This is a guest post by Andrew “Fundy” Funderburg, the creator of the Fundy Album Builder and Fundy Album Proofer. Please check out the free trials available at http://www.fundysos.com. If you were looking to design albums yourselves, I highly recommend Fundy's products.

I firmly believe that fine art albums are the finest representation of good photography available wedding and portrait market. They allow the photographer to to create a family heirloom that can be handed down through generations. In the age of digital where hard-drive crashes and the fact that DVDs and CDs erode over time, a fine art album is one of the few ways to truly preserve the story of the day. A finely crafted leather album printed on true photographic paper will last, literally, hundreds of years.

I want all of my clients to preserve their photos in fine art albums. Yet, with the cost of the album, plus the cost of design, these can be significant investments for clients. So, the question is, how can we help more of our clients choose these albums, which we firmly believe are the best way to preserve their story, their day and their family's memories.

Tip 1 – Show more albums

This may seem like a no brainer, but people only buy what they can see, touch and feel. I've hear of photographers complaining that they never sell anything beyond a 10″x10″ album. But, later I find out that they only show 10″x10″ albums and give the option to upgrade the size. But the client can't know what a 12″x12″ or 14″x14″ feels and looks like without holding that album. In the studio, photographers need to have samples of each and every size they want to sell.

Tip 2 – Show big and fancy

Samples should be big and fancy. Have at least one sample of the largest album your album company offers. If they offer a 12×18″ album, get a sample of it. To keep costs down, only put in the minimum amount of pages (usually 20 pages). If your album company offers cool metal covers, get one. If you like those cool, expensive plexiglass covers, get a sample. By offering larger albums with fancier covers, it validates the cost of the regular leather albums. And it shows to the client, the fine art capabilities your studio has to offer.

Tip 3 – Tell clients what “most” people are buying

Clients usually only get married once (well maybe twice) in their lifetime. For the most part, they don't know how to get married. They don't know what they should do with their photography, they don't know how to preserve it, how to show off their day. For portrait clients it's basically the same. Senior photos are taken once in a lifetime. Families usually only have nice professional portraits done once or twice before kids are grown up and out of the house. It is part of our job description to let them know what we can do and what other clients are doing. Tell them that “most people are getting an album like this.” or “An 8×8″ cloth covered album is our most popular portrait album.” or “A lot of people are getting our new leather options.” Let them know this information during the consultation or on the day of the shoot. People need to digest this information and see pricing before viewing the images. If you design beautiful albums, they will want one, but they need time to justify the cost.

Tip 4 – Shoot for the Album

If we, as photographers, need to shoot differently if we want to sell more albums, versus, individual prints. Albums are all about telling stories. If we have one fantastic shot, we need to take supporting shots. This philosophy is ingrained in most wedding photographers, but the same philosophy needs to be adopted by portrait photographers. When you have “the shot” set up, also take accent shots from different angles and with different lenses. A shot with a long lens, cropped into the subject may have a great accent shot with a wide angle showing the landscape around the subject. So, shoot once, move around and take 3 more shots.

Tip 5 – Use albums as hooks in your packages

If you want to sell more albums, make them the centerpieces of your packages. In all of your wedding packages offer album credit. In wedding packages, album credit usually works better than actual albums (e.g. a 30 page 10″x10″ album). With so many sizes and options to clients for wedding albums, credit allows clients to create their own ‘dream' album without confusing upgrade options. For portrait albums, using different sizes in different packages works well. For example, a 5×5, an 8×8 and a 10×10 option in three different packages. Additionally, you can offer upgraded covers (e.g. leather) in larger packages.

Tip 6 – Break down your workflow

Albums are big projects, especially when you get over 40 pages. They involve not only the design, but also the proofing of the album to the client. When designing albums, I have pre-made folders with page numbers on them (e.g. 0203) and I drag the images for those pages into their own folders. This helps me organize each spread separately and speeds up the design process. For proofing the album, I realized that proofing needed an organized, visual solution and that is why I created the Fundy Album Proofer. I did the same with my Album Builder. I needed an organized way to make gorgeous, high-end albums. When you choose your software tools for albums, make sure that they fit your workflow and will not only help you produce and proof gorgeous albums.

Tip 7 – Know your profits

While this is not necessarily related directly to selling more albums, it will affect your ability to provide albums in the future. If you are not charging enough for your albums, you'll quickly get bogged down in the work of offering albums and they will quickly become a drain on your business instead of a boon to your business. Add all of your costs together, the cost of the album, the cost of the extra pages, the cost of designing the album (the cost of your time to design the album) and the cost of meeting the clients and proofing (again, the cost of your time). What most photographers forget is to do is charge for their time. But we don't want to work for free, do we? Take all of these and add them together. Now, the PPA recommends a maximum of 35% cost of goods. This means that for every $1 you make, it should cost you no more than 35¢ to produce. The easy way to calculate this is take all of your costs, add them together and divide by 0.35. For example, if it costs you $350 to produce an album, you should charge around $1000 for it. If you are on the higher end of your market, you can go smaller, for example 25% or divide by 0.25.

I hope that these tips help you sell more albums and helps your clients discover the joys of having a fine art album for generations to come.

Yes, Fundy does have a Black Friday sale. So, click the image below to get 30% off of all his cool album making products. {affiliate partner}

This is a guest blog by Jessica Lewis, co-owner of KRAFT and JUTE, which provides personalized kraft-sleeves and wedding favors using 100% recycled paper. Co-owners Melisa and Jessica are hard working wives and mothers; Melisa is due with baby #2 in December! She is a professor of business and marketing at Edinboro University and is currently working on her doctorate. When not running around after toddlers, Jessica sews sample CD sleeves for clients and runs her own photography business – Live: Beautiful Photography. Melisa and Jessica happen to be cousins who grew up together in northwest PA and have fond memories of playing in the tractor-tire sandbox on their grandparent’s farm.

The process of starting a new photography business is overwhelming for many new photographers. Many get weighed down with setting up a website or blog, finding a proofing site, creating a good workflow, managing a business, designing a logo, developing their brand… oh yeah – and taking and editing pictures. It is a lot of work and with so many different options, it is easy to lose track of time and become frustrated with trying to find the best solutions.

This process of being overwhelmed and frustrated is what led us (Melisa and Jessica) to develop Kraft and Jute. Jessica, photographer of Live: Beautiful Photography, wasn’t happy with the choices of Digital Negatives/DVD Slideshow packaging. We tried using the standard slim jewel case, but it screamed “cheap.” We thought about buying a 5×5 trifold from White House Custom Color, but were overwhelmed with trying to put together artwork and figuring out a nice layout. We knew we couldn’t spend a fortune on really nice custom packaging, but at the same time, we understood the value of a great presentation to the client.

So what better way to solve your own problems – create something for yourself! And that’s just what we did.

We created our own custom, eco-friendly, packaging for digital negatives in which we drew a lot of inspiration from two different websites: Caroline Ghetes and The Paperieboutique

The whole process was organic. We had tons of different ideas swimming around in our heads, but decided (encouraged by economics) to use the resources that were around us – kraft paper, our printer and a sewing machine. The feedback and ideas from friends and family were also key in developing our own professional packaging solutions. We knew that whatever the end result, we wanted something that was simple, yet beautiful.

You can see where we are now in the process by visiting our website, KRAFTandJUTE.com. Yes, this is still a process! We first posted some listings of the packaging products we had created in our Etsy shop. The response from fellow photographers was overwhelming. We were very excited to see their logos and brands printed on our simple CD/DVD sleeves. They looked amazing! We strive to fulfill custom packaging requests from professionals like you that need something that will make their brand stick out (but not lose a fortune in packaging costs).

We continue to build on our standard packaging solutions but also work on a one-to-one level with photographers all over the world to make something that is unique, simple and beautiful for them.

Kraft and Jute products have expanded from the simple CD sleeve to now include: CD/DVD sleeves, double sleeves, custom printing, print sleeves, print folders, and deluxe gift bag packages (for the total presentation). There are so many more new product ideas in the works – just not enough time to do it all at once!

We have produced over 5,000 CD sleeves for photographers and brides since July 2010 and were just featured in the latest addition of Design Aglow's Issue 11, “Presentation Perfection: Packaging That Inspires.”

Our clients LOVE the eco-friendly kraft and jute packaging. We hope you will be inspired to discover or create something beautiful for your treasured clients too!

SPECIAL OFFER: Receive 10 free Simple Stitched CD sleeves with every order of $15 or more until November 30. Mention the following code: “PicSeshu”.

This is a guest post by Phyllis Cheung, co-founder of My Wedding Concierge, one of the hottest iPhone and iPad applications to help engaged couples find their perfect local wedding vendors.

What is My Wedding Concierge?

My Wedding Concierge is a one of a kind wedding blog search engine that allows brides to search for wedding inspiration in a visually stunning and relevant manner. She no longer has to filter through irrelevant posts from popular search engines nor does she have to visit multiple blogs looking for a certain idea.

How Can My Wedding Concierge Help Photographers?

We are always looking for new photographers to add to our search engine. The only way to get added to our search engine is by blogging. We index your entire blog back to the day you started and upload everything onto our site. You can easily do a search on My Wedding Concierge and see if popular locations in your area have been blogged about. If not, you’ll be very easily found on our site because brides are searching for everything from reception sites to different types of veils. You should have a minimum of one article on your blog titled “Wedding Photographer in City” – that will cover the brides searching for you in your city. All other articles pertaining to engagement shoots and weddings should be titled “Engagement Session – Location, Sam and Kelly.” A huge mistake photographers typically make when titling their posts is by naming it, “Sam & Kelly.” No bride is ever going to search for “Sam & Kelly” in Google and if they do, they probably aren’t looking for wedding photographers. Also, the more you blog, the more content you have indexed on our site increases your chances of being found by brides.

What is the Inspiration Engine App?

We’ve created an iPhone and iPad App for our search engine titled “Inspiration Engine.” They can be downloaded from the iTunes store. In the apps, we’ve removed all bias so when brides search for say, “Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles” and you have an article titled “Marriott Hotel – Los Angeles Wedding – Sam & Kelly,” you’ll probably show up near the top. The key to drawing the bride in is to have stunning photography because she won’t know who the vendor/blogger is until she clicks on the photograph.

In our apps, we also have location based advertising through our interactive map. Brides can click on a camera icon (for photographers) and have revealed to her your ad and blog. She can easily tap “blog” and have your entire blog feed added to her reader for future reference instead of finding your business via our search engine. Because our apps are available worldwide, it only made sense to make our map global as well. Thus, you can choose to advertise in any locale throughout the world and brides can easily see at a quick glance where our advertisers are located.

We are limiting the number of photographers per market to 10. This allows us to give our photographers the best exposure to our brides. We currently have 3 versions of the app out – a paid and free version of the iPad app and a paid version of the iPhone app. We will be releasing a free version of the iPhone app in the next two weeks. An app for the Android OS will be available early next year.

This is a guest post by David Jackson, a Wisconsin-based editorial portrait photographer and an international award winning wedding photographer. In 2007 he left his full-time job of 14 years as a law enforcement officer to pursue a career as a full-time photographer and to maintain his life's priority as a devoted husband and father to three little girls. His passion for education has lead him to develop the Breaking The Rule Portrait Workshop, focused on honing photographers skill sets in creating more compelling portraits. David's fine art photography project entitled SIMPLE+DIRTY, has also gained wide attention through his documentation of abandoned structures and modern industrial ruins across the Midwest. Follow him on Twitter and connect with him on Facebook. And if you like his post here, trust me, you'll love his blog.

Here’s the deal and I’m going to cut right to the chase. This letter is an open and honest gripe specifically directed at you. Why, you ask? Well, we know each other. I view you as my competition, my nemesis and my enemy. I’ve been quietly watching your every move as an artist, a business owner and a person I typically respect. But this whole time I’ve been judging you. I’ve grown increasingly tired of the photo industry and I can see that you have a small integral part of its inherent failure as a whole. You’re just one more number in the growing sea of photographers who think they can make it and at the same time snuff out the veteran shooters. For this reason, I’m going to be blunt and an all-around asshole in what I’m about to say. I rarely take pot shots like this, but I’ve had enough and now’s the time to lay it all out on the table.

To begin with, you irritate me.

By no means does this come from a place of envy, but rather out of genuine frustration. I have seen your work many times before. To be honest, it’s really nothing to brag about. You are the same old thing that I see every other day spewed out on blogs across the web and sold as something fresh and “different.” Just executed in a similar “cheesy” and sometimes over-done way. I have watched the way you shoot. I’ve seen the way you indirectly portray yourself as “awesome” to the Facebook and Twitter masses just chomping at the bit to gain attention by other photographers around you. Not to mention having ambitions of getting hired by potential big-name clients who I’m sure, are knocking down your doors to give you cold hard cash. You’re that new up-and-coming photographer in the industry and you have it all figured out.

Well I have news for you. You’re far from it.

It’s like watching a slow-moving train wreck. You post photos and blog links like it’s going out of style and manage to get such GREAT compliments on the mediocre work you produce. It’s all too predictable:

“Great Photos!”
“WOW”
“You are truly talented.”
“You’re an inspiration!”
“LOVE!”
“Amazing!!!”

Doesn’t the same old recycled essay of comments make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? It might, but all this positive fluff only enables your head to grow larger and you’re your ego to inflate to ridiculous proportions. Not your photography.

Well, let’s dissect your work. From what I’ve seen online, your post-production is all over the place. In the beginning you struggled to take a halfway decent photo. Although you have the basics down, I can tell you prefer taking the easy way out. You love the idea of using Photoshop actions and filters instead of actually editing your photos in a simple, organic way. You love shortcuts. You’re a product of the digital age and rely on your LCD screen to attain a halfway decent exposure. You barely know how to use a light meter. You have attended workshops, bought DVD’s and stalked numerous other photographer’s blogs with hopes to mimic their style. And by doing this you deliver photos that you can hardly call original, yet comfortably fit into the “what’s hot now” category. After all, it’s these trends that are selling at the moment…

Time after time you deliver the same old predictable photos that we’ve all seen before. What you don’t realize is that the things you are doing today to attain your new-found “signature look” will soon be outdated and un-marketable. And the further you back yourself into a corner, the harder it will be to get out of when you become the new “selective-color” of 2013.

Sure, your clients may fall hard for your work and you sometimes ooze fairy dust in a lovefest for yourself. But I don’t think you’re truly happy with any of it. You’re often afraid of other people’s opinions and constructive criticism. Far be it from you to get honest feedback without becoming defensive about your precious photographs or better yet, face an unhappy client. But then again you’ve NEVER had an unhappy client… Right? They ALL love you and your photos.

I can tell by the crappy outdated photos STILL in your portfolio, you are yet to update your extensively mismatched galleries or put any effort in getting your website together in a logical way. Looking at it closer, I see you continually struggle to find your voice. Who knows if you will ever find it? I however, look at your work and know exactly the things I should never do in the future. You call that marketable? Wait, I have a great idea… Delete it all and start over from scratch.

It’s awful. And you’re not even close to finding your true identity as a photographer.

How in the hell do you expect to get actual paid client work with the garbage you’re shooting? Sure there are some good-looking folks in some of your well-lit shots, but does that make your photos exceptional? Does that make you the next best thing? Apparently everybody is the “next best thing” these days. Your work does not speak to me or stop me dead in my tracks.

Early on, you wanted to romanticize the photo industry and the esteemed status of being a photographer. Truth be told, it makes me sick to think about it. You came into the photo world with big naïve eyes, hoping to save the world with your undying love for your clients, your “passion” for making “awesome” photos or your ability to “capture true emotion.” You love being called an artist, but you seemingly fall short most times.

Go to your website. Just read your bio. Listen to yourself! You sound like a pompous assclown. Amidst your redundant words and poor grammar, I know you want to shoot weddings in exotic locations due to your availability to “travel worldwide”. Yet oddly enough, you’re still stuck shooting in some dimly lit catholic church or one of those typical VFW reception halls. Oh, sooooo glamorous. But you never seem to find the motivation or drive to push yourself hard enough to get to where you truly want to be.

Take a hard look at yourself. It’s not difficult to see that you have idolized the status of some, if not all of the “rockstar” photographers who spew their gospel out to the uninformed photographic masses. Yet you yourself seek to glean some magic bullet of success from these folks by buying into the shit they are selling you. Come on. You’re transparent and wear your true colors on your sleeve.

It’s clearly apparent you are a clone of hundreds, if not thousands of other photographers out there. You’ve made all the classic moves; a slick URL incorporating your name, cool clothes, half-assed DIY branding and a web-sized ego to boot. Let me guess? Now you have ambitions of selling your diatribe to other photographers at some point too. Perhaps you have a desire to teach a workshop? Maybe you even want to publish a book or release a DVD someday? You want the recognition and status of rubbing shoulders with those who’ve “made it” in the industry, but you’ve failed to look at the bigger picture. No one cares about you. What the hell makes you so special? You’re a newbie on the scene and that doesn’t give you the right to spew your awesomeness to the hungry. You play it off well, but I can clearly see through you and your need to gain some amount recognition.

But is it about recognition or the need to feel accepted? Probably a mix of both IMHO. (Oh, that abbreviation is cool web-lingo for your social media devotees). You probably stare into your iPhone endlessly waiting for comments to appear on your blog, Facebook page, Flickr or get mentioned on Twitter. Or better yet, you waste half your day on a photography forum expecting it to provide you with some sense of real community but never actually participate in pertinent discussions.

You’ve now made the shotgun decision to move into a studio space because you are in such HIGH demand. WOW! Good for you. I can see the clients stacking up at your door as I write this. They must all think you’re a REAL photographer now, huh? You have a brand new studio, complete with a comfy couch, a flat screen TV and that nausea-inducing hiptser vibe we’ve all come to love lately. What you didn’t see when moving into your space is the stress this will cause on you financially and the toll it will take on your family, your relationship with your spouse and your friends.

And friends? Do you still have any of those? I’m assuming they’re dwindling by the minute. And the ones you use to be tight with, you rarely see.

To others, you make it seem so easy. You make it look like a breeze to live up to your luxurious happy-go-lucky photographer lifestyle. At least that’s what it looks like on the outside. But on the inside it’s not so shiny, is it? You make it seem like everything is perfect, exciting and well in Happyphotorainbowland, USA. You always tell people you are SO BUSY and that business is GREAT, because it’s the easy way out. I’ve seen the Tweets. You know, the ones where you brag about the number of weddings you booked THIS WEEK ALONE! What you don’t tell people is the truth. You never mention the struggles of actually running a business and balancing your life in a healthy way.

The truth is, you lack direction. You feel uncertain with who you are. You find this awkward need to feel accepted by your peers. You are struggling with your photography every time you pick up a camera. You’re clients aren’t always as “amazing” as you make them seem throughout your false façade of social media ramblings. Running a business is tough and the thought of having to walk away from it is always on your mind. You’re work is nowhere near stunning. And you have a long way to go before you even begin to reach your goals. It’s the brutal truth.

In the big picture, you are one small component to dragging the entire photo industry down. It’s because of this, so many other people in the photo industry stand in line beside you in the same boring old category of just being average at best. You have big hopes and dreams, but time after time you fail to inspire me. In fact, I only expect you to fail entirely.

I bet at this point, you’re probably rolling your eyes and fairly irritated at my all-too-typical sentiment plaguing the photo industry on the internet these days. You know, bitch about this – complain about that… Unfortunately, I tend to speak the truth. And sometimes it bites me in the ass. But I needed to get this out of my system.

Are you still listening to me Mr. or Mrs. Local Photographer? If you are, perhaps you didn’t see the real bigger picture here. Although I am writing this letter to you, what you didn’t realize is that I’m speaking about someone I know extremely well.

I’m talking to you, David Jackson. This is an open letter to myself.

I’m that Local Photographer. And I’m calling myself out for my views, techniques and ideologies spanning the past 10 years of my career in photography. I’m not writing this to bash myself over the head, generate a pity party or for that matter carry the bright flaming torch for the entire photo industry. But rather I view this as a means of keeping myself in check.

Sometimes we find the desire to point fingers, push blame, complain and endlessly bitch about all things failing in our current industry. At other times we inflate ourselves to epic proportions and end up looking like babbling fools in the process. Yet all too often we forget to look inward – to take a close look at ourselves and examine the things we do to box ourselves into a corner and push others away. We forget that we all have room to grow, to be better at what we do. Making mistakes is part of the game. And I have made plenty and will continue to do so for the rest of my career.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at myself lately, determining that this mentality will cause all of us to eventually self-destruct. As hurtful as this letter comes across at face value, we can never change others. We can only change ourselves and grow on a personal level as photographers, artists and business people. I’m finding out it’s not about the other people though. It’s about you and I. I’ve made the mistakes. I’ve followed the sickening trends early on and unsuspectingly listened to the masses. But I’m the only one who can do what is right for me. I need to remind myself that coming into my own isn’t an overnight process. I’ve spent thousands and thousands of hours trying to find my voice and place within the industry. I have yet to even scratch the surface and I still have thousands of hours ahead of me.

However, if we as creatives muster the courage to be honest with ourselves and follow our hearts, then we’ve begun to make a step in the right direction. There’s no handbook issued to us at the beginning of our journey, outlining the right moves and keeping our heads safely above troubled waters. We have to forge our own path. We make our own decisions. We are the ones who need to be honest with ourselves.

And at the end of the day, that is the only thing that truly matters.

Your pal,
Dave

What's your take on this open letter? Can you be so candid … to yourself? Tell us down below by your comments. A dialogue is a good thing. Your voice is heard here.

This is a guest post by Knoxville, Tennessee wedding photographer Shannon Kelley who has set up a successful photography community. She can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.

Back in January of this year, after attending a Dane Sanders workshop, I made a commitment to find community. Not online or Facebook friends, but real live community.

You see, it is so easy for me to sit behind a computer, chat on Facebook with some clients and other photographers, post some blog posts, read some others and think that that is enough. But I knew that I was missing something, local support and community. So I started doing things, little things. And I ended up shocked. Shocked to find many other photographers that were craving the same thing. Photographers who were supportive and nice. And who wanted to get together and just chat about life and photos.

Five months later and lots of those little steps, Knoxville now has a community co-op studio that my friend and I run, a Facebook group of 250+, monthly shootouts, SMUG's, and best of all, we all have the support of one another! It has been such an amazing thing to witness and be part of. I had no idea how reaching out and embracing local photographers would change my whole sense of who I am as a photographer.

My challenge to you: Leave your desk and computer screen in this next week for a real life connection. Reach out, don't get hurt if someone tells you no because there are people out there who won't get it. Then keep doing it. Take a little step every week and see how your support and community builds!

Here Are Some Of The Little Steps You Can Take:

1) Search one of your fave forums to see who else from your area is on there and then connect with them

2) Have a local photographer whose blog you stalk? Leave a comment or email them

3) Invite a local photographer to coffee

4) Search Facebook for a local photography group

5) Invite a JSO photographer to go on a photo walk with you. Learn from each other

6) Be nice and friendly when you see other photographer's out doing shoots. Maybe give them your card and start a conversation

Does your town or area not have a local photographer group? Or are the local resources available to you limited? Then be a path maker! Start doing things that build community in a larger sense.

1) If your town doesn't have a photographer group, start one on Facebook and organize some get togethers
2) Ask a local photographer to teach on something for your group
3) Organize a shootout (details here)
4) Find out if other groups are meeting in your area and go! (check to see if there are SMUG's around or other locally ran groups)
5) If you are on the hunt for a studio, consider a co-op or community one that will help save costs and build relationships for you!

A Note On Shootouts:

Shootouts have been one of the best ways here in Knoxville for us to reach out and build community. While these can be time consuming and detailed, they can also be basic and so easy to put together that you could be having a shootout by next weekend.

Here is a simple way to do a shootout: Ask someone you know to be a model, pick a cool location, tell the model to wear fun and funky clothes, invite another or several photographers along. Bam! You got yourself a little fun shootout.

There are tons of ways to make shootouts more complicated but if you aren't into all the planning of it, you can still do one and keep in simple. This is how we organize photographer shootouts in Knoxville

Here Are Some Images From Our Recent Local Shoots:

So what do you think? Are you ready to start or be a part of a photography community? What benefits do you see in collaborating with other photographers? What kind of road-blocks are you experiencing? Do you think you can or want to overcome them? Speak your mind in the comments section below. We love to hear from you!