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Added a link to Symzio and a description of the agency in my About page on Backyard Stock Photos
Steve
We are now past the shortest day – summer is on the way! Find this on #symzio https://t.co/xhkg8DXdaO pic.twitter.com/9WljlpojO9
— Steve Heap (@steheap) December 22, 2015
Quick question Robin – I’m adding the Symzio widget into my site – is my affiliate code the same as my sync code that is in the Symzio settings area of the plugin?
Trying again to embed this tweet:
Mind your head… unusual view of Hanalei Pier in Kauai on new stock agency #symzio https://t.co/JkzmQ5dmLf pic.twitter.com/SMKh0tTiAl
— Steve Heap (@steheap) December 19, 2015
Mind your head… unusual view of Hanalei Pier in Kauai on new stock agency #symzio https://t.co/JkzmQ5dmLf pic.twitter.com/SMKh0tTiAl
— Steve Heap (@steheap) December 19, 2015
Don’t disagree with your thoughts, Robin. As I said, I’m making a personal decision on where to put my images for what I hope is maximum revenue – that forces me not to put some good shots on the micro sites such as Shutterstock in order to put them as RM on Corbis and Alamy and some others. I accept that Symzio needs to meet the needs of the majority of buyers, which are clearly choosing microstock sites.
Sorry to raise this but this debate has brought us round to the initial question – if Redneck and myself have images in our sites that are not on Symzio because we have put them on RM sites at a higher price, then should the pricing on Symzio be a little more attuned to Micro sites and have standard pricing for the larger file size?
STeve
posted in error
Well – there is this fine blog post:
http://www.backyardsilver.com/2015/07/rf-versus-rm-versus-editorial-versus-commercial/
You can sell editorial as RF or RM – it is just that Alamy in particular automatically puts anything without a release into their RM category and then has the rule that you can’t sell an image that is RM with Alamy as RF anywhere else.
The latest plan isn’t a deal breaker for me either – I do tend to put my best shots into RM, but that is a decision I take to maximize my earnings. You couldn’t have such RM images appear in the search results but push the buyer through to the contributor site could you? We then pay you a fee if they buy from us directly.
Steve
Actually, I thought of an issue in making the full size image an RF license. I upload my editorial shots only to the macrostock sites as RM. On my Symbio site I am able to include them because I made all my licenses one use only – a type of RM.
If Symzio was to offer those images as RF, I would have to remove all my editorial RM shots from the new agency. Of course I could do that, but would prefer not to.
So I’m adding my vote to Redneck’s to make the larger file size a one-time use license if possible. Of course we still have no way of checking if people will really use it like that, but it avoids any potential issues with other sites especially when Symzio becomes a big successful agency!
Steve
I agree – good for me. The one time license is a great idea, but very hard for any agency to track in reality. It is possibly not even clear that the person licensing the image realizes the restriction, although I agree some of them would.
I’ve just had a long email discussion with a buyer of one of my images from Dreamstime that he later realized had been marked as editorial. He had little idea what that really meant, so getting people to understand licensing and what they can and can’t do can be a challenge.
Steve
Wow – you are bringing me round – I never got those sort of sales in the old theme – in fact I didn’t get many at my lower prices (which topped out at $20). Were your sold images also available on SS, Dreamstime, Fotolia etc. or unique to your own site?
However in the new system, I have had pretty much zero success to date. So my cheap price isn’t bringing them in – it must be my lousy SEO or my lousy images. I’ll go with the former for now!
Robin – I don’t know what the answer is. Bringing in buyers seems to be key, currently my site gets very few visitors and even fewer willing to buy. What would tempt people to come regularly, see our images high in the search systems (higher than the same image on other agencies) and then be willing to license their chosen image?
<span style=”color: #272727; font-family: ‘Open Sans’, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28.8px;”>I truly believe you are wrong about that. I think contributors are waiting for a way to get their stuff out while still being treated fair.</span><br style=”box-sizing: border-box; color: #272727; font-family: ‘Open Sans’, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28.8px;” /><span style=”color: #272727; font-family: ‘Open Sans’, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28.8px;”>And again, trying to enter the market over lowest possible pricing is NOT the solution. It’s the problem and it will be the downfall sooner or later.</span><br style=”box-sizing: border-box; color: #272727; font-family: ‘Open Sans’, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28.8px;” /><span style=”color: #272727; font-family: ‘Open Sans’, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28.8px;”>It’ll only be a question of time when the next one comes up offering even lower prices for the same stuff. The key is keeping contributors happy and let the market regulate the sales</span>
I really hope you are right, to be honest, but I have seen little sign of contributors having any power at all in my time in the industry. There have been periodic attempts to get us to do things together – that removal of images from Fotolia comes to mind (which I joined) – but that made little difference in the end. Perhaps I am part of the problem – although I do separate my images into ones I try to get reasonable commissions on, and those that are just competing with all the rest of the microstock contributors out there. So thinking about it, I would agree with an approach where we had a premium collection which was priced higher and a “normal” collection priced closer to Robin’s suggestion.
Steve
Edit: Don’t know what I did wrong with that quote.
Pond5 is similar in that you can set your own price for photos. As you hover over the thumbnail the prices appear. I’ve had most of mine set to $20, but have few sales. I’ve just tried an experiment where I changed the price of about half of them to $10 max. If there are any more sales, I’ll feed it back, but I doubt things will change quickly…
Steve
I’m on Picfair with 6000 images and have not had one sale and no noticeable views on any of my images. When I complain about their search system (which is pretty poor), I get the response to link to my images in social media.
But – I have very few buyers that follow me on twitter or my blog. I’m not sure how much of a difference I can make to buyers becoming aware of Picfair and choosing to buy my images there. So I have basically ignored the site – no more uploads from me unless there is some movement. Canva however, is picking up nicely and those $1 usage fees add up. Am I losing a higher price sale elsewhere – I haven’t a clue. I tend to think about the overall income each month rather than where it comes from.
Getting Symzio off the ground without the massive investment that Picfair has had is going to be really tough. Contributors may come along, but unless those images are only available on this site (very unlikely), the attraction to buyers will be the price. We can wish it was different but we have no bargaining power to change current realities.
Steve
