple of weeks ago so they may still have a copy if you want one. There may also be a couple still in stock at Skyelark at Armadale Pier at the time of writing (12 July 2026).

All my stock of Glas are also sold out now, though I think Carmina Gadelica in Portree still has one if you’d like to snag it.

What next? I am rather creatively wasted at the moment. I do have some ideas for new projects which are noodling away in my brain all the time so I’ll see how they develop. I have also realised that the ambition of publishing and selling a book is great, but the reality is a lot of hard work, attention to detail, money and time. I love photography much more than making books so maybe I’ll just puddle about the island with my camera for a while and see what comes from it. Lastly, recent events have given me cause to reflect and vow to make the most of every day, so I’ll be doing that as well.

Thanks to all my customers for your support over the last couple of years.

Skye Bridge with Kishorn dry dock in the background