Should I sign up with Snapvillage?

Rackman · #1 (**permalink**) 07-03-2008, 02:29 PM

I've been away from micro stock for several months due to other projects but am now ready to devote more time to it.

I'm currently signed up with all of the big names but noticed Snapvillage in some of the postings (must be new to the game or at least, new to me).

Any thoughts on Snapvillage and should I sign up with them.

Thanks for any input.

Joe

sharpshot · #2 (**permalink**) 07-03-2008, 03:01 PM

They are owned by Corbis and haven't made a great start but the site was in beta and has only been properly launched recently. They are starting to get it together and I feel they have a better chance than most of the new sites because they have been advertising and have a big name backing them.

The minimum payout is $10 and I am making that most months but want to see a lot more before I would recommend them. There is no FTP at the moment but they have promised it soon. Might be worth waiting for that or post them a CD/DVD.

oboy · #3 (**permalink**) 07-03-2008, 05:11 PM

Depending on how much time you have, I would start uploading. As sharpshot was saying they are probably the best from the new sites. You probably will not have any rejections there as long as you have model and property releases.

louoates · #4 (**permalink**) 07-03-2008, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oboy

Depending on how much time you have, I would start uploading. As sharpshot was saying they are probably the best from the new sites. You probably will not have any rejections there as long as you have model and property releases.

I've got 200+ of my best images there. No sales the last 60 days or so. Tiny subscription sales a few times before that. My "view" numbers have been showing almost no activity for months. I've seen none of their advertising in the last two months. In my opinion their first round of advertising was horrible.

With a lot of promising elements there they haven't been worth my uploading there yet. Maybe sometime later. Maybe never. Maybe another LuckyOliver. For now I wouldn't bother uploading.

I could say the same about Yay as well. Except the technical side is far superior to Snap. And Yay's marketing isn't expected to begin, rumor has it, till September. ??

If you've read a lot of posts about new sites over the past few months you'll put new micro sites in the same category as sharing a dish of ice cream with someone with a communicable disease.

orchidpoet · #5 (**permalink**) 07-03-2008, 09:41 PM

June was surprisingly good for me at Snapvillage. It didn't have as many sales as in other sites, but because I was able to set my own price (I set my default price at $10 now), the income was decent.

Rackman · #6 (**permalink**) 07-04-2008, 12:14 AM

Your analogy to "sharing a bowl of ice cream" was very funny!

I figured I'd upload about 50 images to Snapvillage just for the experience.

I wasn't too impressed with their upload process although I did like it better than iStock's (quicker)!

I also couldn't find where to add my title, descriptions & keywords for individual uploads...I did see how to do it when uploading related sets. I checked their FAQ's and it sounds like they do it for me which may or may not be a good thing. We'll have to see.

Thanks again,

Joe

thesupe87 · #7 (**permalink**) 07-04-2008, 02:01 PM

Save it for a rainy day. If you have under 100 images, it will probably take a while to hit payout. You never know though, sales have been picking up recently. I have about 450 online, but I'm .30 cents shy of $10.

If you're going to risk wasting time with a new site that is a slow earner, I personally think the Corbis backed "Snap" is the one you want to do it with.

helix7 · #8 (**permalink**) 07-04-2008, 08:37 PM

I'd wait. Nothing much going on over there lately, and with the possibility of FTP uploads coming soon I would hold off until they get that working and show some signs of life with sales. I stopped uploading to SV until both of those things happen.

jimiking · #9 (**permalink**) 07-05-2008, 11:25 AM

They only seem to pick up about 10-20% of the IPTC data on mine, so I immediately delete any images with keywords that show up blank after upload. Hence I have a very small portfolio there, and hardly any sales. Another annoying thing is the hoops you have to jump through to see a total of your earnings.

Being Corbis owned, it's the ONLY new agency I'd personally risk any time on, but as the others are saying, don't hurry yourself.

thesupe87 · #10 (**permalink**) 07-05-2008, 02:27 PM

Yeah, most of my portfolio was keyworded with Irfanview, until I switched over to just useing Photoshop about a year ago. Snapvillage won't read the meta data from any of the images keyed using Irfanview. I really hope they fix this around the time they add ftp. Back when Lucky Oliver first opened, it was the same way - and then they had to implement it into their site technology. I'm sure Snapvillage is aware of this by now...I hope. I'm definitely not re-keying all of my images just so I can upload to them.