So I've had a really good email exchange today with Ben and Marilina at dstock. As much as it seemed like things got off on the wrong foot here, ultimately I think they are really on the right track with launching something that may prove to be very interesting.

It turns out that Marilina may have gotten a little ahead of herself with announcing dstock here. They really weren't ready to reveal the site, and I think it's easy to see why. There is still a lot of work to be done. But they are doing it, and they will be back here at MSG when the time is right and dstock is ready for a proper (re)introduction.

I wouldn't write this one off. It may have been a rocky reveal here but I really like some of the things that Ben told me today about what they are doing and what their priorities are, and although I don't want to say too much from what was discussed in private emails, I think most folks here will be a lot more happy with dstock when it really starts to come together.

No sales yet, but one of my images just made the homepage. Hopefully that will help.

...I think they did a poor job of implementing offset with respect to the SS contributors...

How so? I thought Offset was open to everyone to apply.

Agency reps/owners take note of George here. This is how you make an entrance into this community, with a solid brand, a well-built site, a clear message and unique selling point aimed at making you stand out in the market. Well done.

Can't say I'm a fan of the 30% royalty, and if I were a footage shooter I'd probably pass because of that. But I have to respect the way this offer is being presented in a professional way, something we don't see much of around here.

Oh no! Not The Creative Group. They're the worst. Take a huge commission, 50% or more. I refuse to work with them. If you're interested, I can give you a couple of headhunter's contact info. PM me if so. You'll get a much better day rate.

I did ok with them. You just need to push on the hourly rate. They want to pay no more than $20 but everything is negotiable.

What I did have an issue with when I worked for TCG was the jobs themselves. Pretty dull stuff most of the time. But there were a few gems in there. I worked for Samsung for a while, which was fun.

In 2007 I was running a small local magazine publishing business out of my apartment. The business was awful, I was hemorrhaging money and opted to shut it down after trying unsuccessfully for about 18 months to make it work. But while I was running the magazine, I bought stock images to fill out the gaps in artwork. Where we didn't have something editorial I'd put a stock photo in. Or use stock graphics to design ads.

A few months before i stopped publishing, I thought, "I can make these graphics, maybe I should try to do my own stuff and sell it." I started selling microstock in May 2007, and quit the publishing business that summer. I wasn't making much in stock so I went back to work as a graphic designer at a nearby studio but kept doing stock on the side.

Three years later I got fired from that studio job. The guy I worked for didn't like me doing freelance work on the side (my own clients, it never interfered with my day job, I never crossed any lines there). He said I was trying to create a competitive business. At that point my stock income was getting respectable, so I figured I'd just try to live off of stock and freelance work. I guess I like pressure, because at the time my wife was off from work and 7 months pregnant as well.

After a couple of years of bouncing between freelance design work and stock production, I was able to push more towards stock production and drop most of my design clients.

I do this because for a while it fit in really well with my personal life. I've been able to work from home on my own schedule, spending as much time with my son as I like.

Financially this year has been rough so far, and I'm not in a position to be able to keep riding out the dip in income. So I'm giving serious thought to going back to an office/studio job later this year if I can't get some things happening with stock. But I don't mind so much. I've had a good run, and I got some years of time spent with my son and memories made that I can't put a price tag on. My daughter will be here in September, and I'd still like to spend time at home with her, too. I just may need to go back to a regular job for a while to get the finances back in order first.

Anyone else sensing an attitude from DP support? They seem annoyed that we're even asking about this.

Summer is the leanest time of the year for my family, with my wife being off (she's a teacher) and no paychecks coming in. I hate to even think about dropping any agency this time of year, but man is it hard to ignore just how bad this mess is with DP.

Oh, God here we go again! Let me guess- higher commissions, faster reviews and folks who truly care about us... yada yada...

On the surface, it's not bad. 50% royalties, that's at least a conversation starter.

Let's hear what they have to say. If we write off everything straight away, nothing new will ever rise up out of this mess.

Images don't cost too much and these design/ad agencies know it. If anyone is complaining about the cost of a $10 microstock image they're someone who just doesn't know what they're talking about.

I've worked for various design and ad agencies over the years, and all of them are fully aware of what a bargain microstock is. They're not the ones complaining. Many of the folks at those agencies remember not all that long ago you could easily spend $300 for an RF image before microstock was a viable option (or before it even existed). Not to mention the many thousands of dollars they were accustomed to spending on RM.

My guess is that someone complaining about prices would either be someone buying only at iStock (in which case they have a somewhat valid complaint as prices have gone up over the years) or someone who just really has no clue about stock images and what this whole thing is all about, what it was like 10+ years ago, etc.

How do you know these pay out like that?

I sent an email asking for confirmation. I asked:

I would like clarification on contributor royalties paid out in your monthly subscription plans. It is my understanding that the lowest-priced monthly subscription offer of 5 images per month for $49 pays out subscription royalties to contributors. So in a typical scenario, out of that $9.80 paid per image by the customer, the contributor would get their subscription royalty of $0.30-$0.35. Is that correct?

And the reply I got was:

Yes, you are correct that you receive your fixed royalties of each subscription sale. We have daily subscription plans with $0,15 per image, but your royalty rate remains the same $0.31. Please take a look at our daily plans and you will notice that the most expensive image is $0.46 if customers purchase daily plans.
In addition, we offer a 7-day subscription plan for free to all new customers. You get the same subscription commissions even though it is a free trial.

It is highly unlikely to ever happen, based on things Jon has said about exclusivity. They didn't even make it a part of Offset, and I see no reason to believe it is even a minor consideration for Shutterstock itself.

Besides, even if it did happen I don't think it would be as enticing an offer as people suspect it will be. At best they'd offer double what they pay non-exclusive artists, which still wouldn't be enough for people like me who make less than half of their income from Shutterstock.

And even for those that it did make financial sense to consider, it still would be a high-risk move going all-in with one company. I'm not sure that any company could ever offer me enough to work only with them.

That reads like the answer of a person who doesn't really understand the question.

True. I've got an email out to them as well, we'll see how they respond to the question there.

its sad but FT deal and other isn't that different from Cafepress, some contributors will quit/leave but a few millions will keep on submitting new pictures, products, whatever

lets go nuts and say that 50% would remove everything, that is still 50% left which is enough to keep buyers more than happy...

Careful, you keep talking like that and people will start to call you a saboteur.

(I suggested something similar about DPC, that it didn't matter if we got half of their images opted-out, and people said I was sabotaging the effort).

...the truth is that we can't change anything at this moment, we need to create a new fair place controlled by us and get one buyer at a time and slowly leaving microstock agencies (sort of a stocksy but more open)

unfortunately FAA and Pixels aren't the solution, they might be paying some people well but the majority is selling 2 or 3 prints a year, not enough to dump agencies

We wouldn't need to even look at dumping agencies if the agency mentality shifted to where it should be, that it is worth investing in their product and their artists because at the end of the day, we generate their product. Some agencies do get that. They are just few and far between. And unfortunately we are left here fighting an uphill battle trying to get the other companies to understand that not only should they pay artists fairly, that they can do it and be profitable at the same time.