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Messages - cthoman
2776
« on: March 01, 2011, 15:03 »
This is one of the things I was afraid of when I deleted my portfolio there last month. There weren't a lot of positive things going on at FT for me. Falling sales, falling royalties, falling RPD, and the list goes on. I have to wonder about that sites future and are they just going to cut royalties every year? I miss the money, but I'm glad I'm gone.
2777
« on: March 01, 2011, 14:53 »
...my uploaded files are in Cutcaster's FTP folder since Feb, 26th and nothing happens... not being imported after clicking on "Process my FTP uploads" and waiting for hours
Same here. Can people who had issues try again? It should be fixed and the files will appear in your account.
What do you mean exactly? Reupload the files or reprocess them? When I leave the page now and come back, it says it is still processing them. Same when I quit my browser and come back.
2778
« on: February 28, 2011, 23:23 »
Yeah, I would say none as well. If you are either in or waiting a year, I wouldn't risk it on these. I'd say make twenty or so illustrations and pick the best ones and come back for another critique. You really don't want to wait a year, so being safe is a good idea.
2780
« on: February 27, 2011, 11:30 »
Here's a tip: to inspect an element on a web page, install Firefox firebug. Then you can roll over an element on the web page and see the html code and CSS. I find it handy in tracking down what code to change when customizing.
Good tip. I use that too.
2781
« on: February 25, 2011, 15:24 »
I don't think it makes much of a difference. I haven't been uploading anything for the last few months, and I haven't really noticed a difference. The only company that is really going into the ditch is iStock, but that may be other problems. Like others said, it is difficult to get a definitive answer for sales slumps or rises. I think it is a good experiment though. It's nice to know that if you want to switch over to a more "passive" passive income, you're sales won't completely dry up.
2782
« on: February 25, 2011, 12:36 »
I’m with sjlocke and PaulieWalnuts on this. These attempts at something are futile for anything but venting frustration.
The best solutions currently available (though far from ideal) is using Photoshelter Virtual Agency or wholeheartedly backing up some (preferal one or two in unison) of the "Fair trade" sites. The clue (and challenge) is to get a massive move in the same direction.
 I don't see it as venting frustration. I started my site to sell my own work and make some money. Getting other sites to link to my site is about the most basic SEO thing you can do. If someone is going to give me one, then I'm going to jump on board.
2783
« on: February 25, 2011, 11:27 »
I think Cathy said it all. If it is just a link, that is fine with me. If it becomes something more, even better.
2784
« on: February 25, 2011, 01:33 »
Sorry, I've been busy with work today. I'm definitely interested, and I'll get you the info.
2785
« on: February 23, 2011, 12:26 »
Where cannibalisation does take place IMHO is when you upload several series of the same subject matter, shot at different times, to the same agency. The temptation is always to follow up best-selling images with more of the same subject. Unfortunately, if you are successful in producing even better images than before, then you are quite likely to simply divert a sale you would have had anyway to your new images. Mind you that's still a lot better than the sale going to one of your competitors who may have tried to copy your success. If you don't compete against your own best-selling images then you can be sure that someone else will.
I've been wondering about this in relation to DT. Do new lower tier files in the same subject category take away from older higher tier files? It's a simultaneous growing and preventing growth.  As far as the original topic, I always find it interesting to look up one of my niche images on Google images and see it pop up from multiple agencies. You have to assume some buyers are finding it that way. Which agency will they click on and buy it from? Which would you prefer they did buy it from?
2786
« on: February 22, 2011, 21:25 »
Why leave money on the table when different sizes bring different use opportunities and should require more cost? If vectors weren't infinitely resizable, they'd be sold the same way.
I think that argument could be made either way. Why give discounts to people that would have paid full price? Most people just want an image, so they don't care if they pay $1 or $10. From my experience, most of my money is made with the bigger ticket sales in volume. You know that day when someone comes in and buys 5 or 10 images at the max size. The small size sales are just filler. I also wonder about the sustainability of volume sales at low prices too. Volume is hard to maintain. I look at SS and I see a site that really hasn't grown at all in sales. I just sell more On Demand now to make up for the lost volume. I'm sure there is an equation to figure out the sweet spot where volume meets price. Look, it is just a rant, but it is something to think about.
2787
« on: February 22, 2011, 20:25 »
To your question, should there be difference between "web" and original image in pricing? Yes. They aren't the same thing. The uses of the web-sized image are limited for obvious reasons.
I don't really care how you use it (web, print or other). It's not rights managed. Just sell one size and that's how much the license to use the image costs. That's how vectors work at many sites, and it is a much better system than the multiple sizes system. I think photographers should demand the same system. As more and more media moves towards the web and digital formats like the ipad, why should web or digital media get discounts over print. You're selling an image license not a size.
2788
« on: February 22, 2011, 15:10 »
That's true. The hard part though would be to get the price up off of the floor, now that buyers are comfortable with the idea that the photographer gets 19 cents - and they have no idea who he is. This business has been pretty thoroughly trashed, it would take time to rebuild it.
I think there's some truth to that. Why should a web image really cost any less than a high res? You're buying the same license. It's just an excuse to sell cheap files. At some point, these companies may have to decide if they want to be agents or crowdsourcers. The problem is most of them have too many contributors to actually represent them properly.
2789
« on: February 22, 2011, 14:14 »
The internet was supposed to create the perfect market, where sellers of every commodity could readily find the buyers looking for their product. It hasn't quite worked out. Instead, a small number of middlemen, with a mindlessly simplistic business model that created a downward price spiral, have succeeded in monopolizing the channel. Buyers don't seem able to route around them, even if they're interested. There's just too much noise, we can't be heard as we stand on street corners hawking our wares.
It's all still evolving. It will be interesting to see how it changes down the road. Micro is still pretty young, so I expect some growing pains. A lot of us are learning along with them too about what works and what doesn't.
2791
« on: February 22, 2011, 10:06 »
...but I do wish we all had the choice of selling RF or RM at any price point we want.
This makes a lot of sense to me. I think more control and setting prices seems like what should happen at a lot of these agencies. It probably won't though.
2792
« on: February 21, 2011, 13:04 »
does the middle tier rating of 2.5 mean that they earn on average between >$5 a month or is that >$10 I forget which one is rating #2 . I always wish the rating system would simply change to actual dollar amount would just make more sense to now what the average earnings are rather than a number that represents some range of earnings.
I can never remember either. I think we need a little cheat sheet somewhere on the site. Anyway, congrats to Panther. Now, all they need is vectors. That's when you can get all the cool kids to come to your site.
2793
« on: February 19, 2011, 12:15 »
I'm guessing here, but there is a file called blank_page.php. I would think if you make a copy of that and rename it, then paste in the info you want into the body. Then you'll just need to put a link to it in the footer or somewhere else. I think you can add extra things to the left nav from the content section of the manager too (left box 1, 2 etc.). If you can figure it out, it's probably a good idea to set up a local host on your machine too, so you can test things first. You may need to kidnap a nerd for that or the Ktools support might recommend a LAMP one click install that works best.
2794
« on: February 18, 2011, 12:34 »
You two need to kick back and relax like this baby...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cds7lSHawAw[/youtube]
Happy Friday!
2795
« on: February 18, 2011, 11:42 »
To me these are nothing special, especially when I see the awesome work of some of the food microstockers. Nothing against her work just that there is much better work out there. Something like this is more what I consider very good.
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-56135239/stock-photo-ingredients-for-homemade-pizza.html
I think either work. I don't do much design work anymore, but I always looked for things with vibrant color schemes that were going to mesh with whatever design idea I wanted to put together. Both examples fit that criteria. Depth of field and other criteria don't really matter to me. Just, will it look nice? Maybe, that is a designer mentality.
2796
« on: February 17, 2011, 10:46 »
It looks like a copy to me. It would of been easy to come up with a different size and change the lens diaphragm a bit. Then it might not be so noticeable. I don't think we can stop people making their own versions of our ideas but they shouldn't be making such a close copy.
That's how I felt. It makes you wonder what is going on inside these people's heads. It's one thing to copy ideas, but to not even try to make the idea your own and just trace over someone else's. Is it just laziness. I guess the real question in this is what does the rest of their portfolio contain?
2797
« on: February 17, 2011, 10:37 »
So in the long run we are better of if buyers go to sites with a higher share for us, even if these may have a lower RPD.
I think that makes sense. I'd like to see all sites with at least a $5 RPD and 50% royalty, but that's not getting any closer. Although, there are a couple. As far as directing people to sites, shouldn't we direct people to the smaller sites. There are usually less files and less chance that buyer buys another persons work.
2798
« on: February 16, 2011, 20:03 »
So here you're actually taking "potential" sales numbers into account with all the IFs, but you shouldn't be too concerned about all the IFs. You should be concerned about what's happening now because IF you promote GL at the expense of the ones who are performing for you now, GL could go bust in a few month and where does that leave you? If you're going to take IFs into account take that one too.
That's pretty much why I started a site to sell my own work. It's a contingency plan and may take a lot of the worry or guesswork out of what these agencies will do next. I don't see any need to promote any of these agencies. Especially the ones at the top. That's what those large percentages I'm paying them are for. That said, I'm still on most of those agencies because they do sell, but they are on their own for drumming up customers. I'd rather focus my energy on things that are going to have the most profit potential. Otherwise, I'm just doing the same thing and getting the same results. You know those results like declining royalties, upload arms races, questionable partner programs, etc.
2799
« on: February 16, 2011, 12:19 »
I'm fairly excited about Veer because they actually seem to have a different client base. One that doesn't mind spending money and buying extended licenses. Everybody loves those buyers.  That, and the Dash for Cash was pretty nice. I was disappointed in their recent shift in vector upload policy and making raster versions though. I had plans of uploading a lot more, but they really put a halt to that because I have to reformat all my jpegs. Hopefully, they can fix it, but I've gone back to wait and see mode in the meantime.
2800
« on: February 16, 2011, 11:32 »
thank you for posting this. it amazes me how many 'facts' here are spun out of RPD extrapolations that mean essentially nothing in terms of actual income.
Actually, RPD has a lot to do with how much you make. If I sold the same number of images that I sold on iStock on a site like Graphic Leftovers, I'd make twice as much as I would on IS. IF I sold the same amount on my own site, I'd make 4 times as much as IS. The problem is you can't really change RPD unless you can adjust prices or hit a higher royalty level. Only a few sites let you adjust prices which I think is a good direction to move in for the industry. Many sites let you hit higher royalty levels, but that seems to be a stacked deck now a days.
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