Hi Guys,
I have been creating WordPress themes as a way of learning new skills, I have created a services/showcase/portfolio theme for WordPress, this theme is not a typical blogging theme and is designed to promote yours or your customers professional skills or services, so it needs no sidebars and is not adSense enabled although there are many other themes and plugins that could deliver these.

If you have a WordPress blog and want to make it more like a cms then this theme might work, you can see it here and find out more here:

Best thing is it is free to use!

David

I still read the posts and contribute but not as much, I only have images now with The3dstudio.com and have been learning php and WordPress, but I still support microstock with images in mind as I use them from istock in my posts, and to show of my themes like here:, but I do not include them with the themes.


Here is a WordPress portfolio theme I am working on, pm me if you want a copy when it is finished, and I am looking at creating a microstock plugin to work with NextGen.

So i am being nice!

David   

My ISP is Red Fox Hosting in the UK, I have a resellers account, the entry level would be a shared hosting acoount which give two SQL 2005 databases, asp, mysql, php, ftp, email accounts etc:, enough for any photographers website, blog etc:, at �10.00 a month, �99.00 a year.

For some payment gateways you may need a dedicated SLL, you would buy this on top, it is not required for PayPal but it helps if your customers see the https, I have it installed on my cart, even though it is a free download website, at the moment.

https://www.digitalraindrops.net/ShoppingCart.aspx

Note: google checkout requires a full trust environment and will not work with most shared hosting plans that run in medium trust.

David 

I have been looking into something like this but think I need to hire a programmer.

What type of site are you creating just for you or for a number of contributors, these tools are overkill for a single user, and not up to the job for a virtual agency?

I looked at loads of these last year and non were really was good enough, I have gone back to looking at ecommerce tools for a simple portfolio site with downloads. 

David

this may be a stupid question, but is this a stock site or just 3d or both??? I got stock but no 3d

Both and feel free to use my refferal link to sign up!

http://www.the3dstudio.com/?id_affiliate=464733

David  

Anyone in a non treaty country will have the withholding tax of 28% of revenue on US Sales only if they submit the W8BEN, if not the 28% on all sales, most countries tax authorities will allow them to off-set this against thier own tax liability under double taxation rules, so it should not be a problem for most.

If the photographer is not declaring the revenue from microstock, then they will just have to accept the situation or register the income, at some point online companies like ebay will be forced to share revenue information with governments.

It is not unusual for a business or individual who is resident in one country to make a taxable gain (earnings, profits) in another.
This person may find that he is obliged by domestic laws to pay tax on that gain locally and pay again in the country in which the gain was made.
Since this is inequitable, many nations make bilateral Double taxation agreements with each other.
In some cases, this requires that tax be paid in the country of residence and be exempt in the country in which it arises.
In the remaining cases, the country where the gain arises deducts taxation at source ("withholding tax") and the taxpayer receives a compensating foreign tax credit in the country of residence to reflect the fact that tax has already been paid.
To do this, the taxpayer must declare himself (in the foreign country) to be non-resident there. So the second aspect of the agreement is that the two taxation authorities exchange information about such declarations, and so may investigate any anomalies that might indicate tax evasion.

So when you submit the W8BEN for treaty countries even if you do not pay withholding tax, it means that your earning details will be sent to your countries tax authority by the US revenue services, so the international tax treaties does not mean tax free revenue, just less paperwork for the IRS.

In the UK with other freelance trades like agency workers, construction workers and IT consultants like me, as sole traders we are not employees but we are often taxed at source, if you pay to much tax you get a rebate, and if you pay to little you get a bill for the balance, but revenue should be declared and tax has to be paid.

David  

Unfortunately no million$ to spare, just a love of what we do and a belief that life is too short ~ regrets are worthless.

To bring a stock site to market you will need $100k - $350k just to get started, and love will not pay for the development, storage, bandwith, inspectors, legal advice, marketing, marketing and did I say marketing?

Unless you have something unique you will not attract any venture capital, or get any foothold in the current market, you are about 9 years to late joining the party, good luck anyway, but you will need more than good luck though.

david

But there is something that I can understand. You said sales are growing but we see not only revenue decreasing but number of downloads to.
This forum has a lot of members and averge say so. Something must be wrong

It is great to see that sales are growing on any site, but that does not mean that contributor revenue is up and quite often it falls, or does it mean that the site is doing well, there is a cost for each upload and that cost comes from sales revenue and not from the number of uploads, if the sales are up by x% but the number of images submitted are up by xx% the operating costs are higher for the site and the RPI overall will be down.

As a contributor to any site, and for me to be up with the game I would need to be maintaining my share of the revenue pool, to do this I would need to increase my portfolio with good images at a rate that maintains my overall percentages of online images, I did do some general calculations last year that concluded I would need to double my portfolio year on year just to stay at a low level of return.

If the website revenue and number of downloads increase but is well below the number of new images and contributors then most will see a fall in thier revenue due to revenue dilution.

It is likely that the RPI on the sites is down year on year dispite any sales revenue increases, due to the increase in the number of images online growing faster than the number of increased sales, many complain about IS limiting the number of uploads but this has enabled them to manage costs and grow at a controlled rate.

David  

Well at IS,  Ive managed to become a Diamond member, non-exclusive and I would say 99% of all my stuff with them is non-generic. Generic stuff will tend to just disappear.
To put images up for RM, is today a hell of a gamble, Gettys RM is not at all what it used to be and Alamys is a joke.
The entire RM business is very, very unstable.
Ive been with the Getty-RM since 93 and boy! have I seen it plunge down or what.

best.

Hi lagereek,
I was coming more from an exclusive point, if a contributor goes IS exclusive then they are limited to RF at IS, if I am right they cannot put images as RF anywhere else, if you have any image that might not suit microstock or you think they may only get an odd download then taking a chance with RM might be better for them images, by being selective in where you place your images instead of uploading them to IS just to make up the numbers for the next canister.

When I say generic I was not thinking just about handshakes more on suitable microstock content, my thinking had come from a post I read yesterday where a photographer had seen one of thier images in a travel mag which was downloaded at $0.30, as it is a niche image it may only get a couple of downloads, where had they thought about the potential and limited market it may have been better uploading it as RM, at least if they had a sale it may be worth it.

David   (Off-Topic Sorry)

Happy New Year to all at The3DStudio, as someone that is firmly behind The3DStudio and the business model that gives a 60% commission, and where the website is new to Stock Photography but it does have an existing customer base, and allows contributors to set their own prices.

After the push in 2009 to get more images on the website I saw my sales fall away, but today I am pleased to see 2 sales in 2010, my royalties from 2 sales is $12.00.

So here's to a good 2010 at The3dStudio.com, my affiliate link is in my signature below if you are thinking of joining up

David  

Regarding my ex-employer, I took action the only place I could and that was on the internet, in public. Of course they threatened legal action, but that would mean they would have to prove their side of the matter, ...>

Not quite true, in the case of libel it is up to the person making the statement to prove that what they have written is true, so you would have to prove without doubt your statement in court, most actions are satisfied with a removal after a cease and desist, the fact that no action is taken in a libel case does not mean the libel statement is true, as often actions are not taken up for financial reasons!

David

As said Photoshelter have the VA option, the structure is already in place and tested, they have a monthly or yearly charge and take 10% of any transaction.

First question is content, a general stocksite with generic content is a non-starter and will end up a dead duck, so you will need a common interest for a specialist agency, this limits the number of artist as you do not want to be competing within the co-op, maybe a travel image agency.

Thinking 'out the box' if you are self promoting and marketing with specialist content then the buyers will be wanting to request images that are not in the library, how about an old fashioned agency concept where buyers are approved and invoiced month end, then you can look at a free package called resourcespace, another opensource ecommerce with digital downloads is a product called nopCommerce, these cut out PhotoShelter but require webspace and some skills in setting up etc:

The biggest problem will be sharing the workload between the co-op members and finance, the only way I could see this working would be by a percentage of any sale being taken by the co-op, and a form of co-op share issue, where the more you put in the more you get out.

What would be the royalty rates would really depend on software choices, an agency could run on as little as 10%-15%, and if self promotion is to work, then affiliates would be needed so another 10% - 15%, if we are then talking about 70% for the photographer we are back at the starting point with a Photoshelter VA.

Looking at other sites where you can self promote, then you can look at the social networking tools at The3DStudio.com, but linking back there will also expose your potential customers to the general collection and they become a customer of the site and not your customer, that will be the same on any co-op where other artist may benefit from your hard networking.

Having asked several times about these type of solutions the feedback has been so small that it has not been worth starting, I can have a stock imaging site up and running in a few hours, I have spare domains and capacity on my reseller account, but there is not the real interest other than in the topics here, turning topics into action is a lot harder.

David