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Messages - Eugene B

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How much have u sold so far (art/stock), and how many images do you have?


In the first month we sold 10 images and sales have been steady since.  We are laying a lot of marketing groundwork now that we expect to pay off soon with further growth in sales.

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I have a few good ones good for canvas on wall but not stock. What about qualitycontrol?


We will be offering a top-quality giclee printing service for our art customers that will result in unique prints on fine art canvas for customers looking for this.  We check all images submitted to us for quality and have published an image submission guide that explains what we look for.  If you are looking to sign up then please visit our artist sign up page.

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For what you are offering the buyer, you could easily be 5 times the price (around what many people reprice the rights option on DT) and still not be considered premium.


The current market for exclusive / full-rights stock images is practically non-existent because of this exact perception.  To elaborate, if one says that the copyright of an image is worth, using your example, 5 x 800 = 4000 US dollars, then it is cheaper for a company to run an assignment and get a whole photoshoot-worth of images, with all copyrights attached and the images are custom to their needs.  So this pricing does not make sense and so the market doesn't exist in any material fashion.

We are looking to create this market by (1) giving a stock photography option for designers/publishers that makes financial sense and (2) offer affordable unique fine art for consumers.  In terms of sales, the potential of this business model is very big because, as you say, there is so much value embedded in the product that it makes sense to buyers.

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as the terms of sale including destruction of similars, there is again issues with earnings here depending on how similar? are we talking series or shoot exclusivity here? If you take and sell 1 in 10 images that may be accepted elsewhere, your returns become extremely poor.  I think this will need to be very very clear to both buyers and artists with numerous examples


The concept of getting rid of similars is there to avoid what we refer to as "double takes" of practically the same image, defeating the exclusivity of owning one of those images.  A similar image is something REALLY similar to another image and can be considered largely identical.  Since we did our due diligence, working with a top IP law firm, we can tell you that no one can force a photographer to get rid of images that are reasonably different.  (whether from the same photoshoot or even the same subject)  Such a request, even if agreed to through a contract, would not be upheld in a court of law.

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Can I buy images on your site and then resell them as stock? Or make prints and sell these? Or greeting cards, calendars, web templates etc...?


Buying images and reselling them as stock cannot be done through conventional media because a noequivalent sale does not transfer a completely unencumbered copyright.  A condition that is put on the transfer is that a buyer cannot claim to be the author of the image must identify the original photographer if asked.  This would make the image not re-sellable through any major agency's agreement as a complete copyright is required to post images.  While theoretically possible, an as-is sale becomes very complicated to say the least.

Images can be made into prints, greeting cards, calendars, etc and resold as such.

Eugene

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Hi all,

We have launched NoEquivalents gallery in April and have already had many great successes.  Finally, our customers have found a product that is superior to all alternatives and our artists have benefited because they now have a way to sell their images often, at a premium, and over the long run.

We invite everyone to visit our gallery and take a look at the only place that offers completely unique art and stock photography.  If you would like to join this up and coming trend then visit our artist portal and learn more about what we offer member photographers.  You can also read about us at the NoEquivalent blog or follow us on twitter.

Eugene

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Yes, I understand that part. My question is more what if they do not sell it? How long (if at all) am I locked into letting them try before I can remove it from their site and do something else with it? Must it sit there for a certain period of time? or am I free to remove it at my discretion (provided it has not sold)?


Great question, I will make sure to include this in our FAQ page.  No, there is no lock-in period for an image; you can publish and remove images at will.  (Although removal takes 48 hours due to possible conflict with a customer simultaneously purchasing the image) From a business advice perspective, we discourage artists from posting images for a few weeks and then removing them purely due to the fact that interested buyers take their time when purchasing; but there is no rule to force you to keep it with us for a specific period of time.

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Well I for one - regardless of copyright or the business model concepts - want to know how much money I am going to make.

So unless I hear about how this is going to be achieved from the site, or there is some guarantee of sales, I am not interested.


This is an interesting question to which it is difficult to give a non-arbitrary answer.  We have not started selling to customers yet so there are no past statistics to rely on.  I cannot guarantee your sales and if I tried you should probably be suspicious.  The only way to discuss future potential is to discuss the merits of the business and I think we have gone through, and artist.noequivalent.com is filled with, how and why an artist will make money.

You can wait and see how NoEquivalent does in practice and if you take this approach I would definitely understand.  Though keep in mind that at that point our community will probably be full (1000 artists is not a lot) and it would be more difficult for you to join.  (Although we will maintain waiting lists, so it is not impossible.)

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Just far too many new players thinking they will just get some server space, suck in heaps of photographers to load their stuff, and wait and see.


It is always the people taking that calculated risk, making that move they believe in early, that realize the biggest gains.  I am not talking about joining something that you do not believe will work.  If you believe that we are just another micro/macro stock site then you shouldnt join because there are much bigger and more established players you can work with.  But I hope that by now you understand we are not similar to any other business out there and if you understand why NoEquivalent will work then make sure you do not wait too long.  Unique opportunities do not present themselves often.

Eugene

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There are so many posts that I will try to answer the underlying questions in most of them.

Product:  We sell both Art images and Stock images.  Art images are sold to consumers, mainly targeting home dcor, while Stock images are sold to businesses within the stock industry.  Thus, not all images need to be Art; many will be sold to businesses.  If in any way we believed that the quality of micro-stock images was much lower than those of macro-stock images we probably wouldnt post onto this forum.  We review each image submitted separately and since an image posted with us cannot have been sold through any other site there is no label such as a micro/mid/macro image.  They are all images from quality member photographers.  Furthermore, since the number of contributing artists to our store is limited we get to know our artists and their work on a more individual level, understanding our members approaches.

Price:  Industry statistics show that the average stock image in todays stock industry earns a photographer about $11 a year.  (This number might even be on the high side since researchers admit that people making more money are more likely to participate in such surveys)  We offer photographers to earn 20 years worth of income in one sale.

Single Sale
We understand that if you compare current exclusive image sales to our prices it appears that our prices are just a fraction of theirs but the question really is how many of the current exclusive sales even happen.  It is quite simple to put any price tag on a product just to watch it sit on the shelf and never get sold.  While there are millions of photographers with hundreds of millions of images there is only a limited amount of demand for the product in its current form.  Practically any industry statistic would tell you that the vast majority of todays stock photographers cannot make a living in the field.

Lets say you take all the images you have/had posted in the past 10 years and total the income you have received from them.  Then divide this income by the number of images that you have/had posted during this time so you can see how much money you are really making on a per image basis.  If you end up with a large number then I congratulate you as you are probably in the top few percent of the industry and I encourage you to continue doing what you are doing.  On the other hand, if you are part of the ninety-some percent of the photographers that struggle to make money in the industry you will understand why keeping the product in its status quo is not working.

We change the product to get that demand up but at the same time do not sacrifice the returns that the artist would receive elsewhere.  Furthermore, we limit the number of members to make sure that your earnings grow in line with our demand unlike any other site out there that just churns out images at the artists expense.

Demand
The amazement of some individuals that was displayed in this forum will quickly speak to the amount of value that you are adding to your product by selling it with us.  For example, right now, businesses out there need to pay an arm and a leg to get an exclusive image (which is why they dont) while we sell it for an affordable price.  Why would a business need an exclusive image?  Well if you need images to use as basis for a marketing campaign, you do not want them to be used elsewhere.  Same applies to any public imagery a business releases as a representation of itself.

We also sell unique art at competitive price into an industry much bigger than stock photography; the wall dcor industry.  This is another big growth opportunities that you can get access to by contributing with us.  If you break down the wall dcor industry by product and price that is comparable to our product you will realize that the market within those criteria is gigantic.  People want to have a picture on their wall that they can tell their friends I have the only copy of this.

Why compare to macro-stock?
While there is really no one we can compare ourselves to because we are original, we wanted to give you some benchmark.  We decided to talk about the macro-stock industry as we expect a lot of business demand to be generated from there. We are an affordable alternative to the macro-stock product and even if the image in question is only 95% of the quality of a macro-stock shot, (which a subjective statement by itself) a business has the option to pay much less with us for a product that is of comparable quality.

Eugene

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We have started a new site, under the name NoEquivalent Art, which specializes in selling unique edition art and stock photography images.  While we are not selling to consumers yet we have launched a preview version of our store to gather feedback on our business model as well as allow interested artists to join.

You can find us at artist.noequivalent.com.  Feel free to let us know what aspects of our business model you like as well as the ones you find challenging.  A quick preview of the advantages we offer artists would include features like:
    -  Selling to multiple industries through a single artist control panel
    -  A limited size collection that offers an artist significant long term financial earnings

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

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