MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Dreamstime.com => Topic started by: Danybot on March 19, 2009, 18:24
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I've been with Dreamstime for over a year now. My average acceptance rate has been 58%, and never more than 65% in any month. All of a sudden, so far this month of March, with 21 submissions, my acceptance rate has jumped to 86%. I don't think my photos have gotten any better. Actually, I think my acceptance rate should have been this high all along :)
I'm curious, is it just a fluke with my submissions, or are they getting easier for everybody? Are they trying to rapidly increase the number of files they have on-line?
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Sometimes I think it is the luck of the draw with the reviewers. I have had over 80% acceptance overall but this month I am getting lots of rejections.
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I've been a pretty solid 80% acceptance over the past 6 months. The only places where I have higher acceptance rates are stockxpert and canstock
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Sometimes I think it is the luck of the draw with the reviewers. I have had over 80% acceptance overall but this month I am getting lots of rejections.
Until January/February I would have disagreed with you, then I had 100% accepted in Jan. and 26% in Feb. Where they were approving photos in groups of 3 to 5 every few days. One day, one reviewer went through and rejected all 44 of my waiting images. I appealed and actually got a personal reply from the reviewer.
We have changed our policy because this subject is not very salable on Dreamstime.
You all know what I'm going to write next. Feb. was my BME across all sites, except DT, selling this series of images, and the same subject was my first EL at SS this week. ;D Five of my ten most popular images on DT are from this series. My last three sales and one OD download on DT were from the same series. March is exceeding Feb. so far, mostly sales of the same group of images.
I'm not changing my position. It's their site and they know what's best for their goals and target audience. They can do whatever they want. But this is apparently a mistake on DTs part. I have more sales at StockXpert with these this month. That's a very unlikely scenario that StockXpert would ever outsell DT in any month.
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Sometimes I think it is the luck of the draw with the reviewers. I have had over 80% acceptance overall but this month I am getting lots of rejections.
I appealed and actually got a personal reply from the reviewer.
We have changed our policy because this subject is not very salable on Dreamstime.
It has been my experience that appealing is a waste of time if the original reviewer is the one who responds (which seems to usually be the case at DT). They will always defend their initial review (and honestly, why wouldn't they?). It's too bad their isn't a Scout-like appeals process at DT and FT (though at FT I'd probably need a limit of 30 a month instead of 3!). ::)
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My acceptance rate is certainly going up in the past 2-3 months. Lets keep in mind that I have been working hard at getting my best and brightest up though - and only the newest. I've been there a couple years myself and started with them - so it was a learning experience for me. In the beginning, I uploaded anything and everything, which came back and bit me in the butt when I realized acceptance rate effects searches. Lately, I have been trying to bump up the acceptance rate and the last couple months it hasn't been under 85% or so. This month was 100% until yesterday when I had one file rejected...I'm also wondering if others are seeing the same trend.
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I personally saw a increase in rejections on my last batch, most of them..."just not what we are looking for" (http://www.microstockgroup.com/Smileys/default/angry.gif)
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They take my isolations, but the other stuff has the same AR as normal.
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mine has been slowly going up over the last few months but I put that down to an improvement in my photography
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Mine is 100% in March, but then I uploaded just one image. ;D
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My rate has also been going up steadily.
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My acceptance rate is 81.5% overall and 97.80% in march with 90 images uploaded, but sales are really * slow lately. Dreamstime is occupying a generous place 4 in my earners, after SS, StockXpert, FT in that order.
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I had acceptance rate above 80%, but last month I get lots of rejections.
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I had acceptance rate above 80%, but last month I get lots of rejections.
Yes, of the obnoxious "we don't need this image" type. It drags down your overall acceptance for nothing. I think the reviewers are a bit nervous by the upload problems and they will be flooded once the problems are over and be too picky. I'll just give DT a break for 4 weeks and hamster my batches. When the Atillas are gone, I just open the floodgates again ;D
The beast doesn't need to be fed regularly like SS.
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I am getting a lot of rejections in the last month as well, many of them for "Lack of Composition" and "Very well covered subject".
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I think I'm going to take a break too...
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I find DT acceptance consistent since I started - if anything they have improved. I have 73% acceptance and 92 images (just started there in January). But my sales suck there... Only $9 earned so far vs hundreds earned at SS and IS in the same period. DT buyers seem to not care for my stuff...
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I also get lots of rejections because of this "Very well covered subject"-thing...
especialy when I upload flowers and textures ;D ;D ;D
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I encourage you to reply to the refusal email whenever you have strong doubts. Don't make a habit out of this though. We will not able to reply to contributors who complain to each and every efusal.
But whenever you feel your image was good and you have a statement supporting that, send a reply and it will be analyzed. The email reaches a senior editor who gives a second review. He may approve your image (and you get the approval email). If his opinion stays the same about the refusal, the initial editor will provide you with a few hints or may decide to accept it. We receive lots of emails so don't expect a veery long email from them.
Sometimes they change their minds or at least guide you. You have two people who will ensure your image was not accidentaly refused in the first place. And that happens too, no one is perfect.
The uploading issues didn't affect reviewers and the upload pace was very similar to before. We increased the team significantly lately, so next week you should see a pending line close to 0. Which is a first thing in years.
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Yes, I've noticed my photos have been reviewed much faster.
Thank you :)
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I encourage you to reply to the refusal email whenever you have strong doubts. Don't make a habit out of this though. We will not able to reply to contributors who complain to each and every efusal.
But whenever you feel your image was good and you have a statement supporting that, send a reply and it will be analyzed. The email reaches a senior editor who gives a second review. He may approve your image (and you get the approval email). If his opinion stays the same about the refusal, the initial editor will provide you with a few hints or may decide to accept it. We receive lots of emails so don't expect a veery long email from them.
Sometimes they change their minds or at least guide you. You have two people who will ensure your image was not accidentaly refused in the first place. And that happens too, no one is perfect.
The uploading issues didn't affect reviewers and the upload pace was very similar to before. We increased the team significantly lately, so next week you should see a pending line close to 0. Which is a first thing in years.
Well, for your info, i did wrote an email..... no reply.
Patrick H.
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But whenever you feel your image was good and you have a statement supporting that, send a reply and it will be analyzed. The email reaches a senior editor who gives a second review. He may approve your image (and you get the approval email).
Well, for your info, i did wrote an email..... no reply.
Patrick H.
I've tried this about 6-10 times over the years. Sometimes I never get a response, a few times I have had some success. But the last few times I tried, the same reviewer just replied back, reinforcing their original decision. Of course the same reviewer is not going to change their mind all of a sudden!
As others have mentioned, I'm also taking a DT uploading hiatus. Tired of all the "too specific" or "well covered" rejections. I'll wait until server space becomes more available. ;D
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Sometimes they change their minds or at least guide you. You have two people who will ensure your image was not accidentaly refused in the first place. And that happens too, no one is perfect.
It has been said here many times that DT has very consistent reviews. The only issue seemed to be the "we don't need this image" of an image technically OK. It's certainly subjective, since noise and bad lighting are easy to see, but salability is always a more or less educated guess, based on the reviewer's experience of his own port and that might be biased to some degree.
The last time I objected was 2-3 years ago. It got approved, but it just had 2 sales. In general, it's overkill to object about borderline rejects, considering time spent on emailing and researching in the DB that the subject was indeed "not very well covered". You lose at least 30 mins better spent on producing new images.
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I've tried this about 6-10 times over the years. Sometimes I never get a response, a few times I have had some success. But the last few times I tried, the same reviewer just replied back, reinforcing their original decision. Of course the same reviewer is not going to change their mind all of a sudden!
Well that's not really a "second" opinion. Review should be done by a senior reviewer like Scout on Istock. Achilles confirmed that. FYI: I always got a reply, if not by email, just by seeing the image coming online. But I only objected twice in 3,5 years at DT.
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Seems that the reviews are quite fast right now. Faster than SS actually.
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It has been said here many times that DT has very consistent reviews. The only issue seemed to be the "we don't need this image" of an image technically OK. It's certainly subjective, since noise and bad lighting are easy to see, but salability is always a more or less educated guess, based on the reviewer's experience of his own port and that might be biased to some degree.
I agree.
It seems to me that a solution might be to give the benefit of the doubt, and add a time limit into the system. If an image doesn't sell at least once in a given period of time (one year? six months?), then give it the boot. I know we've all read stories of someone who had an image that sat for 2 years without a sale and then out of the blue got an EL. But in most cases, if an image doesn't sell at least once in a year, it probably isn't worth keep around.
I'd rather have the marketplace determine that than a reviewer, who may or may not be right.
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We increased the team significantly lately, so next week you should see a pending line close to 0. Which is a first thing in years.
The review times are much faster now, down from a week to only a day or two. It's much appreciated!
I got a very helpful answer the one time I questioned a refusal at DT. It didn't get accepted, but I got a more logical reason than the initial "not suitable for stock", and some helpful tips.
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One final comment on this "overabundant / too specific" issue, and then I think it's time for me to move on! ;D
Try this: Do a search for: cheeseburger fries and sort by most recent (upload date - descending).
Of the first 80, look how many images are so similar as to be almost indistinguishable from one another.
The worst offender (more than 40 of the 80!) isn't even a cheeseburger, and many of them don't even have a single french fry! (I realize this last part is a keywording issue, and not related to the overabundant / too specific problem.)
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It seems to me that resubmissions are reviewed by the same reviewer again and it does make sense that they will not change their mind about the picture.
What's even worse is when they refuse an image for one reason, and after resubmission, they refuse it for "This is a very well covered subject in our database", and all that with their search being affected by acceptance rate. I will not be resubmitting my pictures there at all.
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If it's not well covered, then your photo is too specific. You can't win. ;D