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Messages - hqimages

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176
Looks like you're off to a great start, showing very highly in the Google rankings.  I certainly admire the ambition and the resourcefulness and dedication needed to chart your own course.

Your work is very good, but will a buyer want to just search for images within your portfolio when he/she can find tens of thousands of similar shots searching within SS, FT, DT, ISP, etc.?  You will probably attract some people unaware of the microstock agencies and who used Google to search and found you before they found the agencies.

I'm guessing that this approach works best for artists who have a very identifiable style and whose images have practically a trademarked look all to themselves, such as LuMaxArt.  Again, no knock against your shots, but you're essentially setting up a mini-agency that covers a wide range of topics and styles, so why would a user search within a very tiny galaxy of good images rather than a huge universe of images at one of the big agencies.

I'm very eager to hear updates on how well this works for you.  Best of luck for success!  

Thanks that's a great message :)

Yeah I totally agree.. if let's say LuMaxArt deleted his gallery from all microstock sites and said right, the ONLY way you can get my stuff now is directly from me on my own web site located 'here', he'd make a fortune.. it would be much easier for him or anyone else that is recognisable from the other users on those sites..

Still my hope is that someone will see images that are different, I'm moving away from the usual 'stock' way of shooting, if I can give them something different it might work.. I know if I saw the PERFECT image for a project I was working on, and knew I wouldn't find similar elsewhere I'd give it a go, but I definately want to add loads more images and things over the next year or so!

177
I feel the same as you do. At the moment I have a pro account with clustershot.com with 400 images setting my own prices
http://bidphotos.clustershot.com ;D


Awww  :) Yeah, I think this new model is worth a try! I'm on Zym tho  ;) I think I'll be sticking to those two only, my site and Zym, that's it.. and see how it goes!!

178
I have a few clients yeah, not a lot, but a few ;) I have a nice portfolio of work people have sent me, where they used my images etc.. but it's almost impossible to build up a client base from a web site like the big six let's say, as a small contributor, people generally just download the image if it suits and they run.. the users with 'brand awareness' would be the users with 10k plus images in their accounts.. so I'm hoping with the way I'm doing it now, clients will actually get to know me, I can get to know them, and speak to them directly, at least that's the hope anyway!!  :)

179
So, I just got sick of all the competition on these microstock sites, and I set up my own web site (www.photosfordesigns.com).

Who knows if it will work, I really don't have a clue.. it won't be easy that's for sure. Things that make me feel hopeful are things like, on a search for 'male retro fashion' (and there are other searches this applies to), my site is no. 7 on page one of google results, before the microstock sites.. so it is possible to compete in google with the 'big boys' if you know how to search engine optimise.. the question is, do people REALLY use google, or do they go to their preferred provider, also are they prepared to pay 10 quid for a download????.. Will they trust a non-corporation?

So I'm starting off like this, if I don't make sales, I'll drop the price, although not by a massive %, and I will only sell my images on other sites where I can set my own price, and that don't do subscription sales.. so that my images will never be available cheaper on another site no matter where you go it will be a uniform price across the board.

So that's the story, just thought I would let you guys know that, it is possible to do other things, maybe even to sell directly to the buyer on your own, although it remains to be seen, but if it is a disaster I'll let you know ;) It'll be an interesting experiment either way!!

180
A few smaller laywers will give you a free consultation, really you just need to ask them, it's just a conversation you need for now, they will either tell you you are liable, or the retailer is liable, but you would have had to pay a lawyer when becoming incorporated anyway, so no harm is seeing if they could give you advice over the phone on a matter.. worth a try I think, why pay a penny if you're not liable for it!!

181
Something about this sounds so wrong.. the retailer is meant to add sales tax to the item you buy, if there is no sales tax marked on the item, you presume it is included in the overall cost.. the the retailer pays the tax back to revenue..

I don't understand how they are chasing the buyer, it is the seller they should be chasing, and how do they know the sales tax was not included in the selling price? I think you should consult with a laywer..

182
Photos.com will be hoping to obliterate Shutterstock, and anyone opting in, is helping that process..

183
Think of it this way, you work in an office doing filing/general admin. You make 15 euro an hour which is standard for your job. A polish lady gets a job in the same office doing the same job, but for 8 euro an hour. She thinks this is great money because she doesn't have perfect English and she feels she doesn't know the job yet. Your boss arrives and points out that she is working for less, and THAT YOU SHOULD BE TOO!

The only solution is to fight for her to get a fair wage, or in microstock's case, fight for pay-per-download as opposed to subs, because subs will kill everyone in the end.. it's not anyone else's fault that they are willing to work for pennies, it is the agencies fault for not giving EVERYONE a fair/good return..

184
I am not sure why I should be concerned for others? I would rather make a sale at 5c than someone else at 50c

Would you also rather that someone else makes 5c at the loss to yourself of 50c? If so you should be concerned for others.

If JIU/PC were to become successful then potentially it could devalue the entire market for all of us. In my view we should not be supporting them with our content.

Based on the experience of those that have been selling there for several months you'll probably only make about $20 per month per 1000 images you send them. Is that worth the potential loss of sales from IS that could result?

a) No, that wouldn't be in my self interest and lets not kid ourselves that we are doing this for the common good.
b) If the market is to be devalued then if its not JIU/PC then it will be someone else, Flickr or Wikimedia Mayflower or another site
c) I will wait and see, here on MSG you will find different opinions on all the sites some IS is 10th place for some first

And alot of the arguments you make were probably leveled by macro photographers at microstock in the past ....

Using the same arguments as the macrostock photographers are using against microstock does not necessarily make gostwyck's arguments wrong. There should be a price point where you can make maximum profit on your images. So I am pretty sure you would not want to offer your images for a cent/dl, or am I mistaken?

But that is not the main problem I believe which many contributors have with sending images to JIU and Photos.com. It is that Getty lowers the commission for us contributors. Both exclusive and independent. Most obviously seen, when the announcement came, that StockXpert contributors cannot offer the images anymore through StockXpert but should do so through iStockphoto. But this is also the case for exclusives. For on Demand sales you will just receive 20% commission.

"So I am pretty sure you would not want to offer your images for a cent/dl, or am I mistaken?"

You're mistaken! Plenty of photographers will sell for one cent a download, in fact, plenty of photographers will GIVE away their photos.. (sxc.hu, free dreamstime images, free istock images, but dreamstime have built a whole web site around theirs!)

You can't blame the photographer, blame the agent, the agent should never have deserted the pay-as-you-go business model, they are to blame!!

185
BTW hqimages, you got one heart for the link .  Been nice talking with you!

Aw thanks! You too!!

186
Thx , I will be following it too.
It all depends on what fine prints these photographers signed to in their initial agreement. If there is a clause that empowers Getty to make any changes , I am sure that would be the loophole to spring Getty.

But the catch here is selling RM port as low priced sub . I like to see their lawyers pull a rabbit out of this hat.


What's great about what those photographers are doing too, is that if they do win, it benefits us. It means there's an onus on the agency to give us what we signed up for, which is a fair price for our work. For example, they would have to leave an opt out for subscription pricing on IS and other web sites that used to be pay-as-you-go with a better return for the photographer.. I hope they suceed anyway, and it could even save 'pay-as-you-go' models, rather than the current trend of sub royalties which are just pathetic from the photographer point of view!!

In fact, I was surprised there wasn't a squeak out of IS photog's about the removal of subscription opt-out, and there was no change in the terms to reflect that all files are now in the subscription pricing format as a compulsory 'feature'.. even if you are opted-in, you should always fight for the right to CHOOSE the pricing for your images..

187
Getty are no stranger to litigation, the more info you gather about them, the more you realise they BELIEVE they are invincible, they really do, and they will never work to keep contributors happy, that's not how they got where they are today.. the below link is an interesting one that people don't seem to know about, or maybe they don't care either I dont know!

http://www.draiochtwebdesign.com/blog/photographers-sue-getty-for-copyright-infringement


Noo kidding, hqimages. Thx for the link. I was only kidding, but now I think I should spend less time here farting around and spend more time googling on Getty's hidden can of worms.
This is going to be interesting read for me. Thx again.


Ur welcome :) If you google it, I think there's only one other web page covering the story on the net, it stayed under the radar which is why I wanted to keep it in my blog, along with the link to the case file and stuff too..

I like to collect everything that happens, somehow with all the info I have, I see the microstock story reaching a dramatic conclusion, everything is picking up pace, the monopoly is almost complete, and the race to the bottom is almost complete too.. I think when microstock comes out the other side, it will have reverted to the kind of quality it used to be, for proper amatuers, I cannot even see people with galleries and production like Yuri's being capable of sqeezing a profit out of it, it is facinating though, this wild west lawless style of doing business!!

(That case is still pending, but Ill be posting on my blog when anything happens with it)

188
I really can't imagine how JIU/PC subscribers are going to feel when 90% (literally!) of the entire library disappears overnight in 3 months time. Yes, they'll get a few more from IS, but even if 10% of IS images are transferred over (which I doubt) then the 3M images they've lost will be replaced by 500K older stock images that have been largely ignored by buyers up to now. I can see litigation being threatened if customers had subscribed specifically to access the 3M images that appeared to be on offer. It's going to look like a 'bait and switch' job to them.


Good point ,gostwyck, I think whitechild pointed out the same thing too .

But oh I am sure Getty will liquidate way before there is litigation. You cannot get redress from a defunct company. Getty is not just some dumb establishment.


Getty are no stranger to litigation, the more info you gather about them, the more you realise they BELIEVE they are invincible, they really do, and they will never work to keep contributors happy, that's not how they got where they are today.. the below link is an interesting one that people don't seem to know about, or maybe they don't care either I dont know!

http://www.draiochtwebdesign.com/blog/photographers-sue-getty-for-copyright-infringement

189
StockXpert.com / Re: Are you still uploading there??
« on: June 18, 2009, 05:45 »
SS has a thread on the StockXpert changes. On it jmci wrote:  "When I think of the furor they caused when they first started that scheme..."
I remember that. Before the tax withholding thing at SS, just about the biggest furor to ever happen in microstock was when StockXpert said it was going to sell its image thru Jupiter. People went insane with rage, stopped uploading, threatened to pull their port from StockXpert in droves!

Now when StockXpert says it's not going to sell through Jupiter, people are going to stop uploading again. We microstockers are strange group.
 :) :(


What actually happened was that the JIU/PC license included the rights that elsewhere would have required an EL. Hardly surprising that contributors didn't want to sell EL's for 30c and thus the furore. I've got a feeling that the original offering was not optional either.


What really happened is documented here: http://www.draiochtwebdesign.com/blog/stockxpert-contributors-begin-to-pull-out

And by the way, don't mock protests like that. That protest is the reason why you have the privilege of opting out on istock, they dare not make it compulsory after what happened.

Mind you, I think istock will give people time to get used to it, and then remove the opt out after a while, under the guise that, they can't offer 'consistancy' to their customers unless everyone is opted in.. I hope you guys are ready.. because I don't see as much fight in people at the moment..

190
StockXpert.com / Re: Is StockXpert going down?
« on: June 17, 2009, 06:10 »
It is an interesting dilemma that Getty have with StockXpert.

Judging by my own sales, in proportion to the greater collection, StockXpert appear to have annual sales of about $4-5M. That might be chickenfeed in comparison to IS and Getty but nonetheless it is still a valuable asset and it is probably higher than the sales of JIU/PC combined too.

If they close StockXpert down then they lose the value of their asset and StockXpert customers are probably more likely to go to DT/FT/BigStock as they are a closer fit price-wise than IS. Giving the competition a boost is not going to be a particularly attractive option. On the other hand if they don't continue to invest in marketing and infrastructure for StockXpert then it will probably die a slow death anyway.

I can't really see the sense in boosting JIU/PC (with IS images) whilst at the same time ignoring or killing off StockXpert. All 3 companies are still competing for customers against IS __ unless you believe the market is firmly segmented price-wise. In that case you might as well support StockXpert and JIU/PC as they are primarily competing against other agencies. My guess is that they haven't got much choice but to support StockXpert into the future.

What would you do if you were in charge of Getty?

No business will ever compete with itself.. istock and StockXpert share the same business model, therefore StockXpert competes directly with istock, and that is not good business, in fact, it's business class 101, do not compete with yourself. There is no hope for those looking for some, the only hope was that StockXpert could be changed entirely so that it does not compete with istock directly, turn it into a subs site? No they want photos.com for that, so I'm afraid StockXpert is gone.

191
Or like, we have poison in our blood (inability to sell images ourselves), so we get a doctor to attach leeches (microstock agents) to our skin in the hope it gets rid of the poison.. the reality is that the leeches merely drain your blood, leaving you in a worse condition than when you started, while they get fat and happy  ;)

192
I really felt the guy that started it (I don't want to mention names but you know..) was sincere in the 50% to contributors, if I remember correctly there was a big speech about how we put in just as much work as the agent does, so 50/50 was only fair.. well now he only has 10% of StockXpert, so presumably Getty can change that % commission to whatever they want to, or just buy his 10% and close down the site.. perhaps they can close the site without his 10%, I don't really know how that works.. but I think at this point no-body is working behind the scenes to get us a good deal, and I felt that was the case before.. now I picture those same people I thought were on our side traveling the world, drinking pina colada's, sleeping on a mattress of money and having a grand old time ;)

I am not sure if the guy who started it is not just so unhappy. He got $$$$ from Getty didn't he?
Secondly, your closing point about "those same people I thought were on our side traveling the world, drinking pina colada's, sleeping on a mattress of money and having a grand old time", is truly scary
and sickening. It is true. They are not going to be paying those who did not reach payout, so they are going to kill Stockxpert and take the money and run.
There should really be a law against that. This really is giving microstock sites a bad name, and now I am wondering who else will be the next site to screw us.


Oh the guy with the pina colada is the same guy that took $$$ off JUI and stopped representing us.. he used to be on our side, or else I fell for the line, the cold hard truth is that I fell for the line!!!

193
1. I was naive
2. I was duped
3. Mike Slonecker was right, possibly about everything (oldies might understand that, but the StockXpert crew will for sure)

194
I really felt the guy that started it (I don't want to mention names but you know..) was sincere in the 50% to contributors, if I remember correctly there was a big speech about how we put in just as much work as the agent does, so 50/50 was only fair.. well now he only has 10% of StockXpert, so presumably Getty can change that % commission to whatever they want to, or just buy his 10% and close down the site.. perhaps they can close the site without his 10%, I don't really know how that works.. but I think at this point no-body is working behind the scenes to get us a good deal, and I felt that was the case before.. now I picture those same people I thought were on our side traveling the world, drinking pina colada's, sleeping on a mattress of money and having a grand old time ;)

195
I really had faith in this site, but after JUI got involved, the writing was on the wall, it should have remained independent if it was truly looking out for the best deal for contributors (I think I was naive to believe that day 1)

v.disappointed..

196
many already have the same images with Shutterstock and Istock, there is a difference with the sales price to the Customer and revenue to the photographer.

This is a huge problem, for example, istock have now shared their photos across to photos.com, so instead of a nice 5 credit sale, the photographer now gets 30 cent, the reason this is happening is because istock wants to undercut shutteerstock. If we don't tackel this issue with an idea based on fair trade, with an api to include EXCLUSIVE images not available for cheaper anywhere else, it will NOT work.

197
It was discussed here before. Everybody shall stop contributing to all agencies and put images in one place where it's priced right. It's not going to happen. We will to take down 1000lb gorilla at once. Agencies can survive without some of the contributors while these people might have businesses around selling photos and they will go down if they do not sell for a while. I believe in gradual transition. Let's say that at first we put our "best" shots in our system only and give scraps to agencies. If it takes off we can lower "other contributions" until everything new goes to our system.

No not all the images, that's why this needs to be baby steps
Step 1, have your own web site to sell downloads of images at your own price, keep contributing to all your agencies
Step 2, having made a few sales on your web site, perhaps locally if you can promote it that way, to people who wish to support you as an artist, even if they do know they could get it cheaper elsewhere, you begin to think it might be a good idea to have some images on your web site only available from there, and use it as a selling point to your customers, exclusive images
Step 3, you have made more sales on your own exclusive images, new customers have found their ideal image on your site, and know they cannot get their hands on it any other way, now you are ready to mark that exclusive image for sharing
Step 4, once marked for sharing, you recieve more downloads referred to you by various distributors web sites, and you keep track of what commission you owe them, and you are responsible for paying them once they reach a certain amount


198
This should be contributors individual decision if he/she keeps uploading same files to other agencies it's not a fault of the API, it's bad strategy. Some people already differentiate, do not upload to subscription sites or upload only smaller files there. It's strategy too.

It's a fault of the API. If we want to have people re-sell the images, as many people as possible, then it has to be more competitive than what's out there. Since we can't be competitive in price, since the cheapest price is free :) we need to be more creative, with things like exclusive images, or this image is NOT available anywhere else for cheaper. That will give re-sellers the confidence to invest in, and build, their own web site around our images.

199
I think we have to agree on completely open model or maybe we can establish lower limits but then who is going to say what is too low?

If API is successful I think we will have large number of contibuting sites and one or few rogue contributors will have no affect on prices. Think about it as if was a stock exchange :-)

You see, the API won't be successful, if the same image under the api at x amount, is available elsewhere for cheaper.. it will never work if that's the case.. what you could do is only allow contributors with exclusive images that perhaps they are already selling via their own web site, share those images across the api or global search feature.. or you could state that only images not available elsewhere for cheaper are allowed to be shared, eg you could price it at zymettrical and still be allowed to share with the api as a non-exclusive image because the price is the same..

200
This model will not prevent some photographers from setting very low prices. They are free to do that. Maybe there will be competition between photographers eventually when they notice that setting very high prices will produce not results. However nobody is forced to that form the begining.

Right, and the people with the most images can afford to go the lowest, so they will wipe out the other image contributors, that's why I think step 1 is to get your own web site, sell it yourself, promote it yourself, think local. Step 2, figure out how to bunch this group of web sites built on the same platform and all at different prices, together to buyers, in a way that doesn't encourage low pricing, or undercutting the competition.. what you could do is have a search engine that searches all sites, but you can only have your images indexed by the engine, if your images are priced over a certain amount..

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