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Messages - EmberMike
Pages: 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 7 8 9 10 ... 19
101
« on: September 01, 2015, 11:35 »
See, every-other-stock-company? It's not so hard to communicate with contributors and not be jerks.  Well played, Adobe.
102
« on: August 26, 2015, 12:36 »
...Oringer has said something like if a site pays more than 30% they won't be able to do the marketing necessary to compete. If DepositPhotos lowers their prices and royalties even more than SS and Adobe and gains market share you will support them?... Do you have a source for that Oringer statement? I'm not necessarily doubting it, seems like that's exactly how SS operates. I just want to read it in context. To answer your question, I don't particularly "support" 30% royalties, or anything under 50% really. I tolerate them because that's how this business is right now and I'm not in any position to challenge the status quo. I also continue to work with these companies because I got involved with most of them 8 years ago and my opinions about royalty rates back then were different than my opinions today. We also know more about royalties today and the myth that anything less than 30% is unsustainable. And yes, it's a myth, as proven by companies like Creative Market who pay 70% royalties and are thriving. CM is my #2 earner most months this year. I guess by doing business with these companies you could say I support their rates, but I consider "support" in this business to mean the companies that I actively support, recommend to buyers, enthusiastically upload to and companies who if I was just starting out in microstock today that I'd still sign on with. Long story short, I don't support any move to lower contributor pay. It's wholly unnecessary, no matter who is doing it and for whatever bull---- reason. But that lack of support doesn't necessarily mean I would change anything I'm doing, at least not right away. It took a lot of things happening before I finally stopped uploading to iStock. One small change at DP or SS or anywhere else isn't enough for me to make any judgements about future involvement with them.
103
« on: August 14, 2015, 12:34 »
When I go to the DPC homepage now, I see this message: DollarPhotoClub is now closed for new members.
Join Adobe Stock, the new creative marketplace from Adobe! Surely this has to be step #1 in shutting DPC down completely. And I'm not really surprised. I never understood how DPC fit in with the new Adobe Stock offering.
104
« on: July 13, 2015, 14:07 »
I'm still not sure what to make of that place. They operate very differently than other typical microstock companies. Instead of selling images and paying royalties, they buy rights to portfolios and pay a flat fee up-front, no royalties afterwards. I've heard you can get a decent payout for giving them the rights to sell your work, but I'm still not sure about it. You'd be essentially competing with yourself.
As for the free promos, they've been doing that for a while now. I guess to drum up interest and get some rapid sign-ups. They can afford to give stuff away because they're not paying royalties on any of it. But it is one hell of a bet on future success, paying out tons of money to buy rights to images and then giving them away in the short-term while hoping for long-term success and eventually paying off those purchases and getting out of the red.
105
« on: July 13, 2015, 14:00 »
Youre username is appropriate. This stuff looks very "stocky". It's a lot of old concepts and old styles, all of which have been done before and often. People don't want this stuff anymore. The trend now is towards more real, authentic-looking images.
Sorry, just being honest. These types of images aren't going to get you far.
106
« on: July 04, 2015, 10:51 »
I'm in the same boat as Sean. I step away from MSG for a while and come back to this. Amazing.
Well at least if Fiverr was going to partner up with a stock agency they picked the right one. Match made in heaven, really, the way these two companies operate.
107
« on: June 17, 2015, 20:31 »
...what kind? what do they use it for most? how can I figure out what vectors will sell for me? You figure it out by just working at it. This business is a lot like most others. You learn the ins and outs of the business by just grinding away at your craft, trying things out, seeing what works and what doesn't, and tailoring your strategy accordingly. What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. Everyone has a different style, a different aesthetic, a different way of working and different techniques used in creating images. The only way to know what will sell for you is to try something and assess the results. Also like most other businesses, there are no shortcuts. 
108
« on: June 16, 2015, 19:27 »
Shutterstock next to make a new piece of software to compete with Photoshop?   How has no one commented yet on the fact that Andres Rodriguez made an appearance in this thread?? Where you been, dude? Good to see you around again.
109
« on: June 08, 2015, 09:30 »
I've randomly got these rejections every now and then for along time so I don't think it is necessarily a policy change. I just ignore them and move.
It's new to me. I had images similar to those above sail through reviews for years and all of a sudden I get this bulk rejection with this silly explanation. Maybe it isn't new policy, but it's a new thing for me. Maybe I've just been lucky to not get hit with this sooner. 
110
« on: June 07, 2015, 13:23 »
Agree. If I was a buyer, I would definitely prefer to buy a set, then every icon seperately. If we're talking about simple icons, then sure, I think they should come in sets. But the stuff I referenced above isn't part of any set. They're one-off illustrations. And aside from (maybe) the balloons they're not simple enough to justify the time needed to build out a set and sell them all together. I don't even regard some of these as "icons".
111
« on: June 07, 2015, 11:41 »
Just got a rejection notification for a recently submitted vector badge design. In looking at my other recent rejections, I have 4 that are kind of surprising:  The rejection reason given was: We are currently accepting icons, buttons, signs, symbols, logos, labels, stamps, maps and flags, alphabet and numbers, zodiac, tattoo only submitted in sets/collections (combined/grouped into one single image), not as individual images. Thank you. I'm assuming this is a new policy, since as of just last month I was still getting single icons, badges, and emblems accepted. Two things I find pretty disturbing about this: One is that we don't seem to have a choice anymore in how we put vector badges/emblems up for sale on DT. It's either you bundle stuff together or it gets rejected. I'm not a big fan of companies telling me how to sell my stuff. Having a choice in how things are put together has always been something that we had the freedom do to, but it seems that DT is trying to force us into a bundle format. Second, I'm bothered by what seems to qualify as something that should be bundled with other similar things. For example those camping emblems above are fairly complex. I couldn't justify the time spent doing a whole series of them and selling them all together as one file. At least not at DT where I have no say in price. This new policy will severely limit my uploading at DT. Having no choice in how I put single images or bundled sets of images together means I either have to dumb down what I do in an effort to limit time spent on a set, or just not upload certain things to DT. I'm leaning towards the latter.
112
« on: May 27, 2015, 17:11 »
$90 VS. $90,000: SUICIDEGIRLS ARE SELLING THEIR RICHARD PRINCE-APPROPRIATED INSTAGRAM PHOTOS http://www.artnews.com/2015/05/27/90-vs-90000-suicidegirls-are-selling-their-richard-prince-appropriated-instagram-photos/SuicideGirls founder Selena Mooney (also known as Missy Suicide), has announced online that she is planning to also sell prints of the images Prince used for $90 each, with all proceeds going to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Prince retweeted her post, which reads, Do we have Mr. Princes permission to sell these prints? We have the same permission from him that he had from us. I love this. They've effectively torpedoed the value of the Prince prints by making the same art available in the same printed format but at a fraction of the price. And maybe even making these new prints potentially more valuable since they come from the actual owners of the images. If everyone did this every time Prince pulled one of these stunts they'd put him out of business quickly. Who would buy his stuff today knowing that the market could be flooded with the same exact art tomorrow?
113
« on: May 21, 2015, 11:58 »
Bitcoin has a lot to like and a lot to dislike. Most of which has been covered in this discussion already. For me, the biggest flaws are the difficulty accessing Bitcoin, the valuation, and the cap on total amount of Bitcoin that will be in circulation. The last point being the real killer, I think. Instead of fostering market use of an alt currency, the cap forced many early adopters to just horde the coins. And as the value went up because of the scarcity of Bitcoin, hoarding increased. No one wants to spend Bitcoin and then find out next month that what they used to buy a pizza is now worth a month's rent. I own Bitcoin and I get that reluctance to use it. It's hard to think about spending it when day to day I don't even really know the true value of it.
Other crypto currencies have emerged that solve the scarcity issue, but none have seen any better adoption in the market either. For now I just don't see it going anywhere. Most likely I'm sitting on some coins that someday I may actually only be able to trade in for a pizza. Maybe even just one slice.
114
« on: May 18, 2015, 22:46 »
and that at first it kinda sounded like it was going to be a logo ... in my mind anyway ... I've already caught a couple of the local designers tossing stock images into logos ... People sell stock graphics as "custom" logos all the time. Usually to unsuspecting clients/customers. I got an email from a guy who was given one of my stock icons and told it was a custom logo. He even had it tattooed on his arm. Poor guy had no idea it was a stock image that has been sold thousands of times. Unfortunately there's not much we can do about it. It's going to happen, and we won't ever find out about it until after the fact when a client/customer of one of these "designers" contacts us wondering why we're selling their logo. I've recently resigned myself to the fact that by working in this business you have to let go of your rights to your work. There are some cases where you can successfully pursue a usage that goes beyond the intended license, but more often it's just not worth it. I hate to say it but for how much money we make from our work in microstock, if I found someone using something of mine as a logo today I probably wouldn't do anything about it, even if it came from somewhere with a license that prohibits it. I've gone that route before and it doesn't help me. In fact, it usually causes more stress. I just let it go now. Microstock is the wild west, and when I throw my work out there into the wild I don't retain any expectation of defending my rights to it. I know that's a sad and sort of defeatist attitude about it, but that's just where I'm at with it. I've tried the other way, many times. Most recently even having to get a lawyer involved. Again, it's just not worth it. Even if some monetary settlement comes out of it, lawyer fees eat up a good chunk of that settlement and the whole process eats up a lot of your time and energy. It's stressful, especially in a case like mine when the other party starts making vague yet ominous threats against me. I just don't need the hassle, not to protect microstock images. If I want to care about where my work ends up, how people use it, if it's used improperly as a logo, etc., there are proper distribution options for that. Microstock isn't one of them.
115
« on: May 13, 2015, 14:41 »
iStock who? They're done as far as I'm concerned. At this rate of decline Stockfresh will probably pass them on my earnings list by the end of the year, and not because anything has changed for the better at Stockfresh.
116
« on: May 13, 2015, 09:28 »
I wonder how much longer Creative Market will survive. The fact that there aren't really any rules leads to an absurd competition that I think will ruin the site eventually. People are going crazy with bundles... even the top sellers are doing it which seems like an act of desperation to me. If their single products were selling well, why would they offer massive bundles at 80% discount?? That I don't know. All I can say is that from what I see, small bundles (sets of 9 graphics, similar to what I'd include in a single image elsewhere) and individual graphics do sell and I'm not feeling any pressure to produce larger bundles. My sales are not going down because I don't bundle. In a year or two you will probably have to offer insanely large packs with thousands of addons/design elements/images for just a few dollars, to have any chance of selling anything at all. Who can work under those circumstances? I've been with CM for 2 years now, and as mentioned I'm feeling no pressure to change what I'm doing to compete with the bundlers. I don't see that changing any time soon, not even within the next year.
117
« on: May 13, 2015, 09:24 »
The logic i find is that Creative Market do not work as agency to sell our work, we sell our work in their marketplace. In this case CM receive % for the service. We sell our work on the price that we want and we give 30% commission to CM, but as the sale is our sale we pay tax(tax treaty with US) based on whole amount. That's the Envato logic, but I don't find that to be the case at CM or anywhere else. I don't think it was even valid at Envato. A company can't claim to have paid a contributor the full amount of the sale and then not actually give them the full amount in pay. As far as I'm concerned, what hits my PayPal account from CM is what I was paid, by CM and not by the buyer (which is how a true marketplace would work). CM pays me, so they're an agent.
118
« on: May 04, 2015, 14:21 »
One year later. Has anything changed in the microstock business?
Well, StockUnlimited came along. And although they're barely just getting started, their model is suspiciously similarly priced at $10/month. It's a little too soon to say for sure, but maybe DPC did indeed start the nanostock movement.
119
« on: April 24, 2015, 15:46 »
I just got my first (and hopefully last) CP2000 yesterday. Thanks, PayPal... Heads up, microstockers. If you fall into PayPal's 1099-K reporting criteria for a tax year, you could be looking at one of these CP2000s soon, too. And it's not just your stock income that gets screwed up by it. Because of the double-reported income, I jumped into a higher income bracket and deductions I had taken that I was completely entitles to became no longer usable. So not only does the IRS want back taxes, they want the deductions they think I shouldn't have take, plus interest, plus almost $3k in penalties. Got me some paperwork to do this weekend... 
120
« on: April 24, 2015, 15:40 »
I'm not a fan of Vital Imagery. I sell through them via iClipart. Almost every time I find someone on Etsy or some print-on-demand site selling something with my work on it, they got it from iClipart because of their overly generous licensing policies. They essentially grant EL rights without an actual EL.
I haven't uploaded anything new there in a while, nor will I. This little PayPal fee policy doesn't inspire me to change my mind about them.
Considering how little I make with them anyway, it might be time to reconsider my relationship with them.
121
« on: April 22, 2015, 18:44 »
I think any exclusive would have a hard time replacing their income by just submitting to those sites. I'm sure you realize who they are talking about when they say competitors, none of those sites are on the list. Besides I don't think they said they pay higher than all the other sites all I see about pay is this quote "defy the race-to-the-bottom trend in pricing by rewarding talent, investing in our artists and paying higher rates for our Signature tier product." To me it could easily just mean they pay higher rates for Signature content than nonexclusive content and aren't lowering the prices for that to the levels of say SS. In the rest of that paragraph you quoted from they go on to say, "It is these shared ideologies that separates us from the competitors." They're talking about them vs. competitors, not Signature vs. non-exclusive content. And they're not doing better than the competition in the rates that they pay, exclusive and non-exclusive rates alike. Just because you don't see the companies I mentioned as real competition doesn't mean that they're not. Like I said, Creative Market is my #2 earner, way out ahead of iStock the last several months. That's very real competition if you ask me. Talk around it any way you like, the fact is that it's still an absolute lie to say in any way relating to royalties that iStock does better by their contributors than the competition. It's just simply not true.
122
« on: April 22, 2015, 17:44 »
Which sites are paying 50% or more? Fotolia, Shutterstock, Dreamstime, 123rf? Stockfresh, Creative Market, Pond5, GL, Alamy, couple of others I'd rather not mention yet but showing potential. Does it matter who pays more than 50%? They're competitors, and they pay better. A lot better in some cases, and not just by percentages. iStock lags behind a few of these companies in earnings for me lately. Way behind CM. The point is, it's a total lie to say that they pay better than the competition and treat contributors better. It's just pure B.S.
123
« on: April 22, 2015, 17:26 »
I couldn't even finish reading it. What a bunch of outright lies and bull...
Unreal. Is this what it's come to for them now? Just flat-out lying about how great they are and how they're so much better than the competition? And people actually believe this stuff? It doesn't take much of a Google search to find out what iStock pays and what other companies pay. Who buys into this insanity?
It was written for exclusives. Most of us get a higher royalty rate than we would at the other guys. Nothing about this email and video was meant to be for or about nonexclusive contributors, in case that wasn't clear.
It was clear, and it's still a bunch of lies. Unless iStock recently changed exclusive rates to 50%+ and I didn't hear about it.
124
« on: April 22, 2015, 17:15 »
I couldn't even finish reading it. What a bunch of outright lies and bull...
Unreal. Is this what it's come to for them now? Just flat-out lying about how great they are and how they're so much better than the competition? And people actually believe this stuff? It doesn't take much of a Google search to find out what iStock pays and what other companies pay. Who buys into this insanity?
125
« on: April 22, 2015, 17:05 »
...Do you think making 3D models or icons for shutterstock would sell for me better?... No. At least not with icons. That's a highly saturated image type. I've put up a few sets of icons recently on SS and they don't sell at all.
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