Month: February 2009

Since I’m not a photographer, I am not privy to all the info that ASMP general members get. So, I’m late to learning that there is a crazy idea to stop paying the ASMP President a stipend. This is insane. 

1) The amount is really small.

2) The amount of time a Pres. puts in is huge.

3) The amount of biz the Pres. loses because of the time s/he puts in is significant.

4) #1 doesn’t come close to making up for numbers 2 & 3. Not hardly.

Look, being ASMP President doesn’t bring you clients and doesn’t improve your business in any way. Those who take on this task do so because they love the industry, are deeply committed to it and to the ASMP members, and because they have a screw loose. 

Okay, the last one is totally supposition on my part. But seriously, it is a thankless job and one that no one should take on without getting a little something to offset the losses. 

For you members, please make sure to vote as needed to make sure the stipend stays. I know several of the board members and the current (and several past) President(s)–these people unquestionably really want the absolute best for the members. They are good, honest, kind photographers who would love to be able to make every member successful. Let’s not make it harder to get good people to run for President by cutting a meager stipend!

A little trust, faith, and, yes, financial backing to the Pres. would be great.

Okay, so FB had reverted back to their previous (and also lousy) TOS for now while they rework the wording. Good. 

KEEP PRESSURING THEM.

Seriously, now is the time to let them know that the old terms were also unacceptable.

By the way, I just had a law school colleague come up to me to talk about the FB TOS issue. This was just another student with no particular horse in the race, but he had noticed my (and others) posts on FB itself against the TOS. In talking to this one (young) man, I helped to educate him about the problem for creative pros. He got it.

You can do the same. Don’t just talk to your creative colleagues. Get the message out to your kids, your family, and your friends who are not in the industries. Call TV stations and networks that misreport the issues (this was NEVER about ownership, no matter how hard FB tried to spin it that way!). Be polite, informed, and helpful…but get the word out.

Facebook’s Terms of Service have been terrible for a while, but it seems they’ve made a change…and made them even worse.

Keep your content OFF Facebook. Seriously.

This is written for designers (and yes, it is terribly sarcastic), but so much of it applies to any creative.

(Oh, and please note the one about putting everything on the home page. Some of you photographers are still doing that. Ick!)

I bet I got your attention with that title! 🙂

 

Thing is, I’m not being sarcastic. Time magazine this week has some interesting ideas on how to save the newspaper industry and I think some of the thinking might (note: might) be worth investigating for photography. That is, micropayments for content.

Now, don’t flip–this is, essentially, pay-per-view so while the individual payments may be tiny, the aggregate total may very well be more than photographers make now. Let’s say, for example, that a photographer gets .1¢ per view of an “interior” image…yes, one-tenth of a penny…that would be, for the 3 million subscriber base Time claims, $3,000. 

This is the sort of thing I was talking about when I said photographers should share the risks (and the rewards). Maybe your image’s story doesn’t get read by everyone…you’ll make less…or maybe that story will catch fire and you’ll make a lot more. 

I’m sure the technology exists to give accurate reporting for this sort of system. And it would work for advertising as well–if the ad gets viewed, you get paid. More views, more $$. Maybe in the case of advertising, there can be a bonus for consumer action–that is, if the online ad results in a click-through, the photographer gets a “bonus.”

New technology requires new thinking…

With numbers like these in the advertising industry, things are going to continue to be bumpy for a while. Clients and the clients of clients are all shedding jobs. 

However, as in all things, this is not a permanent state. Sooner or later things will turn for the better and, even if they stay as they are for a while, there is still work being made. If you want to get some of that work, you are going to have to push your vision to the very best targets–those who really need it.

You also may have to work with your clients to hit the numbers they need. That doesn’t mean dropping your fees willy-nilly, but saving money on production is certainly a good idea whenever possible. And offering lower fees for more limited licenses while providing a guaranteed set of numbers for additional usage (so your client can know you won’t hold the images hostage) might help too.

Also now is a good time to think about sharing the risk with your clients–how about a lower guaranteed fee, then if the project “hits” (some metrics will be required), a “performance bonus”–why not?

I know some of you will have a cow at the thought of such a suggestion, and I’m not even saying it is the best option, but I’m not hearing a whole lot of new thinking on this topic and it’s just something I’ve thought a teeny bit about (in between studying…which doesn’t leave a load of time). Now is the time to be thinking about solutions and not rejecting anything just on its face.

So…ideas?

When you want it badly enough, you will find a way to do what you love AND make money. This woman did.

SNL is making ads for Pepsi.

This goes way beyond the old Texaco Star brings you Milton Berle*  kind of interaction between marketers and entertainment. And this direction, this mixing and blending, will affect all sorts of creatives.

What are you doing to keep up with the changing world?

 

 

*(btw, I may have gotten that wrong…maybe it wasn’t Texaco…that was way before my time!)

Another site to be careful about. What this emphasizes, yet again, is how important it is to actually READ the terms and conditions/user agreements on each and every site you use. You could be putting a lot of your work at risk.

Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites are notorious for snagging image rights. I would never post anything on Facebook that I wanted to protect in any way. Generally, it is simply safer to limit your legal exposure by displaying your images on your own site only (or reputable sourcebook sites like AltPick), and then linking to those sites from your social networking pages. 

It’s easy to say “yeah, but everyone does it,” but that won’t help you when you try to sue for infringement later.

Well, I am not happy, but hopefully we’ll get this worked out. There are still some odd technical issues and, until they get worked out, my books are not available. Hopefully, fingers crossed, they will be worked out within (sigh) two weeks. 

Until then, I’m dead in the water, publication-wise.

I am sorry for the inconvenience. Deeply.