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Messages - StockbyNumbers

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76
Big fan of StockSubmitter. Id make sure to take your time when entering release information as if you mess that up it can be a hassle to get agencies to fix.

It also has csv functionality that can really speed things up.

Their email support is great too - usually get back within a day.

Definitely best of luck in your non-exclusive venture!

77
General - Stock Video / Re: Uploading 4K files while traveling
« on: January 24, 2018, 23:56 »
If you really need to get them up quickly you could consider raising your compression a bit to lower file size. H.264 rather than prores, or prores lt. photo jpeg at 80% maybe. Not sure if would effect rejections or not.

Other low hanging fruit that probably goes without saying is upload overnight with ftp.

78
VideoBlocks / Re: SB tries the 'ole "partner sales" game
« on: January 24, 2018, 14:52 »
Opted-In to test but am skeptical of the "exponential" claim as well. Although sales have been pretty stagnant the last few months so theoretically might not be that hard to achieve "exponential" growth for a little while...

If they are talking about programs like Premiere and Final Cut as third party platforms, I've never really seen the appeal as an editor of being able to search for things within the program rather than just going online. A few other editors I've talked to had similar thoughts. Prefer to keep plugins, open windows in workspaces etc. to a minimum to avoid crashes.

Any idea what other platforms they might be talking about?

79
Hi, I am shopping to find a motorized slider (or not?) Not too expensive, to have fun and try things (amateur, not pro). I started looking and it's pretty expensive to have a motorized one! moreover, I would like to have one that allows me to film from top to bottom with a certain angle ...

Does anyone have any advice or suggestion?

thanks

What price range are you looking for specifically?

+1 to the Syrp. Really like it and have found it to be quickly deployable and rather light compared to Kessler and Edelkrone.

I used to use a slider constantly before the rise of gimbals. Bulb ramping intervalometers in combination with sliders can yield some amazing timelapse.

I'd also suggest trying some slider shots by hand - just pushing it across the rails rather than using anything motorized (not for timelapse of course...).

Having a few foreground elements closer to the lens, between you and the subject, can often yield great looking shots as well.

80
Sorry for the double post, but another thought is that marketplace sales might be falling as they purchase more content from contributors for their subscription platforms...

81
Averaged about an HD video sale a month last year up until mid-October. Nothing since then.

82
Newbie Discussion / Re: Tagging Videos, such a pain for me.
« on: January 22, 2018, 20:57 »
+1 for Stock Submitter. Saves me a lot of time. I like some of the integrated tools they have as well.

If you go that route, be meticulous when uploading releases to the program and updating passwords to various sites. Spending more time to get it right early on saves a lot of headache down the road.

I have found their customer support to be amazing as well. They are in a different timezone than I am, but seem to get back to questions fairly quickly.

83
I agree with all of the above @increasingdifficulty and @qwerty.

Since our mutual goal is doing more than break even, maybe they would be receptive to agreeing to a more sustainable price for contributors work.

Not that I'm in this situation, but if I were, I might be tempted to ask for more than $50 (maybe $100 / clip) and just be honest with them about trying to figure out a price that works for both parties. Another option would be to pitch them on a larger number of clips, if they bought 300 at once at $50 it might be worth it, considering that is a lot of money in hand that you could re-invest vs. speculative earnings down the road.

They might also be open about explaining their reasoning behind their offer too, if you ask. You never know...

Did not know about the marketplace clip commission from non-member sales, thanks for mentioning it.

84
General Stock Discussion / Re: Review of 2017
« on: January 21, 2018, 20:13 »
Amazing what you've been able to accomplish over the last decade. Thanks a ton for sharing your results in such detail. Super valuable.

85
I sent to them that the price seems very low to me and I would not take the offer, and they replayed me:

" Definitely understandable. We're happy to work with you to make sure we're not taking your top sellers or anything like that. Did you have another price in mind for 100 files? "

Thanks for sharing this. Really fascinating and what I was most curious about.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but a recent article in bizjournals.com mentioned they had over $30 million in revenue last year and their recent marketing materials make it sound like they have around 115,000 clips in their membership library. If these numbers are correct they are grossing around $260 per clip per year. Even if 90% of their gross either comes from other sources besides their footage library, or is spent on overhead marketing etc, they would still be making net $26 per clip per year. 10% net seems low though, so they are probably making more.

If this is the case it seams like their asking price is very very low considering they would pay it off in less than a year.

Not sure if this math stacks up, but at least having some information is better than going into negotiations blind.


Thanks again for sharing and, anyone, please let me know if I'm missing something or am way off somehow...

86
Newbie Discussion / Re: monthly earnings question?
« on: January 20, 2018, 14:14 »
Getting back to the original question - thought my numbers might help a bit. (Footage only)

a) What is your portfolio size?

700 Different clips, all listed on three agencies.

2100 clips total - give or take. For three months I only had about 60 clips total, for 12 months I had about 900 clips total. More than doubled the port in the last three months, so hopefully average earnings will increase.

b) What average monthly earnings (USD) have you seen over the last 12 months?

$550 / month average over the last 12.

Started selling about 18 months ago.

c) Any specific sites you recommend? (I do see the list on the right, I'm asking about you personally what worked best for you).

All of my earnings have come from Pond5, Shutterstock, and Videoblocks. I've found SS has the fastest review times, P5 has the best user interface and takes the least amount of time overall for me, pretty good review times. VB is a slower all around but still decent sales there. I uploaded the same 30 or so starting clips to Dissolve a little over a year ago and unlike the other three agencies none of them sold for a year, so didn't pursue it further. Uploading the rest soon though just in case they come back around.

d) Any trends/things you'd recommend focusing on? (I.e., certain types of video/styles/etc?)

For my port model footage and a few drone shots have sold best. The drone shots have also had a subject though, so not just landscapes. Boats going down a river for example.

For models it seems like shooting shallow depth of field and backlighting sells pretty well - based on my port and glancing over top sellers at different agencies. Slow-motion has sold a lot as well. 4K sales are slowly increasing too.

87
I actually just tried this again and realize I may have spoken too soon. Shutterstock and Pond5s videos now appear on the videos tab on google search. That used to just show YouTube videos. Not sure when that changed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

88
I never really gave that much thought as I was never buying 4k. But no preference if it was watermarked as long as the resolution was good enough to judge its quality.

I might give it a try when time allows and will probably do 720p so it still looks sharp.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

89
Ive been a commercial editor for almost a decade and have just gotten into producing stock footage over the last year and a half or so. My take on this might be a bit different as Ive usually been the buyer rather than seller.

I found myself often just googling the stock footage clip I needed rather than going to one site over another. Most of the time this would lead me to YouTube. Some contributors and agencies seem to list Footage there. I would either then go back to the agency or a contributors site to buy it.

Seems like YouTube kind of creates a more level playing field, as an ad at the start of the video would often play for a Stock Footage agency ( I assume since I was using stock footage as a keyword in google) but the YouTube video of the subject itself that best fit what I was looking for would be from any normal stock contributor or producer. So the mega ad buys from the agencies seem to miss the target and google just finds whatever clip matches best.

All of that is to say it might be worth trying to list some watermarked clips on YouTube that link back to your site or portfolio.

Is that how you are using it Tyson?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

90
That would make me anxious as well. In my experience its very rare to give a license to a creative work for re-sale in perpetuity.

Seems like this could become the norm though at some point if they are getting footage at these prices.

Let us know if your portfolio is picked up for millions too ;)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

91
Sounds like a great approach then. Thanks again for sharing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

92
Thanks @SpaceStockFootage - did you happen to notice any difference in sales from those clips on other agencies? or those related?

93
Super helpful LP. Congrats on going full-time to stock as well. Hope it keeps going well for you.

I went all in on P5, SS, and VB when I started a little over a year ago, based on posts like yours. P5 and SS have outperformed VB by about 5:1. SS is 1/3 better for me than P5, which makes me think my P5 prices might be too high. This is based around both overall earnings and earnings per clip. As my libraries on each are about the same size.

I've had the same experience as you at VB, crickets the last few months.

I'd be curious to see this same list based around earnings / clip. I'm adding my portfolio to Adobe, Envato, and Dissolve now, so can hopefully contribute more to this conversation soon.

Also - thanks for confirming what I have been reading about iStock. Seems like they aren't worth the time.

Thanks for posting this.

94
Thanks for sharing this Mograph. I've always been curious how Videoblocks goes about acquiring their footage.

Seems like a tricky sell at that price. I wonder what kind of effect selling it to them might have on the footage's sales on your other sites?

As a video editor I'll check each site for the same clips. Considering that they have anywhere between 130K and 300K subscribers, I bet many of them do as well.* So you might lose out on sales at the other sites.

The biggest thing I would be curious about is whether they have license to the clips in perpetuity or if the contract is time bound, (one year?). Maybe that is something you could suggest? If they have license forever, I would think $2,500 for 100 clips would be very, very low. I made roughly $6500 last year from 300 clips across 3 agencies. So over several years, 100 clips value should far exceed $2,500.

Seems like such an informal offer as well, maybe they're open to negotiating? Given that the downloads for their marketplace footage can run into the thousands, seems like they might be willing to offer more.

I guess the last thing to consider might be whether this could lead to a longer relationship. Getting $25 / clip guaranteed might be worth it if they eventually bought 2000 or more of your clips...

--

*An article from October about their founder mentions that they bring in $26 million in subscriptions, which would mean they have roughly 130,000 subscribers if they were all paying the $200 plan.

95
My experience has been most similar to what VideostockOrg described.

It took around 3-6 months for Pond5 and Shutterstock. I don't have as much experience with the other platforms yet. Only one sale on Dissolve in 18 months so no real data from them...

The fastest a clip of mine has sold from the time it was approved was around 3 weeks on Shutterstock.

Seems like my best sellers have taken around 6 months to a full year to pick up steam.

I'll be uploading around 700 clips to Adobe this month in bulk, so should have a better idea of their sales timeline soon.

Thanks all for sharing.

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