MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Author Topic: Videoblocks (StoryBlocks) wants to buy some of my footage!  (Read 20341 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

« Reply #25 on: January 29, 2018, 18:08 »
+1
I also got the email and passed, they wanted my most recent clips which were costly to produce. They wanted 100 clips for about $30 a clip.   That doesn't even get me to break even on the time and cost of making just 40 of them.  Had to rent an expensive camera, lights, and more costs. 

Another big site came to me with a similar offer about 2 years ago for 300 clips for 20k USD.  They also wanted my best selling, did the math and between taxes owed for the contract payment, it came about $50 per clip for perpetuity.  I also passed and now after two years those same clips have generated over 30k in 2 years and they are still my property.

I am not saying it will not be a big deal for some video factories that create thousands a year but for me, as a lone producer, it can certainly kill any chance of revenue hikes long term. 


« Reply #26 on: January 30, 2018, 02:24 »
0
Another big site came to me with a similar offer about 2 years ago for 300 clips for 20k USD.  They also wanted my best selling, did the math and between taxes owed for the contract payment, it came about $50 per clip for perpetuity.  I also passed and now after two years those same clips have generated over 30k in 2 years and they are still my property.

That's great, and it will probably be the case for most.

But it's also important to consider that $20k today, is worth more than $20k tomorrow. Could even be worth more than $40k in two years. Or $200k depending on what you do with it.

It all depends on whether you need money right now, or what investment opportunities you miss out on by not having capital.

« Reply #27 on: January 30, 2018, 17:03 »
0
They offered to me 40$ per clip..i passed...i think that for perpetual use this is too low,considering that i'll lose those sales on vb but most important on all other agencies...

Inviato dal mio SM-G900F utilizzando Tapatalk


SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #28 on: January 30, 2018, 18:54 »
0
...this is too low,considering that i'll lose those sales on vb but most important on all other agencies...

Unless people are getting emails with differing offers... you're still allowed to sell your content at other agencies. I would have never done it otherwise.

« Reply #29 on: January 31, 2018, 06:09 »
0
Yes i know...but the problem here is that buyers surf through agencies to find what they need at lowest price and if you have those clips for free on vb i'm sure it will erode your sales in other agencies too..this is my experience since we buy footages daily for our office and we buy on multiple sites to find the best deal...

Inviato dal mio SM-G900F utilizzando Tapatalk


SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #30 on: January 31, 2018, 22:48 »
+1
True, but by that logic, we shouldn't get any sales at SS, iS, Fotolia (and in some insatnce) P5... as VideoBlocks are cheaper. Although I'm sure there are plenty of people like you who shop around, there's probably the same amount of people who have a go-to site that they use all the time. If price is the most important thing for them, they'll probably just shop at VideoHive... or rather than buying your video at the cheapest price they can find, they'll just buy somebody elses video at a cheaper price.

« Reply #31 on: February 01, 2018, 07:24 »
0
Yes,you right..i just did tell our experience,i didn't say all buyers act the same way...like you said there are buyers that buy only on a specific site and buyers that buy on multiple agencies,for that i think we would lose some sales...

Inviato dal mio SM-G900F utilizzando Tapatalk


« Reply #32 on: February 02, 2018, 17:58 »
+3
I got a similar offer for a larger number of clips at a somewhat higher price, but also said no. Long term the offer doesn't make sense for the artist. Its a one-off payment that reduces your clips to virtually valueless elsewhere in a contract that you can no longer withdraw from. These clips have made many times their offer at other agencies, and even if its just a single license per clip that's lost, its a worse outcome for artists. At the moment much of their membership library is of poor quality, if that changes, then it presents a threat to our income from other sources.

Videoblocks seems to be struggling for sales recently. Possibly diversifying into photos has come at the expense of marketing video content. I'd suggest that its best to avoid these kinds of offers - video takes much longer for initial sales to come through, but long term sales are very lucrative, unless you cut them off at the outset.

SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #33 on: February 03, 2018, 02:01 »
0
These clips have made many times their offer at other agencies...

And they would continue to do so if you sell the rights to VB.

« Reply #34 on: February 03, 2018, 06:30 »
0
These clips have made many times their offer at other agencies...

And they would continue to do so if you sell the rights to VB.

You're basing this on what data exactly? From my experience talking to buyers a fair percentage do shop around and those that do know where to go for the cheapest content. Sales lost on Pond5 or Shutterstock will hurt you double, because ultimately the sales there will also affect your search ranking on those sites. If as you say on another thread VB is outperforming pond5 and SS, its much more likely that your cheap prices on videohive and videoblocks subscriptions are eating up sales there.

« Reply #35 on: February 03, 2018, 06:44 »
+1
If you have very unique clips, one-of-a-kind clips, you may hurt your own sales. But most of us don't have that.

Some buyers shop around, absolutely, but far from all. If a buyer is very concerned about price, they will simply find a similar enough clip and not buy yours at all.

Buyers who are not too concerned with price tend to value their time more, and buy where they are already buying.

I have sold assets for up to 8-10 times the price on certain sites for years, and they outperform the cheaper ones.

---

You are very right about the double penalty regarding search ranking, but I still believe it pays off to spread your assets around as much as possible.

Another very good argument against selling to VB is of course that if EVERYONE would do it, and they would gather most of the good clips in the world, it might render the other sites useless.

If that were to happen though, their acquisition costs would be so high that they would have to charge $10,000 or more for the membership, and only big buyers needing lots of footage would go there.

---

I don't think it's an easy yes or no answer.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2018, 06:57 by increasingdifficulty »

« Reply #36 on: February 03, 2018, 07:55 »
+1
If you have very unique clips, one-of-a-kind clips, you may hurt your own sales. But most of us don't have that.

Some buyers shop around, absolutely, but far from all. If a buyer is very concerned about price, they will simply find a similar enough clip and not buy yours at all.

Buyers who are not too concerned with price tend to value their time more, and buy where they are already buying.

I have sold assets for up to 8-10 times the price on certain sites for years, and they outperform the cheaper ones.

---

You are very right about the double penalty regarding search ranking, but I still believe it pays off to spread your assets around as much as possible.

Another very good argument against selling to VB is of course that if EVERYONE would do it, and they would gather most of the good clips in the world, it might render the other sites useless.

If that were to happen though, their acquisition costs would be so high that they would have to charge $10,000 or more for the membership, and only big buyers needing lots of footage would go there.

---

I don't think it's an easy yes or no answer.

I'm not suggesting not selling there at all, at their normal price the royalties are competitive, I'm saying that selling the rights for the videos is a really bad idea, especially at the rate they're offering which is a tiny fraction of what buying the rights to content should cost.

There's a huge difference between being able to license an unlimited number of clips for $149 per year (or whatever discount they're currently offering - frequently free for 7 days), which is what VB gets the rights to your videos for the $25-$35 that they seem to be offering and a single license at $49.  It just takes a single buyer even through videoblocks itself to choose the free version of your clip (which by definition all buyers there have access to) instead of licensing it or a similar clip for the contributor to be worse off. Unless you think you're never going to sell the clip or similar clips on their platform, you're worse off by selling the rights at this price.

If you ever later want to sell the complete rights to your portfolio, having given away rights to some part in perpetuity allowing re-license will also significantly diminish the value of your work to other potential buyers.

« Reply #37 on: February 03, 2018, 08:25 »
0
I'm not suggesting not selling there at all, at their normal price the royalties are competitive, I'm saying that selling the rights for the videos is a really bad idea, especially at the rate they're offering which is a tiny fraction of what buying the rights to content should cost.

There's a huge difference between being able to license an unlimited number of clips for $149 per year (or whatever discount they're currently offering - frequently free for 7 days), which is what VB gets the rights to your videos for the $25-$35 that they seem to be offering and a single license at $49.  It just takes a single buyer even through videoblocks itself to choose the free version of your clip (which by definition all buyers there have access to) instead of licensing it or a similar clip for the contributor to be worse off. Unless you think you're never going to sell the clip or similar clips on their platform, you're worse off by selling the rights at this price.

If you ever later want to sell the complete rights to your portfolio, having given away rights to some part in perpetuity allowing re-license will also significantly diminish the value of your work to other potential buyers.

All good points of course.

It comes down to whether you have a really big portfolio or not, how many "filler" clips you have and how much you can negotiate the price. Clearly they just start with a low number, and are willing to raise it.

I took a look at one of the top sellers in the industry, and saw that about 30% of the clips in the near 20k portfolio were never sold. I don't know if this is true for most people, but it can give you a rough idea. To compare, a top author in stock music would have very few, if ANY, tracks that don't sell. Less than 1%.

Picking the least likely to sell and putting them in the VB program could strike a nice balance, and also give you a nice chunk of capital for investing (in gear, travel, stock market)...

---

I would never sell the rights to any of my music, unless the money was extremely good, as I sell pretty much all my tracks.

But footage is different, as many clips never sell. I would, however, ask for at least $100 per clip.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2018, 10:44 by increasingdifficulty »

« Reply #38 on: February 03, 2018, 14:00 »
0
Yes of course you're not going to sell 100% of your clip,out of 20k clips i believe that at least 3000 k won't sell...but videoblocks (at least in my experience)tries to buy clips that have a value,you can't force them to buy only clips that never sell,they make the selestion,that's the point!!!

Inviato dal mio SM-G900F utilizzando Tapatalk



 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
58 Replies
26157 Views
Last post November 02, 2017, 11:46
by AnimatedStockFootage
11 Replies
6808 Views
Last post September 17, 2018, 12:53
by philfreez
8 Replies
6363 Views
Last post January 28, 2019, 05:15
by stockmarketer
39 Replies
13660 Views
Last post July 25, 2019, 23:10
by aetb
0 Replies
3106 Views
Last post December 27, 2019, 10:01
by Visualab

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors