Portfolio Book: How To
One of my favorite things I did last year that was new to me was a Portfolio book for my favorite Painter and Handyman, LBS Painting. He did a lot of great looking flips and wanted to have a book to show people in sales presentations of examples for past work. Which makes sense right? So with that, we got started on it and my goal was to get it in his hands and making him money before the end of the year.
I used VistaPrint, one of my favorite resources, and one thing I will reiterate "It is better to be safe than sorry". Account for the margins, even more than they tell you to do so-but otherwise like all their other products, great quality for the hard cover, for the paper, and I can always find a coupon code!
Planning: If you do not have your hands in every aspect of the book, from organization to photos-account in your planning for photo costs. You can save a lot of money on the costs of making the book if you can access or create all the needed materials. For me, I always begin with the end in mind-how can I build this book in a way that it makes money quickly and pays for itself.
Cover: This is the first impression and one of the most important impressions the book is going to give. Spend some time and make sure it is good. Our cover was big, simplistic textually, and like anything else a high quality photo.
About: I made this page a large and simplified "Hello this is me" page. Now when the client himself is using it, he won't need this page. But say there are multiple people involved in creating it that want a copy? Well when they use it, the client gets to be there without being there. Isn't that nifty? To put a personal touch, leave room to write a hand written note on there. Followed by a Services Offered page.
Section Divider: this is a nice way to use space and allow there to be a page with negative space, but you don't need a lot of these pages.
Before & Afters: If you have these, these alone can make up a book. Important things to note would be, use the same rooms at the same angles (or similar) to get the most of the Before and After effect. But even if you don't have all or the right Befores, you can always show the finished product and let them prompt the story of how they came to be like that. This book is a conversation starter. Other ways to organize it would be by room (ie: Bedroom, Bathroom, Living Room).
Testimonials: Reviews are great, they should be varied as far as sources go. I would not do more than 3 or so per page, depending on the size.
Credit Page: Funny how I would of thought this page as being the most important page for liability reasons, it also stand to give credibility. I was told that my client found people reading it and saw that the people credited as having worked with him were reputable people.
Back Cover: Assuming you can design something that is read from beginning to end, there is no reason to think the back cover is not as important as the front cover. I like this for the official note from the author.
Join me next week as I go into my next project, Real Estate Mailer Campaign! Til then!
P:(657) 246-2298-Email Me - Moxi Zombi Marketing - Blog-Twitter - Instagram - Facebook - Flickr - LinkedIn
I used VistaPrint, one of my favorite resources, and one thing I will reiterate "It is better to be safe than sorry". Account for the margins, even more than they tell you to do so-but otherwise like all their other products, great quality for the hard cover, for the paper, and I can always find a coupon code!
Planning: If you do not have your hands in every aspect of the book, from organization to photos-account in your planning for photo costs. You can save a lot of money on the costs of making the book if you can access or create all the needed materials. For me, I always begin with the end in mind-how can I build this book in a way that it makes money quickly and pays for itself.
Cover: This is the first impression and one of the most important impressions the book is going to give. Spend some time and make sure it is good. Our cover was big, simplistic textually, and like anything else a high quality photo.
About: I made this page a large and simplified "Hello this is me" page. Now when the client himself is using it, he won't need this page. But say there are multiple people involved in creating it that want a copy? Well when they use it, the client gets to be there without being there. Isn't that nifty? To put a personal touch, leave room to write a hand written note on there. Followed by a Services Offered page.
Section Divider: this is a nice way to use space and allow there to be a page with negative space, but you don't need a lot of these pages.
Before & Afters: If you have these, these alone can make up a book. Important things to note would be, use the same rooms at the same angles (or similar) to get the most of the Before and After effect. But even if you don't have all or the right Befores, you can always show the finished product and let them prompt the story of how they came to be like that. This book is a conversation starter. Other ways to organize it would be by room (ie: Bedroom, Bathroom, Living Room).
Testimonials: Reviews are great, they should be varied as far as sources go. I would not do more than 3 or so per page, depending on the size.
Credit Page: Funny how I would of thought this page as being the most important page for liability reasons, it also stand to give credibility. I was told that my client found people reading it and saw that the people credited as having worked with him were reputable people.
Back Cover: Assuming you can design something that is read from beginning to end, there is no reason to think the back cover is not as important as the front cover. I like this for the official note from the author.
Join me next week as I go into my next project, Real Estate Mailer Campaign! Til then!
P:(657) 246-2298-Email Me - Moxi Zombi Marketing - Blog-Twitter - Instagram - Facebook - Flickr - LinkedIn
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