Quote from: puravida on July 07, 2009, 07:51

meanwhile, so long as Fotolia sell enough for me , i won't make too much of a scene here 

Fotolia monitors independent forums closely and some high-profile contributors have been deleted their port because they spitted out (justified) critique on them. They censor their own forums and they can't stand any critique outside of them. So better don't make a scene unless you're anonymous. Personally I don't have much to say against them. They sell OK but I would never upload video to them after this move.

I have posted the same criticism on the Fotolia Forum (the German one). I have done so before and until now have not been banned from their forum (nor has my port been deleted).

If they are not willing to sell my work while I openly state my opinion, it is their choice. But that will never stop me from writing what I want.

Look closer, the "Premium" subs packages are about 25% more expensive than the regular subs.

The contributor commission is raised between 11,9% (highest ranking level) and 16,7% (newbies).

Looks like the standard Fotolia way....

Quote from: dirkr on July 06, 2009, 08:17

What do you mean by "take the full control of your account"?
Change those files from being delivered by Panther to "direct uploaded" thus cutting off the middleman?

Well done dirkr, appreciate your sense of humor!
"Converting" images delivered by a resale partner to be your own is very much like "converting" a rental car to become your own 

Sorry, we can not do that.

If your already have some images listed with us drop us an email, and we'll help you uploading, will take care of possible duplications in your portfolio and will do anything you need to get in control of your account, laying you a red carpet VIP path to get on board.

 
Well you could do that if you wanted...

But seriously: I made my points about your prices and licences earlier in this thread.
As long as I don't see a change there I don't feel like uploading.

But if you tell me you will offer my photos for the same price structure that is obviously ok for the same files if they come via a distribution partner, that would be a different story.

Don't forget to balance out any choices like this with the facts that Panthermedia is long established and has an excellent sales team and multiple distribution partners. You may gain a volume advantage from the extra exposure their core business and distribution network provides.

The distribution network of Panthermedia makes sense when they distribute to agencies I cannot directly submit to (or when the pure number of agencies would be too much work).

For me it's not an "either Panther or directly" approach, it's better to combine those two offerings (as I'm with Panther anyway).

I would not want to endorse direct uploads to Zymmetrical over Panthermedia by remaining silent on this point, there is no simple answer other than to perhaps try a bit of both. We can arrange for partial batch uploads if you'd like to experiment, just drop a support note.

I understand that you don't want to endorse that (as Panther is your partner in that deal), but I as a simple contributor have a simple view on that. All that partner deals have one thing in common I do not like at all: The total sales price is split amongst every agency in the chain and the contributor (the owner of the intellectual property!) gets only the remainders.
Which in case of Zymmetrical / Panther is 30% of 70% = 21 % (if my information is correct about that you pay Panther the same royalty as you pay your own contributors).
And the upload to your site is not so painful that it would scare me away from uploading my portfolio directly.

Quote from: kaycee on July 05, 2009, 19:55

If it was Panthermedia it should been far more images over there and not just a few....

So both Zymmetrical and Pixamba are resellers of Panthermedia. 
The logical action then is to upload to Panthermedia alone and leave those two sites for what they are.
If Pixamba only takes what's not on Panthermedia or other major sites we don't know of, we have a Pixmac situation at hand.

The logical action is to upload to Zymmetrical but not to Pixamba. Why? Very simple.
Zymmetrical let's you choose the price. You can set the price lower than the default set by Panthermedia and still earn more (Panther takes a cut of the sale price and pays you only 30% of what is left!).
But at Pixamba, if you upload yourself you sell for very low prices (even undercutting some of the other successful micros), but the Panther images are up there for midstock prices.

They just announced an "all in" button. In your contributor panel you can select "all in" once you click on the "Partner Program" checkbox. If the box is not checked you won't see the option. It will only opt in anything older than 18 months with less than 5 sales, so newer images or images with more sales will still have to be added by hand.

Great 

If they'd install the "Increase commission" button, that would catch my interest...

Everything stays opted out for 25 cents.

Anybody who submitted photos for this project got any feedback?
I haven't heard anything, neither positive nor negative...

Apart from all the re-uploading you'd be back at the bottom rankings on commissions at SS & FT and Level 1 for all your images at DT.

Why would you? Can't you keep your account and "just" delete all your files? That would keep your level in FT and your total earnings at SS wouldn't be lost as well...
For DT obviously that would not work...

Quote from: dirkr on June 25, 2009, 22:52

Prices from $0,75 to $9, unlimited run included (others require an EL for that).
EL prices starting from $3,75, depending on size.
40% commission.

Doesn't thrill me... Another "me too".

Good point, thanks. Tell me what would thrill you?
Adjusting the prices and commissions at this moment, when we are just starting, is probably the least painful operation we can do :-)

RE 'me too' - everyone starts from some point, so we do. All the biggest agencies were started as small unknown web sites, sometimes competing with already existing and well established 'big brothers'. At the moment Pixamba probably looks very similar to any other agency, but it will change as we go. Of course, we can make it only with your help, not alone.

About the points I mentioned the unlimited runs for the standard license and the low EL prices are the most important. Standard license should have some limitation (e.g. 250.000 copies) and ELs should be at $50, better $100. I don't see the benefit of having size dependent ELs, if somebody wants to use my picture to re-sell prints, posters etc. he better pay a lot for that, independent of size.

The prices in general are e.g. around half of what Istock would charge. That looks a little like trying to pull customers from existing agencies via offering lower prices. But lower prices is the last thing I want to see.
So in general from a new agency I would want to see higher prices to motivate me to upload there.

The commission of 40% is not as bad as some competitors, but 50% would of course be better.

These points together clearly show the dilemma: As a newcomer to be able to charge higher prices and pay higher commissions you definitely need something else to attract customers.

And that is the most important point (as has been mentioned above by some other posters): What do you plan to do to attract (new) customers?
If you have any new, brilliant ideas on this front you will likely have a big number of supporters in short time (although I have to admit, I have no good idea what that could be - if I had, I would be starting an agency myself  )

$0.25  earning 123rf response:
" This download was from our bulk purchase clients,therefore the cost of each credit is cheaper in this case"

$0.20 earning 123rf response:
"We've been running some promotions with some clients for which we gave completely free credits to them to test drive 123RF.com and our content.
We are paying out $0.20 for these credits"

They are generous ...with our money help. Once of reasons why I've deleted my account there.

That at least explains where those low commissions come from...
Can't say that I like them though.

So I hope some other members who have bigger portfolios at PM could share their impressions... I have about 1000 photos that I could upload - not a huge amount but not too low - so I wonder if my efforts for uploading will be paid back in reasonable time.

I have 776 files up on PM. Started there in April 2007.
With the same files up on the big micros I have made more in my best single month each on Istock, FT, Shutter and Dreamstime than in the total two years on PM.
My average RPI over the total time I'm with these agencies is ten times higher on FT than on PM, fifteen times higher on SS than on PM.
That about says it for me, but maybe it's just my kind of pics that doesn't sell well on PM.

Ok, my experience from my first batch (after the initial 10, which all were accepted):

98 / 100 accepted, the remaining two pushed back due to missing releases (one PR, one MR, which I don't have, so I will have to delete them).

Most of the pics were Nature / Wildlife / Travel. No isolated objects, no models.

As this is what I have in my port I am pretty optimistic to have a good acceptance rate.