It's not a bad idea by itself, but looking at worsening situation, who's going to be willing to listen or even take it under consideration?

Or you could drop those agencies and negotiate with the others?

Out of those 3, I only like SS.  DT have the strange rejection policy that I have never understood and I have lost my enthusiasm with them.  FT have cut commissions too much and I really wouldn't want to have them in a select group of sites.  The last thing I want is to reward them for cutting my earnings.  Veer might be a better option but they sell less at the moment.

If SS came up with a good exclusive images deal, I would be interested but otherwise, I'm going to carry on with lots of different sites.

Never mind what you like, you have to go with the selling power, put personal feelings aside and think dollars.

Quote from: sharpshot on October 10, 2011, 09:38

Out of those 3, I only like SS.  DT have the strange rejection policy that I have never understood and I have lost my enthusiasm with them.  FT have cut commissions too much and I really wouldn't want to have them in a select group of sites.  The last thing I want is to reward them for cutting my earnings.  Veer might be a better option but they sell less at the moment.

If SS came up with a good exclusive images deal, I would be interested but otherwise, I'm going to carry on with lots of different sites.

Never mind what you like, you have to go with the selling power, put personal feelings aside and think dollars.

I think I'm more likely to go exclusive with istock   Even if you can negotiate better terms with FT, will they stand by them?  I really don't trust a site that has had so many commission cuts.  This strategy doesn't appeal to me at all.  I'm out.

Quote from: lagereek on October 10, 2011, 09:44

Never mind what you like, you have to go with the selling power, put personal feelings aside and think dollars.

If it's pure earnings power, then I'd have to include iStock. But, that negotiation ship set sail without me in 2010. Same with FT. There isn't too much negotiation to be done with SS. I assume they run some pretty tight margins.

That would leave just DT from your list to negotiate with, and I'm not sure they offer enough sales to go exclusive with. So, I'm not sure I get the point?

Negotiate with IS ?  are you kidding me?  they wouldnt give you a penny for anything,  have you forgotten they are migrating to TS?  the biggest cheap-skate agency existing. You would be better off negotiating with Scrooge.

Quote from: lagereek on October 10, 2011, 11:10

Negotiate with IS ?  are you kidding me?  they wouldnt give you a penny for anything,  have you forgotten they are migrating to TS?  the biggest cheap-skate agency existing. You would be better off negotiating with Scrooge.

I guess that was my point. I didn't see an opportunity to really negotiate with any of the agencies you listed, so why bother. There are plenty of agencies that offer good deals already, but you don't want to talk about them or support them. You've created a Catch 22 for yourself.

What are you talking about?  catch22 ? I have created a bloody good deal for myself and thats free to anybody to do,  BUT, you do have to have a cosiderable port or unique material, otherwise  its pointless. This I did over a year back.

Quote from: lagereek on October 10, 2011, 11:30

What are you talking about?  catch22 ? I have created a bloody good deal for myself and thats free to anybody to do,  BUT, you do have to have a cosiderable port or unique material, otherwise  its pointless. This I did over a year back.

OK. Now, I'm confused. Do you already have these deals? I thought this was a theory or hypothetical on how to make more. And my point was that I thought most of the larger agencies didn't give sweet heart deals anymore or it wouldn't be an option for most if not all contributors.

I apologize if my tone was a little harsh.

Thats OK,  yes I already have these deals.

Negotiate with IS ?  are you kidding me?  they wouldnt give you a penny for anything,  have you forgotten they are migrating to TS?  the biggest cheap-skate agency existing. You would be better off negotiating with Scrooge.

Funnily enough as an exclusive you get more from Scrooge at 0.40 for subs downloads than non-exclusives get from SS. If you look at overall percentages that are paid out for licensing content, IS is also significantly higher than SS, because it pays exclusive percentages on about half the sales.

SS have been smart in finding a formula, and not changing it once it worked, but in percentage terms, they're still the lowest paying agency amongst the top 4, which is how its been since they started.

DT and FT are the agencies that started with the premise that they paid more than the competition, but both started whittling back the percentages once they had enough content. FT is known for cutting special deals on ranking with some contributors, and who knows DT might do something as well, but its unlikely to be for everyone who asks.

OK. I want 50% commission from Fotolia. That's my demand. Good for the industry. How about it then?

SS have been smart in finding a formula, and not changing it once it worked, but in percentage terms, they're still the lowest paying agency amongst the top 4, which is how its been since they started.

How do you work that out? I get about 30% from SS but only 18% from Istock. Istock are by far the lowest paying agency when compared directly to others on either exclusive or non-exclusive terms. The only difference with SS is that they don't have an exclusive option ... yet.

Instead of always trying to run down the competition to Istock you'd better start waking up to the fact that you've jumped on-board a sinking ship. They've run that ship into the rocks and my guess is that it won't be too much longer before you'll be begging SS & DT to rescue your portfolio earnings.

I know this is off topic, but I agree with Holgs. SS pays less than the others. Even with On Demand, at the highest rate and with more EL's than the others, it still averages out to far less than most sites (per download) because of all the subs.

So what do you think "it averages out to" then? What information are you basing your guess on?

Back in 2004/5, when SS had been going for a few months, Oringer stated on the forum that SS were paying out between 36-40% in commissions on sub sales (if I remember the figures correctly). Don't forget that it was a relatively new business model and it relied on subscribers to not download their full entitlement to be profitable at all. It was a risk borne by SS. Since then SS has always had to tread the tightrope between paying high enough commissions to ensure contributors did not go exclusive with Istock whilst also remaining profitable.

Also remember that SS are probably paying out a 3c referral fee on most subscription sales in addition to the commission for the photographer. I only have one referral (my brother) who has a small portfolio but even so I've earned nearly $1K from his sales.

What about subscriber behaviour? To me it is conceivable that a subscriber might only download about 10 images a day, out of their allowance of 25, and probably few or none on weekends. Any fewer than that and the subscription would probably not be good value. All in all I'd guess that SS are probably averaging a bit more than 30% in commissions and referrals.

Are they talking about average dollars per download, rather than percentage commission?

Holgs said "in percentage terms".