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Messages - increasingdifficulty
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751
« on: November 01, 2017, 01:12 »
Its been 50 days now.. still no sales 
Prices?
752
« on: October 31, 2017, 14:39 »
What's wrong with sharing good site with fellow contributors so that we can all make more money? I don't understand some people's reaction. VB is still better than Dissolve. If you don't like VB, close your account and go back to Dissolve which doesn't respect contributors much.
Well, nothing wrong with sharing from a human point of view, but from just a competitive point of view, you're not doing yourself any favors. Any benefit the site as a whole may get from more contributors will be nothing compared to the negative impact of your ever relatively decreasing portfolio. You have no chance of increasing your portfolio at the same pace as the combined competition. In other words - you're shooting yourself in the foot.  It's the opposite of recommending stocks, or things like cryptocurrencies, because they increase in value with more people. All the "how to make money selling photos" blogs, YouTube videos, tutorials, books, etc. are the main reason that there are now 160 million images to compete with on Shutterstock.
753
« on: October 31, 2017, 08:18 »
Classic mistake. If you find gold in the mountains, don't tell everyone at the tavern. 
754
« on: October 30, 2017, 13:07 »
Some pretty out of the way places
Well, that would depend quite heavily on where you live.
755
« on: October 29, 2017, 10:56 »
My point is of course that the price isn't what's important, it's earnings per clip per month that counts.
That's why you only pay $65 per month for Adobe CC, and not $100,000.
Of course, there's both a lower and an upper limit, but since I'm getting 3-5 times better payoff per clip per month at a certain site compared to P5, my personal conclusion is that it's at a pretty good point.
$199 for 4k might have been a good price 5 years ago, when it was uncommon, but times change, and now it isn't uncommon anymore. Demand has also changed A LOT these last 5 years with an enormous increase in the market for footage for customers with small budgets. That market didn't exist before.
You don't price based on what your camera costs, or how much your flight to Australia cost. You price to try to maximize profits, and if there are 20,000 people willing to pay $low, and only 100 willing to pay $high, it's better to price $low.
If you have something absolutely unique, by all means price high. But I'm willing to bet that 99% of all clips from all of us at this forum and elsewhere are not very unique at all.
Times change. How many CDs do you think sell for $18 today?
756
« on: October 28, 2017, 16:28 »
Or they lie, and want to get it for free.
No, I am not. But a refund is not the same as credit card fraud.
757
« on: October 28, 2017, 14:48 »
In my parents language Nimia actually means "don't have". That is if you change the "I" to e, remove the other "I" and then you have Nema as in don't have. 
If you put the a after N, add an o after that and remove the first i, you get Naomi. Coincidence? I THINK NOT! Something's up here.
758
« on: October 28, 2017, 14:34 »
They mentioned that the customer had 'deleted' the file.
It does not matter what you call it. It is still a refund and when you get more 'refunds' than sales in a month there is something wrong somewhere.
Of course it matters what you call it. They are two VERY different things. A refund is a customer ASKING for their money back, because they're not satisfied with the clip. Or they lie, and want to get it for free. Credit card fraud is stolen numbers and the money is taken back by the bank. --- Anyway, yes, the result for you might be the same, but they are two very different things. A refund can be perfectly legitimate. Maybe your clip didn't look good enough at full resolution, or maybe they just bought too many. You DON'T see exactly what you get before you buy when it comes to footage. I'm sure that all of know that almost any clip looks good in small resolution, but fullscreen is another story. You don't see the noise for example.
759
« on: October 28, 2017, 14:21 »
So far this month I have had more refunds than sales.
How can they take the word of someone using a stolen credit card that they will delete the file? Why are they even talking to the person?
This is messed up.
Who said they're talking to the credit card thieves? There's no word of anything. The bank, or VISA/Mastercard etc. just tells VB - sorry, stolen card. Money goes back. It's not a refund if it's credit card fraud. Two completely different things!
760
« on: October 28, 2017, 14:18 »
Selling quality content for these low prices is just laughable.
Just out of curiosity, may I ask what you paid for your quality editing software? Something that cost millions of dollars to develop. Surely, over $100,000? $200,000? Then you have the self-proclaimed high pricing "gurus" with 20,000+ clips who go 4 days without sales at P5. Now THAT is laughable. 20,000 clips and multiple days with zero sales? Maybe, just maybe, prices are too high...
761
« on: October 26, 2017, 10:41 »
I got it too, and having money taken away is never fun, but I got a really good sales day today that more than made up for it (almost 20 sales). Good things happen, and bad things happen. Hopefully more good than bad in the long run.
762
« on: October 26, 2017, 04:40 »
I would actually be a bit happier if they also took a small percentage (like 5%) to keep them motivated to up-sell subscribers on our content and dissuade them from reproducing premium content in their sub offering.
Businesses will always act in their best interest and they could be tempted to try and duplicate decent content from our portfolios in their collection under the current model.
It's always a win-win for Videoblocks. 1. If a non-subscriber buys your marketplace clip, it costs $79, and Videoblocks take $30. That's 38%. Or $130 for 4k clips (39.5%). 2. If that non-subscriber wants that clip for $49, they have to buy a subscription. Videoblocks earn $99-149. 3. The marketplace clips help market the site. The $30-130 discount per clip is something people want, and are willing to pay for a subscription to get it, along with thousands of unlimited downloads. 4. The "100%" payout is great marketing and means every contributor in the world is willing to spend time uploading their portfolios. Their business model is nothing like the Shutterstock subs, and I think most people don't know that VB take $30 (or $130 for 4k) from each non-subscriber sale. It's well-thought-out and business seems to be good.
763
« on: October 24, 2017, 09:11 »
SEO is different for each search engine. There is no universal SEO.
The tools are these:
Your time, and going through each search engine methodically searching for a number of phrases in different combinations and drawing conclusions.
764
« on: October 24, 2017, 08:15 »
Its quite probable if you don't add new work you will slip down the search results but its not really punishing its a natural consequence.
Yes, and it's true for any business in the world.
765
« on: October 24, 2017, 07:58 »
Similarly they punish the contributors who stop uploading. It must be some automatic algorithm.
No, it's called common sense.
766
« on: October 24, 2017, 05:27 »
If I wanted to make photography my "job" I think I would only consider stock as a back up to more lucrative work....
I would do this (and I do) with any job, online or not. Diversification is very important and can be a crucial safety net. Most successful people do this too, like actors actually making more money from real estate investments or supporting startups. The obvious first step is of course to not just sell at one site, since that makes you very vulnerable, but also doing micro, macro, print, real life work, instagram, YouTube, the stock market, real estate, etc. etc. Images, footage, illustrations, music, sound... Of course, the drawback is dividing your time between all of these activities, but I believe finding a good balance is possible. Personally, I have maybe around 50 different "jobs", if you count each place I sell something or do something that earns money (like YouTube). Of course, 1-3 sites are big earners, and losing one of those over night would not be great, but I would still make a living.
767
« on: October 24, 2017, 05:16 »
Clearly, someone is building a library to either sell themselves, or give out for free.
768
« on: October 24, 2017, 04:38 »
I have had 4k sales that didn't get refunded. That was last year though.
769
« on: October 23, 2017, 15:23 »
So i guess the smart idea is to give up? Or do we try harder?
Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk
Yes, the most common answer by successful people on the question "What made you successful?" is: "I gave up".
770
« on: October 23, 2017, 06:10 »
Someone left the camera on High Speed and uploaded the entire memory card. 
771
« on: October 23, 2017, 01:36 »
Seems like it.
Can you find your own clips in the search?
772
« on: October 22, 2017, 11:22 »
I find it a bit amusing that so many think it's completely natural to expect no less than $79-$199 for a few seconds of footage but don't want to spend even half that for software that takes years to develop.
If you're interesting in doing video, do yourself a favor and get the real software right away.
For me, I have Final Cut Pro X. But since it does not output certain codecs, I can just use MPEG (or used to) for quick access. For me, it's not about cheap. It's about speed and flexibility. So I now use Quicktime Player Pro (that I paid for) which works just fine to export to other formats. For me, clipping will be done in FCPX where I have better control. I could do it in Photoshop as well, but for whatever reason it outputs the same codec in nearly 3x the file size as FCPX.
Anyhow, I agree that to do things right you should make a modest investment for the right tools.
What do you need FCP X to output? ProRes, h264 and uncompressed should be enough, no? I agree, in terms of speed, FCP X is unbeatable. It's quite soul killing to edit something in Premiere or After Effects and then compare it to FCP X. Exporting can be 10 times faster or more! Not to mention just working with multiple 4k clips in the timeline. Of course, you can't do everything you can do with AE or Premiere, but for simple edits it's extremely fast. Ideally, a combination of FCP X, Premiere and After Effects is what I need (and work with today). It would be great to have it in the same program... If I ran Adobe I would purchase FCP X and implement the fundamental handling of clips into Premiere and AE. Photoshop is a nightmare for video, but I suppose it can be used for extremely simple things. Auto align can be a great stabilizer for some things, working much better than the warp stabilizer. And for other things, not so good. It's a pain to work with image sequences in Photoshop layers though.
773
« on: October 22, 2017, 10:52 »
I find it a bit amusing that so many think it's completely natural to expect no less than $79-$199 for a few seconds of footage but don't want to spend even half that for software that takes years to develop. If you're interested in doing video, do yourself a favor and get the real software right away.
774
« on: October 22, 2017, 02:05 »
I'm guessing you're not watching news regulary? Nowdays there are plenty "refugees" from those countries in France. Tens of thousands of them. Maybe they liked your page? Because, this is France now.
Population of France: 66.9 million. Yes, it makes perfect statistical sense. Not.
775
« on: October 21, 2017, 08:52 »
I'll jump in with the facts before the conspiracy team arrives: If you delete photos, your sales will be capped and/or lowered by Shutterstock. If you don't delete photos, your sales will be capped and/or lowered by Shutterstock. If you add photos, your sales will be capped and/or lowered by Shutterstock. 
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