MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => General - Top Sites => Topic started by: lcodacci on February 09, 2016, 07:28
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Hi all,
since 3 months i disabled my IS exclusive agreement (pictures) and became indie.
Then i started uploading to SS, FT, DT, 123RF for RF and Alamy for RM.
I know 3 months is not so much time but what i saw it's a credit sales dls half of before when i was exclusive on IS and a lot of subs on the other agencies (which btw collect few $$$ all together).
At the moment i have 1500+ images on IS, 200+ images on DT,FT and 500+ images on 123RF. I also started two weeks ago on Alamy with 150 imgs.
What do you suggest to quickly improve sales?
I am not sure that increasing my port on every agencies will lead in fast revenues., so i thought to:
1) disable my pics on SS,DT, 123RF and FT
2) exclusive again on iS (which was 100$/month without any S+ collection pics and without videos uploaded to GI)
3) increase my video port on FT, SS and....
4)... publish tons of my quality editorials to Alamy which has large monthly gross
This way i'll publish my editorials only to Alamy, my commercial RF to IS only and videos only to SS/FT (with some videos exclusive on FT).
What do you think? Could it work in an acceptable time? (6 months)
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Hello,
My first question is .... do you have sales on Alamy and is it higher then you would get on Istock for your editorial?
Mirco
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At the moment i have 1500+ images on IS
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2) exclusive again on iS (which was 100$/month without any S+ collection pics and without videos uploaded to GI)
Do I get that right: You have 1500+ images on IS and made $100 from those when you were exclusive? And you're now making even less?
Well, rather than shifting those images back and forth I would ask myself how much "quality" images these are. No offense but you have to be realistic in what to expect, and when your sales experience is that low range you won't be achieving anything in acceptable time, no matter what you do.
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New images don't seem to sell well, so going back to exclusive is probably your best option in the short term. Alamy can take a year to get sales going, you might get lucky but don't expect too much in the first year. You should use Pond5 as well for video, if they get their current review times sorted.
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Hi all,
since 3 months i disabled my IS exclusive agreement (pictures) and became indie.
Then i started uploading to SS, FT, DT, 123RF for RF and Alamy for RM.
I know 3 months is not so much time but what i saw it's a credit sales dls half of before when i was exclusive on IS and a lot of subs on the other agencies (which btw collect few $$$ all together).
At the moment i have 1500+ images on IS, 200+ images on DT,FT and 500+ images on 123RF. I also started two weeks ago on Alamy with 150 imgs.
What do you suggest to quickly improve sales?
I am not sure that increasing my port on every agencies will lead in fast revenues., so i thought to:
1) disable my pics on SS,DT, 123RF and FT
2) exclusive again on iS (which was 100$/month without any S+ collection pics and without videos uploaded to GI)
3) increase my video port on FT, SS and....
4)... publish tons of my quality editorials to Alamy which has large monthly gross
This way i'll publish my editorials only to Alamy, my commercial RF to IS only and videos only to SS/FT (with some videos exclusive on FT).
What do you think? Could it work in an acceptable time? (6 months)
I see no value in going back to iS exclusivity. Credit sales are dropping rapidly and subs are nothing like making up. Even total numbers of dls (subs + credits) are fewer than a couple of years back, and I'm not the only one reporting that.
How are you doing on SS, where until a few months ago many people were reporting good sales?
Also, +1 to what Michael said above, depending on how long you were there (If only a couple of years, it's not so surprising as newish files have been struggling for ages.)
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Your portfolios on the new agencies are much too small. Also it can take over a year to get reliable customers who keep coming back. If you start today as an istock exclusive and place your 1500 files there, you will not earn what you earn now. Your files and your portfolio needed several years to get noticed by customers, your files to be lightboxed etc...itś a slow process and on any new agency that you enter now your files have to establish their ranking.
If all you earned as an istock exclusive is 100 dollars, then I would definitely look into improving the quality of your files, for all agencies not just istock.
And 100 dollars is very easy to earn on the micros, you donīt need 1500 files for that. I had more than 100 dollars a month from photos only with less than 300 images on the new sites, it really isnīt that difficult.
I would maybe experiemnt with adding exclusive images to adobe or dreamstime, to increase the overall visibility of your file and maybe explore places like twenty20,stockfood,500pix,eyeem and many others.
There are so many options out there.
But the time it takes for your individual files to get lightboxed and noticed and then bought, there is no way to avoid that time.
There is no magic shortcut. You have to keep uploading and also improve your quality.
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At the moment i have 1500+ images on IS, 200+ images on DT,FT and 500+ images on 123RF. I also started two weeks ago on Alamy with 150 imgs.
How many photos do you have in SS? The same as in FT and DT?
...videos only to SS/FT (with some videos exclusive on FT).
Do you have any particular reason to put some videos exclusive on FT? From my experience, sales there are worse and comission lower than SS and P5.
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I went indie from IS last September. Since then most of my energy has gone into video, but I have uploaded some 100 RF stills to SS, FT, P5 and DT to see what transpires (half of which is new, half stuff I already have on IS).
P5 and DT have produced nothing at all. FT has made a few small sales. SS brings in regular small sales. All in all, for still images, I am no better, no worse off than when I was exclusive with IS. The downside is the additional time involved in uploading to multiple agencies. However, since the RF still image market is saturated I will not be putting a great deal more effort into this side of things anyway.
Alamy needs time and many more images to produce sales (I would say a year or more and at least 1000 different images). You can do yourself and existing Alamy contributors a favour by not simply duplicating what you have on the microstock sites. Alamy provides good internal research tools on what sells there so make use of it and shoot with them in mind. They are an international agency, but strongest in UK leaning material. Worth persevering with but don't expect quick returns.
All in all you seem to be postulating the right approach, but I personally would not go back to IS exclusivity, partially because of the level of rewards they offer and the decline in their sales, but mostly because I have no trust in them.
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Also i think that you could make much more money by spreading your editorial through SS, IS, DP, 123rf and DT. Editorial on micros are much easier to approach and saves costumers lots of time. I think RM used to be for editorial but times are changing.
Mirco
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Also i think that you could make much more money by spreading your editorial through SS, IS, DP, 123rf and DT. Editorial on micros are much easier to approach and saves costumers lots of time. I think RM used to be for editorial but times are changing.
Mirco
But why would you want to licence an editorial image as RF (which can be used over and again) when a RM licence would require further purchase and probably greater income in the long run? I have had repeat uses of RM licenced images by the same buyer, giving me greater income. I'm sure I'm not alone. I think maybe times are a changing, but that doesn't mean the contributors should just go with the flow on change which is against their interest.
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great advices and considerations guys.
it seems the best way to go on is a compromise of all your comments, like uploading more, better keywording, not come back to exclusive IS and start uploading to P5 for videos.
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my IS port: http://www.istockphoto.com/lcodacci/ (http://www.istockphoto.com/lcodacci/)
What do you think about image quality and quantity some of you underlined?
thx in advance
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Also i think that you could make much more money by spreading your editorial through SS, IS, DP, 123rf and DT. Editorial on micros are much easier to approach and saves costumers lots of time. I think RM used to be for editorial but times are changing.
Mirco
But why would you want to licence an editorial image as RF (which can be used over and again) when a RM licence would require further purchase and probably greater income in the long run? I have had repeat uses of RM licenced images by the same buyer, giving me greater income. I'm sure I'm not alone. I think maybe times are a changing, but that doesn't mean the contributors should just go with the flow on change which is against their interest.
Hello Joe,
Yes i understand your point but on the other hand it is all about the buyers interest and not ours.
Mirco
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... it is all about the buyers interest and not ours.
There comes a time when the buyers' interest becomes unsustainable for us.
For example, I've been regularly checking a particular website, since I discovered it wasn't paying the correct number of repeat uses for one of my Alamy RM files. It uses hundreds of images, RM and RF from many suppliers, micro, macro and midstock, but also reuses the same image dozens, or scores, of times (which is how I found my unreported RM uses). So if this company uses an RF file, you might have been paid small cents for a sub sale, which they can use many, many times. And with the many, many times online comes more and more opportunities for others to 'lift' the file, as I've also found.
I know no-one agrees with me here, but RF was a pretty bad invention for suppliers. Great for certain buyers, like the one above. Very difficult to track misuses also, especially on much-used files. Can't put the genie back in the bottle now, though. :(
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Other key places to upload videos are 123 and SS. They don't sell frequently but because you are a new contributor, video sales make a massive difference in getting you up the pay-scale ladder. Many of the commenters here have been around long enough that they are not in the bottom ranks. You probably still are. It's only a few cents per sale (often) but it adds up, in both $$ and pride.
I'd also note that I have sales of editorial images on SS, DT, 123, and BS. If they are images you already have for sale at IS (so can't be RM), definitely upload them across the board.
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They don't sell frequently but because you are a new contributor, video sales make a massive difference in getting you up the pay-scale ladder. Many of the commenters here have been around long enough that they are not in the bottom ranks. You probably still are. It's only a few cents per sale (often) but it adds up, in both $$ and pride.
Videos sell for a few cents? I was under the impression that, at least on SS, a HD video could bring you close to $30.
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I cant compare my sale in SS with any other websites, IS is lowest sale rate, best is SS.