What's the deal with Photo Books?

Oakley

Would love to hear from the dgrin community on the topic of Photo Books.

1. Have you created one in the past?
2. Was it for yourself or for your client(s)?
3. How long does it typically take you to put it together?
4. Do you go through an interative process with your clients to make all the choices (which photos, book style, page layout, etc.) or do you just make all the calls and then send it to them.
5. How much do you charge your clients? Of course "it depends", but what's the low, average, and high?
6. What or who do you use to put the book together?

Thanks!

Ryan

bendruckerphoto

1. Yes.
2. Clients
3. 3-4 hours
4. The client chooses the photos, I lay it out and send it to them to approve.
5. It's included in my top packages, but I charge $249 ($279 for the larger hardcover book) to add it to a package that doesn't include it and then $129/$149 for additional copies of each book.
6. Blurb.

South Shore Snapshots

Photo books
My answers to your queries...

1. Yes, several
2. Both, though my "clients" are my friends
3. Two hours give or take
4. They choose the photos, I turn it into the book
5. Twenty bucks on top of the price of the actual book
6. I use iPhoto's built-in book maker

Oakley wrote:

Would love to hear from the dgrin community on the topic of Photo Books.

1. Have you created one in the past?
2. Was it for yourself or for your client(s)?
3. How long does it typically take you to put it together?
4. Do you go through an interative process with your clients to make all the choices (which photos, book style, page layout, etc.) or do you just make all the calls and then send it to them.
5. How much do you charge your clients? Of course "it depends", but what's the low, average, and high?
6. What or who do you use to put the book together?

Thanks!

Ryan

JohnBiggs

Compared to others I really find http://www.theweddinglab.com the cheapest. They will even design for you for very little money.

These aren't those thin magazine books, but full flushmount hard pages.

mercphoto

Oakley wrote:

Would love to hear from the dgrin community on the topic of Photo Books.

1. Have you created one in the past?
2. Was it for yourself or for your client(s)?
3. How long does it typically take you to put it together?
4. Do you go through an interative process with your clients to make all the choices (which photos, book style, page layout, etc.) or do you just make all the calls and then send it to them.
5. How much do you charge your clients? Of course "it depends", but what's the low, average, and high?
6. What or who do you use to put the book together?

I have created several for myself. Some where Apple's iPhoto books (marginal quality). Some were Blurb (not bad, though have not tried them lately, nor their premium paper). Others were from Asuka Book (great quality, hefty price, inflexible on page counts). I'm getting ready to do a Blurb book on premium paper, and to do a book from Pounds Photo Labs. Great quality, great price, flexible on page counts, tons of sizes... but I hate their ordering software, which is also their layout tool.

I've done two books for clients. I probably spent three hours each on those books. Both were designed as individual pages in Photoshop (not ideal). Both were mildly interactive. I let both clients see the pages and did mild edits in one round to get the finished product. I'm getting $200 for a 20-page 10x10" hard cover book. That does not include cost of image capture. Would love to get more, but people will only spend so much on photos of their car.

I like designing iPhoto books (but don't like the finished product). I like Blurb's design/layout tool. I like Pound's finished product but hate their design tool. I like Asuka's finished product and like that I do the layout in Photoshop but not fond of their restrictions on page counts.

MelMcClain

We use two different suppliers...Blurb for the budget brides and GraphiStudio for the high quality beautiful albums. We set up book packages that they can choose from but if they're interested in add-ons or modifications we work with them to cater to their budget.

Nikolai

Don't forget: Bing/Google is your friend:
http://photo-book-review.toptenreviews.com/
It doesn't include the high end producers (GraphiStudio and such), but it gets you started