Now that is a "fresh" stock site . . . . 

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Ah, another KTOOLS install. 

'I don't have a lot of time to put into it,'

I bet most of the independents here feel the same way about it.  Thinking you can run a successful site on just 10% is just naive.   Marketing, storage, hardware, etc. all cost money.  You shouldn't waste their time if you aren't serious about it.

Jamie, I wish you well in your hobby. But I prefer golf when I want to waste my time.

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Quote from: sjlocke on August 07, 2010, 11:27

No, just telling you what others will tell you.  You haven't set a reasonable percentage for the sites business costs.  You have no marketing budget, and no time (currently).  Independents are tired of spending their time fruitlessly.

Fair enough, I will take your advice into consideration. I am already planning to implement higher cost licenses (as mentioned) and I am currently devoting more and more time to the site. I do have a marketing budget, it is just not $50,000 like a large company.

I think Photoshelter had a $1 million dollar budget to launch their stock library and after a year or so they threw in the towel.

You most likely are going to get a luke warm welcome here with some skepticism. A couple times a month somebody shows up here with a new stock site trying to get contributors to join. Over the past several years many people here have tried to support new sites and in most cases it has been a waste of time. LuckyOliver, Albumo, and a list of dozens of others have required a substantial investment of time, produced little or nothing, and then closed up shop.  

Most of these new sites seem to have a similar pattern as the ones that have failed. There's usually no compelling message explaining why it would be worth people's time here. They focus on attracting contributors and have no plan to attract buyers. And no value proposition showing buyers why they should choose the new site over an Istockphoto or Shutterstock. "We're cheap" is usually the big tagline. Not real compelling for contributors who want prices to go up, not down. And a lot of people are already abandoning low earning sites to focus on the top handful that produce decent earnings.

I don't think anybody is saying your plans won't work. You just have decided to try this at a time when there are a lot more ostacles than there were a few years ago.

Best of luck.

I just received a Mostphotos sitemail from you Jamie. Could you please explain to me this:

As far as subscriptions, if you register as a buyer you can see the subscription plans. They are only limited by time, meaning if you buy a 1 week subscription, you can download as many images as you want/can for a period of 1 week. There is no GB cap, no image number limits, just time. I should probably work on letting users see the subscription details without registering, thank you for bringing it to my attention.
www.clearerimages.com

Does t mean that someone could buy a subscription plan for a week and download as much images as he wants? How much the photographer earns in this case?
If someone pays $15 for unlimited access for one day, and downloads 1000 images, that means he actually paid 1.5 cents per image. How much the photographer earns then?

Sell what really sells in this business:

Customer Service.

So, if someone buys an unlimited plat for 1 day, which is $15, and downloads, lets say 100 images, he will pay them 15 cents each, and contributors will still earn 90 cents from every sale, which means you will immediately be at loss $75??

Yap, the business plan sucks. There is no USP any more in any new micro site with subs. Who would buy from a site under 2 million if there is already ShutterStock?

There are some good USP's around, but as a dedicated follower of Sjlocke, I won't throw those for the Google mob here. 

I really appreciate your effort and the idea of 90% commission for contributors, but one fact turns me away. I will explain. In one statement you say you don't have $50 000 to invest in marketing, but in another statement you say that you are willing to give away money to buyers who buy unlimited subscription plan. Actually, you need only 50 buyers who will buy unlimited subscription plan for one day and download 1000 images each, and you will have to pay almost $50 000 to contributors who submitted those images.
That means, if 50 buyers apply in next few days, and buy unlimited plan for one day, you could bankrupt.
I think you should implement normal subscription plan immediately, and use the money you have for marketing, because I already know few people who would be delighted to buy unlimited plan for one day. I'm sure they will download as much as they want, and you will have to pay 90 cents for every image to contributors.

If I'm not right, please explain to me how your business scheme works.