Author Topic: Experiences after quitting iStock exclusivity. (Read 60576 times)

lucato · « **Reply #175 on:** March 18, 2013, 10:10 »

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

...but at this rate it will be 5 years before he breaks even

I hope you are not a fortune teller. :0)

tickstock · « **Reply #176 on:** March 18, 2013, 10:13 »

tickstock · « **Reply #177 on:** March 18, 2013, 10:16 »

heywoody · « **Reply #178 on:** March 18, 2013, 10:47 »

Quote from: Mantis 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.

Yes but the commissions currently for exclusive images are way short of that for exclusive contributor images so not the same deal and not attractive enough to cover loss of sales on other sites.

lucato · « **Reply #179 on:** March 18, 2013, 10:49 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 18, 2013, 10:16

I see you have some Getty sales are those from photos that they never removed from Getty? Good luck and again, thanks for all the information.

Yes, I think these are stuck there.
The same to you and have a nice week.

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #180 on:** March 18, 2013, 11:26 »

Quote from: gostwyck on March 17, 2013, 12:48

Quote from: cobalt on March 17, 2013, 12:07
I am a little shocked that Dreamstime is performing so poorly. From the site itself and the web traffic I would have thought they are a good agency.

A couple of things you need to know about DT. Firstly it does take quite some time to build earnings at DT as your files need to to climb the Levels through sales. The vast majority of my sales nowadays are at Levels 4 & 5 so my RPD is at $2.60 this month (it's averaged about $2.40 over the last few months).

Not only does the price of images go up but so does the % royalty you receive too (between 25%-45%). A medium image sale at Level 0 will earn the contributor $1.25 whereas a medium sale at Level 5 will earn the contributor $9. That's a huge difference.

Another bizarre thing about DT is that the default sort-order appears to favour different contributors at different times on something like a 10-day cycle. It means that you end up with 10 days of 'feast' followed by 10 days of 'famine' and so on.

Good post but you left out the part about Subscriptions.

I'm selling Level 4 images for 35 cents. The good part of that is that each sale leads to an increase in the Level.
The bad part is: Level 5 images are also sold for 35 cents.

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #181 on:** March 18, 2013, 11:33 »

I read a post in this thread, from Cobalt, I think, about stretching out the uploads. I can't find it now but it seems that it was recommending to upload large batches judiciously to avoid a nuance in the search engine that causes all images with the same "date stamp" to drop in search as a batch ... regardless of popularity.
Did I interpret that correctly?
If so, the review process at SS is REALLY hurting us. Images posted over a period of time on different dates are being reviewed as one batch, regardless of upload date.
How do you approach that problem?
And thanks for the info about "date/time stamp" peculiarity.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #182 on:** March 18, 2013, 11:37 »

Quote from: WarrenPrice on March 18, 2013, 11:33

If so, the review process at SS is REALLY hurting us. Images posted over a period of time on different dates are being reviewed as one batch, regardless of upload date.
How do you approach that problem?

we don't, pretty much we upload, the batch gets bigger and when approved we are already on the 7th page looking for newest content, SS doesn't feel anything, actually they save a lot of dosh, anyway I believe that good files will come up...

cobalt · « **Reply #183 on:** March 18, 2013, 11:42 »

@warrenprice

The only solution for that is to wait until the previous batch is approved. Maybe switch to uploading all files once every two weeks if that helps.

I am too new to see what time frame would be best. But in the end as long as sou have regular monthly uploads you should be ok. I just kow people who went indie and then brought all their files online within the first 6 weeks and then wondered a few months later hy their files are no longer showing up in searches.

gostwyck · « **Reply #184 on:** March 18, 2013, 12:44 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 18, 2013, 10:13

Quote from: ShadySue 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.
I don't think it's that dire. My numbers are down a bit but nowhere near 66% and I think the main reason they are down is because of the effort I've put in over the last year.

If you remember the graphs of downloads posted by Sean and several others a couple of months ago, the numbers were horrifically down. In fact if you extrapolated the data forward then Istock, at the current rate of decline, would actually have zero sales in 18-24 months. Obviously the past is no guide to the future and we don't know how representative of overall sales those graphs were but nonetheless the situation appears to be very serious. It really is 'that dire'. The constant price increases may be masking the reality somewhat but that's no reason for complacency.

tickstock · « **Reply #185 on:** March 18, 2013, 13:06 »

ShadySue · « **Reply #186 on:** March 18, 2013, 13:14 »

If there are no dls, it doesn't matter how much each one would theoretically cost.
I don't remember seeing that post - I must have glazed over it.

tickstock · « **Reply #187 on:** March 18, 2013, 13:19 »

luissantos84 · « **Reply #188 on:** March 18, 2013, 13:23 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 18, 2013, 13:06

The top selling photo at Istock over the last year has probably made about 5 times the top selling photo on Shutterstock (for the contributor) and in fact Yuri has 3 photos that made significantly more on Istock than the best selling photo on Shutterstock.

how do you know this? I do remember Yuri saying here that maybe he would have been better with IS exclusivity but its impossible to know what could have happened for him or with other top contributors

if iStock is/was such a great place we wouldn't have many top contributors bailing out and joining efforts at Stocksy, sure many are still doing well like you said but things end up for some why wouldn't they end for other in the future? Lucato is a great example of that, having 20k downloads in 2007 (not even 5k in 2012) and we aren't talking about a small portfolio, its a very big drop no?

tickstock · « **Reply #189 on:** March 18, 2013, 13:31 »

luissantos84 · « **Reply #190 on:** March 18, 2013, 13:48 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 18, 2013, 13:31

Quote from: luissantos84 on March 18, 2013, 13:23
Quote from: tickstock on March 18, 2013, 13:06
The top selling photo at Istock over the last year has probably made about 5 times the top selling photo on Shutterstock (for the contributor) and in fact Yuri has 3 photos that made significantly more on Istock than the best selling photo on Shutterstock.

how do you know this? I do remember Yuri saying here that maybe he would have been better with IS exclusivity but its impossible to know what could have happened for him or with other top contributors

if iStock is/was such a great place we wouldn't have many top contributors bailing out and joining efforts at Stocksy, sure many are still doing well like you said but things end up for some why wouldn't they end for other in the future? Lucato is a great example of that, having 20k downloads in 2007 (not even 5k in 2012) and we aren't talking about a small portfolio, its a very big drop no?
Sent you a message.
Which top contributors are bailing for Stocksy? I can't think of any.
Lucato is down 66% compared to last year, I think that is much worse than if he stayed exclusive. Time will tell if it was a good move and I hope it works out for him but right now he's down a lot. (I doubt it's much consolation that his downloads are probably up since the $ are down so dramatically)

sure I don't know if they are bailing for Stocksy but it does look like that, I am not going to say who they are here but they have been mentioned in this forum many times before in the latest threads (I consider a top contributor from 25k/50k up)

tickstock · « **Reply #191 on:** March 18, 2013, 13:49 »

luissantos84 · « **Reply #192 on:** March 18, 2013, 13:56 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 18, 2013, 13:49

Quote from: luissantos84 on March 18, 2013, 13:48
sure I don't know if they are bailing for Stocksy but it does look like that, I am not going to say who they are here but they have been mentioned in this forum many times before in the latest threads
I haven't seen them yet, maybe they'll come out next week?

yep on the 25th

gostwyck · « **Reply #193 on:** March 18, 2013, 13:57 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 18, 2013, 13:06

I came across a couple interesting things recently. The top selling photo at Istock over the last year has probably made about 5 times the top selling photo on Shutterstock (for the contributor) and in fact Yuri has 3 photos that made significantly more on Istock than the best selling photo on Shutterstock. Maybe in the past the best selling photos on Istock made even more than that compared to Shutterstock? There are a lot of people doing well at Istock still, they just don't post here or on the forums there very often if ever. I remember from the end of year thread someone posted that they had the same downloads but made $50,000 more last year, so downloads definitely aren't the whole story.

How can you possibly know what the best-selling image at SS (or at IS for that matter) actually made? You can't unless you happened to have been a senior employee with both agencies.

There's a few people that claim to have increased earnings at IS but, when you actually click on their portfolio, it invariably turns out that they doubled or trebled their portfolio size during the year. There's a lot more people with sizeable mature portfolios, like Sean and fotovoyager for example, who are reporting staggeringly drops in downloads.

Downloads defintely will become 'the whole story' before too long, even for a newbie like you with a growing portfolio. Your optimistic posts about the benefits of exclusivity are almost identical to those of a certain contributor here ... until a few months ago. They have just ditched their crown.

tickstock · « **Reply #194 on:** March 18, 2013, 14:08 »

cobalt · « **Reply #195 on:** March 18, 2013, 14:27 »

I cannot imagine anyone quit exclusivity in the last 12 months for stocksy. I certainly didn't, I didn't even know about it until leaf broke the news.

The place isn't open for buiness yet and has no customers.

I went independent because all the drama and bad management decisions of the last 2 years and especially the last 6 months. And then the Microsoft deal and the getty/google deal.

The traffic for istock is falling continuosly, it never goes back up. Istock must be losing customers on a massive scale. Everyone I knew who used to buy from istock has turned away over all the IT issues and the extremly high prices. Nobody ever goes back to istock.

And here in Germany many photographers supply Fotolia with exclusive content and do extremly well there. The best known blogger is averaging over 10k a month while being independent. And he stopped supplying istock in 2010.

His earnings and those of many others are growing well.

I think maybe 2 years ago, or 18 months ago probably as an exclusive you would have made more. But I believe with the continuing drop in downloads and focus on Thinkstock and Getty, the exclusives cannot win.

istock is just a brand fighting a losing battle for attention between all the other Getty brands. They have fired a lot of high quality staff, they have closed the office in Berlin and even the German forum no longer has a dedicated moderator and community builder.

If they don't even have money for that, than for me as a European contributor it means I have to pay attention to the agencies that are investing and building their presence in Europe.

I know it will take time to build up my portfolio on other sites. But in the end I simply have to go where the customers are going.

I have waited a long, long time to see if they will reverse the trend, but I don't see the slightest indication that the customers are coming back.

Travelling-light · « **Reply #196 on:** March 18, 2013, 15:11 »

Quote from: cobalt on March 18, 2013, 14:27

I cannot imagine anyone quit exclusivity in the last 12 months for stocksy. I certainly didn't, I didn't even know about it until leaf broke the news.

The place isn't open for buiness yet and has no customers.

I went independent because all the drama and bad management decisions of the last 2 years and especially the last 6 months. And then the Microsoft deal and the getty/google deal.

The traffic for istock is falling continuosly, it never goes back up. Istock must be losing customers on a massive scale. Everyone I knew who used to buy from istock has turned away over all the IT issues and the extremly high prices. Nobody ever goes back to istock.

And here in Germany many photographers supply Fotolia with exclusive content and do extremly well there. The best known blogger is averaging over 10k a month while being independent. And he stopped supplying istock in 2010.

His earnings and those of many others are growing well.

I think maybe 2 years ago, or 18 months ago probably as an exclusive you would have made more. But I believe with the continuing drop in downloads and focus on Thinkstock and Getty, the exclusives cannot win.

istock is just a brand fighting a losing battle for attention between all the other Getty brands. They have fired a lot of high quality staff, they have closed the office in Berlin and even the German forum no longer has a dedicated moderator and community builder.

If they don't even have money for that, than for me as a European contributor it means I have to pay attention to the agencies that are investing and building their presence in Europe.

I know it will take time to build up my portfolio on other sites. But in the end I simply have to go where the customers are going.

I have waited a long, long time to see if they will reverse the trend, but I don't see the slightest indication that the customers are coming back.

Same here.
1) All the drama is very distracting - you never know what they are going to do next, only that it never seems to be good for contributors.
2) The IS exclusive contract is far too restrictive - when things start to go bad, it doesn't give you much opportunity to do anything to improve your situation.
3) When we quit IS exclusivity, our income was 2/3 of our BME, and we thought things would only get worse at IS, and it seems they have.
Although we are earning less, we now have fingers in lots of other pies. It's still early days, but they are starting to pay off. Cobalt will not regret her decision, I'm sure. She's giving it two years, and she's given a lot of thought to her strategy, just as we have done.

gostwyck · « **Reply #197 on:** March 18, 2013, 15:20 »

Quote from: tickstock on March 18, 2013, 14:08

Quote from: gostwyck on March 18, 2013, 13:57
Quote from: tickstock on March 18, 2013, 13:06
I came across a couple interesting things recently. The top selling photo at Istock over the last year has probably made about 5 times the top selling photo on Shutterstock (for the contributor) and in fact Yuri has 3 photos that made significantly more on Istock than the best selling photo on Shutterstock. Maybe in the past the best selling photos on Istock made even more than that compared to Shutterstock? There are a lot of people doing well at Istock still, they just don't post here or on the forums there very often if ever. I remember from the end of year thread someone posted that they had the same downloads but made $50,000 more last year, so downloads definitely aren't the whole story.

How can you possibly know what the best-selling image at SS (or at IS for that matter) actually made? You can't unless you happened to have been a senior employee with both agencies.

There's a few people that claim to have increased earnings at IS but, when you actually click on their portfolio, it invariably turns out that they doubled or trebled their portfolio size during the year. There's a lot more people with sizeable mature portfolios, like Sean and fotovoyager for example, who are reporting staggeringly drops in downloads.

Downloads defintely will become 'the whole story' before too long, even for a newbie like you with a growing portfolio. Your optimistic posts about the benefits of exclusivity are almost identical to those of a certain contributor here ... until a few months ago. They have just ditched their crown.
Sent you a PM. I've been around for a few years now and know what the other sites have to offer.

Yes you did. Your logic is flawed, selective in the data used and based on both guesswork and extraplotating 3-month data to a year. It doesn't work like that.

Anyway, even if your guesswork was correct, what does that indicate or prove? Even if it were true that my best-selling image on IS made more than it's equivalent on SS (not the case), so what?

What does matter is the performance of an entire portfolio over a considerable period of time. My SS portfolio is now earning more than double that of my IS port and the differential is, quite literally, increasing month by month. The truth is my SS earnings are steadily increasing (on target for yet another BME this month) whilst my IS earnings are in decline __ like most mature portfolios are reporting.

lucato · « **Reply #198 on:** March 18, 2013, 15:27 »

Quote from: cobalt on March 18, 2013, 14:27

I went independent because all the drama and bad management decisions of the last 2 years and especially the last 6 months. And then the Microsoft deal and the getty/google deal.

The traffic for istock is falling continuosly, it never goes back up. Istock must be losing customers on a massive scale. Everyone I knew who used to buy from istock has turned away over all the IT issues and the extremly high prices. Nobody ever goes back to istock.

Same here...
+ Cut earnings from 40% to 35% and applying the new RC for old contributors instead of applying new rules for new members;
+ Referrals not works as expected or better, doesn't work at all;
+ Forums terrible to search and use;
+ Search results with a lot of problems
+ The way IS is going lately, I wanted to avoid keeping all eggs in the same basket and opted to spread my work (product) to other agencies (stores);
+ so on...

tickstock · « **Reply #199 on:** March 18, 2013, 15:34 »

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Experiences after quitting iStock exclusivity. (Read 60576 times)

lucato

tickstock

tickstock

heywoody

lucato

WarrenPrice

WarrenPrice

luissantos84

cobalt

gostwyck

tickstock

ShadySue

tickstock

luissantos84

tickstock

luissantos84

tickstock

luissantos84

gostwyck

tickstock

cobalt

Travelling-light

gostwyck

lucato

tickstock

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors