Hi all,

I have been looking for a "set your own price" MicroStock alternative for a long time now. I think I am going to settle for cutcaster..... Mainly cause I am impressed with how involved John Griffin (the owner) is with everything and how he makes quick changes and gives quick responses here.

Great going John. You are the reason I joint Cutcaster so keep it up.

My concern is that, even though Cutcaster is great for photographers, it's not really that great for buyers. And in a competitive environment, like microstock, you just GOT TO offer buyers something really special and different or they are not going to come to you. Why should they? I mean, they got so many many alternatives. So many of them are cheaper and have huge databases of images!

So, cutcaster needs to have images that nobody else has. You need exclusivity to be there John.

But that itself is also not going to do much. If some images are exclusive to cutcaster; there will be others that are available elsewhere, maybe better and surely cheaper.

So my solution is, you need to have exclusive and niche images on cutcaster. Cutcaster needs to become the place where buyers get really rare images that they don't get anywhere else. Then you at least have your foot in the door. Once you have buyers taking you seriously, you can have all the usual stuff that everyone also has so that you become a "one stop shop".

I am sure that there is nothing new to what I have said. But here is my contribution and my plan...

I started a small blog today... http://ms-niche.blogspot.com/

The idea is simple, 3 times a week I post 10 "niche photo ideas". People shoot those photos and sell it on a place like cutcaster or snapvillage by setting your own pice. Make the images exclusive there.

This will help the photographers. This will help cutcaster. In the long run, hopefully it will help to sell all your images at a higher price.

Wooha! Huge post,
Thanks for reading!

Looking forward to your opinions.

Hi all,

Here is something I just don't get.....

When I ask people advice about why I cant sell a lot of photos on Istock, they keep telling me that "my portfolio size is too small!". I know that it is small as compared to other people, no doubt!

But at the end of the day, a good image is a good image is a good image.

From what I understand, each new image is given a high place int the best match search for the particular keyword, and given some time before it is moved down the search pages. It it performs in this time, it keeps moving up. Else, it keeps moving down. I think that the time given for an image to perform is around 2-3 weeks.

Am i right about this?

If i am right, that would mean that the size of the portfolio is not a criteria. The quality of an image is the only criteria.


Lastly, if the size of the portfolio is a criteria, that would mean that everything is utterly random and the more you throw out there the greater the possibility of success is.


Finally: I am interested in this game only if the quality of a photo determines it success in selling. I am ready to accept that my photos are bad quality. I am not ready to accept that it's a statical game and I need to have luck to succeed. I was born unlucky, so i will likely fail here.

What are your experienced comments? Thanks a lot!

Khoj