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Messages - cascoly
4126
« on: December 29, 2008, 15:17 »
Examples of Model Releases for minors are available at all the microstock sites. You'll need specific releases for each agency to which you upload images.
you can use just one MR if you word it properly -- i dl'd all the releases for agencies i submit to, then redacted to 1 doc that covered any specific details for each agency. i sent a copy to the stricter agencies and they said it would be fine; your mileage may vary steve
4127
« on: December 29, 2008, 15:14 »
each MS agency has different rules on what it will accept -- some require that the seller actually have TAKEN the image, others just that the seller controls the copyright.
as far as hiring your kids and getting the copyright from 'work for hir', i'd guess the kids are too young to sign anything, so it might get tricky
if you do it properly, you can run a business at a loss for 3 yrs, but if you dont show a profit by the 4th, you will be liable for taxes on the prior years.
like many others here, i've got a lot more info on MS at my website
steve
4128
« on: December 27, 2008, 17:16 »
Does it mean that we don't' have to report the income if it is less than $600? I also wanted to ask, if we report an income, can we also claim expenses, such as photo equipment?
in US you need to report if you collect money and you're not a hobbyist -- the basic IRS def of non-hobby is youu have to show a profit twice in 5 yrs. as a sole proprieter you'd attach sched C which has all the info about what's deductible, etc. you also may need tot file FICA-SS taxes as part of your 1040 it's not that difficult tot do it yourself for a small business, and there's plenty of info thru google, but if you're really concerned or innumerate, a tax adviser/accountant shouldnt cost too much steve
4129
« on: December 26, 2008, 16:07 »
i've always had trouble with IS reading IPTC - reported it more than a year ago...
i use the free MS photoinfo and IS finds my title and keywords ,but cant find the desc. if i use the new MS upgrade Pro Photo Tools, then IS can find the desc IPTC too
steve
4130
« on: December 24, 2008, 19:51 »
not holding my breath -- i'm only 1/2 way to payout -- avg about 1 sale every 3 mos on portfolio of 3000
steve
4131
« on: December 21, 2008, 13:32 »
i agree completely -- i just had an entire set of snowstorm traffic images rejected by SS for lighting -- what are they expecting in a STORM pc? in addition, some of the images they've taken earlier are good sellers, even though they have worse lighting and composition than this new set!
steve
4132
« on: December 18, 2008, 20:58 »
Expose yourself add thumbnails of your wildlife images to our online ecology game and get free links to your MS images or website. Just view the wildlife list and click More for the animals youd like to add
4133
« on: December 18, 2008, 14:46 »
it'll be even closer soon -- ebay will soon forbid payment by check or credit card [they eliminated cash sales last year]
Maybe check, but they'll never forbid payment by credit card. If they did that they'd lose a large chunk of their business.
....
80-90% of ebay's transactions are already settled thru paypal - you'll still be able to use credit card, but unless the seller has a merchant account, you'll still be using paypal steve
4134
« on: December 17, 2008, 16:32 »
I also don't like the marriage between eBay and PayPal, but luckily never had problems both selling and buying stuff on eBay. It's good to know about these kinds of things happening there.
it'll be even closer soon -- ebay will soon forbid payment by check or credit card [they eliminated cash sales last year] you can use an alternate elec payment system, but those will be a minority s
4135
« on: December 17, 2008, 16:29 »
I assume you knew ebay's and paypal's rules going in and if you looked up the negative feedback before you sold to her you should have known the risk you were taking. That is what risk is all about - sometimes you lose. (Don't feel bad Lehman brothers and a whole lot of other financial institutions don't seem to understand risk or protecting against it any better than you do.)
You pays your money - or ships your ipod - you takes your chances.
fred
that's not how ebay works -- the seller cant see a buyers fdbk b4 they bid; and it would take a lot of time to look afterwards -AND ebay doesnt look kindly on selers who cancel legitimate bids. with the new fdbk system it wouldnt matter anyway - since sellers cant leave neg fdbk steve
4136
« on: December 16, 2008, 20:17 »
in US tracking is avaialble for ANY class of mail -- i use delivery confirmation all the time w media mail. paypal accepts that as a tracking method -- though amazon doesnt
steve
4137
« on: November 19, 2008, 16:33 »
Well, I am very small potatoes compared to most forum members ....... travel, landscape and architecture shots. The problem is that those really don't sell well in Microstock unless as part of a more varied port. You need more people shots since those sell best and they might drag your other images along and way up.
that's what i've found too -- landscape and travel shots sell less, but they do seem to have a longer half-life than other shots, so images a year or more old can still sell - my main concentration has always been travel & adventure travel, but i've tried to round it out more in the last year. still ways from setting up a studio tho steve
4138
« on: November 18, 2008, 17:56 »
i've had 500 images waiting review - some for 2 wks now -- i asked about this a wk ago and about 20 were reviewed but no answer since to emails
4139
« on: November 12, 2008, 14:34 »
if a site has never been really active it's hard to say it's tanked -- albumo and feature have been neaqr flatline since the start - i did make $150 in upl rewards on albumo, but nothing since; i get a sale on feature every month or 2 - stopped upl to them long ago
i still upl to yay, but have stopped sending to most & cut until some sales start coming in.
at this pont it's gonna be really hartd for any newcomer to compete against the established companies -- right now none of the new guys really offer substantial improvements over the ones that get all the traffic.
4140
« on: November 12, 2008, 14:29 »
the only reason i still submit to FT is they have reasonable sales -- their review process is a joke -- there's n consistency and they reject dozens of images that most other sites take. being selective is one thing, arbitrarily choosing a few images isnt.
they're near the bottom of my list for new submissions -- mostly i enter new stuff whie waqtching tv
4141
« on: November 12, 2008, 14:26 »
another point on submissions -- for whatever reasons, alamy prefers 300 dpi to 72 -- i had a lot of trouble with acdceptances until i read their faq in detail and it's been better since -- at 300 dpi a std image will have a long side of abourt 5000 pixels
4142
« on: November 10, 2008, 16:11 »
i'm not sure about the bubblesites yet -- they're fine if you have no other website, but they're really limited -- no search facility, etc... plus they only show images that you've placed in sets - which is a painful process. i've gone on http://cascoly.redbubble.com to using tag searches as listing for topics - eg, peru, india, etc but beyond that, i thinkl RB has more potential as a slaes site and success wuill depend on getting noticed -- i have direct links throught my travel website to specific items in RB
4143
« on: November 08, 2008, 17:22 »
I'm not trying to imply that if you have a baked potato on a plate that you have only "potato, plate, baked, brown, legume, butter, cheese" Etc. Starch, vegetable, isolated, close-up, nobody (if there are no people), spud, isolated, cutout
just being ultra picky, but a potato is not a legume [beans, peas] it's a tuber
however, this does point out a source of inaccurate keywords - sellers who include words they THINK are correct when theey're not -- check out antarctica images and you'll find many with keyword arctic and vice versa
steve
4145
« on: November 07, 2008, 14:39 »
>>>>>>>What if tomorrow Getty took their Holly Owned Macro RF ( the stuff they own and don't split a commission with a photographer ) and dumped it into Istock and put it at the top of the search. This is not impossible. There are so many scenarios I could go on for days. It comes down to " we don't know " but I can garentee you that they are working round the clock to maximize their sales especially after being bought out.
this is probably the best argument AGAINST IS exclusivity anyone has put forward -- pratical considerations aside, i find it amazing that anyone would risk it all with one agency when the % benefits of IS exclusives are so low.
imagine the position of an IS exclsuive photographer whose portfolio was weighted towards cars and other images that IS suddenly banned?
there's an old tag about dancing among elephants -- most of us are never going to compete with the big guys. i experienced this in the computer games industry 20+ years ago and it applies today -- there i made conscious decisions to find niches that the large companies missed. some of my choices cdontinue to bring in royalties 15 yrs later. the advantage of smaller is to be able to move quickly and adapt in changing conditions. it's a lot of work, but it's never boring.
steve
4146
« on: November 07, 2008, 14:26 »
What do you think are the best ways to do this? What would you like? Tell me and I can map it out. I do have all the info but putting it in order so you can make sense of it and not have others try to game the system is the trick. But when I set out to build Cutcaster a few years ago the idea was to build it as transparent as possible so you have the tools to make informed decisions on how to price and organize your metadata surrounding a file.
first is having the buyer's search string listed with the sold image next would be summary of keywords used, and categories used -- how many people use categories vs keywords? and since it came up, an analysis of what sort of keyword searches are being done? how many are simple words, how many boolean etc steve
4147
« on: November 05, 2008, 14:02 »
I thought I would open this up for discussion after all the conversations I have had with graphic designers, advertisers and publishers who explained how they like to search when using keywords only. Seeing how you guys think about this could help us as well bc we are relying on your user generated keywords so we need to make them work for our search algo and fit for what we are learning from how buyers/people are searching on Cutcaster and how they like to search using keywords.
?
as always, john, your interest is appreciated, but this time i really think you have it backwards - you and all the other MS are the ones who have actual data about what people use to search, so making that info avaialble would be immensely helpful. that said, i think the simple answer is "all the above" - a system has to flexible enough to handle all kinds of queries. the way an indivdual uses a search string is dependent on their age & experience - older [in both senses] users are more likely to have grown up with the need for booleans and other special characters [unix search strings?] while newer folks started with google and other much more flexible formats. the best solution is a simple search up front, combined with 'advanced' features avaialble for those interested -- the ebay and google systems are both reasonable solutions s
4148
« on: November 05, 2008, 13:55 »
>>>>There is a minimum payout rate of 150 euros per accounting period. If during an accounting period, you haven't accumulated 150 euros worth of royalties, your royalties will be brought forward into the next accounting period.
why is the payout set so high? that's more than double any of the other sites
steve
4149
« on: November 04, 2008, 14:42 »
same for me -- mine was a conscious decision 25 yrs ago to create more time for travel, and MS fits in well in my plans; lots of travel expensives become deductible, so overall tax rate really drops, while still showing the profit needed for the IRS to consider it a business.
when we're home my time varies -- sometimes it's 60 hr/wk on MS, other times much less if i'm developing new games on my website.
i never intended for this to replace my day job -- no way could i expect to make $60/hr at MS, but the lifestyle choices are much more important
steve
4150
« on: November 04, 2008, 14:36 »
Hard to say. Everybody is different. I've seen some people say it took a year while others have taken 5 years. I think only a small percentage of people are making a living at this though.
....
To gauge performance, most people earn .25 to $5 (US) per image per month (PIPM). .50 to $1 seems to be the most common amount. So let's say you're at this for a few months and with 100 images across a dozen sites you're earning $100 per month. That's $1 PIPM. Assuming your PIPM rate stays the same over time, if you needed $5,000 per month to resign you would need 5,000 images. If your PIPM rate was .50 you'd need 10,000 images, etc.
....
much depends on the type of stock you're shooting - if you're not shooting models and business stock, the PIPM is going to be a LOT lower. for me, the only site that reaches $.10 PIPM is SS, the others are barely on the radar. otoh, PIPM isnt as valid a marker for sites that have very liberal acceptance policies -- you'll end up with a much lower ratio. so it all comes back to what you need to live on and whether you can maintain a high submission rate. for me, the biggest impediement right now is finding time to edit past work; shooting new stuff hasnt been a problem. steve
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