MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Cutcaster => Topic started by: Cricket on July 15, 2010, 18:15
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I send files to Cutcaster that have gotten accepted by other agencies-- agencies that do far more business each day than probably Cutcaster could ever hope for in a year... and yet they get rejected by Cutcaster for "poor lighting" or "over filtered". ???
Is Cutcaster even worth bothering with or should I just blow them off altogether??
Has anyone had any consistent sales with them??
Cricket
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I send files to Cutcaster that have gotten accepted by other agencies-- agencies that do far more business each day than probably Cutcaster could ever hope for in a year... and yet they get rejected by Cutcaster for "poor lighting" or "over filtered". ???
Is Cutcaster even worth bothering with or should I just blow them off altogether??
Has anyone had any consistent sales with them??
Cricket
nah
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who cares if they accept or reject pictures?
I uploaded most of my port months ago and not a single sale
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I send files to Cutcaster that have gotten accepted by other agencies-- agencies that do far more business each day than probably Cutcaster could ever hope for in a year... and yet they get rejected by Cutcaster for "poor lighting" or "over filtered". ???
Is Cutcaster even worth bothering with or should I just blow them off altogether??
Has anyone had any consistent sales with them??
Cricket
NONE
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I wouldn't say consistent but I have had sales. Quite a few as a matter of fact. But, the images were all exclusive to Cutcaster.
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Can you post the photos that got rejected? Just writing what you did without any examples doesn't help much. I'd also like to see what others say about your images that were rejected.
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I sell something every now and then. Will keep uploading when I get the chance. I don't know if they will improve sales but they wont be able to if we all stop uploading. So many people complain about the big sites but what can we do about it if we don't fully support the sites that give us a better commission and don't use subs?
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I like Cutcuster and I really appreciate kindness and courtesy of John Griffin. I root for them to have success but... almost 2 years, 800+ images and 1 sale...
I'm not the most talented photographer around, that's clear. But, to make a comparison, I've uploaded same amount of images on DepositPhotos six months ago and now I have 10 sales. Little money but something moving, at least...
Maybe with some more advertising...
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Is Cutcaster even worth bothering with or should I just blow them off altogether??
Has anyone had any consistent sales with them??
I've given up on cc.
I'm also no great photgrapher, but at least my images on other smaller sites have sold a few times by now.
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I like Cutcuster and I really appreciate kindness and courtesy of John Griffin. I root for them to have success but... almost 2 years, 800+ images and 1 sale...
I'm not the most talented photographer around, that's clear. But, to make a comparison, I've uploaded same amount of images on DepositPhotos six months ago and now I have 10 sales. Little money but something moving, at least...
Maybe with some more advertising...
Same with me, I uploaded 700-800 images, mostly exclusive (added best sellers from other sites). So, I gave them a chance but after 6-7 months with no sales at all, those images are not exclusive anymore. I stopped uploading, there was no point.
I like their idea but they have to do something to improve sales.
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I like their idea but they have to do something to improve sales.
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+1
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Cutcaster to the rescue. Just as July seems to be a total bust ... "HEY ... you got anything from the 1983 USGP in Unadilla?"
Yep. They are all exclusive at Cutcaster. Take care of this guy, John. ;D
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I send files to Cutcaster that have gotten accepted by other agencies-- agencies that do far more business each day than probably Cutcaster could ever hope for in a year... and yet they get rejected by Cutcaster for "poor lighting" or "over filtered". ???
Is Cutcaster even worth bothering with or should I just blow them off altogether??
Has anyone had any consistent sales with them??
Cricket
I'm having the same issue. Photos that have been accepted at other agencies are being rejected at Cutcaster as "poor lighting" "over filtered" etc. Now--I can't see why I got rejected for over filtering when no filtering was applied during the shoot or in post.
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Rejection reasons sound plenty like Shutterstock and Istock sound like same reviewer
. My thinking is same reviewer moonlite for Shutterstock Istock and Cutcaster.
Cutcaster is good promise for more money like Alamy and Deposit Photo but already we know big commission of zero is zero. Already we see 25 cents of Shutterstock make more money in fraction of time than bigger promise of Istock, and Istock times 4 per download make better promise of earning than Cutcaster of many times bigger earning.
My idea is more relistic to give to Canstock and Bigstock and Dreamstime then lower position biggest commission agencies.
Maybe more realistic pricing by Cutcaster can show better realisation of promise of bigger earning. But already too many big promise agencies die early death. I am surprise Cutcaster Deposit Photo still alive.
We all remember Oliver, Photoshelter, Zymmet,
and still we look at tier big 4 no change to right of column.
Only Shutterstock and Istock in same place .
Pretty obvious nice to wish for more money but better to face realism with what I see in my wallet from Shutterstock.
Next in line is close neck and neck race Istock Fotolia Dreamstime.
Not likely to see anyone else change position .
Once again my own story.
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Hi!
I am the Creative Director for CutCaster. My philosophy for review at Cutcaster is to look for the cleanest, most usable images out there. We may be small, but we are growing. In talking to our buyers, they would much prefer to find the best image, not millions of so-so images. I am more than eager to help you understand your rejections.
For those of you submitting and not selling yet, hang in there! We are a very small, very busy crew doing more in the background to get you sales than you can imagine.
Cora
[email protected]
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Oh hi Cora :)
I remember you - you posted a long while back, and used to be the Creative Director at one of the big four didn't you?
Hope you're enjoying your new role at Cutcaster :)
I've always liked the ethos of CC, so I do hope that sales pick up there.
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I got on board with CC early on with quite a few stock video clips - a significant investment of time uploading, keywording, etc. No sales, and then a complete redesign, eliminating video from the site. I uploaded some stills, including material that had sold at other sites, and the high rejection rate with seemingly random reasons led me to the conclusion that it's not a site that is worth my time investment.
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I got on board with CC early on with quite a few stock video clips - a significant investment of time uploading, keywording, etc. No sales, and then a complete redesign, eliminating video from the site. I uploaded some stills, including material that had sold at other sites, and the high rejection rate with seemingly random reasons led me to the conclusion that it's not a site that is worth my time investment.
No photo sales also!
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I had my first sale last month, after two years.
Which ruined their exclusive record as the one and only NO seller. Now they're just one more very low seller for me.
I am not giving up: if sales keep coming at this rate, I will get a payout in 2040, hopefully for Christmas.
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The thing that puzzled me about CutCaster is that I long ago stopped getting any views on any of my images. Most of these images continue to sell steadily, if only occassionally, on the big sites and some do pretty well. If all my images have gone stone cold dead on CC, there's really no point in even leaving them there.
I'm not necessarily blaming CC for this. But in the mind of the contributor there's a big difference between "little action" and "no action".
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seems very slow to me too, though I have only been uploading there for about a month. my top image has something like 14 views and top vector 15 views.
i have even added some images to the freebies on the site, but only 1 has had a single download and most of the freebies have under 10 views even. the odd image I have added for free on other sites, have had 100s of downloads.
makes me think that the site as a whole is not getting the traffic it should.
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Perhaps John has kept costs low and can keep Cutcaster going but it isn't encouraging when sales are this low after all this time. Even FeaturePics are outperforming Cutcaster for me, the little bit of optimism that I had is dwindling.
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Cutcaster still works for me. Not selling a lot and what sells (so far) is exclusive to CC. Have a payout pending now.
They do have the lowest payout requirement that I know; $20, US.
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I've been driving around non-stop looking for 'motocross' events, but no one here in Minnesota seems to know what I'm talking about... ;D
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I've been driving around non-stop looking for 'motocross' events, but no one here in Minnesota seems to know what I'm talking about... ;D
I forgot to mention that the images I'm selling at Cutcaster are over 30 years old. Most are B&W. ;D
PS: motocross season ended. SuperCross starts after Christmas. I think Detroit or Indianapolis may be the closest ones to you?
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Sold 6 today, all small sizes and not much commission but a step in the right direction.
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I sold 2 so far this month. Hope it is continuing like this.
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Congrats, y'all. That is great to hear. I would imagine that it makes John quite happy too. ;D
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I may have to take back some of what I said. I'd quit looking at my CC account because nothing was happening there. But I just flipped through it now and I see that I've been getting some views after all, although nothing has sold. It's odd because based on experience with other sites, I'd expect a few sales for that number of views. It seems like there's more 'window shopping' at CC.
"Hope springs eternal."
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I've been driving around non-stop looking for 'motocross' events, but no one here in Minnesota seems to know what I'm talking about... ;D
That's funny that you say that. I had a Photography assignment to show pan motion, so I looked around here in South Carolina for some motocross tracks. I found a couple of place to go to online...drove around for an hour and a half and still couldn't find the one closest. No signs, nothing. It's like they are a secret or something.
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I haven't had much problems with rejections, but I'm still waiting for that first sale. I'm still uploading though.
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My first sale was in August after slowly building my portfolio of images up to a little over 200 recently since beginning in this business at start of 2010. All non-exclusive.
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First uploaded in Dec 2008. First, and only sale, was Jan 2010. Just over 400 accepted images online.
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i don't like the website layout, a good interface is needed. As a contributor you need to click a lot to get accessed your portfolio, stats..
anyone knows how to search within our own portfolio?
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No sales for one year and about 500 images online :(
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I had my second sale on Cutcaster, one day after I requested payout... ;) ;)
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1700 images online, 0 sales. Things can only get better.
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1700 images online, 0 sales. Things can only get better.
well hearing things like this makes me wonder....why would anyone even expect to get sales from a website that also offers the option of FREE IMAGES right on the front page.....Ummm am I not getting something here if I went to a website to buy an image and saw that I could either buy it or get it for free I think I would go for free!
I will not upload to sites that give free images away anymore...this model has been tried and it never works. Remove the words FREE IMAGES and I will be more than happy to upload my portfolio (i do like the idea of more fair commissions) Who started this idea that offering free images as bait would bring in buyers, it only brings in people who cant afford to pay for images. They can find plenty of free images on flicker you don't need to provide yet another place for our work to be devalued down to zero dollars.
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Who started this idea that offering free images as bait would bring in buyers, it only brings in people who cant afford to pay for images. They can find plenty of free images on flicker you don't need to provide yet another place for our work to be devalued down to zero dollars.
I agree.
If you go to the hardware store needing a tool... and hey, there's a bin marked "free tools".... they may be low quality stuff, but chances are pretty good you'll grab one you think will do the job and walk out feeling smart.
The ever-growing collections of free images are one of the things eroding what's left of microstock.
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1700 images online, 0 sales. Things can only get better.
well hearing things like this makes me wonder....why would anyone even expect to get sales from a website that also offers the option of FREE IMAGES right on the front page.....
Have a look at www.dreamstime.com (http://www.dreamstime.com), www.istockphoto.com (http://www.istockphoto.com), www.shuttestock.com (http://www.shuttestock.com) (I did not check the others). All do and all on their home page.
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Who started this idea that offering free images as bait would bring in buyers, it only brings in people who cant afford to pay for images. They can find plenty of free images on flicker you don't need to provide yet another place for our work to be devalued down to zero dollars.
I agree.
If you go to the hardware store needing a tool... and hey, there's a bin marked "free tools".... they may be low quality stuff, but chances are pretty good you'll grab one you think will do the job and walk out feeling smart.
The ever-growing collections of free images are one of the things eroding what's left of microstock.
The original argument is only partially true. It is quite possible that if superior non-fee images are offered visibly along the free ones, it can indeed make some sense. And that's how most stock sites do it.
Example:
If you Google for your free image of a 'free WOMAN SLEEPING', click say on this one
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-woman-sleeping-3-imagefree8332260 (http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-woman-sleeping-3-imagefree8332260)
You get what I'm talking about. Visible choices of non-free images jumping at you. The big red text will also tell you how cheap it is nowadays to purchase an image. And, believe it or not, some of those Googling for a free image for example for their blog won't know that.
The problem may be sometimes that the quality of the free images is surprisingly high (at least of some of them). But that really only tells us the market value of this product nowadays.