Baby Steps

Today I'm pondering a photography business. I showed my mom a couple photobooks I had printed by an online company and she liked them. In fact, she's going to order three copies - one for herself, one for my aunt and one for my grandfather.

We talked about selling my photographs at her farm this fall when she sells the 2000 pumpkins they have growing there. It's already a hay farm so they have customers coming and going already, which is good.

There are lots of things I need to do if I want to do this, which I do. Let's list them, shall we?

1. Print some photos. (I could break this step down into about 10. Let's just say for now that I will probably use my Zenfolio account to print them so they are professionally done and won't fade like the ones I print myself. Also, before I even print them I'd want to take some specifically for selling on my parents' hay farm. I have some like this already, but a few more probably wouldn't hurt.)
2. Find (online) materials I can use to matte and package them.
3. Make business cards. I wonder if Zenfolio has a link for that.
4. Figure out how to price my pics. I don't want to start too low.

Ok, I'll probably also want to set up a Zen album with the hay pics on it so people can have a look and order them later. Or do I? My Zen account won't let me set prices, so they'd basically be paying just for the prints. Maybe I don't want to do that. Or maybe I will upgrade my account so I can boost prices.

Am I getting ahead of myself? Maybe. But maybe not. When am I going to start if I don't start now?

Could I print some photos and offer my parents' hay customers a chance to win a farm "sitting", where I would go to their farm for a few hours and take pics? They could choose to buy or not buy copies of the photos. Maybe I take pics and put them on Zen for the client, keep permissions for them, and sell them to others for retail. How in the heck would that work? Something else to think about. I need a sample contract book for photographers!

So first, pick some of my best farm photos and find packaging materials for them. Make a business card. Worry later about sales prices, when I have them ready.

Finally, I want to find a way to make my pics stand out. Anyone can take a picture of a flower or a wave. Why should someone buy mine?