Why I *heart* RocketLife

Three or so years ago, I stumbled across an online ad at Martha Stewart's site for a photobook company called RocketLife.  I contacted the company because, in my work as a business consultant in the scrapbook industry, I could see that digital scrapbooking and photobooks were changing the industry.  I wanted a way that my interested scrapbook retailers could offer their interested customers photobooks and therefore retain those who were perhaps dabbling in digital scrapping or making a change altogether (as I was starting to).  

At about the same time, I was being courted by a multi-level direct sales photobook company that was looking for a better connection to the scrapbook world.  I spoke with their founders at length but in the end, was not comfortable with the multi-level aspect of the company.  The multi-level nature meant that prices on many of their books were nearly twice what other companies were charging in order to pay everyone in the line a piece of the book.  

But, this company and RocketLife shared something very important to me - the ability to be VERY creative with your project with a drag-and-drop feature that allowed you to do more than select a background and plop your photos on it.  Coming from the scrapbook world, I wanted to have control over how my pages looked.  But, that can also be a double-edged sword.  

In my brief exploratory stint with the multi-level direct sales company, I made a photobook for my parents of childhood Christmas slides I had scanned.  The book was about 40 pages in the end and took me literally hundreds of hours to make.  I got caught in the ultra-creativity perfection trap.  There were SO MANY options for pages and embellishments that I was spending HOURS looking for the perfect things for each page.  Then, I would spend way too much time arranging, re-arranging and hunting down more to make sure each page was PERFECT.  The result was the most amazing photobook I have ever made that brought tears to my parents' eyes.  However, I swore I'd never do that again.  My quest for perfection had cost me dearly in time.  A shadow here, a slight angle there, swapping this for that, changing the whole page because I found a better digital scrapbook kit to use - it DROVE ME NUTS.   

You're probably thinking, "but you made the perfect book!  Why are you complaining about it?"  I'm not complaining, but I realized that I had lost the true focus of why I was making the book in the first place - to highlight the photos of Christmases past that we hadn't seen in 20 years.  Suddenly, the pretty pages, not the memories, became the focal point of the project.  I firmly believe that the photos matter most in any photo project.  

So, RocketLife and it's usefully simple software platform won my heart!  I chose them as my partner to open PhotoBooks{etc} and I have never regretted that.  Here's why:

• RocketLife is creative: LOTS of backgrounds and graphics, but simple and not overdone.  You can even upload your own digital scrapbook elements and papers to use.  A recent upgrade lets you use the fonts on your computer (YAY!) and gives you lots of photo border options.  Drag and Drop means you literally chose to put what you want on a page.  You can even have the program arrange it all FOR YOU with the super awesomely cool "Smart Arrangement" feature.  You can make a book in minutes!
• RocketLife is simple to use:  Simple and creative can totally go together. RocketLife was voted by a panel of photobook customers as being really easy to figure out.  Who wants to spend hours learning how to do something?
• RocketLife isn't just for girls: I have two sons.  Sometimes it's hard to find stuff that doesn't have flowers or fairies.  RocketLife offers a LOT of sports themed and masculine backgrounds and embellishments.  I'm not sure there's a sport they missed.  This makes our program PERFECT for your baseball or soccer memory book!  Men make nearly as many photobooks as women do (I call it man scrapping).  It's important to offer a good mix of backgrounds for customers of all types.  Of course, we also offer all the girly stuff, too.  
• RocketLife has simple Photo Editing: I don't like to do much editing to my photos.  But, sometimes I might want to tweak it just slightly or fix a flaw.  There are just enough photo editing features without being overwhelming - remove red eye, blur a background, crop, recolor, lighten/darken - all simple and useful.  And, you can do it right in the program while you're working on the project!
• RocketLife has quality products: Our books are EXCELLENT quality.  I have made photobooks from MANY companies and our products are equal and often BETTER quality than even some of the biggest names out there.  
• RocketLife has variety: we have SEVEN sizes of square photo books (I haven't found another company with that many), plus all the landscape, portrait, large, small, soft and hard cover books you could possibly want.  If you want an unusual or specific size, cover or orientation, we've probably got it!
• RocketLife backs me up with great customer service:I'd put our customer service people up against anyone!  If you need help you can email or call immediately.  They are located in the U.S., not in some off-shore call center and they are friendly!!!  
• Use RocketLife without passwords:You don't have to sign up for an account to use our program.  No "consultant" will be calling you constantly and you don't have to send us all your private info to use our program. 
• Mac or PC: a recent upgrade lets you choose.  You also get to choose which browser you want to work in.
• RocketLife allows us to have Competitive Prices: Our prices are the same or less than even the biggest companies

If you haven't tried us, I challenge you to make your next photobook or project with us!  I suspect, like I was when I tried it the first time, that you will be pleasantly surprised at how much more personal your experience is!  And, I'm sure you'll be thrilled with the end result!  I still LOVE getting my photobooks in the mail!