My Top 3 Favourite Things About Chatbooks | Easy To Print Photobooks
Photo credit: Chatbooks
SAVE $10 OFF YOUR FIRST PHOTOBOOK USING CODE: HANNAFORDFAMILYADVENTURES-Z96T
If you’ve been following me for a while, you will have definitely heard me talking about Chatbooks! You will also know that I print my photos regularly. All of my phone photos get printed automatically through Chatbooks, and I design a year book each year with all my camera photos in. I’ve done this for the last 3 years consistently.
You might think, oh well that’s obvious, you’re a professional photographer so of course you print your photos regularly. I think it’s like any industry though. If you do it for a job, you’re less likely to do it at home. That’s why builders houses always look like a building site or why chefs never cook at home!
I generally use my camera for taking photos of my children and our holidays etc, because I know the quality of the image will be better but that doesn’t mean I don’t use my phone too.
Because my phone photos are literally just snapshots, not beautifully composed works of art, I want them printed but I don’t want to spend hours designing an album.
Whenever I searched for a photobook company, I always came across ones where I still had to drag and drop or ‘create’ the album. It seemed like so much effort and I always put it off. (I bet you can relate to me on that one!)
Then someone recommended Chatbooks to me. (This is no way an ad, I just personally love them, and pay for all my products from them)
They are an American company, so obviously in Australia we have to deal with exchange rates. I do also prefer to support local business’, however I haven’t found a company similar here.
I have been using them since 2019 and have currently printed 19 books through them.
While they do ship to Australia, they recently informed me they do not ship month books or mini books. This part didn’t worry me though as I use their social media books.
The basic concept is: I created an instagram account I use purely for my printed chatbooks. Each photobook contains 60 images, one per page. My instagram account is linked to my chatbooks account so each time I upload a photo to Instagram, it feeds through to my current social media book. This includes both the photo and and the caption. (This one is great if you are terrible at writing a baby book!) Once the book has 60 images in it, chatbooks automatically creates the photo book and emails you to ask if you want to make any changes. If you are happy with it, you don’t need to take any further action. Chatbooks will take the money out of your nominated account (US$10) and ship the book to you within 2-3 days.
I mean, what excuse do you have not to print books now?! It’s so quick to upload a photo to instagram, and we are all generally doing that daily anyway, then the book gets created for you!
So now I’ve basically already told you what I love about Chatbooks, I will list my top 3 things I love about chatbooks and how it makes printing photobooks easy!
My top 3 favourite things about Chatbooks.
- There is no designing involved! It takes ages to properly design a photobook or professional photo album. It’s what puts a lot of people off, and is a very common complaint I hear from my clients about why they don’t print their photos. With Chatbooks, you don’t have to design anything. All you do is upload to your instagram account, caption if you wish and post!
- They are a great price. Even with the exchange rate and shipping from the US, I still think they are great value and along with my yearbooks, are one of the first things I’d save in a fire!
- It enables my children to have conversations about their childhood memories. I store my photobooks on a book shelf in my main room. My young children are able to reach them and we’ve talked about how they should take care of them. Most days they get a few of them down and sit down talking about each of them as a baby, or a particular day out we’ve been on. If the photos were stored on my phone, they wouldn’t have the chance to look through the photos unless I thought to give them my phone to look at. I can see how much joy they bring to my children and that makes it all worth it to me. Especially when we all sit down together and talk about the photos and it reminds me to soak up every minute with them because time just goes so fast.
I hope this post has helped you make the decision to regularly print your photos. It is honestly one of my favourite things to do and I always look forward to regularly receiving my photobooks in the mail.
If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and let me know if you decide to start your own social media books!
Don’t forget you can use my code HANNAFORDFAMILYADVENTURES-Z96T to save US$10 off your first book
Lizzy x
Easy to print photobooks by Lizzy Hannaford Photography who specialises in family photography, and is based on the northern beaches of Cairns. Her main focus is maternity, newborn, baby and family photography.
I would love to photograph special memories for your family in my Trinity Park studio, or out on a beach or field location.
If you would like to book a photoshoot with me, please click here, or email me directly at lizzy@lizzyhannaford.com.au
You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram.
