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Author Topic: Is it safe to put content on videoblocks?  (Read 12806 times)

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« on: October 20, 2016, 12:06 »
+2
Hello

currently a seller on pond5 ss and fotolia, also for approval at istock but heard there not so good so not uploaded there as of yet.

I put a few videos on video blocks but stopped as i heard they not 100% safe site? is this true? is it ok to put content there or are they unknown new site and should be wary before putting all my content on there?


« Reply #1 on: October 20, 2016, 13:29 »
+5
Don't do it. Less competition for us.  :)

« Reply #2 on: October 20, 2016, 13:34 »
+2
Been with Videoblocks about a year. Solid company, good sales, best contributor percentage among them. $47 every HD sale. Consistently top 3 in monthly with them since month one, others being Shutterstock and Pond5. Never had an issue getting my money, great contributor support.

No one should support iStock. They pay contributors only 15% of what they make on a sale, which is insulting to us and a terrible precedent for everyone in this business. If you need/want another outlet, try Fotolia/Adobe. Been seeing good growth there with video sales. Contributor percentage isn't great, but much more respectable than iStock.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2016, 13:37 by Daryl Ray »

« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2016, 15:27 »
0
ok so its def worth uploading everything to video blocks then

« Reply #4 on: October 20, 2016, 23:11 »
0
ok so its def worth uploading everything to video blocks then

You have two different opinions there and you are going with the positive one.

SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #5 on: October 20, 2016, 23:40 »
+3
ok so its def worth uploading everything to video blocks then

You have two different opinions there and you are going with the positive one.

They're both positive. If the site was a waste of time, unsafe and generated virtually no sales... then somebody worried about competition would be actively encouraging them to sign up!

SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #6 on: October 20, 2016, 23:43 »
0
Hello

currently a seller on pond5 ss and fotolia, also for approval at istock but heard there not so good so not uploaded there as of yet.

I put a few videos on video blocks but stopped as i heard they not 100% safe site? is this true? is it ok to put content there or are they unknown new site and should be wary before putting all my content on there?

Not entirely sure what you're asking when you say "is it safe?", but I've not had any problems. Reasonably decent sales which have been gradually increasing, decent prices, excellent commission rate and pretty easy to submit content/quick review etc. No complaints!

« Reply #7 on: October 21, 2016, 06:02 »
0
ok so its def worth uploading everything to video blocks then

You have two different opinions there and you are going with the positive one.

They're both positive. If the site was a waste of time, unsafe and generated virtually no sales... then somebody worried about competition would be actively encouraging them to sign up!

Didn't read it properly.

« Reply #8 on: October 21, 2016, 06:08 »
0
I wouldn't encourage anyone except my close friends to sign up anywhere, but that's only because I like to sell my clips.

Secret, hidden tip: VB is fine.

alno

« Reply #9 on: October 21, 2016, 07:13 »
+1
Wasn't that you already with the same question in July? :)
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/is-videoblocks-a-safe-site/msg458809/#msg458809

Every single site making refunds is potentially unsafe (Videoblocks is). There is no guarantee at all your clips wouldn't be added as a part of some free torrent collection "Best 1000 4K clips of October'16".

« Reply #10 on: October 21, 2016, 08:45 »
+1
Every single site making refunds is potentially unsafe (Videoblocks is). There is no guarantee at all your clips wouldn't be added as a part of some free torrent collection "Best 1000 4K clips of October'16".

They don't even have to give refunds. Some people pay up, or just use stolen credit cards. There is absolutely no protection from that and it affects 100% of all sites. So don't worry.

« Reply #11 on: October 22, 2016, 12:53 »
+5
It's not safe from our perspective... it depends how fast you want to degrade overall prices of your content. We have tried putting up some files, had some sales but we got to the calculator, what this would mean in near future.
http://video-stock.org/worst-enemy-in-stock-video-industry-are-contributors-themselves/

alno

« Reply #12 on: October 22, 2016, 14:14 »
0
It's not safe from our perspective... it depends how fast you want to degrade overall prices of your content. We have tried putting up some files, had some sales but we got to the calculator, what this would mean in near future.
http://video-stock.org/worst-enemy-in-stock-video-industry-are-contributors-themselves/


I've read that article. Sorry, but I couldn't understand that math. How many clips of yours are sold at least once on every three of those three sites, I mean Shutterstock, Dissolve and Pond5? Why should I care about how much me and Shutterstock (Pond5) would get in total in the nearest future selling single clip? Shouldn't I care about how much I will get?

« Reply #13 on: October 22, 2016, 18:40 »
+3
"And here is the magic trick everyone should follow. Dont let agencies dictate price wars, contributors should be the ones that must value their work. Leave undervalued agencies and keep your great works on sites that care."

Your arguments are valid. We've discussed them many time before. While I won't get into a lot of the legitimate reasons why people support agencies like VB or especially those bottom feeders at VH, I will respond the way I usually do. I would say that if 100 percent of video contributors actively participated in these forums, we would get perhaps 50% of them willing to pull ports if they just knew the value of pressure we could impose on agencies.  Unfortunately, a trivial few dozen will not make an impact.  It took a lot of bitching and moaning just to get crooked FT top give us an opt out for DPC, but they remained alive and well until Adobe shut them down.  It was the single dollar per sale that helped cheapen the market.

The value of not supporting agencies comes in the masses, which we don't have.  For that reason a lot of contributors don't want to lose out on any dollars while they have the chance to earn something. Many contributors simply don't follow industry practices as we do here and some are from countries where a small amount of income is exceedingly helpful to their way of life.  Finally, many contributors are not professionals and would have really other submission recourse other than the micros.  for the most part I agree with what you say but it's the masses who need to have insights in order to take action, and that is a HUGE missing link.

SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #14 on: October 22, 2016, 21:42 »
+4
It's not safe from our perspective... it depends how fast you want to degrade overall prices of your content. We have tried putting up some files, had some sales but we got to the calculator, what this would mean in near future.
http://video-stock.org/worst-enemy-in-stock-video-industry-are-contributors-themselves/


Lets get to the calculator. If you sell your work on Pond5, Shutterstock and Dissolve, each agency gives you about from $23 to $39 if you priced them all right. That means all together about $85 per sale on each site. While if you start selling your clips on Videoblocks for $49 and you get $48 per sale, thats almost twice less than you would get from other agencies.

What a bag of nonsense! For a start, if you sell the clip once on all three sites, then yes... you might get $85, but the $23 to $39 is still less then $48 per sale. You're not getting $85 per sale. And who's going to remove all their stuff from Pond5, Shutterstock and Dissolve so they just have their port on VideoBlocks at this stage... you'd just upload to VB in addition to the rest. So you're not getting $85 for selling on three sites, you're getting $134 for selling on four sites.

Sure, people might buy from one site rather than the other so you might not automatically get four sales rather than three, but if a few of those sales are $49 rather than $23 then surely that's a good thing?

Does VideoBlocks undervalue our work though? I don't really give s*** if they undervalue my work, it;s more important to me that they value me as a person... so the 100% commission works better for me than a 50% commission on $99 clips. Yes, they're valuing my work higher, but I'm still getting the same amount per sale... and I'd get less sales as people would just go to iStock or Shutterstock. So changing 100% from $50... to 50% from $99... would probably result in me getting 15% from $79.   

« Reply #15 on: October 23, 2016, 02:48 »
+6
The next time when all other agencies dump their prices to match VB's, because of loosing customers, you'll get less than $23 (like it happened on istock), your sales on Pond will dry out. At that moment the allmighty VB will drop prices further... where? Maybe you will get 100% of $25. Will you be happy with it? Thinking further than yesterday is part of being professional.

Has anyone even doubt marketing strategy with 100% commissions? No?

alno

« Reply #16 on: October 23, 2016, 04:13 »
+5
The next time when all other agencies dump their prices to match VB's, because of loosing customers, you'll get less than $23 (like it happened on istock), your sales on Pond will dry out. At that moment the allmighty VB will drop prices further... where? Maybe you will get 100% of $25. Will you be happy with it? Thinking further than yesterday is part of being professional.

Has anyone even doubt marketing strategy with 100% commissions? No?

Let me guess... Are you trying to sell those precious clips of yours for ever for $79? This will not happen. There is supply and there is demand and supply is hugely outpacing demand. It's too obvious that those $79 are something not from moment of history when decent aerial could be made with $1000 drone and smooth walk 4K shot with $600 pocket size device. While people like you are trying to play that back-to-the-good-old-days-game there is a number of amateur and semi-pro producers who just make good enough clips (not top-notch, just good) and sell them to almost to anyone who has laptop or moderate PC. And let me guess, there are A LOT more of those than fancy Hollywood studios in the world.
There were times when pepper was sold for the same weight of gold and aluminum was more expensive than silver. I'm sure those sellers were not big fans of progress and natural competition too and it's unlikely somebody would recall their names today.

SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #17 on: October 23, 2016, 06:26 »
+3
The next time when all other agencies dump their prices to match VB's, because of loosing customers, you'll get less than $23 (like it happened on istock), your sales on Pond will dry out. At that moment the allmighty VB will drop prices further... where? Maybe you will get 100% of $25. Will you be happy with it? Thinking further than yesterday is part of being professional.

Has anyone even doubt marketing strategy with 100% commissions? No?

Yeah, because that's what every agency does, right? Every single agency drops their prices to match the lowest priced agency. That's why Artbeats dropped all their $299 clips to $8 to match VideoHive. Shutterstock, iStock, Fotolia... they're all selling their clips at $8.

Come on, it's been over a year and nobody has dropped their prices to match Videoblocks. And it's been ten years and nobody has dropped their prices to $8 to match VideoHive. If they've not done it by now, I can't really see it happening.

« Reply #18 on: October 23, 2016, 08:06 »
+3
I like to sell high-priced stuff, who doesn't?

But I also realize that the market supply and demand are always changing, and right now at a very high rate.

The supply is increasing because it gets cheaper and cheaper by the month to produce almost-pro-level stuff. 4k is nothing special. Perfectly stable footage is nothing special. Aerials over New York are nothing special anymore.

The market has also never been bigger with anyone and everyone producing their own marketing videos, YouTube material and music videos as one-person operations. But that market simply can't pay $199 per clip. Not just big advertising agencies and movies need clips anymore. The market is MUCH MUCH bigger and is growing each day.

« Reply #19 on: October 23, 2016, 08:56 »
+2
The next time when all other agencies dump their prices to match VB's, because of loosing customers, you'll get less than $23 (like it happened on istock), your sales on Pond will dry out. At that moment the allmighty VB will drop prices further... where? Maybe you will get 100% of $25. Will you be happy with it? Thinking further than yesterday is part of being professional.

Has anyone even doubt marketing strategy with 100% commissions? No?

Let me guess... Are you trying to sell those precious clips of yours for ever for $79? This will not happen. There is supply and there is demand and supply is hugely outpacing demand. It's too obvious that those $79 are something not from moment of history when decent aerial could be made with $1000 drone and smooth walk 4K shot with $600 pocket size device. While people like you are trying to play that back-to-the-good-old-days-game there is a number of amateur and semi-pro producers who just make good enough clips (not top-notch, just good) and sell them to almost to anyone who has laptop or moderate PC. And let me guess, there are A LOT more of those than fancy Hollywood studios in the world.
There were times when pepper was sold for the same weight of gold and aluminum was more expensive than silver. I'm sure those sellers were not big fans of progress and natural competition too and it's unlikely somebody would recall their names today.

Let me guess.......this is the reason most micro suppliers here are doing peanuts and many pros are still making 5 figures every month.......it is just a priority in what group you want to belong. Like you said many amateurs and semi-pro do good enough clips...pros usually don't want to belong to the "good enough" group because nowadays with fierce competition you can only command nano/micro prices, if you don't aim at the very best and price accordingly you are no one and will never be. Push the limits and price very high if you dont have competition. Not 79$ but 600$ and more if your content is really unique. Now if you do timelapses of sunsets,water drops and moving night traffic just be grateful that you get crumbs at all.

alno

« Reply #20 on: October 23, 2016, 09:53 »
+4
The next time when all other agencies dump their prices to match VB's, because of loosing customers, you'll get less than $23 (like it happened on istock), your sales on Pond will dry out. At that moment the allmighty VB will drop prices further... where? Maybe you will get 100% of $25. Will you be happy with it? Thinking further than yesterday is part of being professional.

Has anyone even doubt marketing strategy with 100% commissions? No?

Let me guess... Are you trying to sell those precious clips of yours for ever for $79? This will not happen. There is supply and there is demand and supply is hugely outpacing demand. It's too obvious that those $79 are something not from moment of history when decent aerial could be made with $1000 drone and smooth walk 4K shot with $600 pocket size device. While people like you are trying to play that back-to-the-good-old-days-game there is a number of amateur and semi-pro producers who just make good enough clips (not top-notch, just good) and sell them to almost to anyone who has laptop or moderate PC. And let me guess, there are A LOT more of those than fancy Hollywood studios in the world.
There were times when pepper was sold for the same weight of gold and aluminum was more expensive than silver. I'm sure those sellers were not big fans of progress and natural competition too and it's unlikely somebody would recall their names today.

Let me guess.......this is the reason most micro suppliers here are doing peanuts and many pros are still making 5 figures every month.......it is just a priority in what group you want to belong. Like you said many amateurs and semi-pro do good enough clips...pros usually don't want to belong to the "good enough" group because nowadays with fierce competition you can only command nano/micro prices, if you don't aim at the very best and price accordingly you are no one and will never be. Push the limits and price very high if you dont have competition. Not 79$ but 600$ and more if your content is really unique. Now if you do timelapses of sunsets,water drops and moving night traffic just be grateful that you get crumbs at all.

I have to remind that in order to make 5 figures every month you have to invest 5 or 6 figures at first and 4 every month for props, travel, models and locations for quite a long time when you'll be only increasing your sales from initial 0. It's definetely not everybody capable of. Not to mention I hardly seeing myself running with some nice Red carrying gimbal on the street. So why don't use that good old principle that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes?

« Reply #21 on: October 23, 2016, 10:54 »
+5
Now if you do timelapses of sunsets,water drops and moving night traffic just be grateful that you get crumbs at all.

Interestingly, "sunset", "water", "traffic" and "timelapse" are some of the top keywords buyers use generating the most revenue.

Of course clips like that should be cheaper because the supply is high, and clips that are more expensive to produce should be more expensive. On the other hand, my best-selling sunset clip had me traveling to the other side of the world, and my all-time best-seller was produced in my own home with one prop and window lighting.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2016, 13:41 by increasingdifficulty »

« Reply #22 on: October 23, 2016, 12:38 »
+2
Now if you do timelapses of sunsets,water drops and moving night traffic just be grateful that you get crumbs at all.

Interestingly, "sunset", "water", "traffic" and "timelapse" are some of the top keywords buyers use generating the most revenue.

Of course clips like that should be cheaper because the supply is high, and clips that are more expensive to produce should be more expensive. On the other hand, my best-selling sunset clip had me traveling to the other side of the world...  ;)

Those subject will continue to generate lots of income to the agencies for the years to come because as you said they are and will be very demanded.....BUT and too many people are going after this low hanging fruits and even with high demand it means nothing if thousands and thousands of results come in a search. If you are on page 1 and 2 Bingo...you win the pot but this is like playing a lottery with everyweek the same price but increasing dramatically the numbers of tickets in the game.  The shelf life of those shots is too short.

There are two ways to avoid this, like Irina said throw lots of money in a production where you know 99% of competitors will not arrive. Shelf life much longer but investment too, so if you don't have deep pockets a few slips and you are into trouble. The other is think very carefully on the sessions we do. And that believe me is very difficult and most contributors do not pay attention to this. People put a lot of thought into other details but skip time in the brainstorming part......many of us are very impulsive, "oh look traffic night shots... great good search position in this or that agency, let s do it.....wrong approach now with so much repetitive content. If you think carefully your shots the income of those will flow for a long time.
In any case, whichever of both approaches if you have unique images you dont have to worry about supplying folks like videoblocks and the like. If you go the other route be prepared to sell those videos at 33cents in a few yeras.........

« Reply #23 on: October 23, 2016, 12:44 »
+7
There is no need to take a stand on one pricing strategy over another. If you want a high price exclusive collection you can do that. There is room in the market for many agencies. 

SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #24 on: October 24, 2016, 22:47 »
+3
BUT and too many people are going after this low hanging fruits

I like to go for the low hanging fruit, the high hanging fruit, and the fruit already on the ground. If there's fruit in different locations on or around the tree... why not go for all of it?!


 

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