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@shelma1 wrote:
To Martha: Sorry, I didn’t realize this was about SYS-wide registration. How would that work?
It’s okay, Shelma. The article was in part about price, but that wasn’t all of it.
I’ll paste in below the entire article I linked to above, then highlight the parts I was talking about.
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25 July 2013
A Golden Age For Paid Content
It’s coming, if publishers can get three things right.
Readers will pay for content online so long as three conditions are met:
1 The content is worth paying for.
2 The price is low.
3 The transaction is easy.There are some trade-offs within those criteria. If you have an overwhelming need for a particular channel of content—the Financial Times, say, or The Economist—then you will accept a relatively high price, and quite a lot of friction in the process of subscribing.
But for paid content to be the rule rather than the exception, publishers need to deliver on all three criteria at once.
Here’s how it can happen.
There’s no particular problem or mystery associated with providing content worth paying for. Publishers do it all the time. What’s amazing is how much good writing is currently available for free. For example, I’d certainly pay to read the NYR Blog, provided that the price was right and the transaction was easy.
Getting to the right price is more of an issue. Publishers think in terms of one-to-many relations with their readers, and price accordingly; but readers want a one-to-many relationship with publishers. Each publisher wants to sell one subscription to every reader for $60 a year; but each reader would much rather buy ten subscriptions to ten publications for $6 a year each.
The customer is always right. With much lower prices and much bigger volumes, everyone would be better off.
Frictionless purchasing is getting closer, but it’s not evenly distributed.You have it once you get inside the closed systems of the Kindle and the iTunes store—and the effect of it is clear and liberating. You sample more, you buy more. To return to the case of the NYR Blog, I’m 90% sure I’d pay $1 a month to read that content, even if I had to go through PayPal to do so. But I’m 100% sure I’d pay $1 a month to read it if I was buying with a single click on my Kindle, and 90% sure I’d pay $2.
But how to make frictionless transactions for individual pieces of content outside the closed systems? We need the internet equivalent of a Metro Card (in London: an Oyster Card), which is to say, a pass that the reader can preload with so many prepaid page views—say 100 page views for $10—and then use to access individual pieces of paid content on any participating publisher’s website.
When we can meet all three criteria—quality content, low pricing, frictionless purchasing—we can do for paid content what app stores have done for software. Remember when software in a box used to cost $100, and you might buy a couple of things a year that you really needed? Now it costs $1 and you buy it on impulse.We’re going to get there, even if the prepaid pass takes—I would guess—another year or two to arrive and scale. For the past five years or so we’ve been in a golden age of free content. Now we’re moving into a golden age of paid content, and that’s going to be even better.
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(first published in medium.com, 24th July 2013)@Semmick Photo wrote:
It is working for me ! 🙂
Oh, wow!! That’s great, Ron.
I just saw your latest purchase go through. So… you WERE able to download that 2nd image?!
Please confirm so I can have a nice strong toddy to celebrate. 🙂
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PS, I’ll refund your payment just as soon as I know the download got through to you. Don’t want to mess anything up by jumping the gun.
I was having problems completing a sale before, when I was on 2.6.5.
Now that I’ve upgraded to 2.8.x, with Leo’s great help, I was expecting my purchases to go through. But no, not yet.
I talked with Paypal today. Things there seem to be set up correctly. I even double-checked later to make sure I actually do have a business account, and I do.
So, here’s my situation…
A registered buyer can send me $$.
He gets a receipt from PP for the $$.
His $$ shows up as a deposit in my PP account. (And I’m even able to refund his $$.)
I get a PP confirmation of the sale.Everything goes fine to that point, but the buyer never receives a download link, either on his Customer Page on my site or via an email.
So… money changes hands but no product is delivered. Not good.
I’m totally stumped. Does anybody have a suggestion for me at this point?
Thanks for your comments, Shelma. We’ve all weighed the advantages of more sales at lower prices versus fewer sales at higher prices. No doubt with high-end ad agencies, high prices for top-tier art and artists are the norm. But for “indie” artists selling their own work directly, opinions are all over the board.
My reason for posting the essay was because we’re also dealing with the issue of whether or not to require buyers to register. Some have wished we could figure out a SYS system-wide process for registration while maintaining the independence of our individual sites.
This essay describes a possible solution that could be available soon. It could be worth pursuing if it comes to fruition, and if so, it might resolve our dilemma.
@Semmick Photo wrote:
Another sale, bloggee, from outside the network.
Hooray! You’re on a roll, Ron.
@lespalenik wrote:
Martha, your site looks great.
I’m also getting ready to make the jump from 2.6.5 to 2.8.x
Are you using the main Symbiostock theme or one the child themes?Thanks, Les. I appreciate your thumbs up!
I’ve been on Clean Theme 2 from the beginning and officially still am, but Leo did something to it over the weekend to make it work for me. I assume he and Amanda are preparing it for release to work with 2.8.x.
Mine too.
@leo wrote:
I set it up at 96 images for you – http://bestnaturestock.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=symbiostock-gl
You can change it by modifying the number at the bottom of that window.
Super! I’ll go check it out.
Whaddguy!!!
@Semmick Photo wrote:
You need to get the genetics lab and the thumbnail infuser, then you can set any number. I have set 96 http://semmickphoto.com/image/
Ron, I can’t find the plugin (?) that you’re talking about. Can you provide a link (or links)?
Muchas gracias!
@leo wrote:
I forgot about that one. I’ll do that for you – don’t bother.
Thanks for the happy thread! 😀My pleasure. THANK YOU for the fabulous help!
@Semmick Photo wrote:
YAY
You need to get the genetics lab and the thumbnail infuser, then you can set any number. I have set 96 http://semmickphoto.com/image/
Love the clean look. There is just one cosmetic issue, the blue top bar changes when scrolling and then the search bar doesnt look good.
Thanks, Ron, for the cheer and for that plugin tip. I’m on it. 🙂
And hey, it seems Leo is on the goofy top bar issue.
Whadda team!!!!!!!! 🙂
Good luck with that, Mark. Sounds much too hairy-scary for me!
I’ll “ditto” Christine’s welcome, Scooty. We’re glad to have you with us!
In June, I signed up for 3 years at the cheapest Bluehost level and paid extra for the Backup Pro. But even with few images up, my site was verrrrrry sluggish. So after a month I decided to up the level of service to the $19.95/mo plan, which includes Backup Pro and has many fewer sites sharing the server space. The 1-year cost for the upgraded server with included backup turned out to be about the same as the cheap 3-year plan with extra backup. I don’t know if the extra cost is worth it, but my site really does seem faster now that I’m not sharing the server with many hundreds (thousands?) of other sites. I have over 1000 images up and it’s perkier than it was with 50 on the cheaper plan.
Even tho I get the Backup Pro included with Bluehost, I don’t trust it to do the job. So several months back, when I realized how much work I was going to be putting into my site, I decided to invest in an outside backup service, VaultPress, which provides hourly backups that I trust and don’t have to fuss with. To me, the convenience and peace of mind are worth the cost.
When I first signed up, I also took the Site Lock feature, but I’m not sure if it’s worth anything or not. Mostly, it seems to reassure prospective buyers that they won’t get some dreaded virus by using my site. Is that worth the cost? Who knows???
Good luck with the exciting project ahead of you.
Yikes! So sorry to hear about all this.
@dianajo wrote:
Perhaps it is my internet connection, but could someone tell me what the latest images they see at http://dianajophoto.com?
I see five tile images, plus a “scruffy Arctic fox”.
