MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: kayann on April 16, 2014, 04:49
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I haven't been on this board in awhile. I have been exclusive at istock since 2005. I finally gave notice last week that I am going non-exclusive. Does anyone have any advice for me? Any warnings? What do expect?
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I haven't been on this board in awhile. I have been exclusive at istock since 2005. I finally gave notice last week that I am going non-exclusive. Does anyone have any advice for me? Any warnings? What do expect?
Hopefully you've done some research already, but:
http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/06/dropping-istockphoto-exclusivity/ (http://www.seanlockephotography.com/2014/03/06/dropping-istockphoto-exclusivity/)
http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/talking-numbers/same-earnings-non-exclusive-from-istockphoto/ (http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/talking-numbers/same-earnings-non-exclusive-from-istockphoto/)
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Good luck to you.
No doubt more of us will join you in due course given the current trends there.
Probably better for artists in the long run. Painful to start with though I imagine.
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Thanks for the responses and support. Sean - I am sure I have not done enough research but I have been able to track my sales and my wife has always been a non-exclusive so I have had some ability to compare. Your article was enormously helpful and I appreciate it.
I noticed on your portfolio page you have depositphotos. Does the discussion here about their recent subscription deal worry you?
Also have you seen this presentation on youtube about the current state of the microstock industry by Bob Davies?
http://youtu.be/42lJ7eri984 (http://youtu.be/42lJ7eri984)
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I noticed on your portfolio page you have depositphotos. Does the discussion here about their recent subscription deal worry you?
All I can do is opt out or not participate in the things that I don't agree with.
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I have a blog with articles that I talk about my experience since I quit exclusivity last year but it's in french :\
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C'est dommage.
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But in conclusion, I never regret to quit exclusivity ! I was diamond but redeem credit system killed me ! I got more motivation of making new images to sell on other site instead of waiting or expecting a single sale on istock ! A years later my revenue are almost the same as If I stayed exclusitve (I guess). Or much better ... ! But that was a lot of work.
Here is my blog link If you can read french :)
http://juliedeshaiesphoto.wordpress.com/ (http://juliedeshaiesphoto.wordpress.com/)
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Good luck with the transition. I have been indie since June 2011, but I had been indie from 2004 to 2008 so it was a return and perhaps a little less confusing.
My advice would be to focus on Shutterstock and the others in the big 4; sort out your metadata so you get rid of the bizarro English of the Getty CV - house and home versus Residential Structure; watch what you submit to Dreamstime as acceptance rate has more of an impact there (and they count rejections like submitting a different model release for one model towards that, even though their rules are really weird).
Go and read the partner program list (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/a-list-of-partner-programs/) and which sites let you opt out - having our images scattered to the four winds by low earner agencies with no opt out is a real worry to some of us.
If you have thoughts about submitting to Stocksy (which requires image exclusivity) give some thought to agencies with a lock on images for a period of time (DT for 6 months for a portion of your portfolio, BigStock for 3 months).
If you're thinking of submitting to Fotolia (which has a pretty terrible reputation for all sorts of reasons, but is a decent earner for newer contributors) read this thread (http://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/fotolia-launches-dollar-photo-club/) about their most recent attempt to hose their contributors
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trying to decide which site to put my illustrations on is one of the most daunting thoughts I face. It does seem unwise to scatter your work everywhere. It us one of the reasons I stayed exclusive, but of course Getty started scatter my illustrations for me so that reason to stay exclusive is gone. The advantage of a bit of scattering is one site might accept illustrations others reject. My wife's number one seller overall was rejected by istock as not quality enough for stock illustration.
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As much as I hate the thought of more competition, I'll tell you that 3/4 of my income comes from Shutterstock. I think that's where you should head first.
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the good news is I am probably not competition for most of the people on this forum. I only do illustrations, no photography. Jo Ann - I looked at Fine Art America but it seems more for photographers. I won't be going to Bigstock because of their print deals for sure. I have looked at Zazzle and cafepress but zazzle's interface seems so time consuming, although from a buyer's perspective they seem cooler than cafepress. Did I mention daunting :o)
Shutterstock is why I finally decided to go non-exclusive.
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Uh oh... Not more illustrators. Kidding. Good luck! I'm sure the transition will take some time and patience.
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Illustrators absolutely must upload to Toonvectors! Sales are slowish (but regular and consistent monthly) but at a commission of $14 per sale and 70% you should support this site simply on principle. Upload is a bit unorthodox but once you get it is extremely easy. Toonvectors commissions for me are about 2 times DP and Fotolia and blow the other smaller sites out of the water. This site and Symbio are the two most promising prospects for illustrators in years.
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Illustrators absolutely must upload to Toonvectors! Sales are slowish (but regular and consistent monthly) but at a commission of $14 per sale and 70% you should support this site simply on principle. Upload is a bit unorthodox but once you get it is extremely easy. Toonvectors commissions for me are about 2 times DP and Fotolia and blow the other smaller sites out of the water. This site and Symbio are the two most promising prospects for illustrators in years.
thanks chromaco. I will look at it.
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Illustrators absolutely must upload to Toonvectors! Sales are slowish (but regular and consistent monthly) but at a commission of $14 per sale and 70% you should support this site simply on principle. Upload is a bit unorthodox but once you get it is extremely easy. Toonvectors commissions for me are about 2 times DP and Fotolia and blow the other smaller sites out of the water. This site and Symbio are the two most promising prospects for illustrators in years.
Should I feel guilty that you promote Toon Vectors more than I do? ;D
Anyway, I'll second it being a good site. What type of images do you sell Kayann?
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Hi Kayann and all others,
I have just made a same move, dropped iStock exclusivity, actually I would like to close my account there completely, but I don't know where to join, as I am in bit different situation, at the moment I'm able to take only black and white images and I know this is not successful in regular microstock sites, what I should do or where to join?
Here is my port: kalevitamm.com
Thanks,
Kalevi
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Illustrators absolutely must upload to Toonvectors! Sales are slowish (but regular and consistent monthly) but at a commission of $14 per sale and 70% you should support this site simply on principle. Upload is a bit unorthodox but once you get it is extremely easy. Toonvectors commissions for me are about 2 times DP and Fotolia and blow the other smaller sites out of the water. This site and Symbio are the two most promising prospects for illustrators in years.
Should I feel guilty that you promote Toon Vectors more than I do? ;D
Anyway, I'll second it being a good site. What type of images do you sell Kayann?
No... I'm completely unbiased. You said you wish you had about 5 clipartof's. In my mind Toonvectors is about as close as we are going to get right now. Helping this site grow is in my own (and every other illustrator's) best interest. The next step is some sort of collaboration/ co-op on symbio. Looks like that may be on the horizon but not for another year or two. Hopefully Leo's new version of Symbio will allow some of this functionality eventually.
If I can make a suggestion/request/appeal/plea to all other illustrators.
Please delay the uploading of your images to the subscription sites until you have given the better paying sites an opportunity to index and SEO your images first. Sites that offer 50%-70% commissions on $20-40 dollar vectors deserve our support and this is one simple way to help them grow. I realize most contributors can't afford not to upload to SS and IS and the others but you might be able to wait a month or two. In the long run I think this will benefit us all.
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I have just made a same move, dropped iStock exclusivity, actually I would like to close my account there completely, but I don't know where to join, as I am in bit different situation, at the moment I'm able to take only black and white images and I know this is not successful in regular microstock sites, what I should do or where to join?
Here is my port: kalevitamm.com
I wonder if Stocksy or Offset might be options for you? I agree with you that it might be a hard sell with the regular micros. Alamy possibly?
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If I can make a suggestion/request/appeal/plea to all other illustrators.
Please delay the uploading of your images to the subscription sites until you have given the better paying sites an opportunity to index and SEO your images first. Sites that offer 50%-70% commissions on $20-40 dollar vectors deserve our support and this is one simple way to help them grow. I realize most contributors can't afford not to upload to SS and IS and the others but you might be able to wait a month or two. In the long run I think this will benefit us all.
I definitely do this. CLO, my own site and TV get everything first. It's interesting too. I threw some test files back on some sites that I left and they are all performing fairly poorly compared to how they used to. It really makes me remember how much placement really matters for files.
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I haven't been on this board in awhile. I have been exclusive at istock since 2005. I finally gave notice last week that I am going non-exclusive. Does anyone have any advice for me? Any warnings? What do expect?
congratulations. it isn't easy, but going non-exclusive was the right move when I did the same well over a year ago now. get your files organized and do your homework on the agencies. and diversify. that has been my strategy. we're in an industry in flux right now. it's difficult to plunk any move or agency into "good" or "bad". the variables are different for each of us. all in all, independence works and is liberating if you work hard and keep your expectations realistic. I liked MichaelJay's comment about keeping his work with a hand-picked number of more reputable agencies (my words, not his, but paraphrasing). I have taken the same approach. there are too many small guys out there and the ROI just isn't there.
be your own hero. sounds cheesy, but I mean it.
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I've dropped exclusivity too, and have two weeks to go on the ticker. I'm hoping it'll at least help me get some motivation back. The RC system was just a huge wet blanket on my ambition. I've been partially non-exclusive (raster illustrations only) for a couple of years, so I'm not making a huge, sudden transition.
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I've dropped exclusivity too, and have two weeks to go on the ticker. I'm hoping it'll at least help me get some motivation back. The RC system was just a huge wet blanket on my ambition. I've been partially non-exclusive (raster illustrations only) for a couple of years, so I'm not making a huge, sudden transition.
Blamb I would never have guessed you would do non-exclusive. I have been surprised by the long time contributors who went non-exclusive. It was not a decision I made lightly, istock started out as a great experience for me. The RC system change was hard at that time though I was dealing with breast cancer so I did not think to much about istock and therefore it probably had less of an impact on me.
My wife says they want people to leave. She is probably right. I think they are trying to maximize profit like all business and we contributors need to do the same for us. Motivation is important, but mostly I think I was exclusive at istock because it was truely different than the other agencies. The simple fact is they no longer are different. They are just another microstock agency, so now us contributors have to work on how to maximize profits for us.
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I haven't been on this board in awhile. I have been exclusive at istock since 2005. I finally gave notice last week that I am going non-exclusive. Does anyone have any advice for me? Any warnings? What do expect?
congratulations. it isn't easy, but going non-exclusive was the right move when I did the same well over a year ago now. get your files organized and do your homework on the agencies. and diversify. that has been my strategy. we're in an industry in flux right now. it's difficult to plunk any move or agency into "good" or "bad". the variables are different for each of us. all in all, independence works and is liberating if you work hard and keep your expectations realistic. I liked MichaelJay's comment about keeping his work with a hand-picked number of more reputable agencies (my words, not his, but paraphrasing). I have taken the same approach. there are too many small guys out there and the ROI just isn't there.
be your own hero. sounds cheesy, but I mean it.
Stacey quick question for you...
I gather you recently left Stocksy for what ever reason and from what I hear of your own accord.
You liked MJay's comment of sticking with reputable agencies. Does this mean you don't feel Stocksy is reputable? Or is it more that you feel you can do better with your imagery elsewhere?
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I haven't been on this board in awhile. I have been exclusive at istock since 2005. I finally gave notice last week that I am going non-exclusive. Does anyone have any advice for me? Any warnings? What do expect?
congratulations. it isn't easy, but going non-exclusive was the right move when I did the same well over a year ago now. get your files organized and do your homework on the agencies. and diversify. that has been my strategy. we're in an industry in flux right now. it's difficult to plunk any move or agency into "good" or "bad". the variables are different for each of us. all in all, independence works and is liberating if you work hard and keep your expectations realistic. I liked MichaelJay's comment about keeping his work with a hand-picked number of more reputable agencies (my words, not his, but paraphrasing). I have taken the same approach. there are too many small guys out there and the ROI just isn't there.
be your own hero. sounds cheesy, but I mean it.
Stacey quick question for you...
I gather you recently left Stocksy for what ever reason and from what I hear of your own accord.
You liked MJay's comment of sticking with reputable agencies. Does this mean you don't feel Stocksy is reputable? Or is it more that you feel you can do better with your imagery elsewhere?
I think Stacey has already answered your question with her observation that "there are too many small guys out there and the ROI just isn't there." You can't leave exclusive work at an agency if it is not generating adequate income.
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I think Stacey has already answered your question with her observation that "there are too many small guys out there and the ROI just isn't there." You can't leave exclusive work at an agency if it is not generating adequate income.
Doesn't sound that way. Look at the right side a large list of agencies but only a few are worth the effort. I would say Stocksy is one of the few that is worth the effort.
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I would guess that everyone's experience is different. What is a great site for one person is bottom of the earnings list for another.
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I've dropped exclusivity too, and have two weeks to go on the ticker. I'm hoping it'll at least help me get some motivation back. The RC system was just a huge wet blanket on my ambition. I've been partially non-exclusive (raster illustrations only) for a couple of years, so I'm not making a huge, sudden transition.
I hope you will keep us updated as to your experience. I think there would be quite a few people interested.
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I would guess that everyone's experience is different. What is a great site for one person is bottom of the earnings list for another.
I don't think it would be quite so polarized; but basically you're right.
every agency has its preferences in terms of aesthetics, its own culture, and its own upload/keyword/category systems. How you work with any one agency will be an individual thing.
the reason I keep my work on just a handful of reputable sites is that I'm concerned about my work being spread out in so many places that I can no longer control it. I was 'raised' as an exclusive on iStock, having one or two major places through which to sell my work has always been my preference. I like to promote my images, and to facilitate new clients into buying by directing them to my preferred agencies. I strongly believe that contributors and agencies must work as a team. I try to maintain some illusion of exclusivity too, by keeping my work in certain collections like Offset (they have all my aerial work) even though they don't require true exclusivity.
My personality is social and community-oriented. I like being involved in our stock photographer community, meeting and working with other photographers, and attending and working on events. This is much easier when you work with a small number of hand-picked agencies. again, this is only what works for me. we're all different.
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I strongly believe that contributors and agencies must work as a team.
I couldn't agree more...too bad certain agencies seem to have forgotten that.
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Is iS the only agency where you can create a linked lightbox for customer's to look at?
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Is iS the only agency where you can create a linked lightbox for customer's to look at?
You can create collections on Dreamstime which are equivalent to Istock's lightboxes, although I haven't done it personally.
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Is iS the only agency where you can create a linked lightbox for customer's to look at?
You can also create Sets on Shutterstock via the Catalog Manager (http://).
Those you make public are shown on your profile page, and of course you can send customers a link to look at them.
I have done it, but have no idea whether it helps sales.
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Lisa and Dirk,
But in the cases of Dreamstime and Shutterstock. Can you place links to these lightboxes as part of an image caption?
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Lisa and Dirk,
But in the cases of Dreamstime and Shutterstock. Can you place links to these lightboxes as part of an image caption?
No - no HTML or UBB allowed in captions.
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Lisa and Dirk,
But in the cases of Dreamstime and Shutterstock. Can you place links to these lightboxes as part of an image caption?
It's sometimes strange to notice things like that when you come from iStock. In a way, it's funny: iStock was never really capable to come up with a good solution to present "similar images", so they gave us photographers the tool to do it in our own ways. While it is a lot of freedom, unfortunately it also leads to outdated links and banners eventually.
Other agencies are much better in automatically linking to similar images. Most of the times your own, some times also to similar works by other artists. So in this context what is considered "normal" for cross promoting images at iStock is obsolete at other agencies because they have tools in place to do that. ;)
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I liked MichaelJay's comment about keeping his work with a hand-picked number of more reputable agencies (my words, not his, but paraphrasing). I have taken the same approach. there are too many small guys out there and the ROI just isn't there.
Ummm... I guess "there is no bad PR as long as they spell your name right". But I am just wondering where I might have said something like that. Not saying I didn't as I talk a lot. ;)
Factually I started out with the big names ("reputable" is a different story) when I went non-exclusive. It's just quite bothersome to prepare your old images with new keywords, find the model releases, get used to the editing at other places etc. If someone asks me today for advice when quitting iStock exclusivity, I tell them to limit themselves to the top 4 listed on the right for the start. All others are "additional" at a later stage. Once you have your new workflows, you can easily add some of them.
But part of my advice usually also is to find places with higher prices for a subset of your images. If it's Stocksy, Offset, Getty, Alamy or some local agency. Putting everything from iStock across all microstock agencies is probably not paying off. There are just too many images that do well on iStock at higher price points and you won't make nearly enough money from Shutterstock & Co to replace the royalties earned with a good selling Vetta or S+ image.
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I liked MichaelJay's comment about keeping his work with a hand-picked number of more reputable agencies (my words, not his, but paraphrasing). I have taken the same approach. there are too many small guys out there and the ROI just isn't there.
Ummm... I guess "there is no bad PR as long as they spell your name right". But I am just wondering where I might have said something like that. Not saying I didn't as I talk a lot. ;)
Factually I started out with the big names ("reputable" is a different story) when I went non-exclusive. It's just quite bothersome to prepare your old images with new keywords, find the model releases, get used to the editing at other places etc. If someone asks me today for advice when quitting iStock exclusivity, I tell them to limit themselves to the top 4 listed on the right for the start. All others are "additional" at a later stage. Once you have your new workflows, you can easily add some of them.
But part of my advice usually also is to find places with higher prices for a subset of your images. If it's Stocksy, Offset, Getty, Alamy or some local agency. Putting everything from iStock across all microstock agencies is probably not paying off. There are just too many images that do well on iStock at higher price points and you won't make nearly enough money from Shutterstock & Co to replace the royalties earned with a good selling Vetta or S+ image.
Michael - my apologies. It is actually a quote from Sean's blog. I read his and yours back to back from Sean's earlier post. Following is the section I am in agreement with, and seems it is Sean's, and not your statement. Sorry to have attributed the quote to you.
"Since iStockphoto completely dropped my portfolio last April, I don’t have the “benefit” of that income stream. All of my stock income comes from Stocksy United, and the several other agencies listed on my portfolio page. I have kept my list of distributors small, as I don’t particularly trust all the smaller agencies, and I don’t have the time to maintain so many accounts."
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Michael - my apologies. It is actually a quote from Sean's blog. I read his and yours back to back from Sean's earlier post. Following is the section I am in agreement with, and seems it is Sean's, and not your statement. Sorry to have attributed the quote to you.
No problem but thanks for clearing it up. I wasn't really sure. It didn't really sound like something I remembered saying. But you know, over time you can change opinions while learning new stuff...
Quite frankly, the "reputable" part made me wonder most. I have problems attributing this word to any of the microstock places these days. I don't trust any of them to actually be my "agent".
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Michael - my apologies. It is actually a quote from Sean's blog. I read his and yours back to back from Sean's earlier post. Following is the section I am in agreement with, and seems it is Sean's, and not your statement. Sorry to have attributed the quote to you.
No problem but thanks for clearing it up. I wasn't really sure. It didn't really sound like something I remembered saying. But you know, over time you can change opinions while learning new stuff...
Quite frankly, the "reputable" part made me wonder most. I have problems attributing this word to any of the microstock places these days. I don't trust any of them to actually be my "agent".
By reputable I mean: established, selling licenses, communicating with contributors, working with contributors openly and honestly, in a supportive manner.
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Michael - my apologies. It is actually a quote from Sean's blog. I read his and yours back to back from Sean's earlier post. Following is the section I am in agreement with, and seems it is Sean's, and not your statement. Sorry to have attributed the quote to you.
No problem but thanks for clearing it up. I wasn't really sure. It didn't really sound like something I remembered saying. But you know, over time you can change opinions while learning new stuff...
Quite frankly, the "reputable" part made me wonder most. I have problems attributing this word to any of the microstock places these days. I don't trust any of them to actually be my "agent".
By reputable I mean: established, selling licenses, communicating with contributors, working with contributors openly and honestly, in a supportive manner.
Unfortunately that still leaves me wondering what sites actually qualify as "reputable", although at least some cover a few of those.
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Michael - my apologies. It is actually a quote from Sean's blog. I read his and yours back to back from Sean's earlier post. Following is the section I am in agreement with, and seems it is Sean's, and not your statement. Sorry to have attributed the quote to you.
No problem but thanks for clearing it up. I wasn't really sure. It didn't really sound like something I remembered saying. But you know, over time you can change opinions while learning new stuff...
Quite frankly, the "reputable" part made me wonder most. I have problems attributing this word to any of the microstock places these days. I don't trust any of them to actually be my "agent".
By reputable I mean: established, selling licenses, communicating with contributors, working with contributors openly and honestly, in a supportive manner.
Are you still in stocksy united?
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no. but, I have a number of friends and colleagues who are, and I always hope they're doing well.
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By reputable I mean: established, selling licenses, communicating with contributors, working with contributors openly and honestly, in a supportive manner.
Yes, I would support that definition of reputable. And I am not convinced that I know a microstock agency that would fit that description. ::)
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By reputable I mean: established, selling licenses, communicating with contributors, working with contributors openly and honestly, in a supportive manner.
Yes, I would support that definition of reputable. And I am not convinced that I know a microstock agency that would fit that description. ::)
microstock isn't the be-all and end-all either. important to branch out, get into mid and macro....and other avenues of photography. I love ImageBrief as a sales opportunity, it is one of the models out there that I think is clever and apropos for the market today.
but giving credit where it's due, Shutterstock impress the heck out of me in terms of treating serious contributors well. if only the amount per download wasn't such pittance, but the volume is nice. would love to combine my iStock sales best years with Shutterstock the company. I hope they'll develop more of the non-sub license sales, and I like Offset.
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... I hope they'll develop more of the non-sub license sales, and I like Offset.
My experience with Shutterstock since returning to being independent (June 2011) is that the proportion of my monthly income that is not subs has been growing steadily. In August 2011, subscriptions were 48% of the monthly total and in March 2014 it was 36%.
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but giving credit where it's due, Shutterstock impress the heck out of me in terms of treating serious contributors well. if only the amount per download wasn't such pittance, but the volume is nice. would love to combine my iStock sales best years with Shutterstock the company. I hope they'll develop more of the non-sub license sales, and I like Offset.
In a way, yes. When it comes to "sympathy" in the context of microstock, Shutterstock is the first thing that comes to my mind. They seem to be open, listening, inventive, all very positive attributes. And they progressively have evolved from their "subscription, cheap images" model to attracting more buyers paying more than just a few cents.
Then again, because they were so successful with their model, they probably had even more impact in the "devaluation" of stock images than any other place. There is a lot of things I blame iStock/Getty to have done (and still do) wrong but at least they took some effort in taking that "images from $1" approach to move buyers into higher price levels. They did it in a wrong, sneaky way for both, customers and contributors. And that's why they are not my favorites these days.
But I don't see that effort from Shutterstock yet at all. And because they have been very successful with all the other stuff they do, they are the ones who put on the most pressure on other agencies to lower prices. So in a way... while my RPD with Shutter is growing consistently, I also partly blame them it's still at $0.50 or $0.60 rather than $2 or $4.
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Unfortunately with SS you also have to look at what they are doing with BS - promoting a crazy RC like scheme, TS level sub returns, and poorly communicated plans (we'll pay you more if you are in the bridge for now - but we won't tell you how long).
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ideally I would love to see a Frankenstein agency that has bits of each of them. But in the meantime, I am impressed by Shutterstock the company. As for establishing the low price for images, well, yeah. that's been my argument against supplying for subs too. but I also believe in adapt or die. if the volume is there, and the licensing structure for subs downloads is such that it is limited - therefore prompting non-sub licensing like PAYG usage/extended licenses, than I'm learning to make friends with subs a little more.
There are individuals that I've worked with at iStock and Getty who are still some of the best people I know in the industry, but as a company...there's obviously no one at the top at Getty with any regard for the artist community, and that sucks.
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In a way, yes. When it comes to "sympathy" in the context of microstock, Shutterstock is the first thing that comes to my mind. They seem to be open, listening, inventive, all very positive attributes. And they progressively have evolved from their "subscription, cheap images" model to attracting more buyers paying more than just a few cents.
Then again, because they were so successful with their model, they probably had even more impact in the "devaluation" of stock images than any other place. There is a lot of things I blame iStock/Getty to have done (and still do) wrong but at least they took some effort in taking that "images from $1" approach to move buyers into higher price levels. They did it in a wrong, sneaky way for both, customers and contributors. And that's why they are not my favorites these days.
But I don't see that effort from Shutterstock yet at all. And because they have been very successful with all the other stuff they do, they are the ones who put on the most pressure on other agencies to lower prices. So in a way... while my RPD with Shutter is growing consistently, I also partly blame them it's still at $0.50 or $0.60 rather than $2 or $4.
SS didn't 'devalue' microstock. When I joined them in 2004 they were paying 20c for a sub download which at the time was the same royalty I got from IS for a Medium sale. They were exactly in the middle of the market. SS then increased prices steadily but carefully (but not as quickly as IS) through until about 2008.
Unfortunately by then every other agency (apart from IS) tried to emulate and often undercut SS with their own subs packages. The market for subs became too competitive for any agency to dare increase prices. SS won from that point by simply offering a better service to the customer than the others. The other agencys' answer was mainly to prop up their profitability by reducing our royalties. Credit to SS for not doing the same.
I wouldn't however give much credit to IS/Getty for increasing prices. They weren't doing it for us __ it was all for themselves. It was also done in such a ham-fisted and greedy manner that it was bound to fail. And so it has proved. When IS/Getty decided we were earning too much money then they introduced the ridiculous RC system to grab yet more of the pie for themselves. Why pay the artists 20% when you might be able to get away with as little as 15%? Why pay exclusive diamonds 40% if you can get them down to say 30%? Whilst we're at it why not separate the RC totals for illustrators and photographers? That way we can reduce contributors' earnings even more.
SS are growing their business (and ours). The growth however isn't coming from subs but mainly from all the higher priced image products that they are selling instead. As Jo Ann has pointed out the subs part of SS is now only about 40% of the total. It seems to me that it is only on SS that RPD is consistently growing (and has been for some years now). Everywhere else it has been moving in the wrong direction __ especially at IS.
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SS are growing their business (and ours).
If they aren't growing our business are we allowed to complain? ;)
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I wouldn't however give much credit to IS/Getty for increasing prices. They weren't doing it for us __ it was all for themselves.
I agree with most of your statement but at least with this part I don't. There was a period in time when raising prices and especially the introduction of a higher-priced collection (Vetta) was good for all parties involved: Contributors making more money, agency making more money, clients getting more choice especially from a creative point of view.
It was mainly when the price raises for mediocre content (I'm including mine in that "mediocre" part) and the incompetence in getting their technology working drove customers away when there was the "logical" solution: When we can't raise revenues, there is only one way left to raise profits - by cutting costs.
(and for the record: When I started with microstock in 2007, I already had a higher RPD on iStock as an exclusive than I do have now. So Shutterstock still has quite some way to go if they want to match that eventually)
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SS are growing their business (and ours). The growth however isn't coming from subs but mainly from all the higher priced image products that they are selling instead. As Jo Ann has pointed out the subs part of SS is now only about 40% of the total. It seems to me that it is only on SS that RPD is consistently growing (and has been for some years now). Everywhere else it has been moving in the wrong direction __ especially at IS.
Not for exclusives: in fact, RPD has skyrocketed in the last two-three years, going to numbers between 10-20 $ per download. Another thing, quite worse and not less important, is RPI that has gone down (especially now, with the doomed subs).
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SS are growing their business (and ours). The growth however isn't coming from subs but mainly from all the higher priced image products that they are selling instead. As Jo Ann has pointed out the subs part of SS is now only about 40% of the total. It seems to me that it is only on SS that RPD is consistently growing (and has been for some years now). Everywhere else it has been moving in the wrong direction __ especially at IS.
Not for exclusives: in fact, RPD has skyrocketed in the last two-three years, going to numbers between 10-20 $ per download.
Agreed. For me, RPD has grown exponentially for 10 years straight.
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Agreed. For me, RPD has grown exponentially for 10 years straight.
It will be interesting to see how subs affect RPD vs overall income for exclusives. Will it add to it or just eat away at high value sales?
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Agreed. For me, RPD has grown exponentially for 10 years straight.
It will be interesting to see how subs affect RPD vs overall income for exclusives. Will it add to it or just eat away at high value sales?
Yes it will be interesting to see. Here are my RPD increases over the last 6 years:
99%
32%
68%
40%
36%
32%
These are just regular sales, not including extended licenses or PP or GI stuff. Since they're reporting subs separately like an additional revenue stream, I don't think many people will pay much attention to RPD or even include subs into their analysis. Any effect on regular credit/cash downloads and sales are what people will pay attention to.
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SS are growing their business (and ours). The growth however isn't coming from subs but mainly from all the higher priced image products that they are selling instead. As Jo Ann has pointed out the subs part of SS is now only about 40% of the total. It seems to me that it is only on SS that RPD is consistently growing (and has been for some years now). Everywhere else it has been moving in the wrong direction __ especially at IS.
Not for exclusives: in fact, RPD has skyrocketed in the last two-three years, going to numbers between 10-20 $ per download.
Agreed. For me, RPD has grown exponentially for 10 years straight.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
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SS are growing their business (and ours). The growth however isn't coming from subs but mainly from all the higher priced image products that they are selling instead. As Jo Ann has pointed out the subs part of SS is now only about 40% of the total. It seems to me that it is only on SS that RPD is consistently growing (and has been for some years now). Everywhere else it has been moving in the wrong direction __ especially at IS.
Not for exclusives: in fact, RPD has skyrocketed in the last two-three years, going to numbers between 10-20 $ per download.
Agreed. For me, RPD has grown exponentially for 10 years straight.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
ha ha :) made me look it up. According to webster's definition 3 it fits.
"characterized by or being an extremely rapid increase (as in size or extent)"
... but I know what you mean :)
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Agreed. For me, RPD has grown exponentially for 10 years straight.
It will be interesting to see how subs affect RPD vs overall income for exclusives. Will it add to it or just eat away at high value sales?
Almost certainly the latter, as they are actively trying to switch existing buyers.
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Agreed. For me, RPD has grown exponentially for 10 years straight.
It will be interesting to see how subs affect RPD vs overall income for exclusives. Will it add to it or just eat away at high value sales?
Yes it will be interesting to see. Here are my RPD increases over the last 6 years:
99%
32%
68%
40%
36%
32%
These are just regular sales, not including extended licenses or PP or GI stuff. Since they're reporting subs separately like an additional revenue stream, I don't think many people will pay much attention to RPD or even include subs into their analysis. Any effect on regular credit/cash downloads and sales are what people will pay attention to.
What order are those numbers in? Is 99% the latest year or the first year you started? Please specify which numbers relate to which year.
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Agreed. For me, RPD has grown exponentially for 10 years straight.
It will be interesting to see how subs affect RPD vs overall income for exclusives. Will it add to it or just eat away at high value sales?
Yes it will be interesting to see. Here are my RPD increases over the last 6 years:
99%
32%
68%
40%
36%
32%
These are just regular sales, not including extended licenses or PP or GI stuff. Since they're reporting subs separately like an additional revenue stream, I don't think many people will pay much attention to RPD or even include subs into their analysis. Any effect on regular credit/cash downloads and sales are what people will pay attention to.
What order are those numbers in? Is 99% the latest year or the first year you started? Please specify which numbers relate to which year.
2008 99%
2009 32%
2010 68%
2011 40%
2012 36%
2013 32%
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I hope you will keep us updated as to your experience. I think there would be quite a few people interested.
Well my first update about my going non-exclusive experience is that two weeks ago I clicked on the istock link to cancel exclusivity. For 10 days it was counting down. I checked it every day or two. Suddenly at the beginning of this week it is gone and there is no indication that I put in for exclusivity at all. I sent in the contributor form to tell them about the problem but of course I have not heard from them. If my past experiences are any indication I will get an email back in two or three weeks.
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Lisa and Dirk,
But in the cases of Dreamstime and Shutterstock. Can you place links to these lightboxes as part of an image caption?
No - no HTML or UBB allowed in captions.
This was one of my favorite things about istock. Since I create for such a niche audience, I think it really helped to be able to have the image link to a lightbox. Example - If you are looking at an illustration of a woman softball player and the one you found is not quite what you wanted here is a link to my other similiar vectors.
Now of course istock is forcing these links so far down the page and they put such a large gap of white space above them, I doubt that most customers even seen them. It may be as Michael has said here that istock did not have a good mechanism of their own so they gave contributor's more control. That is okay by me. When I first began with istock in 2005, I thought they did so much to allow contributors to market themselves. Now they seem to be working hard to bury contributors or get them to leave.
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By reputable I mean: established, selling licenses, communicating with contributors, working with contributors openly and honestly, in a supportive manner.
Yes, I would support that definition of reputable. And I am not convinced that I know a microstock agency that would fit that description. ::)
microstock isn't the be-all and end-all either. important to branch out, get into mid and macro....and other avenues of photography. I love ImageBrief as a sales opportunity, it is one of the models out there that I think is clever and apropos for the market today.
but giving credit where it's due, Shutterstock impress the heck out of me in terms of treating serious contributors well. if only the amount per download wasn't such pittance, but the volume is nice. would love to combine my iStock sales best years with Shutterstock the company. I hope they'll develop more of the non-sub license sales, and I like Offset.
pre-Getty this was istock. They did everything to attract good contributors. Going forward I think it will be agencies trying to cull out contributors. I see both sides of this issue, but I am not a photographer. I started at istock as a buyer. I created business presentations for a corporation and it was so annoying to page through image after image of the same thing. That is where the friend system was great. I would friend Yuri and Sean, etc. just because I could rely on them. If I needed to create a quick presentation I went to my friend list first.
When I started illustrating for istock my approach was to upload illustrations they did not have many of. As all of you know this means less sales. I thought it would be good to fill out their catalogue and bring in a new type of customers. It was a nice second income for me, but what I have learned about business today is this thinking is to nuanced for them. They want big money numbers and you don't really need to think any deeper than that.
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I wouldn't however give much credit to IS/Getty for increasing prices. They weren't doing it for us __ it was all for themselves.
I agree with most of your statement but at least with this part I don't. There was a period in time when raising prices and especially the introduction of a higher-priced collection (Vetta) was good for all parties involved: Contributors making more money, agency making more money, clients getting more choice especially from a creative point of view.
It was mainly when the price raises for mediocre content (I'm including mine in that "mediocre" part) and the incompetence in getting their technology working drove customers away when there was the "logical" solution: When we can't raise revenues, there is only one way left to raise profits - by cutting costs.
(and for the record: When I started with microstock in 2007, I already had a higher RPD on iStock as an exclusive than I do have now. So Shutterstock still has quite some way to go if they want to match that eventually)
As a buyer for years Michael, to me, has hit on the exact problem. istock's site got impossible to use. It just slowed to a crawl and became in-usable. At the same time they have a site that is just infuriating to use they raise prices not just a little but a lot. I am sure I am not the only buyer that went looking for other options.
As a contributor, I loved the higher prices. I may not have had many views but I got paid more per piece so the lower views did not matter. It you have 2 views and get one download for $7.50 it is way better than 50 views and 7 downloads at .30 cents.
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two weeks ago I clicked on the istock link to cancel exclusivity. For 10 days it was counting down. I checked it every day or two. Suddenly at the beginning of this week it is gone and there is no indication that I put in for exclusivity at all.
I had a similar experience. With 7 days to go I received an email saying 'congrats on becoming an istock exclusive!' I sent out some messages and received confirmation that I was still scheduled but then my exclusivity disappeared, a week early. Maybe there's a bug.
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Maybe there's a bug.
There are no such things as bugs, only features. ;)
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two weeks ago I clicked on the istock link to cancel exclusivity. For 10 days it was counting down. I checked it every day or two. Suddenly at the beginning of this week it is gone and there is no indication that I put in for exclusivity at all.
I had a similar experience. With 7 days to go I received an email saying 'congrats on becoming an istock exclusive!' I sent out some messages and received confirmation that I was still scheduled but then my exclusivity disappeared, a week early. Maybe there's a bug.
how could you tell that your exclusivity disappeared? Or are you saying your exclusivity countdown dissappeared?
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I am just trying to make sure I understand, shutterstock removes pieces that have not sold after a certain length of time? For instance, if I upload an illustration of a wheelchair race if one only gets sold twice a year say, it will be remove for lack of sales?
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Illustrators absolutely must upload to Toonvectors! Sales are slowish (but regular and consistent monthly) but at a commission of $14 per sale and 70% you should support this site simply on principle. Upload is a bit unorthodox but once you get it is extremely easy. Toonvectors commissions for me are about 2 times DP and Fotolia and blow the other smaller sites out of the water. This site and Symbio are the two most promising prospects for illustrators in years.
Are there other vector sites you would recommend?
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I am just trying to make sure I understand, shutterstock removes pieces that have not sold after a certain length of time? For instance, if I upload an illustration of a wheelchair race if one only gets sold twice a year say, it will be remove for lack of sales?
I don't think Shutterstock does. But I think Dreamstime does.
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I am just trying to make sure I understand, shutterstock removes pieces that have not sold after a certain length of time? For instance, if I upload an illustration of a wheelchair race if one only gets sold twice a year say, it will be remove for lack of sales?
I don't think Shutterstock does. But I think Dreamstime does.
yep, after 4 years, quite sick of their daily emails
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Illustrators absolutely must upload to Toonvectors! Sales are slowish (but regular and consistent monthly) but at a commission of $14 per sale and 70% you should support this site simply on principle. Upload is a bit unorthodox but once you get it is extremely easy. Toonvectors commissions for me are about 2 times DP and Fotolia and blow the other smaller sites out of the water. This site and Symbio are the two most promising prospects for illustrators in years.
Are there other vector sites you would recommend?
I've learned that my results and recommendations are so far from the norm that most people will violently disagree with me. Ill just say this... SS is only 12% of my earnings and IS is less than 2%. There are other options but you need to test them all, track your results and upload accordingly. May not work for you but I personally am not to worried about 1 single agency doing something to dramatically affect my earnings.
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Illustrators absolutely must upload to Toonvectors! Sales are slowish (but regular and consistent monthly) but at a commission of $14 per sale and 70% you should support this site simply on principle. Upload is a bit unorthodox but once you get it is extremely easy. Toonvectors commissions for me are about 2 times DP and Fotolia and blow the other smaller sites out of the water. This site and Symbio are the two most promising prospects for illustrators in years.
Are there other vector sites you would recommend?
I've learned that my results and recommendations are so far from the norm that most people will violently disagree with me. Ill just say this... SS is only 12% of my earnings and IS is less than 2%. There are other options but you need to test them all, track your results and upload accordingly. May not work for you but I personally am not to worried about 1 single agency doing something to dramatically affect my earnings.
you can't text what you don't know about
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This is what I mean.
I like Canstock and 123 because they sell really well for me. Istock isn't all that good for me but mostly because I have chosen not to deal with them. FT is worthless and I really like GL.
Self hosted and a couple of sites that don't even earn a rating are my preferred uploads. But you seem to be genuinely interested so here is my upload priority list.
Self hosted - (5 sites)
Clipartof - (closed to new contributors)
Toonvectors - (70% commission on $20 vectors)
GLStock (52% on $14.00 vectors)
Pond 5 (I don't actually upload here yet but intend to when I start uploading to micros again)
Cutcaster
Stockfresh
Stockami
Featurepics
Yay
(I like the RPD even though the sales are slow- the way I look at it is if they are stealing sales from the sub sites great...I get paid better. These site combine for Christmas money at the end of the year)
Shutterstock
Canstock
123
Dreamstime
(I really, really dislike subs because I see them as killing my future sales. These sites now only get the images I have tracked as not great or non sellers on my preferred sites.It is also much more likely that my images will be stolen/shared on free sites because of the low price.)
Sites I probably won't upload to again
Bigstock (I liked these guys until they introduced the subs)
IS (Hundreds of reasons)
FT (Sales just never justified liking these guys)
DP (RPD is just to low for the volume)
Graphic River (Prices are too low-even though they do have decent volume)
Veer (Just a strange site with weird sales patterns)
Sites that will never get anymore of my images
Crestock (I can live without the four $.25 sales I get a month)
Vectorstock (Price is way to low)
Isignstock (No sales details and an arbitrary commission at the end of the month)
I want to be selling my images 20 years from now and my images take a while to produce. I will never have 10,000 images so I feel like I need to protect the ones I do have. I now look for a RPD of at least $7.00. I won't remove images that I have already uploaded but my new stuff goes to my preferred sites first. This is working for me because my income continues to rise and I don't lose sleep at night hoping that Shutterstock doesn't change their commission structure.
Note: I spend a lot of time doing things that most people would consider insane. It probably takes me around 10 minutes per image to prepare and upload an image to the first site and about 3 minutes for every site after that. I spend a massive amount of time on keywording, image naming, and content descriptions. Finally, I would guess that about 70% of my income comes directly from Google Image searches. I would argue that anyone who says that you can't sell images without a huge marketing budget is simply wrong. I'm tempted to start a co-op of illustrators based on what I've learned and the symbiostock foundation but I'm not sure enough people would be willing to invest the money and more importantly the time it would take to make it work.
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This is what I mean.
I like Canstock and 123 because they sell really well for me. Istock isn't all that good for me but mostly because I have chosen not to deal with them. FT is worthless and I really like GL.
Self hosted and a couple of sites that don't even earn a rating are my preferred uploads. But you seem to be genuinely interested so here is my upload priority list.
Self hosted - (5 sites)
Clipartof - (closed to new contributors)
Toonvectors - (70% commission on $20 vectors)
GLStock (52% on $14.00 vectors)
Pond 5 (I don't actually upload here yet but intend to when I start uploading to micros again)
Cutcaster
Stockfresh
Stockami
Featurepics
Yay
(I like the RPD even though the sales are slow- the way I look at it is if they are stealing sales from the sub sites great...I get paid better. These site combine for Christmas money at the end of the year)
Shutterstock
Canstock
123
Dreamstime
(I really, really dislike subs because I see them as killing my future sales. These sites now only get the images I have tracked as not great or non sellers on my preferred sites.It is also much more likely that my images will be stolen/shared on free sites because of the low price.)
Sites I probably won't upload to again
Bigstock (I liked these guys until they introduced the subs)
IS (Hundreds of reasons)
FT (Sales just never justified liking these guys)
DP (RPD is just to low for the volume)
Graphic River (Prices are too low-even though they do have decent volume)
Veer (Just a strange site with weird sales patterns)
Sites that will never get anymore of my images
Crestock (I can live without the four $.25 sales I get a month)
Vectorstock (Price is way to low)
Isignstock (No sales details and an arbitrary commission at the end of the month)
I want to be selling my images 20 years from now and my images take a while to produce. I will never have 10,000 images so I feel like I need to protect the ones I do have. I now look for a RPD of at least $7.00. I won't remove images that I have already uploaded but my new stuff goes to my preferred sites first. This is working for me because my income continues to rise and I don't lose sleep at night hoping that Shutterstock doesn't change their commission structure.
Note: I spend a lot of time doing things that most people would consider insane. It probably takes me around 10 minutes per image to prepare and upload an image to the first site and about 3 minutes for every site after that. I spend a massive amount of time on keywording, image naming, and content descriptions. Finally, I would guess that about 70% of my income comes directly from Google Image searches. I would argue that anyone who says that you can't sell images without a huge marketing budget is simply wrong. I'm tempted to start a co-op of illustrators based on what I've learned and the symbiostock foundation but I'm not sure enough people would be willing to invest the money and more importantly the time it would take to make it work.
This pretty similar to what I do. My results have been pretty good as well, although I've been slumping since last summer. So, I'm reevaluating and trying to expand a bit.
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Thank you so much for the vector sites. When I decided to go non-exclusive, I did not realize how overwhelming it would be. I literally did not realize some of these sites existed. My hesitancy with toonvectors is that most of my pieces are not cartoons. I don't know if I fit?
kayann
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I said I would report back on the results of my going non-exclusive. It has been a year. My only regret is that I ever went exclusive. In earnings now where I left off on istockphoto. The main thing I love is you are not at the whim of one sites acceptance policy. What sites decide to accept and not accept seems so random sometimes.
My wife has an illustration that was reject by istockphoto as not quality enough for microstock that is her current top earner.
I upload to Shutterstock (by far the best earner and contributor relations), istockphoto (next best earner, contributor relations is improving a little), canstockphoto (horrible pending times), dreamstime (might discontinue this one). The problem with dreamstime is they want you to gang all sports illustrations on one page. So if I make a shield type design for all sports they want me to put all of them on one page. This is not acceptable to me when they are paying so low and from the buyers perspective, if I am working on softball, I don't need the other sports.
Does anyone know why canstockphoto is so slow? Is that a problem or just the way they are?
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I said I would report back on the results of my going non-exclusive. It has been a year. My only regret is that I ever went exclusive. In earnings now where I left off on istockphoto. The main thing I love is you are not at the whim of one sites acceptance policy. What sites decide to accept and not accept seems so random sometimes.
My wife has an illustration that was reject by istockphoto as not quality enough for microstock that is her current top earner.
I upload to Shutterstock (by far the best earner and contributor relations), istockphoto (next best earner, contributor relations is improving a little), canstockphoto (horrible pending times), dreamstime (might discontinue this one). The problem with dreamstime is they want you to gang all sports illustrations on one page. So if I make a shield type design for all sports they want me to put all of them on one page. This is not acceptable to me when they are paying so low and from the buyers perspective, if I am working on softball, I don't need the other sports.
Does anyone know why canstockphoto is so slow? Is that a problem or just the way they are?
Thanks for the update. I'm barely hanging on to being exclusive. Are you saying that after a year your income is now the same as it was when you were exclusive? Do you have the same amount of images on other sites as you had when IS exclusive? Was any of your stuff part of the E+, Vetta, Getty higher priced collections?
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Thanks for the update. I'm barely hanging on to being exclusive. Are you saying that after a year your income is now the same as it was when you were exclusive? Do you have the same amount of images on other sites as you had when IS exclusive? Was any of your stuff part of the E+, Vetta, Getty higher priced collections?
Yes, my overall earning now are more than when I was exclusive to istockphoto. I have less illustrations on the other sites than I have on istockphoto. Some of the illustrations I just thought were not quality enough or have not been good earners, etc. so I did not upload them to the other sites.
Yes I did have vetta illustrations but they only sold once in a great while.
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Interesting, and thanks for sharing.
You're an illustrator?
That would be different to photography only like me I suspect.