Reading from Lee's comments, that report is more targeted to agencies than contributors: "This report is written for business people working in, for, or with microstock agencies. It�s not intended for microstock contributors or buyers."
So he's looking to sell a small number at an high price.

While many independents here are very knowledgeable indeed, the same may not be true for some agencies - at least judging from their decisions. So I really hope they'll buy Lee's industry report - they surely can spend $700.

I don't see a huge rush of incoming agencies, but perhaps there are enough to sell a few at $700?

Many want-a-bees never get off the ground but invest tons of money in start-up costs; if they purchase a product for $700 but never go online, you still made a sale.

In Lee's defense, he's gone out and interviewed and talked to a lot of people in the industry. I think he has a unique perspective that many contributors don't have. I haven't read his report, so I can't really say what is in it or the value of the information. But, I don't really see that as a reason to dismiss it as something that anyone can do though. I wish him success.

In Lee's defense, he's gone out and interviewed and talked to a lot of people in the industry. I think he has a unique perspective that many contributors don't have. I haven't read his report, so I can't really say what is in it or the value of the information. But, I don't really see that as a reason to dismiss it as something that anyone can do though. I wish him success.

Agreed. There are few people who have as much impartial knowledge about the 'owners side' of the many many microstock sites than Lee.  How the sites work, how the search works, are reviews done in-house, out sourced, by a networked global team etc. etc. etc... which makes him a very good candidate to have written the book.  Add to that, that he writes well and is thorough, it seems like a good match.  

Considering the time it took to write the report, the minimal market for the report and the savings a start-up would experience by not making one of the many many mistakes we see new start-ups make over and over again - I think the report is a fair price.

I can save any new agency $700.  We already have too many places selling the same stuff.  The only possible way to make money now would be to come up with something much better than we already have.

It's a bit like trying to compete with amazon or ebay.  It wont work if you just copy what they do.  Come up with an innovative way for contributors and buyers to do business or forget about it.

 I applaud Lee's effort. Not everyone has been obsessed with the minutiae  of the microstock business since the early days of Istock, when all you had to do was post an image and it would sell. For those people just entering the business, a fast start overview would be invaluable. Who could those people be? The first that come to mind would be market analysts, who need to gather as much information as possible from as many sources as possible. Add to that consultant companies and their employees who may have the task of advising existing microstock companies on the best way forward. And of course executives who may be hired for their abilities in other businesses, and need to get up to speed on the quirks of microstock. This is a time of great upheaval in a business that has had it easy over the last 10 years. Those that succeed going forward will need to be well informed. Lee Torrens has certainly proved his expertise in this business, and done it in a way that is helpful to all. As has been pointed out, this is not aimed at the individual microstocker. Unfortunately, many microstockers think that the world begins and ends with their opinions, and that's all the world needs. But this is a big business now, and it will be dominated by well run, well informed agencies who are looking out to the future, and have decided to run the business armed with the best decision making processes available. ( which does not bode well for Istock).

On Microstockdiaries, Lee's offering a microstock "industry report" for $700 that will take you from novice to expert in 100 pages .
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/research-report

While I'm sure it took some time to write up, from the table of contents, it seems like something many independents here could write themselves.  So you may want to look into producing your own for some side business.  You may end up with more value as someone with more active/working knowledge of things.

Hi Sean. You're absolutely right. There are quite a few people in the industry who have the knowledge to write something similar, some of whom are contributors and participants here at MSG. The primary difference between them and me is simply that I've written the report and they haven't. A secondary difference is reputation - I'm certainly not known for my photography skills, but I have been producing written content for, and about, the market for years. I'm confident that this fact has helped with the sales of this report, but not nearly as much as the first factor - just being the one who did it.

I won't have any problem if other contributors with the knowledge, time and patience (I had to look up a lot of stats and do a lot of fact checking) to write something similar choose to do so. If they go in at a cheaper price (my report was actually $495 from launch last November until recently) they may catch some of the newer microstock agencies who baulked at my price. I wrote mine over the period of a year, though I estimate it was probably equivalent to about three months of work. Given the total number of sales so far and that quantity of work, it's been worthwhile for me (compared to other ways I earn), but not by a big margin.

Reading from Lee's comments, that report is more targeted to agencies than contributors: "This report is written for business people working in, for, or with microstock agencies. It�s not intended for microstock contributors or buyers."
So he's looking to sell a small number at an high price.

While many independents here are very knowledgeable indeed, the same may not be true for some agencies - at least judging from their decisions. So I really hope they'll buy Lee's industry report - they surely can spend $700.

Correct - it's not targeted at contributors, but as other have said, that does appear to be what Sean was suggesting. If I ever create a product for contributors, you'll see me here promoting it enthusiastically.

You'd think many could surely spend $700, wouldn't you! Turns out many are more cheap than we expect. After conversations with interested but unwilling agency bosses I'm convinced that two of them - well known brands - are on their last legs. $495 (price at the time of the conversations) is a lot of money for a company struggling to stay afloat (i.e. cover just operational costs or provide any believable prospect of generating a return on funds invested), especially when their traffic is falling and contributors are leaving. While I will respect the privacy of these two agencies and not mention them by name, if they do close soon it won't come as much of a surprise to most of us.

Quote from: microstockphoto.co.uk on May 14, 2011, 07:10

Reading from Lee's comments, that report is more targeted to agencies than contributors...

I saw a documentary about the California Gold rush and apparently the folks who sold supplies to the arriving miners were the ones who really made money. I don't see a huge rush of incoming agencies, but perhaps there are enough to sell a few at $700?

There's indeed enough to sell "a few", though new entrant microstock agencies are only half the target market, as I explained in [url http://www.microstockdiaries.com/my-experience-publishing-an-industry-research-report.html]this blog post[/url].

Quote from: jsnover on May 14, 2011, 13:38

I don't see a huge rush of incoming agencies, but perhaps there are enough to sell a few at $700?

Many want-a-bees never get off the ground but invest tons of money in start-up costs; if they purchase a product for $700 but never go online, you still made a sale.

Here here!  One customer told me he decided against persisting with his plans to start a new microstock agency after reading the report, and thanked me for saving him a lot of money.  In this case I'm obviously happy to take the sale price, but it also saves the prospective entrepreneurs from investing in something they're not in a position to make work, and saves contributors' time in uploading to an agency that has little chance of success (though most microstockers know enough to tell which ones are non-starters anyway).

In Lee's defense, he's gone out and interviewed and talked to a lot of people in the industry. I think he has a unique perspective that many contributors don't have. I haven't read his report, so I can't really say what is in it or the value of the information. But, I don't really see that as a reason to dismiss it as something that anyone can do though. I wish him success.

Thanks Cory. Very kind. I have spent a lot of time talking with people in the industry and attending events, and I like to think that the knowledge I gained there is beyond that of most contributors, thus giving me an advantage with producing a report like this. However, a large portion of that knowledge didn't make it to the report for one of two reasons. Either it's unverifiable information or it's private information.  I fact-checked everything I could and excluded all information that I could not stand behind or direct people to supporting evidence. I also didn't want to burn any bridges with agencies or other industry people, so I excluded a lot of commercially sensitive information. Unlike some others in similar positions (industry "journalists"), I'm not in the business of 'outing' someone or spreading their secrets just for the sake of a story or some extra attention. Maintaining positive relationships and keeping my mouth shut when appropriate has worked for me so far, and I have no intention of changing. But still, I believe the report benefits greatly from my experience hanging around the industry.

Quote from: cthoman on May 15, 2011, 23:30

In Lee's defense, he's gone out and interviewed and talked to a lot of people in the industry. I think he has a unique perspective that many contributors don't have. I haven't read his report, so I can't really say what is in it or the value of the information. But, I don't really see that as a reason to dismiss it as something that anyone can do though. I wish him success.

+1 to that - there's not so many people that have the level of knowledge, contacts or insights that Lee has, let alone a balanced perspective of the industry.

Thanks Holgs. Lots of sessions in beer gardens add up.    And the 'balance' part is not easy - removing all rants shortened the report significantly.

Quote from: cthoman on May 15, 2011, 23:30

In Lee's defense, he's gone out and interviewed and talked to a lot of people in the industry. I think he has a unique perspective that many contributors don't have. I haven't read his report, so I can't really say what is in it or the value of the information. But, I don't really see that as a reason to dismiss it as something that anyone can do though. I wish him success.

Agreed. There are few people who have as much impartial knowledge about the 'owners side' of the many many microstock sites than Lee.  How the sites work, how the search works, are reviews done in-house, out sourced, by a networked global team etc. etc. etc... which makes him a very good candidate to have written the book.  Add to that, that he writes well and is thorough, it seems like a good match. 

Considering the time it took to write the report, the minimal market for the report and the savings a start-up would experience by not making one of the many many mistakes we see new start-ups make over and over again - I think the report is a fair price.

Thanks Tyler!  One customer verifies that.  They delayed the launch of their microstock agency after reading the report, seeing that there was a lot they didn't realize that they didn't know (as opposed to what they knew they didn't know). They'll be soft-launching shortly and I'll likely blog about them when they do.

As for the price, I'm not a big fan of the "fair" concept, but sales indicate it's priced at around what the market will bear. Would I have made more sales with a lower price? Definitely. Would I have grossed the same revenue with a lower price? I don't think so.  The market is - as you say - very small. 

Quote from: cthoman on May 15, 2011, 23:30

In Lee's defense, he's gone out and interviewed and talked to a lot of people in the industry. I think he has a unique perspective that many contributors don't have. I haven't read his report, so I can't really say what is in it or the value of the information. But, I don't really see that as a reason to dismiss it as something that anyone can do though. I wish him success.

To be honest, the Table of Contents doesn't seem to indicate much that any independent wouldn't have a full grasp on, "interviews" or not. 

That's valid enough. I have no doubt that there's nobody who wouldn't learn anything from the report, but as you point out, many well-read contributors could write intelligently about each topic listed in the table of contents.  There's also a lot I could learn from reading a similar report produced by someone else too.

To be honest, the interviews don't contribute much in the way of new knowledge. They're created for the audience and there's rarely a question to which I don't already have a good idea of the answer.  It's the regular online conversations with people from all areas of the industry, the open discussions at industry events, and late nights in restaurants / bars in different cities around the word chatting about the industry that create that extra level of knowledge.  I feel a lot of it translated into beneficial insight within the report, and the feedback has certainly said so.

Thanks all for the discussion. I didn't expect to be discussing this here, but it's fun to see different people's views.

Lee, I have rarely in my life seen anyone handle criticism with such tact, openness and class.  Bravo! 

Thanks, but much of it is valid so I benefit from taking it on. Even if it's just to understand how people view things. 

It sounds like you are uniquely positioned to offer a wealth of useful information beyond what most of us could provide, even if we wanted to go to the trouble to compile it. 

If I was a better photographer I wouldn't have gone to the trouble either. But I have been lucky to have the experiences I've had, and people in the industry have been exceedingly generous sharing their knowledge with me over the years.

Shocking that any startup agency would not be willing to spend $495 - $700 for such a useful and comprehensive guide to the industry.  I don't see how an agency could possibly hope to succeed if finances are so limited that they would balk at a relatively minor investment.  Heck, I invested more than that getting my personal site up and running. 

To clarify, some of those who say it's too expensive probably already know 50% - 60% of it already, so it's not as simple as not being able to afford the price (though I suspect that's actually still the case for one of them). Another established agency had recently undertaken their own research recently so they didn't think they'd get much additional benefit from mine, which I can understand.

Looking at the table of contents I would totally be prepared to buy this if I was starting an agency.
Just in terms of time saved doing the research it's got to be worth it.
It would cost a lot more to get an independent report commissioned or even to pay for an intern's time to bring all the info together.
Plus you get the updates to keep the info. current.

Looking at the table of contents I would totally be prepared to buy this if I was starting an agency.
Just in terms of time saved doing the research it's got to be worth it.
It would cost a lot more to get an independent report commissioned or even to pay for an intern's time to bring all the info together.
Plus you get the updates to keep the info. current.

I can't imagine why you would think you should start an agency unless you knew 90% of this kind of thing to start.

Looking at the table of contents I would totally be prepared to buy this if I was starting an agency.
Just in terms of time saved doing the research it's got to be worth it.
It would cost a lot more to get an independent report commissioned or even to pay for an intern's time to bring all the info together.
Plus you get the updates to keep the info. current.

In 2008 I did a custom research job bringing together information about microstock and how it related to a specific business model that the customer had in mind. It was 20 pages and they paid $1,000.  The little consulting I do these days is usually verbal or answering questions by email, but it's even more expensive. And what I charge is well below the rates of formal industry consultants.

I guess if you have an intern do the collation it could end up costing less, but you'd have to spend time telling the intern what to collate (although the table of contents from my report might do that for you).  However, I think there's more value in the understanding of the information than just collecting it together.  There's a lot of explanation as to 'why' agencies do what they do, with cross references and citations to supporting evidence.  An intern wouldn't get that without spending massive amounts of time on it, which would then become expensive.

I have not read the report or the table of contents, maybe I'm wrong but...

I would expect that the report would also have value to similar businesses, video footage, stock music, photoshop templates and something I've never hear mentioned on this site but is a HUGE market - digital scrapbooking.  They all have sites that attract buyers and artists and offer paid downloads.  I think the digital scrapbooking sites all started in a mom-with-photoshop's kitchen and they did not anticipate their growth so their sites could use a few lessons from the micros.