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Messages - steheap
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 8 ... 63
51
« on: December 29, 2020, 16:00 »
And make some Backyard Silver perhaps.... 
52
« on: December 22, 2020, 15:03 »
I can't recall the percentage now, but the downfall was a big change that Google made to their search results in early 2013. As a result of this, the traffic to the site from Google searches was reduced by about 50% and that made it much less attractive. I think the biggest issue that Dan had was that he had to track all the commissions, payout earnings and, in particular, manage the tax aspects of that on his own business.
So the same problem as ever - very difficult to get buyers to the site and the Google changes put the nail in the coffin. It was probably the same changes that Dreamstime sued them about I would guess.
Steve
53
« on: December 20, 2020, 10:48 »
I think that when I had a similar issue in the past, I changed my security settings on the Adobe site to use an authenticator app rather than a text message for 2 stage authentication. That did seem to work OK!
54
« on: December 10, 2020, 10:17 »
They introduced it around the time of their IPO - I believe it was to avoid information about their earnings being made visible to some investors and not to all.
56
« on: November 24, 2020, 10:30 »
About 4 - 6 weeks normally
Steve
57
« on: November 08, 2020, 10:59 »
I think this form is for non-resident aliens or something in the US? I don't know anything about that form.
Steve
58
« on: November 04, 2020, 11:24 »
I thought this site had closed?
59
« on: November 03, 2020, 09:04 »
Strictly speaking, you are not allowed to use other people's work in your stock images and so using a sky from Photoshop or Luminar (unless it is one of your own sky pictures) is not allowed. It would be interesting to hear Matt from Adobe Stock's view on this? Although I don't know how to bring it to his attention!
Steve
60
« on: November 02, 2020, 17:16 »
I do wonder how much more you would be making now if things hadn't changed so much - or even if the agencies didn't get so greedy. I used to maintain a complicated graph showing the historic growth since 2010. Just for you, I updated it to bring it up to late 2020. Drawing a line from the trend before 2014 would take me somewhere around a regular and solid $6000 a month I would guess. Still, things are what they are and I just keep focused on the job in hand. Steve
61
« on: November 02, 2020, 09:23 »
Consistency, long term goal and not listening to the noise. It is stock market investing rule. The same rule applies here. I read about microstock apocalypse since 2011. or 2012. And listening to these "noise" I almost quit few times. Which would be a big mistake. If you are familiar with stock market investing in value stocks, Warren Buffet etc, you know what I mean. There is a stock market crash every few days. You have to sail through these ups and downs, which is much easier if you believe in what you do. All this is certainly true - I do read the MSG posts (not all of them!), but I rarely get involved in the arguments. I think about what people are saying and try to take that into account, but I have always just kept my head down and focused on what I think are going to become important topics in the news and particularly in comment articles. News articles often use real editorial shots to illustrate them, but the comment ones often just want something that is less "real time" to give the article a longer shelf life and so want a more conceptual header image. I try to think of (and create) those and I steadily try to improve my quality and not necessarily upload the first thing I think of. It is surprising how much better you get after a few iterations. Then upload those. Steve
62
« on: November 01, 2020, 17:43 »
Steve how in the world do you this every month? Make money. I guess I am reasonably good at what I do... 
64
« on: October 27, 2020, 08:42 »
I built one in the spring that is pretty close to your specs: https://backyardsilver.com/building-a-new-photo-and-video-pc/Although it isn't clear in the article, I did put my programs on the C drive and put the scratch file area on a second M.2 SSD I have my Lightroom catalog on the C drive - not sure that is the best place Steve
65
« on: October 25, 2020, 09:28 »
It has been quiet for me in the past week or so. The high bar is $10 so not a big earner...
66
« on: October 23, 2020, 13:32 »
Use Microstockr Pro... It will show you all your best sellers across all agencies or just at each agency separately
Steve
67
« on: October 05, 2020, 09:24 »
I wrote about my backup plan earlier in the year: https://backyardsilver.com/backup-plan-for-stock-photographers/Since then I have modified it by replacing the USB connected backup drive with a proper NAS in the basement which has an updated version (with older versions) of all my files and I plug a USB drive into that from time to time to take a copy of it in case some encryption malware gets into my system. It can't jump to an disconnected drive. I also have an Amazon prime membership and that gives me unlimited backup for Jpegs and so all my stock images (the jpegs with metadata included) gets uploaded to Amazon prime photo cloud storage as they are created. Steve
69
« on: September 28, 2020, 13:26 »
Apart from Alamy, I'm not aware that a "spam" keyword does anything to your ranking for an image.
70
« on: September 27, 2020, 14:33 »
You want opinions on FAA, you've come to the right place, I have them. Have you ever experimented with pricing - ie bring your margins low for a period to see if sales increase? I think if you have a sale it makes it a bit more likely for that file to appear higher in their own searches so getting some low margin sales might help when you put your prices up again Steve
71
« on: September 27, 2020, 09:19 »
The Paypal threshold totals are for the calendar year - so it is $20,000 AND 200 activities in that year. It resets in January, I believe.
Steve
72
« on: September 26, 2020, 09:16 »
One point to bear in mind with this strategy, Martha. Paypal has a threshold above which they send a tax form which complicates how you need to do your taxes in the USA. I think it is $20,000 and 200 transactions. So if you earn that much and make multiple requests for payout, you are likely to hit the 200 transactions threshold. With the bigger safer agencies I let my earnings collect over a few months before I request payout.
Steve
74
« on: August 26, 2020, 08:27 »
Whosvegas - one thing I talk about a lot on my blog - you need to be able to explain the use case (at least to yourself) when taking and uploading images. Unless you can explain how someone would pay for and use your image, then it isn't really worth uploading. I think a number of your images suffer from a distinct lack of "use case".
Steve
75
« on: July 31, 2020, 08:56 »
Hi Steve and Noodle,
Whats the point of paying and uploading, spending time just for likes?
Just to be in community? OK! But I thought SS was notorious for 10c. but 4c.? Can't believe it :-( I don't pay, and don't upload. I just added these images during a free 30 day trial. Steve
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