Author Topic: grfx Ready - Welcome to Indie-Stock (Read 10202 times)

Leo · « **on:** April 19, 2015, 16:09 »

The project:

http://www.grfx.co/

The Invitation

http://www.grfx.co/grfx-an-illustrators-introduction/

Open Source

https://github.com/orangeman555/grfx

What is Indie-Stock?

http://community.grfx.co/the-grfx-invention-of-indie-stock/

If you use the hub site, this is what you can expect:

http://community.grfx.co/grfx-network-launch-what-to-expect/

grfx was made for Illustrators and Graphic Artists
grfx is open source
grfx invites expert illustrators to try out their system at grfx.co
grfx questions will be answered on the community site (setting up an account takes less than a minute) http://community.grfx.co/
grfx was written mostly while listening to John Mellencamp - Paper In Fire https://youtu.be/myo9wXrNUP4

50% · « **Reply #1 on:** April 20, 2015, 02:32 »

I'm not an illustrator but looks awesome, great project, good luck!!

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #2 on:** April 20, 2015, 04:36 »

Looks great, wishing you every success!

cidepix · « **Reply #3 on:** April 20, 2015, 06:40 »

Great News Leo..

I have a question: is the symbio to grfx conversion ready for our existing domains?

Semmick Photo · « **Reply #4 on:** April 20, 2015, 06:45 »

So you got sick of photographers?

klsbear · « **Reply #5 on:** April 20, 2015, 07:06 »

Quote from: Semmick Photo on April 20, 2015, 06:45

So you got sick of photographers?

He mentioned in earlier posts that Robin had taken over the task of creating the coding and modules for photographers and that given some of the complexities it was going to take some additional time to have that ready. Hopefully we will hear more on what we can expect for photographers soon.

chromaco · « **Reply #6 on:** April 20, 2015, 11:41 »

So I woke up to this thread this morning. It's been pretty clear for quite some time that I am a huge advocate of self hosting. For those of you who have been paying attention, myself and a handful of other serious illustrators have been beta testing GRFX for Leo. In the interest of full disclosure, although I am friends with Leo I have no financial involvement with this project whatsoever other than selling my own work.

Now to my point... forgive me Leo but you have done a piss-poor job of explaining GRFX!
This is what it is about.

In short, GRFX is a self hosted option that includes a central search structured specifically to sell raster illustrations, vectors, and 3d illustrations. It has a unique approach based on quality over quantity with a focus on highly optimizing the very best images in an artists portfolio.
Leo has set this all up for a ridiculously low monthly fee.

What you get.
• The GRFX image processing plugin that automatically watermarks, resizes, and creates product pages for your images. It also recognizes accompanying files like .eps and can handle add on files like .zip and others.
• Your own site hosted for you with a theme, plugins, and sales platform built in.
• A theme that is built for specifically for selling illustrations, with stats, sales tracking, woo-commerce tax benefits, sliders, and SEO optimization.
• All of your images tied into a central search engine which for immediate future* directs customers to your own site which you keep 100% of the sale. (minus any paypal or other merchant fees)
* Ultimately the central search will perform the sales itself which will allow customers to buy multiple images from different artists at the same time. When this is implemented a small (compared to existing agencies) commission will be assessed. You will still keep 100% of any sales made directly on your own site.
• A site that can be set up and running in less than 2 hours. Yes a functional site almost immediately. You can be uploading in less than 1 hour but plan on about 3-4 hours to fill out the pertinent functional information, build slider art, adjust menus, and other aesthetic items.
• Tech support and a community to help you build your site, optimize your images, and in general solve any problems you might have.

What you don't have to do
• Figure out, search for, and buy a domain name.
• Research a hosting provider and deal with any c-panel admin headaches.
• Contract and pay for your own hosting.
• Find a theme that actually works, find/buy plugins that don't mess up the theme, or do any coding.
• Spend hours upon hours trying to figure out why your site doesn't look very good.

Oh and by the way... if you do want to deal with all of these headaches yourself, Leo is offering the GRFX plugin for free. It should work with any woo-commerce capable theme.

If you are an illustrator who does fairly significant sales with any of the micro's this should be something you should seriously consider or at the very least look into.

Leo · « **Reply #7 on:** April 20, 2015, 14:17 »

@50% & @Justanotherphotographer - thank you very much

Quote from: cidepix on April 20, 2015, 06:40

Great News Leo..

I have a question: is the symbio to grfx conversion ready for our existing domains?

The converter plugin is almost done. Might be a few days. I'm converting my Symbio-site first, that way if something blows up I'll know about it ahead of time.

On a personal note to everyone I want to emphasize that if you learn to love and embrace SEO (make it a game) you will be pleasantly surprised with your sales. Illustrators have always had the 1-up in this. That goes for my hosted service or if you are independent.

Here is a sneak peak at what is prepared for the community:

http://community.grfx.co/wiki/day-10-your-seo-introduction-most-important/

MojoD · « **Reply #8 on:** April 20, 2015, 15:13 »

Having done some beta testing with the grfx plugin, too, here are my two cents: The plugin cooperates with WooCommerce and the WooCommerce EU VAT Compliance plugin. It is very important to me to have a possibility to deal with the new EU VAT law, and this a reasonable one! I tested the plugin with the Avada theme, but the grfx plugin should work with all themes that support WooCommerce anyway. It’s a great plugin to me and I will redo my old Symbiostock site with a theme of my choice and the grfx plugin.
As a graphic designer at first, I find networking / global search engine a very important function. I prefer to search a database with a good amount of images and styles, than to crawl from one Google search result to another. That is why I will also give it a try with a (second) website in the grfx network. Though I am not a big fan of monthly fees, I think this a great and hopefully successful way to bring in my own work and be a grateful part of a community of professional illustrators.

Thanks again, Leo, for letting me beta testing and for this new opportunity.

Leo · « **Reply #9 on:** April 20, 2015, 23:39 »

Quote from: MojoD on April 20, 2015, 15:13

Having done some beta testing with the grfx plugin, too, here are my two cents: ...

Thanks MojoD - I'm grateful for your testing and pointing out those bugs.

I'm hoping between the free version (the typical host-yourself free solution) and the paid version ( the save-yourself-time-and-trouble solution) this will cover as many needs as possible. If only the other project were this awesome at it's start.

Also back in the days of that other project there was talk about "hub" sites. This version by default allows multisite installation, and in effect, people can now run their own hub sites in a multisite network. A good webmaster can serve thousands of people if he needs to.

Unlike the other project which was launched with a lot of noise and anticipation, this has been silently developed over a year, with it's greatest progress most recently. Hopefully this will gain traction with Illustrators and give rest from that other project, and give rise to genuinely good independent options.

Today I've been testing the converter and its working great. People will be able to leave the other project and go into this much improved and simplistic system within a few days.

Lastly, for developers, there is this.

cidepix · « **Reply #10 on:** April 21, 2015, 08:39 »

Leo..

another question came to my mind..

I am not on the latest version of symbiostock.. does it matter for the conversion?

do we have to be on the latest version to be able to successfully convert to grfx?

Leo · « **Reply #11 on:** April 21, 2015, 11:21 »

So far it does not appear so.

stock-will-eat-itself · « **Reply #12 on:** April 21, 2015, 11:32 »

Pretty impressive stuff.

Is the shopping cart global i.e. can you add multiple items from different illustrators and have one checkout for them all?

Scratch that - just read that is coming in the future :-)

Leo · « **Reply #13 on:** April 21, 2015, 12:43 »

Right now we're just building a good illustrator base and setting the foundation. Central cart is in construction.

You can be uploading within minutes of launching a site - its worth a try. If you don't like it just abandon it

Way easier than symbio sites

cascoly · « **Reply #14 on:** April 21, 2015, 13:50 »

is the basic woocommerce free or is there a fee?

can this be installed alongside an existing symbio site? or does it require a new domain name (thinking about the google indexing & links already established?)

conversion of existing image pages to grfx is one step -- but what happens to external links to the old pages -- is there way to redirect those links

will the new symbio be a completely different program? will global searches be possible across photos and illustrations?

Leo · « **Reply #15 on:** April 21, 2015, 14:54 »

We really need to keep Symbiostock photographers with Symbiostock. I cannot presume to say what the new system can do, so I will only comment on the old.

Quote from: cascoly on April 21, 2015, 13:50

is the basic woocommerce free or is there a fee?

Free.

Quote from: cascoly on April 21, 2015, 13:50

can this be installed alongside an existing symbio site? or does it require a new domain name (thinking about the google indexing & links already established?)

It can be installed right on your current Symbio site.

Quote from: cascoly on April 21, 2015, 13:50

conversion of existing image pages to grfx is one step -- but what happens to external links to the old pages -- is there way to redirect those links

A magical redirect is placed on the OLD to the NEW page. Fairly seemless.

Quote from: cascoly on April 21, 2015, 13:50

will the new symbio be a completely different program? will global searches be possible across photos and illustrations?

As far as I know its completely different now. http://www.symbiostock.org/

I will quote so as not to misinterpret:

Ask about his marketing scheme here: http://www.microstockgroup.com/symbiostock/introduction-and-an-update-on-symbiostock/ (this marketing plan is not something you should be ignorant of)

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on March 23, 2015, 04:43

Thanks for the questions and comments. I have actually visited your site a number of times and am really glad to see that you are not only using Symbiostock, but actively promoting the project through your slideshows. One of my priorities is to ensure current Symbiostock users like yourself don't feel left out of the loop.

Symbiostock is a fantastic idea. When I first found out about it I was blown away that someone had already actuated an idea that was bubbling in my own mind. Why was I interested in it? The same reason as all of you - I am a contributor, and I want to be able to market my images on my terms. This is the primary drive behind both my and Leo's passions towards it.

This never wavered with Leo - he has been working steadily on the current version, just not been very vocal about it. That's where I come in - I will try to answer contributor questions to try to bridge that gap so you too can be excited about the future of the project, as we both are.

Right now, unfortunately, I can't get into the specifics of certain aspects of our plans because they are still in the developmental stages. What is important, however, is for us to let you know that the project is alive and going strong, and that soon we will be releasing a new version of Symbiostock that should make things like installations, tweaking, and personalization a lot easier. And don't worry - you will be able to seamlessly port your current sites onto the new engine.

You'll get to know more about me as we communicate more, but I hope this has answered a few of your questions.

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on March 23, 2015, 21:52

Thanks for the fantastic questions. I'm really glad you guys are pointing out some of the concerns surrounding the previous system.

I just wanted to let you know that marketing and driving sales to your media is a high priority,and we are building the entire system around a sustainable, growth oriented solution in that regard.

To be realistic about altering the industry, we have to start with the idea of contributors having a technical means of distributing their media. That is the base of Symbiostock. Past that, we then have to figure out how to compete with the marketing prowess and user experience that the large microstock companies provide.

Once we are closer to launching, we will share all the specifics and discuss tweaking the solution as a community, but rest assured we are definitely focused on marketing Symbiostock, not just developing it.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: grfx Ready - Welcome to Indie-Stock (Read 10202 times)

Leo

50%

Justanotherphotographer

cidepix

Semmick Photo

klsbear

chromaco

Leo

MojoD

Leo

cidepix

Leo

stock-will-eat-itself

Leo

cascoly

Leo

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors