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Stock Libraries
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I’m signed up to http://www.photographersdirect.com stock library and yet to make a sale (not sure if it’s the keywording of just unsaleable images (please do advise if you see me in there)
It is worth noting that they do not accept any submissions for photographers who have ever provided images to royalty free stock libraries – i seem to remember that Istock photo was mentioned….
Has anyone else signed up to this library?
Has anyone made a sale? Please PM me just to let me know.I have.
I wouldn’t call 2 image sales fantastic by any means but even though they were spot use, I got ?150 less 20% for them. Which is still better than trying to sell 75 images $2.Puckpics wrote:
I’m signed up to http://www.photographersdirect.com stock library and yet to make a sale (not sure if it’s the keywording of just unsaleable images (please do advise if you see me in there)
It is worth noting that they do not accept any submissions for photographers who have ever provided images to royalty free stock libraries – i seem to remember that Istock photo was mentioned….
Has anyone else signed up to this library?
Has anyone made a sale? Please PM me just to let me know.There is an article here http://www.photographersdirect.com/sellers/micropayment.asp at on the dangers of micropayment photographic libraries that was posted to http://www.photographersdirect.com/.
I’m with istockphoto and have had 208 downloads. Not alot over 2 years. Then again I put zero effort into stock photography. Their payments have increased which is a good
thing.
The images I have put up there wouldn’t have included any image I might have been
precious about or will to sell myself to someone, should I be so lucky to be selling more than a
couple once in a blue moon :)interesting thread…
Any word on the irish stock site getting up and running yet ?
What about doing it yourself.
If your website has properly indexed keywording then there is no reason why your own site could not come ahead of the stock agencies in searches. I don’t consider myself a stock photographer and do not submit to agencies, but Irish agencies (Failte, NIB etc) do seem to be able to find me to buy stock.
Andy
Andy,
do you have set pricing for your stock?On the DIY front, I was half considering going down the Pixaria route. A member of the camera club bought it and seems happy with it..
Although if I could persuade Adobe to include keywords in the Web gallery in Lightroom it might be a start!Sean,
Yep, I have a “royalty free” pricing structure and usage agreement.
I’m cheap (for now) !!
Andy
Puckpics wrote:
There is an article here http://www.photographersdirect.com/sellers/micropayment.asp at on the dangers of micropayment photographic libraries
I have to say the above article really opened my eyes. The case against the Micropayment Stock Libraries is really well put. Plenty of food for thought there.
Dave
Puckpics wrote:
There is an article here http://www.photographersdirect.com/sellers/micropayment.asp at on the dangers of micropayment photographic libraries that was posted to http://www.photographersdirect.com/.
It’s probably a little late to reply, but my own feelings aside – I’d love to make a living from stock at some point – that kind of argument from photographersdirect.com really isn’t going to gain ground with business customers. Photographers Direct are essentially asking customers to pay more for limited use of a photo than next to nothing for completely unlimited use. If the quality may be lower…so what? They’ve still saved hundreds and thousands of euros by purchasing from the microtransaction site.
And this honestly isn’t going to change. Expecting people to magically pony up literally thousands of times more than a readily available alternative that’s of identical quality isn’t going to work too well.
Mayhap the best thing for people to do is to stop complaining and adapt to the market as it stands and will stand. Look at areas that aren’t going to change much: Events, commissions, seminars
David over at strobist has an interesting take on success within the future of stock and microstock: specialization. Article here.
Good read, and of course if you don’t know his site, loads to learn on off camera flash.
Cath.
Actually Mark, Companies do pay more by choice all the time.
Of course if you feel that your time, effort and acquired skill are worth 20? on the dollar for unlimited use, then I’m not going to argue with you. I think it’s worth more.
One of my images used in 3 different things has made over ?1000 (over 2 years). How long would I be waiting for that in microstock? Total income from stock images has paid for my equipment. (I should actually submit to Alamy and other agencies, but never seem to find time).Like Neil Warner pointed out in the camera club, Iarnrod Eireann spending ?7,000 on a photos of a train, is nothing compared to the money spent in actually using that image in a full page ad in a national newspaper. Usually in a campaign, the photo is already the cheapest part.
Sure there is room for the microstock stuff, but what any company doesn’t mind paying for is a degree of exclusivity. Nothing more embarrassing than using the same image as your competitor. However, for generic stuff, like pictures of pens and paper etc, microstock makes more sense. However if you are shooting Lifestyle images and getting the images model released, then going down the mircostock route is not the best idea. I’m not saying you can’t go Royalty Free, but do it with the better paying agencies. Lifestyle has a bigger demand and because of a release should command higher fees.
Corbis have a beta of their new microstock website “SnapVillage’ open for business.
The site, called SnapVillage, differs slightly in that it lets photographers set their own prices from a range of options of $1, $5, $10, $25 or $50. The photographer gets 30% of each sale. The beta has about 10,000 of Corbis images in it to get it started. If anyone joins up you might let us know how it goes,
Dave
Dave has summed it up well. While I do sell rights managed images where I set what the client can do, I only have one real issue with the microstock option: the price paid. There is a reason why microstock agencies are rolling in money. They keep it. Meanwhile the photographer gets peanuts for their work. This is not right. Like the person seeing their image on the IBM website. Great? Not really when you only got $2 for it. You know the IBM budget for that was probably in the $1,000’s. No fair.
Sean
While i do agree with you about the ridiculous amounts of money these agencies pay photographers. I think that there is a misconception about how much money the clients of these agencies have to spend on stock footage.
I am one of those clients. I produce AV shows and presentations for corporates and visitor centres.
I often buy stock footage.
And i can tell you that the budgets are not very often that high, and are ever decreasing. Its a very popular misconception that the production budgets for clients is always huge ammounts of money. there are a few rare occassions where this is the case, but not the norm.
BUT, the budget is generally much higher than the ridiculous ammount given to the photographer at the end of the chain and like I say i do agree its a bit silly.
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