Looks great! Nice work!

I have around 3000 Videos and 3500 images, constantly growing. Does this small size could be worth it? What do you think?
What about different video framerates? Is your app able to convert in different framerates automatically?

Best regards,

Martin

We are still working on video. I don't think there will be any conversions going on as this is quite a heavy thing to build at this stage. But we are planning that you would be able to upload a file and have a thumbnail video generated automatically for putting on Shopify. The original video would be stored as the one clients would get when purchasing your video.

Whether or not it would be worth it is obviously 100% up to you. Personally as a photographer I decided to get this solution, because I wanted to have a place that I could lead clients to if they wanted to browse my content. I felt it was frustrating to lead people to my portfolio on the stock agencies, where I would give away 80% of the commission and furthermore not have any control of how our work was presented. I decided that whether or not this shop would become profitable it would have a lot of value for me in terms of presenting our work on our own platform - whether it would be for clients, models, or other people we collaborate with.

Are you thinking of any synergy among photographers and/or illustrators on the Shopify platform?
That could be a very good alternative to the agencies.

That would definitely be an option. But baby steps. Now we just have to get basic functionality to be 100% on point.

Hi guys,

Some of you might remember that I posted in here months back about some questions regarding a self-hosted platform. Today we are launching our new self-hosted platform. But more importantly, we are also announcing a new product that we are planning to make available to all photographers out there that can change the way you showcase and sell your images.

To give you a bit of perspective, I�m going to take you back in time to about a year ago when I started looking for a solution to a problem: How could I license my images directly to my clients?

I felt like I needed a platform where I had 100% control. A place where I could curate my own work and make sure that my clients would see the pictures I felt best represented us. Also, when clients emailed me directly to purchase images, I felt frustrated when I had to then send them on to agencies who would take 70-85% of the royalties.

So I started researching different solutions to build a self-hosted platform. I wanted a site that looked great and was effective whilst easy to use and maintain. Plus, with a portfolio of more than 20 000 images, I needed something that made it super easy to upload and manage all these assets.

I quickly found that there wasn�t really any perfect platform out there that could do this. 

During my research, I stumbled upon Shopify. For those of you who don�t know, Shopify is an ecommerce platform that offers tons of customisation options. Shopify would provide me with the control that I was looking for, but it didn�t really seem to be built for handling thousands of digital products - and that was a big problem.

In our tests, we found out that to put our products on Shopify would take about 10-15 minutes per item. After a few calculations I realised that it would take me about 173 days of non-stop work to get my entire portfolio online. No thanks! I quickly but reluctantly abandoned this idea and went back to looking for another option. None of them felt right. I guess I had fallen in love with all the possibilities of Shopify.

One of the things that�s so great about Shopify is that it has its own app store that lets third-party developers make all kinds of features that you can install on your shop. This made me realise that there might be a way to make it work after all. What if we could make a tool that could automate the uploading process that would otherwise take me 173 days to do?

I met with a friend of mine who�s a super talented programmer just to get an idea of what it would take. He made it clear that it was no easy task. Something that looks so simple isn�t actually that simple when you have to make a computer do it. After some consideration, we decided to give it a try. We started building an app.

At the same time, there were other challenges. Shopify�s built-in themes were simply not made for browsing thousands of stock photos. By now I�d also looked through 100s of third-party themes out there with no luck in finding something that was just right.  So we also needed a storefront design built from scratch. I started asking around for talented Shopify designers and luckily found one who had previously created some of the most stunning Shopify shops that I�d seen. We teamed up and he started building the storefront design.

Fast forward to January 2019. It�s now been more than half a year since we began the process. A process that clearly proved to be more complicated than we anticipated at the beginning. But I believe we have created something really good. Something that enables photographers to use the power of the world�s leading ecommerce platform.

Our new store (http://store.jacoblund.com) was made possible entirely because of the app. We are not fully there yet - the app still needs tweaks and there are additional features we are planning to add. Soon we�ll invite a few people in for a beta testing program, so we can get more user feedback from other photographers.

If you are interested in the app or the beta testing program please visit http://pixify.landen.co.

Very best,
Jacob

To me the mechanics are pretty simple.

Let's say you choose to support OnePixel. OnePixel gets more content to sell -> Which can lead to more customers -> Which can lead to a bigger market share.

Now after a while competitors will have to fight back for that market share. So what do they do? They lower their prices. Agencies are not going to take that loss - so they lower contributor commissions.

Who looses? We do.

Only way we win (or at least maintain status quo) is by not allowing price dumping like that by simply not letting them sell our content.

On a side note: Yes 38 cents from a sub sale at Shutterstock might not be much - but more than 60% of our revenue from SS comes from enhanced licenses, on demand, or single sales.

Any agency doing unlimited downloads on subscription should be seeing the contributors leaving immediately! This is super harmful to the industry. We need to stand together as contributors and not let this be a new norm amongst stock agencies. "But Twenty20 is a small agency - so what does it matter?" It matters that it gives them advantage over competitors and thereby customers and revenue to grow bigger. Eventually competitors will be forced to catch up with similar pricing models.

We pulled our portfolio out of Creative Market Pro and so did one of my friends who also has a big portfolio. I'm glad to see it worked putting pressure on them.

Got the same rejection. Interesting because it's not a part of the "standard" release that we use anywhere else.

Hey mate!

It's a great question. But I'm afraid no one can tell what's the smarter choice. Some people will tell you to go with exclusivity. Others will say go non-exclusive. But no one can really do a comparison because obviously you can't try both and compare the data. And let's say we did compare two contributors with same size portfolio (a non-exclusive and an exclusive) - the quality of their portfolio would be different so it would still be impossible to compare.

So I don't think you'll be able to find anyone who can tell what's better.

Very best,
Jacob

Quote from: jacoblund on August 31, 2018, 03:06

Very good considerations SuperPhoto.

... terms of sales it will never be anywhere near as what you can achieve with the help of stock agencies. But I do see it as an interesting alternative to the stock agencies for people who have a certain size of portfolio. Some of the interesting aspects:
- 100% commissions
- Options to sell different licenses (exclusive licenses, TIFF files, RAW files, graded / ungraded video)
- More control to present your portfolio the way you want

you forget to include:
-- time & effort involved in setting up and maintaining your own web site
-- cost of marketing aand advertising to get noticed
-- reason for anyone to come to your relativley small site rather than an agency

Quote

- Get to know you customers

how?  i was actively involved in shareware for any years, as a developer and as officer of the ASP & ESC (shareware organizations) - dealing with thousands of customers, i had only a handful of personal contacts w buyers - customers want your product not a friend for life

Cascoly I mentioned some of the interesting aspects - I'm fully aware that there are also certain challenges that needs to be dealt with. I'm not going headless into this.

Quote

- Get to know you customers

how?  i was actively involved in shareware for any years, as a developer and as officer of the ASP & ESC (shareware organizations) - dealing with thousands of customers, i had only a handful of personal contacts w buyers - customers want your product not a friend for life

I didn't mean to get to befriend my customers. I wanted to know who my customers are in order to better be able to tailor shoots and content to them in the future.

Very good considerations SuperPhoto.

There's definitely pros on cons about being self-hosted. And in terms of sales it will never be anywhere near as what you can achieve with the help of stock agencies. But I do see it as an interesting alternative to the stock agencies for people who have a certain size of portfolio. Some of the interesting aspects:
- 100% commissions
- Options to sell different licenses (exclusive licenses, TIFF files, RAW files, graded / ungraded video)
- More control to present your portfolio the way you want
- Get to know you customers

If you don't mind SuperPhoto it could be interesting chatting a bit more. Can I get your email?

Took a look at your survey.

I think I know what type of project you want to put together (if it's what I think it is, I was thinking of doing the same thing a while back).

Creating a site where you charge a fee to host files (photos/videos) is kind of a good idea - but I think you have a limited market.

The issue I think most photographers/videographers have is they don't know how to market themselves to generate sales - so unless you solve that problem, I don't think charging a subscription fee for photographers/videographers to host their own files will be that appealing. Simply because they don't know how to market it (even though you'll probably promote it that way). So what's the point of *paying* someone to host files for something they already get to do for *free* (portfolios on other sites). Yes, yes - you can say "no agency commission!" - but then the challenge is marketing and making SALES. And most don't really know how to do that on their own. They are photographers/videographers, not marketers.

So the thought process would be 'why should I PAY you money to host, with no sales if I have to do ALL the work in marketing TOO'? And they probably wouldn't buy.

BTW - re: income - do you generate $40,000 USD per month through photography? You had that in your survey question.

My educated guess is there is maybe 1% that do above $5k/month - but - they'd probably be happy with how they are doing things already (letting the agencies promote), so wouldn't really be interested in such a service. Then, maybe 10% that do $1-$2k/month - but again, too much work to promote themselves. And then probably 75% doing from $100-$500/month - but then your service would probably be too expensive (assuming you'd be charging between $30-$50/month) - AND - reaching those people and converting them I think would be a challenge. Unless you have some 'in' (relationship with an agency) - or - some way of reaching that vast majority of photographers/videographers - OR - figuring out how to make them SALES - I think you have a bit of a challenge before you.

Hi everyone,

I would like to know your most honest opinion if we should to share or not to share in Facebook and/or Twitter a watermarked image/video of our portfolio of stock agency in order to increase the earnings?

Thanks in advance.

I doubt it can influence your earnings - unless you have a huge social reach. But use FB and Twitter to raise awareness about you and your brand. That can have positive impact for you in many other ways than increased earnings with stock agencies.

you should have asked:
We have seen a few of these roll through and die over the years. Hire Jo Anne as a consultant before you do anymore work on this project

Maybe they have been done wrong over the years? 

It's some interesting thoughts and I think you ultimately will have to go for your gut feeling.

 

1. Working for Getty/IS is getting frustrating and tiresome month after month.

I don't think you'll find this easier on the other side. I'm pretty sure Getty / IS is one of the agencies offering most communication and help to it's contributors (besides Stocksy United). All other agencies don't really deal with their contributors at all. Even as a very professional contributor it can be tough getting through to them.

Also a thing I would consider if I had to make the jump is that building up a portfolio and getting a "good reputation" at the agencies takes time. If you uploaded all your photos within weeks most of them would probably "drown" because the agencies only expose a certain amount of your content in search results. Search results without any downloads will be downranked over time and people will never find your content. I believe that's one of the big challenges when moving from exclusivity.

But all in all I have no idea where it's best to be. I hope you'll find the right place.