How important of a tool are wedding books in regards to your wedding market? I have not added them to my lineup, though I have found a company that I love. Should I purchase a studio sample first? For those wedding photographers that book location weddings, how do you market your books to these clients if you don't meet them in person?

thanks!

Jen

By books do you mean albums or are you talking about the coffee table style books with wedding images?

What I have been hearing lately is that ALBUMS are where it's at. And "it" refers to the clients overall experience (Robin), profit (Gary Fong) and continued advertising (not sure where I might've gotten that one from).

As for having a studio sample I am wishy-washy. JT tells his clients he doesn't have one because they are VERY expensive and individually designed for each client (did I get that right, Mr. Todd?). Gary Fong suggests having a smallish album for display so the client doesn't get overwhelmed with a giant album that has someone else's memories inside (harder for your bride to picture her images in THEIR book).

Go for it!

Wedding albums allow you to add huge totals to your total sales, and add a ton to the way a client will perceive you in terms of professionalism. It will also help your referral base to have your clients showing off finished albums.
Cory

I'm talking about flush mount albums mostly. Great advice!! I've been teetering back and forth wondering if I should put some $ down and invest in a studio example of one, since many offer discounts on those, but they are STILL expensive. Thing is, often times I don't even meet with clients before hand in person, but at the same time, if they are going to put a lot of money down for albums I should be able to show them something if they ask to see it too. Plus, I like to know what the products are always like that I am offering.

agree 100% with cory. sample albums show you are professional, and take the time to showcase a final product. people will see it and want that sample! it's hard for them to visualize it another way. so, it's good to have as many samples as you can.

and it puts you in a different league of photographers....higher packages etc.

The album separates you from the "shoot to burn" crowd, who can offer nothing more than pictures.

Putting your creative context to the story telling is critical, in my opinion. I base my entire biz around the albums and that's exactly what I tell my brides.

If you do it right, they will pay a significant amount of money for a one-of-a-kind book around a one-of-a-kind day.

$.02

Yeah everyone wants an album in my market. I encourage you to get a sample album, because like to see a visual and hold in their hands a tangible product to see what it is they will be investing in for their photos. And for the destination weddings, I have pics on my website of my sample album.

my goal in every wedding is to shoot for the final product which is the book. i honestly dont want them carying around their proof book. i would much rather them carry around this great story of their entire wedding day. books is where it is all about. its hard to put a price on books for me because different book companies price varies a lot but to the client this book is priceless.
Shaun

It is so great to hear from you all wedding photographers who really think that the albums are where it is at. I appreciate all of your feedback, thank you. You are really insiring me to look further into all of these great companies that produce the beautiful albums. And then I just need to learn how to SELL them lol (though I'm sure that amazing products speak for themselves)

You can sell albums without having a sample album. Most clients don't care what KIND of album they are getting until it comes time to actually finalize the album. The key is to price your packages so that a wedding album or album credit is included... then there's no question.. they already know they're getting an album, and the decisions about what kind of album or how many pages can be made later. I do think it's good to at least see and feel the quality of an album with your own work in it before selling it to your clients - just so you can answer questions with confidence.

Of course you do, Shaun (he makes his own beautiful albums)

I have seen the light - will be putting together sample albums for my client to see/feel. I would expect to see an actual product if I'm plunking down so much dough. Thanks for posting this thread

I will not shoot a wedding package without an album, even if it is an Art Leather I-mount 20 pages. That's what I want the brides to show their friends. And I don't offer proofs at all.

I agree, but I go about it in a different way. I put in a "print credit" of about $300 in my packages that can be applied to the cost of an album (my minimum album is $1200). I sell albums to every bride as it really is what they want. I don't include an album in my packages as it would drive the minimum cost up and that would put me in a difficult position for my market and for where my business is at. This also allows me to tell a cost conscious bride to buy all the photography they can for the price (ie, me) because they can always get the album later (which they always do).
BTW, I find a sample album to be useful. I use it when meeting brides, I show it to vendors and I show it at bridal shows.

First, how do you price your albums, is it something like double the photographers cost, or not that simple? Then, how are all of you figuring out how much your album credit should be? Catherine and I are struggling with this and dont seem to be getting this solidified in our brains!

Having a sample album is great if you're meeting with clients in person and are able to upsell them with the product in their hands... but Jen mentioned that she books a lot of distance clients whom she doesn't meet first.

Many of my clients don't meet me until their first engagement session or even the night before the wedding at the rehearsal. Because of this, I provide them with plenty of online pictures and examples of what things will look like so that they can see what their options are up front. I didn't have a sample album until just recently... but after getting a sample album, I have to admit that I feel much more confident selling the product - even if the client never gets to see my sample in person.

I, too, would be interested in hearing from some of the more experienced Album-sellers on this question that Mike had!

How I price has nothing to do with my cost. It has everything to do with the value of the final product, which includes my time, experience, the layout, the photos, and (of course) the book, itself. It's whatever the market will bear! Don't limit yourself by looking at your album cost.

In my case, I do a "book fee" of $600 and then it's $65/page ($130/spread) after that. My average albums are running around $5-$6k and my clients get a $2k credit in their package.

You guys have to understand that this question (how much/etc.) has nothing to do with the quality of the albums. Look at it this way, most clients have a finite amount of money they can spend on a book (even if they don't know what that number is up front). You can either have them spend that amount with you (getting more pages, you get paid for all your hard design), or they can spend it with an expensive album company (like Queensberry, White Glove, Leather Craftsman, etc.). I recommend finding a decent, solid album company that is interested in producing a well-made, no frills book--but isn't after your wallet! Us photographers get obsessed with all the album options, thinking the clients actually care about all the little details. They don't know a thing about it!

I show my clients a single sample. It's black, square, and simple. It doesn't come in a fancy box, it doesn't have any "special effects." And not one of them has cared. I had one client purchase a 100-page album (do the math!), plus 2 parent albums. She loves it. She shows all her friends, etc. My cost was about 1/15th of what it sold for. Had I gone with an expensive album company, my client would have been no more happy, but I would have had less money in the bank.

I'm opinionated about this, but it's only because I watch other photographers bite their nails about albums; comparing features, feeling leathers, asking about metallic covers, etc. I want you all to be happy and profitable!

K

Thanks Kevin.....care to share what album company YOU think is "no-frills"?

I've been using white wedding albums for the last year. I'm likely going to move over to Shaun's company, though... I like working with people I know and trust! He's got some beautiful, simple books.

Great stuff Kevin!! It takes a mental shift to think differently and get your head around this!

Thank you so much for your thoughts on this. I've been wrapping my brain around albums, what they can do for my photography, for my clients and putting together a product that is up to my standards.

Kevin's strategy works for Kevin's clients. Make sure you find a strategy that works for your clients. I know that my clients wouldn't be too happy if I charged the same amount that Kevin charges for the same album.... but that's because we have different clients that expect different things. It's not good or bad, right or wrong.. it's just different.

If you have no idea where to start in pricing, here's a solid way to figure it out, based on real numbers.... you can always adjust this as you go along and get feedback from your clients.... but you really should understand the actual costs before deciding on a random number - just in case you're choosing a number that's too low to begin with.

First, choose an album that suits your style and quality of product that you'd like to provide your clients. If you aren't sure, do some shopping by looking here... Album Resources. Then, decide what pricing strategy would make the most sense to your clients... will you be charging a minimum fee plus per page fees, or will you simply be setting one per-page price that will remain consist no matter how many pages they choose?

Regardless of how you end up pricing your product, you really need to at least start with an understanding of the real numbers behind creating that product. So, my suggestion is to find out what it woud cost to create an album with the least number of pages, but with all the bells and whistles attached. Then find out what it would cost if you were to have someone else take care of every step in the process in order to find out how much your time is worth (and to prepare for an emergency in case you ever needed to hire extra help to take it on for you). Once you have a total, divide everything by the number of pages in order to find your real cost.

For example:
Leather cover: $150
Custom imprinting: $20
Cameo image: $30
Printing: $200
Binding: $100
S&H: $25
Minimum Pages: 20
Designer Fee: $15/page

Total for 20 page album: $825
Divided by number of pages: $41.25 cost per page for minimum order.

From there, it's deciding how much profit you need to make it worth your time and how that profit margin will change depending on your pricing structure. If you're designing your own albums, $300 of that figure is already going directly to you. Also, adding more pages will reduce your per page cost since you're splitting up the one time fees into smaller incriments. I think you should at least know what your costs and potential costs are before deciding on a random price. If you feel like you wouldn't be making enough profit, and your clients wouldn't want to pay the amount you need to make that profit, than you need to find a product that will give you a larger profit margin while also giving your clients the price range that is comfortable for them to spend in.

We pretty much sell an album to every couple.

Having samples to show has been really important in our business. We do meet with all of our brides before they hire us and for many that has played into their decision making process.

For example, we recently met with and booked a bride who had met with one of the most well known photographers in our area. She didn't like him. Based on her meeting with him, she thought that she wanted a traditional matted album, definitely not a flush album. She looked at our two main albums, a matted Zookbinders album and a Zookbook. She completely surprised her mom by commenting that she really liked them both, but thought she would probably end up with the flush album. She came into the consultation truly thinking she hated that kind of album, and left wanting that album. Seeing our samples ended up being one of the final deciding factors in booking us, because an album was very important to her. That is a pretty common occurance in our meetings with brides.

As for pricing, you need to factor in all your costs including materials, time (including consultations, design time and time to make changes), shipping fees you might pay, etc.

In our case, we charge a "cover cost" which is a base charge plus a per page charge. We have factored into the cover cost all the base stuff our album includes: glove leather, two lines of imprinting on the cover, our studio imprint on the inside front cover, shipping of the prints from us to the album company and shipping charges from the album company to us. The per page charge covers the design time, the prints and the per page charge from the album company with a reasonable mark up. For our matted albums, this fee is enough to cover the cost of some pages having specialty layouts that our album company charges extra for.

I offer a self mount option as well as coffe table book and I have samples of each...clients love them and once they see them, they want them.

I never think we give our clients enough credit.

We constantly talk about how they just won't know the difference, or don't care enough to pay attention. While there are certainly customers like that out there, don't you want the ones who do care? Don't you want the customer who took the time to do their homework and has researched their options, and still wants to hire you? Don't you want customers who appreciate the finer things and will pay accordingly?

Because I do. I don't impulse buy and if I were going to pay thousands of dollars for a wedding album that will outlive me, you can be sure I'd be wanting to see samples, asking about the manufacturer and the process, feeling like I have a top of the line product. And as a photographer, I'd like to be confident that when I tell my customer their wedding album is top of the line, it actually is, that when I tell them they are getting something spectacular, they will. Not just that it will be good enough they probably won't know the difference, not the bare minimum, but that they will own something drop dead gorgeous we BOTH can be proud of. For me, that includes choosing an album company (or two) that present themselves well.

It's easier than ever for our clients to research the same things we do, look at the same price lists we do. They can go to bridal fairs and see books they love and books they hate, and they ARE writing those things down. Some love having everything taken care of by their photographer and will accept anything you say as the gospel truth, and others are brand conscious and want to feel like their album is the shizzle. I sure would be irritated if I ever, for a second, felt like my photographer was cutting every corner (s)he could for the highest profit margin possible, was "making do" because I just didn't know any better.

But I haven't done a ton of weddings, so take my opinions with a grain of salt and do as you like. And maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of fairness that doesn't serve me well as a businesswoman.

love the album resources page, thanks for linking that!

So, you're implying that my way of doing business is inherently unfair or unethical. I (and my clients) would heartily disagree.

My point is not to screw our clients. My point is the value in the album is not the type of corners they have, or the type of stitching they have, or the number of options on the covers. I offer simple, well-built albums that will last. My customers are all those who "appreciate the finer things," and they pay accordingly, but I'm for giving them more pages and more photos rather than more fancy details on a book. Content is more important than form.

I'm promoting simple, quality books that don't detract from the content. The album is a vehicle for the photos--not the end in and of itself.

My clients pay what they do because of the value created by the book. Not because I bought an already expensive product and marked it up.

Nope, just that I would really worry about being perceived that way by my clients. I'm sure you don't tell your clients that they don't know the difference between a "decent, no frills" book and a LaVie album, cause if they see one, they'll know the difference. There is much truth in thinking that what people don't see (fancy cover options or beautiful boxes) they don't want. I'm just saying that they DO see it. They see their friend's Cypress album with the ribbon ties and they see the LaVie album with the amazing design and folding pages. They see metallic covers or Japanese papers and they think ooooooh, I want that. They see photo insets or full bleed silk covers and they want an album that matches their style.

Some (many, even) are perfectly content with the no frills black book, but my only point is that many brides now know darn well what the options are before they even meet us. I get alot of people asking about non-leather options, for example (here in slightly hippy dippy coastal California) and they are thrilled to be presented with something different than the simple black leather album they've seen everywhere else. They want something that stands out, and I pride myself in making that happen.




I agree that content is more important than form, but some of my favorite bookings this year are from fresh, funky brides for whom the form matters a great deal. If I wasn't willing to explore fresh and funky options for them, they'd not book me, and they promise to make 2007 a fun year for me.

Kevin, after rereading my post, I regret that it comes off as suggesting that your markup/methods are unethical. That was not my intent. I genuinely mean it when I say my sense of fairness is overdeveloped, as in unreasonable and counterproductive to running a business. That's a dig on no one but me. You're not screwing anyone since they clearly know what they're getting ahead of time, yes? I simply object to the idea that providing options or choosing an album company based on more than simplicity and function is foolish and throwing money away. Sometimes it is, and often it isn't. I'm glad your method works so well for you, but it's not something that works for me.

We have three studio samples (flush mount coffee table books), three different sizes, finishes, price points, etc - It was an expensive initial investment but has paid for itself over and over again, as people will order the smaller books their parents, etc - almost an impulse buy! - and the bigger books for themselves. Before we had studio samples, people were way less interested, and now we have brides/their families ordering 5 or 6 books.