Album Exposure Integration

If you’re an AlbumExposure client, you can now upload to KISS -and- get the advantage of using our KISSup! system to preview your layout. When you upload from within AE, you will be asked for your KISS login, and then presented with a list of jobs you have that are waiting for upload. Just click the job/design you’re uploading and you’ll be off and running!

Design customers upload change

We’ve tweaked the KISSup! Loader to allow people to upload images for Simple and Custom Design. So, if you order a book you designed and one you want us to design in the same order, you can now upload both the spreads and individual images in the same place. Just another improvement to help keep things Simple!

Cruise with KISS! (USE THE CODE “KISS” for 10% OFF!)

Immediately after this year’s Partnercon, Kevin and Shaun (the KISS Boys) will be speaking/teaching on this year’s Camera Cruise, November 11th-November 15th, departing from Mobile, Alabama and stopping in Cozumel. This family-friendly (Shaun and Kevin are bringing their kids/wives) cruise is a perfect opportunity to blend a vacation with a write-off. You can learn from some awesome industry leaders like Frederick Van Johnson, who will teach you how to leverage social media and the web to market your business; Sara France, Apple’s featured photographer, will help you get the most out of your Apple products, showing you all the latest hardware, software, and services that will streamline your business; the world-traveller, David Beckstead, will give you an intensive workshop on framing and composition in wedding photography; the Bui Brothers will cover how video has impacted photography and how to use it in your business; and more speakers/classes/shoots!

If you’re attending Partnercon, it’s a quick drive to Mobile and you can do the cruise right after.

$1250 registration includes:

• chance to win prizes (Spider Holster, Drobo Storage, Apple iPad)
• 7 in-class workshops
• discounts on industry products/services
• 1 excursion/outdoor workshop
• cabin
• gratuities
• meals/drinks
• travel insurance

Cruise Questions?: Phone: 1 (888) 493-4459 — Email: info@cameracruise.com
Click here to find out the details or sign up. If you register 2 or more, you get a 20% discount.

Pictage PartnerCon 2010: New Orleans

November 9-11, 2010 – Astor Crowne Plaza

If you went last year, you know PartnerCon was an amazing event. If you’re a Pictage or ShootQ user, the signup is only $199 (non-members: $299). They sold out last year in record time, this year they have 500 spots available. The speaker list is solid: Joe Buissink, Bob Davis, J, Amber Holritz, Jared Platt, David Wittig, David Beckstead, Mike Colon, Carlos Baez, Sara France, Mike Larson, and many more. For a couple hundred bucks, it’s a no-brainer.

Compared to something like WPPI, the smaller size of this conference means you have great opportunities to talk with these industry giants, instead of being swallowed up by 12,000 attendees. Plus, you get to hang out with the KISS Crew! Shaun, Kevin, and the Helpful Hottie, Rachel, will all be there. If you have questions or want to inspect a book or two, feel free!

Click here to learn more or sign up.

Kevin, Shaun, Rachel.
The KISS Crew.

We were proud to attend Rachel’s wedding this weekend. Customer support may be a little slower since she’ll be on her honeymoon–but Joy, our Design Diva, and Kevin are committed to trying to keep the inbox empty!

The people have spoken. Of nearly 200 customers who voted, only 10 opted to leave the Linen KISSes with the current shiny material.

Stay tuned for updates on how we will roll the change out.

The new matte is very similar to the existing material, just less shiny. We will have some sort of swatch replacement option, but your existing swatches and samples will be close enough to sell from, if you don’t opt for the new swatches.

Thanks for voting!!

KISS

New Little KISS Ordering

We’ve always wanted Little KISSes (our 4×4 books) to be inexpensive and easy to get. As we have manufactured thousands over the years, our production processes have changed. We’re more efficient now, faster, making better products all across the board. The problem is, with Little KISSes, any time someone orders a single copy, we now have to make two and throw the extra away. Because of the size, it’s much easier to build two books at a time and cut them in half when we’re done.

With our volume increasing daily, the waste is becoming more significant.

When we experimented with a recent sale of buy 1 LK, get the second half-off, people jumped on it. So, we’ve decided to make that discount permanent, but we’re also requiring that you purchase two books at a time.

So, when you put “one” LK in your cart, it will be a set of 2 copies, both with the same cover and images inside. We’ve lowered the base price of a Little KISS by more than 25%, but you have to buy 2 at a time. Your pricing will be significantly less!

New Four 4 Four Special

You can now get a “starter kit” for a special price (over $50 savings!) that includes a 10×10 Leather, 12×12 Linen, and 2 4×4 Leather copies of the same 10-spread design. Easy to do: just add the special to your cart!

Look for some exciting improvements this summer! We hope you are all having a successful season. Onward!

KISS

Now that we’ve had the Linen KISSes in the wild for a while, it’s time to take the pulse of our customers.

To give you a brief history… When we launched the Linen books in November, they were something the world hadn’t seen yet: Lay-flat, no-cut, photographically printed, back-to-back books that were priced the same as inferior press-printed books. Yay! However, the first material we used on the covers was susceptible to damage from fingerprints, water, anything. So, we did an emergency scramble to find a more durable material. We replaced the cover material, replaced everyone’s swatches, and received mostly positive feedback on the switch. There were some, however, who complained about the ‘shiny’ nature of the new covers–saying they looked cheap.  So, we continued to do our research. We’ve found a new material that looks like the existing and is equally cleanable and durable, but is matte in finish.

So, we’re running a poll for 2 weeks, asking if you’d prefer a more matte material to the existing sheen. Whatever you decide will be the direction we move! Stand up and VOTE!

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PS: The poll IS recording your vote–even though the results link doesn’t show and nothing”happens” when you click “vote.”

Photo sample of difference. New material on left.

Hey, KISSers!

2010-03 update: Our total donations are now at $4,335! Thanks to all of you.

2010-02 update: Through your orders, we donated over $1600 last month, and this month is looking great, too! I wanted to share a letter we received that details some of what’s going on with your money:

Dear Friend,

I have just returned from Haiti, where Samaritan’s Purse is working non-stop to help survivors of the catastrophic Jan. 12 earthquake. It’s almost impossible to describe the scope of the tragedy—not just the endless devastation and the lingering stench of death, but the anguished faces of women, children, and others who are desperate for food, water, and shelter.

Our teams on the ground estimate that Samaritan’s Purse has been able to help close to 100,000 people since the quake struck.

Here are some of the ways we have responded:

• SHELTER: Everywhere we went, I saw makeshift homes covered with heavy-duty blue plastic handed out by Samaritan’s Purse. Already, we’ve distributed enough plastic for about 20,000 families. In the coming days we will begin providing thousands more with transitional housing where they can live until they are able to rebuild a permanent house.
• MEDICAL CARE: While I was in Haiti, Samaritan’s Purse reopened a clinic at one of the largest churches in Cite Soleil. It will be staffed by doctors who are volunteering through World Medical Mission, the medical arm of Samaritan’s Purse. We are also continuing to provide doctors and support for the Baptist Haiti Mission hospital, where over 1,500 survivors have been treated; and we sent in a helicopter this week to carry medical brigades into some of the most isolated and hard-hit towns.
• FOOD: We have handed out 250 tons of rice and other staples to thousands of families, focusing on the needs of mothers and other women. Our teams have also delivered food to over 40 orphanages where children had gone hungry since the earthquake.
• WATER: We have set up large-scale water filtration systems at 10 locations, providing more than 20,000 people with clean drinking water. More filters have just arrived and will be installed soon.

This has been the most massive relief project in the history of Samaritan’s Purse. We have chartered eight cargo flights and two trips by an ocean-going barge that delivered over a million pounds of heavy equipment and construction supplies. We thank God for providing the resources and opening the doors for us to deliver help into the crippled country.

Click on the video image here to watch my report from Haiti.

We praise God for what He is doing through Samaritan’s Purse to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the people in Haiti. Your prayers and support are making a difference. Please continue to lift up our teams on the ground. They need God’s strength and wisdom as they help and minister to those who have lost everything. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:L1).

If you would like to know more about what Samaritan’s Purse is doing in Haiti and how you can help, go towww.samaritanspurse.org or call us at 1-800-528-1980.

Sincerely,

Franklin Graham
President, Samaritan’s Purse

KISS just LOVES the simple and minimal templates offered by Tofurious. Did I mention they’re free?! Yes, you can experience some of their designs for FREE! We love these guys and the simple designs they offer. It makes it easy for every photographer to create an effective design without cluttering up each spread.

Take a look at Set One get a sample of these templates here!

Check out Set Two get a sample of these templates here!

Enjoy Set Three get a sample of these templates here!

Thanks for KISSing!
Rachel : The Helpful Hottie

Help for Haiti

By now, you’re all aware of the tragedy in Haiti. KISS has been donating $5.00 for every order placed to the Samaritan’s Purse Haitian fund. Joy, our album designer, has agreed to donate 100% of her design fee for orders between January and February as well. So, hats off to her for that! Last month, we donated over $1600! You can find out more about the effort here: http://kissweddingbooks.com/blog/2010/01/help-for-haiti/

NEW: KISSup!

Major (major) update!

Tuesday Feb 09, we will be unveiling our new KISSup! service, which will automatically check your files (dimension, color, and resolution), show you the order of the spreads (and allow you to rearrange them), show you the way your album will look after we trim it, name your files for you, name your folder for you, and upload them to our server! It’s so simple! KISSup! is a joint venture between KISS and AlbumExposure, and we hope you will love it.

No more worries about proper file names, or if something will be cut off after the trim–It’s all automated, baby!

However, this also means that we will no longer be checking your files for you. Rachel, our Helpful Hottie, has seen her job become nearly entirely file-checking. That means she has no time to answer emails, phone calls, and IMs. We want to provide the best customer service, so using the up-loader, it will free her to focus entirely on YOU. If you need questions answered, she’ll be there! Nearly 90% of our problems in file verification have been due to people not understanding the trim issue. With the KISSup! service, you’ll be able to see and approve the way your album will trim. Also, as soon as you approve your layouts, they go straight to print! This means you’ll know your ship date right after you order (it will be auto-generated and emailed to you).

When finally implemented, after you complete your order, you will be given the option to upload right away. If you’re not ready, you can log back into your account and upload it at any time.

Be prepared!

Some things to note about the new service:

• We will only accept 20×10, 300dpi, sRGB JPEGs (no more PDFs)
• It is important that you review the order of your spreads carefully. If they are out of order in the preview, that is how they will print. On the first page of the upload process, you will be able to re-order your spreads by dragging and dropping. Make sure it’s the way you want it!
• If you have templates built for a different dimension, you’ll need to resize them to 10×10.
• If you need help exporting from older versions of InDesign (like cs2, or cs3, which can’t do high-res JPEGs), email support@kissweddingbooks.com and we can tell you how to use Acrobat to open a PDF and save JPEGs out of it.

Renamed Products

KISS loves a good pun as much as anyone, but we found that people were confused by the terms “Soft KISS” and “Hard KISS,” so, the leather-covered KISSes are now (strangely) called, “Leather KISS,” and the linen(like)-covered KISSes are now (oddly) called, “Linen KISS.” We hope that helps keep things straight!

New Material for Linen KISSes (and replacement swatches)

We’ve heard your complaints about the Linen material getting dirty easily and being impossible to clean. We are going to upgrade the material to one that has the same linen-like pattern, but will be more durable and cleanable. It will have a slight shine to it, compared to the existing material, because the paper has been saturated with some silicon to help make it more stain-resistant. If you’ve ordered a swatch ring, we will be shipping you a new one with the new material. If your swatch hasn’t shipped yet, it will in about 3 weeks, when we’ve got all the colors of the new material in. The construction of the books will not change.

If you want your orders to have the new material, we should be fully stocked in about 3 weeks. Until then, we will continue with the existing material until the new rolls come in.

2010-02-01: Update: January’s Donation: $1691–Way to go KISSers!

As of Jan 14th, 2010, KISS will donate $5.00 for every order to Samaritan’s Purse’s Haiti Fund. We will announce if this policy changes. Until then, our prayers are with the millions of people affected by this tragedy.

UPDATE: Joy, our album designer, has offered that 100% of her fee for album designs ordered in January and February will be donated to the Haiti fund! Thanks, JOY!

You can find out more about the organization here:

https://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/articles/responding_to_haiti_earthquake/

2008 was a killah cluster of clients. 2009 will be even better! RSVP here!

Fun announcements!

First… A dance-off. That’s right. Shake it for ShootQ and you could win six months of ShootQ’s amazing studio management for free . We’re planning on talking our hosts, the Boudoir Divas, into judging this intense competition.

Second… Get motivated with Pictage’s Passion martini! Pictage has recently reignited their company’s fire and they’re passing it on! Some great Pictage staff are coming down to mingle, so be sure to say thanks for all the new things they’re up to!

The Divas are giving away a seat at their workshop in Vegas.
Pictage is giving stuff away. KISS is giving stuff away. It’s going to be lots of stuff and people and drinks and dancing and stuff.

Hope you can make it! RSVP here!

CLICK HERE for some video from last year by the Fabulous Bui Brothers! They’re on it again this year!