529 Views to my gallery THIS MONTH - not a penny sold.

ottor · July 21, 2010

Any idea why? - short story...

Left the wife with relatives and took a full week by myself surfing the Oregon Coast - from Lincon City down to the Cal border.. just taking some pictures. The first night I was in my motel room, uploading some pictures to my Flickr account and I get an EMail from an Oregon Coast Magazine - wanted to know if they could use some of my photos on their
webpage.. Of course, I said yes... (You have to know when to give'em away..).. The next day, I had shots up. It turned out to be a 4 part series over the last week and a half.. They gave me artistic credit, as well as a link to my Smugmug gallery.. So far, there have been 529 hits/views to my gallery - which didn't generate one single sale. Now, I know I'm no Ansel Adams, but - out of those 529 people, at least some like what they saw on the website enough to proceed further to my gallery...

Is it my prices - or, is it my photography? My gallery is at rottophotography.com

Can you see any problems? -

Here's the website... ouroregoncoast.com and most of the photos on my Flickr account: flickr.com/9797

Thanks,

rick

corbosman · July 22, 2010

Your prices seem fine, your photos are nice. One minor thing, I think you're not always using your best images in a gallery as the landing image. But i doubt that contributes to not selling images. Also, you are allowing people to download your originals. Generally thats not a good idea as people can just take those and print them, especially because you dont use a watermark. But again, i kinda doubt thats the reason.

The thing is, selling takes work. You generally cant just sit back and expect people to just buy images. People are less and less inclined to buy random images off the internet, because the amount of images available for free is staggering. So I dont think it's you, it's just the way things are.

chuckinsocal · July 22, 2010

Another DGrinner once said something to the effect "People love to look at images for free but they won't buy them".

As corbosman said, that's just the way things are.

I wish I could be more optimistic.

ottor · July 22, 2010

chuckinsocal wrote: »

Another DGrinner once said something to the effect "People love to look at images for free but they won't buy them".

As corbosman said, that's just the way things are.

I wish I could be more optimistic.

Well, I guess I understand, but..... the views were 529 this morning when I posted this ..... it's now up to 663 and not even a single 5x7 sale. I just thought the odds were that out of that number, someone would make even a small purchase. - I'm not upset - I had no idea that this OnLine magazine would generate such interest, and that's a good thing, but - it DOES make you wonder ........ just what does it take ?????

Oh well - I just feel privledged that as many people liked the shots enough to make an effort to view them ... that part makes me feel pretty good.. Anyway - I dont' shoot for money, but .... it would be kinna nice...

Thanks,

R

pilotdave · July 23, 2010

Like someone else said, you allow originals to be downloaded and you don't have watermarks. People won't buy when they can get the pictures for free.

Second, when was the last time you bought a picture from some random website you came across? I never have. I have never seen a picture so nice that I had to have a print. At best I might bookmark the site so I can go back later and see if more nice pictures are added.

I think its a rarity for people to buy random pictures, no matter how nice they are. People buy pictures of themselves, pictures of their boats, pictures of their cars, and pictures of their kids. And they buy prints when they see them in person. Selling artistic shots of nice scenery to strangers that just happen to come across your website won't work too well.

Dave

rsquared · July 23, 2010

ottor wrote: »

Well, I guess I understand, but..... the views were 529 this morning when I posted this ..... it's now up to 663 and not even a single 5x7 sale.

And for comparison, this thread has 140 views, and I'm the fourth commenter other than you.... I also know I clicked through to your site as soon as I read this, and I'm sure some portion of those 140 other people did too, so many of those new views on your site may be DGrinners.

mercphoto · July 23, 2010

pilotdave wrote: »

Like someone else said, you allow originals to be downloaded and you don't have watermarks. People won't buy when they can get the pictures for free.

Bingo.

ottor · July 24, 2010

OK, disabled the print option, but can't seem to find how to get rid of that 'save' folder when you hover over the pic..... Help?

thanks for your input .... (over 2,100 views in last 10 days?)

Also, if I display pic's at "large" is that small enough, or should I go smaller?

Rick

denisegoldberg · July 25, 2010

ottor wrote: »

OK, disabled the print option, but can't seem to find how to get rid of that 'save' folder when you hover over the pic..... Help?

The save folder is there because you are allowing access to your originals as noted by corbosman in the second post in this thread. See ORIGINALS = a gateway to free photos, & right click protection is NOT PROTECTION.

To remove the save option, disallow access to originals. Choose a different size as your largest display size. The original will still be used for printing (if you allow printing). Access to the originals should be disallowed on all of your galleries unless you intend to give away copies of your photos for free.

You should allow access to the largest size you are comfortable with. I personally think that limiting to Medium or Large changes the viewing experience.

--- Denise

WinsomeWorks · July 27, 2010

ottor wrote: »

OK, disabled the print option, but can't seem to find how to get rid of that 'save' folder when you hover over the pic..... Help?

thanks for your input .... (over 2,100 views in last 10 days?)

Also, if I display pic's at "large" is that small enough, or should I go smaller?

Rick

I'm unable to click through to any of your 3 links. I get the "not found" thing. But also, I'm wondering why you're disabling the print option. I thought you wanted to sell prints?

raebrown · July 28, 2010

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

I'm unable to click through to any of your 3 links. I get the "not found" thing. But also, I'm wondering why you're disabling the print option. I thought you wanted to sell prints?

Remove the dgrin.com/ from the start of his link addresses and they will work.

529 Views to my gallery THIS MONTH - not a penny sold.

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