Argentina, Brazil, maybe Germany.

At the risk of seeming redundant, I'll say it again. I really enjoy working with this site. My sales haven't been huge, but my portfolio is still small. Some artists have over a thousand cards online. Some who signed up at the beginning may be in the thousands, but there is no minimum for payout. You get what you earn every month. Creative bursts hit me, and I design 20 or 30 cards in a week. I don't think that one has ever been rejected. They are an extremely pleasant and easy site to work with.

All of you, thank you so much. This is research in advance, but now I have another option to consider. I've been a mac fan since the first mac, but have always bought them new. Mine would never qualify for refurbishing. My husband usually inherits my old laptops. They get passed down through the family until they totally die.

My first mac is still sitting in storage. Last time I checked it, it worked! I'm not sure that I still have the 400k discs.

Has anyone bought any refurbished mac products? Good luck or bad? It's just a matter of time until I have to buy a new laptop. It seems like a good way to save some money. Apple Care can be extended to a full 3 years. That's the same as I got on my last new mac laptop.

Thanks for the help!

2 sales. 317 images.

For me, the good old days were before the economy hit the skids. The good old days are slowly coming back.

My sales have been on the rise lately, and I have a small oddball portfolio on DT. I requested a payout last week, and they did it promptly. They're still my favorite agency.

Pat

I fell off a rock wall while playing follow the leader and broke  both of my  arms at the same time. It made the local newspaper. Oh, and I let the bathtub run over one summer afternoon. It spilled between the floors of the house into our kitchen. A huge piece of plaster fell off the kitchen ceiling and almost hit my mother. When my parents got someone to fix the plaster, they discovered 2 tons of honey from a beehive that bees had built between the first and second floors of the house.The kitchen ceiling was about to collapse. They had  to call bee keepers to move the bees. I don't remember how they got the honeycomb and honey out from between the floors of the house. That made the local paper, too. My parents must have been thrilled when I went to college.

Quote from: cthoman on November 25, 2009, 16:15
As a freelancer, half of my job is promotion, finding clients and communicating with clients (definitely not the fun half). I can see the appeal of this logo program because eliminating all the time and money spent tracking down clients might be worth the lower prices. I'm taking a cautious approach to the logo program. I haven't uploaded any logos, but I'm definitely going to monitor its success or failure. I think it is a mistake to just outright dismiss it. Especially since many people are creating logos for it.

This is the approach that I've decided to take. I'm far from a professional logo designer, but I've been designing and researching logos for the last year as a way to get comfortable working in Illustrator. This thread came up just as I decided to start researching the online market for pre-designed logos. It seems to me that istock and Brandstack are asking for two very different products. I've read the briefs on both sites, and it apprears that they're going to sell to different markets. istock is asking for simple one or two color vector designs with no type unless it's an integral part of the logo design. Brandstack is asking for a more complete brand with several colorways and one example with typography included. Brandstack will put the designer and client in touch for modifications to the original design. This is more like a traditional designer client relationship. istock is selling the logos as, and it seems that this will appeal to designers looking for a logo for inspiration or to save time on basic designing. They will then take the logo and make the modifications themselves and build the brand around the basic logo. What istock is asking for seems to me to be a starting point for logo design for designers who want to save time. Brandstack is for nondesigners who want to buy a more compete package.

Does this make sense? Anyone with more experience please feel free to jump in and correct me.

Pat Ballard

Everyone has made some valid points. Except that we all should exit the field. That's a personal decision based on earnings plus how enjoyable doing micro is for the individual photographer. The bar for quality and technique is constantly getting raised. What I've been wondering lately is what will be the next popular style in micro photography? The market for isolated objects on a white background and models in business suits with soft lighting on a white background seems saturated. Who is going to be the next innovator who comes up with that unique look that catches on? The style that all the designers want, and that we all imitate.

Pat

Yeah, I was joking about the cat and dog image. It's taken on a life of its own.

Congratulations all!

Pat

If you'd had it up, you might have gotten in even sooner.

I've gotten nothing one way or the other? Did I need to apply. I thought they would get in touch with all Snapvillage contributors with a yes or no. Then if you were rejected, you could reapply after June 8.

I agree with Whitechild. It also comes to my mind that we don't know how much money any of the agencies are making off of us. I say this as a citizen of the US. Everyone here has been burned by the current financial crises, and I'm probably a bit paranoid because of it. In some ways we all asked for it by being complacent after the boom years of the 1990s. We just all assumed while we were making money that everything would always be fine. I'll bet most microstock photographers and illustrators felt the same way before the drop in sales that came last summer when the recession hit. I'd be more than willing to work with the agencies that will show us their bottom line. If their % of profits are dropping, I'd be willing to work toward a compromise with any agency that will give us the numbers. As contributors we should have asked more questions upfront. It is their agency. They provide the structure that enables us to sell, but it's our product that fuels the profits. One really can't exist without the other. Keep in mind that we want these businesses to make money, and we don't want to go on a witch hunt. Hard times call for creative solutions. I was selling art during the 1980s when the oil bust hit in Texas. When the gallery business bottomed out in Santa Fe, I caved and stopped selling. I still wish that I'd had the foresight to work toward a creative solution to the problem.

As for the poll, I'm not sure yet.

Quote from: FlemishDreams on May 08, 2009, 05:46
Entry into the collective should be reserved to contributors that are not-anonymous and that have a portfolio of at least 500-1000 on the established big 6.

That would keep me out as I'm still a relative newbie. I'll probably never have a large portfolio. It depends on which way we decide to organize......if we organize. It is certainly the right of any group of contributors to form their own organization and set the standards for membership. I do feel that it would be a mistake to ignore new talent. There's a lot of it out there. Lisa's example of the electrician's union is an example of what could happen if they're excluded. There's power in many small contributors banding together. It depends on whether a bargaining collective is formed or a new commercial group that somehow sells the images. They're totally different concepts, and it's still early days.

Maybe through this forum some of the problems can be solved by a dialogue with the agencies. I'd really rather go this route than take on the huge job of forming any sort of an organization. Am I wrong about this one?

This is wonderful news. We appreciate the communication.

Yes, strict quality control would be necessary. From my point of view, I can offer very large fractals with very high quality from my software. I've gradually been cutting back on size as it's not cost effective. It takes hours, sometimes all night, to generate a fractal that is 9,000 x 9,000 pixels. I've never offered one that large to a site, but I could. Again, I don't know enough about the technical issues of online storage, but I'd be willing to offer exclusive very large images for a larger share in sales. Is there a need for this sort of image, or am I still thinking like a gallery artist?

This thread has already generated some change for me. I'm going to start uploading to FP again and take a serious look at CC and Zym, when I have the time. My list of agencies needs to morph to support the most flexible of the smaller agencies as well as the big sellers that will accept my work.

This is off topic, but I'm starting to feel overwhelmed by all there is to be done. How do we do it all and keep studying our craft at the same time? Arrrgh! And have a life.

OK before we go on let's make a list of the problems that need to be fixed. That said, I'm very impressed with the quality of solutions that are being proposed. Please feel free to add any points that I might have missed. Here goes:

1. The rise of rejection rates by most of the established agencies. An explanation for this would go a long way toward easing the hostility that this problem causes. Something like, "We're full up, and it's costing more and more to add new images." If not totally valid all of the time, it would begin to give us an idea of the problems that the agencies are facing.

2. Decreasing income % from sales. This is due to subs and changes in pricing structures by the agencies.

3. No control over the pricing structures for our images other than to complain and stop uploading.

4. Irrational reviewers giving unclear or inaccurate reasons for rejections. Plus that lack of direction and detail in the rejections. Look at number 1. I'd rather hear that than some crazy reason that makes no sense. Also, I'd rather hear, "Fractals aren't big sellers, and we don't need more of them unless they are extremely new and creative." Rather than no commercial value, or this is a well covered subject. This probably isn't realistic on my part.

5. Lack of policing or cleaning out of the databases for older substandard images. It would be nice to believe that we can police our own images, but how many of us have any objectivity about our own work? Plus, the difficulty in removing images from our ports at the different sites adds to this problem. I have no idea how much this sort of quality control would cost, but it might be a good use for Attila. Let him have a go at older images that either haven't sold or have technical issues that would never be accepted now.

6. Lack of transparency by the agencies. This includes financial transparency, an explanation for the rise in rejections, and an explanation of the changing quality standards. Dreamstime is my favorite of the stock sites, but I just wish that they'd said that they needed to change and tighten their standards and given us an explanation before the rejections started. It's their company, but it's our images. They have the right to make any changes that they want to their corporate policy, but as a contributor I want a detailed explanation.

Whatever direction we go if we decide to organize formally, it is probably the best idea not to make our headquarters in the US, but I don't know enough about business in the world outside the US to say what country would be the best.

We have a long way to go before we solve this problem. Many of us are creative, but business novices. We're going to need a ton of input from the more business savvy among us. I agree that it would be nice to have the support of the major players, but I'm wondering how necessary this is? There are probably hundreds of really creative new talents out there who can't get into the major agencies who would love to join us in a new venture. There is probably even some undiscovered creative gem out there who could revolutionize the style of stock photography or illustration who just can't get their product to the buyers.

Maybe the most we can hope for is to influence the established agencies to listen and respond to our issues with the way things are currently run. Maybe we can open up a dialogue. This might be the least time consuming and cheapest way to go. We could organize as a collective with some bargaining power. Lest someone yell union, this would be different because we would never be in a position or require membership in order for a contributor to get work. Yes, some contributors would get a free ride, but life is never fair. As I said in an earlier post, we're not trying to eradicate microstock, we're just trying to find a better way to influence or establish a better pricing structure for the contributors, and take more control over our sales.

Lastly after everything is in place, marketing, marketing, marketing.

Again, this thread is exciting. A couple of thoughts come to mind.

Don't get discouraged. This thread is just 24 hours old, and it has already generated some great ideas. This is a process that will take many months to carefully work out, if we choose to pursue it.

The one month exclusive idea is genius. Very few of us will want to cut our ties with the traditional micro agencies. At least at first. This would be a way of giving our group an edge, and we'd still be able to generate traditional income. The successful art cooperatives that I've seen aren't trying to eradicate privately owned galleries. They're just offering a new pricing structure to the artists. One thing that is complicated by the internet is that many galleries make the artists sign an exclusive contract within a certain geographic area. Not sure how we could use that one on the internet. Maybe the one month exclusive, or something similar, would take care of that issue. It changes the exclusivity from geography to time. Also, complicated by the internet is that in a geographic setting, competition makes the pie larger not smaller. I use Santa Fe as an example because I know the community. People flock to Santa Fe to buy art. More galleries open, and more people flock to Santa Fe to buy more art. There have been some gallery closings this last year, but not as many as I expected. These were probably under funded and didn't expand their marketing strategies to make up for the shortfall in income due to the recession. That's just a guess on my part.

Let's not let all of the frustrations we feel toward the traditional agencies at the moment make us hostile and cloud our judgment. We're not trying to make traditional microstock go away, we're just trying to find a successful alternative that will give the photographers and illustrators a larger percentage of sales. My attitude is that they own the businesses. They have the right to set their own standards. If I don't like it I should stop uploading to those sites that have business practices that I can't work with or work to find a successful alternative. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about business to know if we're being totally screwed financially by these sites or not. Look at the banking crisis here in the US. Are the successful agencies making larger profits at our expense, or are they struggling to maintain some sort of profit margin during a recession? I don't know, but this last year has made me cynical about business in general.

While still spotty, the economic news coming out of the US is getting better. This might be a great time to start planning for the eventual up turn in business. It's sort of like the buy low and sell high rule. Let's hope things have bottomed out and are really starting up. However, if the current recession hadn't happened, we'd all still be happy working and uploading. We'd never have examined what was happening with our work at the established agencies. At the very least, this is a good time to examine what's really going on with our sales.

This sounds a lot like an internet version of many artists and crafts cooperatives. They are usually started by people who are tired of the usually gallery 50 to 60% cut for low sales and little marketing. Craft gallery owners often opt for lower quality to get more cheaper sales. Sound familiar? The cooperatives are usually run by a rotating board with all of the members putting in several hours of work a month at the gallery. Several of these galleries have been successful in New Mexico and North Carolina since the 60s. There are probably many more businesses like this out there. These are just the two areas of the country that I'm the most familiar with. If an artist wants to sell through the gallery but doesn't want to work there, they sometimes have the option of taking a lesser percentage of their sales. There would also be a need for a good contract similar to the ones that we agree to with the micro agencies, but it would have to take into account all of the changes in the pricing structure. With ironclad options for getting rid of those members who don't live up to the agreement. I'm not sure how this model could be adapted to the internet, but the idea is exciting.

Great idea, gostwyck. It's well worth exploring.

Pat

Is it an upturn in the economy, or the new search engine, or the new flash browser? Sales of my illustrations have started selling after a six month dry spell from July to February. During this period, I only had scattered sales.

Pat

This is why I love the Microstock Group. Thanks for the input. I have weeks of fun ahead getting all of this up and running.

Thanks again, batman.

Pat

Thanks for the help. That's pretty much what I was thinking. Nothing in life is ever that easy. I'll mess around with the alternatives until I get a workable set up. There is a flash meter that will fire the strobes.

Yes, I was dating myself by admitting that I bought equipment from Spiratone new!

Thanks again.
Pat

All of you who have read my earlier post about having two houses 1500 miles apart know what I'm talking about. I've been in New Mexico this last week sorting through our storage area there. I found a box of lighting equipment that I bought in the early 80s to photography the handwoven rugs and textiles that I was making at the time. I bought them from Spiratone, who is no longer in business. All of the equipment is in perfect working order. Will the strobe flashes and slaves work with my digital camera? I don't want to damage the camera.

Thanks for the help.
Pat

All of the above posts have merit, but I'd agree most with hard work. Also, the ability not to get discouraged, and having good health. The people that rise to the top of most businesses have the health and stamina to get the job done. They aren't necessarily the most talented or the smartest.