With the recent launch of the Queensberry Press and a new final version of Photojunction (1.45), we’ve got lots to talk about.

To start, this Thursday @ 9am (NZDT) we’re running a “how-to” Intro to Photojunction webinar to introduce the new final version 1.45 – we’ll demo using a new Queensberry Press Book.

Here are Thursday’s times:

AUSTRALIA (East coast) –  Thurs 7:00 AM
NEW ZEALAND – Thurs 9:00 AM
UK – Wed 8:00 PM
USA (West Coast) –  Wed 1:00 PM
USA (East Coast) – Wed 4:00 PM

Or click here to see what time it’ll be in your part of the world: http://ow.ly/32Vdj

Please click the link to register and for further instructions.

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/401296049

See you there!

Cheers, Danny

If you’re reading this, you’re reading it first, and thank you – we’re very grateful.

But still, we can’t tell you what’s in the box!

We can tell you what it’s not, though. It’s not an iPad or the new MacBook Air (and doesn’t run Android), it’s not a pizza and it’s not an album.

But we do hope to tell you what it is tomorrow. Within the next twenty-four hours. All going well.

As soon as the software’s out, the website’s up and the docs are done we’re holding an impromptu webinar, uncut and unrehearsed. We’ll email you ahead of time. We hope you can keep an hour or so free for us.

If you can’t, we’re glad you’re busy – no bad thing in this day and age! We’ll have the webinar up online asap and will be blogging too.

Back to work – hope to see you on the other side.

Cheers, Ian

PS We’ll love you even more if you spread the word.

A quick note to let you know our webinars are taking a break this week, but we’ll be back on deck again next week.

We’re in the process of lining up a couple of interesting new webinars, including a major Queensberry announcement (more soon – can’t wait!) and an interview with US photographer Justine Ungaro. You may have come across her online recently pimping her new Musée album.

We’re also planning a few live Photojunction webinars that we can slice and dice afterwards into a series of quick tutorials. We’ll see how many Danny can fit into the hour.

Details soon. Take care and see you next week

Cheers, Nigel, Danny and Ian

Just a quick note to let you know we’ll be offline for an hour or two this afternoon while we finish up some work on a major IT system upgrade we’ve been undertaking.

Here’s what we’re up to.

If you are attempting to upload orders to Queensberry, we suggest you simply leave Photojunction and your computer on and attempting to upload. When the transition is complete the upload should start.

Thanks for your patience

Cheers, Nigel

Hello dears, I listened to the webinar this morning while I was baking scones and I thought Danny and Nigel did very well (even my nephew Ian was OK, although I have to say that because he’s family).

Very bravely they asked people what they thought of the Problem Reporter, and a lot of people said it drove them nuts!

It was nice of them to admit it (even though it hurts this old soul’s feelings) and I expect that’s why they came along, but they did say the webinar was a lot of help.

In fact it was lovely how people responded when Danny popped up with lots of things to make the pain go away – no, not valium dearie – little tips and tricks like the Duplicate key, spacing presets and a really handy way to create an aperture the same size as another group of apertures.

(Ian had obviously never heard of that, which is a bit shameful, but he had the grace to join in the cyber-cheering along with everyone else.)

I do declare it went well, and I must get these “thank you” scones down to them before they get cold. Now where’s my blueberry jam…

Wrap up well, Nanny

PS I hear you Americans call scones “biscuits” and biscuits “cookies”. Why make life so complicated?

PPS Nigel says the webinar will be online tomorrow.

PJ Nanny took to the airwaves again last week, bless her, and ‘gently encouraged’ Danny and I to run a webinar on the Photojunction Problem Reporter – which, let’s face it, drives some of you nuts.

And yet in the bindery we see order after order come in with no aggravation whatsoever. So what’s the secret?

Actually there are a few and we’re happy to share.

So with the promise of freshly baked scones for morning tea, we’ve booked a time to talk through some tips and tricks to make the pain go away.

We’ve also asked our support team to send through a few real life examples of Problem Reporter issues for us to discuss.

And of course there will be Q&A time for you to ask your own questions.

Here’s the details:

Thursday 14 October @ 9am (NZDT) – What time does that makes it in your part of the world?

Click here to register and for further information.

Cheers, Nigel

PS Since PJ Nanny will be busy baking the scones, Ian’s agreed to come along in her place

The IT guys are very excited because Queensberry is about to implement a major network upgrade, including a change of providers. We won’t know ourselves when it’s done. If you have lots of bandwidth at your end you’ll notice a substantial speed upgrade when uploading orders.

However you could notice a disruption to the following services over the next few days:

FTP order uploads
Account login (access to our secure server)
Photojunction registrations
Phone (we use VOIP).

Any disruption will occur as our new DNS address propagates across the internet. Some ISPs enforce as much 24 hours for an update, so that is the longest period we expect to be offline for anyone, but it should generally be much less.

If you are attempting to upload orders to Queensberry we suggest you simply leave Photojunction and your computer on and attempting to upload. When the transition is complete the upload should start.

The process is scheduled to start at 2.00pm Friday afternoon our time so we should be back to normal well before the new week starts. Click here for the time in your location.

See you on the other side!

Cheers, Nigel

We had our biggest crowd ever for yesterday’s Queensberry What-if webinar. If you were one of them, thank you. We hope you found it worthwhile (and we’d love your feedback).

The webinar is now available to watch below or on Vimeo (it’s an hour long, but we hung around for another 20 minutes to answer questions!).

The interesting thing is we barely touched some of the “what if” questions Ian posed (so there’ll be another installment soon) … but meantime that is what his calculator is for. You just plug in the numbers (your numbers) and see where they take you.

Key point! Don’t just play with COSTS, but also with VALUES. (eg if you’re tempted by shoot-and-burn, don’t overlook the impact on how much you can charge).

Minimum Average Sale Calculator

Click here for Ian’s calculator, plus instructions for using it. You’ll need to be logged in to our Partner website using your Queensberry username and password.

By the way, just having a Photojunction registration won’t give you access. If you’re not yet registered with Queensberry, click here to be verified by our support team as a legitimate professional photographer.

All the best from Ian, Stephen, Gino, Danny, myself and everyone else at Queensberry.

Cheers, Nigel

PS, if you’re not familiar with all of Queensberry’s online websites, forums etc, you’ll find a complete list here.

Photography for fun and profit. (It’s a lot of fun making a profit!)

Book-keeping – who needs it?

Some people keep regular accounts because they like to keep score.

Some people do just enough to keep the tax man and the bank happy.

But very few use their accounts to play the most important game of all… WHAT IF?

What if you could plug one of these questions into your business model and see the effect:

• What if my sales go down?
• What if I can’t get my price?
• What if I cut my costs?
• What if my bookings still go down?
• What if I offer shoot-and-burn?
• What if I hire staff or a second shooter?
• What if I rent a store-front studio?
• What if I outsource my post-production?

Questions like these can screw your income or destroy your business if you don’t know how to think about them.

Queensberry has forty years experience with professional photographers, and a very strong interest in helping our clients build long term profitable careers. After all, if our clients don’t prosper neither do we!

Come along to this month’s webinars to learn about the Queensberry model for wedding and portrait photography, and how to answer those critical What-If questions.

This Thursday New Zealand time, Stephen and I will be talking informally with Gino Demeer, one of our US Account Managers. We’ll plug some typical numbers into my Calculator and then get right down to business.

Click here to register and for more information.

We’d love to see you there – bring your own questions!

Cheers, Ian

It’s been a little while since we last updated our popular Intro to Photojunction webinar recording on our Vimeo channel.

It’s had thousands of views, but with so many new changes to the software since it went up earlier this year, a newer version was due.

So we recorded last week’s session and it’s now available to view online, anytime…

Watch it full screen (and in HD) here.

Remember, if you’d like to join one of our live weekly webinars, check out our webinar schedule for details. We’d love you to join us.

Cheers, Nigel