MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: Slovenian on August 30, 2011, 17:07
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How was your August? I reached my BME today at IS, SS is currently 18% down from July with a day to go (unless I get an EL it's going to be approximately 14% down when the month ends), BME at DT, FT is 20% down compared to July, 123RF could be leveled in the next 24h, it's currently 5% down. SS earnings are mainly down due to absurd 80%+ rejections (stuff got accepted everywhere at 90% approval rate, mostly at 100%) and OD earnings that were split in half compared to not only July, but also months from Apr-Jun.
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Congrats! My August still has another day left in it, so I will hold off posting stats until Thursday :)
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Still have 1 day left.
Patience!
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My impression is that August is better than July.
But I will wait until tomorrow before doing statistics.
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August 2010 was not so good. Don't know about this one yet as it hasn't finished.
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Congrats! My August still has another day left in it, so I will hold off posting stats until Thursday :)
I couldn't wait, it's not gonna change much in my case, only SS could noticeably improve with an EL and a few extra ODs. I rarely get ELs at other sites...
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I'm still pretty new to this game, so every month is my new BME. August has been very good to me, now I'm looking forward to September.
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The month isn't completely over, but unless someone has a lot of clawbacks it will be another BME for me (July, March, and May were also BME), thanks mainly to ELs and SS I think. DT sold more files than any month before, but a vast number were subs and small level 0 sales, so the RPD was pretty low. IS was pretty weak, especially in the middle of the month (it came in behind SS, DT, and Veer).
I guess for all the doom and gloom at IS things are still going fairly well for me this year (mainly thanks to SS). I will likely miss IS's shrinking but still significant contribution after next month though.
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Overall BME, almost every site had a BME. Even ISP did well.
Up 16% from July. Up 104% from Aug 2010.
Feeling really good about ms these days, despite the negative developments all around. I made some recent workflow improvements that are letting me create and upload more. Monthly output in Aug was my highest yet.
Only negative I can come up with is DT. DT is the only site that's been on a downward trend for me over the last several months. Sick of the "too many similar images" rejections, so I've cut my uploads by about two thirds. And I'm sick of the unpredictable patterns of subscription vs credit sales. One day I'll have a ton of credit sales and the next day they'll be completely gone. We're talking a difference of $65 to $15 from one day to the next. Still can't figure that out.
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Exellent month! BME at SS, good at IS,FT and DT. In the middle tier Im glad to see that Veers and DP, are doing fine. To round the month off the Getty-RM, sent me a payout of 9K, they must have sold a copyright or something.
all in all I guess I shouldnt complain too much.
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Good month!
Ranked this month sales and Small description on how sites performing after three month as an independent.
istock - better than last month similar to may
Shutterstock - BME performing better than expected.
123rf - BME performing far better than expected. last month and this month 3rd position.
Alamy - BME performing same as 123rf. last month 5th and this month 4th position.
Dreamstime - BME performing little less than expected.
My site - BME WOW i was not expecting it will jump to my 6th place in 2nd month. i hope it will go on this trend.
Big stock - BME performing as expected.
Fotolia - little down from BME but generally far less than expected.
Veer and Yaymicro performing as expected. Also started to send zoonar after deleting my portfolio from canstock.
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Finally some good news, congrats to all!
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All around totals for August were my BME by a long shot. I hope September continues into an upward trend. Could use some good after a bad June and July.
My top 4 SS, Alamy, Canstock and Dreamstime. Out of those the first 3 are BME.
I go a little more in depth on my blog. Though I don't do statistical data (that stuff makes my head hurt) still might get something out of it.
My micro production has been down due to my kids going to online school (that and my obsession with Stargate Atlantis on Netflix). I'm working on a way to find a balance between the school stuff, house stuff and stock stuff. I'm hoping my workflow for stock will increase from August in September. Just need to find the time to do it all.
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If I rank them by Earnings solely the ranking would be:
FT (roughly 30% of my income, If adjusted for currency value differences between Euro and $ it is higher)
SS
DT
IS
123rf
FT and SS being quite close
If I rank them by RPD it is:
DT (RPD is 40% higher than at IS)
IS
123rf
FT (If adjusted for currency value differences between Euro and $ then FT ranks 2nd)
SS
Have not calculated RPI's as of yet.
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A BME for me overall too. :)
Top five:
1. Shutterstock (A fantastic BME at SS with 52% of total earnings here).
2. Dreamstime (BME at DT).
3. iStock (up from last month).
4. 123RF (down from last month)
5. Fotolia (down from last month)
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Fotolia was a complete and utter disaster making only 28% of last Augusts earnings. I used to be able to pay my house and car payments easily with my fotolia earnings now it only makes double what I make on Bigstock.
Other sites ok with SS and DT particularly good this month.
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Great month.
BME - total earnings, Fotolia, 123rf and DT.
Worst month ever - PantherMedia.
Rest about average.
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Good month for me:
Compared to Aug '10: $$$ c75% up. dls c40% up
Compared to July '11: $$$ c13% up. dls c18% up
2nd BMY, after June.
I'd be happy, if it weren't for the RC bombshell from last year and the doom of the 'future iterations' bombshells to come.
Only one reported sale at Alamy, so disappointing there.
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I was up 11% compared to Aug 2010. Quite a surprise as I haven't uploaded for several months.
SS, IS and BigStock were up, FT and DT were down.
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Best month of the year
and considering projected earnings from Thinkstock/Photos.com and StockExpert it could even turn into BME
I never thought this could happen in August and in current microstock situation which is at best disappointing
Unusually high number of ODs and even ELs on Shutterstock
Istock (slightly) up for the first time in year
Almost all sites up or stable, except FT going down for the first time in months - partly due to their further reduction in commissions, partly to less sales
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Quite a bad month for us at IS.
Exclusives at IS at 30%
Down 5% from last month and 23% from 2 months ago.
Up 180% from 08/10
:(
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Down from last August a little bit (4%ish), but only because IS has tanked more than the growth in my other sites can make up for.
BME at 123RF.
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BME.
Earnings by Site best to worst.
IS - BME by a lot.
SS - BME barely.
Veer - Good solid month.
123rf - BME. Nice upward trend here.
DT - Solid, but lots of subs.
FT - Steady.
Canstock - Good solid month.
Deposit - BME, upward trend.
BigStock - OK
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No a BME for me, but pretty close. As usual, I have more graphs on my bloghttp://www.backyardsilver.com/2011/09/earnings-from-stock-in-august-2011/ (http://www.backyardsilver.com/2011/09/earnings-from-stock-in-august-2011/), but the overall results were total earnings of $892, compared to $1022 last month, but this was all from steady earnings on each of the sites. Last month I had a sale of rights image on Dreamstime for about $100 and a sale on Alamy for $120 or so. Nothing like that this month - each site pulled its weight! iStock really motored along thanks to the Photo+ program. I estimate that perhaps 80% of the earnings of $175 were from Photo+ sales.
Here is the graph of earnings, and also the one of number of files per site:
(http://www.backyardsilver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Growth_Earnings_Aug11.png)
(http://www.backyardsilver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Files_per_site_aug11.png)
Steve
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BMW ;D
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here's my pretty graphs.
July 2011
(http://www.microstockgroup.com/holdingbin/microstockearningsJuly2011.png)
Aug 2011
(http://www.microstockgroup.com/holdingbin/microstockearningsAug2011.png)
My interesting observations...
iStock (http://www.microstockgroup.com/link/go.php?url=www.istock.com)is stealing more pie than Fotolia (http://www.microstockgroup.com/link/go.php?url=www.fotolia.com)and Dreamstime (http://www.microstockgroup.com/link/go.php?url=www.dreamstime.com)is unfortunately loosing ground as well.
DepositPhotos (http://www.microstockgroup.com/link/go.php?url=www.depositphotos.com)and Photodune (http://www.microstockgroup.com/link/go.php?url=www.photodune.com)on the other hand are slowly (or perhaps quickly) gaining bigger pieces of pie
.. and don't forget to put in your votes (http://www.microstockgroup.com/pollsvote/) :)
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My Pie was mostly Shutterstock, largely due to 3 ELs. So I'll get my biggest microstock payment from an agency next month which will be $150. The others all performed pretty poorly in August.
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My second best month ever, and the best if you ignore last September's upload payment at Veer. Up 77% on July, and up 58% on August, 2010. Only Fotolia, StockXpert, Deposit and StockFresh were down; Shutterstock was up big (+69%), as were iStock (+191%), 123RF (+92%), Veer (+800%), CanStock (+490%), Crestock (+1050%) and Envato (+74%). Shutterstock was 41% of my total, followed by iStock (14%), Veer (10%), 123RF (8%), Dreamstime (7%), CanStock (5%), Fotolia (4%), Envato (4%), BigStock (3%) and Deposit (2%).
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Boy, with all the bad news around here, it's really nice to read this thread and see how well most folks did in August!
My August was good too. I am up 6% on last month, and up 13% on August 2010! This is the first month I have gained over the prior year in well over a year. Very welcome change of direction!
The gains were mostly at Istock and SS. Although my DL's at Istock were about 2/3 of last year, P+ really fattened out the totals. I had my second BME of the year at SS. They are booming!
DT is dead even with last year for the second month in a row, and FT accelerates its downward tumble (for me).
Here's the stats, along with the gain or loss from last year in ():
ISP 41% (+17%)
SS 22% (+42%)!!
DT 13% (=)
Fot 12% (-29%)
Big 4%
123 3%
Can 2%
Alm 2%
Of the smaller and/or newer sites, only Photodune placed in my stats, earning 1%, but at least that was enough to get me a payout my first month.
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Boy, with all the bad news around here, it's really nice to read this thread and see how well most folks did in August!
My August was good too. I am up 6% on last month, and up 13% on August 2010! This is the first month I have gained over the prior year in well over a year. Very welcome change of direction!
The gains were mostly at Istock and SS. Although my DL's at Istock were about 2/3 of last year, P+ really fattened out the totals. I had my second BME of the year at SS. They are booming!
DT is dead even with last year for the second month in a row, and FT accelerates its downward tumble (for me).
Here's the stats, along with the gain or loss from last year in ():
ISP 41% (+17%)
SS 22% (+42%)!!
DT 13% (=)
Fot 12% (-29%)
Big 4%
123 3%
Can 2%
Alm 2%
Of the smaller and/or newer sites, only Photodune placed in my stats, earning 1%, but at least that was enough to get me a payout my first month.
Wow this must be the first time I've heard someone earning almost twice as much at IS than at SS. I'm really happy this are going for the better for us and that there's some hope yet for MS. I just hope our good reports won't give greedy agency owners any ideas :-\
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Wow this must be the first time I've heard someone earning almost twice as much at IS than at SS.
That has nearly always been the case for me. And it's my answer to the idiots who wonder why I don't just up and quit Istock every time they do something I don't like.
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Wow this must be the first time I've heard someone earning almost twice as much at IS than at SS.
That has nearly always been the case for me. And it's my answer to the idiots who wonder why I don't just up and quit Istock every time they do something I don't like.
But you seem to be in a position to think about dropping FT ;)
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This is my stock photography sales statistic for August 2011. You can find a complete list of stock photography agencies (http://stock.hlehnerer.com/SA.html) that I work with here (http://stock.hlehnerer.com/SA.html).
(http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u97/hlehnerer/SalesStat/201108px520.jpg)
These are for me the best 4 performing stock agencies for August 2011:
Shutterstock (http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=169666)
DepositPhotos (http://submit.depositphotos.com/?ref=1001442)
Dreamstime (http://www.dreamstime.com/res514425-dreams-time)
iStockPhoto (http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php?refnum=hlehnerer)
I expended to have a drop in August, but the drop was much softer with only 11% compared to July. And an increase of 23% compared to August 2010. It was the best month ever for Dreamstime (http://www.dreamstime.com/res514425-dreams-time). At this point I also like to mention DepositPhotos (http://submit.depositphotos.com/?ref=1001442). If I don't take in account the first view month where I received the promotion to get paid for uploads, then August 2011 would have been the best month ever for DepositPhotos. DepositPhotos has shown a constant increase of sales for several month.
(http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u97/hlehnerer/SalesStat/201108Timeline520px.jpg)
(This statistic include referral earning at the different agencies)
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Wow this must be the first time I've heard someone earning almost twice as much at IS than at SS.
That has nearly always been the case for me. And it's my answer to the idiots who wonder why I don't just up and quit Istock every time they do something I don't like.
But you seem to be in a position to think about dropping FT ;)
I think pretty soon everybody is in the position that they can quit FT. I'm with them since 2005 and I do have a pretty large portfolio with them, they always have been pretty constant but in the last couple of months they are going down down down. This month is no exception. I never really liked them but they always used be the second or third earner of the Microstock-agencies for me. I would feel they loss of income but would still be pretty happy if they would choke on their greed.
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Boy, with all the bad news around here, it's really nice to read this thread and see how well most folks did in August!
My August was good too. I am up 6% on last month, and up 13% on August 2010! This is the first month I have gained over the prior year in well over a year. Very welcome change of direction!
The gains were mostly at Istock and SS. Although my DL's at Istock were about 2/3 of last year, P+ really fattened out the totals. I had my second BME of the year at SS. They are booming!
DT is dead even with last year for the second month in a row, and FT accelerates its downward tumble (for me).
Here's the stats, along with the gain or loss from last year in ():
ISP 41% (+17%)
SS 22% (+42%)!!
DT 13% (=)
Fot 12% (-29%)
Big 4%
123 3%
Can 2%
Alm 2%
Of the smaller and/or newer sites, only Photodune placed in my stats, earning 1%, but at least that was enough to get me a payout my first month.
so does that mean you had a BME again finally, or was the last BME still in 2010 ??
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Wow this must be the first time I've heard someone earning almost twice as much at IS than at SS.
That has nearly always been the case for me. And it's my answer to the idiots who wonder why I don't just up and quit Istock every time they do something I don't like.
But you seem to be in a position to think about dropping FT ;)
BTW Lisa, this crazy idea just popped into my head; you going exclusive would actually make sense if IS is by far your strongest earner. No hassle with multiple agencies and I think they'd treat an exclusive BD very well, you just might get a big boost in sales ;)
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so does that mean you had a BME again finally, or was the last BME still in 2010 ??
I had a BME at Shutterstock, but I am still substantially short of my BME in October 2009. August was a bit of a return to my average, after several below average months.
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BTW Lisa, this crazy idea just popped into my head; you going exclusive would actually make sense if IS is by far your strongest earner. No hassle with multiple agencies and I think they'd treat an exclusive BD very well, you just might get a big boost in sales ;)
I thought the same thing a year and a half ago. But since then I have come to the conclusion that Getty doesn't treat ANYONE very well.
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BTW Lisa, this crazy idea just popped into my head; you going exclusive would actually make sense if IS is by far your strongest earner. No hassle with multiple agencies and I think they'd treat an exclusive BD very well, you just might get a big boost in sales ;)
I thought the same thing a year and a half ago. But since then I have come to the conclusion that Getty doesn't treat ANYONE very well.
Your husbend should treat you well. Your ditributor should make you the most money possible for you.
You being exclusive to IS would most probably make you more money then then today.
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Your ditributor should make you the most money possible for you.
You being exclusive to IS would most probably make you more money then then today.
"Another large Kool-Aid for my friend here please Barman"
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BTW Lisa, this crazy idea just popped into my head; you going exclusive would actually make sense if IS is by far your strongest earner. No hassle with multiple agencies and I think they'd treat an exclusive BD very well, you just might get a big boost in sales ;)
I thought the same thing a year and a half ago. But since then I have come to the conclusion that Getty doesn't treat ANYONE very well.
Your husbend should treat you well. Your ditributor should make you the most money possible for you.
You being exclusive to IS would most probably make you more money then then today.
On one of the (several) prior occasions when Lisa was sitting on that fence of hers - the one she kindly lent me as I tried to decide if I should leave being exclusive - I had told her (a) iStock would be lucky to have her as an exclusive and (b) that I thought she'd do very well as one - I think that was in 2009 or early 2010.
I knew I was taking a risk back in 2008 given Getty's prior behavior with every other acquisition and how they've treated their photographers. I gambled that it would take them a while to start Getty-izing iStock and that perhaps if the company was doing well they'd just leave it alone.
Wrong! The fact that H&F wanted its half-billion dollar dividend last year certainly didn't help, but Getty's now firmly in the driver's seat and Lisa would be no more "safe" than anyone else in their march for a max of 20% for any content and short term profits over long term growth of both the business and the contributors.
Given the size of Lisa's portfolio, the massive amount of work (not to mention loss of search position) to undo going exclusive if it didn't work out in a year or two would be horrendous - there's no simple "try it and see if you like it" when you're that established at so many top sites.
In short, I can't think of a worse idea now than for Lisa to go exclusive with iStock. Can't trust Getty one iota and she has too much to lose and too little to gain.
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BME on IS and it wasn't even close. Almost did it on SS. BME on 123rf. That site has really taken off.
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... Given the size of Lisa's portfolio, the massive amount of work (not to mention loss of search position) to undo going exclusive if it didn't work out in a year or two would be horrendous - there's no simple "try it and see if you like it" when you're that established at so many top sites.
In short, I can't think of a worse idea now than for Lisa to go exclusive with iStock. Can't trust Getty one iota and she has too much to lose and too little to gain.
Is the correct answer. Volunteering for exclusivity at Istock has always been a dubious and risky gamble IMHO which I'm pretty sure has cost those who've chosen it a great deal of money over the years. Unfortunately it will probably prove to be an accelerating loss as time goes on. To actually choose to go exclusive now would be nothing less than insane.
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Your husbend should treat you well. Your ditributor should make you the most money possible for you.
You being exclusive to IS would most probably make you more money then then today.
First off, anyone with whom you have a relationship should treat you well. A business relationship is no exception.
Wasn't it in this very thread that you were bemoaning your terrible month at your ONLY distributor?
Quite a bad month for us at IS.
Exclusives at IS at 30%
Down 5% from last month and 23% from 2 months ago.
Up 180% from 08/10
:(
I don't like terrible months either, but they are mitigated by the fact that I have a lot of outlets. When one is down, another is up.
I had a BME at Shutterstock. Wouldn't have if I was exclusive at Istock.
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... Given the size of Lisa's portfolio, the massive amount of work (not to mention loss of search position) to undo going exclusive if it didn't work out in a year or two would be horrendous - there's no simple "try it and see if you like it" when you're that established at so many top sites.
In short, I can't think of a worse idea now than for Lisa to go exclusive with iStock. Can't trust Getty one iota and she has too much to lose and too little to gain.
Is the correct answer. Volunteering for exclusivity at Istock has always been a dubious and risky gamble IMHO which I'm pretty sure has cost those who've chosen it a great deal of money over the years. Unfortunately it will probably prove to be an accelerating loss as time goes on. To actually choose to go exclusive now would be nothing less than insane.
You are both absolutely right! I would think it would be obvious, but maybe only to those of us with the perspective to see beyond the Getty sphere of influence?
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All bussiness decisions involve taking a risk. In your case the risk is quite low IMO since you would most certainly make more $$$, your "punishment" would probebly be a higher volatility (my 6 monthly RPI SD is 15% BTW, not that bad)
I am not saying there aren't dissadvantages to such a move, I am not some IS fanboy or trying to persuade you to go exclusive at IS (I have enough competition as is, thank you). All I am doing is stateting the logical opinion based on FACTS and NOT feelings that you would probebly make more money as an exclusive, nothing more and nothing less.
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Can't trust Getty one iota and she has too much to lose and too little to gain.
I get the point, but putting that aside (not thinking about exclusivity at any site), who can you trust nowadays? SS is the only left that didn't cut commissions (but didn't raise them either, like they used to every year). But OTOH SS has hurt me more in August with their crazy rejections than any site has with cuts. Not that trusts matters as much if you're on multiple sites, but the bottom line are earnings and commissions get cut everywhere. To me FT is much worse than IS. Sales volume is pathetic (in my case) and they've cut commissions twice this year. IS has at least introduced the P+ which was a nice boost and at least from time to time sales do rise.
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Agency Aug.2011 (Aug.2010)
Fot 26% (18%)+
SS 25% (24%)+
ISP 23% (27%)-
DT 12% (19%)-
Can 7% (3%)+
123 4% (1%)+
Big 1% (2%)-
Stfr 1% -
Veer 1% (5%)-
RPD 0,88 EUR (0,99 EUR)-
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Agency Aug.2011 (Aug.2010)
Fot 26% (18%)+
SS 25% (24%)+
ISP 23% (27%)-
DT 12% (19%)-
Can 7% (3%)+
123 4% (1%)+
Big 1% (2%)-
Stfr 1% -
Veer 1% (5%)-
RPD 0,88 EUR (0,99 EUR)-
Impressive increases, but knowing the size of the ports. puts them into perspective.
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Impressive increases, but knowing the size of the ports. puts them into perspective.
130-160 vector illustrations.
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BME: +20% in reference to July, +68% in ref to Aug'2010
IS 40% (+28%) ( ) - growth from July'11
SS 27% (+11%)
DT 14% (+46%)
FT 4% ( +6%)
others 15% ( =)
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What program do you guys make your graphs with? I've got Excel but don't think they have the capability to make nice graphs just flat ones. Then again I haven't really messed with that function too much either.
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Excel will do 3d graphs etc the graphs look pretty much like excel to me
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What program do you guys make your graphs with? I've got Excel but don't think they have the capability to make nice graphs just flat ones. Then again I haven't really messed with that function too much either.
yeah, mine were excel 2007
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I used MS Excel 2010.
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Well this and other threads are a little bit more encouraging than last month. Heres hoping that summer is finally over!
Overall $$ was slightly ahead of July, and about double Aug '10, but seeing as that was changeover month, the stat is still pretty meaningless. About 10% off my BME without factoring in PP and Getty earnings. I increased my portfolio by over 400 images this month so its not a great result, but maybe the effort will be rewarded in coming months.
My stats are showed a really bad patch between the afternoon of the 17th to the 23rd - its almost like there was a 6 day weekend.
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Overall $$ was slightly ahead of July, and about double Aug '10, but seeing as that was changeover month, the stat is still pretty meaningless. About 10% off my BME without factoring in PP and Getty earnings. I increased my portfolio by over 400 images this month so its not a great result, but maybe the effort will be rewarded in coming months.
That's the point. My August was worse than June and July but not much. However, it is worrisome that the new images have not boosted the overall income.
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Overall $$ was slightly ahead of July, and about double Aug '10, but seeing as that was changeover month, the stat is still pretty meaningless. About 10% off my BME without factoring in PP and Getty earnings. I increased my portfolio by over 400 images this month so its not a great result, but maybe the effort will be rewarded in coming months.
That's the point. My August was worse than June and July but not much. However, it is worrisome that the new images have not boosted the overall income.
Lately I've noticed that it takes a little bit longer for images to become properly indexed and start getting sales. The search does however heavily favour older files which is a problem.
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I increased my portfolio by over 400 images this month
How do you manage that if you don't mind my asking? I can't manage that in a year (but I don't shoot much anyway). How many times a week do you shoot, what are your subjects and do you do a lot of similars?
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I increased my portfolio by over 400 images this month
How do you manage that if you don't mind my asking? I can't manage that in a year (but I don't shoot much anyway). How many times a week do you shoot, what are your subjects and do you do a lot of similars?
Try looking at his port?
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Yeah it works, he has the same username. As I thought, ton of editorial photos, besides isolations on white it couldn't be anything else :)
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Here are my stats. As you can see 60% of my microstock earnings come from iStock.
(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6061/6110300818_b85a83417d_z.jpg)
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I can't see sheat
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Like Lisa, I was seriously considering exclusivity a year and half back. I would have done it, hadnt it been for the heavy Getty involvment, its an edgy company, dont ever know where youve got them.
Getty, with its present direction can ofcourse grow very, very strong. They are also dedicating massive revenue towards AD-campaigns, etc. Its really a matter of how long the other agencies can hold out and survive and if they cant? well thats another horror scenario, especially for us independants.
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Its really a matter of how long the other agencies can hold out and survive and if they cant? well thats another horror scenario, especially for us independants.
that horror scenario must be considered unfortunately, but otoh one of the few major agencies (i.e. shutterstock) which are not following Getty in the bottom race is the one which is doing better
so I have hopes in another scenario: the more greedy agencies destroying themselves while other continue undisturbed and stronger than before; in this alternative scenario, it's Getty (and Fotolia) that must hold out in being unfair, against all bad mouthing from contributors and buyers
who will surrender first?
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Getty, with its present direction can ofcourse grow very, very strong. They are also dedicating massive revenue towards AD-campaigns, etc. Its really a matter of how long the other agencies can hold out and survive and if they cant? well thats another horror scenario, especially for us independants.
I don't think Getty, 'with it's present direction', is doing particularly well at all. It's traditional RM market has been shrinking rapidly for years, thanks to microstock. The news/sports division is apparently healthy (according to Klein) but that's a world away from what we do. With newspapers and magazines becoming less popular all over the world I find it difficult to see how they are going to grow that revenue stream. With Istock they held the dominant position in microstock but it is starting to look as if they may have over-cooked that particular goose. They also appear to have had little success in challenging SS in the subscription market despite having been marketing TS heavily for about a year. Where's the good news?
Getty's current policy of moving content 'upstream and downstream' between their various outlets strikes me as muddled thinking. They no longer really understand the market that they are selling into and are simply trying to 'cover all bases' and hope for the best. They don't really understand the intrinsic value of what they are selling, evidenced by the multiple of price-points that similar or even the same images are available for. It could hardly be in greater contrast to Shutterstock who do seem to know exactly what they are doing (the KISS principle) and accordingly are reaping the rewards.
H&F bought Getty for $2.4B with the aim of selling on at a profit in 3-5 years. Getty's shareholders at the time were very happy to take the money and run after having seen revenues plunge for several years. Looks to me that they probably made the right choice.
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Fair enough, but isnt what youre saying, yet again pretty much wishful thinking? after all Getty has survived many, many crizis, many ups and downs, they have been counted out a number of times and , yet, they come back.
I dont think they will ever be able to compete with SS, not on subs anyway, hope not but there are several other avenues they can go.
I just shot a really high-end glossy catalouge for the Volvo-best match-Boxer tractors in Sweden, alongside with this they needed about 20 shots of general farming scenery shots, you know fields, forest, sunsets, etc. The AD-agency bought all these RM, for 800 bucks a shot.
There is still a big market for RM, RF, etc and this is one field which is totally dominated by Getty. Corbis, Alamy?, are simply nowhere to be seen nowdays? gone for vacations or something.
Yiu are making it seem too cut and dry, pointing at shareholders, figures, financials, etc. hoping they will remain low. Nothing points at that, exept some reports.
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I thought that Getty historically had been a resounding success story? At least up until the advent of microstock anyway. That success was largely built by achieving such dominance of the market (through acquisitions of competitors, etc) that they were able to set the 'market price' of images and also effectively control the supply of new images.
The emergence of digital photography and microstock has acted like a wrecking ball on the foundations of Getty's business. They can no longer control either the market price or the supply of new images. Rather than accepting the 'new world' and adapting to it they seem to be trying to drag Istock with them into their old way of doing things (and that includes the way they have treated their contributors). I can't see that working for them.
Obviously there will always be a place for RM and higher-priced images but the prices will have to reflect the genuine excellence, cost of production or uniqueness of the images.
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Rather than accepting the 'new world' and adapting to it they seem to be trying to drag Istock with them into their old way of doing things (and that includes the way they have treated their contributors). I can't see that working for them.
I tend to agree. Everything Getty has done with Istock in the past couple of years all points to trying to cram the square peg of microstock into the round hole of traditional stock. It doesn't appear to be working for them.
On the up side, it represents a terrific opportunity for the other, better run sites.
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Rather than accepting the 'new world' and adapting to it they seem to be trying to drag Istock with them into their old way of doing things (and that includes the way they have treated their contributors). I can't see that working for them.
I tend to agree. Everything Getty has done with Istock in the past couple of years all points to trying to cram the square peg of microstock into the round hole of traditional stock. It doesn't appear to be working for them.
On the up side, it represents a terrific opportunity for the other, better run sites.
Yep! but only for the well organized sites and they are not many, unfortunately.
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Rather than accepting the 'new world' and adapting to it they seem to be trying to drag Istock with them into their old way of doing things (and that includes the way they have treated their contributors). I can't see that working for them.
I tend to agree. Everything Getty has done with Istock in the past couple of years all points to trying to cram the square peg of microstock into the round hole of traditional stock. It doesn't appear to be working for them.
On the up side, it represents a terrific opportunity for the other, better run sites.
Yep! but only for the well organized sites and they are not many, unfortunately.
I can't think of any besides SS. Can anybody else? A site that is not just well organized and run, but also has enough traffic. I really wish there would be an agency so good that I'd seriously think about exclusivity. Not having to go through all that hassle with multiple sites. At least one of them is screwing things up at any given time. Wether it's the cuts, bugs, crazy rejections, loss of traffic or something else...
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Rather than accepting the 'new world' and adapting to it they seem to be trying to drag Istock with them into their old way of doing things (and that includes the way they have treated their contributors). I can't see that working for them.
I tend to agree. Everything Getty has done with Istock in the past couple of years all points to trying to cram the square peg of microstock into the round hole of traditional stock. It doesn't appear to be working for them.
On the up side, it represents a terrific opportunity for the other, better run sites.
Yep! but only for the well organized sites and they are not many, unfortunately.
I can't think of any besides SS. Can anybody else? A site that is not just well organized and run, but also has enough traffic. I really wish there would be an agency so good that I'd seriously think about exclusivity. Not having to go through all that hassle with multiple sites. At least one of them is screwing things up at any given time. Wether it's the cuts, bugs, crazy rejections, loss of traffic or something else...
Exactly! and thats the problem, sooner or later they get something into their heads about re-arranging the best match or something else and with proven devastaing effects.
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Yeah it works, he has the same username. As I thought, ton of editorial photos, besides isolations on white it couldn't be anything else :)
TONS of great photography around the globe
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What program do you guys make your graphs with? I've got Excel but don't think they have the capability to make nice graphs just flat ones. Then again I haven't really messed with that function too much either.
Open Office - FREE
http://www.ehow.com/how_8332932_make-graph-openoffice-calc.html (http://www.ehow.com/how_8332932_make-graph-openoffice-calc.html)
Someone here probably sold the image they are using to illustrate the tips? :)
(http://img.ehowcdn.com/article-page-main/ehow/images/a07/u9/k4/make-graph-openoffice-calc-800x800.jpg)
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for me, August was just about even with July, but both were up significantly from the last few months. While most of my sites continue on upward trends, Istock continues to plummet, although Photo+ may have temporarily slowed that.
Overall, I'm making half as much off of twice the portfolio from 2-3 years ago. The salad days of MS seem to be over, and I pretty much missed the boat, seeing as I still only have ~400 images on my largest site :o/
When it comes to going exclusive, I think that it's more about managing risk than supposedly making more money. The advantage to going exclusive is that you don't have to do all that work uploading - so if one has already done the work of uploading thousands of images to multiple sites, going excl. seems like a step backwards. Plus, you would have nearly as much work ahead of you taking down files, as many sites don't make it as easy as it should be.
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so if one has already done the work of uploading thousands of images to multiple sites, going excl. seems like a step backwards.
even if one hasn't, it's not so difficult to upload to many sites nowadays: there's IPTC, FTP, Lightburner (all free), plus a number of paid for services... it's just a little more work in exchange for a strong insurance against sudden changes at any specific site
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Very difficult to tell! out of the exclusives I know personally, all Diamonds nowdays, 50%, are doing a lot better, the rest 50%, are doing less then myself, so its really like shall we say, "Hobsons choice"
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Very difficult to tell! out of the exclusives I know personally, all Diamonds nowdays, 50%, are doing a lot better, the rest 50%, are doing less then myself, so its really like shall we say, "Hobsons choice"
Yeah, if you monitor your position relative to others on the Istock charts, you get a good idea if you would be better off going exclusive.
Considering how many exclusive diamonds I have passed, I don't imagine my sales would be a lot better if I was exclusive.
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Very difficult to tell! out of the exclusives I know personally, all Diamonds nowdays, 50%, are doing a lot better, the rest 50%, are doing less then myself, so its really like shall we say, "Hobsons choice"
Yeah, if you monitor your position relative to others on the Istock charts, you get a good idea if you would be better off going exclusive.
Considering how many exclusive diamonds I have passed, I don't imagine my sales would be a lot better if I was exclusive.
Yep! same here, If I judge by my own Diamond level I am right now much better off being independant. Although I do know a couple of guys who has actually doubled their incomes with pretty much the same size of port as myself.
You know, I dont get it? the top 20-30 people are basically all shooting lifestyles, pics looks all pretty much the same. How many freaking buyers of lifestyles can it be? :-\ :-\
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Very difficult to tell! out of the exclusives I know personally, all Diamonds nowdays, 50%, are doing a lot better, the rest 50%, are doing less then myself, so its really like shall we say, "Hobsons choice"
Yeah, if you monitor your position relative to others on the Istock charts, you get a good idea if you would be better off going exclusive.
Considering how many exclusive diamonds I have passed, I don't imagine my sales would be a lot better if I was exclusive.
Yep! same here, If I judge by my own Diamond level I am right now much better off being independant. Although I do know a couple of guys who has actually doubled their incomes with pretty much the same size of port as myself.
You know, I dont get it? the top 20-30 people are basically all shooting lifestyles, pics looks all pretty much the same. How many freaking buyers of lifestyles can it be? :-\ :-\
And they say you have to find niches, lol. Well I shouldn't write that quoting you since you are doing great having super niched shots, but still, the point remains the same.
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Very good month, 3rd in earnings this year.
Last 2 years July, June and August are the worst months for me as you can see as a fade on graph.
What concerns me is September prediction that will maybe 3rd low earner month (worse than April).
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a new BME again, and the first over 1k $
123RF is becoming a very good earner over FT, DT, IS