I wouldn't say so ... considering that our fearless leaders styles were not original to begin with and simply copycats of what was already the mainstream style for advertising for  ... hmmmm ... more years than I can remember. LOL .. Micro has always been pretty sterile IMO and when you do come across something new and semi-groundbreaking it usually doesn't sell enough or at all and is there basically for other photographers to surf by and say that's cooooool ... and it ends there.

Saying you claimed a deduction of five times more than you spent is probably not a good thing to say on a public forum. Neither is saying you charge your clients 200-500 times more than your cost. That kind of stuff can come back to haunt you ...

No reason to not discuss it publicly. It's 100% legal. The US federal gov sets a rate for mileage and that rate is a lot more than the actual cost of the travel expense. For example, 2009 standard mileage was rated at $0.55 per mile. If you're driving a vehicle that gets 30 miles to the gallon then you can deduct $16.50 per gallon .. If the price of gas is $2.50 per gallon it become pretty obvious how you can benefit from racking up the business miles traveling by car. If I drive 30 miles to shoot micro will it turn a profit .. sure .. if I drive 4000 miles to do a single nature micro shoot will it be a profit .. nope it's most likely a loss .. however, you just had an awesome trip taking photos and racked up $2200 in mileage deductions and only spent $334 in gas doing it .. you just profited $1866.

As for the markup .. 2000%-5000% markups is standard practice in professional portraiture, senior graduation and weddings in the United States ... has been for decades .. going beneath this level is only common to the MWACS .. no offense moms I didn't invent the term  .. and they tend to not get any real business anyway .. typically they have little photographic experience and combined with their lack of business management they never stay in the game long .. at least not on a competing level. General public pays for your skill, technical perfection and creativity .. if they want to get prints done for less they can go grab a point n shoot and let their drunk uncle or their friends mom take them and have them printed up at Wal-Mart.

To continue the interesting, but OT tax discussion...

I am not as liberal with my deductions as Randy , but I do deduct all my props, mileage, meals when I entertain models (which is often since it is part of their "reward" package for modeling), gift cards I give out when a model's picture reaches 500 or 1000 downloads, etc.  I also deduct computer and office related expenses along with the obvious deductions for gear. 

You can also add in some extra mileage when you are just out scouting new locations to take your models for their shoots. That can add up over the course of the year.

maybe they all joined the PPA and finally figured out that running a microstock image factory has the highest expenses and bottom of the barrel profits compared to all the "non-celebrity-status" fields of professional photography. So now they are going to focus on the general public and make irregular uploads to micro simply for the fact that it allows a portrait studio the opportunity to generate and justify an insane amount of tax deductions on things that normally could not be classified as an expense for a portrait business.  ... That would be the smart thing to do from a financial viewpoint.

Quote from: Randy McKown on February 26, 2010, 20:09

I hate to say it Helix but I'm thinking it's gonna end in the "Doh !! I'm an idiot !!"  .. I not only stopped uploading I made them remove my entire portfolio. Now I'm just waiting on my final payout ... and waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting.

Didn't Crestock surreptitiously fire your wife/partner early last year? I would have abandoned them then.

Yeah they crap canned both of us and others out of the blue then it was right after that Josh left and it all went downhill from there ... however I can safely say that the cash we each earned while there was more than worth the annoyances .. good days and slow days .. mostly good days and on a good day I made more money before lunchtime than most people in the US make in an entire week from a normal job .. I almost felt guilty for it ... almost  ... maybe that's why they can't afford to pay anyone now LMAO which by the way I still have not got my final payout (surprise)

Humour aside, it's obvious why this image is where it is - Getty's PC collection isn't edited or curated: any photographer can put anything in there as long as they pay Getty for the privilege. There are some deals to be had, but the standard price is $50. Offhand I'd say the photographer was trying to make the same statement you just did.

LOL stock photos with no quality control .. what intern thought up that idea 

Quote from: jvoetsch on April 08, 2010, 10:13

Any artist who is making less than 50% commissions is being ripped off. Why on earth should a library make more than the artist who created the file?! Those that choose to put up with it simply dont value their work well enough.

This is why I love Fotolia so much!  I receive a 54% commission on sales ranging in price from $5 to $40.  Because I am exclusive I am paid very well.  I don't know of any other site that pays as high a commission to their photographers exclusive or not.  Is there one?

Mat

I think DT is the highest giving up to 50% to non-exclusive and 60% to exclusive.

As for the Who's on First routine, it's only a follow-up to the Three Stooges act, when they were flossing people with the tax withholding, which cost some folks money, which they aren't returning, asked for forms that cost money, sent out forms that the IRS wouldn't accept and in all, screwed the pooch.

LMAO oh yeah their 28% tax rate was a joke.

You just have to grow some balls, stand up for yourself, and stop letting these greedy micros walk all over you!

Well put Jamie 

For anyone here who does more than micro .. we just ordered one of these. It's a small accessory you just snap your iPhone in and it allows you to accept credit card payments from clients anywhere. Say you need to meet with a client for them to place an order when you're out on location you can meetup at a starbucks .. take their order .. swipe their card .. grab a caff� mocha .. and be on your way. 

http://www.paywaremobile.com/ .... it's a VeriPhone product so no worries

Don't agree at all with this. As and example in the last few hours I have sold an extra small image for 9 credits giving me 4.32$ and a small for 11 credits giving me 6.35$.  I don't get these sort of commisions anywhere else for small and extrasmall images.

Quote from: FD-amateur on April 06, 2010, 21:51

, and that from DT is going down.

I agree .. my commission per download on DT is way higher than anywhere else.

It sounds like $9.99 for 30 images (one a day) so it is roughly .30 per download. for buyer. How much did you get?

Good catch .. I overlooked that (one a day) but while they are not getting a crazy amount like I originally thought I still feel very uncomfortable with the fact that they are refusing to tell me what our precentages will be .. there is no reason why they should not be able to answer such an easy question with ... contributors will be paid X amount .. instead they are opting to completely avoid answering the question. I have went back n forth with multiple emails to both FT and Photoexpress and nobody will comment on what they intend to pay us. If I ran my studio with that same attitude I can guarantee I would lose all of my clients. An ethical business does not operate in that manner.

I haven't seen any partner sales that came from FT's new photoexpress but it's only a week or two old now I think. From their responses I trust them enough to believe they might pay us a couple pennies or nothing at all.

i think this is quite serious. any options to opt out from partner sales ?

I've searched and asked the same question before and from what I understand there is no way to opt out. If you're uploading they do whatever they want.

Recently a buyer contacted me and happened to mentioned they had purchased an image from me through a FT partner .. they had bought it at non-sub prices ... got me curious so I looked in my FT earnings and saw that FT paid me for a sub sale. I looked a few pages deep and found more partner sales ... all of which I was paid sub-sale percentages. I'm thinking ok a 8% commission is just not cool.

Then I started looking into FT's new project Photoexpress. Through Photoexpress a buyer can get a subscription for $10 a month and have access to all of FT's free files plus 1 premium download. In other words FT is selling one of your images for $10 through a subscription process on a partner site which they own. So this made me ask .. ok can FT now sale our images for $10 a pop and pay us a 3% commission? This is a huge concern for me so I contacted FT about it.

I asked FT if one of my images uploaded to FT was sold through Photoexpress as a premium download what would I be paid? ... here was their reply ...

"Thank you for your e-mail. Please note that we are a separate company and we have no Photoxpress customer service department here. For more information please contact the Customer Service department from the Photoxpress site."

That sounds like a stupid reply ... why would Photoexpress tell me how much FT is going to pay me?

Ok so I emailed them again further explaining I do not have an account with Photoexpress and that my images showing on Photoexpress are premium images in my FT account .. I didn't put them there FT did and when I get paid on a partner sale FT is going to be the one who pays me .. now tell me how much I am going to be paid?

and here's FT's next reply ...

"Please note that some of your files were added into our API Free section, and they have been payed to you by Fotolia already. PhotoXpress is a sister website of Fotolia and all free files are currently showing on the same data base. For more information please contact PhotoXpress customer service."

What the F**K are they talking about ?!?!?!?! These are premium files in everyone's accounts that we make our living from. They are not free files. I made it clear I was talking about the premium files they are selling so why don't they want to tell us how much they are going to pay us.

Ok at this point I'm thinking it's a bunch of total BS but I'm going to play along and contact the Photoexpress people just for giggles. I ask how much will FT contributors be paid on PREMIUM image sales.

and here we go with the Photoexpress (AKA FT) reply ...

"Dear Randy, Thank you for your e-mail. Unfortunately PhotoXpress does not provide any royalties to members. Please note that Fotolia has already payed the contributors for those images, when adding them into the Free API section. Kind regards, PhotoXpress C.S. Department"

If I was a postal worker I'd be loading my gun right now. I feel like I'm talking to Sean Penn in a bad remake of I am Sam. Are these employees IQs so incredibly low that they cannot understand the difference between .. "How much will I be paid for a Premium sale?" and "Will I be paid for free image downloads?" ... I don't think so .. that would be pretty F'in bad. The only logically conclusion I can come up with is that ... FT does not want us to know how much they intend to give us ... if anything at all. At this point I would totally not be surprised if images were being sold and not reported.

I have absolutely no trust for FT at this point. I strongly urge everybody here to start paying attention to what's going on. How much money have you lost? For those who FT is your highest earner .. you should REALLY be looking into this .. because chances are you're getting the big stiff one harder and faster than everybody else.

Everyone should remember that yeah FT makes a lot of sales ... but if we don't upload to them the buyers go elsewhere .. they don't just up and shut their design businesses down. If FT was unable to produce fresh content buyers would just move over to SS, DT and IS ... which would mean more sales and faster payouts. The problem is too many hobbyist and the lack of microstockers organizing into a collective where we can have the power to make demands. At this rate I'm seeing this as my last year in FT.

Ok I'm done. If anyone doubts FT's intentions contact them for yourself and see if they give you the runaround too. I'd love to see some black n white facts on how exactly we are being paid for partner sales and FT's new Evil Empire Photoexpress.

Don't be a bunch of punks and just stand there .. or should I say bend over .. and let FT smack it to ya. Do something about it.

Quote from: borg on April 04, 2010, 11:38

How does SS make any money from 25-a-day subscriptions when they pay $0.25 per image to a novice contributor and even more to those who have been selling above a certain level? Subcription of $249 per 750 images (25 a day, 30 days) equals $0.33 per image.

its the same thing that "photospin" is doing. They assume that not every customer will use/need the upload limit.

yeah except photospin is completely stupid. LOL