I am a huge fan of the Kiss Wedding Books and have recently acquired a couple, one of which is the little kiss book.

This little beauty is 4 x 4 inches and can be an exact replica of the main wedding album so is great for family and friends. The great size means it is perfect for your handbag or pocket, ensuring you get to flash it to all and everyone whenever you want. Fabulous!

My mum was visiting the other day and drooling over the little kiss book. She said “ooh it’s perfect for going in my handbag so I could take it and show everyone”

My heart sank. Why!! I hear you scream at me, that’s exactly what you want to do with your album. And absolutely I agree, photos are for sharing and looking at often, so here is why.

Anyone who knows my mum will know she is not known for a small clutter free handbag, in fact my brothers quote when they were moving house and apparently downsizing, is a family favourite. “Mum you can’t downsize your handbag let a lone a house”! That could only mean one thing, it would get crinkled and bent and lost amongst all that clutter! (They didn’t mange to downsize the house by the way, in fact it’s bigger than the last one!! so he had a valid point.)

The more we thought about this the more we realised that lots of people have big handbags, it’s the fashion, and these large bags attract a lot of contents. So everyone would have the same problem and these little albums are to be loved, cherished and shared, not lost at the bottom of your bag getting bent out of shape! ( The little kiss books don’t come with their own gorgeous pouch like the larger ones to keep them safe.) So what was the answer?

Well I am really excited to announce that anyone who orders a little kiss book from me will now get their very own pouch to keep it safe from the contents of your handbag, and because your Little kiss book will be as unique as you, they will be produced in limited numbers of each design.

The first 10 little kiss books ordered from me will come in this gorgeous hot pink heavy weight fabric to afford it maximum protection. As each new pouch design comes hot out of production you’ll get a sneaky peek on here.

Check out these gorgeous pink hotties!

Thanks for KISSing!
Rachel : The Helpful Hottie 

Click the button above! You MUST check this out! KISSers… We are VERY excited about this new service. It’s a new album proofing system for you to use with your clients: and when they’ve approved the album, you can just click a button to upload to KISS!

Here’s the basics:

1 Design your album in your favorite program.
2 Export your album as high-res JPEGs (just like you would for a final upload to KISS).
3 Upload the JPEGs to AlbumExposure (super easy)
4 AlbumExposure automatically generates a beautiful sideshow and posts it to the web.
5 The client gets a link from you (through albumexposure) and they go to the slideshow, where they can leave comments about the design! http://albumexposure.com/kissbooks/test (password is kiss) for a sample! You can embed the slideshow in your blog or elsewhere in your site (albumexposure makes this so easy samples: http://www.KevinSwan.com/clients/bush)
When your client has finished with their edits, they click a button and all the comments are sent to you.
6 You make changes, upload the pages they changed
7 AlbumExposure automatically adjusts the slideshow to show changes.
8 Clients view new slideshow and can click the “i approve” button

9 You click ‘send to print’ and it will AUTOMATICALLY upload everything to KISS–totally ready to print. All you need is your job number!

I’ve started using it in my own photography business, and I’m very impressed with how easy it is. It’s by far the easiest slide-show generation program I’ve found, but the fact that my clients can leave comments on each spread, they can approve it with a button, and that I can send my designs straight to KISS without having to do any other processing is AWESOME. Album Exposure will even check your files and make sure the resolution and color space is right for KISS.

I know you all will love it. Here’s some special deals for KISSers from AlbumExposure. If you use the link: http://albumexposure.com/?referrer=KISSBOOKS when you sign up, you will qualify for some free goodies.

– With your FREE trial run, you can create up to 3 albums. You can submit them to your clients, use the approval system, send the files to KISS. You get full functionality of the system with those 3 albums. No risk. Give it a shot. You’ll love it.

- If you upgrade to a paid account, you will get a $5.00 discount off your first month (for a monthly subscription) or $15.00 discount off a full year subscription.

- AlbumExposure has 2 plans: $15/month (automated monthly billing) — or $150/year (yearly billing)

Just so you know, normally the kickbacks are paid to the referring company, but we asked AlbumExposure if they could take the $$ that was going to go to KISS and give them to you as a discount instead–they said no problem!

Here’s some things AlbumExposure wanted me to point out:

- realistic album presentation (grab the pages to turn them)
– customize to fit your brand and show your URL (you can hide the ‘albumexposure’ name)
– instantly collect client feedback (so cool!)
– easy to use and manage albums
– simple slideshow or bookview creation
– Auto-post to the web (embed on your blog or elsewhere for promotion)
– go directly to print with KISS Books
– and more….

Bottom line: I would not be asking you to check this out if i didn’t think it was a simple solution that I have implemented in my own business and that works beautifully with KISS.

You guys wanna hang out at the KISS plant? Let’s do it!

Kevin and Shaun are going to be in Utah on October 13-14 for some KISS biz, and we thought it would be great to have a plant tour for anyone interested! So, we’re going to do an abbreviated version of our Get Simple seminar (Just Shaun and I will Speak, so it will only be $100 instead of $225) and then we’ll give everyone a tour of the production facility. Should be awesome fun! Go to http://www.KissWeddingBooks.com/getsimple for more info and to sign up!

Dear KISS family,

I just HAD to drop you a note to tell you how thrilling it was to hear the sound of the KISS box drop downstairs on our front entrance by the “album stork” (UPS). THAT is the sweetest sound! Plus, the most amazing thing is that the albums promised by next week got here a week early!!
Thank you .. whew!…(seriously I was concerned about receiving them then, because we would be in Florida working. )

THANK YOU for exceeding my expectations! The albums are beautifully crafted, kissed by people who care, and simply perfection. Also, I love the baby chocolate kisses I ordered, SOooo cute, and the perfect size for the groom’s bragbook,and a sampler of chocolate for me!

LOVE love luv, kiss, smooch, hugs all around,

-Cece Glover
rapturephotoart

Thanks for KISSing!
Rachel : The Helpful Hottie 

Alex posted some great pictures on his blog!

The leather is soft and fluffy, sometimes my kids take naps on them before I ship them out to brides.

This bride and groom are HUGE HUGE HUGE Aggies so I thought I would also take some extra special photos for them.

This may be the closest this album ever comes to a National Championship.

We love the photos, Alex!

Thanks for KISSing!
Rachel : The Helpful Hottie 

First and foremost… This girl cracks me up! Amanda Rae, I love you! It’s 1am at my little KISS office and what do I do, read your blog and post it on the KISS blog asap!

Well, this week I went to an SEO Workshop (PS. you won’t see me in the video of testimonials from the day because I got horrible video fright, still pictures are just fine, video is terrifying) with about 30 of my industry peers, and the last person to enter the room was one of the owners of KISS, Shaun Austin. I didn’t know who he was, but once he identified that he was the owner of this fabulous company I couldn’t help but yell “I love you!” like some kind of groupie!

That comment actually made me excited to blog! …and I rarely get *excited* about blogging

Now it’s time for amanda rae’s full blog post. Didn’t that first comment make you want to read the entire thing?! Yes, me too!!

This last weekend I shot an amazing wedding…but you won’t be seeing it here! Every now and again I shoot weddings that can’t be blogged for one reason or another, so I’ll try to keep you otherwise entertained!

So, I’d like to talk about albums. But first a little story. Earlier this year I decided to go with KISS Wedding Books as my album vendor. I think they are fabulous for a multitude of reasons and I’ve shown you a couple of them in the past (here and here). Well, this week I went to an SEO Workshop (PS. you won’t see me in the video of testimonials from the day because I got horrible video fright, still pictures are just fine, video is terrifying) with about 30 of my industry peers, and the last person to enter the room was one of the owners of KISS, Shaun Austin. I didn’t know who he was, but once he identified that he was the owner of this fabulous company I couldn’t help but yell “I love you!” like some kind of groupie!

Ok. Weddings. Photography. Albums. All topics of discussion. This last weekend I got my latest package from KISS (perfect timing by the way, it came just before a meeting with a prospective client and I think she liked it ) and I decided the next topic of Education Nation will be albums. I was originally thinking I would end this series with albums because the album is the final phase of the wedding photography experience but because it’s my series and I can do whatever I want, I’m skipping ahead a little.

When you are planning a wedding, it’s overwhelming to say the least. There are so many decisions to make and details to oversee. Once you’ve decided who your wedding photographer is going to be, you typically then have to decide which of their “packages” is right for you. For the most part you are deciding how many hours of coverage you need, how many photographers you need, and then which finished products you want after all is said and done. The way I structure my photography collections you can say “hey I’m completely overwhelmed right now, can you just show up and shoot and we’ll make the decision about what we want later?” and that’s totally fine. Or you can choose a package that has an album built into it.

The wedding photography album is the ultimate final product from your wedding. Within your wedding album contains the dress, the shoes, the I do’s, the kiss, the intimate moments, the fun, the cake, the food, the bouquet toss, the love. In one neat little package you have all the memories from your day in an album that will last your lifetime and can be passed down through generations. This one place is the only place where your wedding lasts once the day is over and everyone has gone home. I think it’s obvious how important I think the album is to telling and re-living the story of your special day. Having the wedding album to store these moments for you is much more presentable (and impressive!) than keeping them on the CD of images that get hardly any play. So when planning your wedding think about the photography and think about what you will do with the photographs once the day is over.

This sample album is 12

Facebook comments:

To all of our lovely KISSers,

Album DS is a great software company that is offering a special discount for KISS customers! Check out the email from Album DS below. You can get up to $195/off of the album DS software for album design. We love you, album DS

Kevin,

Thank you for the blast we’re definitely seeing traffic from it and have had a couple confirmed orders so far and a bunch more trying the software. We have had some confusion though because you didn’t put what the offer was and the code is for a rebate that doesn’t show up in their cart but is put back on their card automatically after purchase.

Our shopping cart software sucks when it comes to discounts so it’s set up as rebate. The customer puts in the REFERRAL code “Simple is Hot” and pays full price at checkout and within a few hours $20 is put back on their card automatically and a confirmation of the transaction is sent to the customer. Is there any way to let them know the offer?

Simple is Hot – The Album DS offer

$20 rebate (put back on card automatically within a couple hours of payment, nothing to fill out other than code)
$50 value (deluxe dvd with training movies) mailed out
$125 value (free 2nd license for Mac or PC) for a computer you own and can be installed right away

That’s $195 savings and a Hot offer because you’re a KISS customer

Thanks for KISSing!
Rachel : The Helpful Hottie 

I’m shutting down the store part of New School of Photography ( http://www.newschoolphoto.com/ ), so I thought I’d move some of the videos to a place you can all enjoy them for free:

http://kevinswan.blip.tv/

You can catch the Intro to Lightroom, Building Albums with InDesign, and the vid with Bob and Dawn Davis (love it). More to come.

Enjoy!

Kev

Many of you didn’t get a chance to see this so I thought I’d post it again. We love Bob and Dawn!

The wonderful Tira J has so many great things to say about the new Little KISSes!

Look what the UPS man brought last week to my house! These super scrumptious Little KISSes! Oh my! If you have been following my blog, you remember when I wrote about my “First KISS” that is not the actually kiss that happened in the neighbor’s garage, but the amazing leather albums I offer to all of my clients. Once again, I was totally blown away by the level of customer service from the company that manufactures these works of art. Kevin and Shaun have done it again!

These Little KISSes are 4×4 in size and have the exact same leather on the outside, as well as the flush mount pages for each layout.

Love the green!

These little beauties can be exact replicas of the larger albums, or I can design one for you with the images from your session. And they come in all seven colors.

Her husband even posed as a model! What a great guy! Little did she know… we posted her husbands best assets for all KISSers!

Thanks, Tira J! We love you!

Thanks for KISSing!
Rachel : The Helpful Hottie