Thanks for answering my question about why so many of you hide your email addresses. I assumed it was fear of spam but that seemed too simplistic.

By the way, the hot spam topic these days is no longer about enlarging anything or about Viagra--it's Acai Berries!    I get my share of spam but I have had the same email address for many years. To paraphrase something I read recently, I'd rather get 50 spam emails than miss the one email that could put money in my pocket! Perhaps you should consider using yahoo and hotmail email addresses to protect your personal email address from more spam, and also to help keep your various enterprises/personas separate.

I feel a "us vs them" vibe; some of you seem so sure every agency sooner or later is going to rip you off. Although our company has been around 14 years, we haven't been in stock that long--we started with 3D models--but our sales increase each month so there is no need for us to abuse our Members.

Sorry if I gave the impression I expected our artists to help increase our business for "our" benefit--that was not what I meant. I do think artists/photographers should work to promote their own work all the time.

But I see value in collaborating to help improve your smaller agency--such as sharing ideas, suggestions for improvements, etc.--as a way of helping them in order for your sales to improve as they grow. Mutual interest again--it's the only way for most of us to survive and thrive. If you are already a superstar top earner and you are with a top agency, then there is no need for change. But if people are daydreaming of the "perfect" agency, it tells me there is a need for new ideas.

Good luck to you all in your pursuit of finding that perfect stock agency!

It's good to see a friendly thought provoking discussion with lots of brainstorming and ideas shared in a respectful way. I love the quote about mutual interest--that is the key--success comes when something is "win-win". I am part of an established 3D (expanded into 2D) resource web site business. I have been reading this forum to become more familiar with the microstock industry. We are trying to make changes in how we handle stock images and you all have some good ideas that might be able to help us improve more quickly. Hopefully some of you will join us now or later, but that's not my reason for posting.

From the business standpoint I see a problem with some of the suggestions. They are nice dreams but to put them into practice would mean someone is going to be doing a lot of work for free which usually won�t last long. Competition is not a bad thing though I am not sure Mr. Sears and Mr. Penney would agree. If the new �clones� don�t offer what the market demands, they won�t be around very long but you never know when one of them might be the next Google! Low prices and great products are good but excellent customer service (whether the "customer" is the buyer or the seller) is key. I don�t think that many buyers are looking for totally unique products�they want quality products, good value and good service.

For anyone who says "great idea, start that site and I will put my photos on it", remember that someone has to run a business and that's a big job. Even though Perry�kudos to him for sharing his �dreams��says he isn�t planning to start that dream business, there�s always someone who thinks it would be nice to have their own agency and doesn�t realize the time and money involved. Not only setting up the business entity and web site but the day to day operations and ongoing costs for merchant accounts, business banking fees, data servers, hardware, etc. Even suggesting that photos be exclusive on one site means someone has to police it. A person with good photography skills may not have the time and/or skill set to make a go of running a business in addition to taking photos.

Puravida is right about the buyer connection�the double edged sword: is it more important to work on increasing artists/photos or buyers? Both, of course! But in any business it takes time to build up a customer base as well as merchandise. There�s no point in having the ultimate collection of exclusive images if no one comes into the store to look at them. And if buyers flock in but we don�t have the merchandise to meet their needs, we�re sunk.

We continue to grow our business by paying an above average royalty, offering fast and personal customer service and working every day to steadily increase both buyers and sellers. We�ve done it with 3D over the past 14 years. During that time our business changed and evolved to meet the needs of our artists and buyers. We don�t make money unless our artists make money but we still work every day to improve and upgrade our web site and our business. We are not alone in valuing a mutually beneficial experience--others also value what we value.

Thanks for sharing your dreams and ideas. And please continue to share concrete suggestions and things you want to see in that ideal stock photo agency!