Author Topic: Selling the whole portfolio rights/collection (Read 22124 times)

Brentw · « **on:** January 10, 2009, 00:09 »

Hello guys,

do you know how, or is there any chance to sell your whole image rights of your portfolio (perhaps including your all ms accounts)? to whom/where and how much price should you put for all of your hard works? And is it ok with ms terms?

Thanks alot for your advices

best regards,
Brent

ps: currently i've got around 800 images of 3d render and illustration

avava · « **Reply #1 on:** January 10, 2009, 00:29 »

Hey Brentw,

There are lots of buy out stock deals but the price per image is growing smaller as well as the opportunity. It was a big thing three years ago most the big agencies were spending tons on holly owned content sold to them buy stock photographers. There was some great money made. They have to be free from contract with any agency and under your copyright then you can sell to the highest bidder. I can tell you the work better be * good or of some niche variety these days at least from my experience. The best deal is to get them to sign to a certain amount of images before you shoot them for a certain price and have some control over the edit this is my preferred arrangement.

Best of luck,
AVAVA

Brentw · « **Reply #2 on:** January 10, 2009, 03:10 »

Thank you very much for the info AVAVA.. appreciate it

.shock · « **Reply #3 on:** January 12, 2009, 07:13 »

I was have similar idea some time ago. Fotolia staff was tell me that this is illegal because something... don't know why, but they was told me that was written in contract why you don't have right to sell whole portfolio rights.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #4 on:** January 12, 2009, 07:35 »

You may not be allowed to sell your Fotolia account to someone, but you can sure as heck deactivate the account, sell the imagery to someone else, and they can then upload it as the copyright holder.

mantonino · « **Reply #5 on:** January 12, 2009, 09:03 »

right - you wouldn't sell your portfolio on a site - you'd sell your images offline, transferring copyright, and that person would then reupload the content as the sole copyright holder.

give us a link and an estimate?

Microbius · « **Reply #6 on:** January 12, 2009, 09:13 »

I'd love to see what the folio looks like and how much you get for it! any chance of a link?

Brentw · « **Reply #7 on:** January 12, 2009, 21:37 »

Thanks for your opinion shock & sjlocke, that's why i'm still hesitate to post open offer at any forum. So it's not allowed by Fl, but how about with other ms?

to mantonio and microbius, i've pm you, thanks..

sharply_done · « **Reply #8 on:** January 12, 2009, 23:12 »

You should also expect the buyer of your portfolio to include a non-compete clause in the contract - this means you wouldn't be able to produce any microstock work for that specified time (e.g. 1+ years).

mantonino · « **Reply #9 on:** January 13, 2009, 00:13 »

Wow, your port is actually VERY nice! A bit pricey for us, I'm thinking - which is unfortunate! I like the idea of purchasing a few whole collections and yours is top of the line. I will PM you with some thoughts.

Brentw · « **Reply #10 on:** January 13, 2009, 09:55 »

Thanks for yr nice comment Matt, you also have a lot of great well posed models with really nice expression photos, beside solid isolated objects! i know how hard to pose a model since my last job at ad agency, it looks easy but actually you really need to be very extremely creative..

i got your point about the clause sharply_done.. thx for the thought

Freezingpictures · « **Reply #11 on:** January 13, 2009, 10:02 »

I am also curious about your portfolio and what you expect to get for it.Currently I have not the finances to buy a collection but I was always interested in something like this.

helix7 · « **Reply #12 on:** January 13, 2009, 15:54 »

This topic comes up pretty regularly, in the context of selling rights to a portfolio of images to a private buyer for resale purposes, not to an agency. As mentioned, it is possible but must be done offline. Some sites like Fotolia won't honor a transfer of ownership of an account.

The only real hurdle seems to be that this just hasn't been done in microstock before. Maybe not even in traditional stock. And so there is no precedent for comparison. It's all possible, but someone would have to be a little pioneering to try it and get through the process of deactivating accounts, making the sale, and seeing if there are any issues for the buyer in re-uploading the images.

Of course, there is also the issue of finding a buyer who can meet your price expectation. In previous discussions, the general rule seemed to be that artists would expect a price of around 5 times the projects annual earnings of a portfolio. So if a portfolio generates $50,000 a year for an artist, their selling price for the whole lot would probably be around $250,000.

Microbius · « **Reply #13 on:** January 13, 2009, 16:14 »

I think that that is absolutely never gonna happen. If I could sell my microstock portfolio for that I'd do it in a flash and pocket myself around $300,000.
No way anyone's gonna come up with that kind of money for it, especially as the value of a microstock image is so short lived.

mantonino · « **Reply #14 on:** January 13, 2009, 18:12 »

Quote from: helix7 on January 13, 2009, 15:54

In previous discussions, the general rule seemed to be that artists would expect a price of around 5 times the projects annual earnings of a portfolio. So if a portfolio generates $50,000 a year for an artist, their selling price for the whole lot would probably be around $250,000.

This is why it never happens - people are using a business model that isn't *POSSIBLE* in microstock. Traditional businesses sell for 3-5 times annual profit. Microstock is never worth as much as it is today. It's a declining business model. Someone's current portfolio is worth about 1-1.5x their last year's profit from those images. Not 5x. 5x is a great model for like a wedding business - you can anticipate the biz would generate 5 years of the same. That's not true in micro.

I'd pay $1-$3 per image for every image someone had or $3-8 per image if I got to select them. There's *no way* EVERY single image of someone's is going to make more than that in the next 3 years. The difference between buyer expectations and seller expectations is why it never happens.

travelstock · « **Reply #15 on:** January 13, 2009, 18:27 »

I've also mused about the possibility of buying a portfolio etc, but agree with previous posts about the price. I doubt that there would be anyone willing to pay a significant amount for a portfolio, unless there were something unique about it that would guarantee earnings well into the future.

In terms of your contracts etc. with Fotolia and other agencies, it may be possible to draft a contract that assigning the benefits of your account to another party, but this is distinct from actually "selling" the portfolio, and would probably preclude you from submitting anything to them in the future, and would really depend on the fine print of the contract with Fotolia, which I haven't looked into in detail.

Brentw · « **Reply #16 on:** January 13, 2009, 19:32 »

Quote from: helix7 on January 13, 2009, 15:54

... that artists would expect a price of around 5 times the projects annual earnings of a portfolio.

If this can be used as standard, i think i should wait until next year so my portfolio's value would be higher, because i joined microstock just 1,5 years ago and i've been actively uploading only since last 7 months ago, therefore i should expect around $6000 on 2009 alone. (but unfortunately i need urgent fund for financing my apartment, so i'm trying to sell them, *sigh*..)

so i think the valuation method using annual income would also depend on how long a collection has been up and selling.. the longer they have been sold - the lower investor should expect in value. vice versa. please correct me if i'm wrong, thanks for the suggestions..

gostwyck · « **Reply #17 on:** January 13, 2009, 20:17 »

I think Mantonino is closet to the right answer on this.

If someone offered me 1.5x annual earnings for my port I'd think about it. At 2x annual earnings I'd almost certainly sell __ if only because it would give me a couple of years off 'work' and monitoring sales and anyway I could probably generate a bigger and better port in the same timescale.

Microstock is still much too young to be able to predict future values with any certainty but in my experience (4 years) the good images actually do continue to sell and sell __ except of course when they are killed off by IS best match changes.

leaf · « **Reply #18 on:** January 14, 2009, 01:52 »

Quote from: helix7 on January 13, 2009, 15:54

Of course, there is also the issue of finding a buyer who can meet your price expectation. In previous discussions, the general rule seemed to be that artists would expect a price of around 5 times the projects annual earnings of a portfolio. So if a portfolio generates $50,000 a year for an artist, their selling price for the whole lot would probably be around $250,000.

Artists set their worth at 5 years of income, I do too, but that isn´t what i would expect it to sell at. I set my portofolio worth at 5 years because I own my portfolio and expect it to generate income for 5 years. If i was going to by a portfolio though, I expect to make a profit on my investment. If I purchase it for the same 5 years calculation then I would only be ´hoping´ to break even. No one is going to invest $250,000 for a five year term just hoping to break even. If I invest in a portfolio I want to earn at least 2x, and hopefully 4x what i invested. So I would agree with mantonio that 1-1.5x a years income is a more likely figure. That would allow the investor to have to wait 1-2 years to get back his money, then ´hopefully´make a profit for 2-3 years... unless things change in microstock.

Freezingpictures · « **Reply #19 on:** January 14, 2009, 04:05 »

Leaf if you say artists set their worth at 5 years income, I would make a really bad deal if I sell my portfolio for 1 X- 1,5 X a years income. So maybe a deal like this where both parties are happy does not really work.

For my own work I would consider 4 - 5 times a years income fair. Thats probably what its worth. But actually I probably would not do it even for this amount.

Mantonino, $1- $3 dollar for every image one has is honestly a bad price, and I would not expect to get much more than snapshots for this price. The price should be according to the quality of the protfolio. We have people here who exceed $3 per image per month easily.

But what should be taken into account is the reuploading of the portfolio to the websites. It takes a lot of time away and some images might get rejected. So a deal where both parties are happy maybe does not work.

Danicek · « **Reply #20 on:** January 14, 2009, 04:29 »

Quote from: Freezingpictures on January 14, 2009, 04:05

For my own work I would consider 4 - 5 times a years income fair. Thats probably what its worth.

That's why you can't obviously get so much from it if that's what its worth. Leaf pointed out that the buyer buys it to get something from it . That's why you have to give him discount. Honest 5 year earnings prediction is a good start, then they would need to talk about how much off the buyer will get. Given the risks of the unstable business and that the honest prediction may not be occurate would mean that 50% off is where reasonable prices would start for portfolio with as much long-term stability as can be reached in this business.

Microbius · « **Reply #21 on:** January 14, 2009, 04:35 »

I've though about this some more. I recon that the value of a static portfolio on microstock halves every year. So a realistic 5 year prediction would be about 2X last years income (1+0.5+0.25+0.125+0.0625=1.9375)

sharply_done · « **Reply #22 on:** January 14, 2009, 04:49 »

Quote from: Microbius on January 14, 2009, 04:35

I've though about this some more. I recon that the value of a static portfolio on microstock halves every year. So a realistic 5 year prediction would be about 2X last years income (1+0.5+0.25+0.125+0.0625=1.9375)

Interesting enough, but what are you basing this on? Do you have empirical data or are you merely speculating? If it's the latter, what assumptions have you made in your model? If the former, what type of images does the portfolio contain?

sharply_done · « **Reply #23 on:** January 14, 2009, 05:05 »

Quote from: mantonino on January 13, 2009, 18:12

...
I'd pay $1-$3 per image for every image someone had or $3-8 per image if I got to select them. There's *no way* EVERY single image of someone's is going to make more than that in the next 3 years. The difference between buyer expectations and seller expectations is why it never happens.

Sorry, mantonino, but *yes way*. Like ^^^^Freezingpictures said, there are a lot of people here who's portfolio earns much, much more than $3-8 per image in one year, let alone three.

Microbius · « **Reply #24 on:** January 14, 2009, 05:23 »

It's just a guestimate, based on my own portfolio.
I think this is much more realistic then thinking that a portfolio will earn the same as it did in last year for the next five years, which I guess is what is assumed if it is valued at 5X the years earnings?

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Author Topic: Selling the whole portfolio rights/collection (Read 22124 times)

Brentw

avava

Brentw

.shock

Sean Locke Photography

mantonino

Microbius

Brentw

sharply_done

mantonino

Brentw

Freezingpictures

helix7

Microbius

mantonino

travelstock

Brentw

gostwyck

leaf

Freezingpictures

Danicek

Microbius

sharply_done

sharply_done

Microbius

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