Why are authors selling with Elements?

Envato Authors Video Authors
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As for this topics question, why are authors selling with Elements? I perfectly understand that. Elements provides more revenue to authors, especially if you sell in the high performing categories video and audio. Who does not like more money? If these additional incomes will stay steady, increase or decline, only time will tell. Envato is obviously looking for more authors to join the party and expand their catalogue since they were recently hiring an author growth specialist.

I don’t have any intentions to engage in a an on going discussion here because I don’t think it will lead anywhere, but I will sum up my thoughts. Personally I think it’s quite clear that subscription models is a big part of the future and that we can in no way at all stop it. I do currently have a smaller selection of tracks in 3 sub models outside Envato, I do not have enough data yet to share any meaningful data, all I can say that they are on quite different places on the “exploitative <—> author friendly” spectrum. The sub model which I think is the most author friendly, I see how many downloads I have per track, and the average earning for me so far have been $6.9 per track there. This is also a model which every author there can participate in, not sure if this is a good or bad thing though. Obviously the earnings would be much higher with a smaller author pool.

Personally I think that more more unique items have nothing to do in a sub model, as these items can be priced much higher than the items that “everybody else is selling”.

I have raised the “one size fits all” price issue in countless threads before, but very few seem to care about this: We have at least the price sensitive customers, we have the average budget customers and we have those who will pay “whatever it takes to make their project shine customers”. I see it as a huge problem that this issue is not addressed or cared much for. Probably because right Envato wants as many subscribers as possible, as fast possible. Then caring for segmenting customers, having ethical advertisement approaches towards exclusive market authors or fully functioning affiliate systems is of less concern at the moment.

According to the book “1 page marketing plan” (which is a great and short read) a good rule of thumb is: 10% of your customers can pay 10 times more of your average selling price, and 1% of your customers can pay 100 times more then your average selling price. Of course take this numbers with a grain of salt and they don’t fit everything. Point is, any business is leaving HUGE amounts of money on the table by not caring about this.

Hopefully more sensitivity to what customers actually are willing to pay will be cared for in the future, currently we are seeing a quite extreme price war going on, which of course can yield good results in market shares but it also has a cost, and that cost is more than anything that authors are not earning as much as they should do. Especially when you think about how few authors there are in Elements, the revenue should be really huge with better conditions.

I think every author should think long and hard about the “invisible cost” of advertising to a competing market, literally for free, last time I checked there were no advertisement contributor bonus for exclusive market authors… which in my opinion are those who are currently being exploited the most. As an affiliate you get anything from $20-$120 if you manage to traffic 1 customer into a subscriber. This is how much Envato is willing to pay for a customer to choose Elements versus the market. Customer Lifetime Value is the reason for this, here Envato is (for once…) thinking long term.

If I should take a guess, Envato is especially interested in expanding the Video section of Elements as this is not huge compared to some competitors. I remember when Audio in Elements was announced Envato said Video was the best performing by far, and I would not be surprised if Audio is at least a solid number 2.

In my opinion sub models are not black and white, rather somewhere in the grey area. And they are not all the same at all.

Exclusive market authors advertising for free to a non exclusive market is though black as the night, an unbelievably bad deal.

In business you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate for, and right now I think we should unite and get rid of this disrespectful advertisement approach which is not only upsetting authors but as everybody have seen, a lot of customers as well. I know that it is unlikely that authors would stand up for this without a union in the back, and I don’t expect it to happen, but it is possible for sure.

So to sum up my opinions the misleading advertisement is the number 1 issue right now. It is utterly unacceptable to treat customers like this, yet I must say it does fit with Envato’s other cynical business moves ordered from the top :man_shrugging:

Anyway, I wish everybody luck in whatever direction they choose to go in.

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The main point I am trying to make and open everyone’s eyes to is this:

At what point does an author say “No, this deal is not good?”

Yes, I find it so incredibly shocking that authors think $16.50 a month all you can download is a fair deal.
If Envato were to lower that to 5.99 a month would you stick around? When does the devaluation end? When do Artists actually have the balls to say enough is enough?

I completely understand that for now, monthly revenue has bumped up, but everyone needs to think about the future and not the present. The future does not look so bright if subscription becomes the “new normal” and I have to believe we can all agree on that.

I recall selling sync licenses on another market where earnings grew to $500 to $800 a month. They then switched to subscription without announcing their plans. I was inadvertently in the model for 2 months. Guess where earnings went? Down to $15 or so on the last royalty statement.

For those of you who are tired of reading about this…just remember no one is forcing you to read these posts. This is an open forum. This also is probably an extremely important discussion to continue because the ramifications of how we do business impacts everyone long term.

I believe one fact everyone should consider is that to my knowledge, no one can claim they earn more from a subscription model than they can from a regular single project license being sold one at a time. That is very telling too.

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Basically, Envato needs more items on Elements, because number of new customers rising faster than number of new items. We can see that also from contributor bonus which is growing besides new authors are joining almost every week

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How can I join Elements? Only by invitation? Are there any minimum requirements? Or anything else you can tell? Do I need a huge number of items in my portfolio? Because I have just 25

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Check this:

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I guess when marketplace earnings and Elements earnings combined, are less than marketplace earnings were before Elements was introduced. That’s when it’s no longer a good deal. And it’s not so much about thinking something is fair or not, it’s about accepting something you can’t change. What’s the old rule… if you don;t like something change it… if you can’t change it, adapt to accept it and make the most of it. Something like that.

I mean what would you suggest? What can we do to fix this issue?

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Thank you very much! :+1:

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So even if Elements creates $10 a month more in combined earnings, but drastically devalues digital assets and changes buyer behavior for good it’s a good deal? Sure I could have stayed on that site I mentioned earlier and earned an extra $10, $20, $40 a month whatever…but I recognized that it’s terrible in the long run.

For starters some of the top selling authors (who are also dealing in Elements) can band together with one unified voice and approach Envato management with some changes in the model. The banner ad is a good start, and then also developing different pricing plans for different size companies. Should multi nationals be able to walk in here for $16.50 a month and download all the content?

Doing something is a good start, but sitting back and acting like this is all OK and positive for the future, and saying " I just need to adapt" is not a good strategy. Really? Adapt to less income.

Envato, now that they have all you folks herded up and under their control, they should actually push the envelope even further and tell all you subscription contributors that they’re keeping 75% of all sales. They should test the will of all elements authors.

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Basically, there are some of your points that are actually on board and might be available in future. There were some surveys with questions related to different type of clients, different plans. Don’t remember all points.

As for authors who should abondon Elements - that’s a question of money. They won’t benefit for sure in a short-mid term and it’s hard tonsay about long-term. Digital world nowadays isn’t about fighting but adapting. Like you can scream as much as you can about removed mini jack from iPhones but it’s still best selling phone.

Any I doubt that you can find author who will agree to loose from 10k to 30k (or more) a year. Even 5k

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I have an opinion can I intervene here? :slightly_smiling_face: I know what the main problem is (distinction subscriptions and Envato markets). If You do not mind, I can write, but for now I will not write. :slight_smile:

Well, if no one objects then I will write. Fixed prices for subscriptions are a problem that hinders everyone and this is the main conflict between the first and second (these prices were determined there by Envato, rather than the authors(Elements)). And here (in the market Envato, they repeat to us every time and say that you can put any price (here they gave us control over prices)).
Where is the logic? “Elements” is also a market. Why authors on Elements cannot put their price (subscription price) and their limit on downloading items there? :blush:

This is the main problem.

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It’s just impossible to set prices in this way :slight_smile:

Subscriber buys subscription to whole marketplace, how can author control that?
Seem like you don’t quite understand how subscription model works

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As we were told by Envato, that the author regulates and sets his own prices, and where are the buyers? Does this seem to contradict the Envato statement? Is not it? :slightly_smiling_face: Authors should not be interested in the cases of their subscription should be interested in limits and prices. :slightly_smiling_face:

Let Envato think about this and not us! ADP is the Envato rules! :slightly_smiling_face:

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Don’t Participate! It’s that simple. But again, it’s too late now, you have been herded up as cattle and they control all of you now. You are addicted to the drug they keep feeding you which is a little extra revenue each month. Extra revenue can also be earned other ways: Raise the price of your items or sell on another market. Subscription Models are not the only choice any of us have for a second or third, or 4th revenue stream.

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Lol

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And what’s funny? For example: You want to put a price there on your subscription for $39 I want $29. Is there something wrong? Can’t we do this here? And why not there?

Is this wrong (ADP were introduced)? :slightly_smiling_face:

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I Don’t sell subscriptions as a contributor, simple as that :slight_smile:
In market I sell my items directly, so I can set prices. In elements i sell indirectly

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Lol :joy: The “Elements” have long been an independent market!
Good luck! :joy:

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Seems like you took it personally.
But yeah, this year is gonna be at least twice as better than last. And l’m talking about tens of k’s of$

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Nothing personal.
Good luck!

P.S. I would also like to note that my posts totally not related to Envato in any way (nobody has to do anything as I say, even if I’m right). Envato is a wonderful market! :slightly_smiling_face: This is just a discussion between two authors! That’s all I wanted to say! :wink:

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If I’m getting $10 extra per month ‘for good’ with the existence of Elements… and I’m getting $10 less ‘for good’ in the absence of Elements, then yes… it is a good deal.

More income. Adapting to more income is what we’re talking about.

Sure, maybe they should do that with Audiojungle while they’re at it? I mean now they’ve herded up all you AudioJungle authors and they have you under their control… why not?

Way ahead of you… Elements is the 18th source of income I added for my stock. Eggs and baskets and all that jazz.

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