PhotoShelter made the very sad announcement this morning that it would be exiting the stock photo business to concentrate solely on it's archive business. PhotoShelter set out to change the stock photography business by charging realistic prices for licensing and giving photographers a generous share (70% of the licensing fee). Although sales had been ramping up very nicely, CEO Allen Murabayashi stated that they found that weren't generating revenues quickly enough to meet their business plan. It's a real shame because many of us were excited about their commitment to treat photographers fairly with the revenue split (and I'm reminded of that every time I see people complaining on the forums about Alamy's discounting, or I watch people get excited over at iStock about getting an increase from 22 cents to 38 cents per photo, or some ridiculous amount). I truly enjoyed the community at PhotoShelter and have learned more than I could ever hope in an amazingly short time from the incredibly knowledgeable people in the community over there. And I gained a huge boost in confidence from the interest my portfolio generated.
I am miffed that the announcement was made on September 11, though. I had planned to focus on photographing remembrance events today, but now I find that my attention is diverted to working on Plan B.
Nothing else, for now.
Lori,
ReplyDeleteYou said it all. Being a newbie in the photography biz I really was pleased with my acceptance at PSC and had very high hopes. But, I'm inpired by photographers like yourself to keep going and learning! The shock was so strong I haven't yet updated my own blog, LOL.