Hey janikphoto,
I've been using Livebooks for the past 2 years and have been very happy with them. Since you are discussing the custom route - I basically did that with my own particular unique custom needs. What I wanted to do was have multiple sites with a simple clean design that each had their own color scheme for the branding. IE. One site is for weddings, the other indian weddings, seniors, baby/maternity, commercial etc. This was just my own personal preference because I felt like my potential clientel would be looking for an expert in their particular interest and once I had built a relationship with them, I could then do the natural introduction of different types of photography that we excel at. In then end we chose to do 11 sites with Livebooks - and once I was able to get the overall vision communicated clearly to the design team - that part went smoothly. The next step was the custom work I wanted - Tour the Studio galleries, videos, my own idea for the Print Ordering w/Pictage, and then cross-linking certain sites but not others. Biggest challenge was documenting on my part how and why I was trying to do certain things. My Livebooks developer Adam would call anytime he was working and ran into a technical question that he wanted my input on how to solve it. I sure appreciated that - because it made both of our lives simpler and cut our development time down. In the past year I've seen them really investing in growing the number of talented people they have which has really cut down on how long it takes to get a response. Ultimately I found more I invested in it initially, the better the results were in the end because of clear vision and direction for them to follow. Coming from a good understanding of web development and design - it was important for me in choosing to find a compnay who not only wrote clean code but was also an industry leader so that they'd actually be around for a long time and not just a flash in the pan. My old websites were either labor's of love that I did myself or cheap templates that I purchased that didn't give me the flexibility I needed to make changes (code or design). Looking back over the past two years the money I invested with them while significant initially has turned out to be a great investment. The sites work like they are supposed to, are easy to update and they have never been down as far as I know of - maybe a maintenance update or something like that.
If you'd like to ask me any more detailed questions - please don't hesitate - I'm not sponsored by them and would be happy to give you my .02!
Cheers,
Luke Edmonson
www.edmonsonweddings.com 
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