Author Topic: Exclusivity, yes or no? (Read 28571 times)

graficallyminded · « **Reply #50 on:** July 08, 2009, 15:41 »

I'm exclusive only to my wife.

Phil · « **Reply #51 on:** July 08, 2009, 17:29 »

ooohhh you've left yourself so open with that one, especially with the pickle. But its a public forum and I wont go there

puravida · « **Reply #52 on:** July 08, 2009, 18:33 »

Quote from: Phil on July 08, 2009, 17:29

ooohhh you've left yourself so open with that one, especially with the pickle. But its a public forum and I wont go there

yes, we need to practise a bit of discretion here. we won't want Tyler to start rating comments (R- G - X - PG) . let's keep this PG at worst

grp_photo · « **Reply #53 on:** July 09, 2009, 04:05 »

YEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (but not for me

)

fotografer · « **Reply #54 on:** July 09, 2009, 04:12 »

That's my favourite answer.

Quote from: grp_photo on July 09, 2009, 04:05

YEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (but not for me )

Adeptris · « **Reply #55 on:** July 09, 2009, 05:14 »

Personal choice question with plus and minus points for both exclusive and non-exclusive.

If the revenue and effort contributing to other websites outweighs the extra benefit of going exclusive then it is likely not a sound move.

If the benefit of going exclusive outweighs the revenue and effort uploading to other websites then it could be a sound move.

Other considerations are Istocks RF trading restrictions and changes in the industry, some other websites will quickly follow Istock and Veer and have a premium collection within a library and this will becomes accepted practice, so there is a possibility that on the now slower sites that do follow Istocks move, you may in the future be reaching a payout point far quicker.

As much as content providers can be exclusive to one website, many customers will find an asset website and open an account, and will just stick with that website, banks offer nice incentive to ‘high risk’ customers in school children and students, because the banks know that often your first bank is the only one you will use, if they provide a good service why move to save a few cents or pennies.

Exclusives can say the buyers can only find their assets on Istock, the same argument can be said that the other agencies will have some exclusive customer who will never see the exclusive artist’s assets, and as an exclusive you are affected more by policy changes if 100% of your stock income comes from just the one website.

David

Perry · « **Reply #56 on:** July 09, 2009, 06:14 »

I would never be exclusive. Years ago I was exclusive with IS, but then I thought that I could make more by submitting also to other sites, and I was right. I believe that it's not a good thing to have "all eggs in one basket". Businesses grow and businesses die, and it may happen quite fast. What would IS exclusives think if IS sales dropped by 50% (that is a very possible scenario).

Submitting to many sites makes my monthly earnings much more stable.

ichiro17 · « **Reply #57 on:** July 09, 2009, 07:35 »

Quote from: Perry on July 09, 2009, 06:14

I would never be exclusive. Years ago I was exclusive with IS, but then I thought that I could make more by submitting also to other sites, and I was right. I believe that it's not a good thing to have "all eggs in one basket". Businesses grow and businesses die, and it may happen quite fast. What would IS exclusives think if IS sales dropped by 50% (that is a very possible scenario).

Submitting to many sites makes my monthly earnings much more stable.

Not necessarily more stable, but it spreads the risk. With that I agree. I have had no issues with stability with my iStock portfolio, but maybe thats just my portfolio and it doesn't apply to others. The biggest logical hole I can poke into your argument is that if iStock dies, your exclusivity agreement is useless and you can run away if you want. You can then submit to all the sites (not that I would want to submit to more than 5 or 6 because its a gigantic waste in my opinion) and you may or may not be any further behind, depending on the situation.

The all the eggs in one basket cliche is becoming the most annoying phrase in this business. There are many people with these proverbial eggs in iStock's basket and many of them are doing great. You have the few disgruntled exclusive submitters who just comlpain the majority of the time, but they are going to be everywhere.

My advice is: Do your research, educate yourselves and then make a well-informed decision on estimates you can derive from first- and secondhand- opinions. There is no other way to do it. If you listen to everyone else, you will just get more confused.

dirkr · « **Reply #58 on:** July 09, 2009, 07:51 »

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 07:35

Not necessarily more stable, but it spreads the risk. With that I agree. I have had no issues with stability with my iStock portfolio, but maybe thats just my portfolio and it doesn't apply to others. The biggest logical hole I can poke into your argument is that if iStock dies, your exclusivity agreement is useless and you can run away if you want. You can then submit to all the sites (not that I would want to submit to more than 5 or 6 because its a gigantic waste in my opinion) and you may or may not be any further behind, depending on the situation.

But what if Istock doesn't die but just slowly looses business? Then you'll have to make a decision (without first hand knowledge about download trends in other agencies) if and when to pull the plug.

As others have said before, I think becoming exklusive is an easier decision than going back to independant.

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 07:35

The all the eggs in one basket cliche is becoming the most annoying phrase in this business. There are many people with these proverbial eggs in iStock's basket and many of them are doing great. You have the few disgruntled exclusive submitters who just comlpain the majority of the time, but they are going to be everywhere.

It may be only a boring cliche as long as the basket is sitting firmly on the table (and that seems to be the situation right now).
But once it starts slipping down, you want to get the eggs out as fast as you can.

(Paying for health insurance is just a waste of money - as long as you are not sick...)

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 07:35

My advice is: Do your research, educate yourselves and then make a well-informed decision on estimates you can derive from first- and secondhand- opinions. There is no other way to do it. If you listen to everyone else, you will just get more confused.

That is absolutely true, everyone as he/she wishes.
But listening to other people might give you some hints what variables in the equation to consider.

ichiro17 · « **Reply #59 on:** July 09, 2009, 08:20 »

To counter your points:
If the situation is that bad or getting bad, going back to independent won't be so difficult. You will be able to see it coming, and if you are that unhappy with the situation, then you have a decision to make. No one said it was ever going to be an easy one.

Insurance is a zero-sum game. I'm not sure how to apply the insurance game to many sites, so I'm not going to try. Just remember that tables don't fall over if they are built properly. You wouldn't go exclusive with crestock or bigstock because those tables are not being run as effectively as iStock. Im not saying they are bad sites (well maybe Crestock) but iStock has a lot of money and a lot of industry knowledge behind it. Makes the table much more stable. If you want to spread your risk, going outside the microstock industry adn finding contract work is a better way to spread that risk. When you pull an elastic to wrap it around as much as possible, sometimes it doesn't work the way you think it would.

All I know is that its getting very difficult for new entrants to come into this industry and make an impact (bye LO). Takeovers are starting, and the consolidation part of the industry is starting, which means the big boys come out to play and the little boys get trampled. Will this be how it works? Not sure. But with Getty buying Jupiter, the writing is on the wall...

Perry · « **Reply #60 on:** July 09, 2009, 08:26 »

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 08:20

To counter your points:
If the situation is that bad or getting bad, going back to independent won't be so difficult.

Uploading files to all the other sites could be considered a big task.

ichiro17 · « **Reply #61 on:** July 09, 2009, 09:04 »

Quote from: Perry on July 09, 2009, 08:26

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 08:20
To counter your points:
If the situation is that bad or getting bad, going back to independent won't be so difficult.

Uploading files to all the other sites could be considered a big task.

You guys are all over the board in terms of opinions

From some not caring about uploading everywhere (I've done it, and I love not having to do it) to guys who hate iStock's upload process so much that they'd rather upload everywhere instead.

willie · « **Reply #62 on:** July 09, 2009, 09:48 »

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 09:04

You guys are all over the board in terms of opinions

From some not caring about uploading everywhere (I've done it, and I love not having to do it) to guys who hate iStock's upload process so much that they'd rather upload everywhere instead.

Which isn't a bad thing , ichiro17, we can't all think alike. That's the beauty of the forum, to evoke opinions and move mountains (hopefully).

Back to you, what 's your take after going exclusive. Are you earning more, less, same,

as before being independent all over the board?
Care to share your actual data? Wish you well as usual , as I am one of those who is sitting on the fence, for now !

ichiro17 · « **Reply #63 on:** July 09, 2009, 10:32 »

No numbers to give, but I will say that right now the growth has been wonderful from IS and I had my 2nd best month of the year as an exclusive in June vs. Jan to May being non-exclusive.

Upload limits help.

PixelBytes · « **Reply #64 on:** July 09, 2009, 12:07 »

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 09:04

Quote from: Perry on July 09, 2009, 08:26
Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 08:20
To counter your points:
If the situation is that bad or getting bad, going back to independent won't be so difficult.

Uploading files to all the other sites could be considered a big task.

You guys are all over the board in terms of opinions

From some not caring about uploading everywhere (I've done it, and I love not having to do it) to guys who hate iStock's upload process so much that they'd rather upload everywhere instead.

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but to me, there is a vast difference between spending the last couple years uploading to 6 - 8 sites in small batches at the same time and slowly building a portfolio of several thousand images, VS having to reupload those thousands of images all together to 6 or more sites if I decided to drop istock exclusivity.

So yeah, it is not a lot of trouble to upload to istock plus a number of others at the same time. OTOH if I had to spend the 6 months waiting time and countless hours deleting my portfolios across the micros, and then changed my mind about exclusivity it would be a massive PITA to have to reupload to all those sites again.

Same for istock exclusives who decide to drop exclusivity. Their earnings would be instantly cut in half (if they are diamond) and, assuming a decent sized portfolio, it would take months of hard work to get their ports on the other major sites. Not to mention the time it would take to build up a reputation with their buyers, get favorable search positions, etc. Probably a year or two just to get back to what they were making on istock.

Seems to me that after a certain portfolio size and ranking you risk a lot by changing course either way.

ichiro17 · « **Reply #65 on:** July 09, 2009, 12:32 »

Definitely a big risk. Is it worth it? Not for me to decide that for you

Just a quick math problem for you guys

If I was to drop exclusivity, I would only upload to:

Bigstock because I like the mgmt and they were regular in sales (not sure about upload limits)
FT because they are of the big 4 and you can't not, even though they will reject everything because they feel like it (no limits, just reject everything quickly)
DT (has a limit, but say 1000 photos at 50 pics per day, 20 days of uploading)
SS (Can be beneficial to do it slowly)

Here's the big question - is the time you save with iStock over time as an exclusive equal to the time you will spend in the future uploading to these sites? All hypothetical though

cascoly · « **Reply #66 on:** July 09, 2009, 13:18 »

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 12:32

Here's the big question - is the time you save with iStock over time as an exclusive equal to the time you will spend in the future uploading to these sites? All hypothetical though

that's easy -- here IS exclusivity wins - but that's not the real comparison -- you need to factor in the lost sales at those other sites. 2 yrs ago dt & is were my best performers. now is barely registers, and ss and dt trade off 1st place each month - if i had gone exclusive with any of them, i'd have missed out on 60-70% of income over the last year or so. the new exclusive site would have to have DOUBLED income immediately just to break even

for me, i've stopped upl to FT - it's just not worth the time, but continue with ss, dt, BigStock, sx and is in that order

my bottleneck is editing and IPTC captioning - i've got about 500 images that just need iptc right now. once done with that, i just setup ftp to all sites as the last thing i do [takes maybe 1' per site]

steve

ichiro17 · « **Reply #67 on:** July 09, 2009, 13:21 »

Well I've tripled my IS income after exclusivity, which makes up for anything I might have lost so far as non-exclusive. I have no issues with that, which is why the question isn't so easy and why its not so clear cut.

cascoly · « **Reply #68 on:** July 09, 2009, 18:06 »

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 13:21

Well I've tripled my IS income after exclusivity, which makes up for anything I might have lost so far as non-exclusive. I have no issues with that, which is why the question isn't so easy and why its not so clear cut.

that's great -- what % of your sales was from IS before you switched?

s

ichiro17 · « **Reply #69 on:** July 09, 2009, 18:26 »

39% to 43% of the total for the most part. It was always a toss up who the winner would be with SS. But I feel SS is a monster that constantly needs feeding orelse it doesn't perform, another reason why I switched - I can't keep up with that.

gostwyck · « **Reply #70 on:** July 09, 2009, 23:00 »

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 18:26

39% to 43% of the total for the most part. It was always a toss up who the winner would be with SS. But I feel SS is a monster that constantly needs feeding orelse it doesn't perform, another reason why I switched - I can't keep up with that.

So even at 40%, as a silver level contributor, you appear be losing about 30% of your total income. That must be pretty painful?

Despite the fact that IS are doing very well for me recently (averaging about 35% of income over the last year) I'd be losing about $1000 per month if I were exclusive. I can most surely bear the extra time to upload my average of 50-odd files a month to other sites for that difference in income __ an hour or two at most I would think.

ichiro17 · « **Reply #71 on:** July 10, 2009, 07:36 »

Gostwyck, you are a moron (so this post is for you):

Lets do simple math (since you can't) and you can't read either.

Lets say I used to make $1 a month with all my sites. If I averaged 35% (low end) of that as IS income before exclusive, I would make 35 cents from iStock

Since going exclusive, my income has tripled (as I have stated already but since you can't read you wouldn't get that). Therefore, I make .35 x 3 (3 is the number you would use if you triple something). I'll give you a few minutes to use a calculator to catch up.

....wait for it

....wait for it...

Anyways, I don't know if you've caught up with technology and learned how to use that calculator, but .35 x 3 is $1.05, which, if you were wondering, is greater than $1. Therefore, dumbass, I haven't lost anything or if I have, not much at all accounting for any ebb/flows.

Now, since your country's school system wasn't that good to you, I hope you can find the mental capacity to leave my posts alone so that I can share my experiences with others on this forum in a calm manner. I hope you can find someone else to harass on another forum that encourages bad math, poor reading skills and unsubstantiated arrogance. I don't know why you have something against people at iStock (me, or Stacey Newman or whoever) (by the way, since you are so awesome, why don't you post a portfolio link?) can you please go away. I'm sick of you, and I'm sure a lot of other people are, although they are much more polite and they don't say it.

graficallyminded · « **Reply #72 on:** July 10, 2009, 08:34 »

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 13:21

Well I've tripled my IS income after exclusivity, which makes up for anything I might have lost so far as non-exclusive. I have no issues with that, which is why the question isn't so easy and why its not so clear cut.

That sounds great and all, but everyone has to examine their own stats - and obviously we all have completely different content. If I tripled my avg istock monthly earnings, I'd still only be making around 1/4 of my total income from stock. Heck - it's a pain in the butt to submit to a lot of sites. If iStock was 50% of my income, and I could triple it by going exclusive, then some might want to consider it. BUT, the thing is, I'm not too keen as to put all of my eggs in the same basket as others have already mentioned.

ichiro17 · « **Reply #73 on:** July 10, 2009, 09:04 »

Quote from: graficallyminded on July 10, 2009, 08:34

Quote from: ichiro17 on July 09, 2009, 13:21
Well I've tripled my IS income after exclusivity, which makes up for anything I might have lost so far as non-exclusive. I have no issues with that, which is why the question isn't so easy and why its not so clear cut.

That sounds great and all, but everyone has to examine their own stats - and obviously we all have completely different content. If I tripled my avg istock monthly earnings, I'd still only be making around 1/4 of my total income from stock. Heck - it's a pain in the butt to submit to a lot of sites. If iStock was 50% of my income, and I could triple it by going exclusive, then some might want to consider it. BUT, the thing is, I'm not too keen as to put all of my eggs in the same basket as others have already mentioned.

I get that. I said that earlier. But gostwyck can't read well. I explained it worked for me. For you, you also only have a few photos on iStock from what I remember seeing. So given that you don't have many accepted or you don't submti a lot, then its not good for you. However, you aren't an abrasive idiot about it, you said your piece and you justify your decision. I never tried to force exclusivity on anyone, I just said it works for me and tried to back it up with numbers. Unfortunately, the math skills of some members isn't up to par

bittersweet · « **Reply #74 on:** July 11, 2009, 11:51 »

Since I am now officially in the ranks of the independents, I am looking forward to seeing how things go. Even though a lot of people find it works for them, I do not intend to use the shotgun approach when deciding where to place my images. I will not be giving my vectors away via SS and I'm leery of some recent developments at fotolia. I have about a quarter of my portfolio uploaded to veer and the results of the inspection process seem to indicate that we are a good fit. When I return from vacation next week I am going to concentrate in earnest on getting the rest online prior to the release.

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Author Topic: Exclusivity, yes or no? (Read 28571 times)

graficallyminded

Phil

puravida

grp_photo

fotografer

Adeptris

Perry

ichiro17

dirkr

ichiro17

Perry

ichiro17

willie

ichiro17

PixelBytes

ichiro17

cascoly

ichiro17

cascoly

ichiro17

gostwyck

ichiro17

graficallyminded

ichiro17

bittersweet

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