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Messages - cthoman
2726
« on: March 26, 2011, 18:35 »
I'm always willing to listen to new ideas as well. Like Thomas, I'm not sure I'd want to actually own a piece of another company. Putting my artwork there and selling it is enough for me.
2727
« on: March 26, 2011, 18:27 »
Thanks everyone, it always makes me happy to know that so many people enjoyed his music 
My condolences as well. It's not easy to lose a family member famous or not. As a card carrying member of the "long hair and black t-shirts" club back in the day, I can tell you he will be missed.
2728
« on: March 25, 2011, 15:57 »
$2000
For that kind of money, I get an eighth of a day with Jesh or maybe produce my very own auto-tuned song about the gloriousness of Friday.
2729
« on: March 25, 2011, 11:56 »
I consider it my job to supply customers with enough variations of compositions on the subject (I've had many direct emails from people asking me if I had the same subject shot at different angles, with more space to the side/top/bottom, different orientations) but at the same time not offering images that are too similar. For me, it's just common sense. So, with my own store (www.elenaphoto.com) I don't see a problem - if I have 10 images of the subject showing up in a row, I know they are different enough and there is no need to mix them up.
With agencies though it's a different story - sometimes reviewers don't have a good understanding of what is too similar and what's not (Dreamstime often drives me nuts - for example, images of the same model, one smiling, one totally serious were considered "similars", one approved, one rejected). So I do mix up for agencies, but not because I supply images that are too similar...
Nice post. I agree. I often sell 3 or more images of the same subject. Sometimes 10 or more, so I think it is definitely something you want to have prepared for customers that want a series.
2730
« on: March 25, 2011, 11:19 »
I guess your not very adept at an Ebay search.
So I am now providing bona fides?
For what purpose? I have not entered into self promotion.
I am not selling something... yet you want my secret ingredient for free.
You are definitely entitled to your privacy, but you did bring up the topic. I looked at ebay too awhile back for selling stock, and most of what I saw was so cheap that it didn't look like there was a lot of money in it. Especially when you start factoring in shipping and probably sales tax. I've sold prints that way and it was always a pain.
2731
« on: March 25, 2011, 11:12 »
The trouble is that I come to it with the preconception that they are a bunch of a-holes who treat their contributors like s*it.
I find it hard to image what a buyer without that preconception would make of it.
That's the funny part. I read it like a documentary.  And here I thought the place was run by HAL-9000 turns out they're just jerks.
2732
« on: March 24, 2011, 17:36 »
I suppose the first thing you'd need to implement is a way to bargain. Not all sites have a quick or easy way to temporarily deactivate your images. Without that you can't strike.
2733
« on: March 24, 2011, 17:07 »
This is slightly OT, but I don't think that the the Writers Guild has always had such clear cut success. See articles here, here, here...
It's not that I'm in any way unsympathetic to the goals of the WGA, but the point in several of those articles is that in a sense you've already lost by the time you go on strike and that the glut of reality TV garbage that graces US airwaves is in part a result of some of the "win" in the 2007 writer's strike.
Don't forget about crummy game shows too. Has anyone really mentioned what they want out of a union? Isn't that supposed to be the first question you ask yourself when seeking any sort of representation. It would be interesting to see how far apart or close everyone is. I'll go first. My demands are: 1. 50% or higher royalties 2. A lowest price cap of $5 3. Royalties for subs starting at $1 I figure that's a good start or at least something to work towards.
2734
« on: March 24, 2011, 15:26 »
so whats the difference between a guild and a union?
Secret handshakes.
2735
« on: March 24, 2011, 14:07 »
Do what you think is right or what your customers will like. It's your store after all. I think the similar thing is kind of a lame excuse by agencies, so I put them all in and try to organize them properly in my store.
2736
« on: March 23, 2011, 23:46 »
I was going to say something crude, but I can't blame anybody if they can actually get that amount. What was it P.T. Barnum said?
2737
« on: March 23, 2011, 23:31 »
what ammount does any of you would pay for an organisation what "start" to fullfill these targets?
That's an interesting question. I could see favorable results bring hundreds if not thousands more a month for me, but that is assuming someone can actually get results. There's a ton of money between us, and I would gladly pay to see results. But, those are the million dollar questions of who, what, where, when and how.
2738
« on: March 21, 2011, 13:45 »
Yeah, those exclusive vector contributors have been pretty grumpy for a while. I don't blame them either. That redheaded step child label seems to be appropriate.
2739
« on: March 20, 2011, 21:51 »
This site edits site abbreviations now to the full names? That's convenient. What are all the official abbreviations that it converts?
2740
« on: March 20, 2011, 21:45 »
To those saying RPD is not important and that overall sales are important....you are missing a huge piece of statistics that can help us increase our income, this is extremely important information that can be very useful to the microstock community as a whole in deciding where to direct buyers. Some of us get asked from time to time what is the best site to buy from. If we all directed those buyers to the highest paying site we would start to see a shift of increased sales at those top paying sites. Just because a site makes the most overall earnings does not mean that is where I want to send my clients. We need to start joining together as a whole community and direct people to the places and sites that have the fairest RPD and then we will see those sites become the the highest earners. It is the ONLY piece of information we have as a community to help us decide where to direct clients. Fairly recently in another thread we sort of concluded (this survey may say something different) that Dreamstime and Canstock averaged the top two for RPD (not counting alamy). If clients switched from the high earners (Shutterstock and IS) to dreamstime and Canstock we would see almost double earnings. Obviously not in the best interest of IS exclusives, but seeing as only 14% of people are exclusive, it would be in the best interest of the majority to act together in pushing those few chances of referrals we get to Dreamstime and CS. If thousands of contributors start doing this it could start to make a little impact that would hopefully snowball as those buyers refer their friends and coworkers. We really need to stand up and act together on this issue and put our support behind those sites that continue to give the most fair payment for each download of our work. It seems like a microstock union is just not happening at this time, but that does not mean we can't work together in the only way we have available.
My site has one of the best RPDs, so everybody should band together and recommend that. In all seriousness though, everyone's stats are different. As a vector artist, IS still has a better RPD than CanStockPhoto and Dreamstime. Also you have to factor in portfolio size too. You want to recommend sites that have a large amount of your content. I don't think you're going to get a consensus from everyone, but it doesn't hurt to think about what is best for your business. On a personal note, I've decided to purchase any images I need from direct artist sites or CanStockPhoto. I don't purchase much though.
2741
« on: March 19, 2011, 11:52 »
I ran across this abuse last week while surfing for some images for a project. I don't remember what I was searching for or I would post a link. I think you know what I mean, though.
I gotcha. Yeah, there are some real abusers out there. I just get worried when I hear punish someone because they always seem to come up with these blanket policies instead of targeting the REAL abusers like you said. Maybe, I'm just thinking of those rejections for similars when you have more than 2. That said, if you eliminate the non-sellers from the search or just have one or two representatives from a particular collection or series, then a lot of that abuse sorts itself out by whether it is useful or not.
2742
« on: March 19, 2011, 11:10 »
I wish they would find a way to punish those that are abusing the whole uploading of similars and duplicates, instead of punishing everyone.
I don't. Despite what they say, buyers buy similar images and images from the same series. They buy them a lot. These agencies just need to allow us to organize our images into series and collections. If they want to limit the number of images from a collection that show up in a search, that's fine, but don't restrict similars. They are just being lazy by taking the quick fix solution. It doesn't help buyers or contributors though.
2743
« on: March 18, 2011, 11:58 »
To be honest, I've never noticed any of these best match shifts.
2744
« on: March 17, 2011, 12:18 »
Oh I hope not. We just had our new Hamster for 3 weeks now and I am getting ready to train her as a Stock Model. Dont need her exploding on me! Keep uploading for Gigits sake!
Just keep your hamster hydrated that way he won't evaporate and rain down as the exploding kind.  Back to the topic, I have periodically stopped uploading as well for several months at a time and haven't seen a significant decline. Nothing that couldn't be explained as normal ebb and flow.
2745
« on: March 17, 2011, 11:34 »
The Earth's core will freeze and it will start raining exploding hamsters. Just a guess, but I'd say not much will happen other than your portfolio will stop growing.
2746
« on: March 17, 2011, 11:31 »
Demise of iStock?
I wouldn't say demise either, but my numbers have definitely been slipping. Whether that is because of not uploading or something internal at IS, I don't know. I haven't really been uploading anywhere, so that really shouldn't be a factor at IS. Anyway, iStock moved from my dominating number 1 to my barely number 2 in the last several months. Regardless, I'm not rooting for IS to go away because I don't think DT, FT or SS are better options, and that's where buyers are likely to go. If they were flocking to GL, clipartof or my own site, then I might be feeling different.
2747
« on: March 16, 2011, 10:46 »
I wonder how much istock have lost by demotivating a lot of us? They had 80% of all my future microstock earnings, now I don't upload there. I'm sure there are lots of us in a similar position and it has also made some exclusives leave and go to their rivals. Buyers are also leaving istock, I think their commission cuts will lose them money.
That's a good point. It was definitely demotivating and probably damaging. It's funny because it seems like they could have easily gone the other way and increased things for contributors and put the dagger in their competition. Whoops. Hopefully, they and the other micros are learning from this. I still think there is a ton of untapped potential in micro.
2748
« on: March 16, 2011, 10:20 »
Yeah, I definitely didn't want to break from micro pricing either. It's just that after contributing to a variety of agencies for several years, I feel I've learned a little about this business. What I see is a lot of untapped potential. I feel I could easily earn twice as much a month without producing another image. Better pricing and some better royalty percentages could do that overnight. It's a shame because it's not going to happen though. 
2749
« on: March 15, 2011, 18:24 »
I feel your pain. I stopped uploading to IS because of the royalty changes, ditched Fotolia, stopped uploading to SS because of lack of growth and was giving DT a break because I grew so fast there and I have a lot of Level 1 images. And had been working on getting my own site working right. All that kind of turned micro on its head for me. I think I'm getting refocused now though.
2750
« on: March 15, 2011, 11:44 »
That and the table is the same color as the skin, so you don't get much contrast. My two cents as a non-photographer.
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