Quote from: jsfoto on July 17, 2013, 12:47

Quote from: Ron on July 17, 2013, 11:13

Quote from: stockmarketer on July 17, 2013, 10:35

Quote from: Tinny on July 17, 2013, 10:29

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 

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 
Just log in to my symbiostock site and buy an image in small size 

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

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. 

Quote from: Ron on July 17, 2013, 11:13

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.

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.

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 ?

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.

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?

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.

Quote from: farbled on July 17, 2013, 10:42

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.   

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.

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.