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Messages - cthoman
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 145
1
« on: December 21, 2021, 10:28 »
Merry Christmas all. And have a safe, happy and prosperous New Year.
2
« on: November 04, 2021, 20:46 »
It's a shame about GL. The old owners were awesome, but the new staff really did seem to disappear in the middle of the night with our money. I can't say it was a lot, but there was some. At the same time, they bought into a messed up game that needs some serious overhaul.
3
« on: June 30, 2021, 20:34 »
I still kind of expect companies to start buying catalogs and putting contributors on salary. Seems like a possible next step. I guess they still get enough for free that they don't need to. Probably just my bias because I haven't bothered to make new content in a year or two and consider stock a wholly passive thing now, so a financial incentive is really all that would get me back in the game.
4
« on: October 01, 2020, 21:11 »
Good to hear they are paying everybody out. I was disappointed when they launched that they were just trying mostly to recreate StockXpert instead of building something that was pushing the industry forward. That said, I have respect for all of them running the agency. It is not an easy thing to do. They treated me great, and I was happy with what had been going on recently. I'm pretty much 100% passive now (waiting to see what happens with no real reward for creating more content), but I'd love to jump back in if any of these players have a new and inventive idea. I've run stuff myself, and I know that I'm just not cut out for that.
5
« on: September 20, 2020, 08:13 »
It's a shame to see them close. It doesn't help the market when the smaller agencies get squeezed out.
6
« on: July 02, 2020, 20:34 »
Others have probably said it better - but we are basically where we were with Istock a few years back - are you going to put up with the BS they put you through to get 15% of whatever schemes and scams they come up with to wring as much $ out of a once pretty nice opportunity for everyone or are you going to decide that your peace of mind is worth it to remove your content?
I certainly am not a big enough fish that they care about my specific content even though it probably made them 6 figures over the years. They aren't going to give me any special deal and if they decide to improve the deal for artists it won't be because of something I do or do not do.
I can say they won't screw me any worse going forward. I don't have to worry about getting 10 cent video sales or a total January RPD of 10c. I won't be racing to follow a moving target RC scheme to prop up some egotistical man-child's bonus.
Sadly I also probably won't be doing a whole lot of microstock production anymore since SS was one of the last pillars barely keeping it worth my while. It was a good run. I wish I had put a little more work in during the early days when it really made a difference. Oh well, it was a good run.
I am very fortunate that I have no dependents and have paid off my debts and learned to live off of shockingly little in a place where many people struggle to make ends meet. (California)
Do I wish SS would pull its head out of its backside and actually motivate artists to produce quality work - hell yes, do I expect it to happen - not at all. Same with Istock/Getty, 123RF, and so on.
Yeah, I haven't made any stock art in about a year, and even last year was little bit of just throwing it against the wall and expecting nothing.
7
« on: July 01, 2020, 12:41 »
As someone that did this fight several years ago with iStock and others, I sympathize with those taking a stand to get more for their work. That said, I feel like micro stock dried up as a viable business model a couple years ago, so I'm not sure what I'd be fighting to get or return to at this point in time. I figured the whole thing would either collapse, limp forward in its current state or something new would come along.
8
« on: June 24, 2020, 17:38 »
Wordpress also is a big hacker target. Keeping on top of the constant updates helps with that, but it still is an easy target. In the end, it is tough to wear all the hats to make it work and the internet seems to be rapidly moving away from the "little guy" business model.
9
« on: June 06, 2020, 10:09 »
Lifelong RPD 66 cents ... June RPD 63 cents.
Hard to say really ... I've been on Shutterstock since 2006, I've gotten used to getting those 38c per subscription download and now get some as low as 10 cents and some as high as $1.72. more single&other sales as well. Also 1/3 so far is from enhanced downloads, so could be treated as anomaly (lifelong earnings it's just ~5%).
Yeah, I noticed a lot of 10 cent ones too. Nice to get the higher royalty subscriptions, but considering 10 cents is about a quarter of $.38 it is hard to see how I'm coming out ahead. It is definitely pretty confusing and hard to get a real idea or track what we are owed now.
10
« on: August 31, 2019, 13:23 »
They are going about this all wrong. They need to call all the other sites and tell them to raise their prices. 
11
« on: August 24, 2019, 16:11 »
What was wrong is that buyers dont care about looking at an individuals site. Those that have niche content that is very valuable already have a way to sell.
I had regular customers that wanted to buy directly from me.
Sure, if you have regular customers. But buyers dont go about looking to buy from an individuals site if they dont already have a connection.
True. Most of it is still Google foot traffic. It seems like they squeezed a lot of the little players out of that though in the last several years.
12
« on: August 24, 2019, 16:08 »
Seeing as certain agencies are trying to "force" the bigger ones in a race to the bottom through a subscription model (and seem to forget what made them BIG was the contributors contributing content)...
What would you pay for your own subscription site? IF you had an easy to use/plug & play solution?
(Also - by 'plug & play' - I don't mean a wordpress plugin. I mean something where *literally* all you have to do is upload your assets, and enter your payment information, and then start marketing - unless you want that included too).
a) Images? Video?
b) $29/month? $59/month? $99/month? More? Less?
c) Features you'd want?
d) What would you pay for 'marketing' of your content?
e) What is your portfolio size? (100 items? 1000? 10000?)
I'm thinking a good solution to the "content crisis" was if individual authors could manage their own content, and collect 100% of the fees for their work.
Not only would it help stop the race to the bottom (simply because the "mega" agencies would receive significantly less new content), but it would help make authors feel more in control of their work, and not have to undermine their own efforts.
What are your thoughts?
$30 seems to be around where dedicated hosting prices are. You usually get charged a little bit more for extra space for a larger portfolio. Good features are probably just organized, professional price setting and a good search. All that said, it would be tough for me to jump into another one of these. Most of them just aren't stable enough to trust for an extended period. You put in a lot of effort to build it just to have the software get abandoned or other issues.
13
« on: August 24, 2019, 15:59 »
What was wrong is that buyers dont care about looking at an individuals site. Those that have niche content that is very valuable already have a way to sell.
I had regular customers that wanted to buy directly from me.
14
« on: July 27, 2019, 21:40 »
Microstock went from somewhat profitable experiment to real business and back to somewhat profitable experiment. It still seems to be shrinking for me, so I'm not sure where the bottom is or the breaking point. I am curious where the experiment will end though.
15
« on: June 03, 2019, 09:51 »
I am beginning to believe that this maybe a deliberate policy to restrict the number of EPS uploads to Shutterstock, maybe they are not interested in anything but photography.
It is a change that really is so out of the ball park and utterly nonsensical, that maybe the owner and his team have taken what they think is a strategic decision to do away with Vector Illustrations and this is just the first phase in stopping illustrators from uploading.
If you look on the Shutterstock Forum there is no one answering any of the questions.
I doubt it. I think these companies love making money off of illustrations/vectors, but they often know nothing about it and spend very little time thinking or learning about it. My guess is just ignorance.
16
« on: May 31, 2019, 14:02 »
The big image factories will just adjust their workflow and keep uplaoding. Its the individual conributors wholl be squeezed out. Maybe they want it that way.
Can they though? Keywording seems like half the job sometimes. I can't say I've sat down and tried to work on a good workflow for tagging eps files, but it seems like the options are limited.
17
« on: May 21, 2019, 06:08 »
I'm in on the boycott. If I ever want to upload there again, I'd rather this policy not be there.
18
« on: May 19, 2019, 12:19 »
But personally I don't sell so much vectors on Shutterstock, I sell a lot of more on VectorStock and Adobe.
If I have to choose, and they are pushing me (us) to choose, I will just stop to upload my vectors to Shutterstock.
I just tried to upload to Adobe and it said they require 15mb now. Maybe they are trying to get rid of silhouette and logo like illustrations? These types of vectors are my biggest seller though. More advanced illustrations don't sell near as well.
Adobe has always required a 15+ mp jpeg.
This is the first time I have gotten this message and I have a 1,000 vectors on Adobe. Something is different.
Most people already made their jpegs around that size, so it would be easy not to notice. It's roughly 3000px x 5000px or 4000px x 4000px square. It's easy to get rejections there though if you have an image that is very narrow like 1000px x 5000px. The SS thing is different because they don't want jpegs to accompany the eps anymore.
19
« on: May 19, 2019, 11:48 »
But personally I don't sell so much vectors on Shutterstock, I sell a lot of more on VectorStock and Adobe.
If I have to choose, and they are pushing me (us) to choose, I will just stop to upload my vectors to Shutterstock.
I just tried to upload to Adobe and it said they require 15mb now. Maybe they are trying to get rid of silhouette and logo like illustrations? These types of vectors are my biggest seller though. More advanced illustrations don't sell near as well.
Adobe has always required a 15+ mp jpeg.
20
« on: May 19, 2019, 11:00 »
I really don't understand why you all you want to continue to upload vectors to Shutterstock
You lament, you whine, you cry
We made different petitions and they are be ignored
There are 50 pages of thread (2 threads) about it on the Shutterstock forum and every your request is just ignored.
Then you do exactly what they want and how they want
In the end, if you're not happy, you only have yourself to blame!
I guess if you have a new or growing portfolio, it kind of derails your plans. My growth is kind of stagnant the last couple years with all the competition, so it is pretty easy to just sit back and see what happens with this whole mess.
Yes, I understand of course.
But if we want our requests to have an effect, there is only one solution: stop uploading vectors to Shutterstock (for a while), hoping they will understand that they are losing the best contributors (because contributors who produce the most complex vectors are the most affected by this great innovation), and therefore money...
This kind of company only understands when you touch them where it hurts more: in the wallet....
But I see with difficulty the contributors acting in solidarity in order to obtain a result.
It is much easier to grumble and sign unnecessary petitions than to act in a truly concrete and effective way.
Personally I don't have too many problems with that since I produce very few vectors. In addition I sell them much more on other sites than on SS.
Definitely. The only way they will listen is if you make them realize that we aren't a commodity and it is actually people they are doing business with that won't blindly follow along with whatever.
21
« on: May 19, 2019, 09:01 »
I really don't understand why you all you want to continue to upload vectors to Shutterstock
You lament, you whine, you cry
We made different petitions and they are be ignored
There are 50 pages of thread (2 threads) about it on the Shutterstock forum and every your request is just ignored.
Then you do exactly what they want and how they want
In the end, if you're not happy, you only have yourself to blame!
I guess if you have a new or growing portfolio, it kind of derails your plans. My growth is kind of stagnant the last couple years with all the competition, so it is pretty easy to just sit back and see what happens with this whole mess.
22
« on: May 14, 2019, 11:29 »
And now they are deleting posts criticising the changes from their forum!
So, that's all of them, right? 
23
« on: May 14, 2019, 10:05 »
Richard Pryor hacked into his workplace's computer and siphoned off all the fractions of pennies that the workforce earned but we're never actually paid... because they couldn't pay out less than a cent. Good idea!
I forgot that. I guess Office Space had the same plot.
24
« on: May 14, 2019, 10:05 »
Its due to rounding off the cents.
e.g. if your balance shows $50.098 it displays as $50.01 and if you request $50.01 you generally only get the $50 and the 1 (0.98) cent remains on your account.
Makes sense. Fotolia always had there fractional cent currency exchange stuff. I guess it carried over.
25
« on: May 11, 2019, 10:15 »
Ive had a theory for some time on why theyre doing this and it has been kind of confirmed for me with their latest email. I even made an account here specifically to share my thoughts on this and see what you guys think: could I be right or should I hang up my Sherlock Holmes hat? (And sorry for the long tl:dr post...)
Here goes my wild theory: in their email from Thursday when they announced the 100 MB max file size, they wrote: You will only need to upload vectors, with no JPEG required. A JPEG will automatically be created for your vectors when you upload. This ensures there is a correct matching preview for your vectors, with consistent quality and minimum dimensions. (emphasis mine.)
And to me, that is the reason for this whole ugly change to the upload requirements, right there.
Why? If you upload 2 files, jpeg + vector, that have to look exactly the same, then SS needs to check if that is true, right? It would be embarrassing if a customer bought a vector and discovered that it doesnt match the preview. And that can happen easily, if the contributor has a bad design workflow or is a bit scatterbrained. You create the jpeg, then you make a quick last-minute change to the vector, forget to export a new preview, upload the two files damage done.
So SS presumably has some automated process that compares the vector to the preview (because I dont think some poor employees had to do that by hand up to now, that would be an awful waste of time & money, and even more reason to make their own previews if that is truly the case.)
And maybe that automated checking process is flawed and creates a lot of hassle for them and they want to abandon it. Or maybe they dont check if the preview and vector match at all and had problems with customers in the past because of that.
Or maybe Im totally wrong. But this is the only reason I could think of that makes sense to me, and also explains why they are not budging on this, despite all the hate theyre getting from the contributor community... it's just a shame that the program they use to create the preview is so crappy that now we all have to hike up the size of our vectors.
It could be, but they are essentially creating the same problem on their end. It is difficult to batch process thousands of vector files into jpegs. There is a lot that can go wrong and a lot of variables. Credit to them if they are smart enough to get it done without a million headaches. I have my doubts though. From a contributor perspective, I feel a bit like a factory that has spent years honing the efficiency of its production only to have one distributor ask to dismantle that whole process for no clear or relevant reason. I'm just glad I don't really have to deal with this since microstock isn't really a growing business for me anymore.
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