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Messages - cthoman
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326
« on: June 30, 2015, 19:58 »
What could possibly go wrong with that? 
327
« on: June 24, 2015, 10:32 »
Ss has said many many times that they don't want to do exclusivity. Image exclusivity is easier than artist exclusivity (iStock does only the latter, DT and FT do both)
I was an iStock exclusive for a while (2008-2011) and it's not a trivial thing to leave and build things back up again. Given the rise and fall of empires, I don't think I'd ever do artist exclusive again - and given the agency behavior over the last couple of years, I don't trust any of them to have contributor interests in their sights.
Image exclusivity is something I'd consider depending on the agency (and the market they sell to) and the terms. If the agency can't move the exclusive items, you have higher theoretical earnings and zero actual cash.
Yeah, the market seems way too volatile to go exclusive. It would be nice to trust one company to provide a stable income, but I don't see any that are even close to that (for me, anyway).
328
« on: June 22, 2015, 16:54 »
I'm surprised nobody is outraged to see that Apple is paying more than 70% royalties while iStock is paying us as little as 15%.
I'm surprised that people who act so outraged about the royalty rate choose to put their work there. I know I wouldn't. Take some personal responsibility.
I tried that. It didn't work, although I did get my 20% back at iStock... so, I guess there are the little victories.
Sounds like it did work. After you pulled your files you were no longer getting paid 15% right? And on top of that they changed the royalty rate.
I also lost a lot of money, file positioning, a ton of time and an agency that was at one time my top earner (that's not coming back). All that for a couple percentage points back. So yeah, would not recommend it to others as a strategy. It's a lot easier to talk about it than to do it. Especially when it is your money/business/livelihood.
You also aren't constantly posting how outraged you are, I'm guessing you understand that you made the choice to upload and license your work at that rate.
LOL. I didn't realize I was so angry. I'm actually not outraged at all. I've pretty much accepted that it is what it is. I'll take my money and if things improve, then they improve. I don't have any axes to grind against any agencies. I fought my fight and took my lumps. If you can't beat them, join them. 
329
« on: June 22, 2015, 16:30 »
I'm surprised nobody is outraged to see that Apple is paying more than 70% royalties while iStock is paying us as little as 15%.
I'm surprised that people who act so outraged about the royalty rate choose to put their work there. I know I wouldn't. Take some personal responsibility.
I tried that. It didn't work, although I did get my 20% back at iStock... so, I guess there are the little victories.
Sounds like it did work. After you pulled your files you were no longer getting paid 15% right? And on top of that they changed the royalty rate.
I also lost a lot of money, file positioning, a ton of time and an agency that was at one time my top earner (that's not coming back). All that for a couple percentage points back. So yeah, would not recommend it to others as a strategy. It's a lot easier to talk about it than to do it. Especially when it is your money/business/livelihood.
330
« on: June 22, 2015, 15:40 »
I'm surprised nobody is outraged to see that Apple is paying more than 70% royalties while iStock is paying us as little as 15%.
I'm surprised that people who act so outraged about the royalty rate choose to put their work there. I know I wouldn't. Take some personal responsibility.
I tried that. It didn't work, although I did get my 20% back at iStock... so, I guess there are the little victories.
331
« on: June 22, 2015, 13:04 »
I think if the single largest contributor to microstock went to an agency and said enough is enough, something might change. So far, that hasn't happened. That single largest contributor made a deal to benefit him/herself and forgot about the rest of the contributors. And if even one or two more of the largest contributors joined in, something might have changed. I guess we will never know now.
Good for Taylor Swift and the others standing up for themselves. Even if it was a publicity stunt.
Didn't he do that? He basically got nowhere with the other agencies. Granted, these were deals that were just for him, but I can't really blame anybody for looking out for just themselves in this business.
332
« on: June 19, 2015, 12:57 »
It's a long journey and you are going to make mistakes along the way. I know I've made a lot (not just in microstock ). Just do what you think is best and learn from your mistakes.
333
« on: June 18, 2015, 14:43 »
Nobody needs to worry. I've defeated all the windmills. 
334
« on: June 18, 2015, 14:02 »
Yes we'll see but it's a fact that any buyer that converts from SS to Adobe is going to result in a substantial loss of revenue for you.
What can't cause a substantial loss in revenue these days? You can probably just add this to the long list. Yay! Positivity!
There are some people that are positive about this but I think that's just because they don't understand it.
I thought it was positive news. It's nice to see Fotolia move things in the other direction for a change. I have no reason to be negative about it because it has yet to impact me (if it ever does). When I see the needle moving, then I'll pivot to change with the market. Until then, there really isn't much use to worrying about it. I've got enough on my plate already.
Why do you think it's positive news? Do you believe they'll bring in a lot of customers that would never have bought stock images without them entering the marketplace? They would need to bring in a lot of new customers (not just new customers but new customers that wouldn't have gone with SS) to offset the losses that you'll have from buyers leaving SS.
paying more = positive news
Everything else is just speculation.
They aren't paying more though. True there is a higher royalty rate for some things but it's on lower priced images. Royalty rate and prices are much lower if you are exclusive with Fotolia. Subs pay the same rate. If they convert buyers from SS you'll get less money for every type of sale until you sell 1,000,000 images and even then you'll still get substantially less than you would for On Demand sales at SS.
I don't get to vote for the king, so I'll either make money or have to move on to another kingdom. Fotolia is about as relevant as Crestock for me, so they have a lot of usurping to do.
335
« on: June 18, 2015, 13:36 »
Yes we'll see but it's a fact that any buyer that converts from SS to Adobe is going to result in a substantial loss of revenue for you.
What can't cause a substantial loss in revenue these days? You can probably just add this to the long list. Yay! Positivity!
There are some people that are positive about this but I think that's just because they don't understand it.
I thought it was positive news. It's nice to see Fotolia move things in the other direction for a change. I have no reason to be negative about it because it has yet to impact me (if it ever does). When I see the needle moving, then I'll pivot to change with the market. Until then, there really isn't much use to worrying about it. I've got enough on my plate already.
Why do you think it's positive news? Do you believe they'll bring in a lot of customers that would never have bought stock images without them entering the marketplace? They would need to bring in a lot of new customers (not just new customers but new customers that wouldn't have gone with SS) to offset the losses that you'll have from buyers leaving SS.
paying more = positive news Everything else is just speculation.
336
« on: June 18, 2015, 13:31 »
Yes we'll see but it's a fact that any buyer that converts from SS to Adobe is going to result in a substantial loss of revenue for you.
What can't cause a substantial loss in revenue these days? You can probably just add this to the long list. Yay! Positivity!
There are some people that are positive about this but I think that's just because they don't understand it.
I thought it was positive news. It's nice to see Fotolia move things in the other direction for a change. I have no reason to be negative about it because it has yet to impact me (if it ever does). When I see the needle moving, then I'll pivot to change with the market. Until then, there really isn't much use to worrying about it. I've got enough on my plate already.
337
« on: June 18, 2015, 12:43 »
Yes we'll see but it's a fact that any buyer that converts from SS to Adobe is going to result in a substantial loss of revenue for you.
What can't cause a substantial loss in revenue these days? You can probably just add this to the long list. Yay! Positivity!
338
« on: June 16, 2015, 10:35 »
I agree but SS will probably respond so they don't lose too much market share. The most obvious way would be by lowering prices.
Anything is possible, but that solution seems to ignore the last 5 years in micro for SS.
How so? Shutterstock has been taking market share for the last 5 years this seems like it could be a real challenge.
In that SS has had most of its growth in the last years based on higher priced packages. It clearly seems like the trend they have been moving towards. Obviously, subs are a stable workhorse, but lowering prices on those is a double-edged sword. They will probably have to bear some of the brunt of any price lowering with losses in profit, since contributor claw backs have not typically gone well for companies. But if they want to ignore all that, then they can. It would seem weird to do that though. That and as others have said, they'd be losing market share on services offered not price. So, what impact would it have to lower prices? Are cheaper subs going to lure you away from convenience? Probably not. Since there isn't much of an Adobe competitor they could work on their Facebook deal or something with another company like the Microsoft deal, but I'm not sure how well any of those have gone. I guess you could try to buy Adobe, but that seems insane.
339
« on: June 16, 2015, 10:11 »
I agree but SS will probably respond so they don't lose too much market share. The most obvious way would be by lowering prices.
Anything is possible, but that solution seems to ignore the last 5 years in micro for SS.
340
« on: June 09, 2015, 16:43 »
Where I live in the northeast, $30k a year will have you just barely above the poverty level.
Is it worth it ? you could live fairly well with 15K or 20K anywhere in south east asia surrounded by hot girls and cheap booze.
Not all of us are particularly interested in hot girls or cheap booze. Just sayin'
Yeah, Mrs. ArenaCreative might have something to say about all that.
341
« on: June 09, 2015, 15:31 »
I've been looking at a few threads today and noticed a lot of "Disagree" negatives for people asking simple question or reporting facts. Shouldn't as a community be encouraging people rather than coming across as a bunch of know it all miserable gits who don't want to help or encourage anyone to join our exclusive club of self appointed experts?
If that worked, then I'd definitely spend more time being disagreeable. They keep joining anyway though.
342
« on: June 07, 2015, 12:24 »
The bad news is that there is probably always going to be some obstacles like this. The good news is that these companies often change and reverse some of their old policies. I guess you can just do whatever you think is best and hope that these places will catch up eventually.
343
« on: June 07, 2015, 09:47 »
Possible to support a family decently on $30K in the US???
Self-employment tax is going to eat into that pretty good too.
344
« on: June 06, 2015, 14:26 »
I can only comment at my going rate of $150 an hour, due to my cost of living.
LOL. Send out an invoice.
345
« on: June 04, 2015, 08:35 »
Yeah, there appears to be some problems with some of the facts in that article.
346
« on: May 25, 2015, 13:57 »
I used to make $100 a month with the referral program and now I make $0, so I'm not sure there is too much to explain. They killed their referral program.
347
« on: May 21, 2015, 13:29 »
so...you know what that means..right?
That someone is probably stealing my artwork.
348
« on: May 16, 2015, 15:10 »
I think I'm failing to see what the big outrage is here. I'll admit I haven't been following all the developments going on with Symbiostock, but somebody still needs to run the ship or you'll wake up one day with your site in flames and trying to pick up the pieces. I'm speaking from experience.
robin has already declared he WILL NOT support legacy sites beyond providing a way to migrate to his proprietary, as yet untested software, and his vaporware search engine
leo otoh has said he will support existing symbiostock sites against problems arising from wp changes, and he has proven to be reliable in doing so
Ah, I see. That was already a problem anyway. I don't have a big problem with paying or someone monetizing the software as long as it is going to be stable and maintained. I guess I'll probably just have to research where I put my time and resources for the future. Abandonware seems to be a big issue with self-hosted solutions.
349
« on: May 16, 2015, 11:14 »
I think I'm failing to see what the big outrage is here. I'll admit I haven't been following all the developments going on with Symbiostock, but somebody still needs to run the ship or you'll wake up one day with your site in flames and trying to pick up the pieces. I'm speaking from experience.
350
« on: April 08, 2015, 09:58 »
Sounds interesting. I'm not sure if I can run any testing right now (too much stuff going on), but I'm definitely curious to see how it goes.
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