livebooks success stories

As a freelance photographer, an easy to use, professional looking website is crucial to my success. I’m not a web developer and have no intention of becoming one. The photos get sized to the correct proportion when you upload them and embedded captions just go where they are supposed to go. liveBooks predesigned website templates are clean looking and very intuitive for users to navigate. The photos are large and fill the frame, as they should. It did not take long for me to fall in love with one of their designs! And I made the font consistent with my branding so it was really easy to integrate my new website into my marketing strategy.

The most important thing to me with respect to my online presence is “does this website best represent me and my work?” Now because of my new website, my answer is a resounding “Yes!”

liveBooks is my idea of what a minimalist portfolio site should be. I was able to choose from a wide variety of beautiful and functional designs. As the saying goes, “Only the best shall suffice – there is no substitute.” I’m a proud, thankful liveBooks client and I sincerely thank the team for their support.

A professional, sleek, user-friendly site design is very important to me because I want to represent myself well to anyone who visits, whether that’s a photo editor, a client, or someone who loves dramatic skies as much as I do. 
 
Storm chasing has exploded in popularity over the past decade, making it increasingly difficult to stand out from the many talented chasers and photographers.  A strong web site is essential, so I set out to build a site that, much like a well-composed photograph, draws the viewer’s eye to my work.
 
liveBooks’ website templates have the perfect combination of look, feel, and ease of use.  Building the site was simple and maintaining it is easy. Once the content was ready to go I uploaded it to my site and went live in just a few days.

I’ve been told for several years that I needed to put a website together for my images. Before signing up with liveBooks I did a lot of research. Their website designs are very clean, simple and showcase the work prominently. In almost every case, that meant full screen scaling. I was surprised to find out that most portfolio sites, even those used by well known professional photographers, do not offer this as a feature. After narrowing down my favorites to just a few that offered full screen scaling, and a full bleed image area – liveBooks was clearly the winner.

Prior to committing, I called liveBooks with a few questions. I spent almost an hour on the phone with Patrick, one of the customer support representatives. It’s funny, most of us (including myself) don’t really take customer service into consideration until after a purchase. Comments and feedback are usually left for negative experiences. But Patrick and the rest of the support team have been overwhelmingly helpful, going above and beyond anything I expected. They spent additional time with me reviewing websites, discussing options and and offering suggestions. And not just on website design but on marketing as a whole. In addition, the changes I made were updated almost immediately. I’ve never experienced a team so eager to help. When we were done, they even invited me over to their office in California!

liveBooks and their support team allowed me to take my idea of what a portfolio site should be and turned it into a reality. Almost instantly. liveBooks is clearly the best solution out there. My only regret is that I didn’t find them sooner!

“When I first had a website I was freelance, and my liveBooks site was an invaluable way of promoting my business. Now that I’m on staff with Reuters it serves as a portfolio for my images, which helps me see how my work is developing and inspires me to constantly try to learn and improve as a photographer. I like that I’m able to change and update my portfolios simply and quickly. My liveBooks site has also opened up speaking and interview opportunities.”

For me, the custom Scaler site is a magical experience. It engages viewers and delivers features tailored to the needs of a working photographer. I have the confidence of knowing that my work is accessible on any device, from iPhones to massive LCDs. It’s great to go large. One editor confessed that she found herself so attracted to the detail in the Scaler images that she reached out to ‘touch the animals’.

I see my website as a sign along the Information Superhighway (to coin a worn-out cliché). It’s a very important marketing tool. I use my site as a place to showcase my vision. A liveBooks website is like a custom-made glove. It fits perfectly. It’s easy to operate and easy for clients to navigate — yet it has loads of bells and whistles that have never let me down.
Several years ago a friend talked me into buying a cheap website template so I could build my own Flash website. What a mistake. I found myself buying books on how to fully upload and operate my site. I was staying up all night wrestling with an unseen foe. It took several weeks to have an Internet presence. And things went downhill from there.
I had a meeting with a group of Art Directors at a magazine in Phoenix. I showed the ADs some prints then directed everyone to my website. As they clicked, multiple blank windows would uncontrollably pop up — with no way of stopping them. What an embarrassment. Who knows how many thousands of dollars I lost because I took a cheap shortcut. They were polite as they showed me the door.
Less than twenty four hours later, I had a liveBooks website.
What I like about liveBooks is that it’s fully customizable and it can be updated in a matter of minutes. In the beginning I worked with a liveBooks designer to create a beautiful presence. A few years later, with the help of another designer, I was able to easily update the look and feel of my business.
My site works behind the scenes for me, as well. Search Engine Optimization is an issue with Flash Websites. That isn’t the case with liveBooks. Their sites use both Flash and HTML. And because of an image’s metadata, it’s also fully searchable and trackable with Google Analytics. Clients can download pdfs that are easily emailed and I can create private galleries for them (type the word “wet” and login!).
It’s important to invest in your photography. It’s your business. Competition is fierce. Why put your best work on a free blog? I’ve found that shortcuts are rarely shortcuts to success, often they are quick roads to disaster.
In short, liveBooks offers an easy-to use, professional website that communicates that I am serious about my photography. Clients see me as credible — which allows me to keep doing what I do – which is taking pictures.

I chose a liveBooks website as it is a very simple, yet effective way to display and promote my portfolio online. I am not a technical person, which is why I needed something user friendly and reliable. I imagine this sounds like a common testimonial but that is the way it is!

A liveBooks custom website has provided me with an authentic representation of who I am as a photographer. It has given me the tools to help represent my vision of how I experience the world, and interprets the methodology of how I work as a photographer. In order to share this experience with a broader audience, I chose liveBooks to create my website based on the sole idea that they were more than capable of interpreting my concept into a website that reflects these ideas.
Once my website went live, the feedback that I received was incredible. After many tumultuous years in this business, experiencing all the changes since the 90’s, liveBooks has given me the second wind that I needed to help me get back on my feet and restore my confidence as a photographer. Since then I have revitalized a new business plan, seek out talent in areas where I am deficient, and learned to embrace the importance of collaboration, especially in this day age, as technology is constantly changing.