photo credit: Crystl

And so the turkey is eaten, the beer is going flat, the Xmas jumper has been dutifully worn and thoughts turn to the New Year and the hopes and fears that may bring. Here’s PP’s handy guide to the 5 things you really do and don’t want to do if you want to make more money than last year.

1. DON’T bother with microstock: It’s a mugs game if you are solo. If you weren’t in there near the start you have a snowball’s chance in hell of making any decent returns from your efforts. Hats off to the Yuri Arcurs of this world, they know the only way to make serious returns per image in microstock is to run a production house churning out thousands of well targetted, well produced images each week and upload them to every microstock library there is. That’s what you have to do, but 95% of all micro contributors don’t and will never have that production capacity.

2. DON’T be a ‘generalist’: if you shoot the sort of images anyone can produce then 2010 will further dilute your power to make returns; even at traditional libraries. Cameras are getting ridiculously easy to use to you must find a way of injecting your talent into the images you make to set yourself apart from the crowd. Standard snaps are just not cutting it anymore.

3. DON’T work harder – work smarter: Those of you flogging yourself out there for a ‘day rate’ (you know, the rate you dare not increase and the one that keeps getting undercut by your competition) you guys are in for a rough ride. This Christmas will have spawned a thousand new ‘photographers’ all eager to get their standard Clickpic or similiarly ridiculously-easy-to-set-up site up and running and selling their services. Except of course they haven’t a clue what to charge. Some will have talent but know nothing about making money. Talent and no business sense is a formula for being taken for a ride. Some of these people will be your competition and your clients will have no way of telling the difference.

If you still use a ‘day rate’ you need to read this first:

http://www.thephotographybiz.com/photography-business/dont-charge-out-your-photography-on-time/

then take this free course of five tutorials:

http://www.thephotographybiz.com/photography-business/how-to-charge-and-price-up-assignment-photography-part-one/

Licence, licence, licence = $$$, $$$, $$$ and it repeats too. If you want a business that makes self-generating profit from shoots you did two years ago then licence the use of your work, don’t work an hourly rate. Simple.

4. DO spend less time on forums and more time shooting: We all know the photo forum dwellers, those whose name appears in the status bar of the forum every time you pop in and who just can’t resist to pass on their words of wisdom despite being the guys that never ever seem to sell anything (thinking of a particular stock photo library forum here ;)). Getting mixed up with these guys is a whole waste of your time and productivity. Their negativity and sheer ignorance will infect you, wind you up to distraction and before you know it two hours is lost in a flame war over whether you need a model release in Bolivia pre-1985. Get over it, check out, take it off your “favourites” list and get on with your job.

5. DO treat photo competitions with suspicion: It’s the latest way to make money. Set up a competition and take money for entries. Candy off a baby. Promise a reward and ever-lasting recognition. If you’re going to spend $$$$ on entering online photo competitions make sure you realise it’s not going to make you as revered and/or wealthy and/or hired as Nadav Kander overnight. In fact $ for $ you’d be better off spending that money on direct targeted marketing to art buyers and prospective clients you have a chance of impressing.

So happy new year to all my blog readers, may you make more $$ for less effort in 2010 (see #3) :)

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)
• When does fair use of a photo become copyright infringement? (2)
• What exactly is a photography license? (1)
• Welcome to thephotographybiz.com (0)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)

photo credit: Vinay Deep

But it’s the web! It’s just a web image. It’s cheap. It’s not worth as much as print usage. It’s only 300 pixels wide. It’s small. It can’t be worth anything like a full page in the magazine. It’s just our electronic version. Nobody reads it online anyway.

Just some of the excuses you’ll hear when publishers want you to throw in “digital rights” i.e. web and pdf uses for free or for nearly free.

Wrong!

Here’s why. A great article by Paul Melcher over on Black Star Rising gives you 10 reasons why your pixels are worth as much (if not more) on the web than they are in print. http://rising.blackstar.com/10-ways-to-fight-for-your-digital-rights-as-a-photographer.html

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Alamy announce a ‘Find a Photographer’ service (1)
• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part four (16)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part five (6)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)

photo credit: CoCreatr

Back in March PP posted some tips for new photographers advising on what NOT to do if they were to have a successful business. You can see “12 easy ways NOT to succeed”here.

Meanwhile a new site called simply “Dear Photographer” has emerged in a similar vein with some really great tips on it like:

“HDR: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should“

Take a look and you can even submit some of your own too!

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)
• When does fair use of a photo become copyright infringement? (2)
• What exactly is a photography license? (1)
• Welcome to thephotographybiz.com (0)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)

photo credit: evelynishere

Reading one of my favourite blogs this morning “A Photo Editor” who references a piece in Advertising Age by Jeff Goodby on the relevance of Awards in advertising. Jeff asks his audience if they are becoming “award-chasers” rather than producing relevant advertising material that can really impact how people think.

Jeff says:

“We’ve created a system that rewards work that is increasingly unknown to anyone outside the business. We have become connoisseurs of esoterica. And in the process, we’re becoming more about us, and less about changing the world.

We are becoming irrelevant award-chasers.”

I think there is a very strong relevance for photographers in this message too.

Photography awards themselves are becoming increasingly irrelevant as they focus in on themselves instead of promoting the commercial viability of the photographers who enter. It’s a vicious circle. To get an award photographers may copy previous year’s styles thus not actually shooting like they’d be commissioned to shoot or even entering a commissioned piece of work. They are following a trend. There are numerous examples if you look hard enough of award winners with amazing images whose normal portfolio is totally different, totally commercial – which is what they get paid to produce. IMHO Photo Awards don’t seem to reflect our day to day industry.

Awards mechanisms themselves can appear to have an inflated ego e.g. the AoP don’t give out all their Gold, Silver or Bronze awards each year. A team of judges decide whether an image is worthy of a place in the top three. Is that pretentious? Is that realistic? Is that self-defeating?

Surely those who enter awards do it to try and gain more or better work. Or do they? Does vanity have a big part to play?

The sheer amount of awards to enter invitations (check your email boxes) have shot up tenfold in the last couple of years. No doubt fuelled by the apparent willingness of lemming-like scared-they’re-not-hip-any-longer photographers to throw $50 entry fees away like confetti at a wedding; and for what? The chance to be in a “book” of unknown (or at least unverified) circulation around the industry.

Some Awards of course are long established, but there’s a number of “who the hell are they?” types hanging to their coat tails, sending multiple emails promising recognition and fame and this number is increasing.

You are likely being judged by people you’ve never heard of and you will be forgotten as soon as the winners are announced (or at least once there’s a gap of a couple of months before the next “call for entries” arrives. Tell me the name of the winner of (insert famous award) last year in the (insert category) without Googling it?

A Photo Award in the Web 2.0 age is a pinprick in the sea of images, websites, tweets, blogs et al that an art buyer or creative director sees on a daily basis. The dilution is so strong I doubt they’d remember the award a month on, let alone a year.

Of course the publicity surrounding the “call for entries” and the almost inevitable “call for entries extension” (i.e. we haven’t made enough entry fees to clear our projected profits) far outweighs the publicity given to the actual results and award winners themselves.

Don’t wait for the phone to ring the morning after. The actual financial tangible benefits of paying to enter these “industry awards” can be measured in single dollars – if that.

We’ve not even covered here the vast number of awards aimed at ripping you of all your copyright and or granting “unlimited rights in perpetuity” i.e. a free RF licence. Bear in mind that you’ve had to pay to enter. Those are on the increase too and they’re often aimed at amateurs and the “copyright unaware“. It’s like taking candy off a baby.

So, what are awards really worth? Only you can decide.

Kudos for the insecure? Comfort blanket for the unloved? I say give your $50 to charity – they need it more.

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• When does fair use of a photo become copyright infringement? (2)
• Welcome to thephotographybiz.com (0)
• Is the stock photography bubble about to burst in 2008? (1)
• How to deal with clients who want your photography for the cheapest possible price (3)
• Five types of Professional Photographer – which one are you? (2)

photo credit: spud murphy

Sorry! Was experimenting with having a weekly post of my collated twitter activity show up on the site but I realise this looks awful when delivered to a subscription email or RSS so I’ve turned it off now.

Experiment over!

If you want to follow me on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/photographybiz

PP

p.s. I’ve also reluctantly turned back on comment moderation after a couple of weeks worth of spam that Akismet seems unable to see (looked obvious to me!). From today, if you’ve had any comment approved here before then your comment will show up immediately – if not it will be held for moderation.

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• No related posts.

photo credit: Yukari*

If I could embed an mp3 of a violin I’d do it.

In a 6.30pm email to all contributors yesterday (March 18th) the CEO of the Alamy Stock Library, James West announced that the mainly editorial stock agency may well have to succumb to a subscription based model based upon unlimited downloads as a worst case scenario. It would seem the UK newspaper industry is in such a mess it has decided to take its ball home if it can’t buy usage for microstock rates.

I’ve seen some bun fights over on Alamy’s forum and some toys thrown out of the pram (and in this case rightly so) but I’m sure when James clicked on the send button in his office at the end of that day he had no idea of the intense shit storm he was about to unleash. Just read the blog comments. Up to 134 and counting. About 5 in favour of giving our beleaguered newspapers an as much as you can eat buffet for a fixed fee. 99% screaming (literally) for a way to opt-out of Newspaper subscriptions.

Almost 24 hours (save 3 minutes) later James responded to those comments on the blog and no doubt the trillions** of ‘Angry from Croydon’ emails he’d invited his contributors to send him via his personal email inbox.

From James West himself in a comment below:

Clarification to readers – approximately 17,000 contributors received my email about UK newspapers and 300 opted out. The author has used the reaction on the Alamy forum to gauge contributor opinion, which is not representative of opinion across the Alamy contributor community as a whole.

James West
CEO
Alamy

In this follow up response James mentioned allowing an opt-out.

If you’re still unconvinced, please email Member Services, with the subject line “UK newspaper opt-out”, and we will exclude your images from any deals we do with UK newspapers.

If you are going to take my offer of an opt-out, please do something for me in return: wait and see. Don’t rule this out until you have had a chance to gauge the impact it will have on price and volume for yourself. You will be able to opt-out at any point in the future if you wish.

This appeased some but did this stop the masses from revolting? Hell no. Off they went again. 98 comments to date. Some rather well thought out and lucid arguments too. Grab a coffee and read through especially if you’re new to Alamy and/or stock. I can’t help wondering whether Alamy’s policy wing deliberately tosses out a bad news scenario in order to brainstorm possible solutions for free. I know that’s a cynical attitude to take. It could be that they are genuinely concerned about how their contributors feel.

At least they sort of pseudo-consult (albeit in a ham fisted manner) unlike Getty who are more than likely to just tell you to bend over and brace yourself.

24 hours later the cavalry arrive in the shape of another clarification blog post from Head of Content Alan Capel.

You guessed it……. still not enough detail to quell the fires of revolt! Though we did now realise that RM images were fair game for the Newshounds too! Despite assurances that prices would be set on usage, there’s a foul smell of a download model emerging which would let these key customers (only 8% of Alamy’s business mind) fill their boots for an all you can eat monthly fee. RMs RFs RPs the lot.

Contributors rightly point out that under the current model the Newshounds quite often “forget” to account for usages. As it is the key customers get access to download hi-res images on a “self billing” arrangement which trusts said organisations to account for each and every use they have made of the image.

Worse though, and the real crux of a subscription scheme like this is that Alamy can negotiate a price that isn’t far off what they get now on a contractual basis. Guaranteed income. No such guarantee for the contributor who will get the crumbs and see their work devalued even further. Can’t blame Alamy for wanting to secure cash flow in a recession but it’s the contributor that provides the content that gets the rough end of a subscription deal every single time.

Client gets cheaper imagery – Alamy get guaranteed payments – Contributor gets sod all!

The Alamy Forum (PP side note: not for those of nervous disposition) often reports unpaid usage attributed to the Newspaper accounts. So if Alamy can’t control this now (despite assurances they’re taking it seriously) PP wonders how the hell they’re going to control usage under subscriptions where the late nite sub-editor is going to look upon the whole of Alamy as his personal free stock resource. “I’ll mark those uses up later” – not.

More worrying is the precedent this is going to set within the industry. BAPLA have already spoken out against the Newspapers’ attempt to dictate the value of photographer’s work. PP feels that once the magic download rabbit is let out of the hat the other volume clients are going to come asking for it too. There could be a slow creep until the whole editorial and educational use sector is subsumed.

Best kill it now. Like the ill-fated Novel Use scheme. That didn’t work either.

PP thinks Alamy’s contributors have a great diversity of content that’s just not available anywhere else (yes anywhere). Some of it is complete crap but thankfully Alamy Rank is doing a good job in letting that sink to the bottom. There’s good cause for the Newspapers to pay real money to licence Alamy’s diverse content. Without it they’d have to send someone to the outer reaches of whatever godforsaken place they’re doing a piece on and get it shot. And that’s going to cost them way more than the current heavily discounted licence fees they enjoy from Alamy.

Of course they could:

1. Nick it off the web or FlickR (mind you don’t nick a Getty image now Mr Newspaper man); or
2. Persuade a newbie to part with their image for the absolutely wonderful “can’t resist oh no its just too good” reimbursement of a credit line.

Why can’t they just be thankful they can licence rare content for the current 75% off calculator knockdown price. But no, they want it even cheaper. Hey, that’s capitalism! But it takes two to tango and if Alamy show some cojones and stand firm the Newspapers can’t do much about it.

Fast forward to 25th March and in response to the tidal wave of opt-out emails James West feels compelled to write to everyone again. This one isn’t on the blog and it gives more detail on the probable (his words not mine) usage price points of £25 – £55 per use. If I thought that was even remotely possible I’d applaud though it covers the current discounted rates for spot up to 1/8th, getting 60% of £55 for a DPS in a national newspaper is going to seem like a hugely bad deal.

Fact is that Getty and AP who supply newswire sport, breaking news and celebrity images are already way way below that price point. I just can’t see Alamy managing to thrash out a contract with a newspaper in a recession that comes close to £25 – £55 for every single image for single non-exclusive editorial use.

PP is with a number of commentators who call for Alamy to let this sector go. By all means continue to service them at regular prices but don’t cave in chasing 8% of revenue from a dying industry. Newsprint isn’t exactly flatlining yet but they’re in A&E and the prognosis isn’t good.

Further developments are awaited with an uneasy mix of interest and trepidation. Lets hope for the sake of our future editorial sales Alamy’s negotiations with our UK Newspaper magnates are more successful than this guy’s attempt at appeasement.

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)
• Understanding licensing types: Rights Ready Image licences (0)
• Understanding licensing types: Rights Protected or Exclusive image licences (0)
• Understanding licensing types: Rights Managed image licences (0)
• Stock Photography: Can you sell an image as RF and RM at the same time? (3)

photo credit: Mulad

Ouch! Seems that all is not well in the land of $1 images. Seems that the $1 image companies aren’t making quite as much profit as they want to and are making “some changes”.

First off microstock GrandDaddy istockphoto have decided to…erm….do some “housekeeping”. See the email they just sent out to selected contributors. .

This is hot on the heels of some more than unwelcome announcements by Fotolia which seem to increase image prices but reduce contributors earnings and also change the way exclusive images are paid out. See the fallout discussed here

Heads up to http://www.stockphototalk.com for the lead!

As if it wasn’t bad enough that you had to sell your work for peanuts, now you’re all are being asked to bend over and… well….I’ll let you imagine.

Lube up boys….

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Stock Photography: Can you sell an image as RF and RM at the same time? (3)
• Is the stock photography bubble about to burst in 2008? (1)
• Breaking news: Alamy allow 2 week Novel Use opt out from 10th June 2008 (2)
• Alamy go all ‘microstock’ with ‘Limited Use’ scheme (2)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)

photo credit: bloomsberries

Good question.

I saw a statistic somewhere on the number of blogs that are created each week and it’s mind boggling. The number that make it to any sort of maturity is only a small proportion but its still, on a global scale, quite a few! Now imagine those blogs had no images on at all. Just words. That would be really boring wouldn’t it?

As photographers we are finding ourselves in a world where images are more in demand than ever before. The online use of our work is eventually going to outstrip print use. I almost guarantee it. The web is still in relative infancy and I reckon we ai’nt seen nothing yet when it comes to web use. Yet we charge pissy little amounts fro web use don’t we? Look at stock. RF for web use is micromicropeanuts even at a non microstock agency….but the RF usage could well be forever and ever……..

Charging for electronic advertising use is another post altogether and one that we’re going to have to address for it makes no sense to get $50 for online with 500x the exposure of the dearer print use…!

Still……back to the point of this post – use by blogs. These bloggers need images like humans need oxygen. They may well like your images. So if you find your part of your portfolio on someone’s blog you’re going to be angry right? Or are you? When does added exposure and promotion equal usage fees? What if the blogger (who never asked your permission first) claims that good old defence of “Fair Use”.

Rob Haggard’s (A Photo Editor) blog has some thoughts and a neat discussion….

“I’ve been asked a few times by readers “What’s fair use and what’s illegal when using photography that’s not yours on a blog?” I can’t actually answer that question, because I’m not a lawyer, but I would like to help bloggers understand the best practices for using photography that doesn’t belong to them…”

I suggest you go and join in the discussion right here as its something that isn’t going to go away anytime soon…

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Creative Commons Wordpress plugin could spell big trouble for unwary blog publishers (8)
• Alamy announce a ‘Find a Photographer’ service (1)
• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)
• What exactly is a photography license? (1)
• Welcome to thephotographybiz.com (0)

But wait help is at hand. Have you got 10 minutes to learn how you can help protect your copyright? Yes? Then please watch this video. It explains it all

Here’s the link referenced in the video:

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

At the site above you will be able to take action to help fight the passage of this US legislation which is threatening the rights of all creatives, photographer, artists, illustrators, musicians, writers.

If you are in the UK here’s an online petition:

http://www.petitiononline.com/Stop2913/

If you are reading this you likely make some sort of income from your camera. This Bill is going to make it easier for our work to be infringed, ripped-off, passed off and ultimately used without payment.

Couple that with the requirement to pay-to-register every single frame we create so that it is “protected” and it is a lose, lose situation for creatives everywhere.

PP urges you, wherever you are in this crazy world, to take action and sign local petitions, write to your Senator, Congressman, MPs etc. We must make our voice heard and we need to do it fast.

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• What exactly is a photography license? (1)
• 5 reasons to always use Photo Meta Data (0)
• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)
• When does fair use of a photo become copyright infringement? (2)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)

photo credit: C.P.Storm

Following yesterdays controversial decision by Alamy to sell RM images for as little as 60p today Alamy CEO James West has announced an opt-out period for those seemingly locked into Novel Use participation until April 2009:

An opt out has been made available for Novel Use. The opportunity to opt out will be available for two weeks from today. I apologise unreservedly to those of you who feel you have been misled. This was never my intention and it is not the Alamy way of doing things.

To opt out of Novel Use go to My Alamy and follow the link to ‘Novel use’ under ‘Additional revenue opportunities’. Select ‘No thanks’ and then ‘Submit’.

Kudos and thanks to James West and Alamy. This news is of great importance to RM shooters and we are grateful of the opportunity to preserve the image rights this licence affords.

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Alamy go all ‘microstock’ with ‘Limited Use’ scheme (2)
• Stock Photography: Can you sell an image as RF and RM at the same time? (3)
• Selling on Alamy: Royalty Free or Licenced? (5)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)
• Understanding licensing types: Rights Managed image licences (0)