If you want your order to sail smoothly through our ordering process, please make sure it's ready to go before you send it. Hopefully this post will give you some insight into why that's so important – why even minor changes to an order can cause a lot of work at our end. For example, suppose you request design or layout changes, or send us new versions of image files or album plans. First we have to call up your original order and work out exactly what you want done to it – not easy when we have hundreds of albums working their way through production at any one time. We may need to, for example:

• Update the order itself (album format, cover style etc).
• Update notes or special instructions about the order.
• Redesign or realign page layouts in Photojunction.
• Redesign cover layouts.
• Process new image files to match the layouts.
• Locate and update the files on our Bindery and Lab servers.
• Recalculate prices and charge or credit you the difference.

That's why we've introduced a new time-based charge to cover the costs (page 10). We don't like charges like this, but the alternative (increasing our prices) seems worse. To avoid it completely just hold on to your order (or the associated print files) until you’re sure that everything is ready for production. You'll get your album faster too. Smooth sailing, Ian