Hi All,

We are new to this and just starting up our business, and I was hoping to get some advice. I am looking into different albums and have a few questions...

First, what is the difference between a flush mount album and a coffee table book?

Second, I am looking at Asuka, Queensberry and La-Vie right now. We are looking for a company that offers a high-end product, is reliable and easy to deal with. Asuka seems to be more straight forward from what I can tell, whereas Queensberry's price list was really confusing - but maybe I've got it wrong? Does anybody have any opinions on any of these companies, or are there any others that we should be looking at?

Lastly, I read some posts on Hill & Usher as well as Tom Pickard for insurnace but would like to get more input from anybody who has any experience with these guys, or if you would reccomend anybody else.

Thanks in advance!

Stacey

Hi Stacey,

Welcome to OSP! These are great questions, and I'll pass along what little bit I know about these subjects. There have been lots of discussions about insurance in (I think) the Forms/Filing subsection, and albums get discussed in this Products-Services subsection a lot...so if you skim through some of the old posts, I think you'll find great information from lots of others with much greater experience than I have!

A flush-mount album is where a print is mounted to a thicker substrate, where a coffee table book is what I tend to think of as high school yearbook-style pages...they're basically just pages with nothing heavy to support them. Asuka would be a coffee table style book.

As for the companies and styles, there are TONS of possibilities! I've been offering Asuka as my lower end coffee table book, but am taking a good look at GraphiStudio for higher end books. I'm going to give KISS a try for flush mount albums (there's a whole thread about these awesome-looking books), but have been very happy with PictoBooks so far. Lots of people here swear by Leather Craftsmen and Zookbinders.

For insurance, mine is with Group Insure (Tom Pickard), with the policy written through Fireman's Fund. No complaints so far, but I haven't made a claim yet, either. (Knock on wood).

Another thing that might clear things up is that a flush mount is just was it sounds like: a photo is mounted flush with the edge. Then there's the slip-in, matted albums (not very popular these days), then there's the coffee table books or printed books. These don't have actual photographic prints on them -- the images are offset printed like in a regular book (as said above, like the color pages of a yearbook).