liveBooks PJ Offers Exclusive NPPA Discount

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (May 20, 2009) – It's not enough for today's photojournalists to simply make good pictures and tell important stories – to succeed they also have to be savvy business people who are comfortable marketing themselves to diverse markets in multiple mediums.

Personal portfolio Web sites have become the standard way for editors and art buyers to find photographers and get acquainted with their work, yet full-featured Web site services were outside the budget of most photojournalists – until now. With liveBooks PJ, industry leader liveBooks introduces new Web site solutions specifically designed for the storytelling needs and economic realities of staff and freelance photojournalists.

Through an exclusive National Press Photographers Associaion offer, liveBooks PJ Web sites are available to photojournalists for the low price of $39 per month, a discount of about $60 a year. Members can log in to their NPPA account to retrieve a promotional code and then visit liveBooks PJ to get started (http://pj.livebooks.com).

Miki Johnson, the social media editor for liveBooks, says that a portfolio Web site from liveBooks PJ provides everything editors and art buyers say are most important when they visit a photographer's site: big images that load very fast, intuitive navigation, printable pages, Flash presentations with linkable images, and password-protected client access to private portfolios.

And how do these editors and art buyers find photographers? Google and other search tools are at the top of the list – and 70 percent never go past the first search page. A Web site from liveBooks PJ is more likely to show up in that first page due to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools included in the Web site. Thus a liveBooks PJ site provides photographers with the aesthetic appeal of a Flash site plus all the searchability of an HTML site, Johnson said.

A Web site from liveBooks PJ also helps photojournalists diversify to grow their business in new markets, Johnson said. Web sites from liveBooks PJ come with an automated shopping cart function, allowing photographers to sell prints easily and quickly through their Web site. And for photographers who are branching out into video and multimedia slideshows, liveBooks PJ sites accept a wide range of video files with one-click uploading.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Deanne Fitzmaurice became a liveBooks PJ client soon after leaving the San Francisco Chronicle, where she was a staff photographer for 18 years. The co-founder of ThinkTank Photo bags, she is now a successful freelance photographer and regular contributor to Time, Sports Illustrated, and MSNBC. She says her liveBooks PJ Web site has been an important tool to help with that transition.

"Everything about LiveBooks is smart," Fitzmaurice says. "The liveBooks staff share a strong passion for photography and making sure that building a Web site is intuitive, seamless and easy so photographers can get back out on the streets making pictures. In addition to the ease of using editSuite, once my site launched, I was impressed with the speed at which the photos load and the superior Search Engine Optimization so we can easily be found on the Web."

 

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