I haven't read 4HWW but I did buy Ferris's 'The 4-Hour Body' and, from reading it, I'd take anything he has to say with a large pinch of salt. Ferris is very good at self-marketing and making good money in supposedly providing simple solutions to all of life's problems. Unfortunately the real world is actually much more complex than he would have us believe and therefore his basic ideas often don't actually work.

This issue is a good illustration of how Ferris's theory breaks down when examined. We (i.e. microstock contributors) may consider the 'product' being sold by our distributors to be the content we create. SS however wouldn't agree. SS believe that what they are really selling is a service and it is their skill on handling data that allows them to provide a better service than anyone else.

Once again here's Oringer's blog explaining his thoughts on the issue;

http://jonoringer.com/2013/01/13/why-going-exclusive-as-a-microstock-photographer-doesnt-work/

Let's say I had a real tangible product to sell __ a really good homemade jam for example. Here in the UK we have the 'Big 4' supermarkets (a bit like we have the Big 4 agencies). Now I could do an exclusive deal with just one of those supermarkets. They would then be able to sell it at the optimum price and both they and I would achieve good margins for the product. However, if I sold my jam on a non-exclusive basis to all the supermarkets, then it might sell in 4x the volume. Price competition might mean that I made less margin on each sale however the greater volume might mean I made far more money.

The 4-hour workday reminds me of those pyramid schemes where someone trying to convince you to sign up tells you they're "retired." Um, no, you're not retired, you've just switched to working for a pyramid scheme company and spend all your work time trying to convince people to sign up. I'll bet Ferris works more than full time writing, making appearances, blogging, etc.etc.etc.

I went on the wordpress site:

"Custom design ability" $30yr
"No adds" $30yr
"Domain mapping" $13yr

Would I need to subscribe to the 1st and 3rd and blue host to get this started?


My Very Best
KimsCreativeHub.com

No. Just bluehost.

Tons of things, some very subjective and some less so.  I'm not talking about individual images, I'm talking about product offerings and, with 10s of millions of images, there is nothing that unique or special and the only things that differentiate the agencies are price and perception.  Using the example of Apple, there is a perception of quality but there are very few serious companies that have one of those on every desk.

In the case of Apple, perception matches reality. Their products *are* high quality. Almost all ad agencies and advertising production companies run on macs. I believe Apple is the world's most valuable brand right now...bigger than coca-cola.

I think there are two markets for stock art. One is small companies and bloggers, who don't really care if an image is exclusive as long as it looks good and is inexpensive. But large corporations and ad agencies are interested in exclusive images (and buyouts) because they're willing to pay more to stand out from their competition.

When we have stuff like that, we are able to just put it on the curb with a sign that says "free" and there are people who patrol the neighborhoods around here for stuff who pick it up and take it away.  I've never had anything decent sit out there for more than 2 days.  They're welcome to it. 

We don't even need a sign in my neighborhood...there are a few people who drive around in pickup trucks every trash night looking for stuff. I had a yard sale once and dragged everything that didn't sell out to the curb for trash pickup, and 1/2 hour later when I went to walk my dogs 90% of it was gone. I couldn't even imagine how they knew the stuff was there so quickly.

All these threads on Syms growth and early success makes me want to try and do it myself - the only thing holding me back is my own lack of knowledge and confidence, you see, I am totally intimidated by anything to do with computer programming, seo (yikes), and all that kind of stuff.

However, I am motivated to at least give it a try.

Question:  Does anyone use HostGator for there website? Is this good service or is there a better one?

Any direction is extremely appreciated.
Modify message

Step-by-step instructions at http://www.symbioguides.com/getting-started/

You can get an old-fashioned paper check in the mail. Takes a while to arrive, but you don't lose any of your earnings to fees.

That's awesome! 

Make a Symbiostock that looks great and appeals to designers.

Make it use the photographers connecting together to form sympathetic groups whilst retaining control of their own content idea, but provide them with a seamless secure client payment pathway whilst still giving them 100% royalties.

Make it completely idiot proof with a frictionless set up and uploading.

Make the search perfect.

Make it infinitely customisable.

Make it affordable for a one off payment, not endlessly expensive like PhotoShelter.

Make it next week.

I'm not sure there's a way to make Symbiostock look great in everyone' opinion across the board, because people are free to design their own sites. There 's a lot of flexibility in it now, so if you have design talent you can certainly create a site that appeals to designers. I'm sure if I asked my art director or designer friends for help my site would look fabulous. Or you can pay a designer to create a look for you.

Well done, iStock.
You undercut your exclusives with indie content, you promote old formerly high-selling images to a higher price bracket which kills them dead and won't allow us to demote them, and now you make your low-cost subs so attractive to former refuseniks that now they're clamouring to get into TS.
Just (expletive deleted) fantastic. 

It's funny, because as a non-exclusive I'm convinced they really only want exclusives. They're cettainly oushing exclusive content big time intheir marketing. Maybe they don't want *any* contributors?

Seriously, though, it seems to me they're splitting the options available to exclusive and non-exclusive contributors with an eye towards one day having a curated collection that's exclusive only and a subscription site for the rest of us. That's my guess.

@BD.

I realize this. There are several other articles later on that support this.

Do you agree/disagree? How do you think things have changed?

What was their testing methodology? Remember, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

The good news is that all the changes have resulted in a much faster site.






Not.

Yay! I'm waiting for an email or call about my first (hopefully) sale today. Getting very positive feedback from art directors and art buyers about my site and the Symbiostock idea.

Lasagne.