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Messages - chromaco
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226
« on: August 27, 2013, 16:07 »
The ftp location no longer matches after I upgraded. How do I solve this.
Thanks
227
« on: August 27, 2013, 14:42 »
Pretty sure its under
Users-Profile-personal photo
228
« on: August 27, 2013, 14:32 »
Image downloads link to your e-mail as well. So in theory your could use this app to browse on your ipad or phone at your leasure and then when you get to your computer it would be ready to use. This seems like a pretty good idea to me.
229
« on: August 27, 2013, 11:32 »
Hi all, I guess its time to announce my symbio site MSG name: Chromaco Website: http://www.teamclipart.comYour photo topics: Main focus is vector images directed to screen printers, sign companies, small design firms, and schools. Sports and Team Mascots are my primary focus. What you're looking for:I'm looking to network with other vector artist who are trying to reach the same types of markets. My site is only about 3 weeks old and I am still tweeking and uploading. I have around 100 of my 1100 images loaded so far and am uploading about 10 new images per day. Thanks everyone - Dennis
230
« on: August 27, 2013, 11:08 »
Ok, I woke up this morning to my first sale as well. I assume it came in from the global search because I created and uploaded it a week ago. I haven't done any site maps yet and as far as I know no one has linked to my site. Pretty amazing actually. Thank you Leo and everyone else. I am pretty sure this is a sale I wouldn't have gotten without the networking aspect of Symbio.
231
« on: August 24, 2013, 09:42 »
Regarding vectors. I think they were much easier to leave or ignor because there are a number of better options, not just shutterstock.
232
« on: August 18, 2013, 12:19 »
I think it might be important to add that symbio site owners need to keep in mind who their customers are likely to be when setting up pricing. A customer who is willing to pay a hundred dollar fee for an image is probably not browsing google for the appropriate image. On the other hand the customer who finds you via the search engines may not have ever used an agency. I try to ask myself what I would pay for this image and set my pricing accordingly. If you have the type of images that will appeal to professional buyers and you feel like you can reach them direct then charge for it. But if you are more likely to get the 2nd category of buyers you should adjust your pricing for that market.
233
« on: August 15, 2013, 17:22 »
That was awfully easy. Thank you it worked perfectly
234
« on: August 15, 2013, 16:21 »
Not completely on topic but this was as close as I can find.
I think early on when I was figuring things out I might have deleted the
/symbiostock-network-directory/
page
when I click on the link I get the oops page now.
Is there any way to get it back?
Thanks
235
« on: August 12, 2013, 10:50 »
I just did this all this last weekend. For what it is worth, I knew nothing about any of this. I purchased a domain name from Godaddy for around $12, signed up with blue host for $5 per month and bought the clean theme for $24. I followed the tutorial on www.symbioguides.com. I called Bluehost support twice and they ran me though the set-up (domain pointing and word press download) which turned out to be very easy. Note: I did get the white screen of death but solved that thanks to AJT's comments in the thread on this forum. After about 10 hours of trial and error and figuring out the WP interface I have this www.teamclipart.comI only have 10 images up, I haven't set up paypal yet, I have no idea how to use Askimet or widgets, I need a few more pages, and a lot of my links don't work yet. But for around 1 1/2 days of work, $50 and two phone calls I have a functional website that looks pretty nice. This was honestly very easy. The slowest part was figuring out the WP interface and what everything does. You don't need to know what you are doing. You just need to jump in and get started. Edited: for spelling and Ipad autocorrect
236
« on: August 10, 2013, 15:03 »
Solved: I am also trying to build my site this weekend and I just had the same problem. "installed wordpress via the mojo marketplace and installed symbio.zip and the result is the white screen. Has this been solved and I just don't understand the solution? If so what do I need to do and how do I do it? I don't think I am going to be the only one this week with this problem. Thanks
Edit. After a little bit of clicking and searching I found the PHP settings ajt was talking about and changed to 5.3 and now it seems to work. Thanks
237
« on: August 02, 2013, 22:29 »
20k is ridiculous. I'm hoping to reach 2k sometime next year and I'm pretty sure I won't get there. Seriously that is an amazing accomplishment. Way to go.
238
« on: July 22, 2013, 13:51 »
...in 2010...
Right. That link was in response to baldrick saying we didn't have any comparison until last year. It also debunked chromaco's assertion that exclusives have much higher port sizes.
My assertion is that there are a lot more contributors with small portfolios in the non-exclusive camp than there are in the exclusive camp and the poll results reflect that. ETA: The median port size for exclusives is close to double in that report, that is what is skewing the poll results.
239
« on: July 22, 2013, 12:51 »
The poll is not accurate when comparing exclusives to non exclusives because there is a huge discrepancy in average port size. Non exclusives have a much higher percentage of newer smaller portfolios which bring the earnings averages down. If you were to compare the numbers based on comparable port sizes I believe that there wouldn't be such a huge gap.
Maybe all those things are true but maybe not, I don't think anyone really knows. I agree the poll could be more accurate but until then this is the only one we have. The gap is quite large though almost no one contributes to all the sites in the poll so 68% of exclusive earnings is the upper limit of what the poll says, for most contributors it's probably closer to 50%. I don't really know if other factors would bring it that much closer but my guess is they don't.
Yes, it seems that you are very quick to quote the poll when it works in promoting Istock exclusivity. However, you are very quick to point out logic flaws or minutia when someone brings up a valid argument against exclusivity. I believe if the polls were working against your argument you would be railing quite loudly about how you can't trust them and they are incorrect for any number of reasons. The polls do what they are supposed to -- compare sites versus each other where port size is actually factor. Once you throw out port size in this equation it becomes completely inaccurate. I know you know this and yet you continually use these numbers as a validation of exclusivity.
240
« on: July 22, 2013, 12:30 »
The poll is not accurate when comparing exclusives to non exclusives because there is a huge discrepancy in average port size. Non exclusives have a much higher percentage of newer smaller portfolios which bring the earnings averages down. If you were to compare the numbers based on comparable port sizes I believe that there wouldn't be such a huge gap.
241
« on: July 17, 2013, 15:12 »
Name the agencies that give you no zero sales days. I can only name 2 - SS and FT. But thats me. Its not realistic to expect no zero sales days selling direct on a new project.
Yes, a Symbiostock site would be a 'new project' but not in the sense of joining a new agency and gradually building a big portfolio. When you start on Sy, don't you upload all your stuff right away? If I built a Sy site, I would go live with several thousand images... of course it would take Google a bit of time to find and index it... but after a few weeks or months, I should start seeing a good amount (at least several a day) of sales for it to not be a waste of time.
And as for zero sales days... the only agency where I ever see zero sales a day is GL... we all know what's going on there... a year ago I had daily sales there. All the other sites are typically at least in double digits a day. So maybe it's about perspective.
1 sale a day depending on your pricing should be between $450 and $600 per month or about $6000 per year. 10 sales a month is $150 or $1800 per year. Not to bad for a week or so worth of work. Probably better than most people are getting on a lot of the agencies. Obviously this depends on many factors. Just pointing out that you don't need all that many sales to justify the time.
242
« on: July 16, 2013, 14:35 »
As far as I'm concerned the contact info is one of the huge benefits of having my own sites. I have had 3 e-mails and 2 phone calls today (I do admit that isn't normal) about custom images or editing current ones. I think three of those contacts will probably turn into some sort of a sale. One custom or exclusive image sale would exceed the revenue I get from FT, and Istock combined. There are a lot of perks that aren't really associated with traditional sales and those benefits aren't being taken into consideration. As far as customer service goes I guarantee that mine is better than any of the big agencies because I do it myself. People like talking to the "guy" and it is almost never a burden. Finally, people do shop around. Three of those contacts came from seeing my image on one of the agencies. They wanted to talk to me so they went out and found my site. If they decide to buy they will probably buy direct from me now and I will collect somewhere between 3 and 35 times the commission I would have gotten from the agencies.
243
« on: July 16, 2013, 09:36 »
Dolores. I think perhaps if you are not inclined to take initiative yourself and are simply looking for someone to blame if things go wrong, then symbiostock is not for you. It seems ironic to me that you are so distrustful and yet contribute to the micros in a scenario where trust is all you have. I would rather steer my own ship make my own prices and control my own future. To me this seems like a safer road to the future than waiting in vain with the hope that my sales for the last two months might finally get reported or that my royalty percentage won't get decreased again. I think you should stay away from hosting your own site. This is obviously not for you.
244
« on: July 11, 2013, 15:26 »
Funny thing about having your own site. You start getting real picky about which agencies you want to share your images with. The sub sites start looking less and less attractive every time you get a sale on your own site. I pretty much only contribute new images to a few (maybe 3) smaller sites that pay really well. I just can't get myself to upload to the sub sites anymore. The self hosted train has just started rolling and it is starting to pick up some steam. Eventually "self hosted" is going to start showing up in the poll results and as soon as it does people are going to start realizing that they need to get on board or they are going to be left behind. Once that happens contributors will start curating their portfolios and the agencies that don't pay a reasonable commission will start losing those images.
I don't buy the argument that contributors are a dime a dozen and for every one that leaves there are 10 more ready to replace them. As far as overall contributors that may be correct but if you adjust that to "quality contributors" then the story changes dramatically. It is the quality contributors that are going to take the time to build their own sites and are going to see positive results. When enough "quality contributors" stop adding images to the agencies or even start removing them, the agencies are going to be in trouble. Customers will start realizing that the best images are no longer with the large agencies and they will get used to looking elsewhere.
Dan, don't give up just yet... just adjust your focus. Change is coming. You are just at the forefront of it. Others will follow, it's just a matter of time. 55 new self hosted sites in 6 months is pretty impressive. I bet that number is 200 by the end of the year. I said it two years ago that "the future is in the little guys". I still believe that but I will amend it to include "self hosted" as well.
245
« on: June 24, 2013, 14:58 »
Hey to all Symbiostock site owners. I haven't joined you yet because I can't find the time but I will get there. I have my own sites (non-symbio) and I can tell you that self hosting works and the buyers will come. -----Don't forget to fill out the self hosted poll info this month maybe we can get enough votes for self hosted to actually show up. I think it would be interesting to see how self hosted sites are doing in the next 6-12 months but we all need to remember to vote.
246
« on: May 16, 2013, 11:14 »
I agree about the pricing. What I've learned from my site is that customers come in from the search engines because they like the art. Price usually isn't a factor unless your pricing is completely unreasonable. I think you are leaving a lot of money on the table. Unless you are planning on doing a lot of marketing and expect a very large volume of visitors you don't need to compete on price. Quality will get the job done.
Nice site!
247
« on: May 15, 2013, 11:48 »
I've started doing this as well. I have realized that the lifetime of my images is likely to be much longer if I am careful about which images get placed on the sites that sell subs. I think I can sell the same images for 10-15 years on my own site and a few high rpd sites whereas by selling on the sub sites the lifespan of the images will be much much shorter. I am not really deleting images that are already there. I consider those images to be dying already based on numbers of downloads on SS, Thinkstock, etc. Also, I believe because of the subs my images keep appearing on free sites and I can't even keep up with tracking that.
I am in this for the long term and the large subscription sales sites don't really match with my model.
248
« on: April 20, 2013, 11:07 »
I understand about the no new contributors, which is another reason why people don't mention them much. If toonvectors didn't pretty much match that philosophy I wouldn't have commented at all. Toonvectors is a very good option for newer contributors and I recommend them highly. Honestly I would like to have about 6 sites like these two.
As far as quality I can't argue about new talent but I do know this. My best new images go to these two sites first and a lot if it doesn't even make it to the sub sites. So one could argue that clipartof and toonvectors are getting the best images which could result in the highest quality catalogs. They also have a very good pulse on the market, If they start to slip I am sure they are in a position to act very quickly.
249
« on: April 20, 2013, 10:24 »
Interesting policy, referring possible superstars to your rivals!
indeed, was thinking about that too, very interesting, wonder why SS or other haven't stopped? 
Maybe they should be? 50% commission on an average $14 sale with very good volume and no subs. You set your own prices. Ftp upload, they do the keywording and the site is easy to use and never goes down. Contributor service is amazing and I imagine customer service is as well. It's no wonder there are never any threads about this site. There is nothing to complain about...ever. It's interesting they choose toonvectors and symbio to refer to. Toonvectors is almost exactly the same minus the keywording and the volume, but it is coming. Just a guess but if illustrators had their own poll I would bet that clipartof would be above SS by a decent margin and toon vectors would be above all of the low earners and some of the mid. These are the models for what microstock should be and all of us contributors would be much better off if all of the site were like clipart of and toonvectors.
250
« on: April 09, 2013, 15:34 »
Seriously? I haven't uploaded to SS for a month or so. Is this new for illustrations? What are they telling you?
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