Shared Ink
The company was
founded in 2001 by Chris Hickman, combining the printed book
market with the online family and photo sharing market into
a single product. It now offers two different programs: the
Regular Program and the Photographer Program.
Within
the Regular Program you can start right away: Sign up for
your free SharedInk.com account, gather your photos to include
in your book, choose how many photos per page and upload them,
and finally preview your book and place your order. You have
a choice of different linen hardcover books; for instance
an 8.25" tall x 11.0" wide Keepsake Book ($39.95
for the first 20 pages - 10 sheets, double-sided - $1.00 each
additional page) and a 6" tall by 8" wide MiniBook
($24.95 for the first 20 pages - 10 sheets, double-sided -
$0.50 each additional page).
You
can also publish your book in digital format, allowing you
to view your book offline or share it with others with the
Digital PDF Book that is now offered for free. My interest
however was focused mainly on the Photographer Program.
The Photographers Program
SharedInk
realized that there is a group of critical photographers who
are much more demanding than their regular retail customers.
Color accuracy, high quality paper, full-bleed printing and
heavily saturated images are considered a necessity, not an
option. But these things come at a price.
The
heavily saturated pages require more ink coverage and thus
require more frequent cleaning of the press. Also, to meet
the higher standards of professional photographers, additional
quality checks have been implemented in the manufacturing
process of the books - each printed page is inspected twice
by two different people.
Offering
benefits such as 12"x12" books, full-bleed printing,
250MB storage space, private-label branding and access to
options like text-only foil stamping, leather cover materials
and premium end papers exclusively within the Photographers
Program, SharedInk is missing out on potential revenues from
regular customers.
However,
for the demanding photographer, they have an interesting business
model. Instead of increasing the costs of the books of the
Photographers Program, SharedInk decided to charge a one-time
Membership Fee to participants of the Photographers Program.
This is a one-time only fee. You can sample all of the benefits
within a free 45-day trial membership. After that there is
a one-time membership fee of $129.00.
Getting started
The
first thing you have to do is decide what kind of book you
want to create. Whether you want a holiday scrapbook, a wedding
book, a custom made birthday present, a cookbook or a dummy
for a coffee table photo book, the sky is the limit.
If
you're having trouble deciding how your book should look,
there is the possibility to browse the shared photobooks -
the digital version of finished photo books that members wanted
to share with family and friends, or other members. As I already
knew what kind of book I wanted to create - a dummy for a
photo book I'm working on - I went straight on to the first
step: Create a new book.
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