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Messages - csm
76
« on: October 31, 2018, 16:29 »
Always makes me laugh, often the brief has a few images for suggestions and ideas.
And I think, why not just buy that image then?
Sometimes I've read the brief and thought thats a good idea, but I wouldn't submit it, as already mentioned only encourages commissions on the cheap.
77
« on: October 14, 2018, 14:34 »
very good comments! Many of more former mentors feel that the digital camera, which allowed the masses to enter, ruin the lively hood of the professional photographers...
in the same way Henry Ford ruined the lives of buggy whip makers & horse breeders. lots of programmers lost market share as windows incorporated more of their special apps. shift happens. old timey stock photography earned more because of scarcity, not quality.
I always reckoned that top quality old-timers would remain at the top of the heap, while the micros massively increased the amount spent on stock (but spread it more thinly). The mediocre old-timers were potentially going to get devastated, though.
I doubt if many photographers were exclusively shooting for stock back in 2000, anyway. It was regarded as a handy supplementary income from shots that didn't make it for the purpose originally intended, according to what I read around that time.
Old timers...
100 images (transparencies that offered you no wiggle room to do post production, you either got it right or you did not) sent to editor's and you passed or not. Mediocre did not cut it. Yep a strange concept, the you just got rejected generation.
You got into an agency if you could prove you had your training wheels off. Even the smaller agencies had standards. I was rejected by many agencies cause I simply was not good enough. Then I passed. In days of yore if you could make it into The Image Bank, Tony Stone, Getty etc you were accomplished at your craft. If you could make it in what is considered on this forum as the low earners then you had potential (above mediocre), if you made it into the middle tier you were very good (you'd make extra income potentially), if you made it into the top tier then it was an honour (and you very much might have made it a full time gig).
My gut tells me in 2000 there was a higher percentage of photographer's making a full time living from stock than the percentage that is doing so today.
Anyway, back to the point... I don't think there is a future for stock photography in the current climate and I think there are some really amazingly talented digital shooters that sell themselves short, sadly they don't have a choice. In days of yore if they had the talent they have today they certainly would not be jumping up and down because one of the agencies raised their royalty to $0.38c. Sickening if you ask me.
Too true. Nothing like sitting in front of the desk of picture editor as they look at your transparencies on a lightbox through a loupe commenting on your work as you sit there!
78
« on: September 28, 2018, 14:51 »
Not convinced yet by Blackbox.
Not that impressed with their content on Pond5.
I`m not sure I`d want to associate my work with others that I feel isn't as good.
It seems not a day goes by without another Youtube Vlogger falling over themselves to talk about them.
They may have have an advantage in search terms, on say Pond5, but I've not seen their name come up that often.
As for Vimeo Stock, I`d love to join them, fingers crossed.
But all I see at the moment are the same top contributors that contribute to everyone else, so I wonder how much is exclusive and how they can differentiate themselves from everyone else.
79
« on: September 04, 2018, 06:44 »
I don't know why Pond5 sales take longer to generate than SS. It seems to me they have a different kind of buyer than SS. I think these buyers sometimes identify clips long before they intend to use them but it's all speculation. The Pond5 sales data isn't reliable IMO. It used to be you could look at cart adds and almost predict sales a few days later, however cart adds don't seem to happen now. You see a few bin adds but more often than not a clip can be downloaded without bin or cart adds and maybe without views.
I wondered if it is a different kind of buyer too. Strange that it took a year before getting sales every month, where as on another site it was almost straight away.
80
« on: September 03, 2018, 15:01 »
New clips at Pond5 have always taken a lot longer to get off the mark than SS.
I've heard the before and often wondered why?
81
« on: July 31, 2018, 03:57 »
To what end?
There's ways to monetise YouTube traffic, blogs, ebooks, courses, networking....even fun! 
You forgot to mention royalties from stock footage 
82
« on: July 30, 2018, 17:21 »
I believe most full time microstockers are way too busy producing product to bother with selfie tutorials...
Or they don't have enough of a technical knowledge to edit to an excellent standard, as seen by Guilherme's final result.
I certainly don't, and stick with publishing blog posts. Seems like these types of YouTube tutorials have the potential to reach a much further audience and have a greater impact.
"Or they don't have enough of a technical knowledge to edit to an excellent standard, as seen by Guilherme's final result." You need to look out for more showreels to see what others are doing. And again, I see some absolutely gorgeous lifestyle footage portfolios, but the contributors aren't blogging on Youtube. "I certainly don't, and stick with publishing blog posts. Seems like these types of YouTube tutorials have the potential to reach a much further audience and have a greater impact. " Again, to what end, to gain an audience of wannabe stock footage creators? Or stock footage buyers? I don't see this as a way of bringing in stock footage buyers. A good showreel yes, but that's not what I see here. Lastly, I couldn't help but notice, and no offence to Gui that he has just over 300 clips on Shutterstock, in 5 years? That's not really enough. I've produced treble that in just over a year, mostly model released lifestyle, but I don't consider myself yet an authority on stock footage. And even if I was, I wouldn't be telling the world!
83
« on: July 29, 2018, 03:37 »
How come all the top stock footage creators I know of, don't seem to be blogging or vlogging, or on Instagram or anything else I know of.
Actually I think I know the answer...
Indeed - the vloggers are the ones barely earning $100 a month yet offering to teach newcomers their secrets. Great insights to be had there.
Don't forget that they also want to tell you how awesome BlackBox is... 
So are 90% of vloggers doing youtube instructional videos because they can't make it at what they are giving instruction on?
I'd estimate the majority of people doing stock video/photos are part timers many of whom struggle to make their expenses back. They will be the ones making continuous posts as well as sharing their sales info. Meanwhile the core of professionals actually making it work are heads down, and know better than to share their hard earned trade secrets and financial info for all comers.
Completely agree.
84
« on: July 29, 2018, 03:36 »
Completely agree.
85
« on: July 28, 2018, 16:44 »
How come all the top stock footage creators I know of, don't seem to be blogging or vlogging, or on Instagram or anything else I know of.
Actually I think I know the answer...
86
« on: July 28, 2018, 15:47 »
98% of the comments on this entire forum are from a photography perspective. Stock photography and stock footage are two totally separate beasts.
I do photography AND footage, so my comments are valid for both.
After my first year or two in footage, I calculated my RPC (return per clip) and figured if I doubled my portfolio size I would double my income. WRONG. The same thing trips people up for both photography and footage. The amount of competition is skyrocketing on both sides. It's happening at a faster pace on photography, but video is still becoming oversaturated.
PLUS when you factor the ridiculous $1.50 commissions at SS, and the 50% commission reduction at Storyblocks, and the "collection" vs "marketplace" battles at P5 and SB, you have to double or triple your footage portfolio every year just to maintain the same income.
While photography and footage are different in some ways, they're the same in the only way that truly counts: from an income perspective, NEITHER IS SUSTAINABLE. In the long-term, BOTH ARE A LOSING NUMBERS GAME.
AS others have said aswell, I cannot understand why you would want to tell the world what your best sellers are. Once you have told everyone, I'm sure some will try to copy, unless they are hard to copy, your best sellers may not be your best sellers for much longer. I`m on Instagram, but I'm always reluctant to post behind the scenes images, to reveal either what I'm up to or how I created the image.
87
« on: July 21, 2018, 15:48 »
We get low and high priced sales. Marketing and the internet are very complex with each sale being used for something completely different than the last. I guess to me $1.50 sales really don't matter when they're made up by $180 sales. If I'm gonna spend my time doing this to make money, then that has to be the overall goal... making money! Not getting caught up in small stat details. iStock and Shutterstock are both getting lower and lower on some video sales but each month are making more and more money. So why care? I'm having my best month ever at Shutterstock and it's the 23rd. Should I deactivate my portfolio because of a couple $1.50 sales last week?
Good comments
88
« on: July 18, 2018, 05:17 »
Its been said before, but I will say it again too.
People seem to get too caught in numbers and forget at the saleability of each image.
2000 images?
What of?
Doors?
Leaves?
Ducks?
Why not make every image a winner?
Then think, who would buy this image?
What does it say?
Back in the days of RM I used to earn a good living from 500 images.
$1 per image per year was never correct for me.
Probably as a consequence of microstock, I look at newbie portfolios now and I see snaps.
It seems like people buy a camera on the monday and then want to be a stock photographer on Tuesday.
The gap between the two for me was years.
89
« on: June 21, 2018, 14:07 »
I often wonder if the low prices of footage attract customers from paying higher prices elsewhere?
Or is it just a case of a different client base, and they don't shop around at all.
90
« on: June 06, 2018, 15:13 »
Totally agree.
I'm nearly up to a 1000 clips, that has taken me over a year, of constant thinking of new ideas and then planning and creating them.
People get to caught up in numbers.
I know of some top created who have under 10 000 clips.
I have come across a portfolio with clips of "Dog poo bins" and then they wondering why they aren't selling anything.
Not sure who would buy those... and then complaining about lack of sales or saying top contributors are well promoted.
They are only well promoted because they are producing great work which people want to buy, why wouldn't agents want to promote the best work?
Or should they be promoting clips of "Dog poo bins" instead?
You should make every clip count in your portfolio, is my philosophy.
91
« on: June 02, 2018, 15:16 »
That would give me about $850K a year.
Hello,
How?
Just have them all being uploaded to different stock sites for sale?
or there is other ideas in your mind?
please advise.
thanks
I got the math slightly wrong, should be $650K. But still... the guy asked how much we would make if we had 10,000 files. I make around $50K a year and I have 750 files. So if I had 10,000 files, all things being equal, I would make about $650K a year.
Just goes to show content is the most important thing, and people get caught up with numbers, especially with footage. People think you need tens of thousands of clips, when most of the top contributors have much less, but every clips is a winner...
93
« on: May 13, 2018, 04:39 »
I think `ve read this before, very interesting and often wonder why when other agents sell a lot quicker from the time of submitting.
I can understand it to some degree in that clients often work 4 months in advance, so if you submit a clip of summer, it is not very useful if they are working on Autumn themes right now.
I've been with P5 since beginning of 2017, most of the sales I've had so far have been from clips submitted in the first couple of months. Looking forward to the day when the almost 1000 clips I have there now start selling.
Somewhat frustrating when talking to people I know about my work and and what I have just uploaded and they ask if it has sold yet when it has only been only a month!
94
« on: February 25, 2018, 16:32 »
Hit the $50 payout after 48 hours. Not too shabby, but we'll see how it goes moving forward.
If I recall correctly, sounds a bit like the way artbeatsexpress worked out their payments too? Although I know they have closing.
95
« on: February 06, 2018, 08:24 »
Thanks for sharing @silvanalu - great looking port.
Wow - that is a lot of footage to get up in just four months.
It sounds like I’ve been a little late to the Adobe Stock game, going to get everything up on it soon to start seeing how it does.
That was my experience with Pond5 overall - took a few months for sales to start.
Looking forward to hearing more about your progress in the future.
Intersting info, thanks for sharing. Intersting website, will be interesting to see how things work out for you this year. You are just a little ahead of me, I joined Pond5 a years ago, got about 600 clips now with them, still waiting for the ball to start moving. I think I must have spent more hours on it than you, I don't know how you do it and do other things aswell! Hard work getting the ball rolling, and everyone talks about the lag on Pond5 being a year, which is interesting.
96
« on: January 30, 2018, 16:36 »
Use the new upload tool! It's officially still in Beta (has been for a couple of years) but it works really well and is up there with the best of the rest. No need to make thumbnails or preview videos/images, simultaneous uploads, direct upload from Dropbox etc. If you don't have access on your account, you just need to drop an email to an address that I can't remember, but will find, and they'll turn it on for you.
And Author Driven Pricing was released this week, so you can set your price from $4 to infinity. Due to the overly complicated way that fees are calculated, you also get a higher percentage cut the higher you price your items. Likewise, you get a lower percentage cut the lower you price your items... so hopefully that should minimise price dumping.
For example.... price a clip at $99 and you'll get:
$64.56 to $84.00 if you're exclusive
$43.20 if you're non-exclusive
Price a clip at $10 and you'll get:
$4.37 to $6.12 if you're exclusive
$3.15 if you're non-exclusive
Price a clip at $4 and you'll get:
$0.62 to $0.87 if you're exclusive
$0.45 if you're non-exclusive
So what would you recommend for pricing your own clips, seems a fine line between wanting to increase prices without putting off potential buyers, who would buy clips here because it is cheaper than elsewhere? Maybe they are also different kinds of clients to those who would go to Pond5 for instance? Although I think that has been covered in a another thread.
97
« on: January 30, 2018, 15:58 »
Pond5!
Pond5?
I still not getting any view to my content. I need to share the content? It's strange...
In video things are much, much slower than in photos, especially at Pond 5.
It is quite rare that a video clip sells in the first 12 months, generally they start to get real traction after two years.
What sort of video do you shoot, how many clips?
Can you provide a link to your video portfolio?
At Pond 5 there is a lot of top quality stuff, probably the best footage of all agencies, as artists can set their own prices, so the very best only place their content at Pond 5 and price it at several 100 dollars per clips
Why does it take so much longer for clips to sell on Pond5 than elsewhere? Other sites I've had sales a month after uploading. Is it the search engine, the variation in clips on Pond5 or a different client base? Or something else?
98
« on: January 16, 2018, 15:37 »
Always the same story, at some point, some contributors stopped selling without any explanation and logic, It happens in almost all stock agencies, I have not sold one video since October and I am sending it to the Pond5 since 2011 and every month I had a sale.
My thoughts entirely. Early days for me on Pond5, been there a year, have 500 clips so far on there. But if people aren't getting sales from a portfolio of 12k of clips, there is no hope for my small portfolio! And 4 years to get to 12k of clips is pretty good going!
99
« on: October 24, 2017, 16:07 »
Video sales do not happen as fast as photo sales. Generally it takes a few moths after uploading.
Personally I find that good sellers need at least one year to become established. Pond 5 for me is the one that takes more time.
So keep uploading an don't worry
Interesting info about Pond5, funny I `ve read a few times that it could take a year for them, and strange why it takes longer for them than others.
100
« on: October 19, 2017, 08:46 »
Thanks! I try my best to figure out what people might need or want, and I try and put a bit of effort into making stuff reasonably scientifically accurate. Not too much, as accurate isn't exactly sexy... but I've seen clips where the Earth is spinning in the wrong direction or the moon looks like it's 1000 miles away from the Earth etc.
Sometimes my ideas of what will sell pay off.... sometimes they don't. I've done some where I've spent a day on a clip and it's never sold. Others where i've spent an hour and it's a best seller. I'll get there!
Have you done any clips yet of Tabby`s Star? (Dyson Sphere maybe?) That really intrigues me. I`d love to know what`s going on there!
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