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Author Topic: Uniting contributors for better royalty, price control and safeguarding this industry  (Read 54940 times)

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Uncle Pete

  • Great Place by a Great Lake - My Home Port
« Reply #150 on: April 03, 2019, 10:44 »
+1
I believe it should be a place that offers inspections. You have to protect the customer from our mistakes and make sure there is a minimum level of quality. Also if the place offers legal guarantuees with an extended license that would be useful for the customer as well. Also somebody with professional international accounting, especially for eu sales tax and also data protection regulation

So I do believe it would need to be some kind of existing stock agency that would welcome exclusive content from people who are ready to self market via social media.

These things dont come for free.

True, then we shouldn't expect them to only take a nibble instead of a full bite out of our commissions.  ;D

I still think you are making a good point and if we could upload and set out own prices, that would bring back much of the control to the artists own choices and decisions. I didn't catch the exclusive the first time around. I suppose that makes sense since they wouldn't want the same things sold for $2 that we have priced at $200. Logical business decision.

Reminds me kind of like what P5 is doing now, at 60%, we can set prices, part of an established agency, yes I know that's video. But some people don't like that?


swisschocolate

« Reply #151 on: April 03, 2019, 11:19 »
+2
Picfair allows to set own prices and set your own shop for 5/month (with own domain) + their marketplace, and they have some inspection as I understand - haven't tried to send them copyrighted stuff :) so don't know how good it is.

And there is no sales so far 8) since I don't promote it.

"Moderation process"
https://support.picfair.com/hc/en-us/articles/213996825-What-happens-after-I-ve-uploaded-my-images-
« Last Edit: April 03, 2019, 11:30 by swisschocolate »

« Reply #152 on: April 03, 2019, 17:19 »
0
I believe it should be a place that offers inspections. You have to protect the customer from our mistakes and make sure there is a minimum level of quality. Also if the place offers legal guarantuees with an extended license that would be useful for the customer as well. Also somebody with professional international accounting, especially for eu sales tax and also data protection regulation

So I do believe it would need to be some kind of existing stock agency that would welcome exclusive content from people who are ready to self market via social media.

These things dont come for free.
Surely the only agency that would make this even remotely viable in the current climate would be adobe? If you wanted to do this I don't think there is anything to stop people forming a co-operative and submitting exclusive work to them now is there? The only issue would be sharing the spoils.

« Reply #153 on: April 03, 2019, 17:59 »
0
I believe it should be a place that offers inspections. You have to protect the customer from our mistakes and make sure there is a minimum level of quality. Also if the place offers legal guarantuees with an extended license that would be useful for the customer as well. Also somebody with professional international accounting, especially for eu sales tax and also data protection regulation

So I do believe it would need to be some kind of existing stock agency that would welcome exclusive content from people who are ready to self market via social media.

These things dont come for free.

Sounds like a description of Pond5 to me.  Form a syndicate or two, one for Premium and one for the chaff and you are ready to self market via social media.  Trouble is finding enough people to take part, but everybody should do it.

« Reply #154 on: April 03, 2019, 18:09 »
0
Just for the record, personally I am fine with my current upload system.

But I believe this is overall a worthy discussion to explore what is possible and feasable.

Pond5 could be an ideal candidate.

Maybe give them time to build up their exclusive content and market that.

And hopefully they can redo their IT structure, I am sure it needs a lot of investment.

However, I think the most interesting challenge would be for agencies to nurture the editing talent of the crowd.

I keep enjoying pinterest, love to follow interesting galleries and really wish a system like that was available for me as a buyer at the agencies.

To be able to create your own personal feed from galleries I follow, artists I follow, my top ten favorite searches plus whatever the software recommends for me.

Combine that with the ability for artists to create mutually shared galleries, then I think you have something really valuable and different from what is available now.

I mean just artists from the same city or region, teaming up their content on a mutual lightbox.

Or a group of people with a medical background pooling their work.

etc...

Pond5 allows you to set your own prices, which I think is crucial for any kind of producer driven gallery.

If pond5 considered to allow some kind of networking over mutual themes by the artists, provided the content is exclusive, I can see a lot of people teaming up to work on their thing and promoting that.

pond5 will still have editor driven galleries, but adding mutual galleries, plus a personal feed for the customer, that would be something really new.

Not sure if they are interested or reading here.

There is a lot you can do with crowd sourcing and community. Give people the right tools, then watch how it all becomes self organizing.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2019, 18:38 by cobalt »

« Reply #155 on: April 03, 2019, 20:20 »
+1
Since trying exclusive with Pond5 I am uploading my images as exclusive there as well now. I spoke to them on the phone about doing the same for photo and promoting it and they were interested. Not a bad option.

« Reply #156 on: April 04, 2019, 00:18 »
0
Good to hear.

However, if you do talk to them, please ask them to seriously consider a modern gallery system that allows anyone, including buyers, to have public galleries and to also allow people to share these galleries and upload together like mentioned above.

All agencies will have billions of files one day, the only way to future proof them is to start offering tools for self organizing and crowd editing.

And to give buyers the option to follow any galleries they want, instead of just following artists. If I only want cheese and wine videos and images, I dont need to see the artists travel images.


Offering customers personalisied feeds, in addition to the ability to do a traditional search, is IMO the only logical next step.

And it is something noone is offering in an intelligent way at the moment.

Then couple that with the option to add exclusive images and the ability to set a fixed price point for shared galleries. (This setting should be optional, some people might prefer to just rally around a theme and leave pricing to the individual artist - not all files are equally expensive in production)

Give people the right business tools and the marketplace will manage itself in many ways.


« Last Edit: April 04, 2019, 00:23 by cobalt »

« Reply #157 on: April 04, 2019, 01:39 »
+10
Since trying exclusive with Pond5 I am uploading my images as exclusive there as well now. I spoke to them on the phone about doing the same for photo and promoting it and they were interested. Not a bad option.
Going exclusive with images  on a site that sells almost zero photos sounds like a risky strategy to me.

« Reply #158 on: April 04, 2019, 02:00 »
+4
Seems to me these "solutions" are getting more and more complex. I think the best that could be realistically hoped for is some kind of "fair trader" certificate where members of the "club" only upload to those agencies. Even then I doubt we could agree on the criteria for that to be honest.

« Reply #159 on: April 04, 2019, 06:21 »
+4
Since trying exclusive with Pond5 I am uploading my images as exclusive there as well now. I spoke to them on the phone about doing the same for photo and promoting it and they were interested. Not a bad option.

Ye gads, why?  You'd never sell a photo again.

« Reply #160 on: April 04, 2019, 06:35 »
+1
For me photo is a very very small% of what I do in stock. I am a video producer. Now for business outside of stock I do a LOT of photography. I am just tired of the penny sales so just using Pond5 to set my prices. Probably will never see a sale agin but I don't really care.

swisschocolate

« Reply #161 on: April 04, 2019, 06:44 »
+4
Probably will never see a sale agin but I don't really care.

Would be great, if people with such attitude would add this line every time when they make their decision public :)

Here is a lot of newbies who can look up to them as authorities and will follow the same action, not knowing that the advice was actually: "How to try hard not to make money on microstock" and then as a result complain about bad earnings and race to the bottom stuff.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2019, 06:57 by swisschocolate »

« Reply #162 on: April 04, 2019, 07:00 »
0
For me photo is a very very small% of what I do in stock. I am a video producer. Now for business outside of stock I do a LOT of photography. I am just tired of the penny sales so just using Pond5 to set my prices. Probably will never see a sale agin but I don't really care.
So you agree then it seems uploading images there is a bad option.

georgep7

« Reply #163 on: April 04, 2019, 07:45 »
0
Quote
Here is a lot of newbies who can look up to them as authorities

I find it hard to believe that people deciding to enter the Stock world come with no knowledge or search for authorities.

Both newbies and old-time contributors know that there is the actual production world where everything has a price tag

and the "I got five stars in my photo" dream one where people do look for authorities,
exposure, and don't care for actual money rather than fame or likes or just *ss kissing each other.
(Sorry for that).

Just my impression, I may be wrong. Eitherway we are (?) all adults and take responsibilities of our actions.

:)
« Last Edit: April 04, 2019, 07:48 by georgep7 »

« Reply #164 on: April 04, 2019, 07:48 »
+2
Quote
Here is a lot of newbies who can look up to them as authorities

I find it hard to believe that people deciding to enter the Stock world come with no knowledge or search for authorities.

Both newbies and old-time contributors know that there is the actual production world where everything has a price tag

and the "I got five stars in my photo" dream one where people do look for authorities, exposure, and don't care for actual money rather than fame.

Just my impression, I may be wrong. Eitherway we are (?) all adults and take responsibilities of our actions.

:)
There are a lot of "newbies" who come into this with wildly optimistic beliefs about what they can earn and next to no knowledge of the industry. But yes people are responsible for their own research and decisions of course.

« Reply #165 on: April 04, 2019, 08:31 »
+1
I am pricing my photos at $10 which is fair and they can buy cheaper at lower Res. I still get 50% which is good for me so to me it is very worth it. Now if a lot of artist did the same then where do you think buyers would go? The whole problem with this is that people don't value their work because it is so easy to take a digital picture. Now getting a model and property release is harder and should be valued more! I am an old pro at this by now and don't have trouble making decisions nor do I have trouble changing my mind if I am not happy!

« Reply #166 on: April 04, 2019, 08:50 »
0
Seems to me these "solutions" are getting more and more complex. I think the best that could be realistically hoped for is some kind of "fair trader" certificate where members of the "club" only upload to those agencies. Even then I doubt we could agree on the criteria for that to be honest.

I agree, basically I am fine the way things are.

But if you really want to change something, or have a stocksy for the masses, you have to be really very specific and come up with a real plan.

Otherwise, you can just post a list somewhere: agencies we like...please upload here...

If people only want to rant together, fine. But I think it would also be unteresting to hear something more specific.

You will not get any improvements, if there is no plan and people dont know what they want.


« Reply #167 on: April 04, 2019, 09:14 »
+1
Seems to me these "solutions" are getting more and more complex. I think the best that could be realistically hoped for is some kind of "fair trader" certificate where members of the "club" only upload to those agencies. Even then I doubt we could agree on the criteria for that to be honest.

I agree, basically I am fine the way things are.

But if you really want to change something, or have a stocksy for the masses, you have to be really very specific and come up with a real plan.

Otherwise, you can just post a list somewhere: agencies we like...please upload here...

If people only want to rant together, fine. But I think it would also be unteresting to hear something more specific.

You will not get any improvements, if there is no plan and people dont know what they want.

I agree with the list, that's a good starting point, informing ourselves and new contributors about what is happening.

Would be great to have a list with all the different prices offered by the main agencies, and what commission we get from it, so we can decide on which ones we want to support.

So the question is, who is going to make the list and keep it updated, and where?

« Reply #168 on: April 04, 2019, 09:24 »
+2
I am pricing my photos at $10 which is fair and they can buy cheaper at lower Res. I still get 50% which is good for me so to me it is very worth it. Now if a lot of artist did the same then where do you think buyers would go? The whole problem with this is that people don't value their work because it is so easy to take a digital picture. Now getting a model and property release is harder and should be valued more! I am an old pro at this by now and don't have trouble making decisions nor do I have trouble changing my mind if I am not happy!
The point is though it doesn't matter what you price them at if no one wants to buy them from that site. I can get why people would see a case for video as Pond5 seem to understand that market very well. From what I can see for stills they are hugely down the pecking order.

« Reply #169 on: April 04, 2019, 09:33 »
+1

Would be great to have a list with all the different prices offered by the main agencies, and what commission we get from it, so we can decide on which ones we want to support.

So the question is, who is going to make the list and keep it updated, and where?

There are several people with stockblogs or newsletters that regularly post about agencies.

Maybe one of them is reading here can update their page or add something about worthy fair trade sites..

Some also regularly ask readers to join a poll or post their experiences. I know Robert Kneschke does.

Most of the info is out there already.

« Reply #170 on: April 04, 2019, 09:43 »
0
Seems to me these "solutions" are getting more and more complex. I think the best that could be realistically hoped for is some kind of "fair trader" certificate where members of the "club" only upload to those agencies. Even then I doubt we could agree on the criteria for that to be honest.

I agree, basically I am fine the way things are.

But if you really want to change something, or have a stocksy for the masses, you have to be really very specific and come up with a real plan.

Otherwise, you can just post a list somewhere: agencies we like...please upload here...

If people only want to rant together, fine. But I think it would also be unteresting to hear something more specific.

You will not get any improvements, if there is no plan and people dont know what they want.
THe other part of this would to be engage with sites so they could use an "ethical trader" type logo. In the UK and I dare say other countries we have a "fair trade" logo. Only if buyers showed some sympathy to the cause could this have an effect.

« Reply #171 on: April 04, 2019, 09:50 »
0
Agencies and buyers are not the problem, it's contributors who undervalue their work, they could sell at 50% at a reasonable price, but they choose not to.

« Reply #172 on: April 04, 2019, 09:54 »
0
A long but interesting take on the state of photography

https://medium.com/@Zimberoff/disrupting-stock-photography-fffe1c7d5b99

swisschocolate

« Reply #173 on: April 04, 2019, 09:55 »
+1
Agencies and buyers are not the problem, it's contributors who undervalue their work, they could sell at 50% at a reasonable price, but they choose not to.

We all can choose to sell at 90-100% at our own shops. Why do we choose not to? And are you sure you will be able to sell with even 30% profit after all the business expenses?

Maybe the reason why there is no sales at 50% sites is because they don't have enough money for a good marketing?
« Last Edit: April 04, 2019, 10:01 by swisschocolate »

« Reply #174 on: April 04, 2019, 10:01 »
0
Agencies and buyers are not the problem, it's contributors who undervalue their work, they could sell at 50% at a reasonable price, but they choose not to.

We all can choose to sell at 90-100% at our own shops. Why do we choose not to? And are you sure you will be able to sell with even 30% profit after all the business expenses?

Maybe because the reason why there is no sales at 50% sites is that they don't have money for a good marketing?

Point is that our competitors, other contributors, choose to sell at 15%. I can't compete with that.


 

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