Author Topic: Experiences after quitting iStock exclusivity. (Read 60718 times)

lucato · « **Reply #150 on:** March 17, 2013, 21:10 »

Quote from: cobalt on March 17, 2013, 19:04

I am expecting it to take two years to get back to a level I feel comfortable with.

This is simply becuase by uploading to a new agency, you are entering a new marketplace. The customers need to get to know you as a reliable resource, they have to bookmark you, lightbox your files, "follow you" etc...Then the client has to approve the project and my files and then comes th download...and then a few months later the project gets extended and they download even more files etc...

The only variable is video. That is a new market and there is very little good content. And video files earn a lot more. So, if I learn how to make good videos, I might be able to speed up my income. But 18 months should be a minimum time frame. unless I become superhuman and can upload 500 files a month. But that is simply not possible unless I hire people. And at this time I don´t want to.

I was expecting a year instead of two otherwise my savings won't survive until there. I have already started doing some extra jobs as workshops, photoshop classes and selling some old equipments that were on the shelves. ;0) See not easy task to quit exclusivity. I hope it will compensate in a very near future. ;0)
I don't trust too much that customers bookmark you and follow you. I think if you need an image for your image, they will use the keywords and find it and won't search what they need into anybody portfolio, even they like your work. Well, my opinion, unless you have a really quite different job, illustration or image series that they need for a campaign and so on.

Video is something that I really need to start with, the only problem here is time to manage it all. I didn't get to send half of my portfolio to other agencies yet. :0)

Hire people is an option, but not yet once I don't get to pay to myself now a days. kkkk

lucato · « **Reply #151 on:** March 17, 2013, 21:32 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 17, 2013, 20:52

So you feel like your Istock downloads now are about the same as if you stayed exclusive? I would expect a significant drop because exclusive files get a best match advantage.

As I said before, iStock is always dropping the downloads since 2007 as the table you saw. The previous total in 2011 was 6887 DL, and now on graph below you will see that 2012 was 4902 DL. Regarding the significant drop, you can see the months 1 to 4/2012 as exclusive and 5 to 12/2012 as non-exclusive (independent):

But, pay attention, it is my case, you can't take my case as reference for everything. Of course there are people just growing at iStock. Each one has its style, better portfolio and so on. So my portfolio has not high level and professional model images and professional still images and so on. Anyway I know very talented exclusive photographers with very high professional images that are on the same boat. ;0)

tickstock · « **Reply #152 on:** March 17, 2013, 21:39 »

luissantos84 · « **Reply #153 on:** March 17, 2013, 21:44 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 17, 2013, 21:39

Thanks for the information. I have to say those numbers don't make going independent look very good. I hope things turn around for you this year, good luck.

are you reading the same stats as I? how could Lucato be better with exclusivity? he will do fine soon

2007 - 20k
2008 - 15k
2009 - 15k
2010 - 10k
2011 - 7k
2012 - 5k

tickstock · « **Reply #154 on:** March 17, 2013, 22:00 »

luissantos84 · « **Reply #155 on:** March 17, 2013, 22:24 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 17, 2013, 22:00

Quote from: luissantos84 on March 17, 2013, 21:44
Quote from: tickstock on March 17, 2013, 21:39
Thanks for the information. I have to say those numbers don't make going independent look very good. I hope things turn around for you this year, good luck.

are you reading the same stats as I? how could Lucato be better with exclusivity? he will do fine soon

2007 - 20k
2008 - 15k
2009 - 15k
2010 - 10k
2011 - 7k
2012 - 5k
I won't bore you with the calculations but basically there was a considerable drop in downloads after giving up exclusivity, it's clear from the graph what happens to the blue part. For the independent income to be equal to exclusive income the total of all the independent sites would need to be 300% of Istock income assuming that Istock downloads stayed the same, they dropped so one would need over 300% from the other sites.

yep I know the 3.5 times but does that mean that 4k this year and 3k in 2014 would be still cool to stay at iStock? come on... who can keep up and be safe with that trend?

tickstock · « **Reply #156 on:** March 17, 2013, 22:29 »

cobalt · « **Reply #157 on:** March 18, 2013, 02:58 »

Why so long? Because your files need to move into customer lightboxes and your images need to rise in the search engines. There is lots of superb indepedent content, the customers have not been waiting for you.

It is the same way like opening any other webshop, or a store on amazon and ebay, even if all your products are available for sale immediatly, you will not earn as much as in 2 years when you have a loyal following of repeat customers.

The other thing is best match. If you upload all files one month then all your files have the same "time stamp". If files from that particular month are out of favor, you're 5000 files will all rise and drop together in the time factor of a best match.

Anyway, good luck with your system. If you can of course then continue to keep adding high volumes of new content every month, maybe it will work.

Please let us know your results.

cobalt · « **Reply #158 on:** March 18, 2013, 03:24 »

Hi Lucato,

do you think you could give us a table comparing your current earnings with your previous exclusive earnings?

If you take an average exckusive income and set that as 100% and then add a second column with your total indie earnings. And then show us how did it all develop over time.

I think you are currently at 40% of your previous exclusive income. Is that correct?

aeonf · « **Reply #159 on:** March 18, 2013, 03:57 »

Quote from: lucato on March 17, 2013, 20:32

Quote from: aeonf on March 17, 2013, 19:56
Why so long? We plan to have our entire 5K+ portfolio up and running in at least 10 different MS sits in about 1 month after exclusivity ends.
We are 2 people though...

I hope you and your partner really get to categorize and assign MR/PR for the 5K+ in 10 different MS in a month, which will be "50k+" images to be categorized one by one. Of course there are sites that don't need categories. Anyway I hope you get to accomplish it. Keep us updated and tell us how you made it. ;0)

That is the main time consumer indeed, uploading 100gb+ to each site also takes time, but 1 month after exclusivity ends + 30 days notice to IS = 2 months, which is quite a lot of time with 2 people and my new 3mb upload DSL helps

gostwyck: thanks a lot, I hope for the best but it is a bit difficult to be optimistic after such a bad year. I feel like a beaten wife leaving her abusive husband.

Cobalt: an income hit is expected, I was talking of the time needed to get the port up and running at the different MS sites, with the "big 4" being a priority. The faster they get there the less you lose. I do plan to open a new thread on our experience and share what ever I can so maybe I can help the others who are considering doing the same, but we still have 3 weeks waiting period at IS and anyways this is Lucato's thread

lucato · « **Reply #160 on:** March 18, 2013, 05:29 »

Quote from: aeonf on March 18, 2013, 03:57

...and anyways this is Lucato's thread

No aeonf, it is for the community, this isn't my thread to talk only about my experiences after quitting iStock exclusivity. You and anyone is very welcome to put yours experiences too. ;0)

cobalt · « **Reply #161 on:** March 18, 2013, 06:00 »

Hi Lucato,

if you write to depositphotos that you have many files but have little time they will help you upload and edit your files to get them online faster. They just made me that offer last, I am sure they would offer the same to you.

I wrote back that for now I want to try doing it myself, but because deposit is a smaller site, perhaps I will take them up on that offer.

@aeonf

I have seen many exclusives go indie "dump" their portfolios quickly on the other site, often with the help from the agencies themselves and then be very dissapointed with the results. And since they have great content my theory is that they just sent them up too fast and best match seasonalities worked against them.

But if you put your files online fast and then share your results we can all see what strategy works best longterm.

It also all depends on how many new files you can generate. I can only do 50-100 a month, so I wanted to add the older files for regular uploads.

lucato · « **Reply #162 on:** March 18, 2013, 06:08 »

Quote from: cobalt on March 18, 2013, 03:24

Hi Lucato,
do you think you could give us a table comparing your current earnings with your previous exclusive earnings?
If you take an average exckusive income and set that as 100% and then add a second column with your total indie earnings. And then show us how did it all develop over time.
I think you are currently at 40% of your previous exclusive income. Is that correct?

Hi Cobalt, sure. Here is the table, but far away from 40% :0(, but the total is growing little by little monthly. :0)

Well, considering I've left exclusivity on April/12, I got the data from a year before, May/11 through Feb/12 (Exclusive) to compare with May/12 through Feb/13 as indie.

So, here is the data and a total on the end summing up all agencies % income:

Just as a curiosity to show how the income drops after quitting the exclusivity, here is also a little graphic:

lucato · « **Reply #163 on:** March 18, 2013, 06:15 »

Quote from: cobalt on March 18, 2013, 06:00

Hi Lucato,

if you write to depositphotos that you have many files but have little time they will help you upload and edit your files to get them online faster. They just made me that offer last, I am sure they would offer the same to you.

I wrote back that for now I want to try doing it myself, but because deposit is a smaller site, perhaps I will take them up on that offer.

I already knew that, anyway thanks for the tip. ;0)

Mantis · « **Reply #164 on:** March 18, 2013, 07:17 »

Quote from: gostwyck on March 17, 2013, 18:36

Quote from: cobalt on March 17, 2013, 17:36
I have another question - do you guys make use of the option to upload exclusive images? My super secret plan involves making dedicated exclusive shootings for the different agencies to increase overall visibility of the whole portfolio. However I need to get a feeling for the agencies first to see what they sell best and also what style they sell best.

So if an agency is good at shooting lifestyle they get exclusive lifestyle, if somebody is good at selling my amateur food images, they get more food, if they sell backgrounds...etc...

I think this would work particularly well for regional content. If you know an agency is US centric I would try to make the models smile more, if I shoot for the German or European market, I could include local settings etc...

Longterm I would try to give an agency that takes exclusive images around 30% exclusive content.

If istock had the option of accepting exclusive files I would definetly send them good material.

Or do you think this is a bad idea and that I should just always send everything everywhere?

I would strongly advise against it. The only agencies that offer exclusivity for images tend to be relatively low sellers like DT and FT. With DT the incentive is nothing like enough to make it economically viable. Some years ago I tried a few on FT, which were selling particularly well there (and not much elsewhere), and the incentive at the time (about 6x more per sale if I remember correctly) was good. Since then the incentive has been hugely reduced and anyway, because FT's default sort-order now only favours newish files, those previously best-sellers are hardly ever seen. My exclusive images with FT are now firmly buried and only rarely sell.

My experiences exactly. If SS had an exclusive IMAGE offering, given their volume of sales, I'd consider putting some of my more unique stuff there as exclusive. There, we might see some actual benefit from image exclusivity.

heywoody · « **Reply #165 on:** March 18, 2013, 07:56 »

I don't think contributor exclusivity makes sense for anyone but if DT offered the same deal for exclusive images as exclusive contributors I'd strongly consider making my level 4s and 5s exclusive - even for an XS I've been getting $4-$5 and, even though sales volumes for these images are much higher on SS and FT, I'd make more money.

cobalt · « **Reply #166 on:** March 18, 2013, 08:59 »

Thank you for the new table Lucato. So after 9 months your indie earnings are 21%

But what about your indie istock earnings? Are they included in the 21%? Or would that be another column for your table

? Maybe then your total earnings are higher?

Everyone else, thank you for your input. I think this discussion will help everyone who is considering to go independent.

Mantis · « **Reply #167 on:** March 18, 2013, 09:10 »

Quote from: heywoody on March 18, 2013, 07:56

I don't think contributor exclusivity makes sense for anyone but if DT offered the same deal for exclusive images as exclusive contributors I'd strongly consider making my level 4s and 5s exclusive - even for an XS I've been getting $4-$5 and, even though sales volumes for these images are much higher on SS and FT, I'd make more money.

DT does offer image exclusivity, and contributor exclusivity.....both.

lucato · « **Reply #168 on:** March 18, 2013, 09:25 »

Quote from: cobalt on March 18, 2013, 08:59

But what about your indie istock earnings? Are they included in the 21%? Or would that be another column for your table ? Maybe then your total earnings are higher?

No Cobalt, the iStock itself as indie was not included. Well noticed. I'll generate a new one with iStock indie included.

lucato · « **Reply #169 on:** March 18, 2013, 09:48 »

Cobalt, here is the table with iStock indie included:

Now, no more tables until some months ahead. :0) I need to go back and upload and categorize images. kkkk. Just kidding.

cobalt · « **Reply #170 on:** March 18, 2013, 09:51 »

AHA!!! Nearly 50% after 9 months and you still have thousands of files to upload. Very encouraging!!!

Could you post this table on your facebookpage (for the public) then I would repost it on my own page for cobalt stock.

This is very good news, indeed.

lucato · « **Reply #171 on:** March 18, 2013, 09:53 »

Quote from: cobalt on March 18, 2013, 09:51

AHA!!! Nearly 50% after 9 months and you still have thousands of files to upload. Very encouraging!!!

Could you post this table on your facebookpage (for the public) then I would repost it on my own page for cobalt stock.

This is very good news, indeed.

Sure, as soon as I do it, I'll let you know.

tickstock · « **Reply #172 on:** March 18, 2013, 09:59 »

lucato · « **Reply #173 on:** March 18, 2013, 10:05 »

Here it goes:

http://tinyurl.com/brjcjzt

ShadySue · « **Reply #174 on:** March 18, 2013, 10:06 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 18, 2013, 09:59

Quote from: cobalt on March 18, 2013, 09:51
AHA!!! Nearly 50% after 9 months and you still have thousands of files to upload. Very encouraging!!!

Could you post this table on your facebookpage (for the public) then I would repost it on my own page for cobalt stock.

This is very good news, indeed.
That's encouraging? Down 66% over 9 months. I hope Lucato's trend keeps getting better but at this rate it will be 5 years before he breaks even.

You're forgetting to factor in rapidly diminishing sales at iStock, affecting exclusives as well as indies. If they don't get things sorted, there won't be an iStock in 5 years.

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Author Topic: Experiences after quitting iStock exclusivity. (Read 60718 times)

lucato

lucato

tickstock

luissantos84

tickstock

luissantos84

tickstock

cobalt

cobalt

aeonf

lucato

cobalt

lucato

lucato

Mantis

heywoody

cobalt

Mantis

lucato

lucato

cobalt

lucato

tickstock

lucato

ShadySue

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