I am sorry I came too late, but I am sure they will read this, and I hope they will realize how funny they look to me.... afraid of few newcomers who will take away that precious last peace of bread right from their mouth and eat it.... how pathetic 

I have to add this: Whitechild is one of the most generous people I've ever met. He has helped me to start with the stock photography, and I know for that fact that he has helped many others as well. For that I am very grateful to him. This is how it usually happens in life, the people that maybe have less, are often willing to share more.

you're giving away all the secrets, and all these newbies will out sell me. already, i am crapping in my trousers 

AND last word, I wish you ppl don't get Tu so riled up to crap in his pant. I'm tired of having to scrub it 

Now tell me, if you know math, where do you see reason for panic??
And, you didn't even think that some of us will maybe stop uploading, or even die these days. Do you want to hope that someone of us will die for you not to lose 0,000 001% of your sales? Do you?

Ummmm, I see no panic anyone here except for this hysterical statement above.  Just common sense thoughts.

I will bookmark this thread.  Someday, when complaints arise about profits dropping, I will pull it out to see who is being greedy, and not sharing enough with all their competition.

I don't know why we have to accuse people of being greedy because they worry about competition.  Everyone who runs a business has to worry about competition to one degree or another.

The economy has lots of folks spooked right now.  Tubed and Whitechild are both concerned for their family and their financial well being, as are probably most of us.  I don't think either one is any worse than the other - they are just approaching the problem with a different point of view.  

I have been doing this for 4 years and believe me, from that perspective there definitely IS more competition, and it is harder to make a living doing this than it was back when there were far fewer people doing it.  If microstock is your main source of income it is perfectly natural to worry about its future direction and what effect competition will have.  

That said, I prefer not to get sucked into the negativity and the fear.  I have no objection to people sharing information.  In fact I have really enjoyed learning from some of the more experienced pros who have been kind enough to share. I really believe that ITLR a rising tide lifts all boats, and cooperation rather than competition is the way to keep this industry growing and healthy for all of us.  

Sorry if the above is too Pollyanna, but look at it another way - you can't control who shares what with whom anyway, so why stress over it?  Better to spend the energy on what you CAN control, like your own portfolio and skill development.  

Thank you Larry and thank you Lisa for your well balanced post. When I started microstock, one man helped me too. It's one of the greatest stock photographers, and he is doing this for some 45 years. He didn't mind to help me, especially when I had to apply for SS. He is really "big fish" in this business. I am really thankful to him and to all people that gave me advices.
Lisa, well said: "Better to spend the energy on what you CAN control, like your own portfolio and skill development." I'm off to bed now. It's late here. Have to refill my batteries for tomorrow.

People helped me too and I have helped others many times.. 4th time saying this I AM ALL FOR POSTING HELPFULL INFO AND HELPING PEOPLE WITH QUESTIONS ETC. ETC. I LOVE PEOPLE HELPING PEOPLE..

 My point in every post in this thread is (seems like people are selective reading).. I am not supportive of photographers out drumming up competition for refferals, and with false truths about how easy it is to make that money in micro.. Competition will come and that is normal and expected, but that doesn't meen I'm gonna get excited about someone out promoting a blog post that is clearly trying to attract people to sign up for refferals.. The title of this thread sais it all "make money shooting nothing".. I think the sites themselves do enough recruiting.. BTW AGAIN I like XposurePro's post about lightning.

 I won't respond to any of the silly crapping pants and "good left hook" comments. I have not said anything here to insult anyone and am not going to start now, I have just been trying to arguing my perspective respectfully.. I don't expect everyone or anyone to see it my way (that's what's great about freedom) but I don't think that starting a high school e-brawl and chanting go get em' get's anyone many points..

 I think Ive stated my points a few 3 or 4 times so I think at this point it's just going in circles so I am not going to waste more time repeating stuff. I LIKE SHARING! YAY 4 SHARING!! Not refferal Pimping..

The NON Creative ones will fail.

Oh, I doomed!   

Sorry but IMHO the OP is simply making yet another pathetic attempt to drum up referrals whilst writing complete nonsense in his 'article'.

So why not just ignore him? Why the need for accusations? I saw accusations against Miz in the past too - like his tutorials were nothing new, etc. - yet for some people (like me) they were helpful. He helped me understand how to work with masks, something that is old news for experienced photoshoppers.

There are many threads in this forum that are (to me) nothing more than traffic generators to personal websites and blogs.  "This is a new software. Click here to read more in my blog".  "Have you tested it? Have you compared to another?"  Even though I find it annoying, I didn't know this was forbidden.

The main source of critics to Xposure however has been the "threat" of his blog post bringing new stock photographers, that is, competition.  His blog must be very popular! 

I wonder what will happen when another novice comes here and asks for advice on how to make a good isolation.  Will everyone keep quiet afraid of competition?

Regards,
Adelaide

PS: I am in a very comfortable position, as photography is not a significant source of income for me.  But in my professional life as an engineer I always shared information, even to colleagues who did not do the same (and even benefited from keeping information to themselves).  These colleagues may be my competitors when it comes to promotion, salary raise or mere recognition, but more important to me is, without the need to keep "strategic" information to myself, is to see the gratefulness in my colleagues, especially the new generation, for having shared my knowledge with them.

So why not just ignore him?

If you read my spiel that's exactly what I'm recommending.

Exactly my experience as well. I am an engineer too and I am blessed to work in a team where knowledge sharing is understood to be beneficial to all. While we do all work in a same team, unlike stock contributors, as individuals we can still become potential competitors when it comes to benefits at work, including not being laid off. However, I would never keep information from my colleagues and, in turn I also believe they don't keep it from me, at least not in my present team. That level of trust is what keeps me happy at my job.
As Adelaide pointed out, it is very gratifying to see that your colleagues, especially the junior ones, are grateful and happy that they learned something new from you.

With that philosophy I guess Bill Gates must be cursing his decision not to provide MSDOS as freeware. Not.

Trouble is Goldenangel it is easy to be generous when what you have has sod-all monetary value anyway.

Quote from: tubed on January 29, 2009, 20:30

I AM ALL FOR POSTING HELPFULL INFO AND HELPING PEOPLE WITH QUESTIONS ETC. ETC. I LOVE PEOPLE HELPING PEOPLE..

Why all the shouting? You sound like some swivel-eyed, green-ink-writing nutcase to me.

You could help all of us by refraining fromsuch hysterical clap-trap.

Sorry,
 It's just everyone is totally ignoring these parts of my posts.. I am not against newbies, I am not against sharing info.. What I am against is people beating the drums to collect more microstock contributors to get more refferals. I said it like 4 times and yet people are still like - why are you so scared to share info? why are you so scared of helping newbies? That is not even close to what I ever said.. I bolded stuff I already said in other posts so people would stop ignoring it.. I will share with Newbs with collegues, whatever and encourage others to do the same.. If a newby asks me a question I have and will help them, never said otherwise.. But people have been completely ignoring those sentences in my posts..

 The OP is not a newby. he's a site admin at one of the big 6 and he is here marketing his blog and drumming for refferals and Google advertising income (Google, banners and ads income is totaly cool with me) his traffic has nothing to do with it, I hope he has great advertising sales through Google, self sales, whatever and I hope he get's lot's of traffic.. I just don't like the microstock signup pimping. Some of his other blog posts are pretty good and I hope people get some use from them.

 Whatever, I am soo over this stuff.. I guess people can go ahead and twist my words how they like, I'm tired of trying to explain things people ignore, their only looking at the parts they want to see not the whole view..

I'm a little concerned about what is going to happen over the course of the year as I continue to post articles that will help photographers grow their businesses, find new ways to promote their services, expand on their photographic knowledge and yes clue them in on tricks of the trade in microstock. Due to the fact that I evaluate and review thousands of microstock photographers on a monthly basis I am extremely aware of exactly why they are being rejected and losing sales. I have access to the primary statistics that the rest of you who are struggling do not have access to. I know that when a lot of you get a reject most often you are confused on exactly why it was rejected. When we reject an image we select a pre-defined reason that is closest to our reason for rejection. However, we cannot spend all day writing out custom notifications explaining in detail why it was rejected. Im going to use this in hope that I can shed some light on certain issues that will allow photographers to decrease their rejections and increase their profits.
Will me training newcomers cause the sky to fall and our incomes to drop and put us all out of business? Did the stock industry crash when I switched to microstock 5 years ago? Did stock photographers freak out when I licensed my very first stock image in 1990 before I was even old enough to drive? No it didn't and if I thought I alone had a global effect on it .. well that would be extremely foolish and egotistical of me. So .... Did the microstock industry go into a downward spiral when somebody clued you into it?

Incidentally, it seems some of you are bothered thinking I shared knowledge in exchange for massive referrals .. which if you were running a blog you probably would put them on there too .. it would be foolish to not do so. However, the excuse of bashing the sharing of knowledge based on referral links is just a bit silly. If I was looking for referrals do you think I would go to a place where everybody already knows about microstock??? No .. everyone here is probably already signed up to all the agencies so me looking for referrals here makes no sense. If I want massive referrals I'm going to target an audience that is unaware of the microstock industry .. not groups that specialize in it. If you were not able to catch on to that maybe you should ask yourself .. how much of a business sense do I really have? Rather than worrying about other photographers getting ahead you should focus on learning a few new tricks yourself ... I will be making a habit of sharing everything I know.  

It took me a while to read through all this.. I am quite surprised on the reaction to the helpfulness but I guess there always has to be some snoots be yatching about something. I found it funny that Yuri is mentioned a few times... he isnt even in this conversation. I am positive he is not worried about competition of the newbies.His photography stands out from most.
Hundreds of newbies submit to microstock each day and let me tell you.. a majority of them have alot to learn just like you did. SO if you are so worried and not confident that a newbie will steal your sales away from you... you need to get better in your craft.. don't you think?
When anyone starts microstock, they learn so much... most people do not know what artifacts are or how to check for focus.
If they are not professionals.. they have not learned composition.
What is wrong with sharing information to help people hone their craft? You must be a greedy grinch to not want XposurePro to share tips of the trade. I will share anything I know of tips to help anyone do better and with the economy like it is, people are looking for ways to make money on the side to help with their bills. How can  you not want to help people in need?
If you do not sell much.. maybe its because your images are not good or need work. Maybe you need to be reading the tips and taking them to heart.

I bet if everyone told what their biggest seller is, it would be surprising. My biggest seller isnt even very good. LOL  Every day nothings sell more than fancy somethings!