Quote from: gostwyck on August 09, 2012, 12:27

Quote from: StockBottom on August 09, 2012, 11:30

... and ebook sales are not compensating for the profits they were making with paper, as simple as that.

Er ... it's not actually as simple as you think. Ever heard of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' by EL James? Just happens to be the fastest selling and most profitable book of all time with the majority of sales in e-book format. Things change, businesses adapt.

But there are no pictures in that book.  Wouldn't it be nice if there were

The front cover is a photo from Dreamstime.

Factories like mine feed the mouths of more than 100 people and have internships and educational programs with the purpose of giving back to the community

What amount of the 100+ people are in position of creating work they are able to own their copyright to?
I would rather see 100+ individual entrepreneurs than a 100+ person corporation.

Can't we all just get along? 

R.I.P. Rodney King

You may have just stumbled upon the next publishing phenomena __ an 'illustrated' version of said stories! I'm sure it must be ... erm ... technically possible.

  No doubt!  I also doubt there will be a shortage of photogs stepping forward to shoot the images....

While Sean is not warm and fuzzy he has helped countless people at iStock. I have be encouraged by both Sean and Yuri. I wish them both success as I do this full-time for myself and you
bet it is for myself! I have a family to feed. I have helped others on the way but business is business!

I kind of second that however each one of us runs their "operation" differently.

There is no right or wrong - probably just more or less cash depending on the business decisions you make on the way to meet your goals.

Just because I don't agree with one's business operation style I don't feel the need to object or point out how certain things are "incorrect", "immoral", "unethical" or whatever you want to call it.

Does any one here on the forums have a problem buying/using an iPhone or other pieces of technology coming from China and other Asian countries where labor laws simply don't exist or aren't enforced?
It's a bit two-faced to say yes to some companies exploiting workers but on the other hand judging how well or not well the staff of a photographer's operation is being compensated.

I don't understand or know how Yuri runs his shop, nor Sean's, and neither one of them know everything about the other, so it's not a very effective or fruitful discussion throwing assumptions into ring.

There is no way to call Yuri's way right, wrong, good or bad - it works for him and I can't see him putting a gun to anyone's head to make them work for him. If they want to work for $4 an hour it's their choice but then also take a closer look at the gadgets you're using to tweet about Yuri's bloated ego because you can bet that the assembly line workers who put your phone together make less then that (up to $2.55/hr) - BUT THAT's OK.  

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/the-ieconomy-how-much-do-foxconn-workers-make/

Yeah Loop, I should clarify a couple things. That Steven King book was an e-book.  If it was a paper book I could read it, share it, give it away.  an e-book is drum locked and you can only read it on the device you bought it on.   I can't lend it to you unless I give you my Kobo.  I'm sure King has negotiated pretty good royalties, but the average author would only earn a couple bucks on that sale.  $19 is robbery when it is not printed, not shareable, and the authors don't get the biggest share. 

Several themes:

One:
I don't think 20 $for the last seven hundred or so pages SK book is expensive. Paying 8 or 10 dollars for a kg of decent salad tomates it is, in my opinion. On the other hand, after buying a Kindle I've discovered that I prefer reading books on paper. Some friends of mine agree with me, but they point out that with and e-book reader you can get the books for nothing on the file sharing pirate sites. They consider that a great advantage.

Yeah, I just checked and most of Locke's books are $2.99.  He has others at .99 and some at free.  Free books usually work phenomenally well in publishing.  They don't do much at all for us.  He would boost his ranking by giving free downloads and then the sales would follow. 

Added in edit responding to Pixart: John Locke doen't get 70 c per book. If you sell at .99 you just get 35%, not 70

$4.5/hour a very good salary in most of the world?        I guess you mean, a very good salary for people living in very poor countries.

for instance in Thailand a good salary is 15$ a DAY, i mean in Bangkok, not in the countryside where 5-10$ is more than enough.

china (apart in big cities), vietnam, burma, indonesia, philippines, india, nepal, same story ...

that's roughly 2-3 billion people living fairly well with 150-200$ a month, so enough to say "in most of the world".

The problem of "fair" fees exist for a long time
I seriously wonder why some people advocate the big agency
Yuri works fine.

80% might look unfair but if they spend 100 to make 120 to me it looks fair, there are very very few companies around
making net profits above 30%, you guys forget that with their 80% fee they have to pay ALL the costs and the taxes, which
in canada are at least 20-25%.

Quote from: Digital66 on August 09, 2012, 12:36

$4.5/hour a very good salary in most of the world?        I guess you mean, a very good salary for people living in very poor countries.

for instance in Thailand a good salary is 15$ a DAY, i mean in Bangkok, not in the countryside where 5-10$ is more than enough.

china (apart in big cities), vietnam, burma, indonesia, philippines, india, nepal, same story ...

that's roughly 2-3 billion people living fairly well with 150-200$ a month, so enough to say "in most of the world".

Living fairly well with 150-200$ a month...   What's the definittion of "fairly well"?   
Paying retouchers $4.63 per hour is abusive.   Funny how Yuri complains about the low royalties paid by the agencies, and look at peanuts he pays.

I've been well aware of the "forgotten" credit thing for a long time....

This really isn't any different than selling gift cards. Millions of cards expire each year with a few bucks left on them. That's a lot of easy cash every year no one misses.

I'm not sure how this really matters to you however, you're not paying a commission to anyone but yourself. I suppose you could say they need to pay more for extra shots they could have purchased with expired credits, but I don't really know how much of a factor that really is.

Living fairly well with 150-200$ a month...   What's the definittion of "fairly well"?   
Paying retouchers $4.63 per hour is abusive.   Funny how Yuri complains about the low royalties paid by the agencies, and look at peanuts he pays.

royalties are low because the cheap as-s micro buyers aren't willing to pay a fair price for a photo.

and they do it because their cheap as-s clients aren't willing to pay a single dollar more.

and the clients of the clients aren't willing to pay a dime more for the cheap products advertised in brochures filled
by micro images.

sorry, welcome to the real world ... and it can only get worse.

as for salaries you better travel a bit more before talking about abusive payouts.
a clerk at 7-eleven in Bangkok is paid no more than 200$ a month, a thai meal is 1-2$, a bus ride 0.3$ ...

now, no idea about Cape Town but i don't think a guy earning 30$ per day is starving, quite the opposite !

Let me educate you about the real world. This doesn't even compare to the abuse I get from my girlfriend or some despicable MS agencies.

According to my calculations, getting paid $4.63/hr for sitting in a warm place one could make $37.12 for eight hours of work. Not counting other benefits. That's substantially more than most microstock contributors make in one day.

even if you are talking about 31 days per month its 1150$, any serious average/low contributor can get there with work of course but it ain�t certainly that hard, so if the most don�t make it, its pretty much because they are lazy

Quote

   
Paying retouchers $4.63 per hour is abusive.  

Let me educate you about the real world. This doesn't even compare to the abuse I get from my girlfriend or some despicable MS agencies.

According to my calculations, getting paid $4.63/hr for sitting in a warm place one could make $37.12 for eight hours of work. Not counting other benefits. That's substantially more than most microstock contributors make in one day.

Why haven't you left your girlfriend?