|
MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - lthn
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 8 ... 15
51
« on: October 10, 2011, 06:54 »
It happened a few times, they will pop up in about 24 hours. I just got the mail about my latest batch, and they are all up there instantly... but it takes them almost a week to show in the catalog manager --  anybody experiencing that?
52
« on: October 07, 2011, 14:50 »
If you are looking to make some easy money i don't think is possible anymore.You need at least one year to buid up a good portofolio
I'd say more unless you'r very-very dedicated.
53
« on: October 07, 2011, 06:17 »
54
« on: October 07, 2011, 03:38 »
A bit buggy for me, a whole page worth of new uploads do not show in the manager. Also would be nice, and probably pretty simple to implement: earnings by model. A little app would easily sort it out from the attached model releases... or just sorting pics by model release, so we can make sets.
Do you like anything.
Why are you so negative? I do like this.
55
« on: October 06, 2011, 18:38 »
For me the tragic part is that a family lost their father way too early. 56, that's far from old...
As for all the bleeding hearts that pop up just for The Man everywhere in case like this, I personally find it phoney, next to repulsive. Where were all those bleeding hearts when foxconn workers were dieing? I don't think apple added to this world, rather the opposite. Some gadgets with mutilated funcitonality and overpriced as if that was virute, that help snobs ignore each other in public places.
56
« on: October 06, 2011, 18:12 »
A bit buggy for me, a whole page worth of new uploads do not show in the manager. Also would be nice, and probably pretty simple to implement: earnings by model. A little app would easily sort it out from the attached model releases... or just sorting pics by model release, so we can make sets.
57
« on: October 06, 2011, 13:24 »
I don't understand how people think the smaller sites aren't worth uploading to, because they have so few sales but at the same time they are a threat to the big sites? Some of the big sites will use any excuse to lower commissions. If there were less sites, do people really think we would be better off? They would just think of a different excuse to lower commissions whenever they want to.
I don't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.
I sell my widgets through 4 stores that do great volume, sell at good prices, and give me a fair commission.
When a bunch of new stores open up in the same neighborhood wanting to sell my widgets at a fraction of the price of the established stores, should I:
a) blindly say "Yes indeed, anything to get more sales!!!"
b) realize this would steal business from the stores selling a great deal of my widgets at good prices, and ultimately be a big blow to my own bottom line.
Everyone keeps saying this is about commissions. Based on Chad's posts here and all my recent emails with people at FT, I believe them when they say it's about image pricing. Just do the math. An Emerald's pics at FT will sell for as little as 1/6th the price at a site like DP. If I were FT, I would be shaking my head and wondering why on God's green earth my suppliers would want to undercut their own sales.
I strongly encourage you to examine the case of ppl dropping exclusivity on istock. Maybe then you'll get the picture.
58
« on: October 06, 2011, 06:45 »
Here's what I would do...
As soon as I saw signs of this happening, I would try to protect the high prices my images sell for at the top agencies by removing my ports from the small new agencies that offer my images for a fraction of the price the big dogs offer, and thus push the "race to the bottom" forward.
Guess what... this has started already. The signs are all around us... wheels are already in motion to reduce our take to something like .20 per image. So I'm taking action now... removing my port from the smaller sites that sell my images for too cheap. I have to protect my high prices (and commissions) at the top sites.
And guess what else... this is what FT asked me to do. And after being enraged about it for a few days, I now see that they're right. Maybe your RPD is low at FT and my story is different (I'm getting a good RPD at FT because I'm Emerald and get 37% and can double my image price)... but the principle is the same. If you want to protect your returns from SS, IT, DT and any other site you really like... STOP jumping on board every low-cost agency that pops up. By supporting the bargain basement sites, YOU'RE driving your returns down to .20 per image.
So you would go, give up all alternatives and actually help the ones who are really greedy and make a lot on photos and clearly signalled that they intend to give next to nothing if possible, get as close to monopoly as possible. Just genial. With such geniuses around, no wonder these agencies can just freakin' shaft subbmitters to freakin' death.
59
« on: October 05, 2011, 16:24 »
The reason I formed Warmpicture was as a preemptive strike against exactly this sort of thing happening.
FWIW the latest MSG poll results show Fotolia has fallen into the Middle Tier for the first time in years, exactly as many of us predicted. They drove away many fine contributors, while also accepting the risk that it would make for horrible P.R. with buyers who read blogs and forums. They have been replaced by an agency which pays 50% commissions and 36 cent subscriptions.
Look at the agencies which have attacked contributors with ridiculous commission structures over the last 2 years. Look at the MSG forums, which have a Google Page Rank of 4, suggesting that there are many people reading these boards besides contributors.
Have the agencies which attacked contributors gained, or lost, market share over the last 2 years? Independent polls suggest a pretty easy answer.
Yep, the best thing microstockers can do is let graphic artists, designers know that there are indeed real people behind the pictures, and they are conscious of the fate of their pictures and care a lot about them, because designers in general have a very strong solidarity towards photographers. Use every possible channel to get it out there that you a real people, because I for example shamefully admit to downloading images for almost 2 years without even realizing that they belong to portfolios, and without having 'that notion' of those belonging to individuals. They were just a pile of pictures on a site responding to keywords that you have to chew thru as quickly as possible... rush-rush-ASAP-supposed to be ready yesterday
60
« on: October 05, 2011, 15:51 »
there's another way besides staying or leaving completely
that is, staying but without too much enthusiasm, repeating the same cheap pictures over and over without investing too much time and inspiration: that's what they deserve in your 20% scenario. And it's already happening now in part, after many commission cuts
such sites will start losing buyers, and some better sites will replace them
That is whats happening mostly, and the buyers are super happy with it. The vast majority of buyers don't need or want anything new or creative at all, they just want a descriptive space-filler.
61
« on: October 05, 2011, 15:36 »
I'd set my neighbours on fire in protest.
62
« on: October 05, 2011, 04:29 »
ohh gimme a break, I'v been an art director for almost 10 years, with my background I'v never ever seen anything in microstock that even had a hint of surprise or novelty. I was just curious on what is considered the type mentioned by someone like you. Most of the stuff you guys consider revolutionary is generally just a 'rumination' of things we in the ad industry have seen a decade ago countless times... and I also guess the shots are public anyway if they are up for sale : )
you are a curious person, can we know more about you? your posts are "insane", do you do any kind of photography, any stock? I dont understand where you are heading but sure it does look fun 
I make some of the most sensible posts around here, becaouse I'm not a fanboy of anything (except nature's beauty)
63
« on: October 04, 2011, 20:53 »
This thread is making me thirsty.
Yeah, almost makes me want to go around shopping for some nice whisky, and I'm a wine guy.
64
« on: October 04, 2011, 20:46 »
ohh gimme a break, I'v been an art director for almost 10 years, with my background I'v never ever seen anything in microstock that even had a hint of surprise or novelty. I was just curious on what is considered the type mentioned by someone like you. Most of the stuff you guys consider revolutionary is generally just a 'rumination' of things we in the ad industry have seen a decade ago countless times... and I also guess the shots are public anyway if they are up for sale : )
65
« on: October 04, 2011, 15:27 »
I have about 15 people bookmarked That are the future of this business. And are amazing and fresh.
Care to share those? Just curious.
66
« on: October 03, 2011, 16:04 »
@markstout. You're talking about a completely different issue. The discussion here is about an agency trying to punish contributors who sell to agencies they won't name and whose pricing policies they don't like.
Your rant about how this is poetic justice belongs somewhere else.
No it doesn't. He is spot on. Of course everyone who points out things like that is a troll : ) Childish...
If the traditional sites had made it easier for new contributors to join and if they had adapted to the digital era, he might have a valid argument.
They rejected me and priced themselves out of a huge market. Microstock is far from perfect and I would like to see lots of changes but I think the traditional sites are also at fault. By closing the doors to contributors that were often superior to the ones they had, it was inevitable that an alternative would come along. They let istock and the other new microstock sites take away a huge amount of their slice of the market before doing anything about it.
Thats just one of the reasons, the smaller one actually. The big one is the lack of foresight from ppl who started contributing... the whole thing works out for a very-very few ppl, others just dumbly, unknowingly support an enterprise with their work, and actually even money, in exchange for next to nothing. They might as well could have been locked out of this trade and did something better with their time imho.
67
« on: October 03, 2011, 16:00 »
I think history has shown the exact opposite - that it was the road to quality. It enabled a huge number of people to develop their skills because the prohibitive costs associated with the film era were taken out of the equation.
Prohibitive terms were things like requiring the submission of several hundred stock-quality images as an initial test, I seem to recall some sites stipulated that they wanted a considerable number of shots every month or that you should be available for commissioned work. But I don't have copies of old submission guidelines.
Just sounds like they wanted to keep it a seriuos hq business with 'real persons' if you now what I mean... sure, all that locks out a large number of people, but the same applies as I said before, thats how you keep it real. Look whats happening now, dilution of everything, and a price race to the bottom, because phottogs are all exchangable and expandable faceless peons.
68
« on: October 03, 2011, 15:00 »
@markstout. You're talking about a completely different issue. The discussion here is about an agency trying to punish contributors who sell to agencies they won't name and whose pricing policies they don't like.
Your rant about how this is poetic justice belongs somewhere else.
No it doesn't. He is spot on. Of course everyone who points out things like that is a troll : ) Childish...
Hardly. Unless you believe it's irrelevant that all those macrostock agencies were closed shops that wouldn't have accepted work from most of us. Macro was defeated by technology (digital cameras and the Internet) and by their own efforts to keep the market to themselves.
" wouldn't have accepted work from most of us."
That's a big smear. "wouldn't have.." How do you know? especially if you put it togethet with "most of us". Most of who? You? Me? How do you know what others are capable of producing....
It isn't a big smear. If you read some of the agreement conditions agencies were imposing at that time they were clearly designed to prevent the sort of people who started out as microstockers ever being able to market their images.
Show me some of those. Btw why is that a problem? You don't need outstanding foresight to realize that soocking everyone in having opposable thumbs to hold a camera being enough, isn't exactly the road to quality and a valuable, respected trade on the long run... or even a mid-run. Actually another similarly ironic situation comes to mind: 'long time' microstockers frowning upon all kinds of cheapo ppl from those dark corners of the world just flodding into micro agencies, accepting any deal they throw at them. Why does "soocking" "oo=u" gets deleted?? It isn't exactly a swear as is word, is it? Jesus... kindergarten : )
69
« on: October 03, 2011, 14:41 »
@markstout. You're talking about a completely different issue. The discussion here is about an agency trying to punish contributors who sell to agencies they won't name and whose pricing policies they don't like.
Your rant about how this is poetic justice belongs somewhere else.
No it doesn't. He is spot on. Of course everyone who points out things like that is a troll : ) Childish...
Hardly. Unless you believe it's irrelevant that all those macrostock agencies were closed shops that wouldn't have accepted work from most of us. Macro was defeated by technology (digital cameras and the Internet) and by their own efforts to keep the market to themselves.
" wouldn't have accepted work from most of us." That's a big smear. "wouldn't have.." How do you know? especially if you put it togethet with "most of us". Most of who? You? Me? How do you know what others are capable of producing....
70
« on: October 03, 2011, 13:56 »
@markstout. You're talking about a completely different issue. The discussion here is about an agency trying to punish contributors who sell to agencies they won't name and whose pricing policies they don't like.
Your rant about how this is poetic justice belongs somewhere else.
No it doesn't. He is spot on. Of course everyone who points out things like that is a troll : ) Childish...
71
« on: October 03, 2011, 12:58 »
Is anybody getting many of these single images sales? I just got one a few days ago and nothing since.
It's probably gonna be pretty rare... subs > OD > single image
72
« on: October 03, 2011, 11:21 »
I did resubmit some stuff they rejected, even double resubmit, but only after a batch of new stuff and no warning here. I have a very high acceptance ratio tho... they probably do have some inside rankings system that might make a difference on how they relate to you. I remember reading the post of someone who has been a reviewer for years, saying that most photographers tend to be very consistent in their quality. Who has been submitting questionable stuff, usually goes on like that forever, the ones who have been uploading high quality stuff tend to do so consistently. It might save them time to be less thorough with the latter, and they are often very-very fast, it takes just a couple of hours even for bigger batches to be up for sale. That never happened when I was new there.
73
« on: September 28, 2011, 05:26 »
No! on the contrary, I find the DT reviewing very professional, the DT reviewers can in fact handle any picture language and if they say its too similar, then probably it is too similar.
Dont forget, reviewing is a human process and ofcourse its open for mistakes, so is everything. In fact all the 4 top tier agencies are on the whole pretty fair in the actaul reviewing process.
They are plain perfect, just like me
74
« on: September 28, 2011, 05:17 »
Folks,
It has come to our attention that some new agencies are selling the same contributor content at prices far less than most other microstock agencies. We feel that this is bad for both photographers and stock agencies. We do understand photographers are free to choose their own destiny in a free market economy, and our intention in these actions is to encourage everyone to support fair pricing for customers and commissions for contributors. Only a handful of sites and contributors have been identified thus far, and we will communicate with them before taking any action.
By sponsoring and uploading to sites that undercut prices, photographers put the whole industry in jeopardy - and we feel our duty is to take action. If the community agrees with our approach, the status quo remains. If the community wants to place down pressure on pricing, we'll adjust accordingly, as a measure to be fair and respectful to our costumers and stay competitive. Keep in mind that when rankings drop, the ability to charge more for images goes away - and that hurts everyone's bottom line, including ours.
Chad Bridwell
Director of Operations
Fotolia.com
Thanks for bravely coming in here. ...
Let's give him knighthood! 8 )
75
« on: September 27, 2011, 16:56 »
We appreciate the points raised here and in Lee's article. Thanks for your patience in hearing our reply.
First on the $3.00 - $0.10 per download:
When designing our subscription royalty model we did not want to follow the approach of other subscription sites that pay a fixed royalty per download, because of the imbalance of what the company earns versus what the contributor earns. Let's say a subscription site pays $0.25 per download, their customers pay $250 for a 31 day subscription, amounting to a daily spend of $8.06. An estimated average of nine downloads per day means $2.25 royalty is paid to contributors (who's images were downloaded by a customer) and $5.81 is kept by the site. For four downloads, the site pays $1.00 in royalties and keeps $7.06. One download per day, the site pays $0.25 in royalty and keeps $7.81 - that's a 3% royalty to the contributor.
So we decided to do things differently and create a more balanced royalty model for Veer subscription. Unlike other sites, Veer offers a guaranteed "royalty pool" of $3.00 per day, per image-downloading customer. Whether a customer downloads thirty images or just one image per day, we pay out the full $3.00 to contributors. Compared to the previous example, if a Veer customer downloads one image, the contributor gets $3.00 (the other site would pay only $0.25). Four downloads, Veer pays $0.75 per image. Nine downloads, $0.33 per image royalty. I won't give away our pricing yet but I can say it's less than $250 per month.
As Lee points out, most customers don't use their full quotas, and so $0.10 per image is an outlier. With a typical range of five to fifteen downloads per day, the typical Veer subscription royalty per image is between $0.20 to $0.60, which is consistent - and in many cases better - than other subscription sites.
Veer's subscription model is different than other sites by paying out the full share of $3.00 per image-downloading customer per day regardless of the number of downloads. In a few cases, we acknowledge that Veer contributors will earn less per download than other sites but in many cases, contributors will earn much more per image than other sites. We believe the law of averages is on side with contributors in Veer's subscription royalty model.
Regarding the extended license royalty, we aligned our extended license rate to what we found in our market research of daily download subscriptions. Veer needs to be on par with the playing field and so we've designed our extended license royalties to be, in our view, a standard price for this type of subscription (to be presented at launch). We're by no means trying to insult our contributors and we appreciate everyone's concern. As always, Veer is committed to openness and transparency with our community.
As part of this commitment we have given our existing contributors the option to opt-out, but that said, we believe our offer is competitive with the current market and we are glad to offer this new subscription revenue stream to our contributors. We hope you join us.
Aaron
Fail. This is what subscription should do: increase downloads becasue of the package bargain, so buyers will go around downloading even pictures they just 'might' use. This works if the site has large traffic.... Veer doesn't. Fail. Disadvantage for the contributor: lower paying downloads... but two things make up for it: volume, and the fix-price protetcion from flimsy few cent downloads of small sizes. Big fail again, instead of that, this implements nano royalties.
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 8 ... 15
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
