Posts Tagged ‘wedding albums’

A New Era Has Begun

Sunday, January 16th, 2011

zookie pro Goes Live!

It’s here! Zookbinders’ long awaited album design and fulfillment service called zookie pro. This is not just another design service where you, the photographer, are left to make changes and upload your order. zookie pro is a simplified, complete album fulfillment partner in your business.

We’ve talked to literally hundreds of photographers who either are not comfortable designing albums, don’t like designing albums or don’t have the time to handle all of the post production work involved with fulfilling a bride’s desire for an album. We’ve also talked with hundreds of brides who still want an album but are frustrated with the time and effort it takes to get their album.

Starting today, everyone’s frustrations are over. With zookie pro, photographers can climb out of their digital darkroom and get their lives back while still offering a quality album at an incredible value. Brides can get beautifully designed albums for themselves, family and guests at a great price. And best of all, it can happen in as little as 30 days from their wedding day…which REALLY makes brides happy!

Check out zookiepro.com and learn about our great quality products, our simple and elegant album designs, our hassle free workflow and how zookie pro can give you your life back. To celebrate, we’ll be launching zookie pro at Imaging USA in San Antonio, Texas and offering 50% off your first order if you place it now through January 18, 2011 using the promo code LAUNCH11.

zookie pro

It’s About Time

Friday, January 14th, 2011

What time? Time to get your life back. Time to work smarter not harder. Time to outsource. Time to have some fun!

When we started working on the idea of zookie pro, we asked two questions: What do brides want? What do photographers want?

What was the common theme in the answers we found from these questions? Time. Brides were tired of how long it took to get their finished wedding album. Photographers were frustrated by how long they were stuck at their computers editing, retouching and designing albums. So when we thought about what we could do to make everyone’s life easier, the answer was obvious, give everyone more time by simplifying the album making process.

From a business perspective time is one element that most photographers forget about in their pricing equations. With digital technologies, you can literally photograph a wedding with zero product cost (no film or proofs are needed). And for those photographers who do sell albums, they often only look at the cost of the album. But what about your time? How long did it take to market yourself? How long to prep for the wedding? How long to shoot the wedding? How long to do all of your post production? How long to learn Photoshop? How long to design an album? How long to make revisions?

Most photographers spend hours upon hours doing all of this work. Not only do many not charge for this time, they forget an important business principle – opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is what you lose out on while or when doing something else. So if you are one of these photographers doing it all yourself, the opportunity cost of doing it yourself and “saving money” is everything else in your life that you give up.

How do you get this time back? Try zookie pro. The mission of zookie pro is to make your life easier. With zookie pro as your partner, all you have to do is pick out your favorite wedding images, upload them to zookie pro and you’re done. We design the album layout for you, post it online for your review, and upon approval we’ll print beautiful album using real photographic paper and a leather cover. We’ll even drop ship it to your client. Best of all, if you follow our 30 Day Makeover, the happy couple can stay happy by getting their album less than 30 days after the wedding!

Pretty simple eh? Imagine delivering a high quality album with very little effort. Your time will be freed up to spend more of it with family, friends and do the things you love to do. Your clients get their album quickly and with little effort. They now have more time to show off their album and sing your praises. If you’d like to learn more about how you can redesign your workflow and deliver albums in 30 days with very little effort check out zookiepro.com.

What time is it? It’s time to get your life back!

zookie pro goes live January 16th!

Keepin’ It Simple

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

Digital photography has opened so many creative avenues for photographers. It has also made photography much more complex. You have to download, back up, color correct, edit and retouch. It really isn’t a simple process, and if you do it all yourself it’s very time consuming.

This is where Zookbinders new design-print-bind service, zookie pro, comes in. zookie pro is designed to simplify photographers’ lives. All you need to do is select your favorite images and upload them at zookiepro.com. We then take care of the rest. We’ll color correct, design, let you preview your layout, and then print and bind a beautiful album for you. Simple!

From a design standpoint, simplicity rules the day. zookie pro offers only square format albums with our popular Leather Spine cover in our Lustre Book construction. Each page spread is designed with a simple and elegant layout that will feature a single panomramic image or collection of images that tell one little chapter in the story of your clients’ big day. We then forward a digital version of the album for your review and approval. Simple!

Finally, ordering and upselling couldn’t be easier. For those of you who have been long time Zookbinders customers, there is no ROES with zookie pro. You simply select your album size, upload your images, pay by credit card, and your done. When we send you your preview, we’ll show you what a collection of replica books would look like, and lay out your options to make it super simple to offer your clients additional albums for family or guests.

Want to learn more? Check out zookiepro.com for all of the details including our big launch on January 16th, 2011.

Long Live Photographic Paper

Friday, December 10th, 2010

You’ve told us that you wanted a lay-flat album made with real photographic paper but without the high cost of traditional albums. That is just what we’ve delivered with The Lustre Book by Zookbinders.

We originally launched this product as part of our PhotoBook line on August 31st with special pricing and a 50% discount off studio samples through of December 31, 2010 . Starting January 1, 2011, we’ll be re-branding this book as its own separate line known as The Lustre Book.

The Lustre Book
The Lustre Book features real photographic paper pages with a protective lacquer coating that are folded (not split). When you select any leather cover option (Leather Spine, Full Leather and Full Leather with Cameo), there is no added charge for Glove Leather. Larger books, with leather cover options, are available in 8×8, 8×12, 9×12, 10×10 and 12×12. Digital Replica Books in smaller sizes of all formats are also available. While The Lustre Book is priced a little more than our press books (an 8×8 starts at $130), these books are well worth it.

To learn more visit The Lustre Book page at our web site.

Let Your Vendors Do Your Selling

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

We all know that third party endorsements are more credible than singing your own praises. As a photographer, what better way is there to get endorsements than to provide them with a sample album from an event on which you collaborated? They’ll be thrilled to show off a sample of their work, and when they do, each and every one of their clients will see your work as well. This pre-qualifies those prospects by introducing them to your work.

Zookbinders offers a few different ways to make the album design and display process as easy and affordable as possible for you. Our Digi-MatZ® templates are designed as a “plug-in” for Adobe ® Photoshop® to help you create beautiful album designs. Once you’ve created your album design through either Digi-MatZ or your own software, Zookbinders’ ROES system completes the process by making the order process for your sample albums a cinch.

Here are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind when creating your sample book for your vendor:

  1. Be aware of where faces or other focal points of the photo land on full-page spreads and panoramas. While most Zookbinders products lay flat, some do not (i.e. Soft Cover Press Book), causing the crease to possibly hinder the design.
  2. Watch your margins to ensure nothing important is cut off during trimming (a 1/8 inch is trimmed off the top and bottom and a 1 /4 inch is trimmed off each side of a PhotoBook two-page spread).
  3. Create an eye-catching design that will appeal to a wide range of your clients.
  4. Remember who you are designing these books for; your layouts should feature your best, most creative work and that of your vendors rather than what your bride may select for her own book.
  5. Use your name and logo, as well as the vendor’s name and logo, in the book.
  6. Leave business cards or photo cards with your contact information along with your album so brides have an easy way to contact you.

Once your design is done, you can order these vendor books as samples and receive Zookbinders standard sample discount (50% off Zook Books and 25% off PhotoBooks) with no annual limit on the number of samples you order. These vendor samples are an investment in your future. For less than $100, you can have a beautiful album of your work at a vendor’s store selling your photography services each and every day. These images and the referrals from your vendors can add up to thousands of dollars in new business for you. That’s money well spent.

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