How To Survive…

Here is an article I wrote for About the Image that I feel may be of interest to you. I changed the title of the article to “How To Survive As A Commercial Artist In A Shrinking Economy”:

In my opinion you need several sources of income to survive in this market. Below I list 5 possible venues for revenue and what I believe to be their current status.

• Assignment work- Declining in opportunities but good revenues when you get the work
• Rights managed stock- Declining revenue
• Royalty free stock- Single image sales / declining revenue
• Subscription stock- Single annual payment but growing in market share
• MicroStock- Small amounts of revenue for artists but increasing in popularity amongst buyers and artists. Saturated market but good images are getting sold

Sorry for repeating what is the obvious, but I feel this will help lay the groundwork for new ideas for you and showcase new opportunities that we see for PhotoSpin.com. As a distributor of images we too feel the crunch so we look to new possible solutions to differentiate us in a very competive market.

I believe as a professional that you need to see that the market is changing and the client now determines the value of your work, not you as the artist. We all need to get over what used to be and deal with what is now. We are past the "Field of Dreams' mindset which is: "If you build it, they will come". So traditional marketing and a website alone will not get you new work.

The following recommendations may again be obvious but may provide some insight as to what I think needs to happen to build a successful commercial art business in today’s economy:

• First and foremost - meet and greet- there is not an agency in the world that is going to trust a multimillion dollar account on someone they do not know personally or by reputation - the stakes are too high
• Consider a PR campaign to get your name out there. You can do this yourself on the cheap. By writing your own PR with every job, every rep and every stock distributor you sign. Post it to your website in a section titled news or PR and, if the job warrants it, use an online service to distribute it
• If you are not working with reps, get one in every major city- keep in mind that they charge for what they do. Most are commission based so it’s found money to you
• Consider adding a stock option to your site showcasing your work, with links from specific images on your site to your images on your stock agencies site
• Sell your own “New” stock on your site- you do not need e-commerce - you need to give a number to call and be willing to negotiate
• With over 75% of all stock buyers using stock for references or projects, think of your images as ads for your business. Always list your company as the artist that created the image
• Continually shoot new images to keep your portfolio exposed in the searches
• Look to create images that fill voids in the market
• Do not sign any exclusive agreements- too many artists are stuck now in the back of searches with no possible hope of getting sales
• Be creative with your opportunities to showcase your work. When I was a working photographer I sent new promos every month-the best one I sent out was a printed promo and a wadded up piece of paper with my name and phone number on it stuffed in an envelope along with a hand written note saying "I know most promos get thrown away so I don’t care which one you toss out, they both have my number on it!" I got calls and jobs for over a year with that promo. Art Directors and buyers are looking for someone who will bring something to the party. Not someone who will just regurgitate a layout

These may or may not get you work but as working professional you need to continually work to improve your product and services.

Here is what we are currently doing at PhotoSpin to increase our exposure and revenue for us as well as our artists:

• New MySpin Directory - free to all - allows creatives or companies that support creatives the opportunity to post a free listing and advertisement: http://www.photospin.com/directory.asp
• Revenue share with artist based upon size of collection - giving an artist guaranteed revenue
• In development- a new gallery for buyers to set prices and artists to post work and accept or reject the sale -buyers to use images based on terms: 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, etc.

I hope this helps or, at the very least, confirms what you are already know or are doing...

Knock Knock Knock

In today's slowing economy, we wanted to offer our customers a unique opportunity to get their companies and skills noticed, and grow their businesses. Our goal was to utilize our web traffic to create a new marketing environment for the creative professional and the people that support our industry. Introducing the MySpin Directory.

This new directory will allow our visitors and subscribers to create a free listing and upload a free advertisement for their companies. PhotoSpin subscribers get the added benefit of posting samples of their portfolios to show potential clients a wider variety of the work they do.

As the directory grows we will be adding a blog, a community forum and a job board. Our goal is to help facilitate better communication for you, your peers and your prospective clients.

To learn more about our Directory please visit:

http://www.photospin.com/directory-video.asp

It’s been said that when opportunity knocks you need to be ready and willing to open the door.

So if your ready to get started, click on the link below and open the door to new business opportunities: http://www.photospin.com/directory

Let’s see if together we can build a community for creative professionals and the businesses that support our industry.

Getty Images For Sale: Panic, why panic?

Once I received the news that Getty Images was up for sale my phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Panicked calls from photographers who are represented by Getty Images as well as other stock companies rang in by the numbers. These worried artists were wondering what would happen to the industry if Getty sells. What would happen? Truth be told, I really don’t know. But what I do know, I learned from what I read:

“The auction of Getty Images appears to be in jeopardy.”

Though several bidders, mostly private equity firms like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Bain Capital and Providence Equity Partners, had expressed interest last month, according to the New York Times, Getty received no offers significantly above its current market value of $1.6 billion”.

So, what does this mean to the average image supplier or user of images? The short answer is nothing. Getty as the leader in the stock image market has a responsibility to its shareholders to explore all possible avenues to gain a high return on the investment. If the company does sell, aside from the possibility of reorganization or of selling off some of their assets, not much will change. Photographers will still get paid and customers will continue to get their images. I suspect that prices will more than likely increase again for some of the more popular Microstock images, which for the customer that uses subscription sites like PhotoSpin, is only a positive gain. Currently, an X large image from iStock Images sells for $15.00 per image while an annual subscription from PhotoSpin sells for $299.00 and allows you to download as many high res images as you need throughout the year. Therefore, whether you need 10 images a month or 100, it won't cost you more than the annual fee.

Getty Images For Sale: No need to panic!

The recession is coming! The recession is coming! The recession is coming?

Sounds like a war cry from the American Revolution or an old nursery rhyme about a little chicken and a piece of fruit. The truth is I don’t know if a recession is coming and, from what I’ve read, neither do the economists.

If a recession were to happen, what will it mean to advertising? Back in 2001 when we heard the cry of recession, advertising budgets dropped by almost 10% and internet advertising by a little over 25%. History has shown us that television and print ads are likely to be cut back first. I personally know commercial photographers that never recovered from the drop in assignment work and believe another recession would cause the assignments to drop even further. And, perhaps, the media that would feel the sting from the cut in advertising the worst will be the newspapers, which are already reeling from a drop in circulation (sorry guys).

So batten down the hatches, we may be heading for rough water! But, before we launch our proverbial life rafts, let’s ride the waves of opportunity. One of the greatest opportunities we have today is online advertising. Times are very different and more and more money is going towards internet advertising than ever before, resulting in a greater return on our clients’ ad dollar investment. And, to help get these ads noticed, are the SEO’s (search engine optimization) companies. These companies are growing faster than the national debt and are expert at expediting the visibility of these online ads.

As a designer you may consider developing more internet strategies for your clients. Become educated on SEO companies and how to help better position your customers’ advertising in the search engines. As a photographer I go back to what I have always said: you need to have multiple sources of income including assignment photography as well as numerous stock agencies representing your work.

Whether a recession is coming or not, we wanted to offer you yet another way to get your work noticed. This quarter we will be launching our new MYSpin Community and offering you a great way to advertise your services for free to over 1,000,000 people that buy or create commercial art. We’d love to hear your thoughts and welcome your feedback on our newest project as we enter into the beta testing phase: http://www.photospin.com/myspin-directory.asp.

NEW Year, New Browse, and New Marketing Channel

Sorry for the delay in writing, we've been busy developing the new Browse and community MySpin Directory sections of our website.

Yes, that’s right, PhotoSpin is at it again, trying to make life easier for our visitors and subscribers. As you probably know by now, we increased our image uploads from 400 to 1000s of new photos and illustrations per month. With all the new images making their home on our site, the volume list in our browse section was growing almost as fast as our image uploads. To make things more efficient for our customers, we decided to group our ever growing library of images into neat little categories. Check it out: https://www.photospin.com/browse_photos.asp

In addition to making our Browse section cleaner and more search friendly, we also wanted to offer our customers and visitors a place where they could showcase their work or post an ad as well as check out what other creatives are doing. Coming soon: the community MySpin Directory. Currently we're looking for PhotoSpin subscribers to beta test the Directory and encourage you to take a sneak peek at our mockups: http://www.photospin.com/myspin-directory.asp. If you're interested in being one of the first to post your work or advertise in our community, please drop us an email at beta@photospin.com

We're very excited about all the new changes at PhotoSpin.com and hope that you not only experience more efficient searches, but are able to make a few friends along the way in our new MySpin Directory.

Coming soon music clips...

The beat goes on...

The 1950s and early 60s, known as the beat generation, were filled with artists, musicians and poets such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and others. These creatives chronicled their lives through books, poems and music. Smoke, Jazz and open mic poetry filled rooms with music and tales of love, lust and dreams. Although some today still collaborate in those artsy little rooms, more often than not, the internet is the new 'cafe' of choice. We want to recreate a creative haven, a place where you, the artist, can go and relax, hang out with old friends or meet new ones. So get a cup of coffee or hot tea and take a moment to read the following and give us your thoughts. We want this to be your community. Please help us define an "internet cafe" for artists and bohemians to interact as well as post their poems, art and music.

Coming Soon: The MYspin Directory

What is the MYspin directory?
• A comprehensive list of creative resources.
• A portfolio showcase for designers, ad agencies, photographers, illustrators, fontographers, production companies, and printers.
• A community for creative professionals.


Why The MYspin Directory?
• With over 1,000,000 visitors and 18 million page views so far this year, we wanted to offer you, our customers and potential customers, a way to get noticed and be seen on the internet.
• The listings will allow you to create ads that advertise your talents and services, a great new way for you to connect and interact with your peers in the industry.

Cost, what cost?
• If you are an active PhotoSpin subscriber you get a full color ad and listing absolutely FREE.
• Not a PhotoSpin subscriber? We still offer you a FREE listing without the full color ad.

As the community grows you can have live chats with other artists, both show and sell your work (you set the price) and, in the future, have access to your own blog. Think of it as a modern day coffee shop, complete with an open forum and microphone. All you'll have to do is supply the artwork.

Take a ride on Valueline

Looks like the photo stock industry is about to launch a new roller coaster called Valueline. But, before you jump on board, or jump overboard, let’s take a closer look at what’s going on.

As most of you are well aware, the photo stock industry has been changing for a number of years – rights managed vs. royalty free, subscription services, micro payment options, mergers, acquisitions and consolidation of companies. These have been the trends for the last 10 years. In response to these trends, innovative entrepreneurs have developed business models to create new ways of offering their products to accommodate the buying habits of new and existing customers.

Among these emerging models is the micro-payment sites, including the Getty owned, iStock, which in part is possibly responsible for its recent price slashing. On the surface, these sites seem to be the better value, pushing a trend for all companies to launch their own micro-payment option. This is evident in the recent proliferation of new micro-payment sites popping up in the industry, like weeds after a spring storm. However, when you factor in the higher resolution images and large quantity of image downloads that a subscription service allows, the lately overlooked subscription service is a much better value.

In Getty’s own micro-payment site, the price for a high resolution image is $10.00. Using simple math, the advantage greatly shifts to support the subscription model. If the subscription customers download just 30 high-resolution images in one year, they far exceed the cost of the subscription. For these customers, the benefit lies in downloading whatever they need whenever they need it without the worry of how many credits they have available. I think that one dollar downloads are a great option for the customer that needs a small quantity of low-res images. But, if the customer needs images for print or a large quantity of images at a great value- under a dollar per day, not a dollar per download-then the subscription model is well worth considering.

As Getty releases its new site, Valueline, take a moment to remember gettyworks.com, a product released by Getty in early 2001 and dropped a little after a year of operation. Getty, like all companies, is concerned with the bottom line and will use its large customer base to test new products and services as they have done in the past. Will this new venture succeed? Who knows. Right now it’s 100,000 mostly outdated images. These images might be over priced at $19-$49 per image. But, with Getty’s marketing muscle and position in the industry, all I can say is fasten your seat belts and get ready for a ride.