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Websites and LiveBooks

Ian L. Sitren

pro member
Asher happened to ask me a couple of questions about my website which is from LiveBooks. I thought I might answer here and just open the discussion about websites. First off he asked how much did my site cost and would I do it over again. The answer is a bunch and YES! But I will back up some...

I was one of LiveBooks very first customers, that might about 5 years ago, I just don't recall. At the time I had been building my own websites but was coming to realize that the learning curve for me to stay on top of web technology and my lack of graphics ability was going to be much too time consuming. So in my search for a solution I met LiveBooks. Not the most inexpensive outlay now, back then it was a few thousand dollars, so this was a serious consideration. But I bought it. It was the best and I think remains the best website solution out there. And reflecting back on the cost now? It has paid for itself many times over.

First off, for all these years it has been totally reliable. If someone has a problem with my site, I know the problem is on there end. And I would say it has happened less than 3 times ever.

In it's current form, I display photos in a large size, quickly and with as little fanfare as I want. I could add music but I don't. I have multiple galleries and can add more. It has a back-end operation which allows me to upload photos to libraries and then drag and drop to make galleries.

I can create client only password protected galleries in the same format or upload web displays in almost any format including flash galleries. I can upload files for FTP access to clients. I have also now added 'multimedia' where I can display Quicktime in actually very large file and display sizes. And not to be undone is the shopping cart where I can add pricing to images for prints or electronic delivery.

By example I recently created a gallery of images requested by a magazine in Japan. They reviewed the photos, paid for them online. I prepped the files for their delivery, uploaded them and gave the client FTP access for delivery.

I hope that answers the questions asked by Asher and helps others in regards to websites. If you have any questions please let me know.
 

Kathy Rappaport

pro member
The best

Of the commercial sites I have looked at I felt that Livebooks was one of the best photographer's website companies out there. I will probably at some point migrate to them as well.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ian,

That's helpful info. What about fulfillment. Can you link say to your favorite printer, say, Icon L.A. http://iconla.com or other premier company so it is seamless with your shopping cart ordering system for the client?

Asher
 

Ian L. Sitren

pro member
Ian,

That's helpful info. What about fulfillment. Can you link say to your favorite printer, say, Icon L.A. http://iconla.com or other premier company so it is seamless with your shopping cart ordering system for the client?

Asher

Actually I do not want seamless printing for these types of images. On my website they would be 'art' prints and I would be preparing them individually for the size and quite possibly printing them here, also prepared individually for the type of paper.

I have used a seamless print solution and my favorite lab for that and for general high quality prints is Buckeye Color Lab at http://www.buckeyecolorlab.com/

When I want very specialized or higher quality prints from an outside lab, my choice has been Icon. But certainly A&I or West Coast are excellent considerations too.
 
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