A New Stock Photo Company?

[Drew Bedo]

HelloAll,
I am a visual artist working in photography, and not very business savy.
I have just received this e-mail from a company that I have not contacted before. Does anyone know anything about this outfit?

Thanks,

Here is the text of the e-mail:


Hi Drew,


My name is Noah and I am the marketing manager here at AudioMicro. We currently specialize in stock music and sound effects sales and licensing. Over the course of the past 2+ years we have built a very successful business in this market and have just begun development on a new site for stock photos.

We love your work so just wanted to reach out to see if you would have any interest in contributing to the new site/platform? We will handle all of the ingest/uploading of your images and pay out directly to paypal once live.

The site is currently under full steam development and we expect to be in operation and ready to sell stock photos by February.

We have a vast amount of experience in SEO, developing web traffic etc,
and are confident that if we get some great contributors we will build a very successful stock photos site.


Let me know your thoughts/if you would be interested in contributing to a new stock photo site, and at any rate thanks a bunch for taking the time to read this. I hope all is well for you and yours.

Cheers,


NB

[Kirk Gittings]

Drew, I think you didn't post the link or the email?

[Drew Bedo]

Thanks Kirk. I have added the text to the first post.

[GPS]

I don't know if you're in any stock agency business. If you were you would immediately see the fishy side of this email - no info on any conditions of their sales and your parts from it. What did you get in the email from them to have any facts necessary to decide about it? Skip it...

[Kirk Gittings]

Drew I didn't get this one but I have gotten many just like it over the years. After looking this business up online, their audio stock business appears to be an ultra cheap royalty free operation. These kind of operations will generate enough $ for an occasional hamburger if you are lucky.

[Drew Bedo]

Thanks . . .pretty much what I was thinking.

[Noah A]

For the record, the email wasn't from me!

Kirk is right...it may be legit but it appears to be a low-budget royalty-free outfit.

I would NEVER send any photos to any 'agency' that doesn't first present you with a contract outlining your rights and responsibilities as well as the rights and responsibilities of the agency. In addition a contract should spell out your royalties, usage rules, etc.

It's probably not a scam per se, but I doubt you'd ever see any real income from it. And in the worst case you may give up some rights to your photos and never see a dime.

[Frank Petronio]

I don't think any decent stock agencies exist anymore, period.

You do better selling a few pictures on your own directly.

[edtog]

Alamy are OK and have been with them for years, but they are getting increasingly squeezed by the royalty free/micro stock sites.
A big problem now is there is only really one company dominating the market, Getty.

[Jason_1622]

Alamy are OK and have been with them for years, but they are getting increasingly squeezed by the royalty free/micro stock sites.
A big problem now is there is only really one company dominating the market, Getty.

And the Getty guy walks around like he's king at all the concerts/festivals I shoot. :rolleyes:

[jp]

The next to last paragraph of the letter shows they are basically wannabes. Driving traffic is nice, but it looks like they want to make money on advertising not products or services, which is where you come in. They are looking for quantity over quality probably. You'd have to investigate their other "successful" site to be sure.