Photobooks

[metric_photography]

If you offer a photo book with your package-- do you (the photographer) choose the images to be in the book or does the client?

[Niresangwa]

Originally Posted by metric_photography

If you offer a photo book with your package-- do you (the photographer) choose the images to be in the book or does the client?

They decide a rough page count, I figure roughly how many images that permits, I choose the images, they see a draft and tell me if I missed anything in particular, make changes. The less decisions (and lower the complexity of those decisions) the faster the process is.

I just do it and send them a digital copy for review. If they approve it, I order it. I've never had someone ask to make a change.

But then again, I do all mine in MyPublisher and do it on the cheap.

[snowfalldesigns]

I ask what edit they would like (color, b&w, vintage, or a combo) and I pick the images - it would take way too long to wait for them to decide. I recently switched from Inkubook to Blurb and I've been very happy with the switch! Not to mention, with Blurb, I can pull the pics right from my Zenfolio account.

[giannispass]

The desicion is from the clients

[ChrisAdval]

Originally Posted by metric_photography

If you offer a photo book with your package-- do you (the photographer) choose the images to be in the book or does the client?

I would give them the option of what photos but I would give clients my consultation of what I think is best and they and agree or disagree with my consult and sign a contract saying they refused my consultation ideas on how to do the production. But I don't know if anyone else does this but I do try my best to keep customer satisfaction high.

[Xposurepro]

They choose the design they like and we include all session images in the book .. multi-image page templates allow us to control the number of pages to keep it where we want the expense to be. Our books come from Millers and H&H and we offer the options of Layflats and Albums only. Excellent quality but note that you will need to be operating a real photography business in order to get their products.

[larios]

It's the photographer who decides. Some minor changes may be allowed.

[autofocus]

I haven't done too many books, but what I do know is that I WILL NOT do it the same way I did the last one! Way, way too much time involved for the amount of money we made on it. The job entailed shooting a customer's house, all the rooms, and the outside shots. The house was one of the designer showcase houses included in the Christmas tour..1 of 4 that we were hired to photograph. The contract called for a handful of shots of each house focusing on the decorated rooms only. When we arrived at her house, she wanted a very thorough and complete session photographing her house and all the minute details. We agreed to do so, but only if she paid a premium for us to do that. Between my wife and I we shot ~200 images right down to the gnat's ass details. Her house, throughout, was decorated beautifully, and she wanted a record of it for posterity.
Subsequently, we visited with her with the hard copy 4x6 proofs, and after a fair amount of time she selected 56 images to be placed in the book. Of course, they had to go in order, and arranged accordingly on the various pages...We actually made a mock up using printer paper by arranging and taping the photos onto their appropriate pages. All of this took a considerable amount of time. She agreed that a creamy off white would be fine for the page backgrounds, and she gave me a page of text that was to be integrated into the book.
I configured the book as she wanted, setup an appointment to review the digital copy, and proceeded to sit with her as we went over every page once again. Upon seeing it, she decided she wanted the pages to have different backgrounds, so the creamy white was out.
Finally, I placed the order with Picaboo (very good supplier, BTW) and delivered the finished product. We sold the book to her for $300. And for that, she got 56 of our images, and a ton of our time. Even if we had sold the images printed for $10 each, our net profit would have been a hell of a lot better, with about 1/10th the work. Lesson learned. Books don't necessarily make you a lot of money. In the future the images used, and placement in books will be done by me, and not the customer...and maybe we'll be charging a bit more for the finished product.
This has been my book story