Francois, I would love to hear some of your negative stories.
I've actually went into some detail about that a number of times over the years, and I'd hate to sound like a broken record. Suffice to say that when you work on a project like mine, you soon have to deal with issues that you haven't thought of before, many of them unpleasant. To tell the truth, in the past I've often wished I could give it all up. But I couldn't, because I had invested too much in my project. Starting a tickling video company seems great at first. But then reality hits you in the face, and you realize that it has little to do with what you see and read on tickling forums. A lot of it is pure fantasy.
That's not to say that it's always bad. It can be fun sometimes. Personally, the things I like most about doing this is when I get positive comments from people who enjoy my work, as well as the satisfaction of having accomplished so much over the last few years. It has little to do with actual tickling, but it's still positive. Also, I'm sure some other producers have had better experiences than I have. But I can only speak from personal experience, and overall, I'm sorry to say that my project is often a burden. I wish people understood better what vendors have to go through to produce their material.
No, they don't have to offer preview clips...but I'm not buying their stuff.
That's fine, and understandable. But the thing is that no one's forcing you to. If you prefer to buy from producers who offer previews, by all means, look around, there are many who do. I just don't understand why some people feel compelled to complain about it on the forums. It doesn't serve much of a purpose, in my opinion.
Being disappointed that some producers don't offer previews is one thing. But some people seem to think that producers actually owe them something, like they have a responsibility to offer previews and are selfish jerks if they don't. I'm sorry to say that this is not at all the case. What producers do is their own business. If they feel they're doing ok without previews, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to do things that way without people complaining about it. Please understand that I'm not referring to you, Mabus. But you do know that there are people who are very demanding about it. And that's just not fair.
Just think Capitalism, capitalism, capitalism!! Offer better quality, more clips, for cheaper than everyone else. You will be the top or near the top as producers.
So you're saying we should work even harder than we already do, make our material even higher quality than what our skill and equipment allow us to attain, and then we should sell it for even less money. That doesn't sound very appealing or very realistic.
You do realize that there's a limit to that what a producer can accomplish, right? Most of us are amateurs who do this as a sideline, a hobby. We have regular lives outside of our video-making activities. In many cases, regular jobs. Putting more time into the videos means taking time away from our everyday lives.
Also, it's not necessarily possible for us to offer super high quality material. Personally, I've no formal training, and I'm quite limited as far as equipment and money are concerned. I can't do miracles. But it's not like producers lower the quality of their material on purpose. I think it's reasonable to assume that most of us do the very best we can. If it's not good enough, well, I'm very sorry, but we can't do any better. I wish I could, but I can't.
Besides which, I already sell my clips for as cheap as I possibly can. Even if wanted to sell them even cheaper (which I doubt would help me make more sales), I couldn't, because the Clips4Sale.com system doesn't allow to set the price of a clip lower than a certain minimum amount for a given duration. It's not a totally flexible system.
In any case, I seriously doubt that working even harder and selling even cheaper would bring most producers to the top, as you say. I'm not anywhere near that, and I couldn't do much better than I do even if I nearly killed myself over my business. It's just not possible. I don't mean to be rude, but it seems to me that you're not very familiar with the realities of the market. If you gave it a try, you'd understand better.
Stop making the same thing over and over and over again!!!!!
I'll assume you're not referring to me in particular. I really do my best to vary the positions and situations as much as possible within the limitations of my humble apartment, which is the only convenient place I can shoot videos nowadays.
