To LivingstoneAtLarge and other sellers on Etsy I ask :  the reason why I would not sell stock images in large numbers at Etsy is that you have to pay money (about 20 cents) per file, which would be quite a lot of money if I would do that with thousands of images.   Is this also true for larger quantities?  And if yes, then I understand why you sell them as "collections"!

It's .20 per listing.....and you can make, say, 100 copies available, or a 1000, whatever for that same .20.
Then there is a fee when it sells.  (3.5%)

So, if I sell a digital file for $7 on the first one I have lost the .20 listing cost and the 3.5% sale cost (.25). I clear $6.55 on the first one and $6.75 on all the rest I listed for that .20 fee.

The listings stay active for 4 months. If I sold even one download it would be better than selling it 19x on SS. (And let's face it. I'm not going to sell a plain old rabbit 19x on SS or DT.)

As to the downloading and reselling by others. Apparently they're doing that anyway from SS and DT. The likelihood of me catching them is slim. I might as well make as much as I can per file wherever I can. (IMHO)

For me the real time and effort (besides taking the shot, which I already have a couple hundred thousand sitting around doing nothing) is the artwork, editing, resizing for easy printing, uploading. Which does take a fair amount of time, once.

$100 a day is still much better than anything I am doing with the agencies I am with......for rabbits and llamas and flowers. 

Quote from: StockStudio on September 21, 2017, 03:20

Related question: assuming we are not exclusive in any agency, can we sell our videos and photos on Etsy? Does anyone do it here?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

Why would you, without any license restrictions?

Most have somewhat restricted TOU's. (Terms of Use) Especially about reselling as digital downloads. So, you can use for physical projects with limited sales but not repackage and sell as your own digital downloads in some other downloadable package.

Same here.

5 years ago the boss took off with the payroll and all of a sudden I was over qualified, over weight and over 50.

Picked up my camera learned some photoshop skills and never looked back. I think now it might have been the best thing to happen to me in a long time.

I took up cave photography and birding by kayak and have lost almost 100 lbs. I have learned to be braver and how to get myself in and out and up and down on a rope!

I've been able to spend the last best years with my grandma's (Both are 90) and the new first best years with my grandchildren.
I'm a tourist in my own state and country and am getting paid for it. (I don't need a lot )

For all the grumbling we do, it's still the best gig around.

Happy Trails everyone!
Ginger
www.photographoregon.com

On Christmas morning I got a phone message from my son at 7AM with a picture of their big lab wearing a coat that said "I'm going to be a big brother August 2014"
 
Grandchild on the way!     

Other than that, the GoPro should come in handy!

Ginger

So.......

I submitted some videos and all were rejected. At first I was annoyed and of course trying to figure out since I have a zillion clips on other agencies, why?

Now I can say, this was MY fault.

For some reason, when I first set up my parameters and named them as presets. I set the quality at 49 and the codex at H.264.
Uhhhhhggggg....Out of 300+ clips sent to SS only 3 have ever been rejected so it never crossed my mind to double check it.

Now I am considering that I might be having slower clip sales because my quality level is crap. Duh.

...and now I might have to revamp all those clips delete and resubmit a little at a time if I really want some sales.

Before I start this HUGE project, I am going to submit a few in this format to SS and FT and make sure they are accepted.

*. Well, I suppose I could have bigger problems. 

OK..after weeding through the 8 pages of posting on this here are my thoughts.

I originally thought that this was just another stock agency being put together not a self-run option.  I got in on the ground floor with a few newbies that wasted a lot of my time, so I ignored it. This post got my attention enough to really look in to it.

Waiting until it is proven is a nice option and necessary for many, but some people have to be the explorers. (Yes, I really am a Livingston so it's in my DNA). The explorers are going to be the ones who make the early money as I have not ever (despite what you may have read) seen a �get rich quick� stock site, it take some time, usually a lot of time and effort. The early birds will be in longer=MORE TIME=more money. So thanks already to the explorers who jumped in.

*Caveat* That being said, I have the luxury of a high end web developer daughter who adores me and can help me when I get stuck on the set-up. She also has her own host for a high end video streaming service that will more than serve for my Symbiostock needs as well and a spare domain name slot, thus costing me nothing but time.

More importantly, I also have a plan. I already have a way to gather customers. I have a large following on an information site that is photography related and also attracts clients. It is a niche. I can link it up. Good traffic can be monetized even more. I've been thinking for a while that I wanted to sell stock and fine art through this site and after looking at a few of the artist sites it looks like this is the mechanism to do both.

From here on out if you so desire you may transpose �You� for �Me or I� (because I could be talking to myself.)

Let me say it again, the �Put it up and they will come� mentality is somewhat of a fantasy. Again, more effort is needed. You must have some way to bring people in. If you want it to be a success you really need to sit down and make a plan as to HOW you are going to get people to come buy your images. Depending on the developers to drive your traffic is not realistic. This is just a platform to help YOU sell, not an advertising agency. Just putting it out there in the mix without a plan to drive traffic is going to have disappointing results.

You are going to get out of it what you put in to it and like any other place, time (like a few years) and effort should make it pay off. If it doesn't, well, we are wasting a ton of time with even the big microstock agencies, letting them decide (and occasionally getting �Attila the reviewer� and all images in a batch rejected. Which REALLY wasted your time) why not take the chance if you can spare some time?

�You miss 100% of the shots you never take� Wayne Gretsky

In the meantime, keep having fun shooting and remember why you did this in the first place. (I'm guessing because you love photography?)

IMHO 
Ginger

Throwing something else random out here.

FLICKR.
If you upload to Flickr, it's also a place that they can nab them from for Getty. (I only upload small res watermarked images there, so likely not usable).

and then when I'm out on the beach shooting a shipwreck, dodging in the surf to get the right shots/vids and that night after an 18 hour day knowing i have to make the sunrise.....  go to the pub, hang out with the locals drinking whiskey and singing pirate songs....

I forget all about processing, keywording etc.

and think.... this is the best job EVER. 

You get out of it, what you put in to it. It may be a lot, but it's better than anything else.

I can still access from Safari.

I gave up on them when it took months for my images to get approved.
I still have 41 images in the approval bin and they've been there for 3-4 months at least.

I guess I should just notify them to close my account.


Ginger