Thank Orla.

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I spend enough time in front of my computer screen there’s no way I’m spending more of it looking at what is meant to be a print product on a computer screen.

The online environment is a completely different realm that requires far more than a traditional way of thinking.

Publications, photographers, musicians, illustrators, who ever, really need to figure out how to tap into this market. The daily newspapers who complain about the market, are to a large degree missing the boat. Some have figured it out, but there are still a lot who just don’t get it.

Compelling content, whether it’s words, pictures, or video is what it’s about. Putting out garbage isn’t going to get viewers, and without viewers your advertising revenue’s going to suck.

A lot of photographers don’t like this idea, but that’s what it’s always been about. Unless you’re a wedding/portrait photographer, or a strictly fine art for the wall photographer, it’s about selling advertising.

It can’t be. It’s just too easy. Right in front of you. Take the Quark/InDesign document, hit “Make MultiPage PDF”, upload it to your server, and start charging for it.

How could they miss that?

And if you want add in some online video, embedded into the page, or even better, make the products dance inside the advertising. What agency wouldn’t cream over that opportunity?

If I paid a fee per year to subscribe to the printed version, why wouldn’t I pay a fee for the PDF version?

Everyone is forced to consume crappy photography because that’s all that’s available. All the good stuff is locked up.

Google is a shit magazine. I’m looking for something better to do with my time.

@ 74 Johann: Publishers are stupid. They sell magazines on newsstands and to subscribers at a loss but don’t use the free distribution method that could net them more readers for advertising.

If the magazine could be delivered to me electronically, and I had a gizmo that would print it and bind it for me at a quality level as good or better than that magazine is currently produced, that would be cool.

Imagine that crappy thin paper replaced with a nice glossy stock – images would sing off the page. And I agree with Rob that consumers appreciate good photography – when they see it.

Waste of paper? Sure. But I wonder…. given that Rob mentioned that many mags are tossed without even shipping. And what about the mags on shelves that don’t sell? How about the elimination of carbon produced by the trucks delivering the magazines.

Cost to print an issue may be a problem initially, but I bet the publishers would consider subsidizing this gizmo.

Now along with my subscription, the publisher could target ads for me (and my family).

Like stated in previous posts, this could be delivered via iTunes, and Apple could make this magazine printer/binder gizmo. iMag anyone?

I’d much rather sit here and pay $4.95 for a PDF if I’m looking for an article, than getting in my car, driving across town, paying for parking, and then buying the printed magazine?

I’m not saying that everyone would do that, but for some customers, I think they’d just as soon spend their money electronically.

I want to see the magazine EXACTLY as it’s published in printed form — with ads, with adjacent photo credits, (shocking omitted in many online pubs), and just like the magazine looks on the rack. I’ll keep a printed magazine here beside my laptop, and hold it up and smell the ink, while I’m viewing the one I just downloaded.

The other major benefit — there won’t be any of those pesky subscription ads to fall on my dining room floor — the ones that are scattered on the floor of Barnes/Noble — if I download the magazine.

It looks like the artist/talent can easily benefit from the fan-based income model, but the management doesn’t do so well.

Personally, I’m not shedding tears for the management.

Yes, distribution is free. But all that has done is dilute photography to homeopathic weakness. You have to have someone to distribute to, and they have to have a reason to want you to do so.

Even Getty’s attempt to build a monopolistic distribution channel has foundered because he failed to foresee that the ‘oil of the 21st century’ would become a copious renewable source given away by amateurs.

If Getty can’t do it having put in solid effort to own the world and drive everybody else out of business, individual photographers cannot.

The future of photography is allegedly web video, because you can stick pre-show ads on the front and grab a whole lot more ad money while the punters sit through the sponsors’ messages. It’s not stills but it might earn and stills don’t. Ask the newspaper industry why they want it.

You want a new business model? It’s not going to come from selling photos, that’s for sure.

What you could do is tuck sponsor’s bugs in the corners, cram in as many product placement props as possible and give ‘em away by encouraging leeching so you can count the views and bill the advertisers.

So next time you do a shot, make sure the subject is surrounded by designer nick-nacks and wearing designer clothes, style ‘em up with brand cosmetics then hit up all the labels for ad deals.

With enough imagination this will work for any photo. Even PJ has a future. Starving African kids? Glaxo, Nestle, Monsanto are your friends. Iraq? Halliburton, RayBan, Exxon, Elastoplast.

Forget fees for shooting editorial, pay the publisher, cut them in on your ad deals. It’ll put a smile on their accountant’s face.

Yeah, it does rather utterly ruin and pervert photography, but it’s better than whingeing, right?

Pro photography is dying, the revenue streams for photography are drying up because always always, some cheaper pic will do. And cheaper is better by the metric of shareholder interest.

Paying for photos only made sense whilst people paid for magazines, and soon they won’t. Just accept it, forget integrity and art, this entropy is a business opportunity, right?

Where we’re headed, any publisher will have to compete with the world’s 800lb aggregator who is already in the room, who pay nothing for content, who works around traditional ideas of IPR, whose reach is global, who hoovers up ad revenue like there’s no tomorrow and whose brand is a household name. There’s really only one web 2.0 magazine and Google is its name.

It’s just not there yet, because there is not a central network or common design theme.

The day that I-tunes adds magazines and you can either subscribe or download single issues with a one click system is when you will see print become even more marginalized.

Also the cost of producing a magazine will change. You still need writers, photographers, designers and production artists, but you won’t need presses, distributors (in the traditional sense) trucks, warehouses and newstands.

That is when you will see video becoming as much, if not more of a requirement than just still photography spreads.

Personally I see convergence and a time where every still session will have some kind of moving imagery component, even if it’s just stills cut to music.

http://www.russellrutherford.com/paris_production/

There will come a point where a lot of us have to get past the thought of being only a photographer and realize we are really image makers and story tellers.

James Russell

I wish I could give my clients, and the community in general, easy answers (”do this and the money will come”) but the reality is that we need to look at new methods of monetization and combine those with traditional and new methods of marketing to service our clients.

I think that this is an exciting time to be a creative professional. We are seeing a revolution that is putting more and more power into the hands of the creative–removing middlemen (like labels and stock houses) as they become unnecessary. We just need to capitalize on it and not play the victim because things aren’t like they used to be.

Seth Godin has a tangentially related piece over on his blog right now about marketing yourself:
“John Moore has a great series about known brands and their importance to our lives. If Pizza Hut disappeared tomorrow, who would miss them? Could you find a replacement pizza? A replacement place to work?

What about your personal marketing, though? If you disappeared tomorrow, would the customers you call on miss you? [...]

The problem with fitting in and being a cog in the machine is that cogs are intentionally designed to be easily replaceable. When one breaks, you just get another. No one particularly misses the old one.”
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/would-we-miss-y.html

When you release a photo for free does your entrepreanureal thinking really end there? If it does then I’m glad, less competition.

Photos are free, provide them for free as a lure and proof of otherwise marketable, particular abilities.. hmm like shooting a SPECIFIC marketing image for a SPECIFIC product or company. This demand still exists.

..or

You use these photos to get hired as a art director or consultant.

There are plenty of shoddy photographers out there making bank because of their ability to sell skills MILDLY related to the crappy photos the produce. Photos provide a vehicle for marketing and an avenue to clients though.

Never let the client leave the lot. If free photos allow me to charge $75.00 an hour to do something art related because I had enough business sense to see the balance in value between the cost of producing these photos and my return then sign me up.

Classically trained photographers need to get over their pride of making a living ONLY through photo sales.

5 years ago I would have felt like a fat cat with just the licensing revenue, but have taught myself to think differently about how and where income comes from.

/begin plug

These are the images that will be used:

http://www.andybiggs.com/bananarepublicnames/

/end plug

There is inherent value in offering something slick (assuming you can shoot), that people want.

@62 – good point.

I think Rob’s point is that right now Internet advertising is like the newspaper classifieds: cheap, ubiquitous, and open to all. But there are a whole bunch of advertisers willing to for the equivalent of pricey magazine spreads. Whoever first figures out how to get that kind of impact on the web is going to be very rich.

Here’s some food for thought:http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i2eba2a8405f754828282755b69021285

Perhaps this is a model? Or at least a starting point.

@#52 APE I think too many people get caught up in the idea that photographers charge people to look at pictures.

Rob, I beg to disagree. This is exactly what photographers should be thinking about. This is at the heart of the matter. It’s our IP and it should be managed as such.

While I think ‘free’ is a good idea all around, it’s a model that centers around building a sense of anticipation. And it’s a lot like (I’m afraid) pornography. If there’s anyone that’s realized the value of free distribution, it’s porn producers.

While you can get your willies off for a while (for free), to see the whole show you have to pay. And there are plenty of people who WILL pay.

This is not a new model in this genre, old time peep shows come to mind. You could see a little but no the whole thing unless you paid.

And it’s certainly not relegated to just this particular business.

The reality is, if you show someone just enough and get them to ‘buy’ into whatever it is you’re doing, you’ve got them.

Am I going to attend David Alan Harvey and Jim Nacthwey’s next workshop? Maybe not. But if it comes around again and I’m watching his blog, then again maybe I will.

Am I going to buy Zoe Strauss’ fine art print? No. But I might attend her show and in that way get even more attached to her work.

Am I going to purchase Perou’s pictures of REM for a new magazine spread? No. But if I’m a photo editor, I’m going to keep tabs on him to see what craziness he comes up with next and to also see what’s going on at his farm and with his kids.

The point is that photographers should build something that allows people to ‘buy in’ to whatever it is they’re doing.

In my business of weddings, people ALWAYS pay to look because the proofs come down 90 days after the wedding and then no more lookee.

The paper that the images are printed on or how it’s shipped is definitely not what determines the value of those pictures.

I don’t blame designers, etc.. it’s the bean counters, my wife is a designer she is always battling clients who can’t understand why hiring someone costs thousands when they get emails everyday from microstock sites selling photo’s for $3.

Online magazines run primarily by photographers:

(Platon)

http://www.nutopiaforum.com/magazine.html

(John Huet)

http://www.johnhuet.com/

(click “launch the magazine”).

Wow, if they’d be anything like those buzzkill ads in T Magazine, it would sure be a shame. You take nice clean content, and then mess it up with ads? Shirley there’s got to be a better way.