Originally posted by Lowell Goudge 1) get a good macro lens.
Actually, I shoot a lot of small items for our company's product catalogues, and find that a longer lens gives more leniency to DOF and less distortion to the image, problems that often occur with macro lenses. If you're not shooting in a cramped space, I'd recommend making the lens as long as possible and pulling your camera position as far away as practical from the pages you're shooting. The downside is that if you're dependent on a camera-mounted flash for lighting, then you'll have to adjust aperture accordingly, or otherwise use independent lighting.