Fotolia has just advised their contributors by email of their intention to adopt the subscription system already in place at some of their competitors. 23 – 30 credit according to your rank would be the contributor's earning for each photo sold.
Rapid Response
The response on the Fotolia forums has been pretty rapid with mainly indignation at the discount strategy. Three main reactions appear on the forums (based on fotolia's UK and France forum):
- some contributers are indecisive, give the benefit of the doubt and are willing to try on the short term,
- others refuse categorically and will not accept their photos to be included in the subscription scheme, and
- some are talking about withdrawing altogether of the site like Andres Rodriguez (sapphire contributer).
Even a moderator of the UK forum admitted her disappointment
International Confusions
On both UK and French forums there are confusions about what will really be applied. On the US forum however, a moderator stepped in to give some precisions on the the new scheme: subscription downloads will be limited to the L standard license (why not say that in the email?)
The independent forums have rapidly growing threads of anger on the subject with people who sometimes already pulled out altogether of Fotolia. Maybe a bit hasty if you take into consideration the chronic bad communication Fotolia has shown in the past. On the other hand, there has been complaints piling up quite high.
Search Changes
Indeed, the contributors have been complaining about changes to the searches and subsequent loss of income, along with an increased rate of rejection as part of Fotolia's strategy to raise the quality of the photos on the site. Prior to that the introduction of the infinite collection annoyed the smaller contributors in that these pictures have a better exposure, are sold more expensively and are sometimes (often?) of very poor quality (see examples: http://en.fotolia.com/id/6547687 or http://en.fotolia.com/id/6533055). If other contributors than these agencies would submit these photos via the normal route, they would be rejected without a doubt.
Fotolia also came up with new licences early this year which was more than welcomed by the contributors.
Anger Among Contributors?
What angers contributors the most is probably the raise of quality followed by a discount. This will certainly not help with the bad press microstock has with part of the professional photographers.
In the same announcement Fotolia introduces the API Reseller scheme which allows a reseller to sell the photos under their own brand at a different price (not lower than the Fotolia price). We have to suppose they wanted to tell us a bad news and good news. Another testimony to Fotolia's poor communication since hardly anyone is mentioning it in the forums (only seen in the french forum so far)...
Saturday, 31 May 2008
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Who's making money and how?
There seem to be a few main types of stock-photo contributors on the microstock sites, and I've been thinking a lot about how each of these types of people go about maximising their ROI (Return on Investment).
I've broken down the types of contributors into a few basic groups, I'm sure I'll be missing something here, but hopefully I've got the basics together.
Who's Competing for Sales?
I've split the market into 4 basic groups: -
I'm making no allowances for special cases here and just considering the likely averages.
In terms of available resources, both time, and hardware, the first three groups will be dominating, with the tools to take the better quality pictures, and the portfolios to back them up, there will be a little give for these groups, affording each of them some chance to sell good work, often.
For Pros in particular, a reputation can be formed with the big microstock sites which will reward them with better commissions, more repeat sales, and for some, their new uploads will become anticipated by their regular customers.
Pros and Stoxers will be in a good position here, with regular income streams, increased ROI, and a reputation backing them up, higher income streams are likely, however it's easily possible to get stuck with only one or two big sites, all geared with exclusivity deals, and gold-member status.
There's not many downfalls to doing business like this, but if one of the big sites changes their policies, the market you're selling to becomes over-stocked, or you take some time out and stop writing articles every other day, keeping those professional relationships up and running, are you going to start losing income?
Freedom
Lifers and Tricklers get the benefits of freedom. If some work doesn't sell on Fotolia, they can remove their exclusivity and move to CreStock or some such else. Heck, since their main income is not coming from stock photography, they can afford to stop uploading all together and take a break.
It looks like Stoxers are getting the short end of the stick here, they have to work harder on their stock than virtually everyone else they are up against. It has to be bigger, better, cleared, more focussed, must have better keywords, thus higher sales, and they're more at the mercy of changes in policy, hence recent outrages about raised prices and lower commissions on some of the bigger sites.
My Benefit
I'm fortunate in that contributing microstock isn't a large part of my income, though every small penny I earn on microstock is a great bonus. If I want to upgrade to a new dslr next year, it'll be mighty nice if the shots I've taken with this one have paid for the next one.
What's your main benefit? I'm really interested to hear if I've missed something blatantly obvious here, or if I'm right on the money.
I've broken down the types of contributors into a few basic groups, I'm sure I'll be missing something here, but hopefully I've got the basics together.
Who's Competing for Sales?
I've split the market into 4 basic groups: -
- (Pros) First there are professionals, these will include both individual photographers and agencies, who may or may not already have significant income from their work as journalists, studio artists, or other large-scale professional photography services.
- (Stoxers) A group of individuals dedicated to making stock photography their sole (or at least a significant) income stream make up a small but determined sector of contributors to microstock, midstock, and macrostock where possible.
- (Lifers) Then a larger group, mostly made up of serious, yet not broadly marketed photographers, who may eek out a living with weddings, family portraits, modelling portfolio shots and the like, who will grab what extra cash they can with 'isolated-on-white' product shots and other such reliable sales.
- (Tricklers) Bringing up the rear are the aspirational amateurs who maintain a 'day-job' while spending significant amounts of their off-time taking photographs in places they happen to be going anyway, and steadily look for methods to monetise/monetize any pictures they happen to take with potential market value.
I'm making no allowances for special cases here and just considering the likely averages.
In terms of available resources, both time, and hardware, the first three groups will be dominating, with the tools to take the better quality pictures, and the portfolios to back them up, there will be a little give for these groups, affording each of them some chance to sell good work, often.
For Pros in particular, a reputation can be formed with the big microstock sites which will reward them with better commissions, more repeat sales, and for some, their new uploads will become anticipated by their regular customers.
Pros and Stoxers will be in a good position here, with regular income streams, increased ROI, and a reputation backing them up, higher income streams are likely, however it's easily possible to get stuck with only one or two big sites, all geared with exclusivity deals, and gold-member status.
There's not many downfalls to doing business like this, but if one of the big sites changes their policies, the market you're selling to becomes over-stocked, or you take some time out and stop writing articles every other day, keeping those professional relationships up and running, are you going to start losing income?
Freedom
Lifers and Tricklers get the benefits of freedom. If some work doesn't sell on Fotolia, they can remove their exclusivity and move to CreStock or some such else. Heck, since their main income is not coming from stock photography, they can afford to stop uploading all together and take a break.
It looks like Stoxers are getting the short end of the stick here, they have to work harder on their stock than virtually everyone else they are up against. It has to be bigger, better, cleared, more focussed, must have better keywords, thus higher sales, and they're more at the mercy of changes in policy, hence recent outrages about raised prices and lower commissions on some of the bigger sites.
My Benefit
I'm fortunate in that contributing microstock isn't a large part of my income, though every small penny I earn on microstock is a great bonus. If I want to upgrade to a new dslr next year, it'll be mighty nice if the shots I've taken with this one have paid for the next one.
What's your main benefit? I'm really interested to hear if I've missed something blatantly obvious here, or if I'm right on the money.
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
iStockPhoto
iStockPhoto are a massive player in the microstock industry, they claim to be the fastest growing in the world, though you would be hard pressed to find a microstock site which does not make either this, or some such similar claim.
One thing is certain, they have clout (that's power and/or influence for those of you not familiar). Based out of Canada, iStockPhoto are since 2006 owned by Getty Images and have a huge proportion of the market share, with almost 3.5 million images, and a similar number of registered members, they also sponsor NAPP (USA National Association of Photoshop Professionals.)
iStockPhoto are often pushed by NAPP partners and services such as PhotoshopUserTV, which I've been watching weekly since they started a couple of years back, and highly recommend for anyone with an interest in processing their photographs.
There seems to be have been a lot of controversy surrounding iStockPhoto for years, and I wouldn't expect it to go away anytime soon, as they are a bit of a law unto themselves, especially with regards to pushing up market prices, and their attempts to enter the macrostock and midstock markets (though the same is to be expected of any company in their position.)
If you're buying images, when compared to the other providers, they still manage to be quite competitive, though you will find similar quality, cheaper elsewhere, iStockPhoto have an easy to use interface on their site, and from what I hear, rather good customer support, for both buyers and sellers. If you're looking for 'added value' this is probably a good place to start.
They provide a good variety of stock, with not just images, but also flash, videos, and illustrations being pretty popular. Pricing is based around credits, which cost around $0.80 per credit depending on how many you buy in any one transaction. Different qualities/sizes of image are then priced on a number of credits: -
If you're selling images or other content on iStockPhoto, I must admit I'm not a fan, their sign-up process is overly complicated, and they require a copy of Photo ID, which I'm sure is acceptable to many, but I don't like uploading copies of my ID anywhere without knowing exactly what security is in place to prevent it being misused in the future.
Their commission isn't great, though by no means is the worst around, and varies depending on the licenses and exclusivity offered.
For the larger organisations, iStockPhoto is probably the best place to be, but for individual photographers looking for the best return on investment (time and equipment), I'd really have to suggest looking elsewhere.
Have you anything to add to this review? Different experiences dealing with iStockPhoto? Please let me know.
One thing is certain, they have clout (that's power and/or influence for those of you not familiar). Based out of Canada, iStockPhoto are since 2006 owned by Getty Images and have a huge proportion of the market share, with almost 3.5 million images, and a similar number of registered members, they also sponsor NAPP (USA National Association of Photoshop Professionals.)
iStockPhoto are often pushed by NAPP partners and services such as PhotoshopUserTV, which I've been watching weekly since they started a couple of years back, and highly recommend for anyone with an interest in processing their photographs.
There seems to be have been a lot of controversy surrounding iStockPhoto for years, and I wouldn't expect it to go away anytime soon, as they are a bit of a law unto themselves, especially with regards to pushing up market prices, and their attempts to enter the macrostock and midstock markets (though the same is to be expected of any company in their position.)
If you're buying images, when compared to the other providers, they still manage to be quite competitive, though you will find similar quality, cheaper elsewhere, iStockPhoto have an easy to use interface on their site, and from what I hear, rather good customer support, for both buyers and sellers. If you're looking for 'added value' this is probably a good place to start.
They provide a good variety of stock, with not just images, but also flash, videos, and illustrations being pretty popular. Pricing is based around credits, which cost around $0.80 per credit depending on how many you buy in any one transaction. Different qualities/sizes of image are then priced on a number of credits: -
If you're selling images or other content on iStockPhoto, I must admit I'm not a fan, their sign-up process is overly complicated, and they require a copy of Photo ID, which I'm sure is acceptable to many, but I don't like uploading copies of my ID anywhere without knowing exactly what security is in place to prevent it being misused in the future.
Their commission isn't great, though by no means is the worst around, and varies depending on the licenses and exclusivity offered.
For the larger organisations, iStockPhoto is probably the best place to be, but for individual photographers looking for the best return on investment (time and equipment), I'd really have to suggest looking elsewhere.
Have you anything to add to this review? Different experiences dealing with iStockPhoto? Please let me know.
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Fotolia
Fotolia are probably the biggest Microstock agency in the world (they certainly make this claim), originally started in France, and now based out of New York, they're big enough to be highly selective in the images they host, and to have a massive library (3.6 million at last count.)
I've been on Fotolia for a good few months now, I've still not many images hosted with them, as most of the shots I take are of landscapes, animals, or plants, all of which are massively populated categories on Fotolia.
As a result of this, these shots, unless they're particularly excellent will be rejected by the staff reviewers. This is a sensible move for Fotolia as they'll be ensuring underused categories are growing steadily, while their resources, and buyers time, is not wasted digging through mountains of unsalable stock.
Friends who use Fotolia highly recommend uploading mostly product shots of all kinds of household products, while Fotolia themselves suggest focussing on products relating to large industries, so shots of technological goods and services, business (people in work situations), and pharmaceuticals will be good sellers. If you're looking to sell anything out of their market though, don't bother, Fotolia are VERY selective, try somewhere else.
Good images, well focussed for a market DO sell, and they sell well. Their commission rates for sellers are not great, they run around 50% of sale price for exlusive images, and 33% for non-exclusive images, although there is some space to improve on this rate with certain license types and increased rankings.
For buyers, the searching system in Fotolia is very simple, you can browse by a pretty decent list of categories, each with upwards of 50,000 images to choose from, or use their simple text search service which has ordering and filters as you'd expect.
Pricing starts at $1 for basic small web images, and a variety of licenses are on offer, to ensure you're able to purchase the image you need, for a satisfactory price. Along with a fairly substantial Free section, and their API allowing a lot of other sites to help you search their library, I'm sure designers and publishers will find what they need.
More pricing information can be found at http://us.fotolia.com/Info/RoyaltyFreePhotos
So?
Fotolia are a good company to be buying from, however to be selling with them, you need to be good at spotting niche microstock markets, and be willing to take a little bit of a hit on the commissions you'll earn.
If you have experiences of dealing with Fotolia as a buyer or a seller, please let us know.
I've been on Fotolia for a good few months now, I've still not many images hosted with them, as most of the shots I take are of landscapes, animals, or plants, all of which are massively populated categories on Fotolia.
As a result of this, these shots, unless they're particularly excellent will be rejected by the staff reviewers. This is a sensible move for Fotolia as they'll be ensuring underused categories are growing steadily, while their resources, and buyers time, is not wasted digging through mountains of unsalable stock.
Friends who use Fotolia highly recommend uploading mostly product shots of all kinds of household products, while Fotolia themselves suggest focussing on products relating to large industries, so shots of technological goods and services, business (people in work situations), and pharmaceuticals will be good sellers. If you're looking to sell anything out of their market though, don't bother, Fotolia are VERY selective, try somewhere else.
Good images, well focussed for a market DO sell, and they sell well. Their commission rates for sellers are not great, they run around 50% of sale price for exlusive images, and 33% for non-exclusive images, although there is some space to improve on this rate with certain license types and increased rankings.
For buyers, the searching system in Fotolia is very simple, you can browse by a pretty decent list of categories, each with upwards of 50,000 images to choose from, or use their simple text search service which has ordering and filters as you'd expect.
Pricing starts at $1 for basic small web images, and a variety of licenses are on offer, to ensure you're able to purchase the image you need, for a satisfactory price. Along with a fairly substantial Free section, and their API allowing a lot of other sites to help you search their library, I'm sure designers and publishers will find what they need.
More pricing information can be found at http://us.fotolia.com/Info/RoyaltyFreePhotos
So?
Fotolia are a good company to be buying from, however to be selling with them, you need to be good at spotting niche microstock markets, and be willing to take a little bit of a hit on the commissions you'll earn.
If you have experiences of dealing with Fotolia as a buyer or a seller, please let us know.
Monday, 12 May 2008
YAY Micro
YAY Micro is a new Microstock service based out of Oslo, Norway. It was setup by former employees of Scanpix, a large scandinavian provider of both Editorial and Creative content.
It's hard to say at the moment how many images are on YAY Micro as they're not due to launch until June'08, although they've been open for submissions from contributors for a couple of months.
Their pricing model is fairly straightforward, and they offer a great commission to image providers: -
From my own experience they are currently fairly relaxed about the work they approve, though everything has to be pretty close to technically perfect: i.e. In focus, well composed, strong colours, and good subjects.
Their image categories have not filled up yet so images that won't get onto the more established microstock sites because they have too many of that type already will have a fairly good chance of getting into YAY.
This means if you upload all your images which are not already exclusive with other providers, you'll stand a fairly good chance of sales when they launch for consumers in June.
If the recent launches of similar providers is to be any indication, YAY will likely launch with somewhere in the region of a million stock photos in their library.
With a good selection of images for designers to choose from, and competitive prices, along with probable special promotions and discount codes at launch, it's looking likely to be a great source for both publishing and purchasing editorial and creative images.
I'll be posting a follow-up review after launch, looking at their searching system. I'd like to hear from anyone who's had experiences good or bad.
Thanks and happy Stoxing ;)
It's hard to say at the moment how many images are on YAY Micro as they're not due to launch until June'08, although they've been open for submissions from contributors for a couple of months.
Their pricing model is fairly straightforward, and they offer a great commission to image providers: -
| Size | Creative Price | Creative Commission 50 % | Editorial Price | Editorial Commission 50 % |
| S Small Web | € 1 | € 0,5 | € 1 | € 0,5 |
| M Web | € 5 | € 2,5 | € 15 | € 7,5 |
| L & Vector | € 10 | € 5 | €30 | €15 |
| Subscription Size M | € 50 | €1 per download | €300 | €1 per download |
From my own experience they are currently fairly relaxed about the work they approve, though everything has to be pretty close to technically perfect: i.e. In focus, well composed, strong colours, and good subjects.
Their image categories have not filled up yet so images that won't get onto the more established microstock sites because they have too many of that type already will have a fairly good chance of getting into YAY.
This means if you upload all your images which are not already exclusive with other providers, you'll stand a fairly good chance of sales when they launch for consumers in June.
If the recent launches of similar providers is to be any indication, YAY will likely launch with somewhere in the region of a million stock photos in their library.
With a good selection of images for designers to choose from, and competitive prices, along with probable special promotions and discount codes at launch, it's looking likely to be a great source for both publishing and purchasing editorial and creative images.
I'll be posting a follow-up review after launch, looking at their searching system. I'd like to hear from anyone who's had experiences good or bad.
Thanks and happy Stoxing ;)
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