|
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 - Jo Ann Snover
3927
« on: December 04, 2013, 11:38 »
If I resubmit will they give me a warning?
You don't need to discuss it as long as there's a note explaining that you think the original rejection was a mistake because it was a conversion from a vector which was "clean" as an isolation.
3928
« on: December 03, 2013, 10:36 »
I wish I could take credit for it, but it's borrowed (probably many times over). I heard it from an Australian technology executive, Ian Diery (he was at Wang Labs when I worked there many moons ago) - his version had 40% in it 
3929
« on: December 03, 2013, 01:15 »
There are some promotional rates for the first few sales to a new buyer - they get something off sales at every level http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_32755
3930
« on: December 02, 2013, 16:42 »
Well, lets hope they find some buyers in China because they don't have many in the rest of the world!
Point taken - even 50% of f*@k all is still f*@k all!
3932
« on: December 02, 2013, 11:17 »
I stop uploading as a first step unless something seriously damaging to me - like the Google-Getty deal with no opt out - leads me to believe leaving a site is my only option to retain control over the licensing of my work.
So I stopped uploading to 123rf as soon as they announced their paycut for contributors (the RC scheme). They've continued to earn reasonably well in spite of no new uploads, so I'll just leave the old stuff with them for the time being
I stopped uploading to Veer when the Alamy partner deal was done - even though it was undone, they wouldn't give an opt out on partner deals and they pay us at a flat rate regardless of what the partner sells for, so sometimes we get seriously shortchanged. But I'm earning more from the small fraction of my portfolio that's there than I did in 2012 so I'll leave things there too
I already left BigStock over their lack of an opt out from the insane subscription royalty scheme (I was not part of the Bridge to Bigstock, so I had no reason to wait and see and didn't want to undercut myself on Shutterstock)
I virtually left iStock (all but 109 images that I can't sell anywhere else) over the lack of an opt-out on Getty's contributor unfriendly partner deals.
I don't upload to Stockfresh because sales are so sparse, but I'll leave what I have there and collect the occasional payout
If Pond5/Pixmac ever figure out what's going on with their merger I might continue to upload to them but as it is I have two (different) small fractions of my portfolio there.
I've stopped uploading to Alamy as they are just too much trouble given the sales, but they do sell, so I'll leave what I have there. I did opt out of distributor sales there this April (or whenever the annual opt out month is) because the idea that the distributor makes more than I do for doing nothing at all just burned me. Anyone, anywhere in the world can buy from the Alamy web site, so I don't know why distributors even exist in the internet era.
I occasionally think about dropping CanStock because they appear to be stuck, but the occasional sale through their parent Fotosearch keeps me hanging around although uploading sporadically
3933
« on: December 01, 2013, 03:06 »
... Basically, I was expecting a longer life for my images. ...
For various reasons (having to do with the rest of my life, not stock or agencies) I have produced very little new stock this year, but I had a BME at Shutterstock and within a dollar of a BME at Dreamstime. Images can have a very long shelf life but it does depend a bit on the type of image. This time of year, for me, is heavily skewed towards Christmas with a good sprinkling of Caribbean beaches as the weather gets awful in the northern hemisphere. If you don't have much for the seasonal demand, perhaps that's more the issue than a short life for your images.
3935
« on: November 29, 2013, 13:42 »
I've with them one year with zero in my bucket. My idea was to give them 2 years to prove themselves, so one year to go. I only have ~300 images up, maybe that's the problem. From the quality that I see that sells, it seems like its a place where Uncle Eddy buys from a family member.
have a look and tell me what I'm doing wrong . . . . .
http://4-steven-jones.fineartamerica.com/
To the best of my knowledge (and based on the cities involved in purchases to date) none of my sales at FAA has been to family or friends. I took a quick look at the first several pages of your portfolio and I think you haven't tailored what you've uploaded to the likely market - things people hang on their walls. The food shots have potential for restaurants or stores, but the colors are very flat. Food pictures don't sell, IMO, unless things look fresh and appetizing. For the landscapes, the places aren't landmarks and the images are not the sort where you go "oooh" even if you haven't a clue where it is. I'm not sure that there is anything "wrong" about any sort of uploads, but you just sell fewer and more slowly if you don't appeal to to a wide audience.
3936
« on: November 27, 2013, 18:33 »
Sad part is that we all still submit images to them 
Not all.
3937
« on: November 27, 2013, 18:31 »
It does vary a bit depending on your portfolio, but I've been doing this since late 2004 and November is always my top month of the year. March or April, depending on timing of Easter, is another great time. Summer is quiet, typically. Enjoy the sales, but don't expect January to be the same - things get quiet then
3938
« on: November 27, 2013, 11:01 »
I only knew him via the iStock forums, and he was such a nice and helpful person there. And as Sean noted, his work was spectacular. It wasn't that long ago he was married and it's very hard to fathom life cut that short, that suddenly. I can only imagine what his family is going through
3939
« on: November 26, 2013, 20:39 »
Sorry to digress from the topic. I'm curious, do you sell the same photos on FAA that you sell on the micro sites? Would you consider that a problem if buyers see they can get the same photo on another site for a few cents?
Yes. And I'm happy for the buyers to purchase a license and then get themselves a print (which they can't do via FAA or anywhere else where you need to own the copyright to upload the image). You can only get images for a few cents as part of a subscription which may not work out if the buyer isn't already a purchaser of stock images. And then they pay for the printing costs. I don't see this as any different from offering images via subscription or credit sale or cash - each one works for some people and not others. I don't hide either the agencies or FAA when selling via my own site - I'm up front about all the places people can license my work and they get to pick.
3940
« on: November 26, 2013, 20:35 »
Both points well taken and actually along the lines of what I pretty much thought. I could basically ruin my reputation by even attempting to get this through, huh?
That's the risk, but if you approached with a "I completely understand if you're not OK with this, but I thought I'd just ask..." you might be able to feel the organizer out to see how firm the "no" was without coming off badly
3941
« on: November 26, 2013, 20:04 »
I think that I'd be pretty miffed if I was chased up (regardless of by whom) to ask for a model release when I thought I was entering an event. I think I'd also be pretty taken aback to get a call from an ad agency (how did they get my information?).
And if I were the organizer who asked you not to solicit the competitors, I'd think that asking them for model releases was soliciting them, so i think it's more than a courtesy to ask the organizer.
I get the temptation to be able to make this sale, but this is a big ask given that you shot this as editorial and be prepared to take no for an answer if the organizer tells you they're not OK with it.
3942
« on: November 26, 2013, 11:13 »
I started with iStock in September 2004 and Shutterstock, Canstock & Dreamstime a couple of months later. Honestly what happened then is so disconnected from what's happening now that there's not a lot of point in making comparisons, IMO.
However, if I take 2005 (I don't keep numbers in such a way as to make it easy to go from Sept 2004 to Sept 2005) I was $3 shy of $4,000 with 11,796 downloads from iStock, Shutterstock, Dreamstime, CanStock, 123rf, BigStock (started in March), Fotolia (Started in September). My portfolio was around 900 by the end of the year
3943
« on: November 26, 2013, 11:03 »
I was going to write that they were hopeless - with occasional bursts of extended license goodness - but thought I should check my numbers first I have only 800-something images with Veer. I stopped uploading after the Alamy train wreck as they wouldn't do anything about their partner situation. However my 2013 sales to date are higher than 2012! Nothing to get excited about but still higher. 2012 was 180 sales for $420.29 and 2013 so far has been 236 sales for $779.84 I still won't give them any more work unless they straighten out their reviewing and their compensation and terms for partner sales.
3944
« on: November 25, 2013, 14:46 »
Sure there's a way around that. 123rf should pay the fees! If they messed up and a contributor's payment is delayed, the contributor should not be penalized a second time by getting less money.
Whenever you make a payment you have a choice about paying the fees or not - and obviously 123rf chose not to, but they should take care of that mistake. I'd missed the part that the late payment meant he received a "special" distribution.
3945
« on: November 25, 2013, 12:27 »
I have a simple question for symbiostockers (if I can call you like that): Is it worthed to invest time and money?
You have to decide that. But what I would say is that I've "invested" my time in uploading to a lot of agencies since 2004. In some cases - iStock, in spite of the fact that they turned from being a wonderful place to a sad shadow of their former selves after ingestion by the Private Equity parasites that ate the Getty borg - they made me a ton of money. And that includes the massive time sink that was the "disambiguation" required after they moved to Getty's controlled vocabulary, one of many things that pushed work onto contributors. In others - albumo pocketstock and Gimmestock - for example it wasn't worth investing my time. Part of the problem with any of these things is that you can't know for sure up front which ones are the winners and which the losers. I am so sick of how badly most of the agencies are treating their contributors that I'm willing to invest my time to find an alternative. I think there's a lot of potential in this approach, but I don't have a crystal ball to know up front if it'll work. Where work means become a steady earner over time. If someone's looking for easy money, they're in the wrong business, whether it's Shutterstock or Symbiostock. If you're happy with what you're earning from the agencies, they why bother building your own site? If you're looking for alternatives, go for it.
3946
« on: November 24, 2013, 23:42 »
I do not get charged fees for payments via PayPal, from 123rf. I have been charged fees by Pond5/Pixmac and they don't care, so I get the frustration
I don't recall any payment complaints about fees from 123rf after troubles at the very beginning (in 2005)
3947
« on: November 23, 2013, 16:42 »
As a side note, I made my annual fee back on my first sale, so it's a pretty decision to give it a try
3948
« on: November 23, 2013, 14:10 »
All your images will be on the internet at 1000px longest side and the watermark is tiny. It's 900 x 600 (for a 3:2 camera) but the watermark is small. But that size is well within the size that the agencies permit sites to show unmodified when they buy our images for web use, so it doesn't seem to me that there's much one can do about unethical people taking things they shouldn't other than not license our images for any web use. I'm OK with the risks, but obviously if anyone isn't, they should skip FAA
3949
« on: November 23, 2013, 14:02 »
If you do decide to set things up at FAA, they advise you to make your default choices before uploading things (or you can upload one image and use that to make the settings and say "Save as Default"). Make sure you check the box that says to use a watermark and ignore the blurb that buyers won't like it as much. Once your defaults are set, all your uploads will use those settings. And there is no FTP for uploads, so it's good that we don't want to upload our entire portfolios there I do allow for the 100% zoom, but that's a choice too.
3950
« on: November 23, 2013, 12:15 »
My concern is the impact it has on the appearance of the portfolio. I put a pile of food photos up because they now have a bulk-sales sideline for the interior design trade and sometimes they use generic images across an entire brand. I stopped because it didn't sit well with my other stuff, but perhaps I should just downrate all that stuff so it goes to the back of the portfolio and will only be found if someone searches my food folder.
That's how I have mine too, and it allows you to rotate which galleries are up front at different times of year - if you feel some work might sell better than others seasonally
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
