2
Print Catalogs vs. Digital
One year after Stock Workbook 8 came out in September 1994, Stock Connection
has some interesting sales comparisons between the printed catalog and SWDisk
3 that was actually delivered in November 1994.
Nineteen SC photographers have a total of 25 pages in the printed book with
a total of 248 images. On the Stock Workbook disk 16 photographers have
a total of 610 images.
As of the end of August 1995 the average photographer's share of sales from
the printed book was 38% of the total photographers paid for the pages.
The average photographer's share of sales from SWDisk 3 was 215% of what
they paid to be on the disk. A couple photographers earned more than 450%
return on investment and several earned three times their investment.
Four photographers put exactly the same images as they put in the printed
catalog, and no others, on SWDisk 3. These photographers averaged 61% return
on their investment in the printed book, and 380% on what they paid to be
on the disk.
Stock Connection also represents 8 photographers who have images in Direct
Stock 4 which came out in January 1995 (8 months). As of the end of August
the average return on investment for these 8 was 47% of what they paid for
their pages. This would indicate that Direct Stock is doing quite a bit
better than Stock Workbook. However, the sample is very small and may be
unrepresentative.
I want to point out that all these numbers are what the photographer actually
received after Stock Connection deducted their 25% sales commission.