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Messages - Lee Torrens
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101
« on: October 12, 2009, 16:23 »
I'm not sure Daryl will be attending the panel as I imagine he'll be busy preparing for PPE which starts the following day. Still, I'll ask him and add him to the list if he plans to attend.
102
« on: October 06, 2009, 11:51 »
Last months? He stopped blogging in January. He wrote a few blog posts about his experience and why he was discontinuing the blog. Read down a few pages and you'll see them.
103
« on: October 05, 2009, 22:00 »
It became too late to change my mind 8.5 months ago. 
104
« on: October 05, 2009, 12:01 »
Hugo and Seb from iSyndica, Veer (not sure who specifically - presumably Brian et al) and Mark from Microstock Solutions will also be there.
105
« on: October 02, 2009, 12:13 »
On another thread, I read we can not opt out of this WP deal, is it true?
Hey Madelaide, For the Crestock plugin, you have to opt in, which implies you're opted out by default. For the "Microstock Photo Plugin for Wordpress" which currently uses Fotolia photos, there's no reason to have an opt out as the plugin enables bloggers to 'buy' images. As contributors, this plugin just helps Fotolia (and very soon other agencies as well) to sell more photos. The bloggers get the ability to activate referral links on the images they use, but that doesn't directly affect us as contributors (though it has the potential to drive buyers to the agencies enabled through the plugin).
106
« on: August 08, 2009, 22:23 »
They are passionately anti-microstock, just so you know. I've looked through their website in the past and haven't seen anything to inspire me with confidence.
107
« on: July 29, 2009, 10:44 »
Yep, valid point stocktastic. It must be keyword specific, otherwise the model is - as you say - the same as popularity.
108
« on: July 29, 2009, 10:09 »
There's a solution that is gracefully simple, automated, easy (relatively), cheap (relatively) and retroactive. It's Alamy's solution and I've heard rumors that a microstock agency or two do it too.
How it works:
If an image appears in the search results for a particular keyword but does not get clicked/zoomed/hovered as much as the average, it is penalised. The penalty causes it to appear lower in the search results, not just for that individual keyword, but for all keywords.
This way images with lots of irrelevant keywords are quickly buried in the back of the search results and never sell, regardless of how good they are.
Contributors - quickly figure out their spammed images never get sales and adjust accordingly. When keywords are cleaned the image can start reducing its penalty and work its way back into the search results.
Agency - doesn't have to do anything once they've built this idea into their system. No wikis, policing or cleaning the keywords on their images. Nothing. Pure automation.
Buyers - don't see spammed images because they're buried at the back of the search results. By simply browsing the search results and clicking on images they're interested in buying, they're sorting out the spam without doing anything different to what they would naturally do. Obviously new images with spam appear in the results, but not for very long.
Of all the methods to battle keyword spam, this is the ultimate. It's certainly easier and cheaper to implement than any method I've seen, and most of all its effective for all parties.
109
« on: July 24, 2009, 09:18 »
The mistake, or 'interesting strategic choice', that I see a lot of photographers doing is marketing and branding themselves to other photographers.
Hmmm, not preaching to the choir... Now there's a novel thought
Yeah, but the point is the difference in how they're branding and marketing. My comment is in reference to photographers marketing 'their photos' to other photographers. Branding and marketing 'photographer services' to photographers is logical. Some are entrepreneurial and have a blog, course, cruise or keywording tool to promote.
Too much obvious pimping of one's entrepreneurial ventures can also turn their intended audience off. We target audience types are not as blind to egos and exaggerations as outsiders.
My social goal is to enable and educate buyers, and I think they like that.
I agree. There are some who clearly believe we are blind. ..."you may be interested in this"... ..."I just posted"... ..."check out my"... And Sean, you've got some catching up to do if you want to enable and educate buyers more than other photographers. This was your 1182nd post here on MSG! Not that I want you to stop. I've learned a lot from you over the years, and I'm not the only one.
110
« on: July 23, 2009, 17:24 »
I agree with many of the views already expressed above, particularly Jonathan. I don't think social media and general branding / promotion works very well for anyone outside of the upper tiers of the market. Yuri says he estimates branding accounts for 10% of his sales, and it's not difficult to believe that.
The mistake, or 'interesting strategic choice', that I see a lot of photographers doing is marketing and branding themselves to other photographers. Granted we're an easy target. We already have access to 'us' and tend to gather better than photo buyers. Some are entrepreneurial and have a blog, course, cruise or keywording tool to promote. Those who don't have these things are the ones who make me scratch my head and wonder.
That being said, I see social media as a great tool for everything else. It connects you to peers who can provide value in ways other than purchasing licenses. I use Twitter quite a bit and it's generally among the top five referral sources for my blog. Facebook is much lower around 15th. The great thing about social media traffic is that there's a high portion of first time visitors and they tend to hang around longer and view more pages than other sources. That is, it's high quality traffic.
I also find it helpful to network with people. I've been doing some conference programming lately and I used LinkedIn and Twitter extensively for researching people and then making contact if I wanted to invite them. At the same time, many people have used the same tools to get in touch with me to express an interest in participating in the conferences.
So for me social media is extremely useful, but not for increasing sales. If I ever resume shooting, I'll aim to reach a high level of quality and consistency with my portfolio before doing any branding or promotion.
111
« on: July 23, 2009, 17:09 »
Hey Josh, congrats on the two hotshots! No small achievement, especially given you're still relatively new to this form of participation in the market. Keeping the appropriate company clearly works for you. Nick Onken is one of my favorite photographers. I love his style and enjoy what he has to say about the business. I think branding is only suitable for stock photographers when they reach a certain level of consistent quality and sometimes also a specialization. Take my portfolio for example. The quality ranges from absolute beginner to starting-to-figure-it-out, and the subject range is all over the place. There's nothing about my portfolio for buyers to come back to. Branding my portfolio would be 100% wasted effort. However, I suspect there's some ways to measure it for those who do it. For example, in the little sales charts on the photo detail page (the private one) for those two shots you listed, did you see a jump in sales after the hotshot messages went out? Was there any bump in your total sales at the same time? As for specific branding images, the concept is new to me (I'm clearly behind on reading Nick's blog!) and I'm keen to explore it. Looking at the portfolio on Yuri's website it looks like he's familiar with this concept. Many, if not most, of the images in his blog portfolio are not great selling images by his standards. What about you Josh? Are you going to create a set? Maybe you can get Nike to sponsor your branding shoot like Nick did!
112
« on: July 03, 2009, 01:38 »
Here's another email from PN. To misrepresent my earnings like that they must be incredibly stupid or liars. Either way, I'm keeping my distance. ...not to mention calling me an "expert" and saying I shoot "great stock"! I'm guessing incredibly stupid. As mentioned in our last newsletter, weve been monitoring sales and trends and changes in the market even more closely than usual. Whilst our members continue to get print res sales of 35 and 75, there arent enough of these transactions happening.
Weve always been a mid-stock site floating inbetween the American microstock sites that sell pictures for a dollar or less, and the Alamys and Gettys who sell pictures for hundreds of dollars each. Alamy are totally open about their sales figures and have reported quite a drop in some of their sectors. Their newspaper image sales are down by as much as 70%. Picture buyers are like many during the recession having to cut costs for their publications and many are turning to the cheaper microstock libraries.
This is significant for us because our key clients have so far been the public sector, marketing companies, education establishments and, we were starting to make good progress with the newspapers. The downturn has affected them so is affecting us, and were a small and quite new library not with the income stream of the US giants or Alamy. Alamy have done their own research and found that the newspapers are instructing their picture staff to use, wherever possible, the subscription sites where they can buy images for very little. Alamy are looking at how they will address that. And we have been too.
Watchers in the image industry forecast that more and more images will be obtained from social networking sites, that images are becoming so easily available, and so many available for free, that libraries will struggle. We know that businesses and wary image buyers will always choose to get their images from a trustworthy place where the photographers, like yourselves, have given permission for the images to be bought and used, and not just right clicked off the internet for free, with the risk of copyright breach.
We have been doing our own research and talking to small business owners, printers, web designers, marketing companies, etc.who all report that they love our site, its simplicity, the licensing, and your images especially the spontaneity of them and for the UK businesses they love the UK look of your pictures. But, when they get to our prices they are shocked. They are literally all now using the microstock sites and say their clients will not pay 75 for a solitary image any more. Its not just the effects of a recession we are no longer price competitive. And once these buyers start using the cheaper libraries they wont go back to the pricier ones. We havent lowered our prices since we launched in November 2006.
Our web prices are great value. But our single print prices are too high. We dont have license options for businesses who want to use our pictures for templates and re-use. This is losing us and you quite a bit of business - and the associated PR and its time for us to address that.
We also confuse clients with our language - subscriptions. Not our fault the other bigger libraries have changed their language or introduced subscriptions that have different meaning to ours.
We have to follow the big players sometimes, as they do set the trends. More libraries are now offering a subscription or a credit service. Our PN subscription service is like their credit service. So we think we need to change our language from subscription to credits.
Many of our members sell images on other sites too which we encourage - and having spoken to some of our members on the phone and by e-mail we know they are happy to get sales from the microstock sites even for the small amounts that are paid out. Shutterstock only pay 25 cents (about 15p) commission for every download even high res. But theyre a good, established and popular US site.
To increase sales volume, we need to lower our print prices and we need to offer an extended license option all of which will increase the purchase options for buyers, give better value for money in a competitive market, and increase your chances of sales.
Some members have images for sale with us and the same images on other cheaper sites, and are getting few or no sales for those images with PN. Wed need to offer a more competitive price. Your commission rate would not be affected and stay at 40%. We pay 40% across the board before our costs and we dont seek exclusivity. You can sell your images elsewhere too.
Lee Torrens who writes www.microstockdiaries.com has images on several websites thousands of images and reports on his earnings regularly. All the sites are American/Canadian microsotck so sell very cheaply (hence the competition) and figures quoted below are in US Dollars (or cents).
In January 2009 these were his average monthly returns on his sales. Bear in mind this is a picture selling expert who knows the market and shoots great stock.
Image library Av. Commission per image sale
iStockphoto 20 cents
Shutterstock 14 cents
Dreamstime 8 cents
StockXpert 13 cents
BigStockPhoto 6 cents
Crestock 2 cents
Fotolia 10 cents
100 cents = 0.61p
The biggest average return on his istock images was 20 cents. Thats about 11p a sale. The least amount you make on Picturenation is 40p a sale. And much more for print sales.
Our proposal for a new pricing structure on PN is to be competitive, more attractive to buyers, but more appealing to photographers than microstock payouts. All buyers will have to purchase credits to buy pictures with a minimum purchase of 10, which is the same as now. Only the language changes to avoid confusion for buyers.
PN new licenses and pricing model
Picturenation image Standard license Extended license Multi-seat license
Small (72dpi) 1.00 35.00 5.00
Medium (300dpi) 10.00 50.00 35.00
Large (300dpi) 15.00 75.00 50.00
Your commission (still @ 40%)
Picturenation image Standard license Extended license Multi-seat license
Small (72dpi) 0.40 14.00 2.00
Medium (300dpi) 4.00 20.00 14.00
Large (300dpi) 6.00 30.00 20.00
Whats an extended license?
Theres a market for image purchase for re-sale, where a buyer needs to use an image several times over but will not and cannot pay for each use. For example, a school book publisher, a T shirt printer, or a poster company. The extended license would give them permission to use an image on a product for selling, (terms apply), up to a certain number, on the one license and for an increased cost. This is a very popular way of buying images and we are one of the few libraries of our kind who havent offered it yet.
Whats a multi-seat license?
Our standard current license permits the buyer to use and store the image in a restricted way and to one person in one place at a time. This multi-seat license allows more than one person in an organisation to legitimately use that image, i.e a classroom or a webteam working on one project.
Before we do anything we would like your feedback. As much as wed like to converse with everyone, it just isnt possible with 8,000 members. What we are doing is sending you a quick and brief online poll to gauge what your thoughts are. If you dont have time or the inclination to look at it or fill it in then thats OK. The adaptions we make will have to be for everyone. Buyers will not use us if our images are all priced differently. The larger volume sites can do that but buyers have told us they prefer the same rules across the site for clarity. We are hoping to introduce the extended license options in the next few weeks. The new referrers commission will come in after that, where you can make money on clients purchases you bring to PN.
We hope to be able to introduce the wider and more flexible pricing options and licenses soon. The quick and simple poll attached is for us to see if you understand and support the license proposals. We hope you can take a few seconds to answer the 3 or 4 questions it contains. Many thanks for your input.
113
« on: June 17, 2009, 21:05 »
Microsoft doing search is like Corbis doing microstock. It's just not their ballgame.
Corbis > Veer > Veer Marketplace = microstock. That's a very bold statement.
Yep, and I stand by it. Veer is owned by Corbis, but Marketplace is being created by different people to those who created SnapVillage. From what I can tell, these people actually want it to succeed.
115
« on: June 17, 2009, 20:16 »
i've been noticing a lot of search traffic from bing recently to cutcaster. i like the site. not sure it will replace google but it will be a contender just based on the sheer size of msft.
So you missed the live.com attempt then? Microsoft doing search is like Corbis doing microstock. It's just not their ballgame.
116
« on: June 01, 2009, 16:18 »
Just my two cents worth Lee but if you prefer shooting travel lifestyle, I'm guessing that those will actually be better pictures anyhow. For me if my heart's not in it, the results really show it and SUCK.
Marlene
Yes, I totally see that. There are some photographers who's enjoyment clearly comes through in their work. I too would expect my shots to be better when shooting something I enjoy, though in this situation it's not much of an issue given I shot the stock market photos over three years ago and I'm unlikely to be shooting something similar again. But yeah, totally agree that images shot with interest turn out better. Lee,
I think your ability to access a stock market is a nicely protected niche
& not to dis your images in anyway but your website is probably a very effective marketing tool.
Marek also seemed to have a good month and again he has a blog that I am sure helps in attracting buyers
M
Well, it's not that well protected. If you get your camera out while the security guards are changing shift you could get the exact same position I had. A stock exchange is just a computer network these days and the only thing to photograph are the 'public' display boards - which is what I shot. I don't think my website helps my sales at all. I know not everyone shares that view, but there's nothing at my website for buyers. As an indicator, I can count on my fingers the number of times I've earned referral income from buyers. I would be surprised if more than 1% of my earnings are even an indirect result of my website. But, I'm interested in hearing other points of view on this. ...
Any other possible theories?
It's pretty plain to me: You've benefited from search engine streamlining/revamping at several key agencies. Your aim should now be to capitalize on your increased exposure. Sure, you could upload more, but that isn't absolutely necessary. So you need to ask yourself - what else can I do?
Based on what you said you've been doing for the past six months I'd guess you're subtly suggesting optimisation of the meta data. I've thought about this quite a lot over time. Yuri says it makes a big difference and he does a lot of it, but Andres says it doesn't make any difference and doesn't do any of it. Do you have any insights from your optimisation sabbatical that you'd care to share with us Stephen? Or is it too commercially sensitive to share in such a competitive environment? ..or am I totally off track?
117
« on: June 01, 2009, 14:20 »
...
I can't understand why, but I hit a new record this month and finally met my goal of US$1,000 in a month (more than a year later than my target date). The last time I uploaded was in December, so I'm baffled as to why my sales are still rising.
I think this illustrates two things:
* some vital sales elements are (seemingly) beyond immediate control
* constantly uploading is not necessary to maintain or build sales
As to not understanding how you achieved a record sales month, I think you'd be wise to investigate how and why this happened.
Thought provoking as always Stephen. I like it. * I can put part of it down to an unusually high number of ELs. I had 9 including FotoSearch at CanStock (IS 1, DT 2, SS 2, FT 1 + CanStockPhoto/FS 3) * My stock market photos sold particularly well, for obvious reasons. Any other possible theories? I was in a fortunate position to get the access required for the stock market photos (I worked at the exchange). I'm now living on a different continent, making access to that particular location a little more tricky, but one could indeed follow that theme and produce different images along the same lines. But that's not for me. I've found that I much prefer themes around the broad 'travel lifestyle' genre, which is where I plan to focus when I resume shooting. Thoughts?
118
« on: June 01, 2009, 12:55 »
Congrats to your goal Lee! Nice milestone!
Thanks Jan, I feel a bit weird - kind of like I didn't earn it (given I haven't uploaded all year), but I'll take it. At the start of each month I've been telling myself I *REALLY* need to start shooting *THIS MONTH* or my earnings will *DEFINITELY* drop, but nothing happens. As I said in my earnings post, I'm waiting for the axe to drop and I don't like the feeling. Must go shoot!
119
« on: June 01, 2009, 12:30 »
elance.com
I haven't used them to get work, but I have used them to source people. I don't have experience with the others, but I've always been happy with elance. It's been a while since I've used them actually.
120
« on: June 01, 2009, 11:53 »
Wow! A lot of variation in people's results this month. Marek, great work on your continued rise. I envy your consistency. Congrats to Laurent too on your record month.
I can't understand why, but I hit a new record this month and finally met my goal of US$1,000 in a month (more than a year later than my target date). The last time I uploaded was in December, so I'm baffled as to why my sales are still rising.
121
« on: May 30, 2009, 10:37 »
I had the same inclination when I first started blogging (the source of my referrals). I was noticing that a lot of referred contributors weren't getting accepted at Shutterstock. At least a lot of them had zero photos, so I presumed it was because they weren't getting accepted. So I wrote a blog post collecting all the advice I could gather about how to successfully get through the admission test at Shutterstock and other agencies. A few months later my referral income more than doubled (not that it was high at that point). I don't think I'd go the direct contact route. I was in a fortunate position that the source of my referrals (my blog) was also an opportunity to help my referrals all (mostly) at once. I'd suggest that referrals who are going to produce enough referral income to make it worth your time don't need help anyway. Sure, there's the chance your assistance will make the difference for the next up-and-coming microstock superstar who is currently struggling, but that's a bit of a gamble, especially given you're suggesting one-on-one assistance. Like others have said, I think you'll make more money in the long term shooting instead. There's plenty of resources for your referrals to find their own assistance, and they're not difficult to find. 
122
« on: May 28, 2009, 18:54 »
The absence of links to Fotolia is part of a strategy to build the site before putting on the "hard sell". It will come later.
All agencies offer free photos as a lure. Fotolia are taking it up a notch with PhotoXpress, and it'll eventually do the same as what Stock.XCHNG does for StockXpert. The only real innovation here is the way it self-promotes through the Facebook integration and Refer-a-friend form.
I know Fotolia's reputation among contributors, and I've written some highly critical stuff about their practices in the past, but I don't have too much of an issue with this one. If they can make it work (and it's within their capabilities) then it'll help Fotolia and (to a lesser but substantial extent) their contributors - us.
123
« on: May 28, 2009, 18:40 »
Another source:
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/stock-and-syndication/e3i82a4bef380199312e8e5a30d29baaf68
...Lor says contributors will be paid when their images are downloaded from the new service, but wouldnt say how much, noting that it varies depending on the source of the images. For now, most of the photographs are files that Fotolia members have agreed to opt-in to the service, Lor says. Fotolia plans to add more images from other collections.
...Lor says some photographers may try uploading popular work as a way to get their names out.  Its really an exercise in seeing what works and what doesnt, Lor says.
P.S.
(Different conclusions about pricing,also in contradiction)
...The average price of stock image licenses has fallen drastically in the last few years. At one large stock agency, Alamy, the average price of a royalty-free image is down 21 percent in the last year.
But, Lee said:
I conclude that if my income isnt declining in line with this trend (which you can see in the top chart), then the sale price must be rising. That is, rising prices are the only reason Im not earning less and less in microstock. As Ive uploaded very little over the past two years, such a trend is to be expected.
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/page/2
WHERE IS THE TRUTH!??
Daryl has misinterpreted Pat's statements. The compensation in reference is the $0.50 donation fee Fotolia is offering of non-selling images. The explanation for the opposing statements about pricing is that the first one is referencing "stock photos" while my reference is just "microstock". Macro prices are dropping while micro prices are rising.
124
« on: May 01, 2009, 09:14 »
LOL. I publish my earnings so it's not difficult to figure out I'm not earning 10k/month. I'm still struggling to break 1k. Actually, using the word 'struggling' would imply I'm trying, but I've been seven months without uploading.
I thought it would be pretty obvious who the car belongs to. Take a look at the plates. Who lives in that country and earns more than 10k/month in micro?
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