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Author Topic: April 2011 Stats  (Read 19115 times)

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« Reply #25 on: May 01, 2011, 17:36 »
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Istock exclusive.

Seems I have been lucky with the last best match shake at the end. BME again with 13% increase in DLs and 22% increase in $$. No ELs for 2 months which is strange.

Despite my numbers I cant be happy. Reading this thread here and the april earnings thread from istock forum seems something is really wrong with istock. Seeing so many strong sellers report poor numbers is worrying and gives an idea of the situation. If revenues are going down I think we all know how the new RC targets are going to be. Bad news are always delayed in time. Here I am mentally prepared to go independent whenever numbers make sense to me.


Slovenian

« Reply #26 on: May 01, 2011, 17:46 »
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I wish they post the RC targets already...  Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.
Unless I'm wrong, if you hit a target for this year, your percentage will go up as soon as you hit the target.
The sometime-to-be-announced targets will affect our percentage for NEXT year.

Not true, they'll get the missing earnings when RCs will be announced. I've read this on IS forum

nruboc

« Reply #27 on: May 01, 2011, 17:51 »
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Really bad month for me.  Down 19% from March, and down 15% from last April.  Of the four major sites, both Istock and Fotolia tanked for me.  Shutterstock and Dreamstime both saw gains, but not nearly enough to compensate for the drops on IS and Fotolia.  In (parentheses) is the % up or down from last year, for the top 4.  The others are statistically insignificant, except for Alamy, which is not a micro, but I more than doubled my monthly income there since last year.  

IStockphoto     30% (-34%)
Shutterstock   21% (+20%)
Dreamstime   16% (+2%)
Fotolia            16% (-37%)
BigStock             4%
123                      3%
CanStockPhoto       2%
Alamy              7% (+113%)

Fotolia tanked this month for me too, worst month there in a long, long time. Luckily ShutterStock picked up the slack

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #28 on: May 01, 2011, 18:30 »
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I wish they post the RC targets already...  Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.

Unless I'm wrong, if you hit a target for this year, your percentage will go up as soon as you hit the target.
The sometime-to-be-announced targets will affect our percentage for NEXT year.


Not true, they'll get the missing earnings when RCs will be announced. I've read this on IS forum


This is what I've read: official post by Roger Mexico, iStock's Spindoctor:
"As you meet each "Next Target" number, your chart will update with the next target and corresponding royalty rate. Once you reach the target for a royalty rate higher than your current percentage, you will immediately bump up to this new number and start earning this higher percentage."
Taken from the article:
http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=951

« Reply #29 on: May 01, 2011, 20:56 »
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same as March, nice month, IS and DT down

« Reply #30 on: May 01, 2011, 21:32 »
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I can't believe how crappy Fotolia has become.  They were not a subs site when I signed up.  Now it seems that all they sell is subs and XS. Where the h*ll do they find these crappy customers or are they lying on their reporting?  Even Shutterstock has a higher RPD!!!  And they sell SUBS!!!

RPD FT
Jan 0.59 
Feb 0.55
Mar 0.59
Apr 0.45

« Reply #31 on: May 02, 2011, 00:16 »
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Another month another stat thread.
Our stats:

IS exclusives at 25%
Over 2,000 photos
370 sales + 2 EL's
BME - 1,120$
Up 15% from march 2011
Up 1,078% from march 2010

Things slowed down towards the end of the month, maybe because of easter ??
I wish they post the RC targets already...  Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.

Wow, u're getting almost exactly 4x more than I do/DL. I'm getting just 0,76$ out of 110 DLs+1EL (over 300 files). And yes I'm not exclusive, still at 15% because they still haven't posted new RC targets. Looks like you're getting a lot of large size DLs, I'm mostly getting XS and S lately (although most of my files are XXL+). Worse than March, but BME on Shutterstock, so I'm quite happy since I'm earning more over there anyway.

Not raelly. As an exclusive you forget that the prices of our XS and S images are much higher then yours (2 and 5 credits accordingly) so its not just the percentage its the higher price point.
RPD is steady at: 3$

Sue: you ARE wrong. it takes affect from the day you hit the target IN ADDITION to the fact that next year you begin from that royalty rate automatically.

lagereek

« Reply #32 on: May 02, 2011, 00:44 »
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So who cares?  I mean really?  this move is to incorporate IS, with TS, i.e. selling pics for pennies. Why do you think everybody within Getty has been told to sign a new contract to allow their shots to go into TS? in a years time you will be the member of a giant based dustbin where shots are selling for 35c a piece.

So who cares abot the targets or the RC or good or bad month??  Bin-Laden is dead!  much more interesting!

best.

« Reply #33 on: May 02, 2011, 01:00 »
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Very pleased with April, but not with Istock.  Istock went down 28% from April 2010, but the other sites happily covered the loss.  All sites went up, but the real credit should go to Shutterstock and Dreamstime.  Dreamstime has become my no.3 now, taking IS's place.  Fotolia went up in downloads, but down a bit in dollars due to missing EL's.  Bottomline :  9% up compared to April 2010.  I don't compare with March, because April is ALWAYS lower than March.

« Reply #34 on: May 02, 2011, 04:37 »
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iStock exclusive

Compared to March, (which looking at it now actually wasn't too bad).
Downloads down a massive 40%
$$ "Only" down around 25%
Holidays obviously factor into this, as (in the UK at least) we had Easter, the Royal Wedding, and Spring BH all around the end of the month.
It looks to me as if the new best match with the heavy bias towards V&A files has had a bad effect on pretty well anyone with a large PF. As usual most of the people reporting increases are relatively new, and / or have smaller PFs.
At least the "V&A effect" seems to be lessening, which is good news. Lets hope they come up with the option to exclude those files from the search soon.

 
 

Slovenian

« Reply #35 on: May 02, 2011, 04:37 »
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I wish they post the RC targets already...  Expecting a bump to 30% in 7-8 days if they stay the same as last year.

Unless I'm wrong, if you hit a target for this year, your percentage will go up as soon as you hit the target.
The sometime-to-be-announced targets will affect our percentage for NEXT year.


Not true, they'll get the missing earnings when RCs will be announced. I've read this on IS forum

This is what I've read: official post by Roger Mexico, iStock's Spindoctor:
"As you meet each "Next Target" number, your chart will update with the next target and corresponding royalty rate. Once you reach the target for a royalty rate higher than your current percentage, you will immediately bump up to this new number and start earning this higher percentage."
Taken from the article:
http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=951


Indeed, they would, but they can't since the new RC targets aren't out yet. Check out this topic ;) http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=324402&page=1
« Last Edit: May 02, 2011, 04:41 by Slovenian »

« Reply #36 on: May 02, 2011, 05:02 »
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It gives me some hope when I hear IS has plummeted to many others as well. Even this is bad for my earnings, I somehow enjoy IS getting hit badly - they have asked for it a long time and now they got it.

IS has dropped almost 50% from march. The last time earnings at IS was this bad was in february 2009.

Shutterstock had a good month, really close to BME

Dreamstime has been weak for a long time, but april 2010 was the best month since June 2009

Fotolia was pretty weak in april

I don't quite follow the small agencies, but I noticed that 123rf (BME!) and Veer are up!

Even with the positive signs from Shutterstock and Dreamstime, April was horrible.
« Last Edit: May 02, 2011, 05:05 by Perry »

« Reply #37 on: May 02, 2011, 05:03 »
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Things seem to go the way depicted in my avatar :)

(I just hope the other sites would compensate for the losses)

« Reply #38 on: May 02, 2011, 06:36 »
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I am non-exclusive, started in mid 2008, and have nearly 2,000 images on most sites.

My April was pretty much as I expected based on trends of the past few years.  March hits a high point, but April can't keep the pace due to Easter and Spring Break.

March was my BME, and April fell 15% from March.  But this April beat April 2010 by 85%.  The thing I care most about is that I'm still above my growth goal line that I plotted 3 years ago, driven by my daily RPI which has slowly grown (currently at 12.5 cents a day versus about 10 cents when I started).

As for specific sites, they performed for me in this order...

1. SS (down just a few percent from March, very encouraging)
2. FT (down about 20% from March, when it was my top earner)
3. IS (down about 30% from March)
4. DT (down about 25% from March)

And "the others" held extremely well from March, performing in this order...

5. CanStockPhoto
6. BigStock
7. 123
8. DP
9. GL

I no longer submit to the "bottom of the barrel" sites, but I still track them, as pathetic as the sales are:

10. Veer
11. Fresh
12. Crestock

« Reply #39 on: May 02, 2011, 07:50 »
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I'm an IS exclusive, vectors mostly contributor. My portfolio has 632 files.  April 2011 was down 10 percent from March 2011.  April 2011 beat April 2010 by 25 percent.

« Reply #40 on: May 02, 2011, 13:14 »
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Just a horrible month. There were a few good days here and there, but some were so awful that the hole was too deep for the good days to fill.

26% down on March 2011 (which was itself 12% down on March 2010; IOW not a barn burner) in both $$ and dowloads. Compared to April 2010, DLs down 31% and $$ down 22%

I realize that I have a lot of company looking at the stats thread on IS, but I can't figure out from that if overall the site is tanking or if there's a group of silently celebrating contributors who are experiencing great sales.

I had thought I'd wait out 2011 before deciding about dropping the crown; I have been hoping that things would turn around - that IS couldn't be that self destructive.

Even given the bank holiday in the UK today, today's sales have been like a bad weekend day and I am once again seriously thinking about whether it makes any sense to wait longer for IS to pull out of its nose dive.

« Reply #41 on: May 02, 2011, 13:22 »
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Even given the bank holiday in the UK today, today's sales have been like a bad weekend day and I am once again seriously thinking about whether it makes any sense to wait longer for IS to pull out of its nose dive.

Well, I guess this explains it.  Today has been AWFUL.  IS looks like it will be about 75% down from last Monday, which was the Monday after Easter, likely an extended weekend for many people.

So, you're definitely not alone in thinking IS is tanking.  My April vs. March numbers were disappointing, but the past week or two have been especially BRUTAL.


ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #42 on: May 02, 2011, 13:36 »
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I had thought I'd wait out 2011 before deciding about dropping the crown; I have been hoping that things would turn around - that IS couldn't be that self destructive.
Fear not, they're partying in London while iStock burns.

« Reply #43 on: May 02, 2011, 13:37 »
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« Reply #44 on: May 02, 2011, 13:49 »
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Just a horrible month. There were a few good days here and there, but some were so awful that the hole was too deep for the good days to fill.

26% down on March 2011 (which was itself 12% down on March 2010; IOW not a barn burner) in both $$ and dowloads. Compared to April 2010, DLs down 31% and $$ down 22%

I realize that I have a lot of company looking at the stats thread on IS, but I can't figure out from that if overall the site is tanking or if there's a group of silently celebrating contributors who are experiencing great sales.

I had thought I'd wait out 2011 before deciding about dropping the crown; I have been hoping that things would turn around - that IS couldn't be that self destructive.

Even given the bank holiday in the UK today, today's sales have been like a bad weekend day and I am once again seriously thinking about whether it makes any sense to wait longer for IS to pull out of its nose dive.
Sounds much like the month I had. The trouble is that even if and when things pick up, we can probably make a fair guess at what the future holds. Decreasing royalties (nobody thinks that the late release of next years RC levels is good news surely), and ever increasing pressure for sales from "preferred" content.
It's one thing them wanting to maximise their profits, and another when they are doing it at the expense of people who are already signed up, and believed all the stuff in the past about them valuing their exclusive members.

« Reply #45 on: May 02, 2011, 13:55 »
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Just a horrible month. There were a few good days here and there, but some were so awful that the hole was too deep for the good days to fill.


I really don't don't know why, but I always look for your analysis of the month on IS; I guess you are one of my fav. excl. IS contributors and I value your opinion; but also feel your pain for all the loss.

« Reply #46 on: May 02, 2011, 14:00 »
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The Good:

About $1500 total for the month.

SS: BME
DT: BME
FT: 2nd BME

The Bad: Veer at $0.00

The Ugly: iStock: downloads and $$ down about 40% from March, which was a good month.  Biggest one month drop ever for iStock and down $100 from April 2010. Portfolio size is about 600 images.  Amazingly, my SS earnings beat iStock's for the first time in the 4 years I've been doing microstock, and I have a smaller portfolio on SS!

The Gostwyck hypothesis may indeed be fact...

« Reply #47 on: May 02, 2011, 14:34 »
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As a recent independent diamond, my numbers are not great, but my non-istock income jumped from 18% to 29% of total micro income. 

« Reply #48 on: May 02, 2011, 15:44 »
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but I can't figure out from that if overall the site is tanking or if there's a group of silently celebrating contributors who are experiencing great sales.

Possibly Getty, with it's wholly owned content? Maybe the handful of black diamonds who are up at the top of the most popular search terms with non-Vetta files mixed in with high-priced stuff? They might be getting a big boost from people looking for e.g. cheap "business" pictures who can only find a handful of normally priced stuff on a page. Some of the people with Vetta on the first page of important searches.

But I guess that every time a file sells for 55 credits, ten other five-credit sales don't happen as agencies try to balance their budgets. So, at best, it is redistributing the cash towards V/A. It is also very possible that the 55 credit sale means that 20 other five-credit sales don't happen, as buyers go elsewhere. Can iStock make more money on a lower turnover by pushing the remaining money heavily towards Agency files?

« Reply #49 on: May 02, 2011, 16:11 »
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Can iStock make more money on a lower turnover by pushing the remaining money heavily towards Agency files?

I can't see that happening. In their desperation to accelerate profits (before the impending sale) Istock have accidently crashed the car. They've tested the patience of buyers beyond their limits and lost the trust of contributors too. Things will never, ever be the same again. It's as simple as that.


 

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