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Messages - PaulieWalnuts
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326
« on: November 10, 2016, 21:12 »
Just tried adding some products to Zazzle. Maybe I'm missing something but this has to be most poorly designed, least intuitive, time consuming upload interface. No IPTC recognition. Then you need to repeat the creation process for each product per image and repeat the title, description and tags entry. The Quick Create / Template is also convoluted and I'm not sure saves any time.
Society6 is worse in that it doesn't even offer default settings and is brutally time consuming.
It would take months to upload a few hundred images to either of these.
How difficult could it be to design a simple intuitive upload process? Especially when there are already sites that have easier processes to use as a reference.
327
« on: November 10, 2016, 12:40 »
From the votes it looks like the only one which are worth a try are Zazzle, Fineartamerica, and Redbubble.
I will test these in the next few months. And I will also try to automate everything I can to sell on Ebay, Amazon and Etsy (not sure about this last one as it has a fee to list products) with a 3rd party service to print and dropship the products.
How are sales on Amazon? For prints I thought you had to be represented by a gallery or one of their partner sites? How did you get products on there?
328
« on: October 27, 2016, 21:45 »
I had a buyer buy a dozen prints a year ago and nothing since. I had high hopes for Crated. Seems well designed. But doesn't look like they promote the site. Ghost town.
329
« on: October 27, 2016, 21:40 »
... I called legal and asked if I could upload elsewhere and they answered yes under a different username, and not the same files.
Does that apply to all iS exclusives, or was it a special deal they were prepared to offer you?
I too would like to know this! Very curious.
Their policy for exclusives has always been they own your soul for RF. You can have a different RM portfolio elsewhere. But who knows maybe things have changed.
330
« on: October 27, 2016, 21:36 »
I would take the $500,000 and build a time machine. I would then charge $100,000 per photographer to send them back to the 1990's when stock photographers earned seven figures annually.
331
« on: October 14, 2016, 20:34 »
I like Alamy and am glad they're doing well. I just don't think my work is right for the buyers they have. With 600 images I'm pocketing about $10 per month. Thats an RPIPM of .01 cent. Not a profitable use of time unfortunately.
332
« on: August 31, 2016, 14:00 »
God forbid you should pay fair rates, so the drivers who are keeping those cars clean and pretending to enjoy making less than minimum wage while working a second job on the weekends so you'll come back again, can be paid fairly.
And that's the catch. What should determine what they get paid? Right now it's supply and demand. Same as microstock. If there are a ton of drivers who are unprofitable or underpaid because they're only looking at what they're paid and not what profit they're left with after operating costs then that's going to lean toward a generally unprofitable model for many, of not most, drivers. If most drivers quit because the pay or profit sucked, Uber would need to pay more to get drivers. Uber profits no matter what. It's like taking a part time job in a major city where you work 20 hours a week at $8 per hour. After taxes you end up with $110 dollars. Weekly gas, tolls, and parking cost $150. You're literally losing money working. I've been surprised at how many people only look at the $110 and not anything else before accepting the job. If you get into a forced model, like a union, then pay may go up but you introduce new problems. I worked in a couple unions and one downside in my experience is it protected useless people who in most regular jobs would be fired. And the decent people had to pick up their slack and work harder. Not sure what downsides there would be for Uber drivers with this model but I'm sure there would be some. Until something happens to regulate pay, drivers need to understand how to run a profitable business. That goes for microstockers too. If everyone moved away from the "at least it's something" mentality, supply would drop and micro sites would have no choice but to offer incentives such as better royalties and/or higher prices to encourage people to submit.
333
« on: August 29, 2016, 19:21 »
On a side note, my recent experience with Uber was outstanding: clean cars, polite drivers, easy to use app with immediate response. Overall much cheaper (about half the price) than private long term parking or regulated taxis, and much, much cheaper than the official airport long-term parking. A great deal!
I just tried Uber for the first time on a recent trip and my experience was total opposite. Each time I made a request they never could seem to find where I was even though my map showed exactly where I was standing probably within a couple foot radius. I added the name of the hotel and full address and they went to the back and through it was an apartment building. Marriott Courtyard apartment building? I watched one driver pass me twice on the Uber map which she then had to drive a mile to come back around. Because of traffic and one way streets this took forever. During each ride I literally had to pull up a mapping app on my phone to show them where to go. They still missed turns and exit ramps. One guy was totally driving the wrong way and told him to turn around because my destination was literally on the same street a mile in the opposite direction. I can't remember ever having this happen in a cab. Any cab driver seems to know exactly where to go by just the name of the hotel or even building and never misses an exit getting there. What I really think is needed is an Uber style app that connects all of the cab companies together. That way you get the convenience of the Uber app with the experience of a real cab driver. The Uber fares may be cheaper but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle. Maybe in the case of photographers it's worth it to pay extra for an experienced pro.
334
« on: August 28, 2016, 08:55 »
Looks pretty nice but it's overkill for me just for microstock. My revenue has dropped to a point where it would probably take a year or two just break even on something like this so can't justify it. A few years ago I could have easily justified it. I started submitting to micro again but only opportunistic snapshots using my iPhone.
335
« on: August 20, 2016, 08:12 »
IIRC, Getty has long had a no individual image deactivation policy.
snip Because Getty is for adults who submit an image without the intention of removing them on some emotional whim because of the illusion on this forum that everyone else is removing their images.
I certainly agree there is some of that going on here, but images are the property of the copyright holder, not Getty. There are plenty of other reasons why a person might want to change/remove images besides being a flaky photographer.
In the 25+ years I have been a stock photographer I have only once removed an image because of a request from the property owner, even though they signed a property release. Apart from that I see no need to remove anything. I am a shoot it, upload it, forget about it sort of photographer. I have no clue which image will sell better and/or where it will sell better. I have shots that I thought would be total winners and they have never sold, I have a shot that is average that ended up on IS and it has made over 12K. I guess I simply prefer to spend my time out shooting as opposed to micro managing single images.
I am also fairly certain GI is aware you are the copyright holder and if you want to remove an image they will do so for a legitimate reason. Just use this forum for example, a classic herd mentality of removing images. Remember when Sean go the boot? Herd mentality again protesting a personal conflict and removing images. Kind of silly I think.
I also don't like Getty as far as a company is concerned and further to that I really think the attitude of the former CEO is arrogant, but that still does not change the fact (in my view) they are in many ways the only game in town if you really want to make a full on living.
With IS I removed about half of my images because I wanted to shift that category of images into a premium price level and only sell them directly from my website. This is my business and to run and optimize my business sometimes decisions like this need to be made. Most of the policies these sites put in place are to protect them and also allow the flexibility to make changes to their business to be more profitable, competitive, or whatever. Totally understand. Unfortunately, these same policy changes can limit my ability to make changes to my business to be more profitable, competitive, or whatever. There needs to be a reasonable balance but that balance seems to be constantly shifting to the advantage of the sites and disadvantage to me. Now, I totally understand if they wanted to have policies around the extreme situations where people flake and yank their portfolios, then resubmit them, then yank them again, etc. I'd guess that's fairly rare and maybe should be handled individually instead of penalizing everyone for the actions of a small percentage of people. Ultimately it's their business and their contracts state they can make changes whenever they want. Until something comes along to disrupt the current stock business model we can only accept it or move on.
336
« on: August 15, 2016, 10:33 »
Does Pixendr or any other app add the iPTC directly to the image file or is it just stored in in Pixendr?
337
« on: August 07, 2016, 08:38 »
And it is even less hard to search for yourself
338
« on: August 07, 2016, 07:49 »
give me the links please...
So you want to organize a union but can't even use a simple search function? There are dozens of posts with union brought up in them and if you click the "Search in topic subjects only" you will find several posts specifically about organizing a union. Do your own research please...
339
« on: August 04, 2016, 18:20 »
Prices will go up when supply drops significantly. Take that however you want.
Regrading a union, I'm not sure I'd even want to join if there was one.
340
« on: August 03, 2016, 16:53 »
I specialize in cities and have removed most of my work from both micros and macros. I now mostly sell directly through my website where prices per RM usage license range from $25 up to a few thousand dollars and I get 100%. Macros are now selling at micro prices. It's not worth it to me to spend a ton of time and money on flights, hotels, rental cars, gas, parking, and camera equipment to get up at 4AM and hike until after midnight to get a few cents. At one time the mix of price and sales volume made worth it for me but not now.
341
« on: July 30, 2016, 08:45 »
Probably kind of hard to stay in business when on your homepage you have a huge icon encouraging visitors to go to 87 other sites that offer free images instead of staying to pay for yours.
342
« on: July 21, 2016, 12:05 »
And yes there are hundreds or more new contributors (boats) joining every month you have to compete against for the same buyer.
You may be right, Paulie, but this statement makes me wonder.
Given the world's overall population growth, is there any reason why the number of contributors and the number of buyers doesn't remain roughly in balance?
Absolutely a great point. When I saw some of SS recent financials I got the impression library growth was outpacing sales growth which is why I keep mentioning supply/demand. But again it's only my impression. The numbers would need to be analyzed to verify that. Again could be dozens of possible causes.
343
« on: July 21, 2016, 08:14 »
Higher Res at a reasonable cost. 120MP would be ideal.
344
« on: July 21, 2016, 07:50 »
We may all be in the same boat but were all in competition for life jackets. I am waiting for SS figures for some verifiable facts. I suspect the boat is still getting bigger but not as fast as the number of passengers and the amount of luggage they carry.
I look at it more like we all own our own boats and use a travel agency to get paying passengers. There are a limited number of paying passengers and hundreds of new boats are showing up daily to provide services. Because of this, each boat is getting less and less passengers even though the travel agency sees an increase in passenger volume and sales. It's simply supply outpacing demand and some good or bad luck with agency algorithms. Competition at it's finest.
I don't buy this theory. There is no hundreds of boats from one month to other. For me June was not a bad month but july was worst month ever. It is not possible going near zero from june to july. I think there is another reason.
Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk
Okay, don't buy my theory. Aliens? Pokemon? There could be hundreds of different reasons one person is seeing a drop is sales. I mentioned supply/demand and algorithm change. Supply/demand would cause a steady change in sales for contributors unless there was a demand spike. Algorithm tweak would cause an immediate change in sales for contributors. My sales have been steady but July I'm trending way up. Algorithm tweak seems like a reasonable cause for both of us. And yes there are hundreds or more new contributors (boats) joining every month you have to compete against for the same buyer.
345
« on: July 20, 2016, 20:16 »
I look at it theres more images and contributors every day to share the earnings with, or is that too complicated? haha
Too complicated. People relate to boats. And cats. And cats in boats. If you could go ahead and write something about cats in boats that would be great.
346
« on: July 20, 2016, 17:23 »
We may all be in the same boat but were all in competition for life jackets. I am waiting for SS figures for some verifiable facts. I suspect the boat is still getting bigger but not as fast as the number of passengers and the amount of luggage they carry.
I look at it more like we all own our own boats and use a travel agency to get paying passengers. There are a limited number of paying passengers and hundreds of new boats are showing up daily to provide services. Because of this, each boat is getting less and less passengers even though the travel agency sees an increase in passenger volume and sales. It's simply supply outpacing demand and some good or bad luck with agency algorithms. Competition at it's finest.
347
« on: July 19, 2016, 19:29 »
"For the pros who jumped in early, along with the flood of amateurs, what do you expect? A few years ago contributors were bragging about making crazy money, posting free how-to-succeed-at-micro blogs, and on and on. The world got invited to the goldrush and now it's turning into a ghost town." With hindsight its pretty obvious that this wouldn't last I think (hope) we are in for a period of slow decline so its a case of how best to cope in that environment.
Not even hindsight. Trends were showing years ago where things were headed. I went with Plan B in 2013. Glad I did.
348
« on: July 19, 2016, 12:20 »
paulie, when you check the first images submitted to shutterstock, you will see it wasnt high quality, it was never the case that amateurs submitted higher quality than pros, if there was high quality, it was from the pros jumping in when they found out amateurs were making a bundle with their crappy shots. if so, we are to blame, not the amateurs. Macro was a closed shop and pros were sitting on their high horses, wich ultimately led to the creation of low priced images in a different payment model
Again, note that I said "pro" quality not "high" quality. Different terms and definitions. From what I've seen pro quality varies and I think it has been totally redefined over the past decade. I've seen some old pros talking about how bad things have gotten. When I looked at their ports I saw a lot of walkaround snapshots of trees, buildings, and basic stuff that could easily be replicated by anyone with a cellphone. At one time those kinds of pros probably made big money because agencies had full control over limiting contributors and the image supply which allowed them to set pricing very high. I've seen old pros with some amazing highly saleable work. But I've also seen amateurs with amazing sellable work. Crap sells as long as it's cheap enough. So to your point, even if all pros refused to join micro, the pricing downfall would have happened anyway but probably a bit slower. There were, and are, plenty of amateurs who would have produced saleable work that would have caused buyers to shift from pro macro to micro anyway. And a lot of pros would still need to either join micro or starve. I still see a few holdouts who always said "RM or die" and now they seem to be giving in or giving up. For the pros who jumped in early, along with the flood of amateurs, what do you expect? A few years ago contributors were bragging about making crazy money, posting free how-to-succeed-at-micro blogs, and on and on. The world got invited to the goldrush and now it's turning into a ghost town. We're all responsible for where things are at today.
349
« on: July 19, 2016, 08:22 »
in the end us pros ruined our own business by submitting content to the micros, dont blame the amateur, blame your fellow pro shooters, like me, made a bundle in micro but its getting tougher, no business lasts forever, unless you are coca cola
Most pros had no choice. With amateurs submitting pro quality work to micros, macro dried up, and you could either join and make pennies or find something else to do other than stock photography.
Exactly. Furthermore, depending on your field of expertise and market, an exponentially expanding microstock library made it much easier and a whole lot more economical for a pros existing client base to find imagery that was "close enough" to their needs that a bread and butter custom shoot was no longer a necessity. A lot of pros saw the writing on the wall years ago, resisted as long as they could, but ultimately had little choice but to hop aboard.
That is kind of like saying a person who has gone to medical school and is a surgeon and loses their job has little choice but to get a job at Walmart instead of looking for jobs in his/her own field. And then expecting Walmart to match the salary the surgeon was making as a surgeon.
Too bad the pros didn't see the writing on the wall that agencies were never going to increase commissions, and that they should never have quit their day jobs to depend on microstock as a full time job. The good news is there are now at least mid and macro agencies and other avenues of generating revenue where a pro can at least make better money to recoup the cost of expensive equipment and high-dollar shoots.
Note that I said "find something else to do other than stock photography". Old stock photo pros probably shifted toward other photography like commercial shoots, real estate, weddings, or whatever. I've noticed some saying there's no money in photography anymore as a full time profession and they've had to go get a non-photography job. I think there are plenty of pros and amateurs who were able to recognize the shifting trends, adjust, and do very well. It's the people who were either unable or unwilling to make the necessary shift who completely got out of photography. There's still plenty of opportunity and money in photography for people with the right mindset and skills. I think macro and mid-stock is only viable for a small percentage of contributors who can produce unique work that's not already heavily covered by microstock. On macro sites, anything that resembles micro is being sold a micro prices.
350
« on: July 19, 2016, 06:46 »
I can not believe this is a "hot" topic of discussion, large companies have employees coming and going all the time ...
How about Pokemon instead?
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