Getting started with albums

To date, I haven't had any requests for an album so I don't really offer them. I now have a potential client looking for some info about albums, and I'm at a bit of a loss. I know it's something I need to offer, so I'm hoping to get a least some preliminary info together that I can offer clients who ask.

So here's what I'm wondering. I'd like to offer a few different kinds of albums - kind of like a good, better, best deal. That said...

How do you folks narrow down all the different brands and options out there to make it easier for your client to chose?

Do you just buy from one vendor or offer a selection?

Any particular vendors I should look at?

On average, how much time do you put into creating the album?

Do you bill clients individually for albums, or do you just work it into your package price?

I will probably have other questions, but that's all I can think of at the moment. Hopefully someone can help me get my feet wet.

Thanks!!

Albums are interesting. They're really hard to start with, until you "get it".

How do you folks narrow down all the different brands and options out there to make it easier for your client to chose?
One vendor with a good range, to make my life easier. I also get volume discounts and sample album credit because of my volume.

Any particular vendors I should look at?
KISS. Millers probably do some. Finaeo. There's a thread with a big list somewhere.

On average, how much time do you put into creating the album?
Initially about two days per album, now down to about 2-6 hours initial design, with 2-4 hours rework based on customer feedback, and 2 hours to generate the layouts, sharpen, retouch, etc.

Do you bill clients individually for albums, or do you just work it into your package price?
Totally your call. I include them in packages, but the album packages are quite a lot more expensive than the package I offer without.

My design philosophy is KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid. I'm going back toward simple, white matted albums with a clean straight cut edge, i'm tired of busy magazine style albums, background images, etc. I use Queensberry Duo albums mostly, they give me matted albums with pages or part pages that are magazine style. They're very expensive though, compared to most other vendors.

Check out Jerry Ghionis blog, see if he has a recent album on it that was one image per page, all square.

Thanks Tim, that's a big help!

After the reviews on my album first album I designed (I'm still planning on working more on them, but for now) I think i may outsource my album designs. I have found a place that i would kike to try that charges $10 a page.

I use MillersLab.com . Been very happy with them so far.

I also like to keep it simple.

I offer ONE album, ONE size, ONE cover option, ONE paper option... and clients love it. I incorporate them into a package, but also sell them separately if they want to buy one after the fact. This year 80% of my bookings went with the album package. When I stopped giving clients album options, I suddenly started selling a lot more. Think about how confused YOU are in regards to albums... now consider how confused CLIENTS would be if you gave them too many options.

Forget the options... people see something awesome and they want it. Simple as that. So my suggestion is to just offer one, AWESOME album. And they'll want it. It'll also make your life a billion times easier! One vendor, one style, and with one size you only need ONE set of album layout templates. Kiss and Finao seem to be the popular ones lately.

just some food for thought.

I wanted to add something about albums.
how do you price your albums? 300-400% of what the material cost?
say with Tim's initial time of work. 2 days. I'm assuming nobody lowers the price just because they finish an album in 4-5 hours, right?

I set my prices based on my time required and an hourly rate, not as a mark up percentage. Now that i'm faster I charge as much, or more, because I can do a better job in less time. I also keep an eye on the market price.

The rule of thumb for albums, though, is to charge 3-4 times the cost price.

After about a days research, I think I will go with KISS. It looks like Queensberry is the choice when the budget is in place, so I will just have the two options. KISS or Queensberry.

Question...are there any that send out samples? Like just a printed image?

Queensberry is the choice when quality is more important than price. They don't send out samples, you buy a starter kit if they choose to let you use Queensberry albums, last time I checked it was about $500 and has a swatch album and page sampler. I doubt any reputable vendor will send out samples for free, not with the deluge of so called professionals who are unlikely to give them any significant business.

I work with Zookbinders and they do studio sample albums at ~50% off. So you're still in for a pretty penny to show a large high quality album.

picturecrazy wrote in post #10792578
I also like to keep it simple.

I offer ONE album, ONE size, ONE cover option, ONE paper option... and clients love it. I incorporate them into a package, but also sell them separately if they want to buy one after the fact. This year 80% of my bookings went with the album package. When I stopped giving clients album options, I suddenly started selling a lot more. Think about how confused YOU are in regards to albums... now consider how confused CLIENTS would be if you gave them too many options.

Forget the options... people see something awesome and they want it. Simple as that. So my suggestion is to just offer one, AWESOME album. And they'll want it. It'll also make your life a billion times easier! One vendor, one style, and with one size you only need ONE set of album layout templates. Kiss and Finao seem to be the popular ones lately.

just some food for thought.

Just read this and it really hit home. With so many options out there and us photographers even getting confused, I agree about how confused the clients would be. I have to be careful in my consultations not to confuse them as well as they have probably never hired a photographer before. I think that I'll give Kiss a try, just registered there. Thinking of Zookbinders as well.

Oh Man. Albums can be so easy if you stick with a reliable company and one product line. We went with Picto Albums. We use the Bijou elite series. My brides love them because they hace about 50 cover choices, cameo choices, and they can add pages if they want to make the albums bigger.

Picto has a great price point for photographers and turn around is 3 weeks or less.

we use the 10x10 albums

For album design we use Fundy album design software. Bulletproof and i can custom design an album in about 3-4 hours. None of the albums look the same. Fundy also has templates with pages already designed so you just drop in the photos. doesnt get any easier. You can also use album PDFs from Jens fabulous stuff and just drop in your photos.. trouble is all your albums will look the same,,,so thats why we went with Fundy

I use just one album company as it keeps things nice and simple, and like Tim said it helps with volume discounts.

I only have one wedding package though. It includes an 80 printed page album. However there is a choice as to what type of album the client chooses. A4 or A3 and Coffee Table (landscape format) or Lay Flat (portrait format). The price for the package is the same regardless. I only have two InDesign templates one for portrait and one for landscape. A3 or A4 makes no difference as the A4 ones are just the A3 sized designs downscaled. Basically the choice is size and type, with there being two options for each. The finish they don't choose until after the wedding.

I have one page finish for the coffee table books (satin) and 3 for the lay flay ones (pearl, matte and gloss). I limit the cover options to about 10 however I have an custom built online system where the client can make there album finish and page type choices on their own time.

I'm with Lloyd in keeping things simple I just do it by having just the one package. My experience with shots only weddings was that the clients expected much more than the album package clients. I stopped offering the shots only packages this year as I like album designing/story telling a lot.

Some other advice that I've heard repeated over and over is "show big, sell big." The gist of this concept is that when you're preparing your own sample albums, make them big and fantastic with all the options. When the client sees it, they'll want one of their own - and you're making several hundred bucks in net profit off a big album, instead of fifty bucks in net profit off a skimpy little press-printed book.

I'm in the process of putting together my samples right now, and have decided to not show any press-printed books as samples. The showcase piece that I'm preparing right now is a 10x15 album with a photo cover. H&H is running a special on sample albums right now, 50% off sample albums instead of the usual 25% off. It's not Queensberry, but it's appropriate for where my business is right now.

The design process is taking me longer than it should, because I always second-guess myself, and because I haven't put together any real templates yet. Right now I'm at about 1 to 1.5 hours per page, but I'm adding more graphic-design elements than I think most folks do with wedding albums, and customizing the "feel" of each page to go with that page's content. Eventually I expect to have about a half-dozen standardized templates, and can simply drop the content into the template, which will trim down my design time drastically.