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Messages - louoates

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76
I've discussed stock with those who seemed to be interested in selling their work. They're usually shocked to hear that their sunsets over the ocean vacation snapshots would never sell. I give them the IS web site and ask them to study the categories and let me know which ones they wanted to focus on. I say that they could probably make some money if they could do better, more creative photography in those areas and do it for $1 payments. No, I've never had a second discussion with any of them.

77
General Stock Discussion / Re: Photo Book ePublishing
« on: January 07, 2012, 21:34 »
I've been thinking about the self-publishing route also. The prices have been coming down substantially for small quantity (5-20) runs but IMHO are still way more than the market will pay for non-famous artists. But the coffee table copies for personal use are a great idea. My daughters do a book every year with family photos and they are very well printed and look as good as if printed by a major publishing house. I think they do it through Apple. Very impressive. It helps that their photography skills, and cameras, are far higher quality than most non-professionals. Still, they're paying $50+ for the books although the page count has a lot to do with it. I've found lots of epublishers. Blurb and A & I Books are two that seem to have lots to offer. I have a 25 image project that would be perfect for coffee table use if I could ever finish tweaking them.

One good reason to print a few book copies is to show at art shows. It helps to establish some additional "gravitas" to your displays. Might even sell a copy.

78
My crystal ball tells me that exclusive niche images are the only way to make money in this business as thousands of new photographers and millions of new images hit the market every year. Google and other search engines will continue to improve and provide easier access to well key-worded images. I think the wise stock niche shooter who can tailor his or her site to those search parameters will be miles ahead of the competition and be able to build direct-to-end-user relationships.

79
Right on Helix7! Your comments are true for every business.
I'm reminded of ad agencies back in the 1970's when some art directors had a tough time abandoning Press Type and freehand drawing in favor of the new computer generated type and layouts for ad comps. Those that refused to learn those processes were quickly out of jobs. I recall that process taking only about five years.

80
General Stock Discussion / Re: Stolen from fotolia
« on: December 20, 2011, 16:02 »
Multiply this illegal use by about one billion and you'll have some sense of the abuse of the copyright laws. And you'll soon develop a thick enough skin to keep posting images on the internet.

81
I haven't had a sub sale yet. "Standard" sales keep ticking along at $5 -- $30 per month. Odd thing is that what is usually selling at Veer is seldom sold elsewhere.

82
General Stock Discussion / Re: EL Rush at SS - Is it Over?
« on: December 05, 2011, 17:29 »
I had a flurry of ELs also. I'm also getting a lot more of the on-demand sales as well. SS in now beating IS for me every month because of that.

83
iStockPhoto.com / Re: November Stats Are Up-to-Date
« on: December 03, 2011, 12:38 »
It looks like this latest glitch has totally trashed my sales results. Very much like what happened when they started the disambiguate process. My sales tanked because of it (???) and never recovered. I hope this latest problem recaptures November and December sales.

84
iStockPhoto.com / Re: here's a positive ....
« on: December 03, 2011, 12:34 »
It still seems broken to me. Either that or my sales there have totally tanked. The daily sales results are a small fraction of normal. Not a good omen. And these guys are number one?

85
General Stock Discussion / Re: More Stolen Images
« on: December 02, 2011, 12:19 »
I have great respect for that site in that they've stolen some of my better golf images from Shutterstock, Flickr, and others. They show great taste to be sure. Am I worried? Nope. Just another thief out there among others too numerous to count. In previous more-enlightened eras such thievery was punished with hand amputations. I'd prefer to dole out the more colorful practice of impalement.

86
The more of these threads I read the more I am determined not to let thievery bother me. It's a fact of life that I can do zero about. So why bother?

87
After wasting another hour trying to find some Google "violation report" mechanism I decided not to waste any more time fighting theft. It just reinforces my belief that all images anywhere on the internet will eventually be available for use without compensation.

88
I see one of my best sellers there. Not sure what I can do about it. I don't even speak the same language as used on the site.

89
Race, I'm afraid that genie has been free of the bottle for some time. The moment that digital images were downloadable from the internet was the beginning of the end of copyright protections. It's a matter of overwhelming numbers. With the billions of images available in ever-larger file sizes all that's standing in the way of universally free (and quite useable) images is a sophisticated search engine. Oh, wait, I believe Google image search will do that quite nicely.

90
UNSOLICITED OPINIONS BEYOND THIS TOPIC:  I fear that eventually most images anywhere on the internet will be available FREE to anybody with internet access. The copyright laws now are practically worthless -- violated by millions of folks knowingly or unknowingly. This is to say nothing of sales by related microstock site "partners" that never get credited to the photographer. Put me in the pessimist column, but human nature being what it is, I believe that theft is just as prevalent in microstock as in any other business.

Eventually, in my crystal ball, there will be free images across enough sites to put most stock image sites, as currently organized, out of business. I see sites providing, at most, only a thin share of ad popup earnings to contributors. I would imagine that eventually most social networking sites will demand that all images posted will carry with it release permissions for those sites to market those images themselves with no compensation. It doesn't seem much of a leap in logic to believe that soon software will be able to automatically cull good images from millions images and auto keyword them.

91
Envato / Re: Photodune, Thoughts?
« on: November 10, 2011, 18:21 »
I'm afraid this is just another not-ready-for-prime-time site. If and when the uploading is fixed/streamlined and if and when sales are ever generated there I may take another look.

92
I find the download stats immensely helpful when I have what I think is an unusual concept. I'll scan through what my key words would be to see if that niche is already occupied with decent images. Only if my concept is better than what's there will I proceed with my image.

If the keywords show very few images or lots of decent images with very low downloads relative to the ages of the images I won't waste my time proceeding. Saves me lots of time and effort.

If there are no images with those keywords I need to honestly decide if I have a goldmine or just another goofy idea nobody wants. That dilemma is the most fun I get out of this business.

93
I have been unable to get FT to delete my account and remove all my remaining images. I've emailed them several times and have gotten no response. Several weeks ago I deleted all my images with more than 10 downloads but that was a lot of work deleting one image at a time and was hoping I could ask them to delete the rest. Anyone else have trouble deleting all images from FT?

94
General Stock Discussion / Re: The Picture Pod
« on: October 23, 2011, 11:08 »
I am impressed with this venture. Not because they've stumbled upon the perfect solution to the drawbacks of the current microstock systems. But because it does show that there are live bodies out there who are trying to find solutions that will be successful.

 I also take exception to their claim of "not just a money making scheme...". I'd feel much more comfortable had they said something like, "we're going to provide contributors with a better return, give buyers more value for their money, knock the competition into chaos, and make a huge pile of money for ourselves." Oh, and follow that up with specifics; "...and here's how we're going to do it."

Then I might take the effort to participate.

95
General Stock Discussion / Re: The Picture Pod
« on: October 22, 2011, 16:53 »
Another babe in the woods. I'll check back in a couple of years.

96
Bigstock.com / Re: To pull the plug at BigStock or not...?
« on: October 15, 2011, 19:33 »
I actually did some calculations a year or so ago in answer to someone here who was complaining about the rip-off nature of micro-stock. I knew that most folks were neglecting the accumulating value of past work, especially those with portfolios containing a decent percentage of images that sold five times or more per month.

I never posted those projections but it entailed calculating an hourly wage based upon sales per image over time. The numbers were nearly astronomical if I assumed that I quit uploading entirely yet continued to receive income from images uploaded when I started at micro about 7 years ago. I was seeing returns on time of hundreds of dollars per hour. That was why I never posted the results. They were such high hourly rates that I was certain no one would have believed the numbers.

   After the last two years of few uploads I'm still seeing thousands of dollars per year of income with near zero working time. And I see little reason why those dollars won't continue into the foreseeable future.

97
I can't even imagine a better battery than what's in my Mark III ds. The drawback is I go so long after a recharge that I forget there is a battery in there.
I suppose if it were smaller and lighter...

And what does weather-sealing mean? If it means no more sensor dust I'd buy it in a second. The auto-clean feature of my Mark III, if it works at all, doesn't do a very good job.

98
Bigstock.com / Re: To pull the plug at BigStock or not...?
« on: October 15, 2011, 18:49 »
About dormancy: In the last two years I've uploaded at most 2 or 3 images per month per site. That's mostly due to my resistance to do work for a dwindling reward schedule. What really surprised me was seeing fewer than expected  reductions in total downloads. I've concluded, at least with my images, that the searches aren't skewed all that much toward recent work. Maybe its just me.

99
General Stock Discussion / Re: Pitty! its come to this!
« on: October 15, 2011, 11:46 »
I worked many years as a professional writer. I can see why so many comments on forums are taken the wrong way from what was intended. A slight change in wording can convey an entirely different meaning.  In normal face-to-face conversation a given word can be perceived 100% differently than when seen in typed form. The fact that a smiley is used can even reinforce the perception instead of softening it. My main point is don't try subtlety in print unless you really know what you're doing.

100
Bigstock.com / Re: To pull the plug at BigStock or not...?
« on: October 15, 2011, 09:31 »
Thank you all for the input. I've decided to stay put there for now.

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