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Messages - cthoman
Pages: 1 ... 95 96 97 98 99 [100] 101 102 103 104 105 ... 145
2476
« on: August 24, 2011, 19:48 »
2477
« on: August 24, 2011, 09:05 »
Master of Awesomeness, Creative Czar, Cartoon King, Lord of Illustration, Don of Doodles. I think any of those would probably be sufficient. 
2478
« on: August 24, 2011, 00:44 »
Actually, I think the exact opposite. It's not a rights managed system, so every license should cost the same. After all, you're not paying for use or size, you're paying for the license. One license, one price. I understand the market doesn't do that in general, but I wouldn't mind the industry moving in more of that direction.
I don't believe that would work because most sites place restrictions on the size that buyers can post on the net... usually 800x600px If they were to have one licence for all sizes, they would have to lift that restriction and then we have more XXL images floating around the net and that would lead to more IP theft.
That's pretty much what iStock does with vectors, so I'm not sure how it wouldn't work. They give you the vector and high res jpeg for one price (regardless of use). They do have a complexity scale, but they could price all their vectors at one price. I could see adding a low res cheap option for web use only (to bring in a certain budget customer), but all the other sizes seem to just undercut the price of vectors and high res files.
2479
« on: August 23, 2011, 22:05 »
After all, having a small illustration on a blog shouldn't cost as much as a pic for a billboard campaign. But that's a whole different story.
Actually, I think the exact opposite. It's not a rights managed system, so every license should cost the same. After all, you're not paying for use or size, you're paying for the license. One license, one price. I understand the market doesn't do that in general, but I wouldn't mind the industry moving in more of that direction. Also, since the subject of repricing has come up, any chance Stockfresh includes price setting options on the contributor side? Personally, I like to set my own prices on the sites that allow it. I think it lets me have a little more control of how my business is run. Overall, I was excited about Stockfresh, but, frankly, it has been low sales with low returns per sale. I think you have a great opportunity to make something that is better than the rest, but, so far, it has been a little bit more of the same. Just constructive criticism and not an attack though (I still see a lot of potential).
2480
« on: August 22, 2011, 10:30 »
Thanks for all the responses in the poll. I thought the results were interesting.
2481
« on: August 19, 2011, 11:06 »
Do you actually think that because they shifted KK around with a new person that their bottom-line goal is any different? I seriously doubt it. If they had any integrity, they wouldn't have done what they did in the first place, all in the name of profits.
No, I don't expect anything to change, but I still hold out hope.
2482
« on: August 18, 2011, 19:03 »
OK. Coming at this from another angle, what do they spend on advertising? What would my share of that advertising be per year divided by all the other contributors?
2483
« on: August 18, 2011, 18:48 »
Color me unimpressed and unconvinced. Do you really believe that businesses looking for a product really care about how many satisfied suppliers it has? My guess is that one AdWords ad on Google gets more attention from potential customers than a thousand links.
I think you missed my point. I was saying that some of their best advertising is free advertising. You can get to the top of Google's search rankings for many terms and phrases without spending a cent. Having a group of dedicated fans (contributors) helps with that goal by link building. Paid advertising helps too, but good old fashioned and entirely free SEO and link building is probably the best thing to get traffic to your site. So, I question the need to have over 50% of the royalties for any reason. Besides, I've never seen an increase in traffic from any of these companies claiming they need a bigger share for advertising. Make me happy, and I'll promote your site for free.
2484
« on: August 18, 2011, 16:26 »
I always thought of my bargain with iStock as taking a lower royalty in exchange for a greater marketing and advertising budget, something the other agencies are unable or unwilling to match.
I have to wonder about the actual validity of this. The best way to get traffic to your site is to rank high on Google. The best way to get high rankings on Google is to have lots of sites link to your site. Happy contributors are a great way to get those links. Sure a big fancy ad in a design magazine is prestigious, but does it really bring in more customers than thousands of contributors blogging about what a great company you are or telling their clients to shop for their stock at your site. I'd love to have all those people talking about me and giving me free advertisements and links.
2485
« on: August 18, 2011, 16:00 »
I put 50%, but I might settle for 40%. 50/50 just seems more fair. If I charged for all the work I put into my portfolio, anything less than 50% seems like a rip off.
2486
« on: August 18, 2011, 15:50 »
Since iStock started sending out their survey today, I was curious what it would take to make you happy with iStock again. By happy, I'm referring to money (more precisely royalty percentages).
2487
« on: August 18, 2011, 15:41 »
Yeah, maybe nothing comes of it. But, isn't the whole point of leaving, not uploading or any other protesting is to get the other side to listen to your demands. I don't see a problem with spending 15 minutes to actually tell them specifically what I want.
2488
« on: August 18, 2011, 14:52 »
Here's the thing. You can get 1000 upset contributors to delete their accounts, but they will all be lower level contributors, those making just a few hundred dollars a month there. The agencies won't care... they'll be happy to see them go.
Actually, little contributors add up. That's why they let them (us) in. If enough leave or focus their attentions elsewhere, then the agency might actually take a look at their business practices. Where did all our suppliers go? Why did they leave? What would it take to get them back? The survey that iStock sent out today is an encouraging sign that these stock sites might actually pay attention to the needs of the little guy.
2489
« on: August 18, 2011, 12:56 »
I thought it was a good survey. You really get to say what you want. I said I wanted 50%. We'll see how that works out.
2490
« on: August 16, 2011, 13:26 »
So are people going to stop uploading to FT, remove their portfolios or just carry on like nothing happened?
I deleted everything except one image in January. I remember when I first turned Silver I got paid 37%, and they've lowered royalties every year since. The problem seems to be, "Which agency hasn't cut commission?" Will YOU abandon iStock and Dreamstime? Which site do we choose?
I wouldn't trust any of them. It would be nice to abandon them all.
2491
« on: August 16, 2011, 09:46 »
It's funny. I thought the vector subs were one of the only things Fotolia got right. I guess I can check that off the list. I'm so glad I decided to leave there.
2492
« on: August 15, 2011, 14:07 »
In the future, I'm going to train a robot to do all my illustrations for me because I'll be too busy driving my flying car.
2493
« on: August 13, 2011, 11:22 »
Looks like a good move. I assume it will still be set your own price for the vectors.
2494
« on: August 13, 2011, 10:58 »
What I think they need is a way for contributors to pool their images in to a bigger collection and have a universal buying system.
I believe that was called Clustershot. I assume they'll reopen at some point. They never offered vectors though. Looks like Avid Images does that too. I don't think they offer vectors either though.
2495
« on: August 12, 2011, 14:32 »
BTW: We shouldn`t care so much about the "top" contributors. How many images images does Yuri have? 30000? 40000? To run a Microstock site successfully you need Millions and the support of the Many instead jsut a couple of big names.
It depends on what you define as successful. You could run a site that only has one or two artists that is much more profitable for the artist than all of the other agencies. Obviously, bigger agencies are going to have more volume, but they'll spend a lot more too. I guess it's not really too much different than contributors. You can hire a staff and create a stock factory or you can do it yourself. You might make less doing it solo, but you'll spend less too. Finding a sweet spot is what it is all about. Back on topic, it will be interesting to see if they come back with a better deal at the Envato sites. They seemed willing to listen about higher royalties and prices to attract more contributors. It really would not take too much to attract me away from the established players. Just someone stepping up to be a real partner. That seems to be a tall order for the big 4 though.
2496
« on: August 12, 2011, 09:51 »
Thanks!
Your site looks pretty good too.. Did you have to make a lot of customizations or does Ktools actually look better now? Because It didn't look that clean and decent last time I checked their demo a year ago..
Yeah, lot's of customization. I have the same problem though with upgrades affecting any custom work. So, they'd have to add some great features to get me to upgrade.
2497
« on: August 11, 2011, 16:57 »
It looks good. It looks like it functions fairly similar to Ktools. Definitely, a nice clean look.
2498
« on: August 10, 2011, 10:32 »
Well I shall take it to the team for more discussion, and as I mentioned in the previous post, I'd like to see what the response is from our core exclusive authors as well as that is our major focus with the marketplaces. So far my impression is that the bulk of authors in this market are non-exclusive though.
Thanks for taking the time.
2499
« on: August 10, 2011, 09:56 »
I don't know if you can do something that's totally automatic in Photoshop. You should be able to speed up the process using the Actions palette. I have one set up that saves the file, then closes it for when I create jpegs for my stock files. Like was mentioned above, I still have to set the resolution when I open the file.
2500
« on: August 09, 2011, 20:47 »
Over the years I've spent about $20,000 on that particular site, but I've definitely noticed that my money goes less far than it used to.
I think it's the fact that most of us only earned 4k off of that 20k that is the point of discontent. Look, every company is free to run their business the way they like, but I'm sick of being given less and less. I hope others are too. Although I'm not a photog, GraphicRiver has the same crumby rates, so I'm giving the thumbs down to the whole family of sites. If anything positive comes out of this, it's that it fuels the fire to make my own endeavors better and more successful.
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