Hello everyone!
I just recived this message from storyblocks:

�I'm the Acquisition Manager for the VideoBlocks Member Library. I just came across your portfolio-- I really love your work!

We're interested in buying some footage from you on a non-exclusive license to expose more of our users to your content. For the Member Library, we typically buy in bulk for an up front cost. Since it is non-exclusive, you can of course continue selling that same content on other sites, however, we would move the selected files from your VideoBlocks Marketplace portfolio.

We can make the initial selection and then you can have the final approval, that way you can let us know if there are files you would prefer not to sell.

Let me know if you are interested. We can offer you $2,500 for 100 files.

Thanks,�

I think the price is very low because I will lose the opportunity to sell them in videoblocks, but I want to know what do you think?!!
thank you in advance for your opinion

Thanks for sharing this Mograph. I've always been curious how Videoblocks goes about acquiring their footage.

Seems like a tricky sell at that price. I wonder what kind of effect selling it to them might have on the footage's sales on your other sites?

As a video editor I'll check each site for the same clips. Considering that they have anywhere between 130K and 300K subscribers, I bet many of them do as well.* So you might lose out on sales at the other sites.

The biggest thing I would be curious about is whether they have license to the clips in perpetuity or if the contract is time bound, (one year?). Maybe that is something you could suggest? If they have license forever, I would think $2,500 for 100 clips would be very, very low. I made roughly $6500 last year from 300 clips across 3 agencies. So over several years, 100 clips value should far exceed $2,500.

Seems like such an informal offer as well, maybe they're open to negotiating? Given that the downloads for their marketplace footage can run into the thousands, seems like they might be willing to offer more.

I guess the last thing to consider might be whether this could lead to a longer relationship. Getting $25 / clip guaranteed might be worth it if they eventually bought 2000 or more of your clips...

--

*An article from October about their founder mentions that they bring in $26 million in subscriptions, which would mean they have roughly 130,000 subscribers if they were all paying the $200 plan.

I had the same, but they took 50 clips. The key for me was you can choose which clips you don't want included. If they chose my 50 best clips, then on a good month, I'll be in the red for a few months and then I'll lose out. As I nominated my ten best selling clips not to be included... it'll be a couple of years before I'm losing out... so that made it a much better option.

Not really. They're low selling on the other marketplaces as well. My best selling clips might sell three times in a month on more than one agency. Anything outside my top ten might sell once over three months... so hard to notice much of a difference at the moment, as it was only November I sold them.

The only thing that really put my off, was that they'll own them forever. Well, they don't own them... you still own the rights to them and are welcome to sell them elsewhere... but I was imagining the unlikely scenario of somebody offering my millions of dollars for exclusive rights to my entire portfolio. I wouldn't be able to include those as there would be a limitation on where they could upload... i.e. not VideoBlocks. An unlikely situation, but still... you never know what might happen in one, two, five, ten years. That was my main concern. Other than that, with the ability to exclude your best selling clips, I couldn't really see any down sides.

@spacestock  - what kind of pricing did they offer you? Was it the same $25? Higher/lower? I imagine they offer different prices based on the type of clip it is?

I'm not doing it, got the same email. Pretty soon their own library is filled and nobody will buy our regular clips anymore..

I'm not doing it, got the same email. Pretty soon their own library is filled and nobody will buy our regular clips anymore..

Good point. I was just thinking the same thing... It's good for them long term though. They have the sales data to know which clips sell, and which ones don't.

Quote from: qunamax on January 19, 2018, 13:13

What do they do with that library? Resell videos? That needs a different license right?

Yes. The different license that they are offering in the email they send.

That seems rather low then, 2500$ for 100 clips, that's 25$ a clip, that's regular license price isn't it?

Quote from: qunamax on January 19, 2018, 22:33

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on January 19, 2018, 19:10

Quote from: qunamax on January 19, 2018, 13:13

What do they do with that library? Resell videos? That needs a different license right?

Yes. The different license that they are offering in the email they send.

That seems rather low then, 2500$ for 100 clips, that's 25$ a clip, that's regular license price isn't it?

Well it depends. If you're giving them your top selling clips and they make you an average of $25 a month or something, then yes, it's very low and it would be pointless to do so. But if you're giving them your bottom selling clips and they make you an average of $1 a month or something... then it starts to look a lot more appealing. So how lucrative it is depends on the individuals sales figures and what they give away.

I understand, if they are not selling they are worth next to nothing, so better one regular price that predictably nothing or almost nothing. Thanks for clarification.

Sounds like they are open for price negotiation.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but a recent article in bizjournals.com mentioned they had over $30 million in revenue last year and their recent marketing materials make it sound like they have around 115,000 clips in their membership library. If these numbers are correct they are grossing around $260 per clip per year. Even if 90% of their gross either comes from other sources besides their footage library, or is spent on overhead marketing etc, they would still be making net $26 per clip per year. 10% net seems low though, so they are probably making more.

Interesting article. But 95 + 25 employees + 22,000 sq ft office + storage + bandwidth + marketing also costs quite a bit. Hard to say exactly what the profits are of course.

If this is the case it seams like their asking price is very very low considering they would pay it off in less than a year.

Sure, but the goal of a business is after all to make as much money as possible. Not break even.

Not sure if this math stacks up, but at least having some information is better than going into negotiations blind.

Absolutely, they seem to have left room for negotiation. Try $50 per clip and see what they say.

Thanks again for sharing and, anyone, please let me know if I'm missing something or am way off somehow...

They also make money from marketplace clips from non-members. $30 per clip sold (buyers pay $79, you still get $49). It says that the $30 million is subscription revenue so I guess we can assume their total revenue is even bigger, if you add in the marketplace sales.

I agree with all of the above @increasingdifficulty and @qwerty.

Since our mutual goal is doing more than break even, maybe they would be receptive to agreeing to a more sustainable price for contributors work.

Not that I'm in this situation, but if I were, I might be tempted to ask for more than $50 (maybe $100 / clip) and just be honest with them about trying to figure out a price that works for both parties. Another option would be to pitch them on a larger number of clips, if they bought 300 at once at $50 it might be worth it, considering that is a lot of money in hand that you could re-invest vs. speculative earnings down the road.

They might also be open about explaining their reasoning behind their offer too, if you ask. You never know...

Did not know about the marketplace clip commission from non-member sales, thanks for mentioning it.