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Messages - PaulieWalnuts
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301
« on: May 18, 2017, 14:29 »
Back then the big discussion was Should I go exclusive with iStock? Probably the worst thing I could have done would have been to go exclusive, and fortunately I resisted the temptation. But believe me, the temptation was there.
Back in these days I believe it was a wrong decision. I left the other sites and went exclusive with Istock; two monts later I was earning 2X; one year later I was earning 10X. Yes, now is (very, very) different, things began to go down the toilet about 2011-2012, but the ride was incredible. The expensive home I own is a testimony of this.
Similar experience. 10 years ago Istock offered incentives and was more friendly. I was also earning more there than anywhere else. So went exclusive and it was an awesome ride. RPI was great. Way more than being independent. Then all the changes started happening, incentives slowly removed, friendliness went away, and so did the money. Growth stalled around 2012 and it was obvious where things were headed. Turned in the crown and moved on to other things. Dont regret any of it. I also have a lot of things that I would never have had without photography. Amazing times we live in.
302
« on: May 17, 2017, 22:14 »
We aren't all english experts. It was a subject I hated in school, I'm sure that's the same for a lot of photographers.
No, it was my favorite subject at school! As a matter of fact, in one year, I was the best at my school. English was probably the only good thing that I learned at that stupid school. But I didn't grow up in an English-speaking country nor am I a native speaker.
I don't mind people making mistakes, but one thing does irritate me: when native speakers don't understand the difference and confuse "you're" with "your" and "there" with "they're" or "their". People who have learned English as a foreign language usually don't make such mistakes.
Your write. Its a loosing battle trying to correct there spelling.
303
« on: May 17, 2017, 22:10 »
Nice writeup. I'm at 10 years too. Been a great journey.
304
« on: May 13, 2017, 10:34 »
I had one more sale earlier this year. Their blog was being regularly updated until Oct 2015 and then just stopped. No other updates or press. Seems to be a ghost ship adrift at sea. Wonder what happened.
305
« on: April 21, 2017, 19:34 »
I am not too sure there are any really big earners left at Getty. I know in the old days there was some huge earners but not today. I was actually planning on getting out of micro quit SS and Adobe all of them and take my port with me and concentrate on the smaller more traditional agencies but I guess I have to persevere another year or something.
I'm sure there's still some people making big money but I'd guess they're the ones that have deep pockets and connections to be able to fulfill requests like "Large group of LGBT diverse ethnicity fit seniors playing shuffleboard on a cruise ship".
306
« on: April 21, 2017, 14:23 »
Back in the day my goal was to get into Getty. I made it and for a while the RPI was amazing but I was late to the party. As micro grew my macro revenue quickly dropped. Big sales were replaced by sales of a few dollars or cents. Or even a fraction of a cent. Seriously, .0001.
I'm sure there are still plenty of people making big money there but they're probably making equally huge investments to produce unique or highly niche imagery. The days of submitting generic stuff and making big money are long gone. And the type of stuff I shoot isn't what they want anymore. The stuff they want now would cost a small fortune in production costs to create and I decided I wasn't going to risk the money to see if I'd get big dollars or pennies in return.
307
« on: April 20, 2017, 11:06 »
Yes those are two common ways. I started with iStock as an exclusive and got a contract with Getty through them.
You can also submit images to other macro sites and many of them partner with Getty and sell images through them. There are also a couple of mobile apps that sublicense images through Getty.
308
« on: March 12, 2017, 10:33 »
I got away from micro to go sell prints where I can make tens to thousands of dollars per sale. And now micro is invading prints.
Just did a quick check and they don't seem to be going with rock bottom pricing. The article says "unframed 11-by-17-inch poster runs at about $20". Art.com sells 12x18 size for around $18. On my site 12x18 size is priced at $100. So they may be going with competitive pricing rather than competitor-killing pricing. For now.
SS hasn't said a word about this to contributors so either they're late doing an announcement or there's nothing good to announce for contributors. If they offer the standard 33%, $6 isn't much on an already dirt cheap $20 print. Or what if they pay a standard subscription of 33 cents per print sale?
Problem with this whole dirt cheap pricing thing for prints is that when I experimented with prices I found I actually sell more prints at higher prices.
Feeling like I'm on the wrong side of this business.
309
« on: January 20, 2017, 07:16 »
I have a Photodeck website for selling RM licensing and prints. It does pretty well.
Is it worth the time and effort? Depends. Do you have, or can you create, something unique that's not already overdone on stock sites? Are you good with SEO or are willing to learn it? Are you good with promoting through social media or are willing to learn? Are you prepared to invest a lot of time? If yes, then it would probably be worth your time.
310
« on: January 15, 2017, 12:25 »
I'd suggest sticking with the Sony and maybe try and find cheaper ones somewhere like Ebay. I tried a couple different non-Sony brands and my A7R literally went wacko. The camera shutter would stick open past the set shutter speed. Shut off. LCD would go blank. I thought the camera was screwed up but after putting the Sony battery back in it worked fine. I'm sure there are some brands that might work okay but I wouldn't waste the money trying to figure out it out.
311
« on: January 07, 2017, 12:00 »
Well i'm not so experienced in micro, have been on for about two years now, uploading on and off. This last 3 months i'v seen lots of progress, increasing amount of dwl, and each month turn out to be bme. This December was the best ever. Then yesterday i read about how things are not really what they seem to be! I read that things are good for newbies only, those of the .25 group. I swear i'm getting sales more than ever every time i increase my port. But....! I'm afraid. Am I losing my time to get nothing in return in the long run? Am I being fooled with those daily dwl? What is the reality of the 'success' i am witnessing daily? Please share with me your experience. I made a resolution to take this business real serious this year. Am I doing the right thing? Some of my vectors are on the first page on shutterstock. I'm more of a calligrapher, I don't really upload photos that are over rated in most agencies like nature, business, etc. I do fonts, calligraphic logo, arabic calligraphy, vectors in general. For the moment my only agency is shutterstock. Should I continue or not. Advice me. Thankxx
Nobody can predict how you'll do. You may hit a wall or you may learn enough along the way to keep growing your income. The business changes rapidly and you'll need to overcome the constant obstacles. I started in micro and have been selling photos for 10 years. I was just about doubling micro income every year for the first few years and I started seeing signs of growth stalling after about five years. After six years growth was a struggle. But it's different for everyone. If you're in this for the long term and are hoping to make a living I'd suggest starting to diversify now and see if you can add places to sell your work like prints, products, etc. Or start branching out into offering services like family portraits, etc. That way if you hit a wall in micro it doesn't impact your overall income as much. I still do a little micro but I've branched out into other things and am making more money now than I probably ever could with just micro alone. Good luck!
312
« on: January 07, 2017, 11:46 »
Deep Meta now only shows the january stats. where can I find the december earnings?
When you're logged into iS:
http://www.istockphoto.com/user_stats.php?id=1377188&Offset=0&DownloadsGraphFileType=
Thanks for that. Just did a bunch of screenshots for each year going back to 2007. 10 years! Took a little trip down memory lane and scrolled through them all. For the first few years I was doubling income every year. I remember how exciting it all was. Good times!
313
« on: December 30, 2016, 12:54 »
For products like mugs, pillows, etc you have no control over pricing and the margins are low. I've sold a few small things and that earned me a total of $5.
can you share your S6 profile? Can you look at my profile (link in original post) and give your opinion? I've sold nothing directly (a few prints were sold via friends) and I'm just wondering if there's something I need to do different / something that sells better?
I looked at yours and I also do landscape and cityscape type of work. Which now that I think about it may also be part of the problem for both of us. If you look at the Society6 homepage it's unique custom illustrations and artsy stuff for the younger crowd. Younger people aren't going to buy a picture of a city for a tshirt. So in general the buyers they market to may not be right for landscape/cityscape work and for selling more expensive prints.
314
« on: December 30, 2016, 08:52 »
I joined Society6 a few months ago to test it with a few dozen images I know sell well elsewhere.
The upload process is horrendously bad and time consuming. No default price template so you need to set individual print product prices for each upload. Don't recognize IPTC so metadata needs to be typed in or copy/paste. Bulk editing is limited. Pretty rudimentary stuff.
For products like mugs, pillows, etc you have no control over pricing and the margins are low. I've sold a few small things and that earned me a total of $5.
So, if I had to take a guess, their buyers seem to be price conscious people who buy small things. Unless I start seeing some larger sales of prints I'm not going to bother with adding more images. I'm more interested in trying to find places that have buyers who spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on prints.
315
« on: December 30, 2016, 08:40 »
RB and FAA is what? sorry
RedBubble and FineArtAmerica
316
« on: December 30, 2016, 08:37 »
My thoughts on direct selling is that it is business model not likely to succeed, or rather not generate enough sales for it to have been worth anyone's time. From reading various threads over the years here, I think that has turned out to be the case. Think about it from the customer's point of view. I used to buy stock photos for work, so I once thought like a customer. How am I going to spend the least amount of time searching for the best possible image for myself or my client? I'm going to go a mega big site like shutterstock or istockphoto or adobestock, or gettyimages because I know that is where I'll spend the least amount of time getting the right image for my project. Can you imagine the nightmare it would be if I had to remember 500 individual photographer's websites and go to each one by one and do my search in the hopes they might have something suitable? The latter just isn't going to happen. Say you get an individual website up to sell photos. How are you going to let the hundreds of thousands of graphic designers know you exist? Will you be spending tens of thousands of dollars on Google adwords? You guys are trying to solve a problem that exist for you, but does not exist for the customer.
It will succeed if you understand why buyers search places other than the big stock sites. Then offer something unique to address their needs and have a strategy for them to find you. The approach that hasn't worked for contributors is to take their microstock portfolio, dump it into a website, and hope to sell something. The question nobody seems to ask is, what does your website offer that buyers can't get through the big stock sites? Like you said, think like a customer.
317
« on: December 23, 2016, 20:27 »
I use Photodeck and really like it. They offer free trials.
318
« on: December 14, 2016, 07:43 »
Ah yes, USA
319
« on: December 14, 2016, 07:13 »
Has anyone here passed this exam? Difficult? Exam prep suggestions?
320
« on: November 29, 2016, 18:36 »
The owner Peter Chigmaroff is a member here. If you have questions PM him and I'm sure he'll respond. I dont have any aerial stuff so unfortunately cant help much. http://www.microstockgroup.com/profile/?u=1383
321
« on: November 28, 2016, 19:21 »
I am a noob and i am trying to get into stock and I dont understand what its happening. I see people complain about revenue and that they stopped producing years ago and my question is why are they still here wasting time on this forums ? I dont mean to be rude but something does not sound right to me  ....
I don't waste much time. I do way better in other areas outside of micro so I don't come here much anymore. I check in once in a while hoping micro will turn around but things still seem headed downward.
What's happening? A lot of people who used to make a living making thousands per month are now making hundreds per month even though they submitted thousands of images with the "shoot, upload, repeat" method. Dont care? Ok. For you new people or people who live in areas where the cost of living is lower and hundreds of dollars per months sounds great, what if you had the same situation happen to you? Like in a couple years you went from earning $500 per month and living well down to $50 per month? Or $5 per month? And micro no longer paid your bills? You'd probably quit or... come back here complaining about it.
You have a place to "quit" only in some wealthy country. There are not so many photography or video related options to quit microstock in Russia or some other third world country today.
Well, if micro isn't paying enough aren't there other options for a different type of job? I've seen plenty stories of photographers having to "get a job" because they can't make it as a photographer anymore.
322
« on: November 28, 2016, 19:13 »
Everybody in this forum knows the theory of THE WALL.
I belief that The Wall is related to Burnout. Unhappiness, worries, anger, complaints suck the energy and creativity of your brain, which means that your performance will decrease. and you finally will hit The Wall.
LOL, maybe sometimes but I think you mostly have that backwards. Those things are what happen after you hit the wall.
323
« on: November 28, 2016, 08:04 »
I am a noob and i am trying to get into stock and I dont understand what its happening. I see people complain about revenue and that they stopped producing years ago and my question is why are they still here wasting time on this forums ? I dont mean to be rude but something does not sound right to me ....
I don't waste much time. I do way better in other areas outside of micro so I don't come here much anymore. I check in once in a while hoping micro will turn around but things still seem headed downward. What's happening? A lot of people who used to make a living making thousands per month are now making hundreds per month even though they submitted thousands of images with the "shoot, upload, repeat" method. Dont care? Ok. For you new people or people who live in areas where the cost of living is lower and hundreds of dollars per months sounds great, what if you had the same situation happen to you? Like in a couple years you went from earning $500 per month and living well down to $50 per month? Or $5 per month? And micro no longer paid your bills? You'd probably quit or... come back here complaining about it.
324
« on: November 27, 2016, 12:02 »
I make a living on micros since 5 years. In my country there is unemployment all over and the chances for decent employment dropped to zero in some areas, which means I am entirely dependent on my creativity. I am happy with every single cent in any hard currency.
I am doing illustrations only, I dont need expensive equipment, models, studio and so on. A simple notebook and some open source software is all what I need. Going through the images I started with years ago, I am getting self-doubts, gosh, what kind of crap. And the crap made money, what kind of a miracle. Micros and a piece of land around the house for vegetables are feeding me and my family pretty well.
What I am only worried is: will I run short of creativity one day?
You may or may not run out of creativity. But one thing is certain that applies to everybody. Micro sites will continue to squeeze contributors by dropping commissions, removing benefits, or coming up with vague new licensing schemes that are a disadvantage to contributors until it financially hurts them. Which means contributors are leaving in waves every time there's a squeeze. Eventually things may drop to a point where it's no longer worth your time. That's been the trend. At some point image factories may take over where people are getting paid $1 a day to crank out hundreds of images per person and the market will be so flooded that few independent contributors will be making enough money to be profitable regardless of where you live. This is the nature of business. Walmartstock.
325
« on: November 27, 2016, 10:47 »
How many years does it take for a microstocker to run into a burn-out syndrom?
And how to overcome it? To take a break? For how long?
How to overcome a creativity block?
Any experience?
If I was still making money and seeing growth from my efforts I may not have burnt out. I quit about three years ago after five years of submitting. When I first started, I got really motivated when I saw revenue increasing consistently when I added new images. It was awesome for a few years until the plateau hit and then the drop. The hamster wheel. I still experiment with stuff like mobile to see if there's anything new that makes it worth my time but haven't found it yet. I spend my time producing stuff outside of micro where I still find profits and growth. I also license my own stuff through my site. Like Mantis said, things are shifting. Up until a few years ago equipment and quality requirements were so high it prevented a lot of people from entering micro. Now the requirements are so low that anyone with a cellphone can join micro which opened up the competition floodgates to just about anyone anywhere in the world. And micros will continue squeezing people until they find that fine line where taking away too much negatively affects their financials. Hasn't happened yet and there's no bottom in sight. Wish it wasn't this way because in the beginning I was so excited. I actually thought I could live off of this with just a few thousand images. Now I'd need tens of thousands and it's not viable.
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