Rule #7 in succeeding at Microstock photography:

"In order to truly succeed, one must take pictures of cheesy looking, business people shaking hands with a laptop" or something like that... I guess I'll never be successful!

depends on what you consider successful. 

plenty of travel / wildlife / etc photogs happily earning $1-$10 per image / per year, people that talk about 10000 images not being a big portfolio.

personally I think the differences between it and bucibic smoother are pretty minimal, possibly when you are going to extremes (5x-10x) the size?

Hi,

after discussion of fotolia currency I thought about this some more

Istock

1 credit = US$1.3
but in AU$ 1 credit = $1.64 and the exchange rate via paypal (by which you may pay) is 1.09
so AU$1.64 = US$1.505

but the photographer gets $1.3 x 20% = US$.26

so on credits bought in Australia the photographer gets 17.2% commission

convert it back to $AU and the photographer gets AU$.28 and they get 17.0% commission of the AU$1.64 credit.

I wont comment on the best match / downloads but I think you win the who can post the longest url competition. Its huge

ooh,

you can change zones    

but you have to be able to read / write / keyboard !! in the language of the zone.  and considering my knowledge of languages other than english doesn't extend beyond food names probably not a good idea.

people discourage it because of conversion loss, but when you have to convert anyway

Looks like fotolia UK, may be the go and roughly 10% pay increase!

(or am I missing something)

I had half a dozen sales early on but nothing since.  However they still pay me to upload and I just got my 2nd payout because of it so I will continue.

the top couple of images were used for testing so have high downloads. About 4-6 weeks ago I ordered all by sales  and looked at how much had sales got to around page 15 with everything still having sales before I got bored  

They have a recent sales thing with the last few sales.  I hit refresh after about 15 minutes and it was a different 3 images, and it is different everytime I go there so they are getting sales but I think it is slow.  Hopefully they will do some marketing soon, maybe I am just being too optimistic

Phil

Last night I had a huge fight with the organisation on a number of issues - including manipulation of a forum posting - and have cancelled my account.


what did they say about it?

question is are you talking enough money to get lawyers involved?

(or perhaps anonymous to the ato and mention dodgy dealings, an audit would at least p*ss them off

only version 1 is free non commerical, version 2 isn't (of course doing stock is commercial use anyways)

personally US$400 it would want to be bloody good. I dont do enough hdr to justify it.

have a look at

http://www.hdrlabs.com/tools/links.html

rest of site looks ok, one day I'll have the time to read it

july 4.6% (5th)
aug 5.8% (4th)
sep 6.3% (4th)
oct 6% (4th but only few dollars btw StockXpert,ft,123)
nov 4.5% (6th)
dec 3.3% (7th)
jan 3% (7th) picked up in the last week on jan
feb so far 5% (5th above ft by $1.05)

been *hoping* it was just a bad patch and we will back to growing

hi,

I started doing alamy to be able to buy gear, but I wasn't getting anywhere there (mostly because my lack of knowledge / skills etc) I kept hearing all the bad of the micros.   In the end I decided that I couldn't get a sale on alamy (which I now get 1-2 month) I might as well go micro.  Wish I had done it earlier

Anyway I started to be able buy gear, then to pay some bills as well, this year my kids now go to an extremely good private school that the micros pay for. 

But in November my contract runs out and the chances of work where I live is very low and I dont want to move again so it looks like I will be full time stock then (so I have start shooting specifically for stock very soon (rather than just * around )

Phil

I love this feature -

for the information it provides I am finding incredibly useful.  I have a picture of some old ruins that sells better than any others - sales through 'pile rocks' 'rubble' 'building rubble'  totally different to what I would have thought.

But I also see the difference in how people search, some are specific ie 'water hen' but others like "wildlife" got a picture of meerkat.

But I love the laugh it provides

coast shot - title sea and rocks - search 'antique brass compass thumb' ??
camouflage cloth - "russian flag"
lollipop - "jelly bean" - neither word in keywords
cells = "sh we"
dry lake = "b" ?
my eldest daughter swinging on rope on the river - title girl swinging - search "thick forest" - oh the rest of my family gave her heaps!!!

sales tick along for me, but I would happily take a cut in commission down to 50 or 60% if they were to put the extra in advertising

One Price for Vectors or Photos.

Only A Dollar Each. - For Buyers

50% Commission. - For Contributors

http://www.OnePricePhoto.com

Now I dont want to be negative but you are asking me to invest my time into your business. (I consider this an investment as even if you had ftp we are likely talking a couple of days work for me, that I could be use elsewhere )

so who are you, that I should do business with you?
what's your experience in microstock / stock / running a business?

why is there no ftp / iptc? (if you have experience then you should know that this is a necessity re: snapvillage or why do you feel that it is not required)

What is your strategy for attracting new contributors? (albumo paid people and still only had limited response)
Are you talking standard stock? or going to encourage certain segments of the market?

What is your strategy for attracting new buyers? (remembering that there are people who will declare you dead if they dont get a sale within a week or two of uploading).  Are you talking marketing? if you're  thinking I'll use the earnings to market have a look at geckostock and other startups. Basically how are you going to convince buyers that you are better than istock? (because how I see it thats you're target market and price won't do it, I am yet to hear of anyone complain about the new pricing at istock)

Why so cheap?  it has been show that price for buyers isn't that important, but it is to contributors, you would likely do better being more expensive.  You also have to combat the idea that if you are that cheap, the images are likely to be rubbish.

Basically if you think putting a couple of lines onto a forum will do make people come running I think you're dreaming, years ago maybe, I think people aren't desperate for new sites to start up and sell their images they're a lot more sceptical.  There has been too many come and go.  Personally there seems to me a much bigger interest in midstock and I dont think you could start up a new microstock without either a lot of money and a good team behind you or strong personal reputation in the industry.

Sorry, I hope you dont take this all the wrong way, but you've done nothing to convince me that you are worth my time and effort, every month or two someone new decides they are going to have the next istock, but with no money or plans behind them beyond a dream that people will come flocking.  I'd really like to know why are you are different from the existing sites and the dozens of other people that knocked up a webpage and say I'm going to make millions with my stock page which dies 6-12 months later?

Regards
Phil