Imagekind: pay to play?

[HappyBunny]

That doesn't sound good. I find it unbelievable that FAA let's you only upload 25 images for free. If you want to upload more you have to pay.  I signed up at Crated. They don't sell many products but at least they can read IPTC data. I find it weird that their canvas print has either white or black on the sites. However, they accepted the few images I uploaded and I am delighted about not having to copy and paste. I mentioned it to Photo4me to get an IPTC data reader. They will look into it.

[Braznyc]

I still believe that the same people sell the same images on FAA.
If you're a new seller... good luck! There's no rotation.

Some people there behave like there's some kind of hierarchy.

In the forums there's always the same people saying that they are selling well... The newbies always trying to find out what's happening because nothing is selling.

My 10 cents.

[HappyBunny]

Thank you Braznyc. I am not going to upgrade to a paid account on FAA.

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[stockastic]

I still believe that the same people sell the same images on FAA.
If you're a new seller... good luck! There's no rotation.

Some people there behave like there's some kind of hierarchy.

In the forums there's always the same people saying that they are selling well... The newbies always trying to find out what's happening because nothing is selling.

My 10 cents.

An accurate summary.  The reason you see the same handful of people posting in the forum, every day, is that FAA said at one time that forum participation affects your search rank.  But I doubt that's really true - the main 3 factors are previous sales, previous sales and previous sales.   I think the people making the real sales are the ones in the FAA "Collections" and there's no way to apply, the selection is done by FAA. 

[ShadySue]

I still believe that the same people sell the same images on FAA.
If you're a new seller... good luck! There's no rotation.

Some people there behave like there's some kind of hierarchy.

In the forums there's always the same people saying that they are selling well... The newbies always trying to find out what's happening because nothing is selling.

My 10 cents.

A lot of these sellers have their own buyers and use FAA for fulfilment. One of the high sellers said last month that no files would be sold via random searches. That's not quite true, I have a very few sales, all totally randomly searched, but FAA don't hide that you really need to be bringing your own buyers, by whatever means doesn't stick in your craw.

[stockastic]

I have no marketing, but I do sell one now and then on FAA.   But the trend seems to be downhill. The guy is playing SEO games that I think are backfiring on him.   Or maybe he's just funneling all the searches to his 'collections'. 

[stockastic]

Photo4me now reads IPTC data, although it still takes way too many clicks to post an image.   I haven't yet figured out what's really going on at this site, it all seems to be in flux right now.  Some of their FB postings are saying that big things are coming.

[HappyBunny]

Yes, I noticed. Unfortunately they are selling less and less. They used to sell about 10 images per day but now it's just 4 most of the time.

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[wordplanet]

I had forgotten about Photo4Me after uploading a handful of files  - less than 20 I think - on there a couple of years ago after some European friends with good sales told me about it. I got a sale last month and made $87. It was a travel image from Sweden.

Right now, my most regular POD site for sales is redbubble where I get several sales a month - have had over 100 with a tiny portfolio there (maybe 25-30 images) - but mostly small amounts so it takes a while to make payout.

FAA is still my best POD - I have 500+ photos there so no surprise it's my best earner. Had two large random sales last month - a framed print and a canvas. I've sold some cards and pillows to friends who saw my stuff on FB but most of it is random. I do post images on twitter a few times a week but seem to sell totally random stuff - from flowers to travel and landscape as well as abstracts. I wish I had stuff in their collections.

Any sales on Crated? My last sale there - $168 net profit - was a year ago - but they seem to be doing more social media these days so hoping it picks up - they featured my landscapes about a week ago via their twitter account - and I usually have pix on the first page and in some collections. I really wish they'd get more traffic. I like how the site looks and it's easy to upload. It's free to join.

I've put less time into POD sites this year but I think the effort I made last year in uploading more is starting to pay off. Wish the effort I put into 500px had - no sales there yet. I didn't close my account but haven't added new work since they changed the commission structure. I had such high hopes for them.

[PaulieWalnuts]

I recently tried uploading a handful of images to Imagekind. Unless they start selling like crazy, no thanks. Dont read IPTC data so it's either manual entry or redundant copy and paste. How hard could this be to make work?

FAA seems to boost the work that sells which would make sense. The more stuff sells the further it moves up the search results and stuff that doesn't sell falls to the back. And if you stick with the free account that limits 25 images unless your work is amazing you probably wont sell anything. You need hundreds or thousands.

I'd also like to find some alternatives to FAA so I can not have all my eggs in one basket but so far I haven't found anything. Like others have said some of these places seem dead and others that may be selling are forcing contributors to offer the lowest pricing. I've tried ArtistRising, Zazzle, RedBubble, CafePress, and a few others and got nowhere. I get a sale once in a while on Crated.

[stockastic]

I'm always surprised when people say they sell on RedBubble.  They don't read IPTC even after all these years.  I put a bunch of photos up there years ago, pounded in some keywords, and never sold a thing.  Life is just too short to mess with sites that don't read the IPTC data.

After a much-hyped start, Crated seems to have gone nowhere.   I've had a couple hundred photos there for several months and have sold one tiny print.  Maybe I've posted on this too many times, but their "curation" seems to be heavily compromised because I'm now seeing a lot of junk (IMHO) showing up there.