Ok, so I totally had it on my blogging calendar to post some of my favorite Align Album Design spreads today, and then I got an email from Melissa Jill about their “Pricing For Profit” quiz and decided to combine them into one. I love how that worked out, don’t you?

Truthfully, I took the quiz and was a little embarrassed by my results. I’ve never been a person who’s great with numbers when it comes to money, and I’ve always placed a desire for my couples to HAVE a book with their wedding images in it over the desire to make a meaningful income on albums. But I think there’s absolutely a way to do both! I value people over profit 100% of the time, but something I’m learning this year is that in order to continue to serve my couples well, I need to, you know, actually stay in business. So it’s GOOD to price yourself in a way that means you’re able to support your family! Yes? Yes!

The fact of the matter is, as a small business owner it’s super easy to undervalue your own time. We don’t have a boss who’s in charge of distributing bi-weekly checks, so our time and expertise is what makes up each paycheck. I used to (and still do, sometimes) struggle with feeling like it’s wrong to charge more than whatever the wholesale cost of something is, but look at the mechanic who works on your car- they charge for labor, don’t they? Same thing for lawyers, accountants, consultants, etc. The time it takes to put an album together, going back and forth with your couples on corrections, the time you spend actually assembling the order form and sending it in to the bookbinder, those are hours to take into account when pricing your albums. And that’s just good business sense! (I’m talking to myself just as much as I’m talking to you guys, hope you know that).

So, here’s what you need to do: hustle on down to Align, take the three-question quiz, (it’ll take less than 5 minutes to complete). They’ll then email you with your album sales strategy alter-ego (I got Robin Hood!) and some feedback on whether or not your pricing lines up with your values. Click here to take the quiz now! (Follow the link in the upper-right-hand side of the screen.) And when you get your results, come back to this post and share them in the comments! I’d love to hear whether you think they are accurate and if the feedback provided was helpful!

And without further ado, the originally-intended blog post images for today: some of my favorite spreads from my Align designer, Andrea!

Photographers, if you’re up to your neck in editing and have a dozen albums waiting to be designed, do yourself a huge favor and send those images over to Align. I can’t stress enough how easy it is to work with them- they take care of the initial design, and all the changes your clients may request! The follow-up corrections alone are worth it for me!

PS- my amazing friend Mary Marantz wrote an awesome blog post on this same thing yesterday!