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Microstock Photography Forum - General => Symbiostock => Symbiostock - General => Topic started by: travelwitness on July 15, 2013, 06:41
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Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
If you are hesitant - what would persuade you to start using Symbiostock?
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I am not an expert for web, codes etc. Maybe it's not to hard, but I don't have much time to learn...
So I am waiting complete optimization and excellent tutorial which can explain literally everything, step by step...
It's too experimental for me, because I have no will to learn about web....
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Its actually a lot more easier now than a few weeks back. Its pretty easy on bluehost.
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Seems too time-consuming and complicated.
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Seems too time-consuming and complicated.
Would a simple step by step guide help you consider?
You have a fantastic portfolio by the way :-)
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Good reasons...if you read this forum, you can see the work and effort that many people ( especially Leo) put in.... to reach the point were I think it would be much easier to get up and running now
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It is actually only a 2 step process.
http://www.symbioguides.com/section/video-tutorials/ (http://www.symbioguides.com/section/video-tutorials/)
I think all the threads leading through the development stages give the impression its a lot more complicated than it actually is.
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It's very confusing, there are so many Symbiostock threads that I don't know where to find the basic information that I need to get started. Some links would help.
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I'm useless with computers and I've managed to do it.
Amanda's knowledge site is excellent!
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I think I know why traditional stock shooters are very hesitant even though they'd love to have a network powered sales channel with 100% revenue.
- Symbiostock appearance/marketing is very "microstocky". It's not only that MSG is hosting the SYS support forum but also the hidden pointers (like the meta title of symbiostock.com, the mentioning of "Royalty Free" only etc). To outsiders it looks like Symbiostock is a 'microstock only' product.
- The lack of RM and Editorial Only functions. This is a very big deal to traditional shooters. Many of them supply much more RM than RF material.
- The fear that they have to "compete" with microstock shooters. Which is wrong because this competition is very present anyway. Picture buyers know that microstock exists, even if macrostock contributors try to stay in their own closed orbit.
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It's very confusing, there are so many Symbiostock threads that I don't know where to find the basic information that I need to get started. Some links would help.
I agree.
I started my Symbiostock site just a couple of weeks ago and I had a hard time finding some of the basic information I needed to get started. And I'm experienced in WordPress site builds and I still had a bit of trouble finding things. There is just so much discussion happening on the forum, it's hard to dig through it all.
That said, there seem to be some more centralized sites in the works that house some of the basic start-up information now, so hopefully going forward it becomes easier for people to quickly find the info they need.
I should also say that the info I needed was more to do with customizations to the Symbiostock theme, but in terms of just getting up and running with a basic Symbiostock installation, it is pretty easy. You really need to just set up a website and install WordPress, for which there are tons of tutorials on the web already. After that it's just a matter of installing the Symbiostock theme (which is essentially the same as installing any theme in WordPress), setting a few preferences, pricing settings, etc., and then uploading images.
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I don't want to start my own (mainly due to laziness), still waiting for an open symbio site for contributors in general :)
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Well, I wanted to, but it said that the host is not free. At the moment I'm not making enough money to pay for something that might not get my money back. I'll wait until my portfolio grows.
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Well, I wanted to, but it said that the host is not free. At the moment I'm not making enough money to pay for something that might not get my money back. I'll wait until my portfolio grows.
you can charge hosting :)
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I don't want to start my own (mainly due to laziness), still waiting for an open symbio site for contributors in general :)
Not sure how that would happen - unless (brainwave) I set up a subdomain for you and take 75% of all your earnings ;D ;)
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It's very confusing, there are so many Symbiostock threads that I don't know where to find the basic information that I need to get started. Some links would help.
Yep. It honestly just looks like way to much work right now to figure out how to modify, customize, upload, etc. And I don't want to upload, and change data, only to find the whole things changes and I have to one-by-one something again.
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I don't want to start my own (mainly due to laziness), still waiting for an open symbio site for contributors in general :)
Not sure how that would happen - unless (brainwave) I set up a subdomain for you and take 75% of all your earnings ;D ;)
ahahahah good one I will give you 10% :D
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I really want to join. But it's definitely too complicated for me (i have no idea whatsoever about coding and dont have time to learn now) and i am nervous every time something does not work. I have a site with Photoshelter and am happy with it. I would be ready to pay the same monthly subscription (without the sale commission bit) to have another site with Symbiostock if one day Leo can offer some service similar to that. I dont really need all the features that Photoshelter offer, but i need someone to take care of the coding part and take care of the maintenance and bugs.
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It's very confusing, there are so many Symbiostock threads that I don't know where to find the basic information that I need to get started. Some links would help.
Yep. It honestly just looks like way to much work right now to figure out how to modify, customize, upload, etc. And I don't want to upload, and change data, only to find the whole things changes and I have to one-by-one something again.
Right now Batch editing is the biggest PITA "non-feature" of Symbiostock. I am sure someone will have a plug-in for this soon.
If your images are all similar in pricing structure and content rating, then this isn't a big issues. You set you presets at the beginning and they all are all the same. The time consuming part is if you want to go back and edit a batch.
Once the information is there there isn't a need to go in and change it.
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I'm intrigued by Symbiostock, but I have yet to hear of anyone seeing many sales from it.
Yes, there's the occasional "I got my first sale!" but it's going to take more than the occasional sale, or even the daily sale, to motivate me to invest the time in this.
Still, I applaud Leo for his efforts and for everyone else who has jumped in to test the waters for the rest of us. I really want to see you succeed, and I'll gladly join you if and when your efforts prove fruitful.
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I already have a site, so I've been hesitant to take the time out to start a second one.
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It's very confusing, there are so many Symbiostock threads that I don't know where to find the basic information that I need to get started. Some links would help.
Yep. It honestly just looks like way to much work right now to figure out how to modify, customize, upload, etc. And I don't want to upload, and change data, only to find the whole things changes and I have to one-by-one something again.
I'm right in the middle of the process right now. Have figured out a lot of things, including with the help of many in this group, but yes, the multitude of Forum threads and even the various tutorials available can be confusing. As I said elsewhere, this is my fourth WP website developed from scratch, so I thought it would be easier than it has been.
At this point, I've got the main site established and can upload images, get them on their own pages, etc. My challenge right now is to make a transparent watermark. I've designed my own simple WM and have been trying to use it, but it completely blocks the image. Today's project is to figure out how to make the background transparent. I spent yesterday afternoon looking at how-to videos and instructions. Should have figured it out by now but went to bed last night with the problem unresolved.
One thing I know (and like!) about this is: once I've figured it all out and have the site working well, it's mine. It will always be mine and nobody can tell me what will or will not be allowed on the site. That feels good.
Leo has done a phenomenal job on the overall SYS, and Amanda's Clean Theme works well with it. I'm happy with the product.
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Today's project is to figure out how to make the background transparent. I spent yesterday afternoon looking at how-to videos and instructions. Should have figured it out by now but went to bed last night with the problem unresolved.
If you need help with your watermark, send me a PM to exchange email addresses. This way you can send me your design or logo and I'll create the watermark for you. It's a matter of minutes for me.
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Time is the only thing holding me back.
I am a multimedia developer so working with it and customizing wouldn't be a big deal for me, but I don't have the time at the moment to commit. I'd imagine I'd have to put a considerable amount of time into it upfront. Probably worth it, but still no time available
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I really want to join. But it's definitely too complicated for me (i have no idea whatsoever about coding and dont have time to learn now) and i am nervous every time something does not work. I have a site with Photoshelter and am happy with it. I would be ready to pay the same monthly subscription (without the sale commission bit) to have another site with Symbiostock if one day Leo can offer some service similar to that. I dont really need all the features that Photoshelter offer, but i need someone to take care of the coding part and take care of the maintenance and bugs.
Leo does provide this service. He can take care of getting your site up and running for you for a fee, so you dont need to know coding
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I really want to join. But it's definitely too complicated for me (i have no idea whatsoever about coding and dont have time to learn now) and i am nervous every time something does not work. I have a site with Photoshelter and am happy with it. I would be ready to pay the same monthly subscription (without the sale commission bit) to have another site with Symbiostock if one day Leo can offer some service similar to that. I dont really need all the features that Photoshelter offer, but i need someone to take care of the coding part and take care of the maintenance and bugs.
Leo does provide this service. He can take care of getting your site up and running for you for a fee, so you dont need to know coding
remember seeing that a while ago (http://www.symbiostock.com/symbiostock-site-setup-services-maintenance-assistance/ (http://www.symbiostock.com/symbiostock-site-setup-services-maintenance-assistance/))
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It's very confusing, there are so many Symbiostock threads that I don't know where to find the basic information that I need to get started. Some links would help.
Yep. It honestly just looks like way to much work right now to figure out how to modify, customize, upload, etc. And I don't want to upload, and change data, only to find the whole things changes and I have to one-by-one something again.
It's actually a lot more simple than Ktools to install and maintain. You don't have customise any of it, just put in a banner image, set your prices and upload.
I can understand the hesitance though, lots of dead forum threads lying around make it look misleadingly complicated.
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any topic regarding best match at http://www.symbiostock.info/ (http://www.symbiostock.info/) ?
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I've been distracted from stock (mostly) for the last few months, but spent a part of Friday trying to catch up with Symbiostock to figure out what it would take to get a site up and running for my portfolio of ~2,000 images (and possibly some vectors).
I already have a web site hosted by Bluehost
I already have WordPress installed
I already have a personal PayPal account.
I already have a watermark and logo
I read posts here; I looked at the help and tutorial sites.
I read a bit on PayPal's site trying to figure out what I'd need to change to become a merchant (and I couldn't figure out if I could have one bank account connected to two PayPal accounts or what would be the issues for my other uses of PayPal - sending birthday presents to people in other countries, for example - if I switched to a business account)
I read a bit on BlueHost's site trying to see if I'd have to upgrade my plan if I were to host a stock web site (assuming at first there wouldn't be much traffic).
I looked at existing Symbiostock sites and their various licenses - not sure if I have to come up with my own license or just may if I want to. Some licenses referred to extended licenses but I don't see how that can be purchased.
I see all the sites have Blogee (? where did that odd name come from) Sm, Med, Large sizes - do I have any choices in names/sizes
And the real biggie is how much time to upload, watermark, import to WordPress and whatever else is needed 2,000 full size images
After all that I still don't have any clear answers. I have much more information, but I don't know if I have to commit a week to get this running or a day or two, or...
I need to know what I'm getting into before I start and I haven't been able to gather that level of detail. Other people doing it or saying "it wasn't that hard" doesn't really help me figure that out.
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A day at most to install set up your menus and upload your watermark (or use whats already there).
You can then FTP your key worded files directly into your site or upload using the theme uploader.
Honestly there's not that much more to it.
You can tweak settings and add plugins to improve speed and SEO but its not really needed as it's pretty good out of the box - images show up in goggle image searches relatively quickly.
SEO is excellent I show as number 3 in google for 'Royalty Free Travel'.
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Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
Definitely extremely complicated bureaucracy/legislation/tax requirements that must be meet if someone wants to sell virtual goods directly from his own online store.
(At least from where I am based. Slovakia, European Union.)
I mean those requirements are REALLY complicated.
Most of you probably cannot even imagine – not even in your wildest dreams – how can be some of those legislation requirements complicated here!
In contrast selling through stock agencies is relatively easy from point of view of bureaucracy/legislation/tax requirements, because those complicated/problematic parts of business are left on stock agency.
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I love the "idea" of having my own site but have no desire to process individual rf transactions. I'm also careful to make sure my paypal transactions are less than 200 per year. I don't want to trigger the dreaded double 1099 reporting.
I would happily pay a percentage of sales for an easy upload to a semi-customisable template (with common sense licensing terms in place) and central processing of sales with a monthly payout.
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Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
If you are hesitant - what would persuade you to start using Symbiostock?
It sounds interesting, but I'm still a little unclear on why I should use it. ???
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I need to know what I'm getting into before I start and I haven't been able to gather that level of detail. Other people doing it or saying "it wasn't that hard" doesn't really help me figure that out.
You need to set up your watermark only once. You upload original full size files (without watermark) and they will be processed into different sizes and watermarked at the same time. While still keeping your original file, BTW.
You won't need another webspace at Bluehost. Just use the one you already have.
To be completely honest, it took me about one week to install and customize my site the way I wanted it (while at the same time uploading a few images to see how it works and looks). But I have never worked with Wordpress before so the bigger part of that customization process has to do with Wordpress, not Symbiostock.
Once you're set up, it's pretty smooth sailing and if you do your homework (like IPTC data), it'll be easier and faster than contributing to Alamy.
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Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
If you are hesitant - what would persuade you to start using Symbiostock?
It sounds interesting, but I'm still a little unclear on why I should use it. ???
It's pretty sweet getting 100% royalties.
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Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
If you are hesitant - what would persuade you to start using Symbiostock?
It sounds interesting, but I'm still a little unclear on why I should use it. ???
It's pretty sweet getting 100% royalties.
And no rejections for spurious, unfathomable reasons.
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I don't want to start my own (mainly due to laziness), still waiting for an open symbio site for contributors in general :)
biggest problem there would be distribution of profits, since sym really is designed for independents, there's no reporting mechanism for multiple artists - all payments are handled thru paypal, and the tracking is thru the site itself
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It's very confusing, there are so many Symbiostock threads that I don't know where to find the basic information that I need to get started. Some links would help.
Yep. It honestly just looks like way to much work right now to figure out how to modify, customize, upload, etc. And I don't want to upload, and change data, only to find the whole things changes and I have to one-by-one something again.
the design out of the box works great, so there's no requirement to change. installing is much easier than setting up a finearts, zazzle or smugmug site (all of which i've done).
any changes you make to watermarks, or the images themselves won't be affected by future updates - that's the beauty of a theme running on wordpress - years experience there
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I really want to join. But it's definitely too complicated for me (i have no idea whatsoever about coding and dont have time to learn now) and i am nervous every time something does not work. I have a site with Photoshelter and am happy with it. I would be ready to pay the same monthly subscription (without the sale commission bit) to have another site with Symbiostock if one day Leo can offer some service similar to that. I dont really need all the features that Photoshelter offer, but i need someone to take care of the coding part and take care of the maintenance and bugs.
Leo does provide this service. He can take care of getting your site up and running for you for a fee, so you dont need to know coding
remember seeing that a while ago ([url]http://www.symbiostock.com/symbiostock-site-setup-services-maintenance-assistance/[/url] ([url]http://www.symbiostock.com/symbiostock-site-setup-services-maintenance-assistance/[/url]))
I saw that, but what i need is not a one time start-up service, i need a regular maintenance and trouble shoot, that's why i am ready to pay monthly fees instead of one time starting fee.
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I've been distracted from stock (mostly) for the last few months, but spent a part of Friday trying to catch up with Symbiostock to figure out what it would take to get a site up and running for my portfolio of ~2,000 images (and possibly some vectors).
I already have a web site hosted by Bluehost
I already have WordPress installed
I already have a personal PayPal account. Personal works, Premier is probably better as you get an auto-return to site option, you do not need merchant as far as I can see, I think you need different bank account and email address for each PP account
I already have a watermark and logo Watermark - is it PNG and the correct size (I would need to look that up). Logo - need site logo for header, avatar, image for symbiocard - can be the same or a picture of you, and if you wish a logo to go on the Paypal page. Amanda created a set of templates and there is a link at the top of the Settings page within the Symbiostock Bee area.
I read a bit on BlueHost's site trying to see if I'd have to upgrade my plan if I were to host a stock web site (assuming at first there wouldn't be much traffic) I will worry about that when the time comes - my host says unlimited if part of the site, not just storage so will wait and see
I looked at existing Symbiostock sites and their various licenses - not sure if I have to come up with my own license or just may if I want to. Some licenses referred to extended licenses but I don't see how that can be purchased. There are two licences you can base yours on - Jamie provided one and I did the other, no idea if legal . I have written a note for customers to contact me if they want anything other than basic licence
I see all the sites have Blogee (? where did that odd name come from) Sm, Med, Large sizes - do I have any choices in names/sizes I think I read that this will come with the premium theme that Leo is developing, sounds like it will have a lot more options
And the real biggie is how much time to upload, watermark, import to WordPress and whatever else is needed 2,000 full size images It depends on how much work you want to do - SEO IS important and that takes a while. I unload a few, process them - generally related and tend to bulk categorise, then open each one in new tab for final editing, SEO tweaking etc which takes about 30-45 seconds for each one now when I have a good connection, as I am producing all new images do do not have to change titles etc.
After all that I still don't have any clear answers. I have much more information, but I don't know if I have to commit a week to get this running or a day or two, or...
there is enough information now to get it running in about an hour I would think if you have all your logos, EULA etc ready. I would also spend some time working on your categories before you start uploading as it is faster to categorise once than go back and add images to a category later. Add a Child theme before you make any changes so that any changes you might make are not lost if if there are updated versions or you upgrade
I need to know what I'm getting into before I start and I haven't been able to gather that level of detail. Other people doing it or saying "it wasn't that hard" doesn't really help me figure that out. It is impossible to tell how long it will take you, everyone is different and we are all on a learning curve :)
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Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
If you are hesitant - what would persuade you to start using Symbiostock?
It sounds interesting, but I'm still a little unclear on why I should use it. ???
To shift the balance towards the artists - if numbers reach critical mass then there's leverage.
http://www.symbiostock.info (http://www.symbiostock.info)
It may be an idealistic venture, but then again it might become a game changer - you'll never know unless you try.
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Anybody who wants to sell direct needs to compare the work and cost of setting up a website from scratch to that with the cost and work to set up a SYS site.
A website from scratch costs you a lot more time and money than setting up a free SYS site.
Ktools, Smugmug, zenfolio, etc etc all cost the same amount of effort including purchasing a 300 dollar software pack or a monthly subscription, and some sites even take commission.
Ktools and other software also need to be updated when they roll out new upgrades etc.
For me, the only thing I ever wanted was to get my own website. I looked at all the options and never could make the decission which way to go.
Then along came Symbiostock. It's all I ever wanted. It took me 2 days to set up, and some hours of tweaking. Once that was done, I started uploading my images, after work, few evenings per week. The only reason it took so long because I changed all titles and did all the SEO per image. Only because those image needed to have different titles from what is on the agencies to give them a better chance,
Now, I upload to my site first. Its just as fast as submitting to shutterstock or anywhere else. The only thing is that I choose to do SEO. Still not an issue, its still a lot faster than Alamy and Fotolia.
Honestly, if you are in doubt because you are afraid its too complicated or too much work, its not. And secondly if you think its too much work, than you need to ask yourself, how much work is too much to get 100% royalties?
I had one sale after 3 weeks with half my portfolio and already made more then I made on CanStockPhoto, PD, GL and DP individually making SYS my 4th earner. I know its low amounts, but the feeling is sooooooooooooooooooooo much better and rewarding.
Just do it, go SYS !
ETA: All the information is out there and the support from the community is here. Also great efforts are being made to collect the information and make it easy to access. Its a new project, things are getting better everyday. Dont let this opportunity pass you by because the forum is a bit chaotic.
Just do it, go SYS ! ;D
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I am not an expert for web, codes etc. Maybe it's not to hard, but I don't have much time to learn...
So I am waiting complete optimization and excellent tutorial which can explain literally everything, step by step...
It's too experimental for me because I have no will to learn about web....
That's it for me too!
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I am not an expert for web, codes etc. Maybe it's not to hard, but I don't have much time to learn...
So I am waiting complete optimization and excellent tutorial which can explain literally everything, step by step...
It's too experimental for me because I have no will to learn about web....
That's it for me too!
You dont have to know any of that. I dont either, many dont, they all got their sites up and running with a bit of work. :)
Most of the talk about coding is done by Leo and some people helping with the development. Setting up the site doesnt require that. ALso some people are doing heavy customization, thats also a choice.
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Okay, all the SY supporters are insisting how it's not a big deal to set it up.
But my big unanswered question is still this: who is making money at it?
It's great that SEO is working well for some of the sites, but if potential customers see it, does it compel them to buy? I've always been skeptical of individual sites, just because as a customer, I would see it and think, "Okay, this site has one image I like, but then I'd have to go open another account at a different site to get that other image I need. Why not just open one account at SS, FT, DT, etc. and get it altogether?"
So far, I think there's little evidence of SY sites getting over this hump. But I'd like to be proven wrong, to be convinced there's real opportunity here, so please chime in with your reports of great sales, and maybe you'll convince me to join.
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Okay, all the SY supporters are insisting how it's not a big deal to set it up.
But my big unanswered question is still this: who is making money at it?
It's great that SEO is working well for some of the sites, but if potential customers see it, does it compel them to buy? I've always been skeptical of individual sites, just because as a customer, I would see it and think, "Okay, this site has one image I like, but then I'd have to go open another account at a different site to get that other image I need. Why not just open one account at SS, FT, DT, etc. and get it altogether?"
So far, I think there's little evidence of SY sites getting over this hump. But I'd like to be proven wrong, to be convinced there's real opportunity here, so please chime in with your reports of great sales, and maybe you'll convince me to join.
You are questioning direct sales, not Symbiostock. Any website, Symbiostock or not, has to deal with that hump.
The big difference is that Symbiostock is a lot easier and cheaper to set up. Plus you are part of a network.
If a customer wants an image, they will get it. And there are many customer that dont want to buy a subscription or a pack of credits. Just spend the money on one image.
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Okay, all the SY supporters are insisting how it's not a big deal to set it up.
But my big unanswered question is still this: who is making money at it?
It's great that SEO is working well for some of the sites, but if potential customers see it, does it compel them to buy? I've always been skeptical of individual sites, just because as a customer, I would see it and think, "Okay, this site has one image I like, but then I'd have to go open another account at a different site to get that other image I need. Why not just open one account at SS, FT, DT, etc. and get it altogether?"
So far, I think there's little evidence of SY sites getting over this hump. But I'd like to be proven wrong, to be convinced there's real opportunity here, so please chime in with your reports of great sales, and maybe you'll convince me to join.
All of my new files are exclusive to Symbiostock, and I intend to remove older files from agencies in the future. So how will a buyer obtain these files from the agencies if they are not there?
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All good theories. I like Symbiostock, believe me. Leo has done outstanding work. I like how it networks everyone together, and those links build strong SEO.
All this is fantastic, and there are a number of people with sites in place to start drawing in the sales.
But where are they? I'm still waiting to hear from someone whose had more than a few.
And here's a real fear I have... what if some of the established agencies decide they'd rather not carry the work of people who have set themselves up as competitors to them? Yes, I understand that being non-exclusive should give you the right to sell work on your own. But the agencies could see a difference between offering your work on a portfolio-type site and grouping together with a bunch of other contributors to establish a network, in effect, an agency to compete with the established players. I hope it never happens... but look how the wonderful folks at FT threatened their contributors who sell on DP. It's very possible, and just the thought of it would give me jitters about setting up a SY site.
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I that theory PicturEngine would also be a problem then.
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I really want to join. But it's definitely too complicated for me (i have no idea whatsoever about coding and dont have time to learn now) and i am nervous every time something does not work. I have a site with Photoshelter and am happy with it. I would be ready to pay the same monthly subscription (without the sale commission bit) to have another site with Symbiostock if one day Leo can offer some service similar to that. I dont really need all the features that Photoshelter offer, but i need someone to take care of the coding part and take care of the maintenance and bugs.
Leo does provide this service. He can take care of getting your site up and running for you for a fee, so you dont need to know coding
remember seeing that a while ago ([url]http://www.symbiostock.com/symbiostock-site-setup-services-maintenance-assistance/[/url] ([url]http://www.symbiostock.com/symbiostock-site-setup-services-maintenance-assistance/[/url]))
I saw that, but what i need is not a one time start-up service, i need a regular maintenance and trouble shoot, that's why i am ready to pay monthly fees instead of one time starting fee.
Send leo a PM...he might be ok with that. I just dont want to speak for him, but i know he has /is helping a couple of people.
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The earlier you jump in, the better it is for you.. getting a good placement in organic google search takes time and by the time we are having regular sales you are going to be far behind..
Also, personally speaking, I am not the type to report my sales on public forums because I just don't feel right if I accidentally post earnings data.. the only time I do it is when I feel it is necessary to convey my opinion..
I'm intrigued by Symbiostock, but I have yet to hear of anyone seeing many sales from it.
Yes, there's the occasional "I got my first sale!" but it's going to take more than the occasional sale, or even the daily sale, to motivate me to invest the time in this.
Still, I applaud Leo for his efforts and for everyone else who has jumped in to test the waters for the rest of us. I really want to see you succeed, and I'll gladly join you if and when your efforts prove fruitful.
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And here's a real fear I have... what if some of the established agencies decide they'd rather not carry the work of people who have set themselves up as competitors to them?
If gets to that then you know the project has legs because the fear won't be from you it will be from them.
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Okay, all the SY supporters are insisting how it's not a big deal to set it up.
But my big unanswered question is still this: who is making money at it?
It's great that SEO is working well for some of the sites, but if potential customers see it, does it compel them to buy? I've always been skeptical of individual sites, just because as a customer, I would see it and think, "Okay, this site has one image I like, but then I'd have to go open another account at a different site to get that other image I need. Why not just open one account at SS, FT, DT, etc. and get it altogether?"
So far, I think there's little evidence of SY sites getting over this hump. But I'd like to be proven wrong, to be convinced there's real opportunity here, so please chime in with your reports of great sales, and maybe you'll convince me to join.
I've averaged a little above $400 a month this year. My store (Ktools) is coming up on 3 years old and growth has been slow and steady. It's not quite where I want it to be, but it is getting closer.
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For those looking for reasons to get into this:
besides selling direct, with its own pros and cons you can:
store your entire portfolio online great in case of catastrophic loss of data at home,
you get to choose what goes up instead of arbitrary reviews (also with pros and cons),
you will never have to worry about an image getting "orphaned" online because any diligent search will find it on your own website thanks to Leo's wonderful built in SEO.
Just a few, I'm sure there's more.
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For those looking for reasons to get into this:
besides selling direct, with its own pros and cons you can:
store your entire portfolio online great in case of catastrophic loss of data at home,
you get to choose what goes up instead of arbitrary reviews (also with pros and cons),
you will never have to worry about an image getting "orphaned" online because any diligent search will find it on your own website thanks to Leo's wonderful built in SEO.
Just a few, I'm sure there's more.
That
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I've always been skeptical of individual sites, just because as a customer, I would see it and think, "Okay, this site has one image I like, but then I'd have to go open another account at a different site to get that other image I need. Why not just open one account at SS, FT, DT, etc. and get it altogether?"
Leo is developing a search theme that will act as a hub much like www.symbiostock.info (http://www.symbiostock.info) but with a shopping cart - as a customer you should be able to place various images from the search results into one cart - go to the check out, pay and download the files. From the outside it will look like one collection - from the inside it will be linked to the network - payments will be distributed through Paypal to the artists. As far as a customer is concerned it should act and feel like any other agency.
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I've always been skeptical of individual sites, just because as a customer, I would see it and think, "Okay, this site has one image I like, but then I'd have to go open another account at a different site to get that other image I need. Why not just open one account at SS, FT, DT, etc. and get it altogether?"
Leo is developing a search theme that will act as a hub much like [url=http://www.symbiostock.info]www.symbiostock.info[/url] ([url]http://www.symbiostock.info[/url]) but with a shopping cart - as a customer you should be able to place various images from the search results into one cart - go to the check out, pay and download the files. From the outside it will look like one collection - from the inside it will be linked to the network - payments will be distributed through Paypal to the artists. As far as a customer is concerned it should act and feel like any other agency.
We cant call it an agency or it might get troublesome ;)
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I mentioned on another thread that are remarkable parallels between "indie" artists/photographers and "indie" authors. Reading this thread only reinforces that the reasons creators might go indie, plus the challenges and rewards of doing so, are almost identical.
Just a few minutes ago, on a blog for writers that I subscribe to, I read the following post (which I've edited only for length). Substitute "artist/photographer" for "writer" and you've got a good argument for going indie. Substitute "Leo" for "our friend and colleague Wil Kinghan" and you'll see we all have an ally in this game.
The red highlights are mine. They might have come from this very thread!
http://wildhunt.org/2013/07/adventures-in-self-publishing-an-interview-with-john-matthews.html (http://wildhunt.org/2013/07/adventures-in-self-publishing-an-interview-with-john-matthews.html)
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Self-publishing has now become a very viable option for even the most accomplished and prolific of authors. This mode of production puts the power back into the artist’s hands.
Last week I interviewed one such author – John Matthews. Over the past 30 years he has written over 90 books on Arthurian mythology as well as a volume of poetry and many short stories. His children’s book, Pirates, reached the number one slot on the New York Times Best Seller list in 2006.
. . . .
H: After all this time, why have you decided to move away from traditional publishing to self-publishing?
J: Partly from economic necessity, partly from a desire to get some of our old books back into print, and partly to have some control over the appearance and content of the books.
All of our professional lives my wife, Caitlin, and I have had to contend with editors who felt they knew better than we did, who wanted to change the emphasis of various things, cut things out, amend spellings, and so on. ... So we decided that we would do it ourselves. Fortunately we’ve been aided in this by our friend and colleague Wil Kinghan, who as well as being an incredibly good artist with whom we’ve worked several times, also trained as a graphic designer. His input means that the books will look sensational, and hopefully have very few mistakes. In fact, we think they look a lot better than some of the professional titles released by the big publishing houses.
. . . .
H: Let’s go back to the self- vs. trad- publishing debate. Weigh the pros and cons of the two.
J: The pros of course are that you have control over what goes into print, though this can have a downside, which I’ll come back to in a minute. The other good thing is that you get to keep most of the money that comes in from purchases. If you think that with an average publisher the very highest royalty that you can get is 12%, we can offer our authors 60%. And that is of actual money received, not percentages of percentages, as you get from so many regular publishers.
The cons are that if you intend to do it yourself it is quite labor-intensive and unless you are very computer savvy can take quite a long time to fathom out all the different formatting problems. The other con goes back to the idea of being able to publish whatever you like. This means, unfortunately, that a lot of shall we say less than wonderful books get out there. They may have nice covers, interesting titles, and they may have an interesting topic; but they can be badly written and full of typos. That’s why you need an editor…
But there is still one thing which I personally find annoying, but which is at the moment anyway, inevitable. There is a certain stigma around publishing your own work. There will always be people out there who will say, “Well, it can’t be very good then, or he or she would have published it with a proper publisher!” There’s not much we can do about that, though the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In time I think people will realize that a great deal of really good work is coming out from smaller companies or self published authors.
And there’s no getting away from the fact that you can make a lot of money this way. I’ve heard of people earning as much as $10,000 a month from their self published books. Of course these tend to be very popular subjects, mostly fiction, and the people in question usually have a couple of dozen books out there. Even if you’re only getting 60% of say $5.95 it soon adds up.
H: Are there any other limitations to self-publishing?
J: I don’t think there are any limitations providing you have the time and energy and the know-how to format your manuscript. That can require a lot of learning if it’s going to be done properly. But you have to start somewhere.
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Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
If you are hesitant - what would persuade you to start using Symbiostock?
It sounds interesting, but I'm still a little unclear on why I should use it. ???
Doesn't PayPal take a small stipend?
It's pretty sweet getting 100% royalties.
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It's hard sometimes for me even to upload all my content on new agency, for free!
That is reason why I don't have my portfolio on many low earners...
So, in short, too expensive, too experimental, too complicated for someone who don't know anything about making website, to much effort for small money....
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Thanks to those who provided info to answer my questions, especially Tinny for the detailed response.
I'm guessing that the investment is several days of time, and no additional money (given that I already have the web site and BlueHost).
I would prefer it if there were a decent agency or two and I could skip setting up my own site (as opposed to some who actively wanted to have their own sales site), but the bottom line is that the microstock agencies are either like abusive pimps, or decent folks with very little traffic and low monthly earnings.. Alamy used to be OK, but since late May sales for me have just collapsed.
Symbiostock appears to be a huge step up from KTools as a base for a self-hosted site. I was/am part of WarmPicture and I suppose I need to convince myself that a network of Symbiostock self hosted sites will be able to succeed where WarmPicture, even with all Dan's hard work, wasn't able to.
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Jo, it would be great to have you on board. Word. :)
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I mentioned on another thread that are remarkable parallels between "indie" artists/photographers and "indie" authors. Reading this thread only reinforces that the reasons creators might go indie, plus the challenges and rewards of doing so, are almost identical.
Just a few minutes ago, on a blog for writers that I subscribe to, I read the following post (which I've edited only for length). Substitute "artist/photographer" for "writer" and you've got a good argument for going indie. Substitute "Leo" for "our friend and colleague Wil Kinghan" and you'll see we all have an ally in this game.
Most successful self publishing authors will be mostly selling through trusted e-commerce marketplaces - ie the Amazon Kindle store and, to a lesser extent, Nook and and Apple iBooks. Not from their own sites.
eBook sites can afford to take a much smaller commission probably because of their economies of scale and partly because of cross subsidy. The ebook business is also largely consumer rather than business orientated and is relatively low friction.
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What's holding me back?
Hmm - time to set this all up for once other reasons:
not having a paypal account (I work with skrill)
not knowing about the legal repercussions of doing that from the perspective of German law (those were already reasons why I took my blog down). Other than that - it looks interesting... .
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I would really like to join, I think it is the future. And Im tired of the greedy middlemen, they have had their time.
But I find it hard to take concrete action, I dont know how to get started.
So if someone would help me, and guide me a bit, I would be willing to pay....
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The only thing holding me back is the upfront cost of hosting and that's it. Then it would be just a matter of self-reviewing, uploading, making the site look good and advertising (SEO stuff).
If it wasn't for that I'd already be up and running by now.
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How much are the hosting costs?
and other costs?
and where are the servers located?
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The only thing holding me back is the upfront cost of hosting and that's it. Then it would be just a matter of self-reviewing, uploading, making the site look good and advertising (SEO stuff).
If it wasn't for that I'd already be up and running by now.
????
hosting is $5-10 a month - you'll make that with 1 sale per month
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.....
So far, I think there's little evidence of SY sites getting over this hump. But I'd like to be proven wrong, to be convinced there's real opportunity here, so please chime in with your reports of great sales, and maybe you'll convince me to join.
no one's TRYING to convince you -- and once we start making the big bucks, why would anyone be looking for competition??
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JESUS man,
all kinds of different sizes, licenses and prices.
Thats not smart.
That should be standardized, else the customers have to sit and read everything at each photographers site. The whole concept is only viable when many artists provide a good variety of images, standing alone, very few photographers can provide enough variation.
Is there any way, the symbioticers can agree to standardize things?
And is there any way that the umbrella can stand out stronger and guarantee that the members are not pirates?
Also each site must have a return to base button so that the customer can go back and search the main search engine.
And BTW, how is the algoritm? And who holds the key to that.
As it is now, the customer is directed to the individual photographers and gets lost there.
And what about customers registration, at every photogs site?
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The only thing holding me back is the upfront cost of hosting and that's it. Then it would be just a matter of self-reviewing, uploading, making the site look good and advertising (SEO stuff).
If it wasn't for that I'd already be up and running by now.
Hosting is pretty cheap, really. Especially when you look at it as a necessary business expense. Even if it costs $10 - $15 a month, you are only paying $120 - $180 a year. Try to buy any advertising anywhere to promote you and your business for only $10 a month. Compare how cheap a web host is to any other form of advertising - such as buying a 1,000 business cards - when you buy them, what do you do with them? Most hosting companies have first month free or nearly free programs to get started. If you think about it, and shop around, you could probably get started for a lot less than you might expect. You sure don't need to spend much for your first 90 days, then you can evaluate if this is something you want to do.
George
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JESUS man,
all kinds of different sizes, licenses and prices.
Thats not smart.
That should be standardized, else the customers have to sit and read everything at each photographers site. The whole concept is only viable when many artists provide a good variety of images, standing alone, very few photographers can provide enough variation.
Is there any way, the symbioticers can agree to standardize things?
And is there any way that the umbrella can stand out stronger and guarantee that the members are not pirates?
Also each site must have a return to base button so that the customer can go back and search the main search engine.
And BTW, how is the algoritm? And who holds the key to that.
As it is now, the customer is directed to the individual photographers and gets lost there.
And what about customers registration, at every photogs site?
If we wanted to do all that, we would just stay at the agencies and let them keep reaming us.
Just like at the agencies, there are no guarantees. People there steal images. If you have the knowledge, you can customize your own search engine, some people are. Yes, customers have to register at every site, but they have to do that if they want to buy from different agencies, so nothing different there.
We don't want to standardize things. Our sites are individual. Bear in mind, this is a very young venture. Yes, there are holes, but there are BIG holes at the agencies.
Just like microstock, when it first started, wasn't perfect. It caused big arguments between traditional photographers and microstockers. Images were GIVEN away, contributors didn't even get paid. This venture is going to have growing pains, but I, for one, am sick and tired of getting reamed. If I have the slightest chance of making some money, I am going to try it. If it doesn't work, at least I can live with myself and be proud that I didn't just sit around, complain about how the agency is reaming me, and NOT DO ANYTHING.
If you think staying at an agency is the right choice, you should stick with it. I don't and apparently a lot of other people don't either because everyday, more and more sites are cropping up.
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ja ja, thats all true, but look at it from the customers side.
A customer would want to register only once and read only one EULA and relate to one set of prices.
The whole idea of symbiosis is that in unity the photographers provide enough value and choice for the customer.
That idea is being destroyed by inadequate structures. Definately counter productive for the whole concept.
Just a simple thing as links to photographers opening in a blank window instead of _self, would save the customer from getting lost.
As it is now, its not good enough and I would not buy there. Which again I might, because I would like to support my fellow artists.
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I agree with a lot of what Cathy says, but I also think JPSDK has some good points. I said right at the start that everyone should use the same licence, and I hadn't realised that some were not doing this.
As JPSDK says, think about it from the customer's point of view, and ask yourself why you would want to make things more difficult for customers? If you were a customer, would you really want to read all those different licences? I think a licence should be imposed on Sym, and it could even exclude those explicit photos which Leo and some others want to keep out.
If we are ever going to progress beyond the occasional sale to individuals, we do need a centralised shopping cart. This could actually work out cheaper than individual sales, certainly for us, as Paypal charge us 50 cents for every transaction.
It would be really great of some of the members of MSG who are also customers of the agencies, would look at Symbiostock and give some honest feedback from the buyers point of view.
We've seen what CogentMarketing thinks - not impressed! But that is what we really need to hear, so we can make things better for customers.
Just a few thoughts off the top of my head, please can others join in and point out what's wrong with these ideas, and suggest alternatives.
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I see I recieve minuses, because Im critical and dared to mention the customers.
(http://www.fotostart.dk/usergallery//fullsize/7901-20130716031229.jpg)
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What's holding me back?
I don't understand what it is. Can someone explain it in very simple terms?
It's a self hosted site? But it links sites together for search so if you don't have images, someone else's in the network are show? Is there a consistent look and feel so customers from one Sym site are immediately comfortable with another site?
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I'm intrigued by Symbiostock, but I have yet to hear of anyone seeing many sales from it.
Yes, there's the occasional "I got my first sale!" but it's going to take more than the occasional sale, or even the daily sale, to motivate me to invest the time in this.
Still, I applaud Leo for his efforts and for everyone else who has jumped in to test the waters for the rest of us. I really want to see you succeed, and I'll gladly join you if and when your efforts prove fruitful.
I had a sale with 150 images online.
I'm nowhere near breaking even or anything with that single sale but I can afford to take some time "off" in order to set up my Symbiostock site just to run it as a "test".
Symbiostock has tremendous potential which can be "enhanced" by joining and adding good content to it.
We get to keep 100% - period. Name any agency that offers you that kind of deal. That in itself is worth giving it a try.
It's a no-brainer for me.
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What's holding me back?
I don't understand what it is. Can someone explain it in very simple terms?
It's a self hosted site? But it links sites together for search so if you don't have images, someone else's in the network are show? Is there a consistent look and feel so customers from one Sym site are immediately comfortable with another site?
I'm probably not the best person to give you a thorough explanation so I just won't even try.
My suggestion to you is go to www.symbiostock.info (http://www.symbiostock.info) which is a meta search engine crawling the Symbiostock network, meaning that the search results are being compiled from all Symbiostock members.
Once you have a list of search results, click on different images and you will be redirected to the respective photographer and his/her individual Symbiostock web site.
Then you will see the "similarity" or "feel" of the Symbiostock sites in general.
If you are a hard core CSS and PHP programmer you can make your own Symbiostock site look any way you want, the sky is the limit.
Many new developments and plugins are being developed on an ongoing basis so there will be a solution for mostly any issue that might come up.
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I see I recieve minuses, because Im critical and dared to mention the customers.
I don't think you received minuses because you are critical, I just think maybe some don't agree with you.
You do bring up some great points. It isn't like there haven't been conversations about all of the things you mentioned, because we have discussed them, early on. There has to be a starting point, and I think this project is very young.
I would hope, if you are a buyer, that you would give it a try, even if just for the support. It would mean a lot. :)
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the pimping is so sad Jens, no need really
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Yes, customers have to register at every site, but they have to do that if they want to buy from different agencies, so nothing different there.
I doubt many customers will register at every site in our network. Content on the current websites is already very different and will continue to diversify as the network grows. Customers will find a few sites with content interesting or useful to them, and they'll probably be happy to sign up with those few.
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Yes, customers have to register at every site, but they have to do that if they want to buy from different agencies, so nothing different there.
I doubt many customers will register at every site in our network. Content on the current websites is already very different and will continue to diversify as the network grows. Customers will find a few sites with content interesting or useful to them, and they'll probably be happy to sign up with those few.
Good point.
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I think anything that helps individual photographers develop their own sites, set their own prices and sell whatever they want is a good thing. Quality and easy to use sites will rise to the top and others will quickly sink. I've said it before though, that since this is a wordpress theme available to anyone for any kind of downloadable product, trying to assert any kind of control is virtually impossible.
I think we'll see closed or smaller networks rise in the ranks where like minded (and like skilled) shooters will group together with similar licenses and prices.
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I would love to set up my own site, and fully intend to do so at some point. #1 issue is time.
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I've been extremely busy at my "real" job but have been looking into Symbiostock recently.
I like the concept.
I worry about things like setup (as so many others do) but I won't know if that is reasonable until I try.
I worry about legal and tax issues.
I really worry about:
income (as above, I hear alot of people with a few sales but nobody seems to be ditching the agencies all together as far as I can see).
marketing (SEO is fine but I wonder if the other elements of getting a buyer to see your images are going to pan out, giventhat I'm not exactly the most networked guy out there).
Ultimately, I'll give it a crack in fall. Frankly, I'm a bit tired of uploading to new agencies that offer contributor "utopia" (i.e. pond5 for images) without providing the income in the end.
Hopefully this one works.
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ja ja, thats all true, but look at it from the customers side.
The problem is, we don't know who the customer is ( or will be).
Will it be a big design firm who has a contract with iGetShuttertime? I doubt it. The bean counters won't like using paypal.
Will it be small design shops? Maybe.
Will it be people who just need a couple of images now and then? I think this might be the market... and just think about how big this market might be.
But who knows.... the only way to find out is to build it and see what happens. I think it could be a very interesting ride.
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some folks are really assuming we only have stupid customers -- it's quite common to have aggregator sites - for hotels, appliances, airfares, etc. customers realize they need to register to buy at any particular site and each site will have different policies, shipping, etc, etc.
buyers ALREADY shop at multiple ms agencies, all of which have confusingly different definitions and prices
sym is a confederation of independents - as such it cannot define, much less enforce standards, licensing, etc.
symbiostock is for those who can see that it's not a zero sum game -- helping each other can help us individually. it worked for shareware 20 years ago; open source has been enormously successful across a wide range of applications. best of all, no one's trying to compel anyone who disagrees to conform.
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ja ja, thats all true, but look at it from the customers side.
The problem is, we don't know who the customer is ( or will be).
Will it be people who just need a couple of images now and then? I think this might be the market... and just think about how big this market might be.
There is stock photo business analysis that seems to indicate this may be the case.
There are successful independent stock licensing sites with a large number of monthly visitors that claim only a few of their image license buyers even know about the existence of "stock photo agencies".
http://www.danheller.com/blog/posts/do-buyers-use-search-engines-more-than.html (http://www.danheller.com/blog/posts/do-buyers-use-search-engines-more-than.html)
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@cascoly I can pay month to month at the free host I'm at now for less than $5 for their basic plan but this year has been extremely tough on me and my family that I don't have two plug nickels to rub together to do the things "I" want/would like to do. The families welfare is first above my own. Which sucks but that's how it is for me right now :(
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I followed it only from time to time besides shooting, post processing, distributing my images across agencies, keeping up with other industry news, starting at new agencies.
It looks very interesting and maybe it's about time to join it. But it's hard to just cut out an unknown amount of time from my schedule, hoping it will return at least the amount of money it takes to host it plus the time I need to invest. And I don't believe in "customers randomly appearing", so I need a clearer picture about a marketing plan going along with starting a site.
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Its amazing how fast this thread developed.
Maybe its worth stating - with all we observe and speculate - its meant to be a sandbox. Either on an individual level or a community.
Symbiostock's real strength is that it can be molded to what you want it to be. All the things you mention - positive or negative - any motivated and knowledgable people (or groups of people) can make adjustments.
There really is no "What Symbiostock is" because that differs from person to person. Its more about what it can be - an anyone is welcome to play in the sandbox :D
Example: People want quality control. Easy - make a closed network of trusted members with the same values. Then watch your combined quality kite you straight to the top. If you want consistent licensing and such, have a "hub site" which is little more than a few pages of terms and prices. Have your product pages reference that site.
I think the most important thing is to stop looking at limitations and start seeing a custom vehicle ready to be modded to your wishes.
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I am definitely interested, but I would have to do a bunch of up front work plus the image uploading and I definitely can't do that until I have a consistent reasonably fast internet connection and a few weeks to use it. Maybe this fall when a bunch of other things wind down? I also wonder if my portfolio is big and good enough to compensate the up front and recurring costs.
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Considering the trend that i see in the last months.... I'm interested in joining the Symbiostock; but i have some basic questions:
First of all I am 0 regarding IT. the only program that i know well is Photoshop.... so....
1. What is exactly Symbiostock?
2. You need to have your own personal site to join Symbiostock?
3. The images prices are set individually by the contributor?
4. You can join Symbiostock without a personal site?
5. You need to upload the entire portfolio on Symbiostock?
Some clear responses will be highly appreciated.
Nik.
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Yesterday I thought I would join, and thought symbiostock had matured to a reasonable degree wghere it was worth while. So I investigated.
But I was disappointed and I even got upset, now I have slept on it, and now Im just sad.
Im sad because the symbiopstock concept could have been a powerful competitor to the greedy agencies. A new concept that had the power to gain market shares and show the way for other artists.
It could have been a place that flourised with innovation and synergy and set a new "fair trade" standard.
But the potential of the concept is now ˝ wasted, as all the trafic is directed into nice little personal shops, that are by and large only of interest to their owner.
Symbiostock is now a gathering of photographers in a kindergarden, a sandbox as someone says, with very little economic potential.
It is not a serious attempt to do business.
If you want to do serious business, you must think about the customers.
Then someone said: But we dont know who the customers are.
You should, after having been in the trade for a while now, havent you found your pictures out there?
I can tell you a few things about customers. And yes, I sometimes buy pictures.
They want to easily and quickly find exactly what they need, even without searching, so they need trendy pics up front to click on and buy in 10 seconds.
When they search they want a choice of relevant pictures to show up in the first attempt, and they expect to be able to evaluate the content and quality in the thumbnail. They dont care if the pictures come from different artists.
Customers do not care about photographers, actually the opposite, they might stop shopping because they find out, they are at a certain photographers shop, and they do not like his name or something. The artist background and his whole shop arrangement should only be visible for customers who activily seek that information. Its irellevant for the customer.
The buying process must be smooth and feel secure.
The login proces must be smooth and secure.
And then something about what customers are not:
Customers are not interested in pictures, they are interested in buying pictures, thats not the same.
Customers are not patient, if you waste their time they go away.
Customers are not forgiving, it does not take many irellevant or low quality pictures to loose their interest.
Customers are carefull about security, therefore the registration and payment should be in one country with a rule of law. Not spread out everwhere with all kinds of strange individuals.
Customers are not stupid, they can compare prices.
Customers are not philantropists, they want a piece of the cake. And since there is no middleman, they know the pictures should be cheaper.
Customers do not have a good memory, the little memory they have, mostly remembers general bad things. This means that they might have been happy with a fine photo from photographer XX but annoyed with having to check out from multiple photographers, and a month later, they only remember the nuisance, and they wont come back.
As it is now symbiostock is not
customer friendly
secure enough
branded enough
worst however, is that the features contradict the concept.
You guys need to kick yourself in the a*ss, and redesign things, the sooner the better. Else you will only get sales from friends and family.
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Considering the trend that i see in the last months.... I'm interested in joining the Symbiostock; but i have some basic questions:
First of all I am 0 regarding IT. the only program that i know well is Photoshop.... so....
1. What is exactly Symbiostock?
2. You need to have your own personal site to join Symbiostock?
3. The images prices are set individually by the contributor?
4. You can join Symbiostock without a personal site?
5. You need to upload the entire portfolio on Symbiostock?
Some clear responses will be highly appreciated.
Nik.
I'm just dropping in to check the forums...let me attempt to answer.
- Its a network of artists / photographers selling direct from their sites. Still very new, foundation still being laid.
- Yes, having your own personal site allows you to sell among many other things, a big part of which is selling your services and having direct customer relationships.
- You set your own prices.
- Joining the Symbiostock network consists of building a site and connecting it with the network. Its not possible to join without your own site yet.
- You can upload as much as you wish, or as little.
Keep in mind its still very new with quite a few things to be addressed, such as the "hub" sites which consolodate search results, EULAs, etc. Right now the foundation is simply being set with the initial on-site features. After that will be the centralizing ones, such as central carts, search, etc.
The foundation - people's personal sites and presence, is the main focus now. Hope this helps!
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Yesterday I thought I would join, and thought symbiostock had matured to a reasonable degree wghere it was worth while. So I investigated.
But I was disappointed and I even got upset, now I have slept on it, and now Im just sad.
Im sad because the symbiopstock concept could have been a powerful competitor to the greedy agencies. A new concept that had the power to gain market shares and show the way for other artists.
It could have been a place that flourised with innovation and synergy and set a new "fair trade" standard.
But the potential of the concept is now ˝ wasted, as all the trafic is directed into nice little personal shops, that are by and large only of interest to their owner.
Symbiostock is now a gathering of photographers in a kindergarden, a sandbox as someone says, with very little economic potential.
It is not a serious attempt to do business.
If you want to do serious business, you must think about the customers.
Then someone said: But we dont know who the customers are.
You should, after having been in the trade for a while now, havent you found your pictures out there?
I can tell you a few things about customers. And yes, I sometimes buy pictures.
They want to easily and quickly find exactly what they need, even without searching, so they need trendy pics up front to click on and buy in 10 seconds.
When they search they want a choice of relevant pictures to show up in the first attempt, and they expect to be able to evaluate the content and quality in the thumbnail. They dont care if the pictures come from different artists.
Customers do not care about photographers, actually the opposite, they might stop shopping because they find out, they are at a certain photographers shop, and they do not like his name or something. The artist background and his whole shop arrangement should only be visible for customers who activily seek that information. Its irellevant for the customer.
The buying process must be smooth and feel secure.
The login proces must be smooth and secure.
And then something about what customers are not:
Customers are not interested in pictures, they are interested in buying pictures, thats not the same.
Customers are not patient, if you waste their time they go away.
Customers are not forgiving, it does not take many irellevant or low quality pictures to loose their interest.
Customers are carefull about security, therefore the registration and payment should be in one country with a rule of law. Not spread out everwhere with all kinds of strange individuals.
Customers are not stupid, they can compare prices.
Customers are not philantropists, they want a piece of the cake. And since there is no middleman, they know the pictures should be cheaper.
Customers do not have a good memory, the little memory they have, mostly remembers general bad things. This means that they might have been happy with a fine photo from photographer XX but annoyed with having to check out from multiple photographers, and a month later, they only remember the nuisance, and they wont come back.
As it is now symbiostock is not
customer friendly
secure enough
branded enough
worst however, is that the features contradict the concept.
You guys need to kick yourself in the a*ss, and redesign things, the sooner the better. Else you will only get sales from friends and family.
Just wanted to quote/capture this before it changes.
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As it is now symbiostock is not
customer friendly
secure enough
branded enough
Obviously this is in it's infancy, but wouldn't this global search concept be the way to go .......
http://www.symbiostock.info (http://www.symbiostock.info)
one key point of entry to brand and market
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I do not have a clue who jpsdk is but admits they are a sad individual by their own admission
It is so easy to attack and belittle a concept, especially something that is so new. It is much harder to actually put some effort in and make it work as many of us are doing.
Edit. corrected spelling error
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As it is now symbiostock is not
customer friendly
secure enough
branded enough
Obviously this is in it's infancy, but wouldn't this global search concept be the way to go .......
[url]http://www.symbiostock.info[/url] ([url]http://www.symbiostock.info[/url])
one key point of entry to brand and market
Yes, this where the strong umbrella should be. Check in, check out, brand and all.
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As it is now symbiostock is not
customer friendly
secure enough
branded enough
Obviously this is in it's infancy, but wouldn't this global search concept be the way to go .......
[url]http://www.symbiostock.info[/url] ([url]http://www.symbiostock.info[/url])
one key point of entry to brand and market
www.symbiostock.info (http://www.symbiostock.info) is one of the best things to happen to this project.
http://www.symbiostock.com/symbiostock-api-for-developers-and-marketing/ (http://www.symbiostock.com/symbiostock-api-for-developers-and-marketing/)
Most of the network integrating features are still untapped, but they are there and waiting to be used.
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[/quote]
Just wanted to quote/capture this before it changes.
[/quote]
Why is that?
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I do not have a clue who jpsdk is but admits they are a sad individual by their own admission
It is so easy to attack and belittle a concept, especially something that is so new. It is much harder to actually put some effort in and make it work as many of us are doing.
Edit. corrected spelling error
This is me: http://www.stolt.dk/ (http://www.stolt.dk/)
I do not belitlle the concept, but I am actually belittling the framework and the direction the site drifts. You do need to pull yourself together.
You call it sandbox and testing and development. BUT for god heavens sake, you need an clear idea to work towards. As it is now, you are working away from the idea.
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I do not have a clue who jpsdk is but admits they are a sad individual by their own admission
It is so easy to attack and belittle a concept, especially something that is so new. It is much harder to actually put some effort in and make it work as many of us are doing.
Edit. corrected spelling error
This is me: [url]http://www.stolt.dk/[/url] ([url]http://www.stolt.dk/[/url])
I do not belitlle the concept, but I am actually belittling the framework and the direction the site drifts. You do need to pull yourself together.
You call it sandbox and testing and development. BUT for god heavens sake, you need an clear idea to work towards. As it is now, you are working away from the idea.
This project does have a clear goal and idea to work towards. Its your lack of knowledge of those things (edit, goals, ideas) which seems to have given you this passionate need to tear it down.
Anyway, I'm done for the night. Have fun :D
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Symbiostock idea is to be independend and WORK for yourself.
Waiting for things to be "done for me" is not incorporated into the engine
Personally I think it's too early for this kind of discussion
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Symbiostock idea is to be independend and WORK for yourself.
Waiting for things to be "done for me" is not incorporated into the engine
Personally I think it's too early for this kind of discussion
be independend and WORK for yourself[/b
If that is the idea, then you are directly on the course.
And you miss the symbiosis part, where you attract customers because many photographers together can provide competitive content.
Im not trying to pull things apart. Im just saying that you need a frame on top of all the individual sites. The photog sites are fine as they are, but they are mostly irrelevant for sales.
I dont know if sales are part of your goal, but they are part of mine, and therefor I take customers quite seriously.
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Nope, "be independend and WORK for yourself" doesn't exclude the networking part in any way. It's related to work for you as an indyvidual.
Work for YOU /with others vs work for others - alone
By enabling the network you're (I'm) already participating, so that's the course right?
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The excisting structure undermines the networking possibilites and harms the concept.
along with multiple prices, sizes and licenses not to mention payment.
I have said it all before in my earlier posts.
You might feel you do a lot of networking, but when the customer cannot benifit from the symbiosis among the photograper its all meaningless.
All the personal photographers shops a nice, and a fine place to link to, when you have someone interested in buying pictures.
But they are not important if photographers want to have mass sales out of the symbiostock platform and want symbiostock to compete with the agencies.
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@JPSDK just create a plugin and fix that issue, change the rules, seems you know what's wrong.
It's an Open Source project, feel free to join
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its amazing how a person can enter a topic and try to pull down such a great creation by Leo and hard work from all members afterwards, Symbio started a few months ago if not more so if you want to be part of it and join discussion you should have started reading/critiquing a long time ago, if you really wish to do so now at least try to have some manners and critique properly without trowing sticks and stones
this is what it is sad Jens
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If Symbistock (any project) is to succeed you can't shy away from criticism, some of it is valid, some of its not so important - It all helps with refinement.
I don't see anyone being particularly negative, just expressing what they would like to see it become, which is no bad thing.
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Isnt it amazing? Luis, Im ambitious and blunt.
Its in due time, so people dont have to redo all their work, plus getting used to how things are.
I would actually like to help, also with work, I would very much like to help with pulling symbiostock in a competitive direction. They concept is highly competitive, but it needs a couple of layers on top.
I have the following suggestions:
Form a board, that decides for the whole symbiostock platform.
register the company in a reliable country.
Elect a chairman with procura.
Buy the trademark
make sure you have the rights to the code.
redirect from all symbio, info, bizz and whatever to .com
collect all registring and paying on the front page, evt pay a progammer to do this.
standardize everything, even layout in the separate shops to a degree.
set a launch date and describe milestones on the way.
redelegate PR and SEO to members or a dedicated group
redelegate design to members or a dedicated group
make forums for workgroups or cooperate via skype multiuser.
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I am sorry Jens, I like you and all that, but I think you are missing the point of Symbiostock completely.
You want to turn it into a controlled and managed place, IE an agency, in whatever form you see it.
The whole idea is to get away from that controlled and greedy environment.
What you are talking about already exists, PicturEngine if it ever goes live/.
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Good answer Ron.
The only thing I want is to make (or hope for) symbiostock to be able to compete with the agencies so that we can get rid of those middlemen. I think the concept in it self is highly competitive and is the way in the future.
Then I state some my personal ideas of what it would take.
The middlemen only holds their position because they managed to establish a new way of trade when technology was up front, they were smart at a certain time. Symbiostock might be the smart move at this time, when technology is available for everybody. Also the "take piss factor" applies. We have been taken enough piss on, and when people have suffered that too much, they group together and make revolutions.
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Isnt it amazing? Luis, Im ambitious and blunt.
Its in due time, so people dont have to redo all their work, plus getting used to how things are.
I would actually like to help, also with work, I would very much like to help with pulling symbiostock in a competitive direction. They concept is highly competitive, but it needs a couple of layers on top.
I have the following suggestions:
Form a board, that decides for the whole symbiostock platform.
register the company in a reliable country.
Elect a chairman with procura.
Buy the trademark
make sure you have the rights to the code.
redirect from all symbio, info, bizz and whatever to .com
collect all registring and paying on the front page, evt pay a progammer to do this.
standardize everything, even layout in the separate shops to a degree.
set a launch date and describe milestones on the way.
redelegate PR and SEO to members or a dedicated group
redelegate design to members or a dedicated group
make forums for workgroups or cooperate via skype multiuser.
I am on board with making changes so the buying experience is streamlined. But if it turns into what you describe above, i am out. Because once there is a board, that board will expect compensation. Once money can be collected all in one place and someone as control, we have just another agency. Then i would be out.
I really like the idea of groups of people forming smaller hubs and setting up some basic similarities, tho. Sounds like that could work.
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I have the following suggestions:
Form a board, that decides for the whole symbiostock platform.
register the company in a reliable country.
Elect a chairman with procura.
Buy the trademark
make sure you have the rights to the code.
redirect from all symbio, info, bizz and whatever to .com
collect all registring and paying on the front page, evt pay a progammer to do this.
standardize everything, even layout in the separate shops to a degree.
set a launch date and describe milestones on the way.
redelegate PR and SEO to members or a dedicated group
redelegate design to members or a dedicated group
make forums for workgroups or cooperate via skype multiuser.
Great Ideas. Do it! you can use the Symbiostock code as a starting point to create this new entity.
In order for this to work, someone has get the ball rolling. For funding you could try a kick start type campaign.
Symbiostock, as it is, exists because of one person doing it. If you think that an organization is needed to take it to the next level then someone has to step up to make it happen.
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Isnt it amazing? Luis, Im ambitious and blunt.
Its in due time, so people dont have to redo all their work, plus getting used to how things are.
I would actually like to help, also with work, I would very much like to help with pulling symbiostock in a competitive direction. They concept is highly competitive, but it needs a couple of layers on top.
I have the following suggestions:
Form a board, that decides for the whole symbiostock platform.
register the company in a reliable country.
Elect a chairman with procura.
Buy the trademark
make sure you have the rights to the code.
redirect from all symbio, info, bizz and whatever to .com
collect all registring and paying on the front page, evt pay a progammer to do this.
standardize everything, even layout in the separate shops to a degree.
set a launch date and describe milestones on the way.
redelegate PR and SEO to members or a dedicated group
redelegate design to members or a dedicated group
make forums for workgroups or cooperate via skype multiuser.
I am on board with making changes so the buying experience is streamlined. But if it turns into what you describe above, i am out. Because once there is a board, that board will expect compensation. Once money can be collected all in one place and someone as control, we have just another agency. Then i would be out.
I really like the idea of groups of people forming smaller hubs and setting up some basic similarities, tho. Sounds like that could work.
You raise 2 serious problems.
Boards who sit and administer money, tend to end up with paying to themselves. Boards do that over time when not controlled. It always ends with cousins and trips to tropical islands. Control is important, and must be built into the system.
Therefore you assemble the board under a foundation that explicitly states that board members can not be paid. I have been in many boards and there are sets of foundations to prevent exactly that. You add control and consequenses. Which is police.
Same with control of the money stream. Usually it takes two independant people to press the button, but it can be even more democratised as the money can be kept completely out of reach of the board. Which I would highly recommend. An automated process, so that the money stream never enters the Symbiostock main site but goes directly to the photographers.
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@JPSDK
read something about Symbiostock idea first... please, you just don't get it, but you really want to help
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Sorry guys, if there is going to be a controlled environment than I am out too. I will disconnect my site from the network.
I think we need to get back to the OP as its a good question.
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Have to agree with a lot of what JPSDK says.
While I don't know much about Sym, I've been hopeful about it's potential since I saw the early threads popping up. It absolutely needs some standardization (doesn't have to be centrally enforced, but perhaps by agreement for people that join a certain hub, and probably that hub with good pricing and licencing and checkout would become the dominant fork). Standard pricing and license would be a huge benefit to buyers. All stock sites need to think about the customer. I've been talking with many designers lately and they hate the pricing complexity at many sites. Some who haven't heard of P5 yet loose all enthusiasm when I tell them photographers set their own price. They don't want to find pics only to find they aren't in budget.
I'm also a huge fan of Open Source software! Implementing Linux and other F/LOSS was a big part of my first profession. Believe me, Linus Torvalds (father of Linux) has completely shredded people working on his projects and there have been some very ugly debates. In the end, criticism and hashing things out made the software more reliable and they absolutely worked towards standards too. Any complaints about Sym should be welcomed and considered. They may be dismissed after good thought/discussion but just saying something is open and new and waving away criticism won't lead to a strong product.
Best of luck to the Symbiostock idea and development! I am very glad people are trying to push it forward!
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Well, thats the beauty of Symbiostock, I can do what I want, and you can do what you want. If you want a controlled environment, standards, similarity and all that, just set up your own sites, with like minded people and set the standards in your own network.
Its all there for the taking, but I think why people are on board now is because it isnt a controlled environment. The freedom and 100% royalties is what people got enthusiastic about it.
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@JPSDK
read something about Symbiostock idea first... please, you just don't get it, but you really want to help
Where? link me up, please?
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Well, thats the beauty of Symbiostock, I can do what I want, and you can do what you want. If you want a controlled environment, standards, similarity and all that, just set up your own sites, with like minded people and set the standards in your own network.
Its all there for the taking, but I think why people are on board now is because it isnt a controlled environment. The freedom and 100% royalties is what people got enthusiastic about it.
ja, its all nice and easy. And you can sit where you use to and have strange habits.
But are there sales?
Can symbiostock challenge the agencies?
Which is what it is about in my understanding.
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Well, as an avid Symbio site owner, I thinks Jens does actually talk a lot of sense about customer behavior, and his thoughts have been put across carefully and without any attacks, so I think we need to think carefully about what he says, and also about our own experience as buyers (if we have some). Symbio is great as a way to get your own images available online in a form you like, at a price you would like to receive. Having said that, unless it becomes a vanity site, it must also start to sell, regularly. Perhaps a buyer that finds my site will come back and buy a second and third time - I'm not sure as that scenario assumes that their needs for the second and third image is met by my site. If it is met elsewhere in the network, then they start the process again with registration and purchase and a new set of images in a new download location.
We have a great start here, but lets think carefully about all the implications of our approach on that buyer - maybe just having a common registration approach where the buyer can log into all our sites with one login would be a big step forward?
Steve
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Common licensing and common pricing are two separate things.
Licensing can be complicated and I can imagine buyers being cautious and extremely reluctant about having to read a whole lot of waffle for every image purchase from independent sellers, each with their own terms.
Pricing on the other hand is simple. One glance and you see the price. I can't see any problem with that part. If it's too expensive, too bad, the buyer can move on and find something cheaper. If it's too expensive but the buyer really really likes the image, well hey, maybe they'll just splash out and treat themselves. Just like real shopping.
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Absolutely agree some standardisation needs to settle in.
Search hub / site will be key to its success.
There should be some very basic entry requirements to link to it. Entry to it could be as simple seeing a portfolio at any other library. People misbehaving with spam ads, dropping in explicit photo's etc should be blocked from the central search site.
Ultimately I would like to see become like WordPress with many developers picking it up and throwing back out as Open Source.
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I am not disagreeing with the comment on licensing, but to get everyone to agree on the wording and limitations of the license is challenge one, and then to get everyone who is joining Symbiostock to adapt the license is challenge two.
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I think JPSDK just doesn't fully understand the concept and the huge potential of Symbiostock yet and I admit that I had similar thoughts when I approached it at the first time.
I so wanted to point you to mushroom blog post but it seems to be down right now: http://blog.melchersystem.com/2013/05/08/crowd-managed-photo-agency/ (http://blog.melchersystem.com/2013/05/08/crowd-managed-photo-agency/)
Hopefully it will show up later because it made things a lot clearer for me.
Symbiostock is a technical foundation. What you build on it is your own business. It can be anything from your closed little store to a giant network. But the foundation is there, someone set it for you already.
And seriously, it isn't easy to understand until you try it and see for yourself that you can choose your network partners, set your own file sizes and prices and change pretty much anything. Make it as centralized, cluttered, large or small as you want. Set up your own agency if you like.
But don't expect that others do the work for you while you sit back and only criticize. Do what you have in mind and stop bitching about things others have done.
Or at least do your homework, install a WP/SYS and check it out so you know what you're talking about.
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What's holding me back? I committed to investing in a central system with Photoshelter and a GraphPaperPress WordPress template.
The Symbiostock platform looks great though. There's so much potential here. Great job by Leo.
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Yep, looks great. Wonderful job. Kudos to Leo for all his work.
As for what's holding me back - well, being Exclusive still works for me. Maybe next year...
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ja, its all nice and easy. And you can sit where you use to and have strange habits.
But are there sales?
Can symbiostock challenge the agencies?
Which is what it is about in my understanding.
I don't think it is a fair short term assessment to compare the earnings of a handful of contributors to the earnings of an agency with tens of thousands of contributors. When you are opening your own personal website you can really only compare your earnings to your earnings at other sites.
Sure, if you start networking sites it can become more of an agency, but it is still on a much smaller scale. I see it more of an alternative than a head to head competitor. I'm not looking to crush the agencies with my personal site. I'm just looking for a more promising opportunity for myself.
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I'm in now - dogfordstudios.com
What held me back initially is ignorance. Too busy trying to take/upload as many images a month as I could with the big sites only to see dwindling commissions and sales. I ignored any forum posts mentioning Symbiostock...
Then a few posts nailed it on the head. The sites that have gone public are constantly looking for short sighted deals to please their shareholders. Making bundle deals that bring in some quick cash to make their quarterly numbers look good while shooting themselves (and us with them) in the foot in the long term.
Unlike signing up with a traditional agency, setting up a SS takes a bit of upfront hosting money and a few days of learning and reading to figure everything out. But if you've set up a blog or simple website before its not too bad.
For me the big pluses for a Sys site are:
1. 100% commissions. I only need a few large downloads a month to rival one of my agencies with all of the subscription sales.
2. No reviewers. Its your site. You are the review. You can put up as many similars as you want. You can put up images the sites rejected. You can put up more artistic shots that the stock sites reject.
3 Artist to artist connection - The network among SS sites make it stronger than just creating your own stand alone website and designers are artist who can appreciate buying from fellow artists.
A Sys site is likely to attract the smaller volume buyers who just need the occasional stock image. High volume buyers are probably still going to do most of their shopping at the subscription sites but if they can't find what they need there they have a new option to choose from. No doubt many images on the Sys network will be exclusive.
Before microstock, the stock world paid good commissions and the various stock agencies competed on quality and uniqueness. They recruited quality artists and were proud to promote their talent pool. Then the microstock sites came along and treated images as a commodity and competed on price - which is the race to 0.
The Sys network will be great if everyone keeps this history lesson in mind. Compete on quality and offering unique images not on price.
At this point my plan is to just work on SS site. I've stopped uploading to the agencies at the moment. As sales start to come in I may start pulling some of my images from the agencies to offer exclusively on my Sys site.
Anyway, its exciting to have your own stock site free from all of the daily turmoil at the agencies. -- Ed
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I've been following along sporadically here and I am finding the discussions interesting. I do think, however, that some of the calls for standardization are missing the point of this. Symbiostock, among other things, allows you to do exactly that by creating your own closed network. If you want one license, similar quality of images, pricing etc, it's right there, just build it.
I'm in the same boat as Ron here. I will allow no one at all to have a say in what I sell and for how much on my own website. It would defeat the entire point for me. That said, when/if I find my compatible and complementary siteas to link with (I found a couple already) I may at some point approach them about creating a closed network and go from there.
I think a lot of people are comparing this to agency-driven sites. I prefer to think of it as a small business site connected to other small businesses. I go out and get my own customers, I cold call, I email and I network. If I put in the work and I have a product that sells in other places, I should see the results.
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Just looking at http://www.dashphoto.eu/ (http://www.dashphoto.eu/) as one example of a Symbiostock site, have to say it looks beautiful!
I think some priority features are needed, most important being SSO (Single Sign On) to all Symbiostock sites. Means only one user account needs to be created across all sites. There are open source frameworks for this already I believe.
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Just looking at [url]http://www.dashphoto.eu/[/url] ([url]http://www.dashphoto.eu/[/url]) as one example of a Symbiostock site, have to say it looks beautiful!
I think some priority features are needed, most important being SSO (Single Sign On) to all Symbiostock sites. Means only one user account needs to be created across all sites. There are open source frameworks for this already I believe.
+1
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I yhink it's too hard to undestand. Also time is an issue. It would be great to have a site and maybe a friend of mine can help.
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Sorry to say.
Take this shop:
http://www.dashphoto.eu/ (http://www.dashphoto.eu/)
all very nice, nice layout, good quality of photos, everything is fine.
But ask yourself, would you as a customer, sign in at a site that you dont know anything about.
No legal entity, no telephone, no country, no contact person.
I wouldnt sign in. I wouldnt dare to pass my credit card info to such a place. And my boss would certainly not allow me, nor would the IT department.
and next problem... it wont take long before there are real nigerian scams among the shops in the symbiostock network. And then it all falls apart.
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It's Paypal, Jens, not credit card, not Western Union.
Keep the objections coming though, I'm definitely interested in what you're saying.
As an aside, we had a Photoshelter site from June 2012, we have had more sales on Sym than on Photoshelter in the first 3 months, when Sym is completely unknown. Numbers are small, for sure, but I'm optimistic.
I'm seeing this as a long term project. I don't expect it to compare with the big agencies in the first years.
I do think it's a good place to put those niche photos that sell only once a year on the likes of SS and IS, and I'm putting them exclusively on Sym.
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Sorry to say.
Take this shop:
[url]http://www.dashphoto.eu/[/url] ([url]http://www.dashphoto.eu/[/url])
all very nice, nice layout, good quality of photos, everything is fine.
But ask yourself, would you as a customer, sign in at a site that you dont know anything about.
No legal entity, no telephone, no country, no contact person.
I wouldnt sign in. I wouldnt dare to pass my credit card info to such a place. And my boss would certainly not allow me, nor would the IT department.
and next problem... it wont take long before there are real nigerian scams among the shops in the symbiostock network. And then it all falls apart.
You certainly don't pass your credit card information as paypal handles the transaction..
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Sorry to say.
Take this shop:
[url]http://www.dashphoto.eu/[/url] ([url]http://www.dashphoto.eu/[/url])
all very nice, nice layout, good quality of photos, everything is fine.
But ask yourself, would you as a customer, sign in at a site that you dont know anything about.
No legal entity, no telephone, no country, no contact person.
I wouldnt sign in. I wouldnt dare to pass my credit card info to such a place. And my boss would certainly not allow me, nor would the IT department.
and next problem... it wont take long before there are real nigerian scams among the shops in the symbiostock network. And then it all falls apart.
The flaw in your logic is that there are plenty of customers who do shop at unknown sites. (Also, not all customers think like you, so speaking for them as a whole is a bit...odd?) Last year I made more per month on average at my (unknown) Ktools site than I did at any agency other than SS and Clipartof, and a couple of months it even matched or surpassed them. To the point where I started eliminating micros right and left. And that's with Ktools, I'm even more interested in Symbiostock based on SEO and traffic so far.
Facts from my experience (going on 4 years with independent sites):
1) Roughly 95% of my sales are coming from search traffic. The other 5% are returning customers.
2) I do not advertise. At all. Haven't spent a dime.
3) I have consistently made as much on my sites as I do monthly at the agencies. (100% royalties minus PP fees and hosting still adds up pretty quickly.)
As far as your Nigerian scam theory goes, PayPal has buyer protection mechanisms, and controlled dispute functions. And before you ask, no...I've never had a customer buy an image and then dispute the purchase to get it for free. In my opinion you can waste a lot of time being afraid of all the worst case scenarios and be leaving money on the table.
I completely understand hesitations for those who don't think it will work, but that's a bit different than coming in an unilaterally stating "IT WON'T WORK" without having ever tried or having anything to back up your statement.
You raise some valid points about the organization aspect and yes we still have a ways to go but for an open source project this young, it's great to see how things have blossomed already. It's so easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize rather than getting involved and educating yourself or better yet contributing.
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I've had a very similar experience to Amanda. It's not going to work that way for everyone, but it's been a very positive experience for some of us.
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It helps that it is paypal. But my boss would sill not allow me to buy there. He would say: Who are they? You cannot make deals with people you dont know who are, and are your sure the licence is valid when there is no name and adress on it.
And it might not be!!! Think about it.
And you have come a long way already, with getting the network up and running. Its all fine, the shops are fine.
But you need some framework on top and you need a committee or something.
But I have already said that.
Your numbers are interesting Amanda,
95% from direct searches.
5% repeating
Im not sure if that is good or bad.
It would be disasterous for an agency.
it does mean that you are dependant on external searches.
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I wouldnt sign in. I wouldnt dare to pass my credit card info to such a place. And my boss would certainly not allow me, nor would the IT department.
I have a hunch that you, your boss, and your IT department are not the most likely market for SYS websites. You can stick with the big middleman agencies and their rigged markets, pricey credit packs, supplier-squeezing policies, etc.
I have an even stronger hunch that there are lots of small businesses and "indie buyers" out there who just want to purchase a photo or two every now and then, aren't interested in $250/month subscriptions or other pay-in-advance plans, and will be happy to use their Paypal accounts to do so. (Nobody will ever have to provide credit card info to "such a place" as one of our SYS websites.)
Quick and easy. And whoever among our network gets the sale earns 100% of the payment. Take that to your IT department!
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I've had a very similar experience to Amanda. It's not going to work that way for everyone, but it's been a very positive experience for some of us.
Same here. Before Symbiostock, my site was run on a different platform and in my best months I could pull off just over $100 in sales. I was on a paid system (ejunkie) so I had $15 a month in fees plus about $8 in hosting, but even so, it's almost 80% profit.
People do register with unknown sites and make purchases. There's no reason not to. If you find what you need and you can make the transaction safely (which through PayPal is pretty easy to do), then why wouldn't someone make a purchase? I don't think the small nature of self-hosted sites is much of a deterrent.
I saw the phone number issue come up. If that turns out to be a problem (which I doubt it would) it's very inexpensive to set up a dedicated number you could use for a Symbiostock business. Google Voice is free (currently) and you can get a number that forwards on to any other number (if you don't want to give out your home number) and you can also set up a voicemail message on it so it sounds professional. I've used Skype numbers before, they run a few bucks a month.
I think all of these criticisms of self-hosted sites are just weak excuses for not trying it. They're not real deterrents to sales, or if it turns out that maybe they are, they are easily dealt with.
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What about marketing? How does someone find your site?
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What about marketing? How does someone find your site?
SEO & search engines.
Edit: I balanced out the -1 as I think its a fair question.
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A quick glance shows this thread has taken a productive turn. Glad to see it guys!
Maybe it will inspire a few more qualified people to jump in and add to Symbiostock's evolution? ;) ;) ;)
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As far as I'm concerned the contact info is one of the huge benefits of having my own sites. I have had 3 e-mails and 2 phone calls today (I do admit that isn't normal) about custom images or editing current ones. I think three of those contacts will probably turn into some sort of a sale. One custom or exclusive image sale would exceed the revenue I get from FT, and Istock combined. There are a lot of perks that aren't really associated with traditional sales and those benefits aren't being taken into consideration. As far as customer service goes I guarantee that mine is better than any of the big agencies because I do it myself. People like talking to the "guy" and it is almost never a burden. Finally, people do shop around. Three of those contacts came from seeing my image on one of the agencies. They wanted to talk to me so they went out and found my site. If they decide to buy they will probably buy direct from me now and I will collect somewhere between 3 and 35 times the commission I would have gotten from the agencies.
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Time, but after reading this thread, I am ready to jump in.
I have a full-time salaried job and I am in the process of switching over to hourly so I can leave early when possible to give me more time to work on my photos, FAA and set up my Symbiostock site. I will be happy to pay for help with the set up and I'm excited about the prospect of selling photos directly and hope to gain some distance from the constant stress caused by shenanigans from the agencies.
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What about marketing? How does someone find your site?
My images are still being indexed, but search for burgundy tulips, my image on Semmick Photo is on row 9 of Google Images. Thats pretty impressive for a new flower image on the internet.
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What was holding me back was lack of understanding what Symbiostock is.
After reading this article http://blog.melchersystem.com/2013/05/08/crowd-managed-photo-agency/ (http://blog.melchersystem.com/2013/05/08/crowd-managed-photo-agency/) I understand the concept and will start working on my Symbiostock website as soon as I get back from holidays :)
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I wouldnt sign in. I wouldnt dare to pass my credit card info to such a place. And my boss would certainly not allow me, nor would the IT department.
I have a hunch that you, your boss, and your IT department are not the most likely market for SYS websites. You can stick with the big middleman agencies and their rigged markets, pricey credit packs, supplier-squeezing policies, etc.
As a small private vendor, that sometimes buy pictures online I am a very likely customer, mostly for fair trade reasons. I have worked in a huge global company that used many stock photos in their publications. They would not be a likely customer, for the reasons mentioned earlier. As a seller of photographs I would appreaciate both types of customers and I would do a lot to attract the big customers. Such as sign (with my name) the EULA and provide detailled contact information.
I have an even stronger hunch that there are lots of small businesses and "indie buyers" out there who just want to purchase a photo or two every now and then, aren't interested in $250/month subscriptions or other pay-in-advance plans, and will be happy to use their Paypal accounts to do so. (Nobody will ever have to provide credit card info to "such a place" as one of our SYS websites.)
Quick and easy. And whoever among our network gets the sale earns 100% of the payment. Take that to your IT department!
The IT department in the large company would be reluctant to open up too many paypal accounts, for fear of abuse. It would be debated and likely refused because its impossible to control the money stream out of such channels. That is why big companies like subscriptions or credit packs. So provide the concept with a those options also.
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Isnt it amazing? Luis, Im ambitious and blunt.
Its in due time, so people dont have to redo all their work, plus getting used to how things are.
I would actually like to help, also with work, I would very much like to help with pulling symbiostock in a competitive direction. They concept is highly competitive, but it needs a couple of layers on top.
I have the following suggestions:
Form a board, that decides for the whole symbiostock platform.
register the company in a reliable country.
Elect a chairman with procura.
Buy the trademark
make sure you have the rights to the code.
redirect from all symbio, info, bizz and whatever to .com
collect all registring and paying on the front page, evt pay a progammer to do this.
standardize everything, even layout in the separate shops to a degree.
set a launch date and describe milestones on the way.
redelegate PR and SEO to members or a dedicated group
redelegate design to members or a dedicated group
make forums for workgroups or cooperate via skype multiuser.
part of why your initial posts came across as negative is that you don't seem to hae absorbed what symbiostock is about-instead, you're criticizing it for not being what you want it to be. your helpful comments get lost ...
1. any standards, board, fixed price, etc would turn symbio into an agency, requiring rules, someone to enforce the rules, and that's not the basic design of the system. you want to turn this into an IT development project. it isn't, and the sym owners don't want it to be. maybe it won't work, but Beckett had it right: “No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
2. many (most?) sym artists are not looking to replace the agencies by creating a co-op agency. plus, we see that most of oiur traffic will come from search engines, not branding. (same holds on the agencies - few people search the agencies for particular photographers). in sym we're looking for the long tail customers -- those looking for images the agencies call LCV; these buyers don't have big budgets to pay for subscriptions; most (hopefully ) don't have IT hurdles and multiple boss-layers to hack thru.
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It helps that it is paypal. But my boss would sill not allow me to buy there. He would say: Who are they? You cannot make deals with people you dont know who are, and are your sure the licence is valid when there is no name and adress on it.
And it might not be!!! Think about it.
Can't you buy an invalid license anywhere? Shutterstock sells plenty of them. I'm not even sure what they do with the licenses they sell to customers from portfolios with copyright infringed images.
I always thought my customer service was better because when you email me you talk to me.
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It's very confusing, there are so many Symbiostock threads that I don't know where to find the basic information that I need to get started. Some links would help.
No bologna. I wast thinking they should rename this site to the Symbiostock Group.
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The IT department in the large company would be reluctant to open up too many paypal accounts, for fear of abuse...
You don't need a PayPal account to pay via PayPal. Credit cards work fine as well. No need to open many (or any) accounts.
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It helps that it is paypal. But my boss would sill not allow me to buy there. He would say: Who are they? You cannot make deals with people you dont know who are, and are your sure the licence is valid when there is no name and adress on it.
Not many licenses have a physical address on them. Take a look at istock's, shutterstock's, etc. They just list an email address and sometimes a phone number. Why does a license need a physical address on it to be valid?
As for names, my name is all over my license. My business name, and my own name.
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It's very confusing, there are so many Symbiostock threads that I don't know where to find the basic information that I need to get started. Some links would help.
No bologna. I wast thinking they should rename this site to the Symbiostock Group.
Thats really funny. Here you go: http://www.symbioguides.com/ (http://www.symbioguides.com/)
But yes I wish we could migrate the bulk of this Symbio-stuff to its own area.
Leaf made a generous investment by allowing Symbiostock to plant its roots here, so I wouldn't want to take his users off the site. It would be great to have a symbiostock partition that keeps the site from getting flooded with Symbiothreads.
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SY threads can be ignored, if it is really irritating to someone.
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Isnt it amazing? Luis, Im ambitious and blunt.
Its in due time, so people dont have to redo all their work, plus getting used to how things are.
I would actually like to help, also with work, I would very much like to help with pulling symbiostock in a competitive direction. They concept is highly competitive, but it needs a couple of layers on top.
I have the following suggestions:
Form a board, that decides for the whole symbiostock platform.
register the company in a reliable country.
Elect a chairman with procura.
Buy the trademark
make sure you have the rights to the code.
redirect from all symbio, info, bizz and whatever to .com
collect all registring and paying on the front page, evt pay a progammer to do this.
standardize everything, even layout in the separate shops to a degree.
set a launch date and describe milestones on the way.
redelegate PR and SEO to members or a dedicated group
redelegate design to members or a dedicated group
make forums for workgroups or cooperate via skype multiuser.
part of why your initial posts came across as negative is that you don't seem to hae absorbed what symbiostock is about-instead, you're criticizing it for not being what you want it to be. your helpful comments get lost ...
1. any standards, board, fixed price, etc would turn symbio into an agency, requiring rules, someone to enforce the rules, and that's not the basic design of the system. you want to turn this into an IT development project. it isn't, and the sym owners don't want it to be. maybe it won't work, but Beckett had it right: “No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
2. many (most?) sym artists are not looking to replace the agencies by creating a co-op agency. plus, we see that most of oiur traffic will come from search engines, not branding. (same holds on the agencies - few people search the agencies for particular photographers). in sym we're looking for the long tail customers -- those looking for images the agencies call LCV; these buyers don't have big budgets to pay for subscriptions; most (hopefully ) don't have IT hurdles and multiple boss-layers to hack thru.
What you have now is a bazar of grassroots. The salespeople shout and try to catch attention with special bargains and such the customers are confused and might not buy all they want in the bazar.
What I want is that the customers get all they need at the marketplace and do not leave with money in their pocket.
So yes, I want structure, rules and streamlining. Control even and management. Coop sort of like, not exploitation, not parasitism. I hope for an alternative to the middlemen. An alternative agency. Yes thats what I want. But If Im the only one, so be it. Grass roots are nice, and can be very powerful and produce a lot of synergy and innovation. They can also be harnessed and pushed in a direction so that they can be financial competitive. Yes, I want that.
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It's very confusing, there are so many Symbiostock threads that I don't know where to find the basic information that I need to get started. Some links would help.
No bologna. I wast thinking they should rename this site to the Symbiostock Group.
Thats really funny. Here you go: [url]http://www.symbioguides.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.symbioguides.com/[/url])
But yes I wish we could migrate the bulk of this Symbio-stuff to its own area.
Leaf made a generous investment by allowing Symbiostock to plant its roots here, so I wouldn't want to take his users off the site. It would be great to have a symbiostock partition that keeps the site from getting flooded with Symbiothreads.
Thats what I meant with having control of the code. Jesus.
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Isnt it amazing? Luis, Im ambitious and blunt.
Its in due time, so people dont have to redo all their work, plus getting used to how things are.
I would actually like to help, also with work, I would very much like to help with pulling symbiostock in a competitive direction. They concept is highly competitive, but it needs a couple of layers on top.
I have the following suggestions:
Form a board, that decides for the whole symbiostock platform.
register the company in a reliable country.
Elect a chairman with procura.
Buy the trademark
make sure you have the rights to the code.
redirect from all symbio, info, bizz and whatever to .com
collect all registring and paying on the front page, evt pay a progammer to do this.
standardize everything, even layout in the separate shops to a degree.
set a launch date and describe milestones on the way.
redelegate PR and SEO to members or a dedicated group
redelegate design to members or a dedicated group
make forums for workgroups or cooperate via skype multiuser.
part of why your initial posts came across as negative is that you don't seem to hae absorbed what symbiostock is about-instead, you're criticizing it for not being what you want it to be. your helpful comments get lost ...
1. any standards, board, fixed price, etc would turn symbio into an agency, requiring rules, someone to enforce the rules, and that's not the basic design of the system. you want to turn this into an IT development project. it isn't, and the sym owners don't want it to be. maybe it won't work, but Beckett had it right: “No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
2. many (most?) sym artists are not looking to replace the agencies by creating a co-op agency. plus, we see that most of oiur traffic will come from search engines, not branding. (same holds on the agencies - few people search the agencies for particular photographers). in sym we're looking for the long tail customers -- those looking for images the agencies call LCV; these buyers don't have big budgets to pay for subscriptions; most (hopefully ) don't have IT hurdles and multiple boss-layers to hack thru.
What you have now is a bazar of grassroots. The salespeople shout and try to catch attention with special bargains and such the customers are confused and might not buy all they want in the bazar.
What I want is that the customers get all they need at the marketplace and do not leave with money in their pocket.
So yes, I want structure, rules and streamlining. Control even and management. Coop sort of like, not exploitation, not parasitism. I hope for an alternative to the middlemen. An alternative agency. Yes thats what I want. But If Im the only one, so be it. Grass roots are nice, and can be very powerful and produce a lot of synergy and innovation. They can also be harnessed and pushed in a direction so that they can be financial competitive. Yes, I want that.
well, then go DO IT! you're complaining that the apple of symbio is not the orange you imagine
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I wouldnt sign in. I wouldnt dare to pass my credit card info to such a place. And my boss would certainly not allow me, nor would the IT department.
I have a hunch that you, your boss, and your IT department are not the most likely market for SYS websites. You can stick with the big middleman agencies and their rigged markets, pricey credit packs, supplier-squeezing policies, etc.
As a small private vendor, that sometimes buy pictures online I am a very likely customer, mostly for fair trade reasons. I have worked in a huge global company that used many stock photos in their publications. They would not be a likely customer, for the reasons mentioned earlier. As a seller of photographs I would appreaciate both types of customers and I would do a lot to attract the big customers. Such as sign (with my name) the EULA and provide detailled contact information.
I have an even stronger hunch that there are lots of small businesses and "indie buyers" out there who just want to purchase a photo or two every now and then, aren't interested in $250/month subscriptions or other pay-in-advance plans, and will be happy to use their Paypal accounts to do so. (Nobody will ever have to provide credit card info to "such a place" as one of our SYS websites.)
Quick and easy. And whoever among our network gets the sale earns 100% of the payment. Take that to your IT department!
The IT department in the large company would be reluctant to open up too many paypal accounts, for fear of abuse. It would be debated and likely refused because its impossible to control the money stream out of such channels. That is why big companies like subscriptions or credit packs. So provide the concept with a those options also.
You dont need to open up multiple PayPal accounts, you can add users to an existing account and control their privileges. PayPal is completely set up for large global merchants so that they can easily manage their PayPal account.
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Jens, what you want is Stocksy, not Symbiostock.
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No certainly not. Stoksy is moving out of a tangent and they move far to slow.
I want a grass root agency/ framework/ platform that can compete.
cascoly... I would if a delegation walked up and asked me to join a committee. But if Im the only one who wants oranges, then.....
ron, i didnt know the multi user feature form paypal. Everything can be done. But you cannot say that the buying experience is made easy that way. You have no idea what it takes to have a large company open a door for money to flow out of. Alone the word multi user would freak out the financial department. And for good reasons, it might influence the ISO certifications.
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No certainly not. Stoksy is moving out of a tangent and they move far to slow.
I want a grass root agency/ framework/ platform that can compete.
cascoly... I would if a delegation walked up and asked me to join a committee. But if Im the only one who wants oranges, then.....
ron, i didnt know the multi user feature form paypal. Everything can be done. But you cannot say that the buying experience is made easy that way. You have no idea what it takes to have a large company open a door for money to flow out of. Alone the word multi user would freak out the financial department. And for good reasons, it might influence the ISO certifications.
Jens believe me, I have a lot of experience in that area, and yes large merchants work that way with multi users. You have to trust me on that. :)
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Ron I will trust you on that.
But will you also trust me that when the nice designer woman from the marketing department ask if she can begin to buy pictures via another channel, it would take a month before she gets an answer.
if a guy from the same department asks the same question, the manager will think: "What kind of pictures" and say no.
Down in the basement, where alle the big printers and copy machies stand, the operators use their subscription at the end of the month by downloading all kinds of picures (soccer is preferred) and print out on huge blank sheets to put on the walls in their sommerhouse. So the manager has a point.
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Thanks to this thread we know two things:
- Most people don't know what exactly what Symbiostock is in function or concept, or how to get started. Hence due to a request I've made a thread on it (http://www.microstockgroup.com/symbiostock-technical-support/symbiostock-what-is-it-and-where-do-you-start/msg330446/?topicseen#new).
- Before returning to this thread, have popcorn ready.
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- Before returning to this thread, have popcorn ready.
You have a good sense of humour Leo!
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- Before returning to this thread, have popcorn ready.
You have a good sense of humour Leo!
Humor? I'm just enjoying the show. I've been giggling at a few of the one liners given by both of the 3 sides involved in this debate.
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Ron I will trust you on that.
But will you also trust me that when the nice designer woman from the marketing department ask if she can begin to buy pictures via another channel, it would take a month before she gets an answer.
if a guy from the same department asks the same question, the manager will think: "What kind of pictures" and say no.
Down in the basement, where alle the big printers and copy machies stand, the operators use their subscription at the end of the month by downloading all kinds of picures (soccer is preferred) and print out on huge blank sheets to put on the walls in their sommerhouse. So the manager has a point.
Absolutely, no one is denying that. But Symbiostock is not really aiming for that part of the market. At least I am not. I am not counting on the next conglomerate to purchase my images. I do count on the bloggers, indie buyers, small businesses that need images. If they go to CanStockPhoto, they might as well buy from me. Its almost the same set up.
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The IT department in the large company would be reluctant to open up too many paypal accounts, for fear of abuse. It would be debated and likely refused because its impossible to control the money stream out of such channels. That is why big companies like subscriptions or credit packs. So provide the concept with a those options also.
As I said earlier, I suspect there are just as many sales to be made from small businesses and "indie buyers". Ordinary people don't use enough images to justify subscriptions and credit packs. Our SYS websites don't have to get every sale that happens. We can make fewer sales with higher commissions and make more money. That's nice.
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The IT department in the large company would be reluctant to open up too many paypal accounts, for fear of abuse. It would be debated and likely refused because its impossible to control the money stream out of such channels. That is why big companies like subscriptions or credit packs. So provide the concept with a those options also.
As I said earlier, I suspect there are just as many sales to be made from small businesses and "indie buyers". Ordinary people don't use enough images to justify subscriptions and credit packs. Our SYS websites don't have to get every sale that happens. We can make fewer sales with higher commissions and make more money. That's nice.
SY is not going to be all things to all people. Just like the big agencies aren't. Agencies sound like a good deal for large corporations. Some, not so much, for small to mid-sized businesses. That's just how it is.
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I find it strange that so many of you come forewards with all kinds of arguments about not aiming at certain groups of customers.
I would never exclude any customers and I would make it as easy as possible for all of them to shop.
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I would never exclude any customers and I would make it as easy as possible for all of them to shop.
Then why don't you?
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I find it strange that so many of you come forewards with all kinds of arguments about not aiming at certain groups of customers.
I would never exclude any customers and I would make it as easy as possible for all of them to shop.
I don't really want to exclude anyone. I had one woman that didn't want to use Paypal. And another that wanted me to upload to Dreamstime, so they could use their subscription. I had to say no to both of those.
Sometimes, it happens. It's a lot like freelance requests. You just have to occasionally say no.
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I find it strange that so many of you come forewards with all kinds of arguments about not aiming at certain groups of customers.
I would never exclude any customers and I would make it as easy as possible for all of them to shop.
WE aren't excluding them, you are. We would be happy to sell to anybody, you are saying it's preposterous and not possible.
I am bowing out of this thread because now you are just stirring the $hit. You made some excellent points, but now it's just dragging on. We totally get all your points...we got them BEFORE you came to this thread. People can only do so much and I think everyone that has contributed their time and sweat have done a remarkable job in such a short time. You know the old saying...If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. :D
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some people talk
others fly to the Moon
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some people talk
others fly to the Moon
Then after you fly to the moon, still others say it was a hoax.
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It is true that I talk too much and act too little. And begin to bore people.
So Ill shut up.
I might even make a symbiostock site, its a good platform to sell from, but I have another project first that im kind of stuck in.
Roger and over, good night and thanks for listening.
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Re-collecting, re-organizing thousands (both on my hard drive and than on the site) of shots, many of them, especially the earlier ones really poorly IPTC-ed....
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It is true that I talk too much and act too little. And begin to bore people.
So Ill shut up.
I might even make a symbiostock site, its a good platform to sell from, but I have another project first that im kind of stuck in.
Roger and over, good night and thanks for listening.
The fun is over? I wasn't slightly bored.
Actually I was thinking of seeing Pacific Rim. I understand you have to sleep some time though, so I'll save my popcorn for that.
It will be cool to see your Symbio site. I'm sure many positive developments will come out of our genetically infusing the apple of Symbiostock with some orange genes in an ever-evolving attempt to make our wildest ideas of stock selling come true.
Please keep us in mind for future dramas :D
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edit - my joking is sometimes misunderstood [snip]
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WE aren't excluding them, you are. We would be happy to sell to anybody, you are saying it's preposterous and not possible.
I am bowing out of this thread because now you are just stirring the $hit.
+1
I've said my piece too. 'Nuf said.
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--- and my being serious is also often missunderstood.
fx I would never really, really go away.
One thing is to develop a symbiostock site, Ill probably do that as a personal outlet.
But it is far more important to do things to the frame, and I think Im the only one who wants that.
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--- and my being serious is also often missunderstood.
fx I would never really, really go away.
One thing is to develop a symbiostock site, Ill probably do that as a personal outlet.
But it is far more important to do things to the frame, and I think Im the only one who wants that.
I'm sure you aren't the only one, everyone has an "ideal" in mind, but not all of us are programmers. I get that. I had some serious struggles trying to bend other solutions to my will, and was I was genuinely distressed that they could be BETTER, perfect even! And still with Symbiostock there are things I'd maybe do differently if it was solely my project, but the beauty is that the base is there, and it's open, so we can build these things.
I think the greatest thing is that this is a start, a step in a great direction and will hopefully encourage everyone to take a second look at the possibilities that are out there for them beyond the big agencies, even if Symbiostock isn't the answer for everyone's needs I hope it can be a shining example of stepping out of the box so to speak. :)
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--- and my being serious is also often missunderstood.
fx I would never really, really go away.
One thing is to develop a symbiostock site, Ill probably do that as a personal outlet.
But it is far more important to do things to the frame, and I think Im the only one who wants that.
do I hear 'martyr complex'? from an anonymous poster who won't link to their actual site?
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--- and my being serious is also often missunderstood.
fx I would never really, really go away.
One thing is to develop a symbiostock site, Ill probably do that as a personal outlet.
But it is far more important to do things to the frame, and I think Im the only one who wants that.
do I hear 'martyr complex'? from an anonymous poster who won't link to their actual site?
Not at all, im no martyr, and I did link to my site earlier on, and Ill do it again:
www.stolt.dk (http://www.stolt.dk)
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OK..you talked me in to it. I am going to set one up so I can start marketing some of the images I take of Oregon that I don't run through the stock agencies.
Ginger
http://www.photographoregon.com (http://www.photographoregon.com)
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I am not an expert for web, codes etc. Maybe it's not to hard, but I don't have much time to learn...
So I am waiting complete optimization and excellent tutorial which can explain literally everything, step by step...
It's too experimental for me, because I have no will to learn about web....
I 100% agree with what Borg says, This is what's holding me back at the moment too.
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I am not an expert for web, codes etc. Maybe it's not to hard, but I don't have much time to learn...
So I am waiting complete optimization and excellent tutorial which can explain literally everything, step by step...
It's too experimental for me, because I have no will to learn about web....
I 100% agree with what Borg says, This is what's holding me back at the moment too.
Probably it was mentioned before, but why not mention it again: The step by step guide is almost ready: http://www.symbioguides.com/getting-started/ (http://www.symbioguides.com/getting-started/)
And we have a very lively and helpful community: Usually you get the right answer here within minutes ...
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[url=http://www.stolt.dk]www.stolt.dk[/url] ([url]http://www.stolt.dk[/url])
I did not get chance to look at your site earlier - really enjoyed some of the composites
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I'm going to pose this question again, because it's been largely ignored every time I raise it...
Who is actually selling through their Symbiostock sites?
I've seen a bunch of "Got my first sale" posts. But if this is a valid business model, shouldn't we start seeing evidence of it really working by now? Not a bunch of single sales, but multiple sales every single day?
Surely someone out of the 55(? Is that the current number) of Symbiostock sites surely must have had more than a handful of sales by now, right?
I don't want to be seen as a hater, just a realist. I'd love to see Symbiostock succeed, and I'll gladly eat my words and jump on board, but all evidence so far suggests that people disillusioned by the agencies are jumping on board believing it's their salvation, denying the reality that the sales just aren't there.
Will we still see endless threads about this a year from now if things don't pick up?
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I'm going to pose this question again, because it's been largely ignored every time I raise it...
Who is actually selling through their Symbiostock sites?
I've seen a bunch of "Got my first sale" posts. But if this is a valid business model, shouldn't we start seeing evidence of it really working by now? Not a bunch of single sales, but multiple sales every single day?
Surely someone out of the 55(? Is that the current number) of Symbiostock sites surely must have had more than a handful of sales by now, right?
I don't want to be seen as a hater, just a realist. I'd love to see Symbiostock succeed, and I'll gladly eat my words and jump on board, but all evidence so far suggests that people disillusioned by the agencies are jumping on board believing it's their salvation, denying the reality that the sales just aren't there.
Will we still see endless threads about this a year from now if things don't pick up?
I answered this question on page 3. I think it got buried though.
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I am getting sales, not every day but enough to give me the enthusiasm to keep uploading - which I had just about stopped doing elsewhere
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I am getting sales, not every day but enough to give me the enthusiasm to keep uploading - which I had just about stopped doing elsewhere
That's good to hear.
I want to jump on board, but for me to invest the time, I'll need to hear (and believe) that multiple people are having several sales every day... not a fluke sale now and again, but regular sales at a predictable level.
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I have not got any direct sales yet. However I have had a few contacts who ask me about photos that they've seen on SS and wanted more information. They have led to some indirect sales on stock sites and promises to return for other things (I know, I know, but I have a niche market so it will take time to grow). I am hopeful that I will develop a customer base over time. The thing for me (as I said earlier) is that this is more like a small business for me instead of a stock agency. I do not expect to automatically get sales simply because my photos are online. As with everything in life, you get what you put in.
The other thing about independent sales, is that they are far more dependent on quality, ease of use of the site you find them on, and price. So unless you have a very similar port (size, quality, price) to someone already up and running, it would be difficult to compare sales stats. And it really is early days for this project.
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As with everything in life, you get what you put in.
I think this is the theory Symbiostock supporters are embracing, pouring a lot of energies and hopes into making this work. I'm questioning whether all that hard work is paying off for people. If the early adopters start seeing a decent ROI, I'll be right behind them.
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As with everything in life, you get what you put in.
I think this is the theory Symbiostock supporters are embracing, pouring a lot of energies and hopes into making this work. I'm questioning whether all that hard work is paying off for people. If the early adopters start seeing a decent ROI, I'll be right behind them.
I think realistic expectations on what a small business can do is important. I have no idea if/when I can get enough sales to cover costs and then make a profit. I hope that my niche is solid enough to justify it. Only time will tell, its such early days. Ask me in a year and I will happily post my results. In the meantime, my images are safely stored online instead of only at my home, and I don't have to worry about orphaned works anymore. Reason enough for now. Happy shooting!
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I am getting sales, not every day but enough to give me the enthusiasm to keep uploading - which I had just about stopped doing elsewhere
That's good to hear.
I want to jump on board, but for me to invest the time, I'll need to hear (and believe) that multiple people are having several sales every day... not a fluke sale now and again, but regular sales at a predictable level.
Name the agencies that give you no zero sales days. I can only name 2 - SS and FT. But thats me. Its not realistic to expect no zero sales days selling direct on a new project.
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I am getting sales, not every day but enough to give me the enthusiasm to keep uploading - which I had just about stopped doing elsewhere
That's good to hear.
I want to jump on board, but for me to invest the time, I'll need to hear (and believe) that multiple people are having several sales every day... not a fluke sale now and again, but regular sales at a predictable level.
Name the agencies that give you no zero sales days. I can only name 2 - SS and FT. But thats me. Its not realistic to expect no zero sales days selling direct on a new project.
Same for me ... nobody but SS an FT sells my photos daily. For a new project like Symbiostock it will take some months untill the fun can really start (actually I haven't had daily sales on SS and FT in my early days there) ... So what I will do now: I start uploading my new photos on my own site, wait till they are indexed by Google before I upload them anywhere else ... the rest is patience :D
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I am getting sales, not every day but enough to give me the enthusiasm to keep uploading - which I had just about stopped doing elsewhere
That's good to hear.
I want to jump on board, but for me to invest the time, I'll need to hear (and believe) that multiple people are having several sales every day... not a fluke sale now and again, but regular sales at a predictable level.
Name the agencies that give you no zero sales days. I can only name 2 - SS and FT. But thats me. Its not realistic to expect no zero sales days selling direct on a new project.
Same for me ... nobody but SS an FT sells my photos daily. For a new project like Symbiostock it will take some months untill the fun can really start (actually I haven't had daily sales on SS and FT in my early days there) ... So what I will do now: I start uploading my new photos on my own site, wait till they are indexed by Google before I upload them anywhere else ... the rest is patience :D
THATS IT !! Here here, give the man a beer. ;)
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I am getting sales, not every day but enough to give me the enthusiasm to keep uploading - which I had just about stopped doing elsewhere
That's good to hear.
I want to jump on board, but for me to invest the time, I'll need to hear (and believe) that multiple people are having several sales every day... not a fluke sale now and again, but regular sales at a predictable level.
Name the agencies that give you no zero sales days. I can only name 2 - SS and FT. But thats me. Its not realistic to expect no zero sales days selling direct on a new project.
Same for me ... nobody but SS an FT sells my photos daily. For a new project like Symbiostock it will take some months untill the fun can really start (actually I haven't had daily sales on SS and FT in my early days there) ... So what I will do now: I start uploading my new photos on my own site, wait till they are indexed by Google before I upload them anywhere else ... the rest is patience :D
THATS IT !! Here here, give the man a beer. ;)
Good idea ... thanks. It's 8:40 p.m. here, so it would be just in time ;D
Just log in to my symbiostock site and buy an image in small size 8)
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I am getting sales, not every day but enough to give me the enthusiasm to keep uploading - which I had just about stopped doing elsewhere
That's good to hear.
I want to jump on board, but for me to invest the time, I'll need to hear (and believe) that multiple people are having several sales every day... not a fluke sale now and again, but regular sales at a predictable level.
Name the agencies that give you no zero sales days. I can only name 2 - SS and FT. But thats me. Its not realistic to expect no zero sales days selling direct on a new project.
I don't think I've ever had a month with a sale every single day. I've had months with over 30 sales, so I guess that sort of counts. ;)
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OK..after weeding through the 8 pages of posting on this here are my thoughts.
I originally thought that this was just another stock agency being put together not a self-run option. I got in on the ground floor with a few newbies that wasted a lot of my time, so I ignored it. This post got my attention enough to really look in to it.
Waiting until it is proven is a nice option and necessary for many, but some people have to be the explorers. (Yes, I really am a Livingston so it's in my DNA). The explorers are going to be the ones who make the early money as I have not ever (despite what you may have read) seen a “get rich quick” stock site, it take some time, usually a lot of time and effort. The early birds will be in longer=MORE TIME=more money. So thanks already to the explorers who jumped in.
*Caveat* That being said, I have the luxury of a high end web developer daughter who adores me and can help me when I get stuck on the set-up. She also has her own host for a high end video streaming service that will more than serve for my Symbiostock needs as well and a spare domain name slot, thus costing me nothing but time.
More importantly, I also have a plan. I already have a way to gather customers. I have a large following on an information site that is photography related and also attracts clients. It is a niche. I can link it up. Good traffic can be monetized even more. I've been thinking for a while that I wanted to sell stock and fine art through this site and after looking at a few of the artist sites it looks like this is the mechanism to do both.
From here on out if you so desire you may transpose “You” for “Me or I” (because I could be talking to myself.)
Let me say it again, the “Put it up and they will come” mentality is somewhat of a fantasy. Again, more effort is needed. You must have some way to bring people in. If you want it to be a success you really need to sit down and make a plan as to HOW you are going to get people to come buy your images. Depending on the developers to drive your traffic is not realistic. This is just a platform to help YOU sell, not an advertising agency. Just putting it out there in the mix without a plan to drive traffic is going to have disappointing results.
You are going to get out of it what you put in to it and like any other place, time (like a few years) and effort should make it pay off. If it doesn't, well, we are wasting a ton of time with even the big microstock agencies, letting them decide (and occasionally getting “Attila the reviewer” and all images in a batch rejected. Which REALLY wasted your time) why not take the chance if you can spare some time?
“You miss 100% of the shots you never take” Wayne Gretsky
In the meantime, keep having fun shooting and remember why you did this in the first place. (I'm guessing because you love photography?)
IMHO :)
Ginger
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Let me say it again, the “Put it up and they will come” mentality is somewhat of a fantasy.
Living on Fantasy Island isn't too bad. Ricardo Montalban says hello. I do need to buckle down and work on my promotion though. There is always room for improvements.
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Name the agencies that give you no zero sales days. I can only name 2 - SS and FT. But thats me. Its not realistic to expect no zero sales days selling direct on a new project.
Yes, a Symbiostock site would be a 'new project' but not in the sense of joining a new agency and gradually building a big portfolio. When you start on Sy, don't you upload all your stuff right away? If I built a Sy site, I would go live with several thousand images... of course it would take Google a bit of time to find and index it... but after a few weeks or months, I should start seeing a good amount (at least several a day) of sales for it to not be a waste of time.
And as for zero sales days... the only agency where I ever see zero sales a day is GL... we all know what's going on there... a year ago I had daily sales there. All the other sites are typically at least in double digits a day. So maybe it's about perspective.
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I wish a feature, a link to amazonS3, but next days finally I'll have more free time. Will be time for switch my theme to symbiostock, even without this feature. When Leo will made I'll buy it, in the meantime I'll study some customizations.
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Name the agencies that give you no zero sales days. I can only name 2 - SS and FT. But thats me. Its not realistic to expect no zero sales days selling direct on a new project.
Yes, a Symbiostock site would be a 'new project' but not in the sense of joining a new agency and gradually building a big portfolio. When you start on Sy, don't you upload all your stuff right away? If I built a Sy site, I would go live with several thousand images... of course it would take Google a bit of time to find and index it... but after a few weeks or months, I should start seeing a good amount (at least several a day) of sales for it to not be a waste of time.
And as for zero sales days... the only agency where I ever see zero sales a day is GL... we all know what's going on there... a year ago I had daily sales there. All the other sites are typically at least in double digits a day. So maybe it's about perspective.
1 sale a day depending on your pricing should be between $450 and $600 per month or about $6000 per year. 10 sales a month is $150 or $1800 per year. Not to bad for a week or so worth of work. Probably better than most people are getting on a lot of the agencies. Obviously this depends on many factors. Just pointing out that you don't need all that many sales to justify the time.
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Before I started in stock I had a web design company which I sold to pursue my dream....traveling and taking photos.
I admit I have limited knowledge of the Symbiostock system and perhaps this problem has been addressed already. The number one reason what is holding me back is:
I don't want to spend time promoting my website (which will be the majority of work in order to get sales) and in the end the customer chooses to purchase from somebody else. At the moment I live comfortably of stock. The 100% commission I would make of an independent website would certainly be nice but I will have to invest a lot of time in order to make the same amount of money I currently make with stock agencies who have million of visitors.
This is just my personal opinion but many Photographers on the Symbiostock network will be benefit from others peoples hard work.
If there was something like a commission based referral program or you could opt-out of the network part (Which I believe is the whole goal of Symbiostock) I would certainly invest the time to setup and customize one of those sites.
I do have to give props to the developer.
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If there was something like a commission based referral program or you could opt-out of the network part (Which I believe is the whole goal of Symbiostock) I would certainly invest the time to setup and customize one of those sites.
[/quote]
It's possible, you can run symbiostock in network, in closed network or as a single site and opt-out the network feature.
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Let me say it again, the “Put it up and they will come” mentality is somewhat of a fantasy.
Living on Fantasy Island isn't too bad. Ricardo Montalban says hello. I do need to buckle down and work on my promotion though. There is always room for improvements.
HAHAHH! TRUE! I grew up right next to where they filmed that! Somewhere I have his autograph.
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I don't want to spend time promoting my website (which will be the majority of work in order to get sales) and in the end the customer chooses to purchase from somebody else. At the moment I live comfortably of stock. The 100% commission I would make of an independent website would certainly be nice but I will have to invest a lot of time in order to make the same amount of money I currently make with stock agencies who have million of visitors.
I have spent hours finding and contacting potential buyers in order to advertise my site and the Symbiostock network, I am hoping that other people are doing the same rather than just sitting back and waiting to be found ?
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It's possible, you can run symbiostock in network, in closed network or as a single site and opt-out the network feature.
Thank you Alberto.
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I have spent hours finding and contacting potential buyers in order to advertise my site and the Symbiostock network, I am hoping that other people are doing the same rather than just sitting back and waiting to be found ?
This will happen and some people might not care about because they are doing it part time but I do. I would rather donate some money to the developer for doing an excellent job building this system and to support future updates and features.
Alberto already replied to my concern and a personal website is a bit closer on the radar.
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It's possible, you can run symbiostock in network, in closed network or as a single site and opt-out the network feature.
Thank you Alberto.
From what I understand you are not a novice in IT and maybe in WordPress but for understand what is Symbiostock feature and "how to" this is a great resource in progress.
In getting started step 6, you can view the screenshot where the network is activated.
And from now this site is in my sign, too many don't know this resource.
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From what I understand you are not a novice in IT and maybe in WordPress but for understand what is Symbiostock feature and "how to" this is a great resource in progress.
In getting started step 6, you can view the screenshot where the network is activated.
And from now this site is in my sign, too many don't know this resource.
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. Now that I know I will certainly take some time and read through the documentation.
One more question: Does the system support selling videos as well?
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It's a request but I don't know at what stage is.
Maybe a try to see the thread where there are the features and plugin request. Or try to contact Leo to know more.
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It's a request but I don't know at what stage is.
Maybe a try to see the thread where there are the features and plugin request. Or try to contact Leo to know more.
Ok thanks Alberto, will do. :)
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I am getting sales, not every day but enough to give me the enthusiasm to keep uploading - which I had just about stopped doing elsewhere
That's good to hear.
I want to jump on board, but for me to invest the time, I'll need to hear (and believe) that multiple people are having several sales every day... not a fluke sale now and again, but regular sales at a predictable level.
like all the 'how many images do I need to make $500 a month" questions, the answer to your question won't give any indication of whether YOUR site will sell - sym is a tool - how you use it is up to you
as far as sales reporting -- most people don't report daily sales for any site - altho a number of us have mentioned that in the short time sym's been around it's already outperforming almost all our stock agencies
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As with everything in life, you get what you put in.
I think this is the theory Symbiostock supporters are embracing, pouring a lot of energies and hopes into making this work. I'm questioning whether all that hard work is paying off for people. If the early adopters start seeing a decent ROI, I'll be right behind them.
what's YOUR ROI for each of the microstock agencies you submit to? it's only fair if you're asking for financial info that you should be willing to contribute.
of course, first you have to define ROI. I can tell you if I knew ahead of time what their sales would be, i'd never have bothered with 80% of the sites I've submitted to.
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......I don't want to spend time promoting my website (which will be the majority of work in order to get sales) and in the end the customer chooses to purchase from somebody else. At the moment I live comfortably of stock. The 100% commission I would make of an independent website would certainly be nice but I will have to invest a lot of time in order to make the same amount of money I currently make with stock agencies who have million of visitors.
This is just my personal opinion but many Photographers on the Symbiostock network will be benefit from others peoples hard work.
If there was something like a commission based referral program or you could opt-out of the network part (Which I believe is the whole goal of Symbiostock) I would certainly invest the time to setup and customize one of those sites.
I do have to give props to the developer.
first, of course, you CAN opt-out of the network so far no one has stated they've done that (and we'd never know about them).
but part of the point of sym is that each artist doesn't have to spend all their time promoting their site - others in the network are doing it for them too! right now google tells me there are over 35,000 links to my site from outside sources, along with 44 sites directly linked
there are several prpjects underway that will better quantitate this traffic
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first, of course, you CAN opt-out of the network so far no one has stated they've done that (and we'd never know about them).
but part of the point of sym is that each artist doesn't have to spend all their time promoting their site - others in the network are doing it for them too! right now google tells me there are over 35,000 links to my site from outside sources, along with 44 sites directly linked
there are several prpjects underway that will better quantitate this traffic
My reason for not starting my own site earlier was the promotion issue. I don't have the skills or the time to promote my site and create traffic. That is exactly why I liked the vision of SYS. Although the tools for building the site are really useful, the only real long time benefit is the idea of the network generating traffic, in fact doing all the promotion for me.
So let me share my fantasy with you:
In the (not too distant) future, the global search engine for Symbiostock is a viable alternative to the existing agencies, known and used by the customers. I don't know if there is a specific category of customers that is more likely to use it, but since this is a fantasy, I would say all categories, from big corporations to bloggers. In my dream, this is the aspect that skilled developers such as Cascoly will spend time on in future. It would be good if other, more passive members like myself somehow could make it worth wile for them, but I don't know exactly how that would work.
Linking to ten or fifteen other members in the network is not part of my fantasy, that would never generate the kind of traffic I am looking for.
Meanwhile, back in the real world.
I have now uploaded 1100+ pics, and I hold my horses in order to see some real activity before I continue uploading the rest of my 5000-6000 files. So far there has been none. Not one serious registration, certainly no sales, only spam comments. Google analytics shows 200-300 visits in total, but none from a serious customer. So I guess patience is required, I will spend my efforts on the traditional agencies for a while, until something happens here. That does not mean I am giving up, I just realise it is going to be a long journey that may even change the whole industry.
It would be interesting to know if some other members share my experience.
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I have now uploaded 1100+ pics, and I hold my horses in order to see some real activity before I continue uploading the rest of my 5000-6000 files. So far there has been none. Not one serious registration, certainly no sales, only spam comments. Google analytics shows 200-300 visits in total, but none from a serious customer. So I guess patience is required, I will spend my efforts on the traditional agencies for a while, until something happens here. That does not mean I am giving up, I just realise it is going to be a long journey that may even change the whole industry.
It would be interesting to know if some other members share my experience.
My portfolio is much smaller but I have had similar results. But, I have read here and other places as well, that sales percentages of incoming traffic is very small. 200- 300 visits is closer to zero than to where we want to be before we will see consistant sales.
Something else to consider is google and SEO likes change and new. you shouldn't just build a site and forget about it, you should makes changes, add images, add links to blog posts to keep the crawlers coming back to check your site.
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first, of course, you CAN opt-out of the network so far no one has stated they've done that (and we'd never know about them).
but part of the point of sym is that each artist doesn't have to spend all their time promoting their site - others in the network are doing it for them too! right now google tells me there are over 35,000 links to my site from outside sources, along with 44 sites directly linked
there are several prpjects underway that will better quantitate this traffic
Thank you, Cascoly. As I stated above I need to read a bit more and do some planning first before I go ahead. I didn't mentioned it at first but as soon as there is a plugin for selling videos I will seriously consider it.
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My portfolio is much smaller but I have had similar results. But, I have read here and other places as well, that sales percentages of incoming traffic is very small. 200- 300 visits is closer to zero than to where we want to be before we will see consistant sales.
Something else to consider is google and SEO likes change and new. you shouldn't just build a site and forget about it, you should makes changes, add images, add links to blog posts to keep the crawlers coming back to check your site.
But that is exactly what I do not have time and energy to do. I don't expect to get massive traffic directly via Google, that will not happen, ever, unless I use the services that some of those spam posts offer - to generate fake traffic at a "small" monthly fee. No thanks.
Like I said, my hope is that the traffic will come from the Symbiostock global search engine, just as people find my pics via the search engines of the agencies. Hopefully the search engine will have enough visibility and become a factor in the microstock world. That is the big potential I see in Symbiostock. Maybe naive? If you tell me that will not happen, I will instantly forget about Symbisostock and about selling my pics directly. Should I? If I only wanted traffic via Google, there are other ways of doing it, but I would not be interested.
My vision is that Symbiostock becomes a real factor in the microstock world, and that I can be a small part of it.
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My portfolio is much smaller but I have had similar results. But, I have read here and other places as well, that sales percentages of incoming traffic is very small. 200- 300 visits is closer to zero than to where we want to be before we will see consistant sales.
Something else to consider is google and SEO likes change and new. you shouldn't just build a site and forget about it, you should makes changes, add images, add links to blog posts to keep the crawlers coming back to check your site.
But that is exactly what I do not have time and energy to do. I don't expect to get massive traffic directly via Google, that will not happen, ever, unless I use the services that some of those spam posts offer - to generate fake traffic at a "small" monthly fee. No thanks. Like I said, my hope is that the traffic will come from the Symbiostock global search engine, just as people find my pics via the search engines of the agencies. Hopefully the search engine will have enough visibility and become a factor in the microstock world. That is the big potential I see in Symbiostock. Maybe naive? If you tell me that will not happen, I will instantly forget about Symbisostock and about selling my pics directly. Should I? If I only wanted traffic via Google, there are other ways of doing it, but I would not be interested. Like I said, my vision is that Symbiostock becomes a factor in the microstock world, and that I can be a small part of it.
for the global search engines to attract customers, sym site members need to link to andpromte tose engines
how many pages & iMages from your site has google iNdexed? without doing some seo work, your site isn't going to get noticed. and if you're not being noticed, other members are less likely to include you in their network list. symbiosis means it works both ways
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for the global search engines to attract customers, sym site members need to link to and promote those engines
how many pages & iMages from your site has google iNdexed? without doing some seo work, your site isn't going to get noticed. and if you're not being noticed, other members are less likely to include you in their network list. symbiosis means it works both ways
Hey, if it comes to it, I will do my part to get traffic into the network, don't misunderstand me, but what I fail to understand is how linking to fifteen other sites will boost my sales?? Isn't the potential 1000 times bigger with a global search where potential customers can choose between (hopefully) millions of photos based on keywords rather than klicking away in an endless network where you find 10-15 sites at the time? Isn't the vision to compete with the big agencies like that?
I think you have made a great start with your search engine, that is the way forward, and that is the main reason why I am here. More options like "recent", most popular" etc, would be great. I would like to promote Symbiostock as such, and the search engine, rather than spending time on making my few pics visible in Google, or competing with others to get into peoples network lists.
Personally, I think the global list should be default in the sense that every search should show hits a) on your own site and b) in the global network. Adding the result from specific network members would be optional, e.g. to promote a friend or a site you like particularly.
In that way we all promote each other, on equal terms, the only thing we compete with is good kewording, maybe price and, obviously, good photos. In the long term, this is something we all would benefit from.
For the time being, I would like to see at least some traffic to my site, based on my current portfolio, before uploading the remaining photos. If not 1100 photos generate any traffic, I don´t think 5000 will either. And I expect to see traffic both from Google and from the Symbistock search engine. I will do my best to promote Symbiostock, but I will not pay anyone to generate fake traffic to my site.
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for the global search engines to attract customers, sym site members need to link to and promote those engines
how many pages & iMages from your site has google iNdexed? without doing some seo work, your site isn't going to get noticed. and if you're not being noticed, other members are less likely to include you in their network list. symbiosis means it works both ways
Hey, if it comes to it, I will do my part to get traffic into the network, don't misunderstand me, but what I fail to understand is how linking to fifteen other sites will boost my sales?? Isn't the potential 1000 times bigger with a global search where potential customers can choose between (hopefully) millions of photos based on keywords rather than klicking away in an endless network where you find 10-15 sites at the time? Isn't the vision to compete with the big agencies like that?
This is why centralisation would benefit all of us
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for the global search engines to attract customers, sym site members need to link to and promote those engines
how many pages & iMages from your site has google iNdexed? without doing some seo work, your site isn't going to get noticed. and if you're not being noticed, other members are less likely to include you in their network list. symbiosis means it works both ways
Hey, if it comes to it, I will do my part to get traffic into the network, don't misunderstand me, but what I fail to understand is how linking to fifteen other sites will boost my sales?? Isn't the potential 1000 times bigger with a global search where potential customers can choose between (hopefully) millions of photos based on keywords rather than klicking away in an endless network where you find 10-15 sites at the time? Isn't the vision to compete with the big agencies like that?
This is why centralisation would benefit all of us
that's what some of us believe & would like to experiment with; others are content with the current networking system; others (who may not have even announced themselves ) might just want symbio for the simplicity of setting up their own photo site.
we cant be all things to all people, but we CAN provide multiple ways for people to proceed. and if some don't work as expected, the system, since it's a network, wont come crashing down
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that's what some of us believe & would like to experiment with;
One thing about SYS is, it is an experiment.
We are trying something new. It has never been done before ( at least I don't know of this before)
With this in mind we need to keep evolving...trying new... testing.... admit when something works....admit when something doesn't work...rebuild...grow and expand.
Where will we be 12 months from now? 24 months? No One knows, but I am looking forward to the ride.
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I am definitely joining, just have not gotten my site going yet. Hope to start next week.
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I am definitely joining, just have not gotten my site going yet. Hope to start next week.
Jump on in, munrotoo. The water's fine!
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Following some private messages from ppl already using the platform, i will be starting building my SS website.
One question though... Since i have access to aged and high ranked domains, will it be better to use one ?
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Following some private messages from ppl already using the platform, i will be starting building my SS website.
One question though... Since i have access to aged and high ranked domains, will it be better to use one ?
Very good question.
Very very good question.
...
Boy, thats a really good question.
...
It depends really. You may risk ruining any established rank you have. If they are good websites or do $$$ for you, then don't mess with it. A redesign can be suicide...as I'm currently bouncing back myself.
Conversely if your not doing much with them then yes older domains have a much better chance since new websites go through a "Prove your not a spammer" initiation.
Maybe also you if you had www myolddomain dot com you could do a "/mysymbiosite/ sort of taking advantage of both your existing traffic / age without redesign suicide.
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A lot of good photographers (including myself :)) from countries where Paypal is not working (Russia (well, Russia only to some degree), Belarus, Ukraine) cannot use Symbiostock.
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A lot of good photographers (including myself :)) from countries where Paypal is not working (Russia (well, Russia only to some degree), Belarus, Ukraine) cannot use Symbiostock.
I didn't know that, I thought Paypal would work worldwide. Isn't it working for buyers from these countries, too?
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A lot of good photographers (including myself :)) from countries where Paypal is not working (Russia (well, Russia only to some degree), Belarus, Ukraine) cannot use Symbiostock.
I didn't know that, I thought Paypal would work worldwide. Isn't it working for buyers from these countries, too?
https://www.paypal.com/worldwide/ (https://www.paypal.com/worldwide/)
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Please could someone send me a notice on PM when it will be some tutorial "for dummies"...
Also your posts especially on this topic are definitely too long... I don't have a time to read you guys several hours a day? :P
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Please could someone send me a notice on PM when it will be some tutorial "for dummies"...
Also your posts especially on this topic are definitely too long... I don't have a time to read you guys several hours a day? :P
www.symbioguides.com (http://www.symbioguides.com)
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Following some private messages from ppl already using the platform, i will be starting building my SS website.
One question though... Since i have access to aged and high ranked domains, will it be better to use one ?
I started a new site cascoly-images.com, then create contact sheet pages of images with lin ks on my established site cascoly.com -- both sites have gotten increased indexing and traffic eg http://cascoly.com/trav/us/oregon-birds-coast.asp (http://cascoly.com/trav/us/oregon-birds-coast.asp)
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started working on a pr3 9 year old domain. I guess this will boost all of the network performance as soon as i start linking back to it.
If anyone has interest in dropped pr3-4-5 aged domains, please send me PM with your desired keyword. I will try to work on something cheap(8-20$). It's the least i can do for such a great and helping community.
Oh, and btw, how are the other licensing options worked out on symbio? Like sr-el, rm etc.?
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Several hosting related problems held me from joining. But...
Here it is, http://coolstockphoto.com (http://coolstockphoto.com)
Still have lots of stuff to edit'n'add but count me in! :)
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Several hosting related problems held me from joining. But...
Here it is, [url]http://coolstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://coolstockphoto.com[/url])
Still have lots of stuff to edit'n'add but count me in! :)
Great!
Really cool :)
Your site is already at http://symbiostock.info (http://symbiostock.info), we have 72 sites and 77201 images now.
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Great!
Really cool :)
Your site is already at [url]http://symbiostock.info[/url] ([url]http://symbiostock.info[/url]), we have 72 sites and 77201 images now.
Thanks for adding me! :D
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It all sounds really, really good. I'd love to jump in and open my own site.
What's holding me back?
Essentially two things:
1: I have zero experience with building websites. None. Never had a website, I don't even know the most basic things. But I flipped through the info on symbioguides.com, and that will help a great deal.
I would hope the technical part is covered.
2: More important: What do I need to know with regards to legal and tax implications (e.g. what about collecting VAT) in Germany?
I have no idea what needs to be considered. Having your own shop is certainly different than selling via agencies.
If anybody has any information about that, that would be a great help.
Without having that second point clarified I feel I can't really start setting something up...
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Very good question. All new market ideas should start by that.
What's holding me back from joining Symbiostock:
1. It's still under construction obviously
2. It runs on Wordpress. In my experience, very heavy, slow, long loading times. A big minus (sorry, I like the idea of wordpress but not the results most of time).
3. Hosting. I would love to have the website + the hosting in the same package. + hosted in a country that respect individual rights and privacy (not in China or USA for instance).
4. Seems complicated. I don't want to go into development, designing web pages etc.. Downloading an app or soft, then designing, then finding a host, then publishing, managing, maintenance etc.. Too complicated.
But the idea is great. Uniting artists to build their own platform to sell their work at decent prices directly to buyers. Not being screwed by some agencies with some blur pricing structure and T&C. This is how I understand and appreciate it. :)
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Right @Amarofil I wouldn't use it
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Very good question. All new market ideas should start by that.
What's holding me back from joining Symbiostock:
1. It's still under construction obviously
2. It runs on Wordpress. In my experience, very heavy, slow, long loading times. A big minus (sorry, I like the idea of wordpress but not the results most of time).
3. Hosting. I would love to have the website + the hosting in the same package. + hosted in a country that respect individual rights and privacy (not in China or USA for instance).
4. Seems complicated. I don't want to go into development, designing web pages etc.. Downloading an app or soft, then designing, then finding a host, then publishing, managing, maintenance etc.. Too complicated.
But the idea is great. Uniting artists to build their own platform to sell their work at decent prices directly to buyers. Not being screwed by some agencies with some blur pricing structure and T&C. This is how I understand and appreciate it. :)
Symbiostock as a concept is not under construction, its a developing project, that one site you reported may be under construction, But Symbiostock is not the site where we sell images.
You dont have to develop or design anything
WP is not slow, it depends on your hosting.
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Several hosting related problems held me from joining. But...
Here it is, [url]http://coolstockphoto.com[/url] ([url]http://coolstockphoto.com[/url])
Still have lots of stuff to edit'n'add but count me in! :)
been trying to add you to http://symbiostock-search.com (http://symbiostock-search.com) for several days, but something with the hosting was interfering -- anyway, you've been added now...
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Today, i just started to build mine. Uploaded only 6 images for tests. I have just some text work (EULA, mails, etc) than i will start uploading. here my site http://ayzekstock.com/ (http://ayzekstock.com/)
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Today, i just started to build mine. Uploaded only 6 images for tests. I have just some text work (EULA, mails, etc) than i will start uploading. here my site [url]http://ayzekstock.com/[/url] ([url]http://ayzekstock.com/[/url])
Wow - I recognize your port from the old days!!!
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Today, i just started to build mine. Uploaded only 6 images for tests. I have just some text work (EULA, mails, etc) than i will start uploading. here my site [url]http://ayzekstock.com/[/url] ([url]http://ayzekstock.com/[/url])
Wow - I recognize your port from the old days!!!
its really nice that someone recognize you :)
Thank you so much for your hard work on Symbiostock. I just want to be in network.
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Has there been a consensus regarding a compatible, reliable and affordable hosting provider. I am very interested in building a site but do not currently have a hosting provider.
I looked at a few of the threads but there does not seem to be much info about providers yet. What is your experience now that you have your sites up for a while? Are you happy or not happy with your provider?
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Its a "best case" scenario. I think many people will tell you their experiences, so I'll leave it to that. Overall though Symbiostock seems to be doing well across most "average" choices. There are a few to avoid as well.
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Has there been a consensus regarding a compatible, reliable and affordable hosting provider. I am very interested in building a site but do not currently have a hosting provider.
I looked at a few of the threads but there does not seem to be much info about providers yet. What is your experience now that you have your sites up for a while? Are you happy or not happy with your provider?
Most people on Bluehost seem reasonably happy. The base package is cheap and flexible, no memory problems, ImageMagic readily available. The downside is occasional short-lived downtime, usually because of noisy neighbours on the same box. More solid options are available at extra cost if business grows to need it. The live chat support has been good the couple of times I've used it.
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Bluehost works flawless for me. It's cheap, too. But pretty slow. Guess you get what you pay for ::) They have every option to upgrade your hosting plan, of course. I'll wait for a buying frenzy before I upgrade, though ;D
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I'm just making the jump now, and am putting together my Symbiostock site at www.foodvectors.com (http://www.foodvectors.com). I'm in the setup phase. I'll admit, I don't have a full handle on Sandbox, so I may try switching to regular Paypal, to test out transactions.
So far, the setup process has been easy. The tutorials have been really helpful.
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I'm just making the jump now, and am putting together my Symbiostock site at [url=http://www.foodvectors.com]www.foodvectors.com[/url] ([url]http://www.foodvectors.com[/url]). I'm in the setup phase. I'll admit, I don't have a full handle on Sandbox, so I may try switching to regular Paypal, to test out transactions.
So far, the setup process has been easy. The tutorials have been really helpful.
I am anxious to see your site and your food vectors. I have a lot of food photos...it's my favorite thing to photograph.
I tried setting up Sandbox too, on two separate occasions, and had trouble figuring it out. I just switched to live and never had an issue.
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I tried setting up Sandbox too, on two separate occasions, and had trouble figuring it out. I just switched to live and never had an issue.
Cathy, did you have to do anything else to get PayPal to work, other than switch from "Sandbox" to "live"? That's all I've done, but I don't know if it's working or not. I think somewhere in the Forums I read that you have to make some additional changes inside your PP account to get it to work. Is that true or not?
Thanks!
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I tried setting up Sandbox too, on two separate occasions, and had trouble figuring it out. I just switched to live and never had an issue.
Cathy, did you have to do anything else to get PayPal to work, other than switch from "Sandbox" to "live"? That's all I've done, but I don't know if it's working or not. I think somewhere in the Forums I read that you have to make some additional changes inside your PP account to get it to work. Is that true or not?
Thanks!
You need to set up the pay pal IPN return. This is in your pay pal settings. I'm not technical so I called paypal and they guided me through it.
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I tried setting up Sandbox too, on two separate occasions, and had trouble figuring it out. I just switched to live and never had an issue.
Cathy, did you have to do anything else to get PayPal to work, other than switch from "Sandbox" to "live"? That's all I've done, but I don't know if it's working or not. I think somewhere in the Forums I read that you have to make some additional changes inside your PP account to get it to work. Is that true or not?
Thanks!
You need to set up the pay pal IPN return. This is in your pay pal settings. I'm not technical so I called paypal and they guided me through it.
Thanks so much for that. I appreciate the help!
Gadzooks, there are a lot of things to do to get this going. Fortunately, the knowledge base in this group is extensive and people are willing to share info.
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IPN is something different than Auto Return.
All you need to do is add the return URL and activate PDT if you want to
Login into PayPal and click this link and you are done in 2 seconds :)
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-website-payments (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-website-payments)
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IPN is something different than Auto Return.
All you need to do is add the return URL and activate PDT if you want to
Login into PayPal and click this link and you are done in 2 seconds :)
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-website-payments (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/customerprofileweb?cmd=_profile-website-payments)
Again, Ron, thanks sooo much!
I'm anxious to be done with all this setting-up stuff. Still got a slew of photos to work into my site.
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Didnt mean to ignore you, martha. Just at my day job and wanted to check before answering...glad others helped you. I have a personal paypal account and i believe i just had to add the ipn SY address in a setting in my profile and of course the address in the SY site area. Everything else worked as expected from there. Not a detailed answer, i know. Sorry im not much help these days.
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Thank you all for your Paypal advice. After adding in the autoreturn/ipn info, I just had a full transaction work properly. I also checked my other site, and its payments are still functioning properly. Now I can start some serious image uploading.
Cathy - I'm definitely a food image fan. Every time I see a food show, on tv, my first thought is 'I could make a graphic on that!' I've got a big list of graphics I want to make specifically for this site, too.
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Didnt mean to ignore you, martha. Just at my day job and wanted to check before answering...glad others helped you. I have a personal paypal account and i believe i just had to add the ipn SY address in a setting in my profile and of course the address in the SY site area. Everything else worked as expected from there. Not a detailed answer, i know. Sorry im not much help these days.
Not to worry, Cathy. I'm doing okay... or would be if I could get onto my SYS site this morning!
Once I can do that again, I'll follow through with your suggestions. I already have a PP account too, so it should be easy.
I did get the Auto Response page set up, right before Bluehost went down a few hours ago. This game is never dull.
Have a good weekend!
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Thank you all for your Paypal advice. After adding in the autoreturn/ipn info, I just had a full transaction work properly. I also checked my other site, and its payments are still functioning properly. Now I can start some serious image uploading.
Cathy - I'm definitely a food image fan. Every time I see a food show, on tv, my first thought is 'I could make a graphic on that!' I've got a big list of graphics I want to make specifically for this site, too.
Same here! I just need to get my studio set back up and get into the groove.
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Didnt mean to ignore you, martha. Just at my day job and wanted to check before answering...glad others helped you. I have a personal paypal account and i believe i just had to add the ipn SY address in a setting in my profile and of course the address in the SY site area. Everything else worked as expected from there. Not a detailed answer, i know. Sorry im not much help these days.
Not to worry, Cathy. I'm doing okay... or would be if I could get onto my SYS site this morning!
Once I can do that again, I'll follow through with your suggestions. I already have a PP account too, so it should be easy.
I did get the Auto Response page set up, right before Bluehost went down a few hours ago. This game is never dull.
Have a good weekend!
I dont think you will have trouble...once bluehost is back up. I just googled what i wanted to do and it took me right to paypals instructions.
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New to the group here - kind of shy about posting.
What's holding me back: I've been a part time microstocker for some time, and just got a rejection notice yesterday from Stocksy (they were very nice about it and asked me to reapply in two months); the latest in a long line of rejections from larger agencies: Getty, Corbis, etc, over the years. My thinking is, my photos aren't commercially viable for significant stock photography.
I've been changing my shooting style over the last two years (much of it hasn't been published), and trying to up my game in many different ways to adjust to the ever changing marketplace.
I have the software deployed and am testing it in local environment. It seems simple and works well. I'm in talks with my (private) web host now about virtual machines vs. dedicated servers for enterprise level hosting for what I would anticipate would be a growing library of images. I have plenty of time as I'm currently unemployed from my "day job" (as a web developer). I think it comes down to being insecure about the images themselves and what I have to offer. I'd hate to invest my time and efforts on work that's not any good - if I am being brutally honest about it. I do sell on the microstock agencies but until recently it hasn't been stellar. I think I've come "on board", so to speak, too little too late.
Symbiostock is exciting and I'd love to jump onto the bandwagon, but I'm taking extra time to go through my complete library of images to cull through everything to ensure that my work is actually commercial.
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Its amazing how fast this thread developed.
Maybe its worth stating - with all we observe and speculate - its meant to be a sandbox. Either on an individual level or a community.
Symbiostock's real strength is that it can be molded to what you want it to be. All the things you mention - positive or negative - any motivated and knowledgable people (or groups of people) can make adjustments.
There really is no "What Symbiostock is" because that differs from person to person. Its more about what it can be - an anyone is welcome to play in the sandbox :D
Example: People want quality control. Easy - make a closed network of trusted members with the same values. Then watch your combined quality kite you straight to the top. If you want consistent licensing and such, have a "hub site" which is little more than a few pages of terms and prices. Have your product pages reference that site.
I think the most important thing is to stop looking at limitations and start seeing a custom vehicle ready to be modded to your wishes.
So leo how do you integrate people who have or will have their own independent site but may not be connected to the symbio software approach? I have not taken the step in this direction either because it is too technical for me but would like to participate by way of linking or something. Would love your feedback or that of others.
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So leo how do you integrate people who have or will have their own independent site but may not be connected to the symbio software approach? I have not taken the step in this direction either because it is too technical for me but would like to participate by way of linking or something. Would love your feedback or that of others.
there really isn't a way, since the essence of symbio is the networking and that requires having a sym site -- both the site search and the global search requires there be specifically formatted files available to access
the only alternative would be the traditional link exchage
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Sorry I've been busy - client stuff and still working on Sym versions.
A conversion could be done. If your existing site has a predictable structure or system, I could write a script that retrieves all the important info and populates the images.
That would be quite an operation and not free. I'd suggest only doing it if you are already well established and know you will make a return on investment.
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The biggest problem with having your OWN site is promotion and getting your images higher than any other images that the end user searches for.
I also think that the high earning stock sites END users just go to their favourites site/s and do a search internally on that site, not doing a google search at all.
I think our energies can be better spent shooting, editing and uploading to stock photography sites that are well established and YES they sting us over the commission they take but they ALSO promote our images for us in much better ways that we can.
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The biggest problem with having your OWN site is promotion and getting your images higher than any other images that the end user searches for.
I also think that the high earning stock sites END users just go to their favourites site/s and do a search internally on that site, not doing a google search at all.
I think our energies can be better spent shooting, editing and uploading to stock photography sites that are well established and YES they sting us over the commission they take but they ALSO promote our images for us in much better ways that we can.
The end user probably does that because they dont realise they have a choice. However, people are having sales on symbiostock and its early days.
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I think our energies can be better spent shooting, editing and uploading to stock photography sites that are well established and YES they sting us over the commission they take but they ALSO promote our images for us in much better ways that we can.
Staying/being with most microstock agencies is modern days slavery. They feed you just as many peanuts to stay alive and to keep you working for them.
And no, they don't promote YOUR images. They promote what they think sells. That might be very different from your perspective.
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If we never try anything new non of us would be on any stock agencies or microstock sites, I think SY is worth a try, it's a very low cost to get involved and then it's only your time getting content uploaded. Microstock has improved my photography skills by making me achieve higher quality images, Symbiostock is starting to teach me computer coding skills and the mechanics of site development which I can take into any area of blogging etc.
I have also had a chance to look at keywords and descriptions again as I upload to my easybuyphoto site and realize how inadequate they were from some years ago and how I can improve the chances of sales by editing again.
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Hey i am realising that i am not visiting this forum often enough as i miss big chunks of info... Like this one... Symbio is new to me, and have spent an hour now trying to read through posts and understanding what it is about. I would love to be part of something that promotes free trafe stock photography!
I do miss some basic overview of what it is and how it works, but will hopefully find when i continue reading.
Something i wonder is whether i can hook up my existing site or if i need to set up one from scratch to be more customised to symbio? I have a wordpress site already promoting my client work, but maybe it would be possible to add this through plug ins?
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As it works at the moment you need a clean install of Wordpress to then install Symbiostock some of us, including me, have used sub-domains. If you follow the link to Amanda's tutorial site in the signature in my post that should help you learn what is needed and how to set it up.
Basic overview - we can sell direct to clients and network with each other so clients can find the images they need, no royalty fees paid to agencies, we are our own bosses and decide what happens with our own sites including how much effort we are going to put into bring customers in Probably easiest to look at some of our sites - check out categories and searches to see what it can do (or what can be done with it) then come back with specific questions?
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The biggest problem with having your OWN site is promotion and getting your images higher than any other images that the end user searches for.
I also think that the high earning stock sites END users just go to their favourites site/s and do a search internally on that site, not doing a google search at all.
I think our energies can be better spent shooting, editing and uploading to stock photography sites that are well established and YES they sting us over the commission they take but they ALSO promote our images for us in much better ways that we can.
true for people who know what stock is, and who buy in bulk. there's another whole population of people who have no idea what stock is, and/or only need occasional images, so sym is an alternative source rather than direct competitor to the ttraditional agencies
as far as gaining recognition, from the first week, my sym site was indexed more quickly by google than either of my more established sites
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OK guys, am sticking out my neck here, so PLZ do not chop off my head!! While my daughter has been at kiddies theatre i have been sitting in the cafeteria, trying to get started with symbiostock. I followed amandas tution, as suggested, and i got point 1, the hosting part. Although i already have another host for my own website, i dont mind using the recommended site, and i understand that i can have my own photostock site registered in just a few minutes, very exciting indeed.'
BUT then i go to step 2: downloading symbiostock, and really sorry, but i am lost here... Donloading from the link from step 2, does it mean that i will download a template that i can then use? Or will i download some kind of program to which i then later hook up a template which i buy separately?
I also found a link to someone offering to set up my symbiostock site for 200 dollars/500 pics. As i am already stuck on step 2 this sounds like a really good deal for me. But who is the person offering, there is no name or presentation supplied. And what about the look on my site - again: is it one look for all, or do i chose a wordpress template that i supply to the mystery guy who then uploads it all for me?
Sorry if these are basic retard questions, but i know that this is the forum for the bighearted, kind people who understands and only answers if they want to help and ignores and moves on if irritated by my ignorance!! Now i need to find my daughter, as i am starting to wonder if the clown abducted her...
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OK guys, am sticking out my neck here, so PLZ do not chop off my head!! While my daughter has been at kiddies theatre i have been sitting in the cafeteria, trying to get started with symbiostock. I followed amandas tution, as suggested, and i got point 1, the hosting part. Although i already have another host for my own website, i dont mind using the recommended site, and i understand that i can have my own photostock site registered in just a few minutes, very exciting indeed.'
BUT then i go to step 2: downloading symbiostock, and really sorry, but i am lost here... Donloading from the link from step 2, does it mean that i will download a template that i can then use? Or will i download some kind of program to which i then later hook up a template which i buy separately?
I also found a link to someone offering to set up my symbiostock site for 200 dollars/500 pics. As i am already stuck on step 2 this sounds like a really good deal for me. But who is the person offering, there is no name or presentation supplied. And what about the look on my site - again: is it one look for all, or do i chose a wordpress template that i supply to the mystery guy who then uploads it all for me?
Sorry if these are basic retard questions, but i know that this is the forum for the bighearted, kind people who understands and only answers if they want to help and ignores and moves on if irritated by my ignorance!! Now i need to find my daughter, as i am starting to wonder if the clown abducted her...
When you download the SY file, that IS the wordpress template. From there, you might also want to download Amandas Clean Theme child theme, as it adds additional cool styling. From there, you can customize the css in the child theme to make it your own. Or you can pay the mystery person to do it all. Then, you will probably just supply logos and information and password to your account. And your high resolution images to this mystery person.
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Well, What's holding me back from joining Symbiostock?
Too complicated to be loved, need a lot of effort and time to build a simple site. When you'll make the hole process to be completed in 30 minutes I'll join.
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What makes you think it is complicated? Yes there are lots of threads but a lot of them are sorting out problems with hosts that have not already been tried and tested. Nothing good is achieved without a bit of effort - but then again, if you don't have enough confidence in your images to make the effort and try licencing via your own site . . . . . . . . . ;)
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What makes you think it is complicated? Yes there are lots of threads but a lot of them are sorting out problems with hosts that have not already been tried and tested. Nothing good is achieved without a bit of effort - but then again, if you don't have enough confidence in your images to make the effort and try licencing via your own site . . . . . . . . . ;)
Yes, I do have confidence! Numbers of 60k+ sold licenses are telling me that licencing via own site is good idea but again ........
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I am probably one of the least technologically gifted people here and I set up my site without too much trouble. Yes there is a learning curve, but you can pick it up pretty quickly. 30 minutes - not gonna happen, but a basic site can be site can be set up fairly easily.
On my site I use the Symbiostock theme with the basic child theme, I don't mess the with css or php code at all.
I keep the plugins to a minimum and and have very few issues - all of which have been taken care of with Leo's updates.
And when you do get stuck someone is always in this forum to answer your questions - Most issues you'll encounter have been experienced by someone and there is an answer.
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OK guys, am sticking out my neck here, so PLZ do not chop off my head!! While my daughter has been at kiddies theatre i have been sitting in the cafeteria, trying to get started with symbiostock. I followed amandas tution, as suggested, and i got point 1, the hosting part. Although i already have another host for my own website, i dont mind using the recommended site, and i understand that i can have my own photostock site registered in just a few minutes, very exciting indeed.'
BUT then i go to step 2: downloading symbiostock, and really sorry, but i am lost here... Donloading from the link from step 2, does it mean that i will download a template that i can then use? Or will i download some kind of program to which i then later hook up a template which i buy separately?
I also found a link to someone offering to set up my symbiostock site for 200 dollars/500 pics. As i am already stuck on step 2 this sounds like a really good deal for me. But who is the person offering, there is no name or presentation supplied. And what about the look on my site - again: is it one look for all, or do i chose a wordpress template that i supply to the mystery guy who then uploads it all for me?
Sorry if these are basic retard questions, but i know that this is the forum for the bighearted, kind people who understands and only answers if they want to help and ignores and moves on if irritated by my ignorance!! Now i need to find my daughter, as i am starting to wonder if the clown abducted her...
The "mystery guy" is Leo, the creator of Symbiostock. Look him up and send him a message if you'd like to take his offer ($200 for set up).
Otherwise, you can ask any question in this forum whenever you get stuck. The SYS people are very helpful.
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There is not ONE SINGLE option out there that is out of the box ready in 30 minutes !!
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Leo released the first draft of Symbiostock in late March when there were initially around ten of us who played with it and helped find the bugs and made requests for Leo to tweak so we were having new versions nearly every day to try out.
Gradually (if you can call three-four months gradual) the Symbiostock theme became the stable item it is at present, and is still free and I think there are 89 sites as of today. It will be constantly growing and evolving as guys such as Leo, Ajt and Plrang (apologies to any coders I have missed) provide updates and plug-ins, some paid and some free.
We have all had to learn this from scratch so anyone joining now is only a few months behind those that started at the beginning AND you have the benefit of a stable version, Amanda's tutorial (see link in my signature) and another tutorial within the help page of Symbiostock and lots of us willing to help with your teething problems in setting up a site.
I realise this post does not answer any particular questions but I am trying to stress how new this really is and how much it has progressed and grown in such a short time
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I think you are all absolutely amazing and i will def give it a go! Considering the hours i put down on sites that gives very little return in terms of pay per hour, this is def worth a go. Thank you all for your patience!
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Well said, Redneck. Modern day slavery it is. Fortunately, we "slaves" have an out. It's called Symbiostock, and I predict that many more will join us as the system gains exposure and credibility.
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OK guys, am sticking out my neck here, so PLZ do not chop off my head!! While my daughter has been at kiddies theatre i have been sitting in the cafeteria, trying to get started with symbiostock. I followed amandas tution, as suggested, and i got point 1, the hosting part. Although i already have another host for my own website, i dont mind using the recommended site, and i understand that i can have my own photostock site registered in just a few minutes, very exciting indeed.'
BUT then i go to step 2: downloading symbiostock, and really sorry, but i am lost here... Donloading from the link from step 2, does it mean that i will download a template that i can then use? Or will i download some kind of program to which i then later hook up a template which i buy separately?
......
Sorry if these are basic retard questions, but i know that this is the forum for the bighearted, kind people who understands and only answers if they want to help and ignores and moves on if irritated by my ignorance!! Now i need to find my daughter, as i am starting to wonder if the clown abducted her...
welcome - first, ignorance is fine - and recognizing it is even better...
it sounds like you're not familiar with wordpress, zips files, themes and web hosting, so what we make take as 'basic' terminology will be confusing at first
the basic steps are to set up a wordpress site, then down the symbio theme which is a zip file. within wordpress, you then 'install' the new theme -- it takes the entire zip file and sets it up. wordpress advertises a 5 minute install, and that's really true. the symbio theme is almost as easy. but when you're learning wordpress and webhosting and photo site setup, it's going to take longer.
if you understood that last paragraph, you're doing fine. if not
just make your questions as detailed as you can and you'll find folks who can guide you -- some of themost helpful people here were asking the same questions you are just a few onths ago
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Back to the original theme of what's holding me back... I've been thinking about it more, and it really doesn't make a lot of sense to start a whole new site just to experiment with. It's just a waste of time to commit to something that I'm really not going to commit to. It doesn't make much sense to convert my current site to a Symbio site. It doesn't look like much of a functional upgrade from what I have. And if I was going to put in that effort, I'd probably spend money/time on a custom built site that does everything I want. That seems to be the most logical 2.0 MyStockVectors (or is it 3.0?).
The only thing I really see as missing would be the community and networking. That seems to be the real value. So, I guess my question would be, what about a Symbio plugin for us outsiders? I'm not sure how that would work, but I figured it would be worth bringing up.
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Back to the original theme of what's holding me back... I've been thinking about it more, and it really doesn't make a lot of sense to start a whole new site just to experiment with. It's just a waste of time to commit to something that I'm really not going to commit to. It doesn't make much sense to convert my current site to a Symbio site. It doesn't look like much of a functional upgrade from what I have. And if I was going to put in that effort, I'd probably spend money/time on a custom built site that does everything I want. That seems to be the most logical 2.0 MyStockVectors (or is it 3.0?).
The only thing I really see as missing would be the community and networking. That seems to be the real value. So, I guess my question would be, what about a Symbio plugin for us outsiders? I'm not sure how that would work, but I figured it would be worth bringing up.
One point that you are missing, having other sires to network with will only increase the traffic to your site. The SEO work of others will have a direct impact on your site. As more people joing the network it can any many become just as large as some of the mid tier royalty free companies.
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The only thing I really see as missing would be the community and networking. That seems to be the real value. So, I guess my question would be, what about a Symbio plugin for us outsiders? I'm not sure how that would work, but I figured it would be worth bringing up.
You need to purchase a 480 dollar subscription at PicturEngine. It would launch in April 2013.
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Back to the original theme of what's holding me back... I've been thinking about it more, and it really doesn't make a lot of sense to start a whole new site just to experiment with. It's just a waste of time to commit to something that I'm really not going to commit to. It doesn't make much sense to convert my current site to a Symbio site. It doesn't look like much of a functional upgrade from what I have. And if I was going to put in that effort, I'd probably spend money/time on a custom built site that does everything I want. That seems to be the most logical 2.0 MyStockVectors (or is it 3.0?).
The only thing I really see as missing would be the community and networking. That seems to be the real value. So, I guess my question would be, what about a Symbio plugin for us outsiders? I'm not sure how that would work, but I figured it would be worth bringing up.
One point that you are missing, having other sires to network with will only increase the traffic to your site. The SEO work of others will have a direct impact on your site. As more people joing the network it can any many become just as large as some of the mid tier royalty free companies.
Definitely, that was my main pro point was the networking.
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Well, What's holding me back from joining Symbiostock?
Too complicated to be loved, need a lot of effort and time to build a simple site. When you'll make the hole process to be completed in 30 minutes I'll join.
What else in your life has been both personally rewarding, thoroughly worth doing, and able to be completed in 30 minutes. Not much, I bet.
Like everything else in life, you get out of Symbiostock what you put into it.
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Well, What's holding me back from joining Symbiostock?
Too complicated to be loved, need a lot of effort and time to build a simple site. When you'll make the hole process to be completed in 30 minutes I'll join.
30 minutes it isn't. Anything like building a site takes some learning and time. Am I as far with mine as I'd like to be at this moment? No but I'm working on it. SEO is taking longer than I'd like and I have round 400+ more images to upload. That part I can't skip and the rest will have to wait until that's done.
Websites always need tweaking and they're never truly finished.
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Back to the original theme of what's holding me back... I've been thinking about it more, and it really doesn't make a lot of sense to start a whole new site just to experiment with. It's just a waste of time to commit to something that I'm really not going to commit to. It doesn't make much sense to convert my current site to a Symbio site. It doesn't look like much of a functional upgrade from what I have. And if I was going to put in that effort, I'd probably spend money/time on a custom built site that does everything I want. That seems to be the most logical 2.0 MyStockVectors (or is it 3.0?).
The only thing I really see as missing would be the community and networking. That seems to be the real value. So, I guess my question would be, what about a Symbio plugin for us outsiders? I'm not sure how that would work, but I figured it would be worth bringing up.
I can see the sense in keeping an existing site that is working well for you. But what is stopping you from creating a Symbiostock site that would function as just a portal to bring more views and hopefully buyers to your existing site? You can set it up without the purchase option and just have each image link to the same image on your current site for purchases. That would give you the advantage of the linked network while retaining your current site functionality and SEO status.
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.
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Back to the original theme of what's holding me back... I've been thinking about it more, and it really doesn't make a lot of sense to start a whole new site just to experiment with. It's just a waste of time to commit to something that I'm really not going to commit to. It doesn't make much sense to convert my current site to a Symbio site. It doesn't look like much of a functional upgrade from what I have. And if I was going to put in that effort, I'd probably spend money/time on a custom built site that does everything I want. That seems to be the most logical 2.0 MyStockVectors (or is it 3.0?).
The only thing I really see as missing would be the community and networking. That seems to be the real value. So, I guess my question would be, what about a Symbio plugin for us outsiders? I'm not sure how that would work, but I figured it would be worth bringing up.
I can see the sense in keeping an existing site that is working well for you. But what is stopping you from creating a Symbiostock site that would function as just a portal to bring more views and hopefully buyers to your existing site? You can set it up without the purchase option and just have each image link to the same image on your current site for purchases. That would give you the advantage of the linked network while retaining your current site functionality and SEO status.
That's a decent idea. It still would be a huge undertaking to link every image. I'm not sure how I feel about creating an entire site full of links either.
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Back to the original theme of what's holding me back... I've been thinking about it more, and it really doesn't make a lot of sense to start a whole new site just to experiment with. It's just a waste of time to commit to something that I'm really not going to commit to. It doesn't make much sense to convert my current site to a Symbio site. It doesn't look like much of a functional upgrade from what I have. And if I was going to put in that effort, I'd probably spend money/time on a custom built site that does everything I want. That seems to be the most logical 2.0 MyStockVectors (or is it 3.0?).
The only thing I really see as missing would be the community and networking. That seems to be the real value. So, I guess my question would be, what about a Symbio plugin for us outsiders? I'm not sure how that would work, but I figured it would be worth bringing up.
I can see the sense in keeping an existing site that is working well for you. But what is stopping you from creating a Symbiostock site that would function as just a portal to bring more views and hopefully buyers to your existing site? You can set it up without the purchase option and just have each image link to the same image on your current site for purchases. That would give you the advantage of the linked network while retaining your current site functionality and SEO status.
That's a decent idea. It still would be a huge undertaking to link every image. I'm not sure how I feel about creating an entire site full of links either.
It does have it's pros and cons. Huge undertaking for sure and it does pull people away from the network once they are on your outside site, but by the same token your Symbiostock site could bring people to the network via Google searches. The linking I've seen was more limited, not the full site, using the Symbiostock site for most images but also showing some that were exclusive to Stocksy, linking there.
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iStock Exclusive is holding me back ;D
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.......
The only thing I really see as missing would be the community and networking. That seems to be the real value. So, I guess my question would be, what about a Symbio plugin for us outsiders? I'm not sure how that would work, but I figured it would be worth bringing up.
the networking requires that images be in the symbio database format to enable the global searches, etc. not sure how an outside site would be able to fit in - would probably be less work to set up the parallel symbio site for your other website
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iStock Exclusive is holding me back ;D
Could you not use symbiostock and Syxtra to send them to Istock to complete the sale?
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One of the earliest features in Symbiostock was the ability to create a site and link the images to the agencies for completing the sale
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.......
The only thing I really see as missing would be the community and networking. That seems to be the real value. So, I guess my question would be, what about a Symbio plugin for us outsiders? I'm not sure how that would work, but I figured it would be worth bringing up.
the networking requires that images be in the symbio database format to enable the global searches, etc. not sure how an outside site would be able to fit in - would probably be less work to set up the parallel symbio site for your other website
Thanks for the info. I guess I'll just continue on solo for now.
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It just seems so mindbogglingly complicated!!!! I know very little about ....all this....!
I see you say use Blue-something for the domain (can't remember precisely). About 7$ per month. Is that right or is there more? Are there other costs?
Amanda's blog looks fairly logical though I won't say simple (speaking as somebody who until very recently thought you just unzipped zipped files but recently discovered you can also extract them!).
Even if I get a site up and running, what are the chances of anybody finding me? I don't do FB, Twitter etc and have no real desire to do so.... SEO seems to be the key - is that right? Plus getting indexed on Google - which happens automatically - I think? But there are MILLIONS of images on Google - some for sale others for...well....just right-clicking!
I love the idea of moving away from some of the agencies who clearly only pursue their own interests...but am very much a small and un-tekky fish in this vast and complicated ocean.....
Am I panicking over nothing much?????
PS If I was a buyer - where would I go? Is there a Symbiostock homepage - when I Googled it, all I got was info for sellers...
Thanks for any comments in advance - I am quite tempted but need reassurance!!!!!!!!!!!
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It just seems so mindbogglingly complicated!!!! I know very little about ....all this....!
Nor did any of us a few months ago :)
I see you say use Blue-something for the domain (can't remember precisely). About 7$ per month. Is that right or is there more? Are there other costs?
The Taxman if you earn enough, there are some free and some paid-for add-ons (Leo and others have done a lot of work for free creating Symbiostock)
Amanda's blog looks fairly logical though I won't say simple (speaking as somebody who until very recently thought you just unzipped zipped files but recently discovered you can also extract them!).
Even if I get a site up and running, what are the chances of anybody finding me? I don't do FB, Twitter etc and have no real desire to do so.
Ditto but people have found me and bought images
... SEO seems to be the key - is that right? Plus getting indexed on Google - which happens automatically - I think? But there are MILLIONS of images on Google - some for sale others for...well....just right-clicking!
I love the idea of moving away from some of the agencies who clearly only pursue their own interests...but am very much a small and un-tekky fish in this vast and complicated ocean.....
Am I panicking over nothing much?????
Yes, SEO is a key to making our presence known on the web - but the free Yeost Wordpress SEO helps with that - just install it before you start loading any images, it is fairly self explanatory (must be, even I managed it and did not know what SEO actually meant before Symbiostock)
PS If I was a buyer - where would I go? Is there a Symbiostock homepage - when I Googled it, all I got was info for sellers...
Thanks for any comments in advance - I am quite tempted but need reassurance!!!!!!!!!!!
Every site is an individual entity - but linked to each other if owner chooses to do so. Some of us have FAQ and information pages for buyers - check out the links in my footer
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Thanks for that Christine - really helpful! Love the bit about SEO - I too had to look it up on Google!!!!!!
Will investigate more.
Thanks again!
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PS If I was a buyer - where would I go? Is there a Symbiostock homepage - when I Googled it, all I got was info for sellers...
Thanks for any comments in advance - I am quite tempted but need reassurance!!!!!!!!!!!
first, the many threads here are misleading about complexity -- most of the threads are about customizing the site which isn't necessary. the basic wordpress install really is 5 minutes; and the symbiostock install and setup is straightforward. it's up to you how much time to spend ion uploading images & SEO. this does assume you have some familiarity with websites in general
re the google search -- I just did google searches for 'symbiostock' and 'symbiostock search'and both gave several links to symbiostock.info and symbiostorck-search.com which are the global search sites; plus the FAQ and other linbks also link to those sites
however, most users will probably find individual sym sites thru google searches
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I actually found a link to one of my pages from Google Webmasters on the front page of Google doing a keyword search. I didn't get to the SEO on that file until today. So they are getting indexed and do show up in site searches...image searches on the other hand are taking some time...for me at least.
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Hi PZF,
I'm one of those who have posted here in frustration at times, ready to pull my hair out at times, and then... gotten great help every single time!
I have not studied computer programming a single day of my life. When I was in college eons ago, computers only existed in gigantic rooms at IBM and the very notion of a "desktop" or "laptop" computer would have produced dumb stares. But WordPress makes it pretty simple, as does Leo's theme and (if you choose to use it) Amanda's "Clean Theme" child.
And now, after working my way through the worst of the learning curve, you don't find me posting those hair-pulling-out messages any more. Rather, you actually might find me helping others as they make their way through things I've already figured out.
I'm one of those who have, as Cascoly said, customized my site way more than was necessary. It's just "me" to do that, and I'm happy with what I'm building. But you don't have to go through all that if you don't want to.
The $ cost is minimal. I'd say, be bold, give it a try, and see what you can do with it.
And remember: whatever you build is yours to keep.
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It just seems so mindbogglingly complicated!!!! I know very little about ....all this....!
One step at a time. You can look at Symbiostock as a training project to educate yourself how to build a Wordpress site on your own. While you're doing it, you're also publishing your own images on a 100% royalty commission network. That alone should be motivation enough :)
I see you say use Blue-something for the domain (can't remember precisely). About 7$ per month. Is that right or is there more? Are there other costs?
I am on Hostgator and I'm very happy with their performance (speed/reliability). BlueHost was recommended here on the forums and I did have a friend sign up there and regret it now. Bluehost is just slow. No idea if my friend's site is on a slow shared server but it's no fun browsing the portfolio there.
Even if I get a site up and running, what are the chances of anybody finding me? I don't do FB, Twitter etc and have no real desire to do so.... SEO seems to be the key - is that right? Plus getting indexed on Google - which happens automatically - I think? But there are MILLIONS of images on Google - some for sale others for...well....just right-clicking!
I don't even have a Facebook account. My Twitter account that I sometimes use, rarely drives any people to my site. Forget about social networks. You need organic traffic, which means you want only those people to come to your site who actually want to purchase a particular image. Google images will be your friend in all this.
Your site will be indexed automatically - don't worry.
When people do an images search on Google and see your image there (with watermark). They click on "Visit site" and have the option to purchase it right there. It's really cool. Don't worry about the "free" images on Google. The most important part is that your images (with watermark) are indexed and searchable. People who need exactly your image will be willing to pay for it anyway.
I love the idea of moving away from some of the agencies who clearly only pursue their own interests...but am very much a small and un-tekky fish in this vast and complicated ocean.....
Don't forget that there is a huge Wordpress community out there. It's open source - "everybody's doing it". You are not alone. Installing and setting up a Wordpress site is a relatively straight forward process. Most web hosting companies offer an installation wizard that walks you through the Wordpress installation in very few steps. No biggie. Again, if you run into trouble, just post your questions here and we will try to help!!!
Am I panicking over nothing much?????
Once you jump in you will understand what you were panicking over... it's less than nothing much ;)
PS If I was a buyer - where would I go? Is there a Symbiostock homepage - when I Googled it, all I got was info for sellers...
There are a few meta search engines for the Symbiostock network like:
www.symbiostock.info (http://www.symbiostock.info)
and
http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp (http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp)
Thanks for any comments in advance - I am quite tempted but need reassurance!!!!!!!!!!!
It's fun, try it out!
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@PZF
Try to take a look at the big picture.
Symbiostock is still a baby. However it is the most promising project the stock image industry has seen in the last ten years and it has the potential to resolve many of the problems stock contributors are suffering from these days.
With the direction most of the agencies are taking today - you have to try Symbiostock if you still want to reasonably sell stock images tomorrow.
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Ok, can someone explain what's the difference and benefit between SYS and other sites like PhotoShelter etc.
The question is very simple why SYS not PhotoShelter and why SYS is the most promising project.
Tks,
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Ok, can someone explain what's the difference and benefit between SYS and other sites like PhotoShelter etc.
The question is very simple why SYS not PhotoShelter and why SYS is the most promising project.
Tks,
With Photoshelter you're basically on your own. SYS is a network where members feature each other. Every participating member benefits from it.
Not even to mention that SEO is far more superior with SYS. Your images will actually be found.
And of course, SYS is free.
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If that's all thanks for the info.
Best,
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Ok, can someone explain what's the difference and benefit between SYS and other sites like PhotoShelter etc.
The question is very simple why SYS not PhotoShelter and why SYS is the most promising project.
Tks,
With Photoshelter you're basically on your own. SYS is a network where members feature each other. Every participating member benefits from it.
Not even to mention that SEO is far more superior with SYS. Your images will actually be found.
And of course, SYS is free.
I had a stockphoto site from one of the others for 2 years. Hardly had any hits at all. Within two months I have a MUCH higher Alexa rating than I ever had before plus my images are showing up on google search almost instantly. The SEO is MUCH better. Also like mentioned above it is a linked network. This one thing is HUGE. Instead of being on your own you are linked to every other site that has you individually or if not hopefully everyone realizes they should ALL link to symbiostock.info where a client can search the entire network while on your site! It is like having an single agency but with individual people. Hopefully this thing will bloom as it is what is sorely needed for the creative people behind the images.
This will not happen over night, but within a couple of years this may be a MAJOR way for independent people to make some serious income without being at the whim of some conglomerate. It all depends upon the artists at this point.
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The question is very simple why SYS not PhotoShelter and why SYS is the most promising project.
As a developer I certainly make no promises.
To skirt tons of details I'll just use one of my usual illustrations:
Right now Symbiostock is an unusually healthy little sprout growing in the dying desert garden of microstock. When the time is right, we're going to uproot this healthy little sprout and plant it in a rainforest of emerging markets having nothing to do with the overused, badly abused world of modern day stock photo. ;)
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Leo, you certainly have a very eloquent way of getting your thoughts across... :)
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I like thinking of myself as one little green shoot that ultimately will, together with all the other green SYS shoots, regenerate the dying microstock garden. Cool! 8)
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I sure (hope?) everyone realizes this is a group effort! The more we promote the Network the better it is for everyone including yourself. The problem before is everyone was their own little site with a few thousand images at most. If I were a client I would want a variety of images to choose from. Symbiostock will solve this problem. Everyone just needs to be sure to include the global search (symbiostock.info) as one of their network links. Currently there are many holes that need to be filled, but that will come with more and more artists signing on. As this grows and more artists hear of it more will sign creating the snowball effect.
The Network needs to attain a certain size (1,000,000 images and 1000 quality artists?) to be truly viable and to become a destination where clients will go to find their images they need. It will take time but it is the first site I have ever seen where this is a distinct possibility. The snowball effect is slow to start but hard to stop once it gets going. It may just be the game changer we have all been looking for. I'm sure the agencies are already aware of Symbiostock but currently are not too concerned. I wonder how that will change in a few years. Just my meager .02˘
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I sure (hope?) everyone realizes this is a group effort! The more we promote the Network the better it is for everyone including yourself. The problem before is everyone was their own little site with a few thousand images at most. If I were a client I would want a variety of images to choose from. Symbiostock will solve this problem. Everyone just needs to be sure to include the global search (symbiostock.info) as one of their network links. Currently there are many holes that need to be filled, but that will come with more and more artists signing on. As this grows and more artists hear of it more will sign creating the snowball effect.
The Network needs to attain a certain size (1,000,000 images and 1000 quality artists?) to be truly viable and to become a destination where clients will go to find their images they need. It will take time but it is the first site I have ever seen where this is a distinct possibility. The snowball effect is slow to start but hard to stop once it gets going. It may just be the game changer we have all been looking for. I'm sure the agencies are already aware of Symbiostock but currently are not too concerned. I wonder how that will change in a few years. Just my meager .02˘
Great post !
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Very interesting! Didn't realize what exactly Symbos. Was, I will have to check it out :)
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We are having our BME on Symbiostock. Our micro income is on target for WMY.
If that doesn't persuade you, I don't know what will :)
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Cool
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I am new in this forum (Hello all!) and quite new to the industry of micro stock - lucky to have sold a few mainly on Shutterstock since June with a tiny portfolio of 150 images with mostly landscape and nature images.
The Symbiostock project I find so interesting that I wanted to try. I downloaded and installed the theme and child. Followed along the instructions and searched around the forum to advance in the process and most things worked logically.
Then I got stuck with a problem when I tried to upload the first trial image - the image uploaded but didn't exist anywhere from within. I had to give up at that point. Too much work and learning curve and too little time for now.
I'm keeping an eye on the progress though ;)
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I am new in this forum (Hello all!) and quite new to the industry of micro stock - lucky to have sold a few mainly on Shutterstock since June with a tiny portfolio of 150 images with mostly landscape and nature images.
The Symbiostock project I find so interesting that I wanted to try. I downloaded and installed the theme and child. Followed along the instructions and searched around the forum to advance in the process and most things worked logically.
Then I got stuck with a problem when I tried to upload the first trial image - the image uploaded but didn't exist anywhere from within. I had to give up at that point. Too much work and learning curve and too little time for now.
I'm keeping an eye on the progress though ;)
You should have just asked for help/advice instead of giving up. That's what this forum is for.
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We are having our BME on Symbiostock. Our micro income is on target for WMY.
If that doesn't persuade you, I don't know what will :)
Numbers? :)
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I am new in this forum (Hello all!) and quite new to the industry of micro stock - lucky to have sold a few mainly on Shutterstock since June with a tiny portfolio of 150 images with mostly landscape and nature images.
The Symbiostock project I find so interesting that I wanted to try. I downloaded and installed the theme and child. Followed along the instructions and searched around the forum to advance in the process and most things worked logically.
Then I got stuck with a problem when I tried to upload the first trial image - the image uploaded but didn't exist anywhere from within. I had to give up at that point. Too much work and learning curve and too little time for now.
I'm keeping an eye on the progress though ;)
You should have just asked for help/advice instead of giving up. That's what this forum is for.
I know, I know, there just wasn't enough time left. I may get on it again soon.
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We are having our BME on Symbiostock. Our micro income is on target for WMY.
If that doesn't persuade you, I don't know what will :)
Numbers? :)
I won't disclose any numbers but I will tell you that my SY site is right behind "Envato" on poll results..
bigstock and canstock are on par with symbiostock.. any sites below that are less than SY..
(apart from clipartof of course.. it is top tier for me)
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We are having our BME on Symbiostock. Our micro income is on target for WMY.
If that doesn't persuade you, I don't know what will :)
Numbers? :)
I won't disclose any numbers but I will tell you that my SY site is right behind "Envato" on poll results..
bigstock and canstock are on par with symbiostock.. any sites below that are less than SY..
(apart from clipartof of course.. it is top tier for me)
Really, you wont even say how many images total you have sold?
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We are having our BME on Symbiostock. Our micro income is on target for WMY.
If that doesn't persuade you, I don't know what will :)
Numbers? :)
I won't disclose any numbers but I will tell you that my SY site is right behind "Envato" on poll results..
bigstock and canstock are on par with symbiostock.. any sites below that are less than SY..
(apart from clipartof of course.. it is top tier for me)
Really, you wont even say how many images total you have sold?
that is disclosing the amount and I don't like talking about what I earn.. I also know a few people doing much better..
I am not sure how much of it could be attributed to symbiostock.. because my domain is 7 years old and I did have people buying from it even before symbiostock as I used another WP theme to sell.. but what I can say is that symbiostock increased the sales..
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I didnt mean the dollar amount you made. I meant, for instance, "i have sold three images directly from my symbiostock account in the past month." Or whatever. I am not asking anyones personal income. I am trying to determine how effective having a SY site is.
If you cant attribute your sales to the SY site directly (what, google analytics cant do that?) then i guess its irrelevant. I cant believe i am the only one asking these questions. Or maybe i am the only one not getting any answers. :(
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I am new in this forum (Hello all!) and quite new to the industry of micro stock - lucky to have sold a few mainly on Shutterstock since June with a tiny portfolio of 150 images with mostly landscape and nature images.
The Symbiostock project I find so interesting that I wanted to try. I downloaded and installed the theme and child. Followed along the instructions and searched around the forum to advance in the process and most things worked logically.
Then I got stuck with a problem when I tried to upload the first trial image - the image uploaded but didn't exist anywhere from within. I had to give up at that point. Too much work and learning curve and too little time for now.
I'm keeping an eye on the progress though ;)
On the left hand side did you go to the "Lady Bug" Stock Images and click on Process Uploads?
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@DonLand: yes I did. Finally made the upload and then everything looked as if that was ok. Just that the image couldn't be seen from within or on the actual webpage. I am going to do it over on another site so I'll be back for sure:-)
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Just to say thanks to all who answered my post. Really great! Will go and have another look!
:)
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@DonLand: yes I did. Finally made the upload and then everything looked as if that was ok. Just that the image couldn't be seen from within or on the actual webpage. I am going to do it over on another site so I'll be back for sure:-)
Once you've uploaded your image and can see it in the "All Images" group, you still have to process it into a photo-related page and assign that page to a category (or more). Did you do that?
It's actually quite easy. Be gentle on yourself and try it again.
EDIT: What I described above as "process it" means to fill in the title, URL, descriptions **preferably using Yoast as your guide from the beginning**, assign it to a category or two, then click PUBLISH.
Only then will you be able to see your photo on an actual web page.
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@DonLand: yes I did. Finally made the upload and then everything looked as if that was ok. Just that the image couldn't be seen from within or on the actual webpage. I am going to do it over on another site so I'll be back for sure:-)
Once you've uploaded your image and can see it in the "All Images" group, you still have to process it into a photo-related page and assign that page to a category (or more). Did you do that?
It's actually quite easy. Be gentle on yourself and try it again.
EDIT: What I described above as "process it" means to fill in the title, URL, descriptions **preferably using Yoast as your guide from the beginning**, assign it to a category or two, then click PUBLISH.
Only then will you be able to see your photo on an actual web page.
even better is to have entered title, desc & keywords to the image itself before uploading using an iptc/exif editor. then when you upload & process you can immediately publish all images, and later tweak for SEO
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Thanks. I had all the keywords, title, description in the file from Lightroom. The only problem seems to be that it won't show the image. It doesn't create the thumb/watermarked image and put it in the right file for some reason.
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I do like the sound of Symbiostock but every time I brace myself to look at it - the complexity (all these pages of incomprehensible questions and equally incomprehensible answers!), the technical stuff, networking (because without a network how will anybody find me?), and marketing, sorting legal contracts, pricing, paying for hosting and backup, SEO - my eyes and brain just glaze over.....
I see some amazing sites there and I wouldn't be surprised if people are doing well with fab ports, specialized niches etc. So the 5th place on the right may have some reality.
But a very average microstocker? Anybody out there - modesty aside - who fits that bill doing anything much in the way of sales???? Ideally over 35 - as youngsters seem to take in all this IT stuff with their mother's milk!
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I wouldn't expect it to be too challenging technically but there does seem to be a bit of work involved and, even if it generated the same money as all my MS sites put together, probably wouldn't be worth it.
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I think the question is best answered by someone who does have a sys site
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I think the question is best answered by someone who does have a sys site
How is someone with a sys site best placed to answer "What's holding you back from joining Symbiostock?" ?
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The only person who can answer the question of whether running your own site is worth it or not, is you.
Each individual has to decide for themselves.
Like everything you do in life your mileage will vary.
Is everyone getting sales - no.
Is everyone who has had sales getting regular sales - no.
But some are.
You have to consider this has only been going on for a few months.
I look at this as I'm in it for the long haul.
I bought / prepaid for my domain and hosting plan for a few years.
I didn't and don't expect immediate miracles.
Symbiostock sties will never challenge the top agencies.
But what you can do is get traffic away from sites where you may reach payout every few months.
If you can take a few sales away from the low earners every month there's your win.
You can't challenge the Subscription sites - (and to think they are worried about us taking away their customers is absurd).
Our market is the individual buyers - people who don't want to pay $199 for 750 images they will never use.
Or even $49 for 5 images - when they are only looking for one image.
Frankly having had no code background (the only web site I had ever built before was with MS FrontPage)
I went into this with a lot of trepidation but actually found it a lot easier than I thought.
I haven't done a lot of customization but I think what I have done is good yet simple and has gotten me a few sales.
For those without a lot of web building experience I suggest keeping it simple and follow the instructions in the tutorials.
That's all I did and it works. And honestly I thought it was going to take longer to get set up.
My simple site works with few issues overall.
I do have one small glitch currently but nothing that stops me or the site from functioning.
Is any site glitch-less? iStock, SS, DT, FT - Check their forums there's usually quite a list of issues.
Overall I didn't think the cost of hosting and subsequent paid add-ons were that unreasonable.
And I have learned quite a bit about WordPress, Code and SEO and Web Design.
If you are on the fence about building your own site - wait and see.
If in a year or so you find the network is in disarray and people are dumping their sites, then you were wise to sit on the sidelines.
Then again if in a year most of us are finding things are improving you will be a year behind on joining and getting it set up.
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Also a note - I'm working on the final version of Symbiostock which is fully customizable LIVE (that is, you can see the changes you do as a What You See is What You Get - WYSIWYG - setting).
http://www.clipartillustration.com/ (http://www.clipartillustration.com/)
http://www.atstockillustration.com/ (http://www.atstockillustration.com/)
http://semmickphoto.com/ (http://semmickphoto.com/)
As different as they look they are simply adjusted via customizer options - they do not require you make a child theme (no CSS or technical experience needed)
Soon after this latest version is officially out, Symbiostock is going to take a LONG rest from development.
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I do like the sound of Symbiostock but every time I brace myself to look at it - the complexity (all these pages of incomprehensible questions and equally incomprehensible answers!), the technical stuff, networking (because without a network how will anybody find me?), and marketing, sorting legal contracts, pricing, paying for hosting and backup, SEO - my eyes and brain just glaze over.....
I see some amazing sites there and I wouldn't be surprised if people are doing well with fab ports, specialized niches etc. So the 5th place on the right may have some reality.
But a very average microstocker? Anybody out there - modesty aside - who fits that bill doing anything much in the way of sales???? Ideally over 35 - as youngsters seem to take in all this IT stuff with their mother's milk!
2 very different considerations
1. the vast majority of postings here in msg were involved in the initial release and the ongoing symbiotic work of testers to improve the product -- someone wishing to install and use the theme doesn't need to read or even know about most of that -- just install wp and then install the sym theme and you have a working sales platform, linked to 100 other sellers
2. avg microstocker not necessarily age related -- I go on medicare next week -- other 20 somethings are clueless about coding. the strength of symbiostock is it doesn't REQUIRE any coding knowledge -- but does need enough web familiarity to install a wordpress site and add a theme - something just about anyone can learn to do quickly. and if you don't care to take that path, you can have someone install it for you, and then just upload your images -- something no more complicated than most stock submissions
so, the technical aspects really aren't a concern - it's whether you want to try to sell your work from your own site or just use agencies; that's a personal decision and there's no right answer
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2. avg microstocker not necessarily age related -- I go on medicare next week --
I'm gonna jump in here with a strong "Amen!" to that statement. I'm already 2 years past Medicare age (ie, 67). And even with no formal computer training whatsoever I've managed to set up my very own Symbiostock site (http://bestnaturestock.com/ (http://bestnaturestock.com/)), which I happen to be very proud of at this point.
I struggled with setting it up at first, very publicly in this forum, but most of my problems came from not knowing how to do specialized things like create a watermark in Photoshop or process images with SEO in mind. The help provided here last summer (and now on the dedicated SYS forum http://www.symbiostock.org (http://www.symbiostock.org)) has been tremendous. I solved both those problems and others, and now they're behind me.
I've customized and polished the site up a lot already and will continue to do so. How fun to be able to offer my newest images as "exclusives" on my own website.
Don't be afraid to jump in, folks. The water's fine. And don't let anybody tell you you're "too old" to do something wonderful for yourself, like this. Ain't true.
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I think the question is best answered by someone who does have a sys site
How is someone with a sys site best placed to answer "What's holding you back from joining Symbiostock?" ?
I thought you were replying to the comment above yours. If you were replying to the OP, you are indeed correct.
I do think that if someone asks if its worth starting up a symbiostock site and how much work it really is, its best answered by someone who does have a symbiocstock site.
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Yes, I really am interested in the reality of it - the idea is great! But the time involved etc etc etc......and the return!
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Thanks. I had all the keywords, title, description in the file from Lightroom. The only problem seems to be that it won't show the image. It doesn't create the thumb/watermarked image and put it in the right file for some reason.
This sounds like the problem I had with SY. Starting in September, new uploads failed to produce preview (watermarked) images. Had a lot of people tell me, "It must have been something you did." So far you are the third person to report this problem that I know of, and it has never been addressed. Best of luck trouble shooting the problem.
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Not sure it will ever be addressed because there is already another newer version out, 2.7.2 I think it is. Maybe you want to give it a try, but there is a warning that it will hose up your widgets and some other stuff when you update. Might fix the uploading problem.
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I guarantee that the incompatibility is being caused by something Bluehost did in the background. I've tried all of the different PHP options, Imagick, and Magicwand, but the problem remains. If anyone is on the fence with SY, I think it is realistic to believe they will need skills in host configuration to fix issues when they arise. This is a plug-and-play theme, until it isn't. Provided photographers feel comfortable editing their server configuration files, I think SY is a theme worth pursuing. If they don't feel comfortable, then they are probably better off with a Photoshelter, Photodeck, Smugmug, etc.
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I guarantee that the incompatibility is being caused by something Bluehost did in the background.
With all of the issues that are cropping up related to BlueHost, I'm surprised that it is still the recommended host for Symbiostock.
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Add me to the list of those who've had problems with Bluehost. BUT... every time I've called their techs, the problems have been solved on the spot. Quickly and without question. I'm still happy with both SYS and BH.
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Add me to the list of those who've had problems with Bluehost. BUT... every time I've called their techs, the problems have been solved on the spot. Quickly and without question. I'm still happy with both SYS and BH.
That's good to know. But only if you can identify the problem that BH needs to solve. In my case, SY will no longer generate Image Previews. If I call BH, they are going to tell me that the problem is the theme. That's why I say that if you want to take the SY path, you had better be pretty sharp with editing host configuration files and identifying potential issues. Otherwise you are going to be lost.
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Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
Definitely extremely complicated bureaucracy/legislation/tax requirements that must be meet if someone wants to sell virtual goods directly from his own online store.
(At least from where I am based. Slovakia, European Union.)
I mean those requirements are REALLY complicated.
Most of you probably cannot even imagine – not even in your wildest dreams – how can be some of those legislation requirements complicated here!
In contrast selling through stock agencies is relatively easy from point of view of bureaucracy/legislation/tax requirements, because those complicated/problematic parts of business are left on stock agency.
You don't sell goods with symbiostock, but licences. So you have to look at author law. I'm from Slovakia too and as I know this should be the "passive" income according to the law. And it's the same income as you get from other microstock agencies, so use the same way as you pay taxes from that.
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I guarantee that the incompatibility is being caused by something Bluehost did in the background. I've tried all of the different PHP options, Imagick, and Magicwand, but the problem remains. If anyone is on the fence with SY, I think it is realistic to believe they will need skills in host configuration to fix issues when they arise. This is a plug-and-play theme, until it isn't. Provided photographers feel comfortable editing their server configuration files, I think SY is a theme worth pursuing. If they don't feel comfortable, then they are probably better off with a Photoshelter, Photodeck, Smugmug, etc.
im on justhost and haven't had to do anything on the serverside.
a major factor of sym over smugmug is that you get images indexed by google -- my smugmug images are still only about 10% indexed, at best, where sym (using many of those same images) is running 70-80% indexed
another factor is that with smugmug you don't have direct access to your images (altho you can download them in batches). with sym you have complete access
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I guarantee that the incompatibility is being caused by something Bluehost did in the background. I've tried all of the different PHP options, Imagick, and Magicwand, but the problem remains. If anyone is on the fence with SY, I think it is realistic to believe they will need skills in host configuration to fix issues when they arise. This is a plug-and-play theme, until it isn't. Provided photographers feel comfortable editing their server configuration files, I think SY is a theme worth pursuing. If they don't feel comfortable, then they are probably better off with a Photoshelter, Photodeck, Smugmug, etc.
I am on bluehost and haven't had the issues you are talking about. The only thing I changed was the limits in the php.ini file. I havent been able to upload files larger than 10mb, but thats a different issue. You did mention you use Lightroom and I don't. Could that have anything to do with it? Just throwing it out there.
But I do have to agree that the SY theme requires a person to know more about server config files, along with php, HTML, CSS and developing. I think those that are comfortable working in those environments will do well with SY.
As far as bluehost, I am knocking on wood. Others have had their php versions changed from 5.3 to 5.4 with no prior notice. I have yet to wake up to that little piece of heaven. ::)
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But I do have to agree that the SY theme requires a person to know more about server config files, along with php, HTML, CSS and developing. I think those that are comfortable working in those environments will do well with SY.
You neednt know any of that. I dont know ANY of that stuff, and the site works perfectly. Yes, also before 2.7.x, since you like to bring that up.
Only if you want to completely rebuild your site you need to know stuff. But thats not what Symbiostock is supposed to be. It works fine straight from the box.
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I guarantee that the incompatibility is being caused by something Bluehost did in the background. I've tried all of the different PHP options, Imagick, and Magicwand, but the problem remains. If anyone is on the fence with SY, I think it is realistic to believe they will need skills in host configuration to fix issues when they arise. This is a plug-and-play theme, until it isn't. Provided photographers feel comfortable editing their server configuration files, I think SY is a theme worth pursuing. If they don't feel comfortable, then they are probably better off with a Photoshelter, Photodeck, Smugmug, etc.
im on justhost and haven't had to do anything on the serverside.
a major factor of sym over smugmug is that you get images indexed by google -- my smugmug images are still only about 10% indexed, at best, where sym (using many of those same images) is running 70-80% indexed
another factor is that with smugmug you don't have direct access to your images (altho you can download them in batches). with sym you have complete access
I can download individual images from my SmugMug acct anytime, all day long.
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a major factor of sym over smugmug is that you get images indexed by google -- my smugmug images are still only about 10% indexed, at best, where sym (using many of those same images) is running 70-80% indexed
another factor is that with smugmug you don't have direct access to your images (altho you can download them in batches). with sym you have complete access
I can download individual images from my SmugMug acct anytime, all day long.
I wasn't referring to single images.... but 'all day long' is exactly the problem I want to avoid!
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But I do have to agree that the SY theme requires a person to know more about server config files, along with php, HTML, CSS and developing. I think those that are comfortable working in those environments will do well with SY.
You neednt know any of that. I dont know ANY of that stuff, and the site works perfectly. Yes, also before 2.7.x, since you like to bring that up.
Only if you want to completely rebuild your site you need to know stuff. But thats not what Symbiostock is supposed to be. It works fine straight from the box.
I agree, Ron. I'm another one who has no clue about CSS, php, etc. I can handle HTML at a basic level.
Yet I've managed to build a nice SYS site that shows my work off quite well. On the few occasions where I've had a problem I couldn't solve on my own, others in this group have gone the extra mile to help. (Special thanks again, Mark!)
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Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and mine is that I wanted my site styled a little different than the out-of-the-box SY. I had lots of help, too, including from both Ron and Martha. I would also like to think that I helped them at one point or another. ;)
I didnt rebuild my whole site either, but I wanted some things to match my logo colors. That required editing CSS. I wanted my images to show in the order that I uploaded them in, and to do that I had to go into a php file and make changes. You did the same, Ron. There were several other tweaks I made to php pages, because the out-of-the-box SY was not correct. It certainly helps if you are comfortable with those types of edits, and my opinion is that people who know that stuff will have a much easier time than people that don't.
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Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and mine is that I wanted my site styled a little different than the out-of-the-box SY. I had lots of help, too, including from both Ron and Martha. I would also like to think that I helped them at one point or another.
Yep, Cathy, you definitely helped me a lot at key stages in the process. Far more than I ever helped you, I'm afraid, because I'm not CSS and php savvy.
Good points!
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"I haven't had any problems yet, so I don't need to understand PHP and editing host configuration files." Hmmm.
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But thats not what Symbiostock is supposed to be. It works fine straight from the box.
There are no less than 3 members on this board claiming that SY won't generate preview images out of the box. You can take that information, or leave it.
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But thats not what Symbiostock is supposed to be. It works fine straight from the box.
There are no less than 3 members on this board claiming that SY won't generate preview images out of the box. You can take that information, or leave it.
Or you can look at different factors causing issues with Symbiostock, instead of Symbiostock being the problem.
If it works for me, why wouldnt it work for you? I have seen to many times people blaming Symbiostock being the problem and it turned out it was something else.
I dont know what your problem is with the previews, but it could be caused by 1001 things not related to Symbiostock. Have you sent a PM to Leo and ask him to check it out for you 1:1? I am sure if Leo looked at it he can find the problem.
And in the end, it might as well be a Symbiostock issue, but why we dont see 115 sites with this problem is due to that everyone has a different set up, different host, different widgets, different plugins, different you name it.
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But thats not what Symbiostock is supposed to be. It works fine straight from the box.
There are no less than 3 members on this board claiming that SY won't generate preview images out of the box. You can take that information, or leave it.
Or you can look at different factors causing issues with Symbiostock, instead of Symbiostock being the problem.
If it works for me, why wouldnt it work for you? I have seen to many times people blaming Symbiostock being the problem and it turned out it was something else.
I dont know what your problem is with the previews, but it could be caused by 1001 things not related to Symbiostock. Have you sent a PM to Leo and ask him to check it out for you 1:1? I am sure if Leo looked at it he can find the problem.
And in the end, it might as well be a Symbiostock issue, but why we dont see 115 sites with this problem is due to that everyone has a different set up, different host, different widgets, different plugins, different you name it.
You responded to my claim above that people would need to understand how to configure their hosts by saying that nobody needs to, and you haven't had any issues. I don't see any consistency with your two responses. Either people need to understand how to do background editing and troubleshooting with their hosts, or they don't. Pick one.
Look, if I write a game for Windows, and it turns out that it works fine for 97% of the machines running it but it crashes on 3% because they have different memory, different motherboards, different competing apps, etc., I can't just point at the 3% and say "It must be something you did." You are going to run into a lot of different host configurations. It's up to the Theme creator of any Wordpress Theme to be as compatible as they can be.
I run Suffusion on 2 blogs that I manage, on separate hosts. It's an incredibly customizable, deep theme with more options than you can dream of using. It's very stable. If you look at the reviews, yes, you will find a few people who claim it doesn't work. But that is out of thousands and thousands of responses. That is what you shoot for as a theme creator - not 100% compatibility, but darn close. I've never read anyone say that Suffusion won't work under a certain host, or that it quit because their host PHP version changed, etc. Nor have I ever read that someone needed to edit the PHP.ini or turn widgets on and off to get the theme to function.
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There are no less than 3 members on this board claiming that SY won't generate preview images out of the box. You can take that information, or leave it.
Which means there must be about 112 SYS site owners who have no problems generating preview images out of the box.
Who ya' gonna trust?
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There are no less than 3 members on this board claiming that SY won't generate preview images out of the box. You can take that information, or leave it.
Which means there must be about 112 SYS site owners who have no problems generating preview images out of the box.
Who ya' gonna trust?
Seriously, Is that your response? You will do wonderful in customer support, if this photography thing ever gets boring for you. And by the way, I trust my own observations. I have a clean SY theme, very few widgets, running on Bluehost. September rolled around and Image Previews stopped working at 2.6.5. I have several years of PHP experience, and over 25 years in computer programming. I know my way around, and I can recognize a real problem when I see one.
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So everyone who has a website needs to know web development?
Lightroom 5 had a bug with the overlay crop, maybe I need to get some programming skills as well then and fix Lightroom.
Anyhoo, I still say, contact Leo, and ask if he wants to look at it.
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So everyone who has a website needs to know web development?
Nope. Only those who use themes which might, at times, require them to edit INI files, work with their hosts to solve problems, etc. Nice try though.
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So everyone who has a website needs to know web development?
Nope. Only those who use themes which might, at times, require them to edit INI files, work with their hosts to solve problems, etc. Nice try though.
Dan, I am not trying anything.
I dont have any web development skills and I fair nicely. You have made up your mind, and I am not changing mine. Fair enough.
I was happy when you joined the Symbiostock network, I thought you were a very good member to have amongst us. I am sorry it all went south for you. I wish I could help you, but I cant. I think Leo is you best shot.
I do hope you get it resolved one way or another and that you reconsider coming aboard.
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Seriously, Is that your response? You will do wonderful in customer support, if this photography thing ever gets boring for you.
Well, DP, let's just say that I have no intention of going into customer support. Much too old for a new career at this point.
This "photography thing" hasn't gotten boring to me in over 30 years, so I kinda doubt it's gonna happen now.
Nice try, though.
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Yes Ron, I get it. You haven't had any issues. Therefor you don't need to know how to edit or troubleshoot. Good luck if something goes wrong.
As far as being on board, I am already on board. I bought a 3 year agreement with Bluehost on the day I installed SY, and I have written over 50 blog posts with several promoting the network. I don't see too many others making the same commitment. Unfortunately, even the posts themselves are a mess. As I have previously stated, the blog page of posts does not work and Leo has acknowledged that it does not work. You know what happens when Google sees a page of posts with 50+ entries? It probably vomits, because it can't make heads or tails as to what the page is about.
There are several issues, and unfortunately the latest incompatibility, whether it be caused by Bluehost, SY, or whatever, has rendered my site crippled. Now instead of my new images going to my own site, my site is the only place that new images don't go to. Good thing there are only 2.5 years left in my agreement or I'd feel like I wasted my money.
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So people want to know personal experiences with Symbiostock. Here is mine.
A week or two ago I decided it was time to investigate further. I’m not one to take people’s word for what they know nothing about. Any bitchin’ and complainin’ didn’t scare me off once I saw the potential in it. I asked some questions (right here on Microstock Group actually), I got some good answers, and I took the plunge. I didn’t land in anything more than shallow, lukewarm water.
Is it hard to set up? No. It’s not! I did go with Bluehost not because I have shares in the company. I did it to minimise complications on things I know very little about. Before my site I only knew that WordPress should be spelt with two words :D
After setting my site up I STILL don’t know much about PHP and I even did a 2 day course years back. Am I brave? No, not really. I just played it on the safe side, went with the recommendations and to my surprise... one click setups did a lot of the work for me. I knew that Leo had knowledge about Bluehost and if there were any problems, I could turn to those that knew more than me, which at that point was everyone!
I am also running the beta version of Symbiostock. Shock! Horror! I’m lazy! I didn’t want to redo my thingamawidgets and bobs when the beta went live! I understand if you WON’T stand up at the front of the row to get your beta testing badge but there is a stable version you can play safe with.
Shortly this Beta version will in fact be the “Final” version. Are there bugs with the Beta version? Yip! They are relatively small in my opinion. I’ve worked with Leo to squish some of them as have other members.
I can’t tell you about sales as I’m only now ready to launch. I can tell you that 2 days after I registered with Bluehost, my domain was indexed with Google (much to my shock by not being ready and pleasant surprise) on the second page when I typed “Stock Image”. Within 2 or 3 days 2 or 3 strangers found the site and registered.
Selling Stock is more about promotion and choosing the right domains and making sure you get indexed. It might sound a little harsh but if you don’t make some sales through a setup like Symbiostock then the fault lies elsewhere. High prices, low visibility, Meta Tags not done adequately, etc.
You don’t need to be a web developer to open up a Symbiostock site. You just need a little faith in your abilities as an artist. I’m there now and when I do know the answer to something, I’ll provide it.
This is what you can set up with minimal knowledge after 5 days… http://stockyimage.com/ (http://stockyimage.com/)
I only have images on the site that are currently available on iAgencies. The rest will take time. Your site will be as successful as the amount of faith and effort you put into it. There is a forum and we all help each other there.
Leo has a great setup help page that guides you step by step. The rest just ask in the forum! I did!
Hope this helps. I’m tired of the Bash the Symbio over the head. It might not be for everyone but I personally think it is a great platform that will go places. Set your destination.
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I’m tired of the Bash the Symbio over the head.
That seems a disingenuous description of identifying a potential bug or incompatibility. My site worked pretty well for about four months before I ran into BH or SY issues. I'm hardly bashing. Honestly I don't see anyone on MSG bashing this theme.
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I think SY has great potential and is a great alternative to the agencies. Said it before and will say it again.
But just because things go smoothly for one person, you cant make a blanket statement and say that everything is coming up roses for everyone. Its simply not true. People are being called names because they disagree and share their tales of problems.
Right now my site is running smoothly, but there are still some things that dont work correctly. Not because plugins are conflicting, or my host has messed things up, or because i have tinkered with code and screwed things up. They dont work because they havent worked since 2.6.5 was released. Things like twitter not posting when it should. I had nothing to do with writing the code. It has a bug or a conflict or whatever other whitewashed name you want to give it, but it's broken.
To represent the product fairly, no one person can say definitively that SY is easy. Everybodys experience is going to be different.
Let the arguments continue... :-)
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I can definitely say Symbiostock is easy.
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I can definitely say Symbiostock is easy.
:-) you're so funny!
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So people want to know personal experiences with Symbiostock. Here is mine...
I'm happy to say: "Very nice job, Jo, and welcome to the network!"
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My experience so far is that I'm really amazed at the amount of work that's been done by so many people to get Symbiostock up and running and user-friendly.
I was surprised to find step-by-step instructions, which, when I followed them (I didn't always, and that's when I grew frustrated) were clear and easy to implement.
I was surprised that someone took the time to set up templates you could download to create your logo, header, etc., which made designing all that stuff to fit perfectly so much easier.
I was surprised how helpful people on the forums were...my questions were answered VERY quickly. And how they much they were willing to share/help. I kind of had this idea that I'd be struggling to figure things out on my own, which was very far from the truth.
I'm purposely keeping my site very simple, so the vast majority of time I've put into it has been spent designing a slideshow and my logo and writing copy, but most of all, uploading.
I sort of look at it as being slightly more involved at the beginning than submitting to a new micro agency, where there's a learning curve about the upload process, what inspectors like, what keywords they accept, how long you wait for files to be approved, etc.
I'm planning to launch Monday with about 10% of my portfolio—with a little advertising blitz, thanks to the $50 in free Facebook advertising that comes with hosting the site on Bluehost. And I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.
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Well, SYS isn't perfect (yet ;)). For me, however, it is absolutely stunning to see how far Leo and the SYS community have pushed this wordpress theme in just half a year. It is working for most people even without previous experience in wordpress and/or web hosting and/or knowledge of php css etc. Development and bug fixing still goes on at rapid pace. There is an active bunch of helpful people over at http://www.symbiostock.org/ (http://www.symbiostock.org/) that bend over backwards to assist you when things get rough. IMHO there's nothing left to ask for. Remember: The SYS theme is free!.
IMHO SYS is the best personal image sales platform on the market (I've tried Photoshelter, Zenfolio and CMSaccount), it's generating traffic and sales through its SEO and networking features, which are superior to all other available options and on top of it its free.
That being said, it is still a tough personal decision if the amount of time required to set up your own site is worth it (saleswise or otherwise).
My 2 cents
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I’m tired of the Bash the Symbio over the head.
That seems a disingenuous description of identifying a potential bug or incompatibility. My site worked pretty well for about four months before I ran into BH or SY issues. I'm hardly bashing. Honestly I don't see anyone on MSG bashing this theme.
I was reminded when I saw your little football player avatar. If you want me to look at the issues you've noted on your site please let me know. I'm fixing all the remaining issues for the final 2.7-2.8 release. Just mention them on www.symbiostock.org (http://www.symbiostock.org) so I don't lose track: http://www.symbiostock.org/topic/13/remaining-symbiostock-cleanup-suggestions/ (http://www.symbiostock.org/topic/13/remaining-symbiostock-cleanup-suggestions/)
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I’m tired of the Bash the Symbio over the head.
That seems a disingenuous description of identifying a potential bug or incompatibility. My site worked pretty well for about four months before I ran into BH or SY issues. I'm hardly bashing. Honestly I don't see anyone on MSG bashing this theme.
My apologies if it appeared I was singling you out. It was not my intention.
...
But just because things go smoothly for one person, you cant make a blanket statement and say that everything is coming up roses for everyone. Its simply not true. People are being called names because they disagree and share their tales of problems.
Let the arguments continue... :-)
I was talking about my personal experience. I mentioned that right at the start of my post. I do not speak for anyone else. Experience is subjective and so is our interpretation.
I did say however, that where I did encounter a few problems — and some of them were my own fault — there was help on hand.
There is little to be gained by arguing. There is lots to be gained by sharing experience and knowledge.
So people want to know personal experiences with Symbiostock. Here is mine...
I'm happy to say: "Very nice job, Jo, and welcome to the network!"
Thank you very much!
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I’m tired of the Bash the Symbio over the head.
That seems a disingenuous description of identifying a potential bug or incompatibility. My site worked pretty well for about four months before I ran into BH or SY issues. I'm hardly bashing. Honestly I don't see anyone on MSG bashing this theme.
My apologies if it appeared I was singling you out. It was not my intention.
Fair enough. Could you please provide an example on MSG where members are bashing Symbiostock?
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I’m tired of the Bash the Symbio over the head.
That seems a disingenuous description of identifying a potential bug or incompatibility. My site worked pretty well for about four months before I ran into BH or SY issues. I'm hardly bashing. Honestly I don't see anyone on MSG bashing this theme.
My apologies if it appeared I was singling you out. It was not my intention.
Fair enough. Could you please provide an example on MSG where members are bashing Symbiostock?
In all fairness "Bashing" needs a definition.
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one of my favorite words (from long ago gaming days)
A bashi-bazouk or bashibazouk (Turkish başıbozuk, or delibaş, literally "damaged head", meaning "free headed", "leaderless", "disorderly") was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army. They were particularly noted for their lack of discipline. (wiki)
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one of my favorite words (from long ago gaming days)
A bashi-bazouk or bashibazouk (Turkish başıbozuk, or delibaş, literally "damaged head", meaning "free headed", "leaderless", "disorderly") was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army. They were particularly noted for their lack of discipline. (wiki)
Thats awesome. All this time I thought we were referring to BASH the Unix Shell ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bash_%28Unix_shell%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bash_%28Unix_shell%29) )
Symbiostock would be much cooler if it relied more on BASH to do image processing and stuff.
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......
Unfortunately, even the posts themselves are a mess. As I have previously stated, the blog page of posts does not work and Leo has acknowledged that it does not work. .........
Dan, to come back to this. I just noticed the same. The reader menu settings in the WP menu are not taking effect. I have 10 blog posts, and when setting the reader menu to show only 5 and summaries only, it doesnt work here http://semmickphoto.com/blog/ (http://semmickphoto.com/blog/) I agree with you that that will become (or is) a mess. I will take this up with Leo.
As for the image previews. It could be related to the watermark. The watermark location seem to have changed with 2.6.5 (not 100% sure about that tho) but when the watermark cant be found, the images wont show a preview. I got this from Leo the other day, it might work.
Upload watermark through here :
http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/media-new.php
You simply place the location referenced in that media page to here, into the settings area where you assign your watermark.
http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=symbiostock-control-options&tab=2settings
Then upload and process an image and see what happens.
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That sounds promising. I will take a look at it once I take care of some work this morning. Do you know off-hand where the original watermark is stored in the SY zip file? It's been a long time since I looked at the watermark files.
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That sounds promising. I will take a look at it once I take care of some work this morning. Do you know off-hand where the original watermark is stored in the SY zip file? It's been a long time since I looked at the watermark files.
I think they would normally sit here /www/wp-content/themes/symbiostock/inc/classes/image-processor
I am not sure why that is no longer working.
Hope its the fix you need.
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Eureka, you were correct Ron. The settings panel appeared to be pointing toward the correct location of the original watermark, but once I uploaded a second watermark and changed the setting to point at it, images processed with full previews. Excellent work, and +1 many times for finally solving this for me. It's been over a month of banging my head against a desk.
I'll need to create a proper watermark but at least I know it is functional. I can't remember the names of the other MSG members who had the same problem (Neilr was one but there were a few others), but hopefully it's the same watermark issue for them.
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Eureka, you were correct Ron. The settings panel appeared to be pointing toward the correct location of the original watermark, but once I uploaded a second watermark and changed the setting to point at it, images processed with full previews. Excellent work, and +1 many times for finally solving this for me. It's been over a month of banging my head against a desk.
I'll need to create a proper watermark but at least I know it is functional. I can't remember the names of the other MSG members who had the same problem (Neilr was one but there were a few others), but hopefully it's the same watermark issue for them.
Credit comes to Leo, he fixed an issue for me, all I did was I link it to your issue. Man, thats exciting, haha.
Now, if we can get the blog page to be fixed, we are getting close to perfection :)
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Yes that latter issue is important for both site speed, and page "focus" within search engines. Not to mention end user functionality.
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Fair enough. Could you please provide an example on MSG where members are bashing Symbiostock?
Honestly, I don't have the time to go through 1000s of posts where people may call it buggy, or simply a pointless exercise, or it will never compete with iAgencies. We all know people are entitled to their opinion just as I may tire of hearing it. You just appear to be taking this personally even though it isn't. You are, however, more than welcome to do your own research into the matter and prove me wrong.
If you feel that my "Bashing" line is out of order, then feel free to continue the discussion without me. If you feel that it is too harsh then my apologies. I’m sorry that you do not agree with my evaluation of the issue but that is beyond my control and it is simply not worth getting into a squabble over.
I really do have other things that require my attention. I feel that I have made myself clear enough and my time can be better spent elsewhere... oh let's see like... helping someone or if I had some time, taking photographs, or drawing up a new vector.
Jo
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As usual I was just messing around. I don't take this stuff seriously enough to be effected anymore. Like I said, my definition of BASH
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bash_%28Unix_shell%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bash_%28Unix_shell%29)
A few times in MSG (speaking conservatively) I've certainly felt bashed! But I've learned the human factor through this project so I just keep working and working until things are shiny and clean.
Symbiostock is unique - and gives unique problems, but a lot of unique advantages as you know.
Symbiostock's MAIN challenge is that its built into wordpress. Wordpress gives HUGE advantages, but also introduced a lot of random variables (I emphasize random) due to how much it can be extended. Due to trial-by-fire however this thing is getting very stable.
The most exciting time is getting close - releasing this final pretty version as a public (non-testing) platform, and just sitting back and letting things run themselves.
Honestly enough though I think the last thing remaining for the Symbiostock community is unlearning "reactivity" and simply being happy. Microstock has left us bitter (its reflected in many forums) and its a hard habit to break. I'd love to see a happy, fun, humorous, and forward moving community when everything is finally done.
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Honestly enough though I think the last thing remaining for the Symbiostock community is unlearning "reactivity" and simply being happy. Microstock has left us bitter (its reflected in many forums) and its a hard habit to break. I'd love to see a happy, fun, humorous, and forward moving community when everything is finally done.
Leo, I am getting there, the fun part. It was fun and exciting to start up with Symbiostock, then it became a stable version and I was just uploading, and now with the latest version, I am really excited again. Man this latest version is so much fun. The Professional plugin combined with 2.7.4 is just fun. I love creating collections, customising the site with live preview, every thing is so pretty now, and so many cool features.
So yes, the fun is definitely coming back. And I am sure once the final version is out, we will see the fun come back to all of us. You did a great job man. Thanks a lot.
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Honestly enough though I think the last thing remaining for the Symbiostock community is unlearning "reactivity" and simply being happy. Microstock has left us bitter (its reflected in many forums) and its a hard habit to break. I'd love to see a happy, fun, humorous, and forward moving community when everything is finally done.
Leo, I am getting there, the fun part. It was fun and exciting to start up with Symbiostock, then it became a stable version and I was just uploading, and now with the latest version, I am really excited again. Man this latest version is so much fun. The Professional plugin combined with 2.7.4 is just fun. I love creating collections, customising the site with live preview, every thing is so pretty now, and so many cool features.
So yes, the fun is definitely coming back. And I am sure once the final version is out, we will see the fun come back to all of us. You did a great job man. Thanks a lot.
Yes, fun it is! Very important point.
Personally, I am not long enough in and dependent enough on microstock to become bitter over what's happening. But I am definitely into photography/microstock for the fun of it. Symbiostock and its community is keeping that alive.
And now let's have sales! ;D
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Yes, sales. That would be the fun part!
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So yes, the fun is definitely coming back. And I am sure once the final version is out, we will see the fun come back to all of us. You did a great job man. Thanks a lot.
+100
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I fear that I would be in violation of my exclusive agreement with iStock.
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No RM. Any plans to include it in the near future? I've seen a thread indicating interest in it.
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No RM. Any plans to include it in the near future? I've seen a thread indicating interest in it.
YEs, you can do what you want. Licencing system is going to get an overhaul.
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No RM. Any plans to include it in the near future? I've seen a thread indicating interest in it.
YEs, you can do what you want. Licencing system is going to get an overhaul.
Great news. Again, thanks Ron.
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My problem is that it seems to have to work with PayPal - and I can't receive PayPal because of where I am. I can take payments on Payoneer but I gather that isn't an option.
I expect I will join when I move back to the EU.
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My problem is that it seems to have to work with PayPal - and I can't receive PayPal because of where I am. I can take payments on Payoneer but I gather that isn't an option.
I expect I will join when I move back to the EU.
I think you can, but you might have to use a US bank account.
https://www.paypal.com/ae/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=Wd6kYRGMvURjA7-dOefIBKESGKXBs5xBEJL-J0jPtvu30E6RivYv9Ei7vBC&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f8e263663d3faee8def8934b92a630e40b7fef61ab7e9fe63 (https://www.paypal.com/ae/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=Wd6kYRGMvURjA7-dOefIBKESGKXBs5xBEJL-J0jPtvu30E6RivYv9Ei7vBC&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f8e263663d3faee8def8934b92a630e40b7fef61ab7e9fe63)
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The paypal link you provided expired, Ron. I think it is pretty much impossible for a non-American to open a US bank account from the Middle East (it's hard enough for US citizens!). I saw one advert from a firm that said they would do it but there was something like a $2,000 set-up fee and another $1,000 annually, which is too much.
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That link works for me. Try this.
https://www.paypal.com/ae/webapps/mpp/home (https://www.paypal.com/ae/webapps/mpp/home)
Click sign up now.
But its only to a US bank
https://www.paypal.com/ae/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-withdrawal-fees-outside (https://www.paypal.com/ae/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-withdrawal-fees-outside)
:(
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But its only to a US bank
:(
Yup, that's the stumbling block.
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Does anyone here have or know of any existing RM or RM/RF mixed Symbio site that I can check out?
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There is one site using an Alamy plugin to route people to Alamy for RM, but we are waiting for Leo to redo the licencing system and then we will offer RM directly.
I think this site has RM and RF
http://ajotte.com/ (http://ajotte.com/)
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Looked through a few images but couldn't find any RM. That poses another issue. I'd like the buyer to be able to separate the RF from the RM stuff.
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I fear that I would be in violation of my exclusive agreement with iStock.
lol
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I fear that I would be in violation of my exclusive agreement with iStock.
Just one reason more to avoid contributor exclusivity....
(except your name is Wackerhausen)
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Looked through a few images but couldn't find any RM. That poses another issue. I'd like the buyer to be able to separate the RF from the RM stuff.
Its very flexible, you can create two categories, RF and RM and assign images to that category and then you can add it to the menu bar as a direct link. You can set it up the way you want.
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Looked through a few images but couldn't find any RM. That poses another issue. I'd like the buyer to be able to separate the RF from the RM stuff.
Its very flexible, you can create two categories, RF and RM and assign images to that category and then you can add it to the menu bar as a direct link. You can set it up the way you want.
Sounds great, thanks Ron.
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There is one site using an Alamy plugin to route people to Alamy for RM, but we are waiting for Leo to redo the licencing system and then we will offer RM directly.
I think this site has RM and RF
[url]http://ajotte.com/[/url] ([url]http://ajotte.com/[/url])
I have only few RM images now, but all are linked to Alamy.
Examples:
http://ajotte.com/image/ufo-monument-2/ (http://ajotte.com/image/ufo-monument-2/)
http://ajotte.com/image/gdansk-4/ (http://ajotte.com/image/gdansk-4/)
I am waitng for RM licenses in Symbiostock too :)
Now I have separate category for editorial images, maybe I should make menu item for this :)
http://ajotte.com/image-type/editorial-images/ (http://ajotte.com/image-type/editorial-images/)
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For those who have got it up and running what sort of hosting plan are you using (specs please) ?
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For those who have got it up and running what sort of hosting plan are you using (specs please) ?
http://www.godaddy.com/hosting/web-hosting.aspx?isc=gdbb80520&ci=76393 (http://www.godaddy.com/hosting/web-hosting.aspx?isc=gdbb80520&ci=76393)
deluxe is the one I use at the moment.. (linux OS)
The good thing about it I can always upgrade to ultimate if needed.. you don't need dedicated hosting for the start but obviously If the traffic you get justifies it, dedicated hosting is what you will have to get eventually..
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Hi cidepix, are you uploading images through wordpress? If so roughly what size?
The problem I have with existing host is the max upload limit is 8mb and when I tried uploading via ftp Symbiostock wasn't able to process them, I assume memory limit in php too low.
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Hi cidepix, are you uploading images through wordpress? If so roughly what size?
The problem I have with existing host is the max upload limit is 8mb and when I tried uploading via ftp Symbiostock wasn't able to process them, I assume memory limit in php too low.
Bluehost has a default limit of 10 MB per image, which is too low for a pro photo web site. I called and the tech there voluntarily increased my limit to 50 MB, which is way beyond what I'll ever need. So now, everything I upload goes through. Other Symbiostockers using Bluehost have also done the same, with equally good results.
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Hi cidepix, are you uploading images through wordpress? If so roughly what size?
The problem I have with existing host is the max upload limit is 8mb and when I tried uploading via ftp Symbiostock wasn't able to process them, I assume memory limit in php too low.
Yes, through WP..
8 mb is a funny limit.. this is a non-issue with godaddy.. I have access to php.ini file in my control panel (and FTP) and I can easily increase the limits there..
I have used 3 different hosting companies before I switched to godaddy 4 years ago.. it's the best value and service for your money in my opinion.. I have had personal websites since 2006 and this hosting plan is the only one which I didn't give up after the first year..
I had no problems up to 20 mb.. never tried bigger files as vectors don't take too much space, but I don't think it will be a problem.. you can ask godaddy support about the max these plans can handle.. All I can say is it will be much bigger than 8mb those mickey mouse hosting companies allow.. :)
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FTP>WP
Increase memory on PHP.INI
Install ImageMagik
Done :)
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Does anyone here have or know of any existing RM or RM/RF mixed Symbio site that I can check out?
Yes, my site. It now has both Standard/Extended and RM. My standard Licence is similar to RF because those images were originally pimped out to all the agencies as RF. I didn’t want to call it Royalty Free so it’s the Standard licence which is similar but not as free.
It can be created by using Leo’s Premium Plugin. The licence system is being changed as we type but you can have different licences. I have four different types.
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Yes, through WP..
8 mb is a funny limit.. this is a non-issue with godaddy.. I have access to php.ini file in my control panel (and FTP) and I can easily increase the limits there..
I have used 3 different hosting companies before I switched to godaddy 4 years ago.. it's the best value and service for your money in my opinion.. I have had personal websites since 2006 and this hosting plan is the only one which I didn't give up after the first year..
I had no problems up to 20 mb.. never tried bigger files as vectors don't take too much space, but I don't think it will be a problem.. you can ask godaddy support about the max these plans can handle.. All I can say is it will be much bigger than 8mb those mickey mouse hosting companies allow.. :)
Thanks, I'll look into moving to godaddy, I'm used to managing a dedicated server so am finding my current shared hosting very limited :-\
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Gate.Com good chat support, email support and live phone support.
Symbiostock site, with just the starter basics and 33 images takes this: Data 2992 MB of 1100000 MB
Linux, they installed WP for me.
$6.95 a month
They provide a space for storage of 1 Gigabite along with other features such as POP3/SMPT/IMAP/Webmail along with that they offer with virus and spam protection. (I may have a larger plan with more storage, the 1GB is the $6.95 plan)
My other account I have the business plan:
Annual = about $100 a year
The Business Plan Includes:
Website Builder –Unlimited Pages
Social Media Integration – Provide visitors with multiple ways to find and interact with your company by incorporating links and icons to your social sites, adding the ability for visitors to “like” or “follow” you, and automatic updates from your Facebook or Twitter feeds.
Email – Unlimited mailboxes
MySQL or MS SQL – 10 Databases
Advanced Web Analytics – Understand how visitors find and use your website so you can make smarter marketing decisions and target new customers.
Unlimited Storage
Windows or Linux Plans
Plus…
Unlimited Traffic, GigaMail, Shared SSL Certificate, 24x7 Phone & Email support
Many included that I don't use or need but good service, speed and reliability.
For $100 a year and some add on sites hosted by the same account, using the same plan and storage, for under $10 a year (or in that range) I'm very pleased.
For those who have got it up and running what sort of hosting plan are you using (specs please) ?
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That sounds expensive. I have recently paid Ł96 for four years
Unlimited GBs of Space*
Unlimited GBs of Transfer*
Unlimited Domain Hosting
Unlimited Email Accounts
Unlimited MySQL Databases
etc
*subject to fair use - they say providing the space is used for your site, not storage.
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Interesting, I looked at your host, Fastdomain to see what they offer right now:
free first year domain name
$5.95 a month hosting. ($72 a year US)
Free Stats
Sitebuilder
All the other stuff below.
That sounds expensive. I have recently paid Ł96 for four years
Unlimited GBs of Space*
Unlimited GBs of Transfer*
Unlimited Domain Hosting
Unlimited Email Accounts
Unlimited MySQL Databases
etc
*subject to fair use - they say providing the space is used for your site, not storage.
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Interesting, I looked at your host, Fastdomain to see what they offer right now:
free first year domain name
$5.95 a month hosting. ($72 a year US)
Free Stats
Sitebuilder
All the other stuff below.
That sounds expensive. I have recently paid Ł96 for four years
Unlimited GBs of Space*
Unlimited GBs of Transfer*
Unlimited Domain Hosting
Unlimited Email Accounts
Unlimited MySQL Databases
etc
*subject to fair use - they say providing the space is used for your site, not storage.
I use Justhost - Fasthost might be a parent company ?
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I started my symbiostock site but as I can't do any direct saling I'm using the ajt-stockplugin for now to point the visitor to the stocksites where my work is available.
To start direct sales from my country (Belgium) two things are missing.
1. I'm full time employed now and I'm not registered as a business. To be registered as a business has a certain yearly cost and I'm not sure my potential sales would cover this having still a small portfolio.
2. The symbiostock theme needs some extra functionality for European law.
- Registration of country and vat number in the registration process of client.
- Possibility to add vat to invoiced amount for European customers that don't have vat number.
As for now I'm quit happy with the symbiostock theme to show my portfolio and I'm in the process of uploading my pictures. I'm of course missing the added value of the network but time will tell how to go from here.
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Adding VAT has to be done through the PayPal integration.
I am so blessed living in Ireland. VAT is not needed unless I make more then 37.500 euro per year. When that happens, I'll be more than happy to pay someone to add the VAT for me.
https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/classic/paypal-payments-standard/integration-guide/ProfileAndTools/#id08A9ED00LTU
Funny enough, they use a stock site for example :)
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Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
If you are hesitant - what would persuade you to start using Symbiostock?
It doesn't work. If WP changes Symbiostock break. No documentation. Go to the website and read the problems. When it's fixed, I will use.
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Interesting, I looked at your host, Fastdomain to see what they offer right now:
free first year domain name
$5.95 a month hosting. ($72 a year US)
Free Stats
Sitebuilder
All the other stuff below.
That sounds expensive. I have recently paid Ł96 for four years
Unlimited GBs of Space*
Unlimited GBs of Transfer*
Unlimited Domain Hosting
Unlimited Email Accounts
Unlimited MySQL Databases
etc
*subject to fair use - they say providing the space is used for your site, not storage.
I use Justhost - Fasthost might be a parent company ?
FastDomain and I might be wrong. I looked at your WhoIs for who was hosting your site, because you hadn't mentioned it, and they sounded like a good deal. I'm not moving, but someone new might find the price very attractive.
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Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
If you are hesitant - what would persuade you to start using Symbiostock?
It doesn't work. If WP changes Symbiostock break. No documentation. Go to the website and read the problems. When it's fixed, I will use.
It's true that getting up and running has been hard for some people, but it's not true that Symbiostock doesn't work. There are over 150 live sites and they're all working.
There is documentation (Christine just updated some step by step guides here, (http://www.symbiostock.org/post/7246/#p7246) for example). It is also not true that WordPress updates break Symbiostock - there have been several WP upgrades in just the two+ months I've had a site and most didn't require any changes to Symbiostock at all.
Don't get me wrong, none of us wants people who don't want to be there, so if you don't want to be, that's fine, but honestly, Symbiostock is generally more "fixed" than iStock and no software - ever - is finished or fully fixed, so if you wait for that, you'll never join. Not that there's anything wrong with that :)
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It doesn't work. If WP changes Symbiostock break. No documentation. Go to the website and read the problems. When it's fixed, I will use.
Sorry, Batman, but... my Symbiostock site works quite nicely. And so do 150+ others.
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It doesn't work. If WP changes Symbiostock break. No documentation. Go to the website and read the problems. When it's fixed, I will use.
Sorry, Batman, but... my Symbiostock site works quite nicely. And so do 150+ others.
170+ :)
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This thread reminds me of one of my favorite commercials ever:
Batman snickers ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPRscxQZs8E#)
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Hi. I am very keen on self-hosting and using Symbiostock! Really excited actually! Only problemon closer inspection, is the Paypal payment gateway. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that the only way to receive payments or is it possible to use a different payment gateway or plugin?
I am based in South Africa and receiving payments via Paypal is pretty expensive and quite limited. You have to pay your bank a monthly fee of approx $8 to facilitate the Paypal account, and there are the currency conversion fees charged by the bank, as well as the Paypal transaction fees every time you receive a payment. Then there are restrictions eg. any money paid into Paypal has to be withdrawn within 30 days - so if you only earn a very small amount, you are forced to withdraw it and incur all the transaction and minimum conversion fees each time, rather than let it accumulate to an decent withdrawal amount. You are only allowed 5 payment per year on a personal account - not sure if that is just a South African thing - so would have to have a Premier Paypal account with the associated fees mentioned above. It seems hardly worthwhile. Especially if you are paying monthly bank fees and not selling anything for the first few months.
I recently installed a 2CheckOut payment gateway on another site of mine, which works out a bit cheaper as I can transfer money from there into my Payoneer card, and there is much less red tape. 2CO do have a Wordpress plugin, so I was wondering if I would be able to use it with my Symbiostock site? Payfast is also an option here in SA. (there are probably a few other too.) Is this a possibility right now - to have a custom payment gateway? or are there any plans for this in the future? Any advice?
Thanks.
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Why dont you go to symbiostock.org and ask in the forum there - actually there is a member thats from SA also his name is Jo , it may be good to ask him how he has set up his payment system
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Hi. I am very keen on self-hosting and using Symbiostock! Really excited actually! Only problemon closer inspection, is the Paypal payment gateway. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that the only way to receive payments or is it possible to use a different payment gateway or plugin?
I am based in South Africa and receiving payments via Paypal is pretty expensive and quite limited. You have to pay your bank a monthly fee of approx $8 to facilitate the Paypal account, and there are the currency conversion fees charged by the bank, as well as the Paypal transaction fees every time you receive a payment. Then there are restrictions eg. any money paid into Paypal has to be withdrawn within 30 days - so if you only earn a very small amount, you are forced to withdraw it and incur all the transaction and minimum conversion fees each time, rather than let it accumulate to an decent withdrawal amount. You are only allowed 5 payment per year on a personal account - not sure if that is just a South African thing - so would have to have a Premier Paypal account with the associated fees mentioned above. It seems hardly worthwhile. Especially if you are paying monthly bank fees and not selling anything for the first few months.
I recently installed a 2CheckOut payment gateway on another site of mine, which works out a bit cheaper as I can transfer money from there into my Payoneer card, and there is much less red tape. 2CO do have a Wordpress plugin, so I was wondering if I would be able to use it with my Symbiostock site? Payfast is also an option here in SA. (there are probably a few other too.) Is this a possibility right now - to have a custom payment gateway? or are there any plans for this in the future? Any advice?
Thanks.
I am 95% sure that SY is only set up right now to handle paypal payments. :(
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PayPal takes credit cards, debit cards and bank payments, thats about all funding sources you can have.
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Once my "Exclusive Membership' from CREStock ends ;D
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Thanks Noodle. I will try the Symbiostock.org forum, and see if I can track down the other South African.
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Thanks Noodle. I will try the Symbiostock.org forum, and see if I can track down the other South African.
Hi,
This is JoRodrigues profile page in the symbiostock forum, the SA member. He's quite active in the forums, I'm sure he'll help you.
http://www.symbiostock.org/community/user/589/ (http://www.symbiostock.org/community/user/589/)
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Even with me messing up the code, it was repairable by someone who understands. I'd say the test site is almost fully functional in what? Two weeks? And I haven't been at it every day, that was here and there, putzing around.
It's much easier to understand, hands on, clicking and learning, and the WiKi will make it even easier in the future.
I don't understand that whole, php changed versions thing and it killed WP. But the problems don't appear to be caused by Symbiostock. Instead from something else not working, like WP?
Only 150 or 170? I thought the list had 200+ something sites in the network?
Just out of interest is there anyone out there considering Symbiostock but is holding back?
If you are hesitant - what would persuade you to start using Symbiostock?
It doesn't work. If WP changes Symbiostock break. No documentation. Go to the website and read the problems. When it's fixed, I will use.
-
Only 150 or 170? I thought the list had 200+ something sites in the network?
There are currently 158 sites in the Symbiostock network and it is gaining momentum.
You can see how many sites there are at the bottom of the following URLs:
symbiostock.info (http://symbiostock.info)
http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=25 (http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=25)
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Only 150 or 170? I thought the list had 200+ something sites in the network?
There are currently 158 sites in the Symbiostock network and it is gaining momentum.
You can see how many sites there are at the bottom of the following URLs:
symbiostock.info ([url]http://symbiostock.info[/url])
[url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=25[/url] ([url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=25[/url])
Christine "I can't help either I eventually just accepted that people using IE will not see the colours in my site as I do not think this will affect sales."
Redneck "I'm on version 5.2.12. Your version should work, too. I guess the white screen error is caused by something else."
Lusoimages "I've just conducted a few searches on my website and in the symbiostock page and I've detected something that got me worried.
I've noticed that when a keyword is composed by two words it's ignored by the search."
marthamarks "However, I do have to say this: symbiostock-search.com redirects to this:
http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp (http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp)
I find that a very confusing and unattractive page to look at and use. I'm reluctant to send any potential buyers there, to be honest."
Symbiostock_Newbie "One of the images I uploaded recently won't process for some unknown reason. It seems to process, but then when I go to "all images" it doesn't show up there. When I go back to "process uploads" the image is back there again awaiting processing!"
Snap Vectors "Hello. I've had three purchases on my site since yesterday. However, all three customers emailed me right after the sale, and said they couldn't see how to download their file."
Flawless
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I have only ca. 150 photos uploaded, have 4 sales.I love my sait www.elilena.com (http://www.elilena.com) and have with it no problem.All is working well :-)
Gesendet von meinem GT-I9305 mit Tapatalk
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Only 150 or 170? I thought the list had 200+ something sites in the network?
There are currently 158 sites in the Symbiostock network and it is gaining momentum.
You can see how many sites there are at the bottom of the following URLs:
symbiostock.info ([url]http://symbiostock.info[/url])
[url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=25[/url] ([url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=25[/url])
Christine "I can't help either I eventually just accepted that people using IE will not see the colours in my site as I do not think this will affect sales."
Redneck "I'm on version 5.2.12. Your version should work, too. I guess the white screen error is caused by something else."
Lusoimages "I've just conducted a few searches on my website and in the symbiostock page and I've detected something that got me worried.
I've noticed that when a keyword is composed by two words it's ignored by the search."
marthamarks "However, I do have to say this: symbiostock-search.com redirects to this:
[url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp[/url] ([url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp[/url])
I find that a very confusing and unattractive page to look at and use. I'm reluctant to send any potential buyers there, to be honest."
Symbiostock_Newbie "One of the images I uploaded recently won't process for some unknown reason. It seems to process, but then when I go to "all images" it doesn't show up there. When I go back to "process uploads" the image is back there again awaiting processing!"
Snap Vectors "Hello. I've had three purchases on my site since yesterday. However, all three customers emailed me right after the sale, and said they couldn't see how to download their file."
Flawless
My site's running better than iStock. Looks nicer, too.
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Only 150 or 170? I thought the list had 200+ something sites in the network?
There are currently 158 sites in the Symbiostock network and it is gaining momentum.
You can see how many sites there are at the bottom of the following URLs:
symbiostock.info ([url]http://symbiostock.info[/url])
[url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=25[/url] ([url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/list.asp?list=25[/url])
Christine "I can't help either I eventually just accepted that people using IE will not see the colours in my site as I do not think this will affect sales."
Redneck "I'm on version 5.2.12. Your version should work, too. I guess the white screen error is caused by something else."
Lusoimages "I've just conducted a few searches on my website and in the symbiostock page and I've detected something that got me worried.
I've noticed that when a keyword is composed by two words it's ignored by the search."
marthamarks "However, I do have to say this: symbiostock-search.com redirects to this:
[url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp[/url] ([url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp[/url])
I find that a very confusing and unattractive page to look at and use. I'm reluctant to send any potential buyers there, to be honest."
Symbiostock_Newbie "One of the images I uploaded recently won't process for some unknown reason. It seems to process, but then when I go to "all images" it doesn't show up there. When I go back to "process uploads" the image is back there again awaiting processing!"
Snap Vectors "Hello. I've had three purchases on my site since yesterday. However, all three customers emailed me right after the sale, and said they couldn't see how to download their file."
Flawless
Symbiostock is still very much in its infancy - in fact all the big guns in the stock industry had to start from scratch, with one of the biggest ones today being started in the creators little apartment he lived in.
"DON'T DESPISE THE DAY OF SMALL BEGINNINGS"
People learn along the way in any building endeavor, and there are mistakes, glitches, obstacles, challenges, but anything can be overcome and worked out with time and effort. In fact ALL websites continue to be works in progress, and ALL experience hicups from time to time.
I think Symbio has created interest at the very least at this point, and its only going to continue to increase in momentum. Sure the contributors are relatively small in number with only a fraction of images available than the big guns, but it is increasing every month.
The thing I have noticed is that each contributor is very proud of their own site whether it is relatively simple or has a greater wow factor, and to belong to a community of like-minded content providers. This is what makes Symbio sites different and a unique place for buyers to have an alternative buying experience.
Sure Batman always gets the spotlight - but don't discount the importance of Boy-Wonder.
remember - "DON'T DESPISE THE DAY OF SMALL BEGINNINGS"
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Christine "I can't help either I eventually just accepted that people using IE will not see the colours in my site as I do not think this will affect sales."
Redneck "I'm on version 5.2.12. Your version should work, too. I guess the white screen error is caused by something else."
Lusoimages "I've just conducted a few searches on my website and in the symbiostock page and I've detected something that got me worried.
I've noticed that when a keyword is composed by two words it's ignored by the search."
marthamarks "However, I do have to say this: symbiostock-search.com redirects to this:
[url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp[/url] ([url]http://cascoly.com/symbio/symbiostock-network.asp[/url])
I find that a very confusing and unattractive page to look at and use. I'm reluctant to send any potential buyers there, to be honest."
Symbiostock_Newbie "One of the images I uploaded recently won't process for some unknown reason. It seems to process, but then when I go to "all images" it doesn't show up there. When I go back to "process uploads" the image is back there again awaiting processing!"
Snap Vectors "Hello. I've had three purchases on my site since yesterday. However, all three customers emailed me right after the sale, and said they couldn't see how to download their file."
Flawless
I think you are acting in total bad faith because you're quoting problems people report that are part their own fault and part Wordpress and not Symbiostock specifically, and not mentioning the solutions available to those problems.
The Redneck quotation refers to an error he caused on his own has I did myself, and thousands of others using wordpress that have nothing to do with symbiostock. It's a wordpress issue and the lack of knowledge from people messing around without understanding programing.
The Lusoimages quotation is also a Wordpress issue that has a limited search functionality but has been solved with a symbyostock plugin, or a little work from the photographer as I did and now have no problem.
Other problems you mention I could say I've experienced the same things and more from multimillionaire agencies that have paid programmers and designers available 24/7. In fact in the last days Shutterstock has been down for contributors for a long time!
Plus, Symbiostock is a very helpful community that helped me tremendously in helping to setup my website even if the standard setup is not complicated. Only personalizing things require a little more work, again with people always willing to help.
We've just launched our website but we're very proud of it, looks good and it still isn't completely finished or have all of our portfolio.
As for the "flawless" remark I can tell you that I see many more flaws in your attitude than in the working of Symbistock.
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DNFTT
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DNFTT
I'm not feeding the troll. It upsets me that his partial version of the facts pushes back people from joining this project. I can accept legitimate critiques but not ones based in bad faith.
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The Redneck quotation refers to an error he caused on his own has I did myself, and thousands of others using wordpress that have nothing to do with symbiostock. It's a wordpress issue and the lack of knowledge from people messing around without understanding programing.
The people that are trying to set up these sites are basically photographers, and no, don't have programming experience. There are many wordpress themes that DO NOT require messing around with much of anything and all customizations can be done from the admin area. This theme is not one of those.
When the only way to get your site working and looking decent IS to mess around with programming, its not fair to people wanting to set up a site to minimize that fact, either. SY is not a typical wordpress theme and if you are not happy with the way it looks out of the box, you need to know css, you need to be willing to make changes to programming and you are going to need to talk to your hosting company.
The quotes that were pulled out do not give the whole picture, for sure.
I think that anyone wanting to set up a site can read through everything and decide for themselves. There are positives and negatives to SY and i dont think it's fair either to say something like "SY is wonderful and is easy to set up," and yet i have seen comments like that, too. Thats in total bad faith and a partial version of the facts, too.
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You have always been keen to point out any issues with Symbiostock. Everytime some posts they are happy with the site and had no issues, you come out saying its not true, its impossible.
I keep saying it, I have had little issues with my site, from the start. I did find it very easy to set up and I was surprised to get the site working within a day without any knowledge of WP or PHP or CSS.
And as long as you keep knocking Symbiostock, I will keep repeating I had no difficult issues setting up my site.
You keep going about having to change the CSS, but that goes for EVERY WP theme you want to change. If you like the look of the basic Symbiostock theme, there is nothing you need to do. If you dont like the look of any other WP theme, you need to change the CSS as well.
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I don't think setting up a Symbiostock site is hard, even if you want to have a good looking one. And I don't think that knowledge of CSS, PHP, "CIA" or "NSA" is required. ;)
Our site is the standard Symbiostock theme built with the available tools to all with simple checks in boxes and drag-and-drop items, without the need for programming and I think it looks good and no one would be ashamed to have a site looking like it even if it will not win awards.
The only serious problem I had and got the White Screen of Death was when I tried to change from the standard 24 thumbs in the gallery (which is completely fine) to 48. I made a mistake in the PHP file and that happened.
What Symbiostock does require is some work and a little patience because some options are not obvious at first and despite the guide is good it has a point or two that requires extra-attention and made me ask for help to remove a menu item I didn't want.
So, even if setting up Symbiostock cannot be done with both eyes closed, in the end I think it's a harder job to upload all the images in our portfolios that setting up a site.
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Flawless
No, Batman. Not flawless. Work in progress. And most of those issues you jumped on with such pleasure are now either fixed or in the fixing process.
http://bestnaturestock.com/ (http://bestnaturestock.com/)
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I have a simple question for symbiostockers (if I can call you like that): Is it worthed to invest time and money?
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I have a simple question for symbiostockers (if I can call you like that): Is it worthed to invest time and money?
Only you can decide that. It totally depends on your images if you get any sales. No one can determine that for you.
But I think everyone of us, except maybe a few, will say yes. For me it totally is. Only the satisfaction to have my own site is enough. I havent made my money back yet, but I am getting there. It was a 300 dollar initial investment, including the premium plugin and a year hosting, and I made back 30% within 4 months.
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The Redneck quotation refers to an error he caused on his own has I did myself, and thousands of others using wordpress that have nothing to do with symbiostock. It's a wordpress issue and the lack of knowledge from people messing around without understanding programing.
The people that are trying to set up these sites are basically photographers, and no, don't have programming experience. There are many wordpress themes that DO NOT require messing around with much of anything and all customizations can be done from the admin area. This theme is not one of those.
When the only way to get your site working and looking decent IS to mess around with programming, its not fair to people wanting to set up a site to minimize that fact, either. SY is not a typical wordpress theme and if you are not happy with the way it looks out of the box, you need to know css, you need to be willing to make changes to programming and you are going to need to talk to your hosting company.
The quotes that were pulled out do not give the whole picture, for sure.
I think that anyone wanting to set up a site can read through everything and decide for themselves. There are positives and negatives to SY and i dont think it's fair either to say something like "SY is wonderful and is easy to set up," and yet i have seen comments like that, too. Thats in total bad faith and a partial version of the facts, too.
I don't know any CSS. Yet I have a functioning site.
I totally get that you had some issues, that you're studying web design, that you're familiar with zillions of WordPress themes you find flawless and that you wanted to futz with things, so you altered the CSS (I guess; I don't even know if "altered" is the correct terminology).
But as much as you complain that it's misleading for people to say setting up a Symbiostock site is easy, it's also misleading for you to state that you must know CSS in order to do it. I'm happy to have a clean, simple site that functions properly, and I built it with no programming knowledge at all.
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@shelma ;)
I did not say you must know css. I said if you dont like it right out of the box, you need to know those things. But then there are two or three of you here who dont really even read what i say. You are just going to argue for the sake of arguing. :) Go for it!
My comments are addressed to people who want to make an informed decision.
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I have a simple question for symbiostockers (if I can call you like that): Is it worthed to invest time and money?
So far, no. Have had a site up since april. Dont have over 1000 images up yet tho. Not ready to give up just yet. If i have 1000+ images up, am doing marketing, am selling those same images elsewhere, and still have no sales, i will say no, not worth it.
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I have a simple question for symbiostockers (if I can call you like that): Is it worthed to invest time and money?
As Ron has mentioned, it's up to you. He spent $300, but I spent only $80 more or less for 1 year hosting in Bluehost and the specific Symbiostock sitemap.
To me, having the site for less than two weeks, with 1/3 of the portfolio and possibly no sales in the near future (although who knows that...) I'm already really happy and think it totally worths it.
I've had accounts in Smugmug for years which was much more expensive, my Zenfolio is still online and despite I payed the most basic plan to have one with similar options to Symbistock would again be more expensive, so comparing, Symbiostock is much better investment so far at least in financial terms. And for the first time I really like how my site looks despite it's the standard Symbiostock theme!
Besides I feel I'm making part of the one thing that could be beneficial to us photographers since 2006.
As I consider very important to have a personal space on the web beyond the agencies I found Symbiostock to be the best option available for me.
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Just to explain, the 300 dollar I spent, included hosting, back up service, donations, premium plugin and 2 other plugins.
You can set up your symbiostock site, for free, and only pay hosting, which could be under 100 dollar for a year.
Any website needs hosting by the way...thats not only for symbiostock.
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@shelma ;)
I did not say you must know css. I said if you dont like it right out of the box, you need to know those things. But then there are two or three of you here who dont really even read what i say. You are just going to argue for the sake of arguing. :) Go for it!
My comments are addressed to people who want to make an informed decision.
"When the only way to get your site working and looking decent IS to mess around with programming, its not fair to people wanting to set up a site to minimize that fact, either."
You spelled "it's" incorrectly, btw.
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@shelma ;)
.....
I did not say you must know css.....
My comments are addressed to people who want to make an informed decision.
You did, people who argue with you do read your comments.
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:)
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I have a simple question for symbiostockers (if I can call you like that): Is it worthed to invest time and money?
You have to decide that. But what I would say is that I've "invested" my time in uploading to a lot of agencies since 2004.
In some cases - iStock, in spite of the fact that they turned from being a wonderful place to a sad shadow of their former selves after ingestion by the Private Equity parasites that ate the Getty borg - they made me a ton of money. And that includes the massive time sink that was the "disambiguation" required after they moved to Getty's controlled vocabulary, one of many things that pushed work onto contributors.
In others - albumo pocketstock and Gimmestock - for example it wasn't worth investing my time.
Part of the problem with any of these things is that you can't know for sure up front which ones are the winners and which the losers.
I am so sick of how badly most of the agencies are treating their contributors that I'm willing to invest my time to find an alternative. I think there's a lot of potential in this approach, but I don't have a crystal ball to know up front if it'll work. Where work means become a steady earner over time.
If someone's looking for easy money, they're in the wrong business, whether it's Shutterstock or Symbiostock. If you're happy with what you're earning from the agencies, they why bother building your own site? If you're looking for alternatives, go for it.
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It was my approach when setting up our site in the beginning to do my best to design the layout using only the basic theme and plugins. I didn't want to make any custom CSS changes due to the constant updates and changes. To this day I haven't made a single CSS code change. It's not that I couldn't figure it out it's just a conscious effort to keep things as simple as possible and I'm very happy with the way our site looks.
As in most things worth doing, there can be a learning curve but nobody should let that stop them. Using a camera, learning photoshop, lightroom, ftp clients, color spaces and understanding all the hoops one needs to jump through to submit to agencies at one time required a learning curve. For most of us now those things are second nature. This is a project that I took on with a long term time frame in mind. An investment in the future of my business. I'm very happy with the direction it's going.
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It was my approach when setting up our site in the beginning to do my best to design the layout using only the basic theme and plugins. I didn't want to make any custom CSS changes due to the constant updates and changes. To this day I haven't made a single CSS code change. It's not that I couldn't figure it out it's just a conscious effort to keep things as simple as possible and I'm very happy with the way our site looks.
As in most things worth doing, there can be a learning curve but nobody should let that stop them. Using a camera, learning photoshop, lightroom, ftp clients, color spaces and understanding all the hoops one needs to jump through to submit to agencies at one time required a learning curve. For most of us now those things are second nature. This is a project that I took on with a long term time frame in mind. An investment in the future of my business. I'm very happy with the direction it's going.
Great observation CC !
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It was my approach when setting up our site in the beginning to do my best to design the layout using only the basic theme and plugins. I didn't want to make any custom CSS changes due to the constant updates and changes. To this day I haven't made a single CSS code change. It's not that I couldn't figure it out it's just a conscious effort to keep things as simple as possible and I'm very happy with the way our site looks.
As in most things worth doing, there can be a learning curve but nobody should let that stop them. Using a camera, learning photoshop, lightroom, ftp clients, color spaces and understanding all the hoops one needs to jump through to submit to agencies at one time required a learning curve. For most of us now those things are second nature. This is a project that I took on with a long term time frame in mind. An investment in the future of my business. I'm very happy with the direction it's going.
I completely agree.
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The Redneck quotation refers to an error he caused on his own has I did myself, and thousands of others using wordpress that have nothing to do with symbiostock. It's a wordpress issue and the lack of knowledge from people messing around without understanding programing.
The people that are trying to set up these sites are basically photographers, and no, don't have programming experience. There are many wordpress themes that DO NOT require messing around with much of anything and all customizations can be done from the admin area. This theme is not one of those.
When the only way to get your site working and looking decent IS to mess around with programming, its not fair to people wanting to set up a site to minimize that fact, either. SY is not a typical wordpress theme and if you are not happy with the way it looks out of the box, you need to know css, you need to be willing to make changes to programming and you are going to need to talk to your hosting company.
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but that's just not true -- SYM works right out of the box - you can install and have a working site in a very short time without doing ANY programming or coding. You need some computer savvy (eg, ftp and installing software, but sym requires no programming or even CSS]. whether a particular photographer likes it or not is a design & aesthetics concern but is not a problem with symbiostock. and even for design there are a number of simple solutions available.
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:)
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but that's just not true -- SYM works right out of the box - you can install and have a working site in a very short time without doing ANY programming or coding. You need some computer savvy (eg, ftp and installing software, but sym requires no programming or even CSS]. whether a particular photographer likes it or not is a design & aesthetics concern but is not a problem with symbiostock. and even for design there are a number of simple solutions available.
This makes me laugh a little bit because I found all the Wordpress back end stuff much more confusing than CSS and html. But, all of it wasn't too bad. I did manage to get it all straightened out over the weekend. There is a lot of great info/resources out there for setting it up, but it seems to be spread out in several different locations.
It would be nice if it was a little more out of the box ready. It seems like there are a lot of pages to add (even without the text/info) and boxes to check and uncheck, but I suppose nothing is fully plug and play.
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^^^
There is a Symbiostock wiki now with centralised documentation
www.symbiostock.org (http://www.symbiostock.org)
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What I don't understand is why anyone should write negative about the Symbiostock initiative without even being part of it.
If you don't like it: Let it be and do your own thing. Let others do theirs. You don't have to agree with everything that happens in the world.
In my opinion Leo Blanchette did and is doing, a great job. He and all the people joining SS, don't deserve the negativity some people are spreading around.
The idea of Symbiostock is not only (and for most people not even in the first place), about making money. This is about being proud of your work and yourself again. About being tired threatened like garbage by agencies, about breaking rules by agencies, about no respect for copyright by agencies and so on…
This explains the enthusiasm you can read between the lines reading the SS-forums.
Because when too much rocks are throwed in a mountain stream, it finds another way to flow down the mountain. Creativity needs to find a way out. That's the birth of Symbiostock.
For me: the first time I was reading about Leo’s idea and the symbiosis explanation in Paul Mecher’s blog, I was thinking that this was a fantastic idea, that it has the logic of nature in it and that I want to be part of it if possible. The idea of SS let people free to do things their own way, while at the same time they can be part of a global network.
Enough said. I am going back to work. Allthough I don't have any basic knowledge of Wordpress and website building, I am silently on my way trying to build my own Symbiostock website.
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Wonderful post, Colette. Very well said ... Thanks :)
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Very true, jsfoto. +1
Colette, you've done the MSG community a fine service with this post. It's absolutely right on.
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:)
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What I don't understand is why anyone should write negative about the Symbiostock initiative without even being part of it.
I am sure that quite a few people who are not part of this have nevertheless taken a good look at it.
I do not see much negativity here. If anything I think that many reasonable and bright people who might well have a useful perspective are probably not saying anything rather than risk the hassle of getting into arguments for expressing any observations, criticisms or doubts - either about the model or its implementation.
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I am sure that quite a few people who are not part of this have nevertheless taken a good look at it.
I do not see much negativity here. If anything I think that many reasonable and bright people who might well have a useful perspective are probably not saying anything rather than risk the hassle of getting into arguments for expressing any observations, criticisms or doubts - either about the model or its implementation.
I don't think those involved in Symbiostock would be upset with constructive criticism, because we, better than anyone else, know the things that could have some improvement or new functionalities that could be added in the future, even if none of those stop the construction of a fully functional website with e-commerce.
The problem are comments made in bad faith, taking comments of others out of context about problems that don't have to do with Symbiostock specifically, and without showing that those issues have been readily solved with the help of other Symbiostock members very quickly when possible.
I'm with Symbiostock for a few weeks and that's been my experience.
As for the worries expressed about people having useful perspectives and shutting up not to enter into arguments, I think it's more damaging and demoting, for all those that still don't participate in this project, to read comments like a slanderous previous one than from people defending the concept because in the case of that comment people will automatically give up on the whole thing thinking that it's not worth it.
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.......For me: the first time I was reading about Leo’s idea and the symbiosis explanation in Paul Mecher’s blog, I was thinking that this was a fantastic idea, that it has the logic of nature in it and that I want to be part of it if possible. The idea of SS let people free to do things their own way, while at the same time they can be part of a global network.
Enough said. I am going back to work. Allthough I don't have any basic knowledge of Wordpress and website building, I am silently on my way trying to build my own Symbiostock website.
great post, but don't be TOO silent -- let us know if there's anything we can do to make things easier...
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I have a simple question for symbiostockers (if I can call you like that): Is it worthed to invest time and money?
So far, no. Have had a site up since april. Dont have over 1000 images up yet tho. Not ready to give up just yet. If i have 1000+ images up, am doing marketing, am selling those same images elsewhere, and still have no sales, i will say no, not worth it.
I'm in the same boat. No sales, but to be fair I have no put in a heck of a lot of time after the initial burst, and most of my stuff is very niche market. That said, I have other reasons to upload and keep my sites live. I've mentioned in another thread somewhere that besides making money, it never hurts to have all your stock photos online somewhere. 1. to ensure you don't lose them through theft, data corruption, etc and 2. so that you will never have to worry about having your work used under the "orphan works" provisions. Those right there make the less than 100 bucks I spent worth it.
Someday I will have had enough of MS agencies, and it'll be good to have my own sites.
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I have a simple question for symbiostockers (if I can call you like that): Is it worthed to invest time and money?
So far, no. Have had a site up since april. Dont have over 1000 images up yet tho. Not ready to give up just yet. If i have 1000+ images up, am doing marketing, am selling those same images elsewhere, and still have no sales, i will say no, not worth it.
I'm in the same boat. No sales, but to be fair I have no put in a heck of a lot of time after the initial burst, and most of my stuff is very niche market. That said, I have other reasons to upload and keep my sites live. I've mentioned in another thread somewhere that besides making money, it never hurts to have all your stock photos online somewhere. 1. to ensure you don't lose them through theft, data corruption, etc and 2. so that you will never have to worry about having your work used under the "orphan works" provisions. Those right there make the less than 100 bucks I spent worth it.
Someday I will have had enough of MS agencies, and it'll be good to have my own sites.
I agree 100%. I'd do Symbiostock even if it was just for 1. ans 2. - Now, if sales cover expenses I am happy. Everything beyond that is like winning the lottery without even buying a ticket :D
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colette the question is What's holding you back from joining Symbiostock? Not why I need to try it first before I'm allowed to make a comment. I answered the question. You don't have a running Symbiostock site and you can attack me for not having a site. You should attck the person who asked the question not me. To others I answered using quotes from your own forum and you attck me? Where do I read these if they are not true.
You are all acting mean, like a private club. You circle like dogs, barking and biting at me. You think intimidation and anger is the way to attract new members to your cult. You are all to defensive and try to stop anything that looks negative by bullying somebody who asks questions. Do you want to dictate with fear. Because that's what your dictators are doing now. 16 hearts for a nasty personal attack at me, and she has not site.
You want to tell me what license, what price and what I should have on my site. How else do you want to rule over me? One person answered my answer and questions, all the rest made personal attacks. Is that how you are helpful and frindly to new people?
Nothing I write says Leo is not doing, a great job. He is. It is about the Symbiostock system. Now it's about the cult of blind followers. I change my answer to I would never join a Symbiostock cult run by mean and nasty dictators. You have showed others who can read, what kind of people you really are.
Leo did big job of wirting some good program to make people free. You want to take over and be ruling dictators of what good he did for us. A few people want to have their Orwellian Distopia and have created that. You have mind control and thinkspeak and thought police. You buly and intimidate anybody who asks questions or doesn't obey the group mob orders.
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See, you have no understanding of the Symbiostock site, there lies the problem. You assume you cant set your own licence and pricin, but in fact you can. You can add any content you want. Assumptions are the mother of all * ups.
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we..are..not...a... cult....we...are...not...a..cult.......huummmmmmm......
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See, you have no understanding of the Symbiostock site, there lies the problem. You assume you cant set your own licence and pricin, but in fact you can. You can add any content you want. Assumptions are the mother of all * ups.
Exactly.
... You are all acting mean, like a private club. ...
Be assured: We are not! New people are joining the Symbiostock network regularly and they get a warm welcome and all the help they might need by the older members. You could have experienced that yourself if you acted differently ...
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@ Batman
I've directed a comment to you based on your comment #448 seen two pages before this one.
I stick to everything I've mentioned before. You took sentences out of context, mentioning problems people created themselves by playing with code without having understanding of it, to change things that under no circumstances are mandatory or necessary to have a fully functional website. Plus in some cases there are plugins available that allow overcoming some limitations of Wordpress. But again, those limitations DO NOT stop the creation of a fully functional site.
Your last comment saying "Flawless" is just a mirror of who you are. You're not here to clear doubts but to attack this project in total bad faith.
In fact, your last post shows how ignorant you are about Symbiostock, EVERYONE PRICES THEIR IMAGES WITH THE VALUES THEY FREELY CHOOSE FROM 0 TO +1 MILLION DOLLARS WITHOUT DIRECTIONS OR ORDERS FROM ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, plus we connect to whoever we want and can even choose not connect to anyone!!!
So your diatribe about dictatorships or for Symbiostock being a cult is nothing more than the result of a mental diarrhea that you've decided to put into writing just to aggravate and (continue to) slander the only people that are trying to find a way for photographers to have a word in this business.
We are not a cult since no one has ever dictated me what to do. No one said what images I can or cannot upload, no one said what prices should I put on my images, no one gave me orders on how my site must look like and so on.
Symbiostock is "just" a Wordpress plugin that allows for you to create a personal photo website with e-commerce, choose your pricing, and to connect to others in a network if you decide to do so.
It doesn't matter if we're talking about Symbiostock, a football club or a Nation. As soon someone starts spreading ignorant lies in bad faith people will react by exposing those lies and the people saying them for what they are. It has nothing to do with a cult. It simply has to do with truth and honesty.