Some monographs are published as intellectual exercises, to engage the curious would-be architect. Others grace coffee tables and can help while away an empty afternoon. Many aid architects in getting more work. And for all the ways that a reader can look at a monograph, there are just as many ways for an architect to get one published.

So who gets a monograph? Sometimes the path to publication is surprising—and that's exactly the point. Many architects aim for a boutique publisher like Monacelli Press, a New York City imprint that was started 14 years ago in a SoHo basement and currently has offices overlooking Norman Foster's Hearst Tower (in case the staff ever forget about the sweeping power of architecture in their day-to-day bookmaking). Now owned by Random House, Monacelli was the publisher that issued Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau's S,M,L,XL , the seminal 1997 monograph that, editorial director Andrea Monfried says, “everyone wants to do the new version of.” That's a tough call, but she points out that what S,M,L,XL's creators did is crucial: They thought holistically about the relation of the book to what it describes.

“There are so many different ways of organizing the book—from the structure to the table of contents—that for every architect, there has to be some relation to the way they practice,” Monfried says. Monacelli's 2000 Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects monograph, named for the fluid relationship the two principals see between Work/Life , is a perfect example. “The trick,” Monfried says, “is to get your personality to come through.”

Practically, it's a matter of the basics. The editorial group at Monacelli will figure out the book's specifications—the number of pages, number of photographs, print run, and so forth—and get an estimate from the printers. “We do feel that each book has to carry its own weight in the marketplace,” Monfried explains. If it can't? “We adjust as necessary.”

Some publishers, like Images, based in Australia, get around the market-driven publishing game by offering an entirely different service. For a fee (often hidden in what's called a “buy-back agreement,” in which the architect agrees to purchase a certain number of copies), Images will take a group of files and turn them into a book. It might sound excessively businesslike, but if you consider a monograph's role in publicizing a firm's work, it makes a lot of sense. “A book carries a lot more weight than the simple brochures we all hand out,” says Laura Cabo, a principal at the Boston firm Gund Partnership, which just published a monograph with Images. “There's something so special about a hardback that just makes your work seem very precious.” Images distributes its books globally.

Rizzoli, a venerable publisher that puts out monographs by starchitects like Zaha Hadid and Richard Meier, is more in line with Monacelli in its market-driven model. Hadid and Meier might seem like safe bets, but editor Dung Ngo says that Rizzoli has “always tried to support architectural books of all stripes.”

Rizzoli's differently striped books include Peter Eisenman's ultradense Ten Canonical Buildings 1950– 2000, which isn't exactly beach reading. “We have to [honor] our responsibility to bring such books out,” Ngo says. If a book like that doesn't support itself, Rizzoli hopes to pick up the slack somewhere else, like with a Frank Lloyd Wright book (and how many architecture students can say they own about 15 copies from well-meaning family members?). “We're a little more nimble” because safe books can offset riskier ones, says Ngo.

The most nimble book publisher on the block these days might be Princeton Architectural Press, which is associated with the younger, hipper side of the profession. One way PAPress finds under-the-radar designers is through its connection to the Architectural League's Young Architects program. The other? “We start looking really, really early,” acquisitions editor Nancy Eklund Later says, citing a recent KieranTimberlake Associates monograph as an example of a before-its-time adoption. “We look at a body of work, and the editorial staff translates that into a book in our heads,” is how she explains the selection process, which comes both from in-house recommendations and architects who approach them. “It's a lot of gut.”

Guts are apparent in the Atlas of Novel Tectonics, a book by the firm Reiser + Umemoto that is more of a manifesto than a monograph. “It was a bit obtuse,” Later admits, “but it's who Jesse [Reiser] is, and that's his charm and virtue.” Reiser explains the book's genesis: “We started looking at 19th century books and atlases. … In a way [Atlas] has much more conservative graphic design, so that we could highlight the content rather than the image.” The firm is now working on a project-driven monograph with Barcelona, Spain–based Actar (PAPress passed) that will come out in the spring of next year. This book will be much more straightforward, with project images, models, drawings, and descriptions.

Even though, as Monfried points out, monographs often benefit from a book publisher's experienced and relatively objective eye, having full control is also appealing to many architects. Polshek Partnership Architects, after putting out monographs through other publishers (like PAPress in 2004), decided to take over. Since 2006, the firm has published small books devoted to one project each, released four at a time, with every element—writing, editing, design, and printing—controlled by the firm. It is Polshek's hope that together, over time, these small books will paint a richer picture of its work.

What about people who aren't quite established? There's always the internet. New York City architect William Feuerman published his own monograph in 2006 on lulu.com, a self-publishing website. He did it initially to make a portfolio after graduating from architecture school, but it was also, he says, a way to question the standard.

“I wanted to really rethink these things. It doesn't need to be a book just about the projects,” he says. “The idea was that it could lead to something more than just a discussion about the architecture.” Because Feuerman can easily update the book on the back end—all he has to do is upload a new PDF to lulu.com and specify how he'd like it bound—completely different versions can be published with each print run.

And that's where we come to the final question: Why bother to publish a monograph, when it's possible to make spectacular portfolios online? Feuerman believes it's an issue of branding. “What you see in a lot of monographs is, it's branded to create some sort of identity,” he says. The Feuerman brand, for now, is edgy and renegade. Would he go with a publisher, given the chance? “Yes,” he says. “But it'll be about how we can think about [the book] in a new way.”

Eva Hagberg lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and has written for Wallpaper, City, Metropolis, and The New York Times.

Monacelli Press, a division of Random House in New York City, publishes four to six monographs a year. “We're looking to help build on a public image that an architect has already created through innovative work that has received attention from the profession,” says editorial director Andrea Monfried.

Rizzoli, also based in New York, “is always on the lookout for possible titles that would fill a gap in the market,” says senior editor Dung Ngo. He notes that the house releases six to 10 monographs per year.

Princeton Architectural Press has an eye for emerging talent and prides itself on crossing genres. The press publishes “maybe five” monographs a year, says senior acquisitions editor Nancy Eklund Later. “We like to find monographs that expound on one particular area of practice that could be held up as a model for others,” Later explains.

Images, an Australian publisher, has a Master Architects series with dozens of titles. According to publisher Alessina Brooks, Images will publish more than 35 monographs in 2008 alone. Firms published by Images “enjoy a powerful introduction to new markets and a connectedness to other great firms,” she says.