Get ready to sell stock photos

Baldy

<img src="http://cmac.smugmug.com/photos/128585224-L.jpg&quot; align="right" border="0" hspace="6" vspace="6" border="1" />Hello pros!

Many of you sell digital downloads and wonder how to get more exposure for your work.

We're not ready to go public with this news, but we knew you'd love advanced notice about a stock photo service we're working on (we hope this forum is a secret corner of the world).

We're going to provide an option for you to enable specific galleries for stock sales. When you do, any photo in those galleries that is for sale via digital download will be added to SmugMug's stock catalog.

We're planning to construct a page for finding stock photos that will be in some ways like our popular photos page. The stock photo page, however, will have a custom search engine just for stock.

We'd love to get your feedback so we can make sure we get this right at launch. And we hope you'll enable some great shots for digital downloads now so there is good content on day one. You can't enable galleries for stock sales yet, but that should be a quick job if you've already enabled photos for digital sales.

Timing: we believe we're a short number of weeks away but it's software...if we run into snags there could be delays.

Clear as mud?

Thanks!
Baldy

RogersDA

Baldy wrote:

Hello pros!

We're not ready to go public with this news, but we knew you'd love advanced notice about a stock photo service we're working on (we hope this forum is a secret corner of the world).

Cool idea. I'll be sure not to tell anyone.

Buyers end up on your pages with your customization.

...and our prices, right?

We'd love to get your feedback so we can make sure we get this right at launch.

Will prices be reflected to shoppers before they get to the photog's site?

Will there be some kind of suggestions/guidelines for pricing? Someone selling their original file for $1 may have a serious advantage (though no profit) if their image is markedly the same as someone else selling theirs for $100.00

How will they photos be organized (category/subcategories)? Will smugmyg set those, or will they be generated by the photogs? Do we need to make sure keywords are up to date (which is always a good thing anyway)?

How many resolution options wll be available (right now there are 3, I believe)?

Hopefully there will be notices to the shoppers the there will be no refunds. That doesn't make sense for downloads as they are uncontrolled after the shopper gets them

onethumb

RogersDA wrote:

Cool idea. I'll be sure not to tell anyone.


...and our prices, right?


Will prices be reflected to shoppers before they get to the photog's site?

Will there be some kind of suggestions/guidelines for pricing? Someone selling their original file for $1 may have a serious advantage (though no profit) if their image is markedly the same as someone else selling theirs for $100.00

How will they photos be organized (category/subcategories)? Will smugmyg set those, or will they be generated by the photogs? Do we need to make sure keywords are up to date (which is always a good thing anyway)?

How many resolution options wll be available (right now there are 3, I believe)?

Hopefully there will be notices to the shoppers the there will be no refunds. That doesn't make sense for downloads as they are uncontrolled after the shopper gets them

Yes, they'll be your custom prices.

As for organizing, searching, and browsing, we're still working on all of that stuff, but I believe you'll be able to:

- browse by category
- browse by keywords
- browse by most popular
- browse by geography
- search by words (sorted by popularity or most recent)
- search by words + geography (ditto, likely, on sorting)

I'd like to add browsing/searching by date, as well, but the jury is still out there.

This means that properly categorizing your photos into categories and keywords is even more important. It's also even more important that you gain exposure in the community so that your photos, as a result, gain exposure. The very very best way to do this is to comment on other people's photos at SmugMug because they, and the people viewing those photos, then go browse yours and comment on them, raising your popularity.

Also, you'll have your own "stock catalog" on your site with which you can browse/search and you can send your clients directly there, and your photos will also belong to the "SmugMug stock catalog" which we'll be actively driving traffic and awareness to.

Clear as mud?

Don

rainforest1155

Sounds intriguing! I always wanted to advance in this area, but never really got started.
I guess you already have looked at the current competitors, but I wanted to draw your attention to Dreamstime as they've just updated their search engine. Epecially the advanced search options look very useful:
- search for color or monochrome photos
- search for image orientation (portrait, landscape, panorama, square)
- resolution (min - max)
- possibility to exclude keywords (should be standard)
- model properties (model release, age, number of persons, ethnicity) - photog's would need to enter this data on smugmug

From Istockphoto the primary color search looks interesting as well.

I'm looking forward to it.
Thanks,
Sebastian

seastack

Awesome! This is great news, hats off to Smugmug!

I assume this will be for royalty free images, not rights managed quotes? For the future, it might be worth thinking about linking in with something like fotoquote to offer rights managed quotes. I know, one step at a time. Give them an inch ....

And since you've requested input ...

I'm not sure I see the value of the "popular" photos if its dependent only on the photographer's networking skills within smugmug. I could list several world class photographers who currently use Smugmug but never show up on the popular photos because they are too busy capturing great images. I assume the "popular photo ranking system" is a method to quickly put some quality images on the front page but I wonder if there might be a better method for ensuring a good showcase upfront on your stock portal. For instance, thinking off the top of my head, photographers could submit images anonymously to a stock ranking system through dgrin where members could vote. This would retain the community aspects of Smugmug while perhaps providing a more representative outcome of relative quality. Clear as mud? ;-)

seastack

rainforest1155 wrote:

model properties (model release, age, number of persons, ethnicity) - photog's would need to enter this data on smugmug

I concur that an indication of model release (yes or no) and property release (yes or no) would be an important feature.

onethumb

seastack wrote:

I'm not sure I see the value of the "popular" photos if its dependent only on the photographer's networking skills within smugmug. I could list several world class photographers who currently use Smugmug but never show up on the popular photos because they are too busy capturing great images. I assume the "popular photo ranking system" is a method to quickly put some quality images on the front page but I wonder if there might be a better method for ensuring a good showcase upfront on your stock portal. For instance, thinking off the top of my head, photographers could submit images anonymously to a stock ranking system through dgrin where members could vote. This would retain the community aspects of Smugmug while perhaps providing a more representative outcome of relative quality. Clear as mud? ;-)

There's already a "ranking system" that's millions strong at SmugMug. We want to leverage that to the best of our abilities.

As customers browse through the stock catalog, they'll be thumbing photos up/down, commenting, buying, looking at larger sizes, and otherwise interacting with the photos in ways that we can mine for data on how to best show results that will cause sales.

Our goal is to make it easy for people to find quality photos quickly and efficiently, without burdening the photographer (who should be shooting or processing, right?).

Something like a dgrin-powered ranking system has some big disadvantages: it's partially based on your social standing here, there's only thousands (as opposed to millions) interacting with them, etc.

We'll see how it goes, though.

seastack

Fair enough :-)

onethumb wrote:

There's already a "ranking system" that's millions strong at SmugMug. We want to leverage that to the best of our abilities.

As customers browse through the stock catalog, they'll be thumbing photos up/down, commenting, buying, looking at larger sizes, and otherwise interacting with the photos in ways that we can mine for data on how to best show results that will cause sales.

Our goal is to make it easy for people to find quality photos quickly and efficiently, without burdening the photographer (who should be shooting or processing, right?).

Something like a dgrin-powered ranking system has some big disadvantages: it's partially based on your social standing here, there's only thousands (as opposed to millions) interacting with them, etc.

We'll see how it goes, though.

LiquidAir

This switch is on a gallery by gallery basis? I don't really want to turn my current gallery organization on its head, but I currently have a number of galleries in which only some of the shots are appropriate for stock sale. I had been planning on using "stock" as a keyword for potential customers to find my photos. However, if the switch is on a gallery basis, I need to reorganize my photos into galleries based on how I plan to sell them (stock, prints only, not for sale).

One possibility is to create a new gallery in each category called "stock" and put copies of my stock appropriate photos in those galleries. Will creating two copies of my photos have the side effect of diluting my "thumbs up" rating? I already find the gallery structure of Smugmug rather awkward to work with. Putting this switch on the gallery rather than on a photo by photo basis makes the gallery that much more difficult to use.

In the best of all worlds, I would be able to mark each photo individually for sale as "stock" or "prints only" and the keyword search would be upgraded so searches could be restricted to how the photos are sold.

onethumb

LiquidAir wrote:

This switch is on a gallery by gallery basis? I don't really want to turn my current gallery organization on its head, but I currently have a number of galleries in which only some of the shots are appropriate for stock sale. I had been planning on using "stock" as a keyword for potential customers to find my photos. However, if the switch is on a gallery basis, I need to reorganize my photos into galleries based on how I plan to sell them (stock, prints only, not for sale).

One possibility is to create a new gallery in each category called "stock" and put copies of my stock appropriate photos in those galleries. Will creating two copies of my photos have the side effect of diluting my "thumbs up" rating? I already find the gallery structure of Smugmug rather awkward to work with. Putting this switch on the gallery rather than on a photo by photo basis makes the gallery that much more difficult to use.

In the best of all worlds, I would be able to mark each photo individually for sale as "stock" or "prints only" and the keyword search would be upgraded so searches could be restricted to how the photos are sold.

As long as the non-stock photos don't have Digital Download pricing, they won't appear in the stock catalogs.

Basically, you need to do two things to appear: Set the gallery to enable Stock photography sales, and set the photo pricing. If either of these aren't done, your stuff won't be in the stock catalog.

Clear as mud?

yoyoboy

Quote:
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border: 1px inset ;"> Originally Posted by rainforest1155
model properties (model release, age, number of persons, ethnicity) - photog's would need to enter this data on smugmug

</td> </tr> </tbody></table>

I concur that an indication of model release (yes or no) and property release (yes or no) would be an important feature.

Can we get an official decree on this?

Baldy

yoyoboy wrote:

Quote:
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border: 1px inset ;"> Originally Posted by rainforest1155
model properties (model release, age, number of persons, ethnicity) - photog's would need to enter this data on smugmug

</td> </tr> </tbody></table>



Can we get an official decree on this?

I think we're going to have to keep things simple in the beginning to get it out the door... Don has the ultimate say, but my vote is to bump this to a later release.

Kory Lidstrom

RogersDA wrote:

How many resolution options wll be available (right now there are 3, I believe)?

Hopefully there will be notices to the shoppers the there will be no refunds. That doesn't make sense for downloads as they are uncontrolled after the shopper gets them

I wholeheartedly agree with these two points.

Many people have been asking for the ability to sell more than just the three available resolutions for digital dowloads. Especially a "web size" (say 600 X 400 pixels), it is sorely needed, IMO.

Baldy

LiquidAir wrote:

Will creating two copies of my photos have the side effect of diluting my "thumbs up" rating?

Yes, unfortunately, I share your pain but there's not an easy fix to this. I do my best with judicious use of the move tool...

Baldy

NugBlazer wrote:

I wholeheartedly agree with these two points.

Many people have been asking for the ability to sell more than just the three available resolutions for digital dowloads. Especially a "web size" (say 600 X 400 pixels), it is sorely needed, IMO.

I have to admit that I buy a lot of photos from iStockphoto and almost always buy that size.

onethumb

Baldy wrote:

I think we're going to have to keep things simple in the beginning to get it out the door... Don has the ultimate say, but my vote is to bump this to a later release.

As with most features, we'll listen and iterate until we get it right. This is clearly of interest to people, so it's on the list.

LiquidAir

onethumb wrote:

As long as the non-stock photos don't have Digital Download pricing, they won't appear in the stock catalogs.

Basically, you need to do two things to appear: Set the gallery to enable Stock photography sales, and set the photo pricing. If either of these aren't done, your stuff won't be in the stock catalog.

Clear as mud?

So is part of what is coming the ability to search based on digital download + keywords? I'd love to put an icon on my homepage that brought up a search "gallery" of everything available for download.

Photodawg1

Uncanny!
I was just thinking about looking up stock agencies to start selling some of my unused library off! This is fabulous...never even associated Smuggie with Stock, will watch this closely and a definite canidate!

onethumb

LiquidAir wrote:

So is part of what is coming the ability to search based on digital download + keywords? I'd love to put an icon on my homepage that brought up a search "gallery" of everything available for download.

Yes, exactly. And you'll already have a "search engine" that will search only your photos that are offered for stock purchase.

(Your photos will also be in the global stock search engine, too, but you'll have your own interface to do as you like).

richW

Chris and Don, Great feature. Yet another reason why SmugMug is the best.
Keep up the good work....

bham

Baldy wrote:

I have to admit that I buy a lot of photos from iStockphoto and almost always buy that size.

Not having that size available (or close to .25 Megapixel) has kept me from selling download on one of my smugmug sites.

I have been thinking about starting to venture into the stock arena after reading many discussions here on dgrin. Thanks for the heads up. Gives me some time to get some galleries ready.

CelsoDiniz

Guys, this is the best news ever !
Honestly,

I don't shoot events so I could not make enough noise to have people buying downloads from me from SmugMug, not even other products. On the other hand I have been growing on my earnings on a few stock photography sites (check it here http://www.celsodiniz.com/gallery/2346935)

I love the idea and count on me to contribute as I already have hundreds of photos ready to be sold ! And hopefully this new approach will also give more exposure for people to buy so many other products that are available from SmugMug...

But note that I got some feedbacks that today buying pictures here is kind of cumbersome for regular people. Some regular fellow who runs into a photo of mine that he likes should easily and intuitively be able to buy all sort of products with that picture with only a few clicks which seems not to be the case today (based on some feedbacks that I received, not sure you have the same feedback).

Anyway, bring it on ! I love the Stock idea. I can't wait for it to start.

Thanks !!!
Celso.

Baldy wrote:

Hello pros!

Many of you sell digital downloads and wonder how to get more exposure for your work.

We're not ready to go public with this news, but we knew you'd love advanced notice about a stock photo service we're working on (we hope this forum is a secret corner of the world).

We're going to provide an option for you to enable specific galleries for stock sales. When you do, any photo in those galleries that is for sale via digital download will be added to SmugMug's stock catalog.

We're planning to construct a page for finding stock photos that will be in some ways like our popular photos page. The stock photo page, however, will have a custom search engine just for stock.

We'd love to get your feedback so we can make sure we get this right at launch. And we hope you'll enable some great shots for digital downloads now so there is good content on day one. You can't enable galleries for stock sales yet, but that should be a quick job if you've already enabled photos for digital sales.

Timing: we believe we're a short number of weeks away but it's software...if we run into snags there could be delays.

Clear as mud?

Thanks!
Baldy

quark

This would be awesome! Go smugmug.

My only concern would be the quality control. Many of the stock folk invest heavily in a reviewer system to screen the good stuff from the bad so users don't get a poor experience from saturated snapshots. Any thoughts on this or will you simply let the market control?

gluwater

If someone finds your image through the Global stock search engine, if they click on it where will they be taken? To the photographers site or they can just buy it right there? You mentioned it will be like the popular photos so I assume they can buy the photo right there and there will be a link to the photographers site. Or would the link be to the photographers other images available for stock purchase. If it just goes to the photographers site I could see someone only interested in stock images getting confused and wondering why they were not only being shown stock images. This sounds like a great new feature.

Novalightmike

Stock Photo Marketing
A great idea, if you can bring it off with some class. I've been wanting to do this for some time, but just haven't gotten round to doing the necessary research and work.

Since most of my best work is already up on SmugMug, this becomes very tempting. One reason I've stuck with SmugMug is that you guys keep innovating.

I'll be anxious to learn more as info becomes available. I'm wondering whether you'll be publicizing this service to potential stock photo customers in some way. Yes, photographers can make the service known for their own work, mention it on business cards, etc. But marketing is really the key, and it would be great if SmugMug advertised itself as a source of stock photography in general.

I'm about to create some new business cards, but am now thinking of holding off a while, in case there is some special stock photo info for SmugMug I should add. Hopefully more details will be forthcoming soon.

Mike Werner

I tihnk the idea is great (specially since I was shopping for a stock agency to "lay my eggs").

However, as with all sites I've visited, they all have a vetting process for photos submitted to their stock site, and for a reason. I might think I have a great photo, but people/companies that actually buy them think it's for sh*t. If there's a bunch of them, your stick photos will be branded as useless. So my suggestion is to check photos that are being shown as "Stock" (a sort of approval process).

Secondly, I have for example stored 100's of photos of a motorcycle event, and all have Digital Downlaod prices. This was done to enable individual riders to download a photo of themselves. But 99% of those photos should not be shown in a "Stock" site. Nor should the prices I've set there be used.

Price for a full digital download for special events are not the same for Stock. My normal pricing reflects the sales to magazines, which is higher in value since they are recent events. Stock photos would sell for less, since they're used as backdrops, stories, etc.

I suggest a new category pricing called "Stock" with different sizes. Have an area where we can enter the Stock prices, and then a button in the galleries where we can mark which photos are to be "Stock".

dogwood

quark wrote:

My only concern would be the quality control. Many of the stock folk invest heavily in a reviewer system to screen the good stuff from the bad so users don't get a poor experience from saturated snapshots. Any thoughts on this or will you simply let the market control?

This is a question I have too. Also, I agree that it would be important to designate a released or unreleased notification/statement for images. As long as this service could be run professionally and with high standards, I'd be interested. Reputation is key with stock-- lots of snaps listed and you won't exactly attract many repeat buyers.

Nikolai

Very interesting!
I don't have too many questions at the moment, but I'm sure gonna watch this develop.

My biggest concerns are:

1) Can it adversely affect the SM total performance (due to the increased load) and
2) As it has been pointed out, the reputation is the key. Will there be any quality control? Otherwise potential buyers will be sieving through the tons of snapshots and will never get to the picture they actually need in time...

Thanks!

I Simonius

Baldy wrote:

We're planning to construct a page for finding stock photos that will be in some ways like our popular photos page. The stock photo page, however, will have a custom search engine just for stock.

We'd love to get your feedback so we can make sure we get this right at launch. And we hope you'll enable some great shots for digital downloads now so there is good content on day one. You can't enable galleries for stock sales yet, but that should be a quick job if you've already enabled photos for digital sales.

Thanks!
Baldy

Great idea!

I had often wondered about stock agencies but what a palaver!
(but then everything seesm complicated to me!)

So - time to actually start properly keywording I guess, and putting together a stock gallery ;-)

thanks!

I Simonius

Mike Werner wrote:

I suggest a new category pricing called "Stock" with different sizes. Have an area where we can enter the Stock prices, and then a button in the galleries where we can mark which photos are to be "Stock".

Wouldn't it be better for global users to know in advance roughly what SMStock is going to cost?

There is so much choice out there (all te way from Alamy to Getty) I think SM really needs to ask what section(s) of the market it intends to aim for (cheap + low, avaerage cost and quality, high cost and quality), what sort of reputation it wants (and will get) i.e. consistancy across te board, what pricing structure and yes, address the quality control question.

IMO it will either become a quality service recognised within the industry or a laughing stock (sorry bout that!)

i.e. SM needs to ask what reputation it wants for stock

caroline

I'm very interested to see how this develops. I have an aversion to enabling 'comments' though, it always looks really naff to me if either their are none, of a personal nature, or they are very out of date. Also I just don't have the time to comment on many of the images I view on other Smugmug sites no matter how much I admire them.
Wishing you all the best for this very exciting development:D


Caroline