|
MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - w7lwi
Pages: 1 ... 8 9 10 11 12 [13] 14 15 16 17 18 ... 25
301
« on: July 27, 2013, 18:35 »
A relatively large number of contributors on SS have noted their sales have been down for the better part of this year. Many theories have been advanced for this, such as search engine bugs, a massive influx of new contributors (mostly from IS) and several other ideas. Here's another one that I gleaned from a financial publication.
In the July 22 issue of Barron's, page M5, there an interesting article regarding Shutterstock's performance on the stock market. I'll not go over the entire article; however, I will quote the section I found of interest. "However, sales and marketing expenses fell in the first quarter of 2013, even though they've been rising sharply, an average of 60% in the past three years. The company noted that advertising will increase for the remainder of 2013 and beyond."
It appears this may have been done as an accounting strategy in order to allow the appearance of income growth during this period. Barron's goes on to say "If sales and marketing had grown at their customary pace or even half the annual average, little or no first-quarter growth would have occurred." This would have put a damper on the rapid rise of Shutterstock's (SSTK) growth in the market.
I think most would agree that if you don't have a strong sales and marketing strategy, and the financing to execute it, in today's competitive environment your overall sales are going to suffer. They did say that they were going to increase advertising for the balance of 2013 and beyond. This may be at least part of the reason contributors (myself included) have noticed the beginnings of an uptick in sales over the past couple of weeks. Hopefully that will continue. It will be interesting to see just what the sales and marketing numbers were for the second quarter when SS issues their next report in August.
302
« on: July 27, 2013, 17:57 »
I no longer have any MR problems with IS as I simply stopped uploading any images that required them. Did this for two reasons. The first is what has been noted here .. it's a royal pain in the ass to have a different MR for each and every shoot and really serves no useful purpose, regardless of what IS claims. Secondly, and of greater importance to me, is I don't want my model's images to suddenly appear on Google+ for all to see and with no control over how they may be used. No matter how remote the chance this will happen, it's just not worth the risk. I owe it to my models to protect their images as best I can. That's why I removed all of my people images on D-day.
303
« on: July 24, 2013, 20:17 »
I can address this one- for example, so you shoot a knife on a wooden board and the file size is 15mp than you take that same knife and should on white it will be only about 4mp due to no background present. That is why is it very important to get in close on objects that are going to be isolated on white...
Here we go getting megapixels and megabytes mixed up again. Megapixels (MP) are a function of the physical size of the sensor/image. It's the height multiplied by the width of the image. If the image is cropped, then the MP will also drop. If the two knife shots mentioned above are shot with the same camera, they will have exactly the same MP's. They will not, however, have the same megabytes (Mb). The description above is correct if you are looking at Mb. The more data/information on the image, the greater the number of megabytes.
304
« on: July 23, 2013, 17:53 »
Just had a refund charge of $6.31, but it was more than offset by an $18+ P-EL Pretty much a toss-up between $0.35 subs and real sales in the $4.00 to $6.00 range.
305
« on: July 23, 2013, 17:41 »
Just uploaded 20 images yesterday via FTP and they went straight through with no problems. They cleared processing and are now pending in the completed file section (FileZilla 3.6.0.2, Latest version of Firefox and Windows 7).
306
« on: July 21, 2013, 21:21 »
I wonder what is included in the 2k euro shoot 
- 100 eur per hour / model?
- how many people working on the pictures beside the photographer(s)?
- studio rent, electricity, water?
- lighting equipment?
- insurance?
- computer, monitors, photoshop?
http://peopleimages.grsphoto.ca/wp/image/christmas-lady-pin-up/
The budget for this image was between 3 & 5K CDN ( can't remember exact amounts..it was years ago)
Model $600-800 ( full buy out)
Set design build, prop rental... $800- 1200
Makeup, hair, wigs.... $500
Stylist ( clothing) .... $500
studio rental...... 2 days $500
Post production ( Photo shop)... $100
Catering, assistants misc.... $400
you know how to spend money, guess we all do but looks like a little too much...
anyway you have an interesting domain name 
This was for a calendar series, client paid for 12 images like this... and 12 the year after.... until now not offered for stock.
It's a beautiful image. At first I thought your watermark was a series of bubbles floating in the air. Then I realized they were not, but it's an idea if you wanted to add something like that in, possibly for use in stock if you wanted to offer it as such.
307
« on: July 21, 2013, 21:09 »
Actually this past week on DT was pretty good. Couple of big credit sales (RF) and minimal subs. Came within $2.00 of matching SS and there were EL sales on SS (none on DT). But like so many others, it seems to come and go in waves. This week will likely be dead.
308
« on: July 21, 2013, 21:03 »
Surprise ... I had two downloads on Alamy this month (I'm usually lucky to get just one).
Disappointment ... One of the sales was for a grand sum of $6.99. After Alamy's 30% and the distributor's 40% I get the princely sum of $2.09. And I get the privilege of waiting an untold number of months for it to clear accounting so I can go and put a down payment on a Big Mac.
309
« on: July 10, 2013, 15:51 »
Yeah, been getting the same message for about the last 1/2 hour. Made it through to the login page once, but got the same error when I tried to log in. Usually goes straight through to the server error message.
310
« on: June 26, 2013, 15:36 »
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48187619@N03/9146305208/#
Best, I could do, Luis. I haven't figured out how to embed a print screen on here.
I don't see anything on sods there Rob
SOD's are negotiated between SS and the customer. There is no set price. That's why we see such a wide variation in royalties.
311
« on: June 23, 2013, 17:47 »
I was going from CS4 extended to just a "normal" CS6. So rather than an upgrade, I simply purchased a new CS6 disc for $449. No problem.
edit to correct price.
313
« on: June 14, 2013, 18:35 »
I'm still on CS4 and it's fine with me for what I need. I'll upgrade to CS6 in a couple of years when it's nice and cheap and then I'll just use the heck out of that version for the next 10 years. After that, well, I'll figure that out when I get there.
I won't be subscribing to software usage. Just doesn't feel right to me.
I agree on not subscribing. For my own situation, it does not make economic sense. For others it could well be the way to go. Every situation is unique. As to CS4, I just went through the exercise of upgrading my computer and went with Windows 7 at the same time. What I found was while I could load and activate CS4, I could not download most of the updates, including the RAW update needed to load 5D II files. So I located CS6 on line for $445 delivered (a disc, I don't like downloaded copies). Got it in 2 days, loaded it, added in all the plug-ins I use and all is well. Now I just need to get used to the new locations of the functions I use the most and learn some of the great and wonderful new functions they've added. You may not wish to wait too long if you are going to upgrade to CS6. You never know what games Adobe may wish to play in their never ending quest to increase profits at our expense. 
314
« on: May 30, 2013, 20:49 »
Thanks to several SOD's this week, my May dollars are the best ever for any May and brings this month up to the highest payout this year. I need to wait till tomorrow to get an accurate figure, but right now my RPD is running just under $1.00. Total number of sales, however, is down from last May by roughly 15%. Month started extremely slow, but seems to have picked up, for me at least, over the past two weeks.
Not much comfort to those who are still struggling, but perhaps it means there is light at the end of the tunnel. Let's hope so anyway.
315
« on: May 29, 2013, 19:46 »
I've been sitting here most of the afternoon, drinking my screwdrivers and working my way through 8 pages of comments. A few of you here know who I am, but I suspect most do not. I was raised at a time in history when personal information was considered just that ... personal. It was never, ever to be published to anyone who did not have an imminent reason to know. That was ingrained in me and I still believe in it. It's a cultural thing. That said, I have no problem letting Tyler know my full name and have a link to one or more of my portfolios. I seem to recall in a previous forum that something like this was suggested, that Tyler have this information and he alone would make the decision to admit an applicant to MSG. The downside to this, of course, is that it would bury Tyler up to his eyeballs in work ... something he needs like a bad case of social disease.  Never-the-less, I would have no problem with a one-time fee to cover this added work on his part. It only makes sense that if someone is commenting on some issue or another, he/she be qualified to make those comments. Perhaps some sort of icon could be added to the individual's forum name to indicate they had been vetted. The second part of this would be swift action against anyone, trolls or other, who abuse the privilege, and it is a privilege, of posting here. Perhaps a two week time-out for a first offense and total banning for continued offenses after the first time. Strict, even draconian, measures are likely the only thing that will reign in those who purposely abuse their posting privileges.
316
« on: May 27, 2013, 21:16 »
The use of the word "logo" either on the image itself, in the description or in the keywords is forbidden by SS. That will always get you a rejection. Seems counter-intuitive as that's one of the top 100 keywords, but that's the latest rule. If you want to put some general text in the image, such as "your message here" or some such, that's fine. Just never, ever, refer to anything as a logo.
Yes, i think this is the problem, but; where can i read a "rule list" or guidelines that show all this details. I mean, the only way to learn about this kind of things (eg. you cannot use the word logo in the illustrations) is making the mistake and then asking or searching for info?
Yes they are really quite remiss in keeping the listed rules up-to-date. Shutterbuzz has the current list of rules, but as I said, it's not always current. This was mentioned in their forums sometime back that this was the rule. I think if you pose the question on their Illustrators forum, someone there may be able to point you to the rule source. You may also wish to keep in mind that some other sites don't allow text of any sort on the images. Graphic Leftovers for example. So if you intend to submit to other agencies, you'll either have to keep two different master images, of drop text altogether.
317
« on: May 27, 2013, 20:40 »
The use of the word "logo" either on the image itself, in the description or in the keywords is forbidden by SS. That will always get you a rejection. Seems counter-intuitive as that's one of the top 100 keywords, but that's the latest rule. If you want to put some general text in the image, such as "your message here" or some such, that's fine. Just never, ever, refer to anything as a logo.
318
« on: May 22, 2013, 15:04 »
SS now is on Nasdaq, it's a public company, their mission now is not to survive but to GROW over time, that is making profits for their shareholders.
in order to so, either they grow their customer base or they cut costs or both.
Actually SS is on the NYSE, not NASDAQ and a third option is to somehow figure out a way to increase prices. Apart from that, you've pretty well hit their dilemma. Their stock took a fairly hard hit today. Even at that the stock is still at 47 times future earnings and 9 times sales. Over priced in my estimation. I sold my IPO shares when they went above $43. If they fall back to the upper $20's or low $30's I'll consider buying again.
319
« on: May 22, 2013, 10:29 »
Completely down for me. I can't even connect to the log-in page. Just the whirling circle of death.
320
« on: May 20, 2013, 11:12 »
Thanks for the comments. A couple of other points. 1. On the portfolio download page I have been checking the sales history of images. None of the missing sales dollars are showing up there. 2. I check each week on Sunday and the last sale on the list is dated May 9. Between May 12 (Sunday) and yesterday, May 19 (Sunday), no sales are recorded, yet the dollar value on the landing page increased by roughly $50.00. And BTW when I checked on the 12th, there was a smaller discrepancy over the preceding week and it's not been accounted for. At least everything is going in the right direction. It's just confusing trying to figure out where the money is coming from (or how to increase it ).
321
« on: May 19, 2013, 20:58 »
This is going to sound like a newbie question, but the problem has only really popped up in the past few months. When I check on my IS earnings, which I only do on a weekly basis, I first look at the number that comes up on the first page that appears after logging in. I then click on the little briefcase icon next to the earnings to go to the portfolio download page, click on sort by latest download date and view whatever the composition of the earnings may have been since the previous week. The problem I've been encountering is that the numbers don't match up. More specifically, the dollar figure on the landing page is higher, sometimes significantly, than what is shown on the portfolio download page. Payouts always match the higher value, which is a good thing, but I'd like to see where these earnings are coming from. I suspect what I may be seeing is the result of PP sales, but I don't see where these may be listed. I've tried the various links on the portfolio download page, but they don't seem to have any meaningful data on them. Any thoughts on where I should be looking to find these sales?
322
« on: May 18, 2013, 17:44 »
Since IS has no subscriptions (yet anyway), does this mean he's OK with having his GI content mirrored on IS, even though it's microstock?
iS does have subscriptions, but not as dirt cheap as elsewhere (which is fine by me!) and apparently not as successful.
http://www.istockphoto.com/help/buy-credits/subscriptions
I knew Thinkstock had them but was unaware that Istock had them as well. Has this been around forever or is it a relatively new addition? Not sure how I overlooked it.
323
« on: May 18, 2013, 12:00 »
Indeed. Not the end - just the furniture being moved around a bit. I feel this says more about Yuri's overheads than it does about the demise of microstock.
No doubt those who have copied his style and lighting will do very well on non-Getty agencies in his absence.
Great post btw Sharpshot.
More like the deck chairs being moved around on the Titanic.
324
« on: May 18, 2013, 11:42 »
Looks like they got everything fixed overnight, but boy did sales ever take a header while things were messed up.
325
« on: May 18, 2013, 11:40 »
I don't see any reason to delete the thread.
A lot of words about sjlocke but too few about rob sylvan after the G/G deal. However he is now in Stocky so good luck.
agree. Even Lobo said a nice goodby ... except I didn't catch the meaning of the "Bees" remark.
Pages: 1 ... 8 9 10 11 12 [13] 14 15 16 17 18 ... 25
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
