The Fast Track Photographer Business Plan: Build a Successful Photography Venture from the Ground Up Review

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(More customer reviews)Unlike any other, this book is about fitting "YOU" to the market place! Sub Titled Build a Successful Photography Venture from the Ground up by Dane Sanders. I consider this a Revolutionary and much needed book in the Photography Industry with these ever changing current times of internet and social media.
As Dane says in this book there is, "no one size fits all business plan". Emphasis is on defining your business vision and having it tied to a sound business plan of which he details through out the book. Included are step by step exercises and charts to help one get clear with their business goals.
What I really like about this book is that Dane starts the first 3 chapters on vision alone. And how important that is! I needed this book as I sometimes get side tracked from looking at the "Big Picture" as I am constantly dealing with the ever increasing technology that is now available for my photography business. Its practically a full time job in itself! I have many books on how to be a specific photographer but currently have been changing my goals, and needed a book that does not presuppose a direction. This book fills the bill!
Along with Vision Dane introduces new concepts in, Finding your Sweet Spot, Sales and Marketing, Focusing on your Strengths, Systematizing your work, Creating the right team and much much more! All the nuts and bolts of how to figure the numbers and creating an actual business plan that fits you are included.
On the back inside cover of the book is a code that you can punch into his web site to take a Business Stress Test (BST) test for free (which is normally $15.00). I'm looking forward to taking that test to see how my business shapes up!
CONCLUSION:
I highly recommend this book to anyone, photographer or otherwise, that is interested in starting, or restarting, a service based business!
Thanks Dane!
Dave Likes
L. David Likes Photography

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NEW RULES FOR A NEW BUSINESS WORLDThinking about starting a photography business? The first thing you need to know is that the rules have changed. Yesterday's business models have collapsed. Creating a successful business in today's "Digi-Flat" era requires a sharp new approach, one that Dane Sanders has practiced successfully and taught at Fast Track workshops and seminars all around the world. Some of the things you'll learn in this book:How to turn the very technologies that are "killing" professional photography—such as the Internet—into your tools of success-How to lead your business, not let your business lead you -How systematizing, scaling, and outsourcing are critical concepts even for a one-person business-How to radically rethink marketing, sales, and customer service for the 21st century-How to hone a creative vision that works—the most powerful step you can take as a businessperson The Fast Track Photographer Business Plan is not about building a "traditional" business plan that looks good on paper and impresses investors. It's about creating a vibrant, living business plan that will help you thrive in today's digital "Wild West," where creative content is freely distributed, where no one plays by the rules anymore, and where customers have unprecedented freedom in choosing what to buy and whom to hire. It's a groundbreaking look at running a creative business. Whether you're an amateur looking to go pro or a professional whose business has stalled, Dane's practical, on-the-ground advice will launch you on the fast track to business success. Includes free access to Dane's online "stress test" to diagnose your business's strengths—as well as where it needs help!

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Taking Stock: Make money in microstock creating photos that sell Review

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(More customer reviews)I read this book once and resold my copy. I rarely sell my books, but I could not envision ever rereading this one. Part of my problem may have been all the glowing reviews here that the book did not live up to. That aside, I can objectively say that I found the book to have little useful content. At least not useful to me.
Contrary to the implications of the product description and of many of the reviews, this is not a book about selling photos. It is a book about the techniques and workflow needed to get your photos accepted by a stock site. The author shows that the secret to getting your photos accepted as microstock is knowing that the decision is made by quality control inspectors who reject photos for obvious technical errors or for overprocessing. As far as I could tell from the book, and the author never discusses it, the inspectors have zero interest in content, composition, sales potential, or anything else other than technical quality. The author spends a great deal of time detailing the workflow in Lightroom. Not having Lightroom, I quickly read through that material and saw nothing that would not be contained in any good book on workflow or in any good manual for your particular software.


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The ultimate insider guide to creating stock shots that sell from a veteran iStockphoto inspector An iStockphoto inspector since 2002, author Rob Sylvan has spent nearly a decade as part of the team that decides which photos get sold on one of the largest, most popular microstock sites in existence. He's also made tens of thousands of dollars off of his own microstock photography. As a result, no one knows better than he does what it takes to get your photos accepted to stock sites—and what to do to make those photos sell. In Taking Stock, Rob shares his hard-earned insider knowledge on how to shoot, edit, and tag photos so you can earn while you learn, regardless of which microstock agency you're using. In this book, you'll learn how to look at the world through the eyes of designers, photo editors, and stock photographers. You'll also learn the importance of focusing your energy on creating stock content that resonates with your passion for photography. But we all know time is money, which is why Rob explains how to set up an effective digital workflow—the real key to making money in the high-volume, low-cost microstock market. By the end of this book, you'll look at your work with new eyes, enabling you to make more money doing exactly what you love: shooting photos that sell. You will learn:
How to license photos as stock
What photos are in demand
The components of a successful digital workflow
How to use titles, descriptions, and keywords to give yourself an edge
Specific tips for shooting food, people, places, nature, objects, animals, and more
Editing techniques that will make your shots sell

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The Linked Photographers' Guide to Online Marketing and Social Media Review

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(More customer reviews)Over four hundred million people have accounts on Facebook. Thousands, if not millions, of tweets are sent each day. Personal web sites are common. With all this traffic flying over the Internet, it's easy to see why some photographers believe that there has to be a way to turn all these electronics signals into dollars by selling their images online. "The Linked Photographers' Guide to Online Marketing and Social Media" attempts to tell photographers how to do this.
After a brief introduction to social networking on the Internet, the authors discuss some fundamentals of social network marketing, including preparation of a plan, branding, creation of websites and blogs, search engine optimization and analytics, and the use of ads. The third part of the book describes most of the major social media sites and the authors' suggestions on how to use them. The book concludes with descriptions of how the authors and other photographers have used social networking for marketing.
My first impression of the book was that it seemed rather general and did not provide enough specifics on how to use particular social media sites. Then, when I went on line with the book in hand, I found that the authors had provided more information than I noticed at first. For example, while I was familiar with Google analytics, which allow you to examine the nature of the traffic to your website (presumably so that you can improve your marketing), I was unaware that Facebook also provided its own analytics until the book led me to them. On the other hand, you won't learn how to design a good website in this book.
Even though I recommend this book for those interested in online marketing, I do have some quibbles. For example in their discussion of web sites the authors ignore the capabilities of software like Photoshop and Lightroom to create web sites quickly. It is true that these websites follow templates that are not designed for marketing, but photographers willing to spend a little time learning to use software like Dreamweaver can quickly customize the web sites created to make marketing web sites.
In the chapter on blogs the authors tell us that photographers' blogs should be tailored to their audience, but then go on to describe blogs that discuss primarily photographic technique and activities. That makes sense for individuals trying to sell to photographers but not for those trying to market their photographs or services to the public.
One area that is ignored is the question of how effective online marketing actually is for most photographers. It seems to me that the biggest problem photographers trying to sell their work encounter is one of too much supply and too little demand. I realize that these economic questions are beyond the scope of this work, but photographers should be warned that even if you follow all of the advice in this book, there will still be more marketing to do.
For the photographer interested in marketing through social networking, this book will provide a good introduction. No one should expect that merely following the advice in this book will result in the sale of a single image.


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"The Linked Photographer's Guide to Online Marketing and Social Networking" is a complete resource for photographers looking to improve their business through social media. This book provides a step-by-step process for getting a photographer's business online, and acts as a reference guide for the variety of online marketing options on the web. This one-of-a-kind guide is the key to making social media work for the photographer to improve their business!

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New School Wedding Photographer: Skip the Second Shooter / Assistant Role Review

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(More customer reviews)Alright, this book is not really what I was expecting. I guess i was expecting real information? A well written book? Something worth $20? Here are few things you should know if you're thinking about purchasing it:
- It's about 100 pages with enormous sized doubled-spaced font. It's practically a pamphlet.
- Taylor doesn't seem to know the different between "your" (possessive) and "you're" (you are).
- The guy can't write. At all. I'm guessing he hasn't yet completed the eighth grade. Obviously this book wasn't edited.
- He mentions several times what the book is about in the first few pages, "all about using social media", "all about building the groundwork for a successful wedding photography business", and "how I skipped the second shooter/assistance role". So...which one is it really "all about"?
- Its completely unorganized.
- All of the info in this book can be found online.
- Oh you want to know what info this book has? Stuff like: have a blog, Facebook, & Twitter, back up your photos, and "you'll have to work on Saturdays".
- I'm pretty sure all the reviews of this book were written by the author and/or his friends. There's no way possible a real customer gave this book 5 stars, let alone six customers.
The book is a joke and complete waste of money. I should have just vomited on a twenty dollar bill instead of buying it.

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Hey all, this book is 120 pages of blog-ish content. It is for beginner photographers looking to get into the wedding industry. If you already have a website, and have shot a few weddings, it's probably not the right book for you. If you're sitting at square one right now, and looking for a suggested direction, and a few short cuts along the way, this is more up your alley.If the $20 you spend here helps book a wedding in the future, it's easily paid for itself.It is not a guide to overnight success. There is a lot of hard work that goes into something as life changing as a new work-for-yourself career.-----------------------------Social media is changing the face of wedding photography.It's now even easier to get up and running with a little help from Facebook and Twitter.It's all about laying the proper groundwork for a business that willmake you happy in the future.This book will help you create a business that targets couples that you really get along with, and have fun with.Beyond that, it's about creating your ideal lifestyle, as well asportfolio - and using social media (Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Etc) tohelp grow your business.This is the book to read if you're just getting started as a wedding photographer. It details the steps I took to go from 0 weddings one season, to 37 weddings the next year and 47 the year following.--------------------------------It is broken up into the following sections:Part 1: Getting Up and Running (FAST!)Detailed advice on how to set yourself up for success in the future.Part 2: ShootingWalk through a wedding day, and remove some uncertainty from the days events. Another perspective on how to professionally photograph a weddingPart 3: Two Day WorkflowDon't spend all of your time managing behind the scenes activities, and regain some of your life freedomPart 4: A Few More Advanced TopicsGeneral information about how to keep your business growing.Part 5: Advanced Social Media and Online MarketingBook more weddings by getting smart on the web.--------------------New School Wedding Photographer is written from my experience, and contains information about how I would suggest starting a wedding photography business right now.

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