I’m dropping my prices … people aren’t spending as much … my bookings are down … I need to go to cheaper albums … I’ve started doing shoot-and-burn … I’m worried about my income.

You’ve heard the talk. Are you struggling in the face of competition, recession and demanding clients? Or do you just want to hear someone else’s take on things?

As well as our usual Photojunction webinars, we’re hosting two with Queensberry on the most critical issue facing professional photographers: how to survive and thrive in today’s demanding market.

Webinar 1: How to sell albums (and why)
Thurs 19 August NZT.

What can my competitors teach me? How should I choose my sample albums? How could I double my sales per wedding? How could I offer cheap coverages without selling them? How could my “best” offer be too successful? Are the most successful photographers the best photographers? What do you mean, there are only two ways to compete?

Webinar 2: How much do you need to charge?
Thurs 26 August NZT.

I know how much I want to earn, but how much do I need to charge my clients to make it? How much is enough? What happens if my bookings go down, or I move to cheaper albums … or shoot-and-burn?

Ian has created a spreadsheet to help you answer those questions – and more important, show the impact on your income if you change what you’re doing – or your bookings go up or down. This powerful tool will be available online so you can use it yourself.

Don’t miss out. Book now.

It’s our first time with this content so numbers will be limited. Ian will present, with comment and questions from QBY CEO Stephen Baugh and Jo Newman (UK Account Manager). You’re welcome to submit questions in advance, or ask them during the event. Notes and resources will be available to take away.

Click here for webinar times and to reserve your place.

As the new month rolls over (can you believe it’s August already!), so does our webinar schedule.

The August schedule will be online shortly, but in the meantime, here’s the details about tomorrow’s webinar:

Intro to Photojunction @ 9am (NZT)

In this webinar Danny will show you how to fire up the software and start using it. He’ll also walk you through everything from registering, to designing an album, to exporting and sending.

It’s free to all so come along, listen, learn and ask questions. We’d love you to join us.

Remember that’s 9am NZT. Here are tomorrow’s times for the rest of the world…

AUSTRALIA (East coast) – Thurs 7:00 AM
NEW ZEALAND – Thurs 9:00 AM
UK – Wed 10:00 PM
USA (West Coast) – Wed 2:00 PM
USA (East Coast) – Wed 5:00 PM

Or click here to check out what time it’ll be in your part of the world.

Please click here to register and for further instructions.

Hope to see you there!

Cheers, Nigel & Danny

With the addition of long time Photojunction fan Angelique Buckley to the Photojunction support team, our support hours have changed slightly to better accommodate our friends in the US and UK.

There’s a wee gap between shifts due to the switch over between our NZ and US staff, but you’ll be well looked after for most of the day – and there’s even a bit of coverage for you moonlighters

New Zealand: 8am – 4.30pm (Mon-Fri) and 1am – 7am (Tues-Sat)

Australia: 6am – 2.30pm (Mon-Fri) and 11pm – 5am (Tues-Sat)

UK: 2pm – 8pm and 9pm (Mon-Fri) - 5.30am (Sun-Thurs)

US (East Coast): 9am – 3pm (Mon-Fri) and 4pm – 12.30am (Sun-Thurs)

US (West Coast): 6am – 12noon (Mon-Fri) and 1pm – 9.30pm (Sun-Thurs)

As always, please contact Photojunction support via our support email info@photojunction.com, or call us toll-free on the numbers listed here.

Remember also to check out our online help resources including our live webinar schedule, tutorial videos, and forums – all listed here.

Cheers, Nigel

Photo by: Kamila Harris Photography

Hi!

My name is Angelique Buckley, and I am the newest member of the Photojunction Support Team.

If you are an avid reader of The Junction like I am, you may have already heard of me. I’ve been featured on the blog four times already, and can’t wait to play a bigger role in the growth of Photojunction.

So a little background about me… I am a huge nerd and I love photography. Maybe that’s why I fit in so well into the Queensberry team?

I studied Graphic Design in school, minoring in business, and started designing wedding albums with my own in 2005. Back then I used Adobe InDesign because I didn’t know any better. But when I was introduced to an early beta (think pre-V1.0) version of Photojunction Remix, I was in love.

I love a challenge, so working with new software was right up my alley, and PJ was already so much better for album making than InDesign. I’d spent the previous 5 years working for Apple Inc, and helping to build PJ Remix was the perfect adventure to follow on from that role. I spent a lot of time exploring any new features I could find, whether I needed them or not.

Fast forward, from 2007 and the initial testing of PJ Remix, to now. The number of users for Photojunction has skyrocketed. But while I like to think it’s still an incredibly easy piece of software, everyone’s bound to run into something they need help with along the way.

The most frustrating thing about being a PJ user in the States? For me it was the jealousy of their “Summer Vacation” over Christmas. The second most frustrating thing though, was that when I had an issue, I knew that my support system was likely fast asleep on the other side of the world.

But I think we’ve found a great solution for everyone who encounters this issue.

I’m based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (with my husband, dog, and cat), which means I’ll be working a more useful set of support hours for PJ users in the US, Canada and UK.

I’ll normally be working Monday to Friday – 9am to 3.00pm (EDT), which translates to 6am – 12noon on the West Coast and 2.00pm – 8.00pm in the UK.

So that’s me. I have an odd obsession with weddings and photography, but I don’t want to be a photographer, I just want to help them. Some people find that odd. I find that the best tool for me is a computer, not a camera. So I will stick with what I know best.

Look forward to helping you all along the way!

Angelique

If you haven’t been to the Photojunction website or blog lately, you won’t recognise them.

What’s going on? Well, the old PJ site had to go, for several reasons.

• Danny was embarrassed by it (me too).

• PJ has changed so fast that a lot of the support info was out of date.

• There’s a bit of misinformation out there (I’ll get to that).

• And it’s high time we came out of the closet…

So here’s the story:

In case you don’t know, Photojunction is a Queensberry project. It dates back ten years to when we first realised that any album supplier without a software solution was history (we were right: some of them already are).

But as we developed the software we realised it would turn into an expensive overhead unless we did something creative … so what we tried to do was persuade other album manufacturers to work with us in developing a great solution that would work for everyone. In our mind, an industry partnership.

We set up a separate company (Photojunction Ltd). We built a Chinese wall between it and Queensberry and insisted that Photojunction staff didn’t promote Queensberry in any way. We offered all vendors the same power and functionality as us. We built more than two dozen sets of “Album Resources” … to support Queensberry’s competitors!

And it worked. Sort of.

Today our users number well into five figures (highest in our category) and at least half of them use the software to design albums other than Queensberry.

But with few exceptions most album companies never bought in … and it takes two to tango. By and large the vendors were simply too suspicious to work closely with us. Fair enough, I guess…

These days the deal with Photojunction is strictly between you and us. “For photographers. By Queensberry” as the new website says. And anyone can use it, no charge.

Now for the misinformation:

Does that mean Photojunction locks you into Queensberry? Absolutely not.

Does it mean we’d like you to sell Queensberry albums? Of course!

But if you never spend a dollar with us it’s still free. A taste of what Queensberry can do.

What else? To streamline things around here we’re taking down that Chinese Wall so we can build a better, unified Queensberry/Photojunction support team. The PJ blog and forum have already been moved to the Queensberry site (you can still subscribe separately) and the separate Photojunction phone numbers will disappear soon. The payoff will be improved service for you.

So there you go. We’re out of the closet.

We’re Photojunction. Welcome to Queensberry!

Cheers, Stephen

PS For our reconfigured support resources, forums, blog etc, head off to the new website.

If you’d like to read more about our story, it’s here.

For more about why we’re f.r.e.e. click here.

To comment on any of the issues I’ve raised, please have your say below, or click here (you’ll need to login to post).

The heart and soul of the high end wedding album: one day seminars in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne by Johannes van Kan. Check it out.

Hello Dears, PJ Nanny here.

I’ve been doing the housekeeping round here for (goodness me) years now, but I’ve never introduced myself because I don’t like to be a bother and I love seeing my boys and girls in the spotlight.

But we … no, I … owe you an apology.

We released a new version a few weeks ago and on Wednesday afternoon Christine had a phone call from a nice young lady in Australia who had…

(Oh, I can’t bring myself to say how many)

… LOTS of “warnings” in the Photojunction Problem Reporter (my second favourite part of the program) and was feeling overwhelmed by them.

She’d stumbled on a bug (and we Grandmas don’t like bugs – I couldn’t sleep that night), so I made cupcakes for the Dev Team next morning and they very nicely fixed it right there and then – and posted a new beta the very same day.

They also told me, quite kindly, that some of you thought I was getting a bit too fussy in the latest release, and they added check boxes so you can hide my warnings about apertures with inconsistent spacings or sizes, or that are slightly misaligned.

That bug fix (and hiding my messages) brought the young lady’s warnings down from (I’m sorry, I still can’t say how many) to ten, which really were, as you youngsters say, deal-breakers.

I must say I’m of two minds about this.

I don’t approve of sweeping stuff under the carpet, my dears, but there you go, you can if you must.

So if the young lady is reading this, I haven’t met you but I’m so sorry.

Bless you all, and please cover up outdoors.

PJ Nanny

PS We may release an updated Final as well, but the bug only happens if you have wings or flips, and you can ignore my warnings, and anyway we’d need to do more testing first.

PSS My, I feel bad, because I’ve said “I” at least a dozen times, and now three more!

PSSS Do you like my costume? That nice Cory Thoman from Texas made it for me, but I embroidered the logo myself. Eat your heart out, Wonder Woman.

July’s webinar schedule is up and about on our Webinar Schedule page.

Check it out.

You’ll notice our Tips, Tricks and Power Features webinar is making an appearance at the end of the month, and we’ve varied the times to better accommodate our friends in the UK and Australia.

Hope to see you on one of them.

Cheers, Nigel

PS Danny’s headed off on holiday for a few weeks, so Ian and I will be presenting them while he’s away. It’ll be awesome

Turns out there’s a certain stigma attached to the word ‘free’.

Take a conversation I overheard this morning. A photographer was talking about how they really like the look of Photojunction but was avoiding downloading because, quote, “Although it says free, nothing is ever free.”

This conversation reminded me of a post Ian wrote about this time last year titled, “F.r.e.e“.  In light of this morning’s conversation, I thought I’d resurrect part of it which explains why we give Photojunction away free, and why there’s no catch…

So… why? What’s the catch?

Well, we’re building a community around the software… and we want you on our mailing list. Plus there is a charge if you want one-on-one support. And one day we might offer you other stuff that’s not free.

But if I never spend a dollar with you it’s free?

That’s right. The reality is we’re doing it anyway. Queensberry needs free software for its own clients, and like it or not, many of them use multiple vendors. We’re helping them solve their real world problems.

Cheers, Nigel

As regular users will know, our new final v1.40 is now out in the wild.

If you don’t use the Betas we think you’re in for a treat.

As with all our Finals, it’s a combination of features from the past two beta releases, 1.38b and 1.39b, but this time we also added two important changes that only affect Queensberry clients. We’ve blogged about them already on Queensberry Connects – a few controls about the use of Panoramas in matted albums and some changes to the QBY Upload Order process.

We’ll talk about a few juicy features we haven’t covered yet over the next few days, but here are a few we’ve already featured, that have now made it through to Final:

Adjusting tolerances in the Problem Reporter.

Changes to how templates work.

(Even) smarter centering.

Album proofing with albumexposure.

Cheers, Nigel