I just read a thread where one person indicated he/she uploaded about 10 free images to a site a month.
Supposedly they said, this improved their overall sales on that site.

Then that got me thinking about the complaints many here have viewed about subs.

1. Can subs help your overall earnings too?
2. They are not free and at least you get a minimum payment.
3. If people think it's OK to give away FREE images, then why do they complain about subs?

Do I make any sense?

Cranky MIZ
The voice of reason

as mentioned in other thread I tried 3 times and saw no benefit.  If there had been a significant (20%??) increase I would have continued taking the view it was marketing.

It also been pointed out to me recently how many free images are now out there (person telling me had a few thousand) and how there are number of people who check sites daily just grabbing the freebies and never buying. also made the point that the 'not good enough for stock' was good enough 2 years ago and end user requirements hasn't really changed.

?

I posted some on 123rf and saw no benefit.

Imagine that each of (for example) 100K SS users posted a free image, that would be 100K free images, then multiply by the number of micros, and add up the creative commons images on Flickr and those free images sites and then you have a huge problem.  It makes no sense, images are already free (for pennies they could be seen as free).  The only winners are sites with free images that get traffic, submitters are less likely to get any benefit from it.

Miz

I am the person you are quoting about the free images and can I say they I have never complained about subs. Its a personal opinion if you opt in or out of subs, personally I have tried opting in and out, and not found a large difference either way. So have stayed in.

As for the free images they are only available as small web size but help that image rise up the search results so you sell more larger images. Again it works for me, maybe because of the images I produce maybe for some other reason. I do this as my job so I wouldn't give my images away if it didnt work.

I think with certain sites, if your freebies reach a certain significant download, your image is "promoted" to an accepted image, and will then earn commissions.
so maybe that is why some prefer to give away their rejects as freebies.
also, it looks good to have a million images in your portfolio, rather than 100 truly accepted images.
just my guess.

I don't agree with this.  I think that buyers often browse portfolios if they see an image that they like and if you have a 'million' inferior images then the 'hundred' good ones will get lost and the buyer won't be bothered to wade through the whole lot to find anything worth buying

Quote from: dullegg on July 01, 2008, 16:04
, it looks good to have a million images in your portfolio, rather than 100 truly accepted images.
just my guess.

The free images that I was quoted talking about was on 123rf where you donate a free image for a certain about of days (normally 10) and only the small web size image is free and all the other size are paid for in the normal way.