It may be time for stock shooters to take another look at
Image Brief. It started out as a place where customers would go to list a brief explaining the kind of imagery they needed for their next project.
Image creators with imagery in their files that might fit the brief could post those images for the customer’s review and occasionally make a sale. Sometimes, if a photographer didn’t already have such an image, he/she would go out and shoot something on speculation specifically for the brief. While some photographer occasionally made some very good sales through this brief system, the problem many encountered was that they spent a lot of their time checking briefs, researching their collection and uploading images, but in the end got nothing for their efforts.
MyMarketplace
A few months ago ImageBrief added MyMarketplace to their offering. This feature works much more like a traditional stock collection that offers both RF and RM images. The prices for RF are $250 for a small 72dpi file and $500 for the largest file available. The prices for RM are:
| $250 |
All Digital Media (72dpi file) |
Non-exclusive, worldwide for 2 years |
| $250 |
Print Editorial (insider, no covers) |
Non-exclusive, worldwide for 1 year |
| $450 |
Marketing |
Non-exclusive, worldwide for 1 year |
| $950 |
Book Covers |
Non-exclusive, worldwide for 5 years |
| $1,250 |
Advertising |
Non-exclusive, worldwide for 1 year |
| $3,000 |
Large Format (billboards, poster, walls,
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Non-exclusive, worldwide for 1 year |
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wraps, transit wraps, street furniture) |
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Currently there are about 200,000 images in this collection and more and more Image Brief customers are beginning to search this collection for the images they need. Some of the images are images that were submitted for previous briefs.
But the more interesting part of MyMarketplace is the curated collections.
ImageBrief has discovered that many customers prefer to start their searches in small curated collections.
Search time is becoming a big problem for many art buyers. Often they can find something in a carefully curated collection that will solve their immediate problem and complete their search in a very short period of time. If they can’t find what they want in the curated collection they can always go to one of the blockbuster collections with 40 to 70 million image and plow through those offerings.
Currently in the
Editor’s Choice section of their site they have the following collections.
| Travel |
Food |
Brand |
Business |
Popular |
Authentic |
Featured
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Themes |
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Lifestyles |
Pros |
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| Bail |
In the Kitchen |
Yellow |
Working Man |
Presidents Day |
Babies |
Lindsay Basson |
| Luxury Travel |
Treats |
Blue |
Small Business |
Valentines Day |
Teens |
Susa Dosa |
| This is England |
Food Styled |
Connected |
Industry & Agriculture
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Connected |
Hipsters |
Viktor Cap |
| Australia |
Savory |
Personal |
Health Care & Medical
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Climate Change |
Selfies |
Mark Johnson |
| USA |
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Winter |
Adventure |
Samantha Scott |
Off the Beaten Track
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Love Our Pets |
Portraits |
Sergio Lanza |
New York
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Book Covers |
Retires |
Ilina Simeonova |
| Europe |
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Married Life |
Karl Lundholm |
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Millennials |
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Love |
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Keeping Fit |
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There are a total of about 6,000 images in these curated collections; most with in the range of 100 to 150 images each.
The interesting thing is that in January about 50% of the images licensed were from this small group of curated images and the other 50% from the larger collection of 200,000. Clearly many buyers are searching the curated collections.
The titles of the curated collections are based on the types of images that have been most requested and sold. As ImageBrief gathers more data from marketplace searches they will be able to better focus future categories and sub-categories relative to the demand for specific imagery types. The current categories give image creators a good sense of the types of imagery ImageBrief customers are requesting.
At the moment ImageBrief hand picks images for these curated collections from images submitted for briefs, but they are building functionality that will allow photographers to submit direct to specialized categories as part of their workflow on the platform.
As photographers begin to send in more images related to existing categories the categories may grow somewhat in size, but the idea is to keep them small enough that buyers can do a quick review of the category. Some of the current images in these categories may be removed in favor of stronger images.
They are also looking to build a depth of content in niche areas. If a photographer has a strong collection of a particular subject matter not currently covered by one of the collections the photographer can submit those images and ask that they be edited for a new curated collection.
ImageBrief intends to drill down in each ‘parent’ category and create deep, tailored sub-collections. They may also add additional ‘parent’ categories. The idea is to give buyers a starting point that may save them valuable research time.
Cost And Royalty
There are two plans for participating in the marketplace – Explorer Plus and Premium. Explorer Plus participants pay $19 per month or $198 per year and receive 50% commission on all sales. Premium participants pay $59 per month or $599 per year and receive 100% of what the customer pays to use one of their images.
Photographer who submit images in response to various briefs receive 70% of the fee listed in the brief.
For more information about the Explorer Plus and Premium plans go to ImageBrief.com; log in as a photographer and check out this
link. (You must be logged in as a photographer.)