St. Louis Photographer » A Journal by Holly McCaig

The other night I shot a few quick images of products in the studio for my senior price guide. They aren’t the best images…I really need to schedule a product shoot day with better light! But, I wanted to share how much I love these products. Honestly, they are the three main products I sell, other than prints.

Gallery Wraps. HELLO! Every one that comes in the studio and experiences them first hand knows they rock. I honestly can say I prefer to sell them over framed prints. Why? They are timeless. They never become dated like a frame can. And, if you change your decor, you aren’t having to reframe your images. I just love how amazing a group of them can look together. I would love to consult with clients about some designs we have drafted, or their ideas, before their shoot. We can look at that and shoot for that end result. Gorgeous!

Books / Albums. I offer a few styles in albums and I think my Basic Album, the little ones on the bottom of this stack, are the best sellers. They start at $250 and are 7 x 7 inches in size. Perfect for my senior clients when you want to collect as many of your images in print form as possible. It looks great on a bookshelf or on your coffee table. The perfect keepsake. I also sell the larger, more elaborate lay-flat books with the thick pages. Square or vertical and in various sizes. The possibilities are endless. If you love all your images and can’t afford to buy them in print form, consider an album or book!

Greeting Cards. Whether it’s for Christmas, a birth announcement or grad announcements, this is a great way to stay away from the norm. Custom designs are the way to go! And, they can compliment your images so much better than store-bought images. Pre-designed collections are just the cost of cards, starting at $2 per card (with envelopes) and custom-designed collections are also $2 per card plus a $75 design fee. I especially love this graduation announcement I designed for my high school grad client.

So, there you have it! The three products I love to offer my clients. We can offer you so many options in products, but when I stopped to think about it, these three stood out to me most. And, they are the things I would buy if I were my client. In fact, I better get to ordering some new wraps for the house!

Follow me on Twitter | Senior Portraits Facebook FanPage | General Facebook FanPage | Newsletter Subscription

I am excited to share a senior basic book with you that I designed for Bobbi Jo. My basic books are just 7 x 7 in size and have about 34 pages to them. That’s 17 spreads. Each one comes with a printed cover that I can custom design, or you can choose from some of my previous designs. Now, Bobbi Jo can have a nice collection of all the images from her high school senior portrait session. Take a look!

I really love the option of albums for clients. When you consider the cost of printing all your images from a session, it’s really just a nice way to get close to every one, in a nice and presentable way. I work with top album companies and my prices range from $350 to $1200 for albums depending on the size, paper types and cover options.

I also love in-person proofing, and my studio is going to be moving towards this for all clients as the main option (unless you’re reordering or are out of town). It truly allows my clients to discuss their needs with me – like where to hang certain images in their homes, seeing true measurements of sizing and can put products in their hands. I’m a firm believer that you’re doing a better job at servicing your customers when you can help them this way. In my studio, clients come in and we first chit chat, then I show them a custom slideshow on my big tv. Clients sit comfy and cozy as if they are in a living room. Then, we begin the process of sorting through their images. Using the program, Pro Select, my clients can easily tell me which items they love, hate and are on the fence about.

I know for a fact that it’s hard to choose images. I tend to give a little more in my proofing sessions. I prepare a few specialty product drafts to show them too. If someone does not see something, they won’t know about it to buy it. With Pro Select, I can show them what their images would look like cropped a certain way, how they might appear in specialty collages, or even in my custom designed greeting cards and albums.

I do love albums. I love that when I’m shooting your session, I’m trying to tell a story. Your images can compliment one another on the wall, but when you want a larger collection, why not choose an album? I have a few, more luxury style albums available, but let’s face it, in this economy we want to be able to afford a beautiful keepsake and still get something that is a great quality.

Our Basic Albums are a new product for us. Each album contains a hardcover where your image is printed directly onto the hardcover with a durable matte finish. Each book is printed on 100# silk-finish premium paper (this is not the heavy-weight mounted pages in our premium books). Sized at 7 x 7 inches, albums contain 15 spreads (approximately 50 images). Priced at $250 (each additional spread is just $30).

The design process is pretty streamlined for our studio, and we can provide a draft in just a couple of days to you. Rush Fee on final album order designs not placed by December 5th. Deadline for delivery by December 24th is 12/7. So, if you’d like to open up an old session and have us design one of our Basic Albums for, just get in touch!

Here’s a quick slideshow of the album we did for Cherie + David’s session on Tuesday – the spine has text (the first slide is the cover design).

I absolutely LOVE albums. I mean, look at those luscious, thick pages, printed on Fuji papers. And, those gorgeous bindings with a custom cover. Oh, the design and goodness of a square album.

I don’t sell enough of them. But, I intend to. I think when people see them, they are in awe. They fondle them and want to hug them, just like I do. Okay, so maybe that’s a little over the top, but some things just do it for me. It’s the perfect way to display your entire session, especially when you aren’t sure how you’re going to decide just which images to purchase. I shoot a lot. I offer a lot of proofs. I want my clients to have all their images. This is probably the most affordable way to get them, and have something amazing you can treasure for years to come.

Dream albums are my favorite squared albums. This new company started this year, and when I got my first sample, I died (in the words of Rachael Zoe). I did, I die!

The insides are always custom to fit your images, but the outside, I like to have a few, amazing options pre-designed and have been planning on doing this for my Client Lounge for some time now. So, I present my first design. Photogs can buy this design at Pink Ink Studios if they want. My clients, you can choose this for your square album cover. It’s designed for a 12 x 12, 30-page album which retails for $990. It can be resized down to a 9 x 9 ($750) or a 6 x 6 w/ 20 pages ($450). This one came to me because of being inspired by Brittney’s dress. The warm tones, with the woodgrain texture – perfect!

Anyway, I just love albums. You can see that it’s a perfect keepsake from your session!

This photo has NOTHING to do with this post, but I hate NOT having a photo on a post and well, you must admit that my Jack is the cutest thing ever!

I’m really glad that I can share what I’m learning from my experience in shopping for the perfect album. I wanted to share a few more that came up from my album post too!

1. Pricing. It’s hard to determine what’s the best method and how to mark up your products. I found a great article on this and can’t find it now. Oh well.

I’ve heard a few different ways to do this. One of those is that people take the cost of the album to them, and mark it up by 2.5 to 3.3 – and that would equal about % of your cost for the total like if you wanted to figure up 40% then multiply by 2.5 – or something like that! I’m sure clients or potential clients reading this are gasping at the thought of my potential markup, but let’s be honest! There is a huge markup on everything we buy including furniture, cars, clothing. It’s the nature of the business. And, if you think of it as the customer is buying the book at your cost, but paying the markup for your service of beautiful prints that show your style and talent as well as any design work you do, then this post shouldn’t be that hard to swallow for potential clients.

You may want to do like me. I created a spreadsheet where I can visually see a cost comparison on my cost vs. my markup. Then, I can see how much I’m making off the album. I’m also so anal that I even have a column where I take out a percentage that is going into savings to pay taxes on my product sale. Then, I REALLY see how much I’m taking home. You can use your “markup” column to figure out if this is a good profit for yourself.

I’m all about not making things complicated. I could figure in how long it takes to make one page and multiply it by the ratio of blah, blah, blah. I just don’t do that. I don’t have time for that!

You may agree with my method and you may not. Heck…it’s all about what works for you!

And…I found the article! Here.

2. Someone asked me how I decide how many images can go in a book.

I struggled with this for some time. I’d look at other books out there and try to average how many image by how many pages. It got a little crazy! So, my goal is to make sure my clients “TRUST” me and my design judgement. I won’t dare stick it to them by putting as few images on pages as possible so they are forced to spend more money on more pages. I just won’t do that. If they see my sample books that typically have 10 pages or 20 spreads, then, they can get an idea of what I do!

I have decided the best method is to design the album how I see best fit based on the number of pages – that I will recommend at about 30 to 60 to start. Then, we will meet to review the first draft. This just takes out the guessing game of them trying to figure out the best photos and what they want to see. It’s overwhelming! If I can make that easy for them, then I will. Design, then go through that first draft. After that meeting, I will apply any changes I need to make based on their notes and requests. From there, we get one more review in PDF format emailed to them. After that last review, they can have more changes, but my design billable rate is $100 per hour. So, if we can get a beautiful book designed in three passes we’re doing pretty darned good!

If you’re struggling with album design, I haven’t found a GREAT online builder yet. I’m testing one from Graphi Studio hopefully next week. But, for now, I stick with the amazing Photoshop Templates that you can purchase at Pink Ink Studios. I also make a few of my own up as I see fit. Design is fast for me. Really, I can design a book in like two days if I put my mind to it. It comes naturally to me. The thought of outsourcing it just isn’t even on my mind. I went to school for design and frankly, I love doing it!

So, there’s a little informative Saturday morning post for you. Not sure if it helps you, but always feel free to join the forums at Pink Ink Studios and share and ask questions there. We have a lot of photographers that participate there and have a lot of experience and ideas!