Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) recently released preliminary information from its 22nd annual Stock Visual Survey of picture buyers. (Full details will be available in its September issue.) One question on the survey every year concerns the categories of imagery most in demand.
Over the years the top three categories have always been People/Celebrities, Lifestyle and Business/Industry.
Selling-Stock has launched a photographer survey designed to provide useful data for all those who license rights to their images.
We are locked into old-fashioned pricing. We need a new model built around use and value received. Corporate clients using an image on an ad or a billboard get much more value than someone using the same picture on their blog.
Jupitermedia's Q2 2008 revenues were $35 million up from $34.5 million in Q1 2008. Second-quarter revenue was up slightly from $34.7 million in the same period in 2007.
Image Source has made about 6,500 of its images (approximately 5% of its total collection) available on several microstock sites. Prices have been discounted up to 80% below the fees charged for images from its core Imagesource.com collection.
On July 15, Steve Kapsinov, Jupiterimages' community manager for StockXpert, announced on the contributor forum that the company planed to offer StockXpert's microstock images on Jupiter's subscription site, Photos.com. Photographers were to be paid $.30 per image downloaded from the Photos.com site.
Below is a list of the Getty Images revenue for the various segments of their business quarter by quarter from Q3 2002 through Q4 2007. At the beginning of 2008 Getty stopped supplying quarterly breakdowns.
While finding distributors for one's production has always been a key aspect of the CEPIC Congress, there was a greater sense of urgency this year. One producer, Alex Mares-Manton of Asia Images, reported that in two-and-one-half days at CEPIC he was able to sign contracts with 14 distributors and complete handshake deals with 46 others.
Return-per-Image (RPI) may offer a false sense of return-on-investment. Photographers would be better advised to calculate return-per-shoot. Before microstock, stock distributors were clamoring for more RF, but demand has changed. At the recent CEPIC Congress, distributors were looking for RM collections. Photographers need to carefully determine which model is more advantageous for them.
Alamy continued its steady revenue growth in the second quarter and was up almost 20% compared to Q2 2007. The company had gross sales in Q2 2008 of $8,520,000, up from $7,132,000 in Q2 2007.