-
Posts
-
Today I got a link to an interesting essay from a blog I subscribe to that’s aimed at writers. However, this particular essay is quite applicable to photographers and graphic artists, and especially those of us in the SYS network.
As I read it, I couldn’t help thinking about our ongoing discussion of if/how to get buyers to log in. You’ll understand what I mean if you read the essay.
A Golden Age For Paid Content
It’s coming, if publishers can get three things right.
Readers will pay for content online so long as three conditions are met:
1 The content is worth paying for.
2 The price is low.
3 The transaction is easy.There are some trade-offs within those criteria. If you have an overwhelming need for a particular channel of content—the Financial Times, say, or The Economist—then you will accept a relatively high price, and quite a lot of friction in the process of subscribing.
But for paid content to be the rule rather than the exception, publishers need to deliver on all three criteria at once.
Here’s how it can happen.
Here’s the link if you’d like to read more: http://thebrowser.com/blog/
I’ve been in the ad industry for a long time, and we do a lot of A/B (and sometimes C and D) testing. Sometimes pricing something higher makes it more valuable-seeming to customers. You may sell fewer items, but the higher price per sale may bring you a bigger ROI. Sometimes a lower price brings in so many more sales you end up with a better ROI. I make 25% of my micro income on iStock, where my files are priced higher than the subs at Shutterstock (where I make 75% of my micro income). But the number of files I have on iS is only 20% as many as on SS. So I get a higher return per file on the site that charges higher prices.
And of course, the top illustrators and photographers I’ve worked with charge tens of thousands for one shot or artwork. Clients feel they’re worth it.
Thanks for your comments, Shelma. We’ve all weighed the advantages of more sales at lower prices versus fewer sales at higher prices. No doubt with high-end ad agencies, high prices for top-tier art and artists are the norm. But for “indie” artists selling their own work directly, opinions are all over the board.
My reason for posting the essay was because we’re also dealing with the issue of whether or not to require buyers to register. Some have wished we could figure out a SYS system-wide process for registration while maintaining the independence of our individual sites.
This essay describes a possible solution that could be available soon. It could be worth pursuing if it comes to fruition, and if so, it might resolve our dilemma.
It’s an interesting idea. I always feel that most people will take the free option if available. In order to be able to sell you need to have a product that they want but can’t get for free. I’m talking legally 🙂
The Internet is this huge, largely free, library of info. I always doubt people will pay unless they have to. I also write but honestly, there is SO MUCH free content to read that I really don’t feel the need to subscribe to anything that costs money.
I also watch lots of videos on Photography & Manipulation. Again, there is a wonderfully huge library of help on YouTube and the rest of the Internet. I actually did sign up on one of my favourite sites (http://www.psdbox.com/) a few days ago because I love his free content and his special price was unbeatable LOL!
I think that Stock Photography has reached that saturation point too. To earn one must come up with something that is novel, different, desirable (to the client), or not readily available.
Jo
To Martha: Sorry, I didn’t realize this was about SYS-wide registration. How would that work?
The great thing abut testing is that you actually can figure out what the market will bear and how much people are willing to pay for your product.
To Jo: I guess I’m kinda old. I do consume a lot of free content, but I also subscribe to content I feel is worth it: The New York Times, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, Lynda.com for learning software (that’s where I learned to use Illustrator). Though I can find tips about Illustrator on youtube, vectortuts, etc., Lynda.com actually has thorough, full courses that follow a predictable flow. And Huffpost is fun, but not as well done as the Times.
My problem with free content is that it’s ultimately unsustainable if it needs to be high (or even medium) quality. Eventually nobody will want to work for free (I hope). I think people should be paid for their work (I’m not fond of unpaid internships, either). That’s why I don’t blog or tweet…I’m a writer, and I expect to be paid to write.
@shelma1 wrote:
To Martha: Sorry, I didn’t realize this was about SYS-wide registration. How would that work?
It’s okay, Shelma. The article was in part about price, but that wasn’t all of it.
I’ll paste in below the entire article I linked to above, then highlight the parts I was talking about.
****
25 July 2013
A Golden Age For Paid Content
It’s coming, if publishers can get three things right.
Readers will pay for content online so long as three conditions are met:
1 The content is worth paying for.
2 The price is low.
3 The transaction is easy.There are some trade-offs within those criteria. If you have an overwhelming need for a particular channel of content—the Financial Times, say, or The Economist—then you will accept a relatively high price, and quite a lot of friction in the process of subscribing.
But for paid content to be the rule rather than the exception, publishers need to deliver on all three criteria at once.
Here’s how it can happen.
There’s no particular problem or mystery associated with providing content worth paying for. Publishers do it all the time. What’s amazing is how much good writing is currently available for free. For example, I’d certainly pay to read the NYR Blog, provided that the price was right and the transaction was easy.
Getting to the right price is more of an issue. Publishers think in terms of one-to-many relations with their readers, and price accordingly; but readers want a one-to-many relationship with publishers. Each publisher wants to sell one subscription to every reader for $60 a year; but each reader would much rather buy ten subscriptions to ten publications for $6 a year each.
The customer is always right. With much lower prices and much bigger volumes, everyone would be better off.
Frictionless purchasing is getting closer, but it’s not evenly distributed.You have it once you get inside the closed systems of the Kindle and the iTunes store—and the effect of it is clear and liberating. You sample more, you buy more. To return to the case of the NYR Blog, I’m 90% sure I’d pay $1 a month to read that content, even if I had to go through PayPal to do so. But I’m 100% sure I’d pay $1 a month to read it if I was buying with a single click on my Kindle, and 90% sure I’d pay $2.
But how to make frictionless transactions for individual pieces of content outside the closed systems? We need the internet equivalent of a Metro Card (in London: an Oyster Card), which is to say, a pass that the reader can preload with so many prepaid page views—say 100 page views for $10—and then use to access individual pieces of paid content on any participating publisher’s website.
When we can meet all three criteria—quality content, low pricing, frictionless purchasing—we can do for paid content what app stores have done for software. Remember when software in a box used to cost $100, and you might buy a couple of things a year that you really needed? Now it costs $1 and you buy it on impulse.We’re going to get there, even if the prepaid pass takes—I would guess—another year or two to arrive and scale. For the past five years or so we’ve been in a golden age of free content. Now we’re moving into a golden age of paid content, and that’s going to be even better.
+++++++++++++
(first published in medium.com, 24th July 2013)@shelma1 wrote:
To Jo: I guess I’m kinda old. I do consume a lot of free content, but I also subscribe to content I feel is worth it: The New York Times, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, Lynda.com for learning software (that’s where I learned to use Illustrator). Though I can find tips about Illustrator on youtube, vectortuts, etc., Lynda.com actually has thorough, full courses that follow a predictable flow. And Huffpost is fun, but not as well done as the Times.
My problem with free content is that it’s ultimately unsustainable if it needs to be high (or even medium) quality. Eventually nobody will want to work for free (I hope). I think people should be paid for their work (I’m not fond of unpaid internships, either). That’s why I don’t blog or tweet…I’m a writer, and I expect to be paid to write.
Honestly, there is a lot of VERY good free content for both Illustrator/Vector and Photoshop/Graphics. http://www.phlearn.com is one. Aaron made his success by giving his knowledge away for free. Now he has paid tutorials to support his business. I would support someone like that.
For a new person working with digital graphics it would be a good idea to pay to see the premium content. In my financial state (shaky at best currently) and with 15 years of working with graphics, I am only picking up the odd tips here and there now. The ratio of money paid plus x10 for my stupid financial exchange rate, it’s just not value for money for me.I don’t read newspapers so for me it is worthless. To another, there is a demand for those newspapers. So that is why I said, if there is demand then there is a sale. Some people don’t believe in paying at all but that market is not a loss as it would never manifest as a profit.
Free content is there to draw in potential customers. I’m a giving person by nature so I have an immediate reaction to people who take and demand. Those that give, I support. I’ve donated to software developers that don’t charge for their programs and have been free for a very long time. I’ve also refused to pay for some software but will search for a free alternative.
The boom of the Internet has peaked. I’ve watched it for 15 years. Now it has settled down to a more business orientated medium.
I don’t know what kinda old is 😀 I’m 44 and three quarters… hehe.
Jo
>>>> The boom of the Internet has peaked. I’ve watched it for 15 years. Now it has settled down to a more business orientated medium.
that’s been said every 5 years for the past 15 years! billions have been made by betting against that position
@marthamarks wrote:
You have it once you get inside the closed systems of the Kindle and the iTunes store—and the effect of it is clear and liberating. You sample more, you buy more. To return to the case of the NYR Blog, I’m 90% sure I’d pay $1 a month to read that content, even if I had to go through PayPal to do so. But I’m 100% sure I’d pay $1 a month to read it if I was buying with a single click on my Kindle, and 90% sure I’d pay $2.
But how to make frictionless transactions for individual pieces of content outside the closed systems? We need the internet equivalent of a Metro Card (in London: an Oyster Card), which is to say, a pass that the reader can preload with so many prepaid page views—say 100 page views for $10—and then use to access individual pieces of paid content on any participating publisher’s website.
When we can meet all three criteria—quality content, low pricing, frictionless purchasing—we can do for paid content what app stores have done for software. Remember when software in a box used to cost $100, and you might buy a couple of things a year that you really needed? Now it costs $1 and you buy it on impulse.I’m with you on the frictionless purchasing. I’ve wondered if having to use PayPal would stop (or slow) people from purchasing through Symbio sites.
No one said the Internet doesn’t make money. The truth is answered in a very easy question; how many billionaires or even millionaires do you know who made money from the internet? Especially recently to be more precise.
The Internet was packaged as the new wonder product. It sold so well that a few people made a lot of money. That boom is over. Now it’s come down to that you have a sweet sales pitch, or a good product, or you are stuck in the corner licking your wounded ego.
Stock imaging is an excellent example. The prices you paid for Stock 15 years ago is gone. Boom is over. Now it’s time for a reality check. The boom that happened between 5 and 10 years ago is finished. It was a start-up that made a lot of money on sometimes empty promises, growing numbers, and demand. That has levelled off to an even keel.
Internet aside, the general financial boom is over and will remain that way for a while to come until something greater than the Internet comes along to woo us over. For too long clever people has been selling either very little or nothing at all for something. Now we as a world economy are paying for it.
Successful businessmen don’t live with their heads in the clouds but with their ear to the ground.
Jo
@shelma1 wrote:
I’m with you on the frictionless purchasing. I’ve wondered if having to use PayPal would stop (or slow) people from purchasing through Symbio sites.
More than Paypal, the concern among many here is that forcing each buyer to sign in to every single website in our network would be too cumbersome. There’s been talk of finding a way to sign up once for the SYS network, then purchase on whichever site one finds a desired image.
What this article is talking about is having a “pass” of some sort that somebody could purchase and then use at will wherever desirable content was found across the internet.
It’s an interesting idea that might give us our solution at some point down the road.
I agree. I think having to sign in/purchase separately at different sites is cumbersome. However, who if anyone would have access to the buyer’s info if they sign in to one central place?
Sorry if I’m behind the curve…maybe you could direct me to the original discussion?
I also think that signing up for every site is one of the downsides of the network. I don’t have an answer to an alternative.
If you have a central registering area then someone has to manage and make sure it is always running or NO ONE can make sales. Who is going to run such a thing? Any volunteers?
I don’t know if it is feasible but how about a system like…
An existing account that some people already have. I don’t know how this would work as a login system but the buyer only needs to register once with a service like this and then just login to each site with the same details.
Just an idea, I have no idea how good or bad it is or if it’s possible to implement. Maybe there is even something like this on WordPress? I’m knew to all this.
Jo
@jorodrigues wrote:
I also think that signing up for every site is one of the downsides of the network. I don’t have an answer to an alternative.
Well, under the current system you only have to sign up to a site if you want to purchase a license there. I can’t imagine any buyer signing up up to each and every site, because the content is so different. Nobody would need something from every site in our network.
@shelma1 wrote:
Sorry if I’m behind the curve…maybe you could direct me to the original discussion?
The thread I remember was over in the MSG group. Maybe I’ll have time to hunt it up later. Not now.
The forum ‘Archives’ is closed to new topics and replies.