Ironarrow

I think you mean peanuts
It wasn't that long ago when dreamstime was a small startup agency.
You never know who will give a better deal to us photographers I have seen them come and go.  My next bet is on the new guy in town will make it Cutcaster

The problem is that if nobody uploads to new sites, they will never be a success.  The old sites will have no competition and will start doing crazy things, like selling EL's for 30 cents.

I agree that most of the new sites are not worth bothering with but mostphotos and cutcaster are different from the established sites and I am giving them a chance.

I am confused...  Why does it HURT to upload to the new guys?  Do you get a rash or do your testicles shrink or something?

Does terms & conditions of cutcaster say "we will never announce subs"?
-NO, it doesn't..

...For example if Istock were alone they would sell the images fro $50 instead of $15.. Because of the competition they have to be cheaper..

All you have to do is work hard at it and Pea patient!!

Quote from: ironarrow on August 10, 2008, 16:18

Anyway, it is great if you like to waste your time.. Because If you can make cutcaster get into top 6 I don't mind uploading.. but I will never be "Lucky Olivered" again..  It was the only blow I had.. I was submitting to top 7 + LO and we all know what happened..

Who is gonna pay for all the time I put into LO? I am sure LO 's owner is already a millionaire with all the money he didn't pay to deserved contributors.. (if not a millionaire probably thousands of dollars)

And I feel sorry for my fellow contributors when I read their "Albumo Adventures"

I would rather wait and see if any site deserves my work to be on it.. If it does and it makes me believe it won't be a waste of time maybe I can upload.. My condition is I must be making a payout every single month on every single site I am uploading.. No less than that..

I can hardly make a payout a month at BigStock right now so I will never consider Snapvillage or Crestock until I start making $100 a month on BigStock.. When I start doing $100 a month on BigStock then it means maybe, I can give it a try at the next one below..

In other words, you're too  lazy to help a site grow and become what you want it to and will wait and let others do it for you.  I have no problem with that, I have a lot of friends who are also waiting around the house watching DVDs, having sex and spending time with their families because they KNOW they are gonna get discovered by a big producer, win a huge lottery jackpot, or have some random stranger just walk up to them and give them a million dollars.

While those people who are truly successful are putting in effort and working at achieving their goals and dreams.  To each his own.

I'm sorry that you feel you got crapped on by LO and now you feel that you can't trust anybody ever again.  Fortunately most people don't feel that way, they continue to plug away at their dream trying new things, doing more work, etc.. because they know in the end that hard work is what really pays off.

If you visit the Cutcaster forum, you'll see that I've been critical of a number of things on the site.  But what you'll also see is something you RARELY SEE on any other site...  A response from someone at the site who appreciates the criticism and is doing something to address the concerns and suggestions of people who use the site.  I don't care of Cutcaster goes down in 3 months, 6 months, or a year from now.  Right now they are making a conscious effort to listen to what I have to say.  The least I can do is spend a little extra time and add them to my upload rotation to show them I support their effort to include me in their decision making process.  I am a firm believer in positive re-enforcement.

In any case, I wish you well in your bitterness and negativity.  If you believe that will help you get where you want to be, by all means keep with it.  If there is anything I can do to help your misery, please don't hesitate to ask.  I'm all about helping people. 

Why would a buyer go to these agencies unless they didn't know already the big ones. I would not. In the case that the buyers go to these new or small agencies, then what? I will receive the same amount of money from 15 different agencies and lost more time to upload to more agencies.

In the last 5 years or more the micros standards have been established, and now all the big ones offer around the same options for buyers

Unless micros receive 50% more buyers and more, there's no reason for having more agencies to upload to.

Quote from: Vonkara on August 10, 2008, 19:23

Why would a buyer go to these agencies unless they didn't know already the big ones. I would not. In the case that the buyers go to these new or small agencies, then what? I will receive the same amount of money from 15 different agencies and lost more time to upload to more agencies.

In the last 5 years or more the micros standards have been established, and now all the big ones offer around the same options for buyers

Unless micros receive 50% more buyers and more, there's no reason for having more agencies to upload to.

So, you are happy with the low payouts and the poor treatment by SS, IS, StockXpert, DT and the other big sites?  You have no problem with them changing the rules and constantly doing things that make it harder for all contributors to make a living?

Do you believe they will change ANYTHING in our favor unless they are forced to either by a massive contributor boycott (very difficult to arrange) or by the action of a competitor?

The only reason to support any of the new sites that pop up is because they do something which you firmly believe in.  They treat you better, they offer you more, they genuinely are helpful.  If a new site is offering the same old thing, low commissions, high payout floors, etc... then I agree 400%, don't support it.

I was never on LO, but I have heard TONS of good things from many of the contributors there.  And going back through the archives here I see they genuinely tried to WORK WITH the photographer/illustrator community.  I'm sad to see them go without having had a chance to be a part of it.  But it isn't ALL their fault for failing.  A good part of the fault is with those contributors who were a part of it.  They were complacent in its failure and contributed to it.  How?  By selling out their principles.

The vast majority of posters on this board, from what I have read, would rather get paid then stand up for their principles.  They allow sites to walk all over them because they derive a large amount of income from those sites.  The "big 6" know they can do almost whatever they please as long as you keep getting your payments.  Oh sure, you''ll bitch and moan about it for a little while, but that's as far as it goes (for the most part, I know that the whole Photos.com got better when there was a mass uproar, but a LOT of contributors with HUGE portfolios sat on the sidelines and did nothing).

Of course, I see things differently than a lot of people.  I don't do this for a living, I average $200 a month ($450 in June was my biggest month ever).  The money I make from stock goes towards movie tickets, bowling nights with the family, occasional hardware upgrades for my computer, etc...  Sure I'm doing everything I can to increase what I make, but I don't count on it to pay my bills.  So I can afford to keep my principles and NOT participate on sites with whose policies I disagree.

What I have learned is that every little bit adds up.  $25 from this site, $50 from that site, etc...  So the more places I am the more all those little amounts add up to larger amounts.

And with automation (pre tagging all my images and footage), it's not a huge amount of effort to upload to most sites.  On 90% of the sites I contribute to the only thing I have to do after submitting an image is select the categories and press submit.  Everything else is filled in by IPTC data.  So uploading to Cutcaster along with the few other sites I contribute to literally adds 15 to 20 seconds per photo to my session.  That's really a waste of time?

Obviously we disagree.  And I would say to others, you have to make the decision yourself.  If you have a significant presence on the "big 6", adding the newer smaller sites is probably not in your best interest in most cases.  You have to evaluate each individually based on its own merits.  I don't believe they can all be lumped together as "losers" just because they're new. 

YES, most will fail.  But if you find one of the new sites that you like because of how they do business, then support them.  Help them to not fail.  Be a part of shaping the direction this industry is moving in and don't just be another sheep allowing the big names to herd you in whatever direction they want.

Just my two cents.

"...hard work is what really pays off..."

"Be a part of shaping the direction this industry is moving in and don't just be another sheep allowing the big names to herd you in whatever direction they want."

Mate - I respect your views, but this is an awfully naive approach.
The fact is that hard work does not pay off - not in the long run.  You pay for working hard with your health, both mental and physical, and with other things - like family time, rest, vacations - you name it.

And you make someone else rich in the process. Every bit of money you earn is just a small portion of what you really earn.  Do not believe me ?  Before even you are paid, there is payroll tax, then superannuation contribution (taxed again, and from the remainder you pay fees, and cover the losses your super fund incurred by playing fast and loose). Then there is personal tax, then GST/VAT, then levies, duties, fees, excise, etc. etc.  Not too dissimiliar from getting 20% of the monies earned by each download.

Yep, hard work pays off LOL.

Regarding the big names ? Big names always did what they wanted, and always will. We are all slowly being turned into a society of slaves, pity that most people does not even notice.  I would write some more on the subject - but I gotta run to take some pics...

"...hard work is what really pays off..."

"Be a part of shaping the direction this industry is moving in and don't just be another sheep allowing the big names to herd you in whatever direction they want."

Mate - I respect your views, but this is an awfully naive approach.
The fact is that hard work does not pay off - not in the long run.  You pay for working hard with your health, both mental and physical, and with other things - like family time, rest, vacations - you name it.

And you make someone else rich in the process. Every bit of money you earn is just a small portion of what you really earn.  Do not believe me ?  Before even you are paid, there is payroll tax, then superannuation contribution (taxed again, and from the remainder you pay fees, and cover the losses your super fund incurred by playing fast and loose). Then there is personal tax, then GST/VAT, then levies, duties, fees, excise, etc. etc.  Not too dissimiliar from getting 20% of the monies earned by each download.

Yep, hard work pays off LOL.

Regarding the big names ? Big names always did what they wanted, and always will. We are all slowly being turned into a society of slaves, pity that most people does not even notice.  I would write some more on the subject - but I gotta run to take some pics...

Quote from: ironarrow on August 10, 2008, 21:41

Let's say you are working at a graphic design company.. And let's say you are unbelievably creative and you carry the projects of the company.. You are simply great.. Without you they have no creativity.. And let's say the company makes $20000 a week.. All because of your great contribution and artistic talent.. And how much do they pay you??? %50 of the company profit?!! Nope.. I doubt it's even gonna be %5..

So %25 from stock is not that bad.. Of course let's try to make it better.. Let's show them who is the boss 

But that is not gonna happen by wasting our time in front of cutcaster..

LOL!  So, anybody who has a job working for someone else is a loser?

I see the basic premise of where you are coming from...  I worked as a programmer for a small software company for 9 years.  I created all 5 of their top selling programs which grossed an average of $6 million a year and I was paid a measly $150k a year in base salary plus another $80k in bonuses...  Definitely a small part of the pie considering the owner of the company pocketed close to $700k a year off the software I created.  But then, I didn't have any of the liability.  I wasn't responsible for anything other than my direct job of programming.

When I finally left the company and started my own business I discovered what true stress was...  Being responsible for the payroll of employees, having to do not only programming but marketing, sales and dealing with all the bills.  Only to see it all gone in an instant when Hurricane Charley destroyed everything.

If I wanted to, I could rebuild and get my business back to what it was and beyond, but no thanks.  I'm done with that.  I'm very happy creating software for someone else, getting paid a steady salary and having the time to mess with things like stock images and footage, while still having time to spend with my family.

In any case... We'll just have to agree to disagree.  I feel that personally, CC is a good investment in my time.  It's *maybe* 5 minutes out of my day to submit photos to them along with the other sites I contribute to.  And I'm betting they will make it and be good for the industry.  And if I'm wrong, and they don't make it, I lost 5 minutes a day.  But at least I tried.

ps.  And yes, "naive" is probably a very good word for me... I fully admit to my naivety about this industry.  But I'm learning and I'm enjoying myself.

Buyers see they have done well and seem to prefer buying their work than new contributors that might have superior images.

It seems logical to just join sites that are doing well now but I think there is an advantage getting in early. 

Quote from: Vonkara on August 10, 2008, 19:23

Of course, I see things differently than a lot of people.  I don't do this for a living, I average $200 a month ($450 in June was my biggest month ever).  The money I make from stock goes towards movie tickets, bowling nights with the family, occasional hardware upgrades for my computer, etc...  Sure I'm doing everything I can to increase what I make, but I don't count on it to pay my bills.  So I can afford to keep my principles and NOT participate on sites with whose policies I disagree.

What I have learned is that every little bit adds up.  $25 from this site, $50 from that site, etc...  So the more places I am the more all those little amounts add up to larger amounts.

For those of us who do earn their living from stock photography, uploading to new sites is a waste of time.  I pulled my portfolio from FeaturePics after discovering it would take me at least another eight years at the current sales rate to earn enough money to cover the time I'd already spent just finishing the upload process.  That time didn't include the time I spent shooting, processing and uploading my images, nor did the earnings take into account my business expenses (computers, camera gear, car and gas, etc.).  I made my calculations using the bare minimum amount of time and money I expect to earn. 

Eight years. 

That's a long time to recoup a measly $250.  It took almost two years just to reach my first $50 payout. 

I would love nothing more than to earn enough money to where I could choose agencies based on principle, but principles don't put food on my table.  Agencies with decent sales volume do.     

As I said in the beginning: If Snapvillage can't make it, no others can! Even for them, I am waiting!