"VKontakte" is changing the model of work with artists - authors of stickers. Now the administration of the most popular Russian social network will pay them a percentage of the sales of such pictures. This was reported to Izvestia by sources familiar with the plans of the social network. The press service of VKontakte confirmed the information.
In the near future, we will indeed open our sticker shop for third-party artists, with whom we will share the profits. But we will announce the details later, ”VKontakte press secretary Georgy Lobushkin told Izvestia.
Stickers (English sticker - label, sticker) - pictures that express the user's emotion. In fact - an enlarged version of emoticons. They appeared on the VKontakte social network in March this year and are both free and paid (about 60 rubles for a set of 16 or 24 pieces). Shortly after the launch of the new service, the social network announced a competition for third-party artists to create stickers - they began to buy works from the winners of the competition.
Now the procedure is simple: you name the price, the social network agrees with it or offers its own, - says Valery Matyukhin, winner of the first sticker contest for VKontakte. - If agreed, an agreement on the alienation of copyright is signed.
According to the source of Izvestia, now the social network wants to revise the terms of cooperation with artists. The winners of the competition, which should be announced within a week, VKontakte will continue to offer to cede copyright. But now the artist will not receive a one-time payment for his work. Instead, he will be deducted a percentage of sales - what exactly is still unknown.
According to Sergey Kravtsov, general director of the online messaging service 4talk IM, the ratio of 50:50 would be optimal.
Less just uninteresting. Everything has to be honest here. The question is how the social network will promote the work of artists, - added Kravtsov.
The source of Izvestia noted that large communities on the social network are considered as promoters. According to the head of MDK (one of the largest communities on the VKontakte social network) Roberto Panchvidze, they approached the network management with a proposal to give them the opportunity to promote the most popular stickers among their users.
It would be interesting for us to create a base ourselves, which we could promote on behalf of our platform and share the income with the social network. A set of stickers costs about 65 rubles. It is not yet clear what moderation will be, how copyrights will be distributed, says Panchvidze. - Emoticons used to be popular, but now stickers are a new type of communication between young users. The more there are, the more possibilities the user will promptly respond to comments. From 10 to 30% of sales - this would be quite logical for artists or the owner of the site.
Kravtsov believes new model"VKontakte" interesting. But he does not know if it will become popular.
The artist has fears that he will be deceived, - says Kravtsov. - There should be a report on the profit received, on the number of downloaded works. It is also necessary to explain how the money will be transferred to the author.
Matyukhin also believes new system calculations with artists are interesting, but in perspective.
A steady income is attractive, but I don't know the level of sticker sales,” he explained. - Therefore, a one-time payment for the work done is a good option.
The Odnoklassniki social network does not yet provide for sending stickers in messages. There are paid emoticons here - unlike VKontakte stickers, they are not bought forever, but on certain period e.g. 25 days. In April 2013, stickers appeared on Facebook, where their use is completely free.
Can you make money with stickers? You can add your stickers to Telegram, VKontakte, ICQ and many other instant messengers and social networks. While I was collecting information for this material, I came across an article, the author of which released stickers for the Line messenger, thanks to which he planned to earn millions, but it ended up with $100. So I realized that everything is not easy in the sticker market.
That is why I turned to those who understand this topic. Namely, to the press services of the VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook sites and to the illustrator Konstantin Brilevsky, who, in fact, makes money on stickers (you definitely know his stickers with a lazy sloth and a tired panda).
So, how platforms work with stickers…
In short: everyone who knows what Telegram is is able to upload their stickers to the messenger, the possibilities are endless, freedom is free. As a result, there is no money (although not quite).
Commentary by illustrator Konstantin Brilevsky
“A professional illustrator can make money on stickers in Telegram. I collaborate with Telegram, create official stickers for them. Information about the cost, as far as I know, is open.
Pavel Durov wrote about this. Telegram pays $80 for one sticker. This, as far as I know, is more than other Russian-language platforms offer, but comparable to foreign platforms.
Sloth stickers now have 260 thousand downloads, which is not so much. But I often meet people who say they use my stickers. It is very nice.
Usually illustrators make one set of stickers per month. But I’m working on my project in parallel, I don’t have much time, so there are only four of my sticker packs in Telegram. Here they are".
Sticker pack "Friendly Death"
Sticker pack "Lazy panda"
Sticker pack "Free from worries"
Stackerpack "Meme Police"
2. VKontakte
In short: you can upload your stickers, you can monetize them and earn money, but there is moderation from the social network.
VK press service comments “Most of the VKontakte stickers are created by friendly illustrators who have been working with us for several years. But anyone here can offer stickers. Our employees study the proposed works and contact the authors if the stickers meet the requirements and are interested in their idea.
As for money, we have different models for paying stickers to the author. Everything is individual and depends on many factors. For example, the complexity of drawing and character development.
In addition, from time to time we have commercial stickers from companies as part of special projects. Their cost starts from several million rubles, they are available only to the most famous and iconic brands.”
By the way, here is the most popular VK sticker pack of all time - "Peach"
Addition from illustrator Konstantin Brilevsky
I don’t create stickers for brands now, there are requests, various famous people ask me to make personal stickers for them. But I usually refuse, because I have a big workload. I'm interested in creating my own characters.
Here are my favorite commercial VK stickers:
Very good stickers from Burger King, they have a couple of sets and both are good. They are fun to use and funny.
Recently, I really liked the stickers from Durex. They were made by Mikhail Golub, he is a very cool illustrator, so it will be a great project.”
3. OK In short: there is no way to upload stickers to the platform on your own. Social network she orders sticker packs for illustrators.
Commentary of the press service of Odnoklassniki
“We download stickers for messages ourselves, but we actively use them as a tool marketing communication. Upon request, we give brands and partners the opportunity to make their own sticker packs.”
Stickers for the Jacobs Monarch special project in Odnoklassniki
Case 2 This spring, TV-3 used a special OK sticker pack to promote the new season of Twin Peaks. The channel launched a flash mob in Odnoklassniki, the reach of which exceeded 200,000 people, and in addition to this, offered users stickers with famous phrases from the series.
Stickers for the TV-3 special project in Odnoklassniki
By the way, about ICQ…
4. Facebook In short: we couldn't find open information about how you can make money on Facebook stickers, although users have a lot of questions on this topic. Here are screenshots from a Facebook business where users ask questions but get no answers.
Translation: - Can I upload/sell my own stickers? - I have been looking for an answer to this question for a long time, but, unfortunately, no one could answer it for me. Do not waste your time, because everything is paid for ...
Translation: - I created a sticker pack and I want to sell it to Facebook Messenger so people can buy it and send it in their messages. Is it possible? If so, how? If not, why not? - There was no answer.
At the time of publication of the material, the external press service of Facebook did not comment on the possibility of interaction between the social network and the messenger regarding stickers.
How much do custom stickers cost? It is clear that you can strain a familiar designer, a colleague who knows Photoshop a little better than you, or, in general, make yourself not so much beautiful as funny memes. But you can also order for yourself. How much does it cost?
I asked Google about it, there are not many offers, but they are. Here is what seemed to me the most acceptable after a little research:
In the freelance services store Kwork, they offer to make 12 personal stickers in raster graphics for 6,000 rubles. On YouDo, you can find a variety of requests and offers at a cost. Approximate range of prices: from 500 rubles for 12 memes to 5000 rubles for several stickers. Carefully study the portfolio of freelancers. VK-group "Stickers for Telegram". A rather large group, almost 10 thousand members, in which new sticker packs are posted daily and offer exclusive stickers from 15 rubles apiece. We are talking about memes that are made from photographs.
If you are a brand, then everything is more expensive for you. The cost of stickers ordered by brands is much higher. Rusbase was told about this by graphic designer Roman Gauz.
“You definitely need to make money on stickers. My sticker pack in Telegram is called "Stickers from Roma". It has a lot of swearing and snobbery, but that's what attracts people. On the this moment the statistics show that 259,840 users used it! On average, 1,000 stickers are used every day.
Those "Stickers from Roma"
What is important for me is what emotions the stickers should evoke, and the fact that in response to my speaker, the interlocutor can also attach my picture without leaving one pack.
Once I drew a sticker pack for one client, the sum of the entire sticker pack with my creatives was within 50 thousand rubles. But there were no more such orders."
Conclusion. Who and how much earns on stickers
Option 1. Illustrator creates stickers - the platform buys
The sticker pack creator can offer their work to the platform. The cost is negotiated with each separately. But $80 is considered a good price for 1 sticker, this is how Telegram pays.
Option 2. Illustrator creates stickers - the brand buys
Many brands want cool, funny stickers themselves. As a rule, they turn to illustrators for this. As in any creative work, the range of prices here is serious. From offers in social networks - 15 rubles per meme - to the work of serious graphic designers, which can be estimated at 50 thousand rubles or more.
For almost any car owner, his property is practically a member of the family. And what else can be said if many people spend most of their free time with a car (or in a car)? There is only one problem - the purchased car will please you for a year, two, maximum three, and then you will begin to pay attention to newer cars and think about changing your "friend". Although the most enterprising ones do not change the car at all, but its appearance using car stickers.
The possibilities of tuning are now almost limitless, and even from a “shabby” VAZ model, you can make such a work of an automobile upgrade that the owners of foreign cars will nervously smoke on the sidelines. But all these pleasures are not at all cheap. To make a "plastic surgery" on your car will cost a pretty decent amount. But even these costs are much less than buying a new car. In this situation, we can say that what is a problem for some is a way to earn money for others.
Car stickers - a new look for the car
The idea of stickers is not new, but now, with the development of graphics capabilities and printing technology, it is again gaining momentum in popularity. As a rule, car stickers are used for several reasons.
- Highlight your car among others, to give it individuality (after all, many even give their car a name).
- Hide paint damage. Judge for yourself, covering a scratch, chip, abrasion, and even rust with a sticker will be much cheaper than painting a car, or changing a certain body part.
- Use of stickers by fans. For example, rally enthusiasts often decorate their "ownership" with emblems of famous rally teams.
- And finally, the last: use car stickers as advertising. You can use your car as an advertisement for your business or someone else's. In the second case, by the way, you can also earn (read more about this).
Benefits of using car stickers
Let's try to put together all the advantages of car stickers.
- Car transformation. People always want something new. Auto stickers are a great opportunity to change the car without changing it.
- Savings on the "change" of appearance. Many people prefer to change the look of a car with the help of airbrushing (you can learn more about the airbrushing business idea). The method is very good, but very expensive - the use of car stickers is much cheaper, and the effect of them is no worse.
- Possibility of making stickers according to any image. It doesn’t matter if a drawing you like is found that a person wants to transfer to his car, on the Internet, in a book or magazine, photographed from nature, or even drawn with his own hand - a sticker can be made on it and pasted on the car.
- Paint protection. In addition to the fact that damage can be hidden under the stickers, they also perform the protective function of this very coating, being resistant to external influences (they are not afraid of “neither snow, nor heat, nor pouring rain”, natural or artificial (for example, at a car wash ).
- Durability. Car stickers perfectly perform their function without losing colors for up to five or even more years. But, I think, many, having appreciated all the advantages of using them, will change the look of their car much more often.
- Easy sticker removal. Tired of the image? Do you want something new? Please! Stickers are removed from the car as easily and quickly as they are applied.
Advantages over airbrushing
Perhaps the most important is the difference in cost. A good full-color sticker can be purchased at a price of four to ten thousand rubles, airbrushing will cost much more. And the more complex and original the airbrush pattern, the greater the cost of its application.
Further - dependence on the experience of the artist. To apply an arbitrary drawing on a car so that the hand never trembles, and the image turns out to be perfect - you need to look well for such an airbrush master. Most perform those drawings on which they "filled their hand" - the standard ones used by most car owners. And finally, the last argument: if the owner of the car gets tired of the drawing, he will have to spend money on repainting his “friend”.
What you need to start a car sticker business
In principle, this business does not require big investments, and the payback period and the start of making a profit is only a few months. To start a business you will need:
- Computer with software package various graphic and vector editors.
- Plotter- a large format printer that will print and cut the images you create, edit, or find. It is on this point of equipment that I advise you not to skimp, since the quality of your products, and, in fact, the success of the entire business, will depend on it.
- Expendable materials- film for car stickers. Usually, several types of film are used for these purposes: simple (glossy or matte), film High Quality(with high water resistance and good color rendering), transparent (also called stained glass), reflective, and light-accumulative (accumulating light energy during the day and releasing it at night).
- room, in which you will carry out all the work on the manufacture of stickers, and directly sticking them on cars (in case you provide such services). Here you will sell existing products, take orders, etc. For these purposes, a garage is perfect (you can see how to use your garage), or gluing work can be done in dry weather right on the street.
Applying stickers to a car
This process is so simple that even a child can cope with it with some training. Before gluing, make sure that the prepared surface of the car is cleanly washed, free of dust, dirt, greasy marks. Determine carefully, you can even mark the borders of the picture so that it is placed evenly. Without peeling anything off, simply place the sticker on the car to see how it will look. Remove the bottom paper protective layer from the sticker.
Spray the place where the sticker is applied and the sticker itself from the inside with soapy water - this will correct its location on the car and expel air bubbles. Apply the sticker to the car, smoothing wrinkles with a rubber spatula, removing air from under it, and at the same time drying it with hot air from a hair dryer.
Pay special attention to places of transitions, bumps, bulges. If the sticker does not lie flat, you do not need to move it directly on the car. Carefully peel it off and re-stick it. Once you're done, blow dry the sticker again and let it dry for a few minutes. After that, you can carefully remove (remove at an acute angle to the surface of the car) the mounting film covering the outside of the sticker.
Staff, advertising, and additional services
Making car stickers is a simple matter after a few “training” processes, and it is quite possible for one person, two at most, to do it. It is good to combine this with other opportunities that the presence of a plotter opens up.
Stickers are an attractive, profitable, albeit highly competitive business. But in order for it to be successful and quickly pay off, it is important to find your specialization.
Business registration
Market players recommend not registering the business officially at first. First, you should try yourself in a particular niche, navigate the level of competition and demand. And only if the prospects for the development of the business are really visible, register as an individual entrepreneur.
Types of stickers
Now let's figure out what to choose your niche from. Today the most popular areas are:
- stickers for interior decor;
- car stickers;
- themed stickers.
Interior design is considered to be the most demanded direction. This is an easy and cheap way to liven up any room, corridor, kitchen and other areas of the apartment. Moreover, the most popular are stickers for the nursery and bathroom. The same goes for cars. It's simple, fast and inexpensive way give your car a personal touch.
Stickers for certain holidays can hardly be called a full-fledged direction. It perfectly complements other niches, generating additional income for specific holidays.
There are also full-color and silhouette stickers. In the first case, these are vinyl pictures, in the second one-color vinyl is used. Accordingly, the second option for organizing a business is much cheaper. Moreover, on initial stage You can make such stickers without purchasing special equipment - you can give the order to the printing house, getting a good discount on wholesale production.
A square meter of stickers will cost about 100 rubles. The final price depends on the complexity of the pattern, circulation, color, quality of the material used, etc.
Layout development
You can make layouts yourself if you have even the slightest idea about the work of a designer. Depending on the severity of the project, a highly qualified staff or student designer can be hired. The services of the first, of course, will cost much more.
On average, the development of one layout will cost 500 rubles. The more original the drawing, the more expensive it will cost. At the initial stage, you will need about 30 stickers of different sizes and themes.
Having vinyl stickers, it is advisable to form a portfolio: take photographs of drawings in the interior. To do this, it is not necessary to stick a set of goods on the wall. You can get by with a mounted example in any graphics editor. This can also be done by a designer for a fee.
Please note that you need a product of various sizes. Small, cheapest stickers sell out the fastest. Slightly less actively disassemble expensive, imitating wall paintings. It is also worth considering the possibility of placing an individual order. As a rule, in this case, vinyl stickers cost about 2 thousand rubles. per square meter.
Equipment
For the manufacture of goods, the business will require the purchase of special equipment. It includes such a unit as a plotter. It costs about 400 thousand rubles. Moreover, it is quite large in size. Its height is about a meter, and its width is 2.5 m. In addition, if large stickers are made to order, up to 3-4 m in length, you will need to install large rolls of consumables. Plus, the device makes a lot of noise during operation.
This suggests that it will be difficult to organize a business in your own apartment, you will have to rent a room. For a startup with illusory growth prospects, this is quite a risky move. Therefore, experts recommend starting a business with minimum investment, refusing to purchase such equipment, and outsourcing the production of stickers to printing houses. Moreover, when ordering a print in large quantities, you can count on a discount.
Over time, you can buy a plotter, but it is recommended to stop your choice only on devices of well-known companies. The main parameter for choosing equipment is the width of the plotter, which determines the maximum width of the label. Experts say that it makes no sense to buy large-width equipment, since any image can be divided into fragments and compactly placed on a small format, and then glued together in parts.
Expendable materials
If you bought special equipment, then one of the main consumables will be cutting needles, which become dull rather quickly. Naturally, their price depends on the quality - high-quality ones are expensive, but cheap ones need to be changed more often and they will cost more. Another important consumable that the business will require is self-adhesive film. It must be purchased in bulk and in various colors.
If you plan to make pictures not only to order. But fix them mass production, you will need materials to pack the stickers. They can be bought ready-made for 10-15 rubles. thing. It is advisable to enclose instructions for using the sticker, as well as a spatula for gluing, in each package. The last option is optional.
In total, if you plan to work at home, making custom-made small stickers for the interior, the business will require investments of about 30 thousand rubles. When selling, a mark-up is set from 100 to 200%. If you properly organize sales and advertising, the project can pay off in 2-3 months.
Project advertising
The better you can present your business on the market, the more successful your project will be. An ideal means of advertising is considered to be your own website, designed as an online store. It should contain a full catalog of stickers with their detailed description, size options and colors. Moreover, it is desirable to arrange the possibility of viewing each of the options. The site should clearly operate the system of automatic calculation of the amount of the order, the possibility of paying online. The cost of such a site, made to order, is 35-50 thousand rubles, but you can find cheaper options.
But the competition in this area is quite high. Therefore, it is necessary to cover not only the online space. Try to establish contacts for the sale of goods in souvenir shops, interior stores and finishing materials, furniture and others.
It is necessary to focus mainly on interior designers who are engaged in the development of individual solutions. For them, you can provide a system of bonuses and discounts.
And it started at the end of 2015. I don’t remember where, but somewhere I read about the LINE messenger and about the fact that artists are there. And the figures were very serious. Well, I think, why not? It's not easy to draw, I'll find an artist - and go!
I came up with a list of emotions for drawing, gave it to work, and he took up registration. LINE requires a PayPal account, and not a simple one, but a premier or business one. The prime minister in Russia is now unavailable, I register a business account for my company, a lot of paperwork, time, and now I am happy to enter data into LINE. And I'm sitting waiting for the first set of stickers to be drawn for me. Suddenly, a terrible moment comes for me!
I use ebay occasionally. And in both directions - both the buyer and the seller. Well, give me, I think, I'll check the business account. I prescribe it on ebay and ... I can’t get money from the buyer. There's no way I can!!! I called PayPal tech support, they poke-myk, everything is fine with you. I am writing to the buyer, he assures that everything is ok with him too (by the way, the deal fell through then).
I am back in PayPal, the same mooing, and at some point I get to a specialist who asks - what account do you have? I say business. He says we are not allowed to voice it, but I can assume that there is also a business account on the other side, and according to the requirements of the Central Bank in Russia, you can only receive funds to a business account from individuals.
I say thank you and then it clicks for me !!! Right now, I’m going to earn a million money in LINE, but I won’t be able to withdraw it… They obviously pay from a corporate business account, and if not, I didn’t really want to conduct an experiment and donate stickers)) In general, the mood has deteriorated…
And then, thank God, I remember that a friend has a company registered in the Czech Republic. With PayPal, we completed the matter by opening a business account with his firm. But, surprisingly, the bureaucracy there turned out to be an order of magnitude higher than with the opening of a similar account in Russia ...
Here it was enough for me to send the charter and my passport, but in the Czech Republic they demanded documents on the company, paid utility bills, passports of the founders, powers of attorney and a bunch of other papers, I don’t remember everything now. Maybe this is due to the fact that the founders are Russians, but this is just my guess.
As a result, after 2 months of correspondence and calls, everything worked for us.
The output scheme is now simple. LINE sends earnings to PayPal to the Czech Republic, from there I transfer to my personal PayPal in Russia and withdraw to bank card. Earnings can hardly be called earnings yet, they do not exceed hundreds of bucks a month, but I do not lose hope and continue to develop material. For some reason, some kind of feeling sits in the depths of my soul that everything will work out!))
And in September last year, Apple makes a gift! Another market for stickers has emerged with real growth potential!
An impressive number of stickers are drawn. Now we are bringing everything in line with the requirements, laying out all the accumulated material and then I will think about ways to promote it.
At first we just posted paid stickers, and then we decided to switch to freemium as the most effective monetization model. We are not greedy, the first six stickers are absolutely free and will be enough for daily communication! So far they have posted two packages and these are stickers for girls. I understand that 90% of your readers are male. But a real man should have a lady to whom he is obliged to give gifts)) And in the next couple of weeks we will release funny sets for the male half of humanity!
As for earnings in the App Store, they only slightly stepped over $ 100, i.e. I can't even get them out yet. But this is only the beginning of the story. A million money is waiting for me!
Anton Panov
