Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook I would not sabotage my long-term business in order to survive a panic attack or a short-term crisis. Panic attacks — we all have them “My bookings are down.” “I’ve gotta cut my prices.” “I’ve gotta slash my costs.” We all have anxiety attacks, so maybe this chapter’s for you. Anxiety is worrying in advance, worrying without a plan, psychological rather than rational. And the actions you take while you’ve got the cold sweats could affect your business for a long, long To View More >>

Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook "That process has two distinct stages—before and after the shoot. The first sells the booking, the second is the up-sell…" High-end photographers have been selling albums profitably for as long as we’ve been in business, but for many today it seems a lost art. Why? Obviously the world has changed — "shoot-and-share" and "just the files" are seductive ideas, and so is selling online. And who needs the hassle of getting people into the studio, playing nice, offering them bubbles and selling To View More >>

Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook There are so many reasons why the printed image matters, but long term accessibility to your most treasured photos is surely a deal breaker. Why printed images matter Back in the ’90s I remember walking back to our trade show booth behind two people from a neighbouring stand. They were into IT. As they approached our booth I heard one say to the other, “I feel sorry for these guys. How long can they last in the modern world?” It’s so long ago I feel like they must have been visionaries — how did they know To View More >>

Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook Bad taste takes a while to show up, but as soon as it does it’s embarrassing. How to avoid it? Start by keeping it simple. If in doubt, leave it out. The half life of crap In her book The Mesh, Lisa Gansky talks about “the half life of crap” – about cheap manufactured products and how long they last. Or rather don’t last. Her point is that the half life of crap products is way too short. They get boring or they break. They end up at the back of your garage or as land fill. Our poor planet can’t afford To View More >>

Previous |  Contents | Next Download the eBook "Me me me! My favourite word." — Seth Godin The people paying Here’s the key thing about social photography. Those people in your viewfinder are paying your bills. All of your bills. And the images you take are more or less worthless to anyone else. What are your customers after? Why do they want their photographs taken? Actually, do they want their photographs taken? In social photography the trick is to understand that it’s not about the print, or the album, or the photography, or Photoshop, or what your peers think To View More >>

We're so grateful to our Workspace Print Shop early adopters. We've enjoyed helping you launch your Print Shops, and we love seeing your print, frame and canvas sales coming through! One thing you've told us is that you'd really like your customers to have a better visual experience when selecting their product options in the Print Shop shopping cart — which leads us to this update. The new Product Preview feature will show your customers the correct cropping of an image for the To View More >>

Our  Loose Print Boxes  have had a bit of a makeover and we’re excited to announce a bunch of lovely new options so you can deliver your clients’ prints in a personalised handmade print box. And they’re fast and affordably priced! We’ve introduced the same personalisation options as we offer in our  Studio Boxes  (for matted prints), such as bow closures and USB inserts, and you’ll be able to add a blind- or foil-embossing of your studio logo, your clients’ names, or something unique like a text quote or a graphic, to every box you order. To View More >>

Categories are a great way to divide images in a Gallery into separate sub-groups. For a wedding, for example, you might have categories called Getting Ready, Ceremony, Reception and so on. That means your clients can jump to the Ceremony images, for example, without having to scroll through hundreds of other photos. You can now upload directly into Categories using the Workspace uploader. Here’s how to create a new Category, and upload directly into a Category using the Workspace uploader. 1. Create a new Category Go to the image gallery area in Workspace and To View More >>

UPDATED: corrected an error with the Faux Leather selection. We're getting ready to introduce new cover material and embossing options, and we're pretty excited about it. But first we need to say goodbye to some of the existing range. It's hard turning our back on things we love, but we need to make way for the new. And normally the reason is simple … not enough sales. The good news is that the discontinued materials will be available "while stocks last". We just won't be reordering them, and we won't be including them in our swatches, which we're To View More >>

Last week we shipped the very first real live order for our new medium-weight lay-flat Q Books. Not a prototype, not a concept drawing or trial album, but our very first, real live order. These lay-flats were just a part of our 2015 launch, our biggest in years, with new cover materials, new panoramic flushmounts and much more. We showed them first at WPPI and SWPP, but despite our own excitement and the enthusiastic response, we’ve resisted shipping the lay-flats until now. Why? To make them perfect they needed a little extra love, so we went back to the drawing board. The last To View More >>