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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: Phadrea on November 30, 2011, 06:05
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I am seriously thinking of dropping my exclusive with IS BUT I need to know if there are enough sites out there to make it worth my while. I am still in the process of trying to get into SS (about to be my 5th attempt) but I would like to know from experience if it is worth spreading your images out into as many sites as possible. The other thing about IS is I haven't submitted any images for about 13 months. I gave up after wasting a days shoot only to have them all turned down. Just a reason to pick up my camera again would be nice. My main income comes from Pro music/sound recording.
Sadly, it's time to move on from IS being the main earner for me as it no longer delivers. As an exclusive I feel they do not make it worth my loyalty, especially when they reject perfectly good, salable images.
Thanks.
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That's not easy to answer. On the micros, 80%+ of my income comes from three sites. 20%- comes from another six sites. None of those six produce much (though sometimes one or other goes up or down a bit) in return for the effort of supplying them but, on the other hand, who would turn down a 20% pay rise if they had the chance?
However, will uploading to all those reduce the amount of stuff you have time to put on the top sites? If so, it might be an illusory 20%.
I will say this: as an independent, if you're not on SS, then you're dead. You'd be much better off sticking with exclusivity. If SS isn't in the mix, then iS alone will deliver half your income once you manage to get everything up onto all the other sites. It will involve a hell of a lot of effort and at best it will put you back to square one.
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I would suggest to remain exclusive if you are not able to submit more often than today.
Did you have any good reason to not upload anything for 13 months? This is bad for any site, is not only with IS.
If you stop uploading, then the business is going down, no matter what site.
But if you want to leave the exclusivity on IS because they suck in the treatment with it's contributors, then I understand.
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I will sanction what baldrick said. SS, is a must. DT and FT, are also great earners but only if your port is fairly big. However, having said this I would agree with previous posters and be carefull, you know what youve got, etc. Nowdays the editing at SS, is far tougher then at IS, goes for DT and FT as well.
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I will sanction what baldrick said. SS, is a must. DT and FT, are also great earners but only if your port is fairly big. However, having said this I would agree with previous posters and be carefull, you know what youve got, etc. Nowdays the editing at SS, is far tougher then at IS, goes for DT and FT as well.
Yes, I agree with Balderick and Lagereek. SS is a must if you are going to be independent.
I have added quite a few sites over the past year. I am now on 15 sites and in talks with another one that I may join. However, 90% of my income still comes from the top 4 sites (SS, IS, DT, FT), so if you are worried about the time involved in uploading to multiple sites, you could stick to those 4 initially, and only add others once your port is established on the top sites.
Before making a final decision on dropping exclusivity, I suggest you upload to IS again. Their submission standards have gotten more lenient in the past year or so.
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I'd be a bit worried about it taking so many attempts to get accepted at SS and would definitely postpone dumping exclusivity until you've been accepted at SS (I agree with the previous posters that it will be a critical part of your independent earnings)
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I have had images that made it through other submissions turned down next time round at SS. How on earth am I to read what to do from such inconsistency ? It's almost impossible. The only thing I will have to do is keep trying but someone there doesn't like me. A lot of my images are fine and folk here seem miffed why I am not on SS already.
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It's not being miffed, it's giving you sensible advice. Why should any of us care whether or not you are on it?
If I remember the SS test, they will examine the initial submission until they hit the limit for rejections and then don't bother looking at the rest. Those that weren't examined won't be marked as failed but it doesn't mean they actually passed.
Alternatively, maybe you are borderline so an image will just pass on one day and just fail the next.
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I'm not independent. but I set up accounts at the other agencies just to be prepared. acceptance at SS took one submission. if you're on your 6th, as jsnover said, I'd hold off until you get accepted at SS. if I were to go independent at some point, SS would be first on my list of sites to submit to...
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Don`t under estimate the amount of time required to become non-exclusive. The biggest hurddle by far is re-keywording your entire portfolio. If you just copy paste your iStock controlled vocabulary you will sell yourself short.
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Don`t under estimate the amount of time required to become non-exclusive. The biggest hurddle by far is re-keywording your entire portfolio. If you just copy paste your iStock controlled vocabulary you will sell yourself short.
one of the many reasons I'm still exclusive. the work isn't what scares me though. I've just talked to enough independents and done enough homework to know, that although it may be satisfying for some contributors to have dumped their crowns, the grass isn't greener as an indie. I prefer to be exclusive overall, but at times it makes things difficult (it's not exactly exciting contributing to iStock's wannabe editorial collection).
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Don`t under estimate the amount of time required to become non-exclusive. The biggest hurddle by far is re-keywording your entire portfolio. If you just copy paste your iStock controlled vocabulary you will sell yourself short.
one of the many reasons I'm still exclusive. the work isn't what scares me though. I've just talked to enough independents and done enough homework to know, that although it may be satisfying for some contributors to have dumped their crowns, the grass isn't greener as an indie. I prefer to be exclusive overall, but at times it makes things difficult (it's not exactly exciting contributing to iStock's wannabe editorial collection).
For me its been 2 steps back and then 3 steps forward. so overall I`m happy with my decision to be independent. Once I became non-exclusive, I realized that although it was a lot of work and initially and I took a temporary hit, the greatest benefit is not having all my eggs in one basket. The only constant in life is change and I get a greater sense of security in diversifying my portfolio.
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Why should any of us care whether or not you are on it?
I'm not asking you to care. Good grief, the very thought of anyone being nice here ::)
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Hi, I just wanted to point you in the direction of my blog if you haven't found it already. I am a former iStock exclusive that left in October last year. I have been blogging on independence with full earnings transparency every since. It also links to a forum page - in one thread Doxadigital talked about a deal he came to with Shutterstock re asking to have his application accepted but put on hold to stop his images going live for sale before his exclusivity fell. It might be useful for you:
http://stockcube-stockcube.blogspot.com/ (http://stockcube-stockcube.blogspot.com/)
Best of luck
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But staying exclusive at IS isn't rewarding. They don't accept images anymore AND they are not selling my images like they used to. Surely going with others would make up the pathetic sales at IS ?
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Hi, I just wanted to point you in the direction of my blog if you haven't found it already. I am a former iStock exclusive that left in October last year. I have been blogging on independence with full earnings transparency every since. It also links to a forum page - in one thread Doxadigital talked about a deal he came to with Shutterstock re asking to have his application accepted but put on hold to stop his images going live for sale before his exclusivity fell. It might be useful for you:
[url]http://stockcube-stockcube.blogspot.com/[/url] ([url]http://stockcube-stockcube.blogspot.com/[/url])
Best of luck
Thanks, will look into it.
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I was faced with the same dilemma : dropping exclusivity from DT. I am glad that i make the move; my income dropped with only $20 and SS has become my 1st earner.
So, from my point o view it is worth....
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Only 3 more days of being shackled to IS and then freedom :-) I have just over 300 files already in at SS. I am sure it will be worth it. IS has flatlined for me so I won't miss anything really and most of my downloads there are for audio.
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Only 3 more days of being shackled to IS and then freedom :-) I have just over 300 files already in at SS. I am sure it will be worth it. IS has flatlined for me so I won't miss anything really and most of my downloads there are for audio.
Gotta be the right decision for the mid-long term. Best of luck.
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Only 3 more days of being shackled to IS and then freedom :-) I have just over 300 files already in at SS. I am sure it will be worth it. IS has flatlined for me so I won't miss anything really and most of my downloads there are for audio.
You've uploaded to ss but opted out of ss til the IS shackles come off? On the front page of ss they have a lightbox called New Artists, this is partly why those who join get a tremendous amount of downloads initially. Once u opt in to ss, I hope you still appear there.
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It's generally not a good idea to "have all your eggs in one basket," which is why I've never gone exclusive to any site. I was accepted on DT, FT, and DP on my first submission. For SS, it took no less than eight submissions! It seemed to be a moving target. At least one submission contained only images that were approved in other submissions, but some were rejected nevertheless. It was worth the effort, though, because I now get daily sales at SS (although at 33 cents per sale, it will take a long time to realize any significant income). I make payout every other month, working diligently toward making it every month. The inspectors are still very unpredictable and inconsistent, as they are among other sites as well. Interestingly, there isn't even any consistency between sites, meaning that images which are rejected by one site will be accepted by another, and vice versa. So among them, all of my images end up for sale somewhere, which makes a very good case for nonexclusivity. I find that my efforts are best invested in SS, DT, FT, and DP, although I do see AllYouCanStock.com as very promising. I've only had video on IS, but I no longer upload there.
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For SS, it took no less than eight submissions! It seemed to be a moving target. At least one submission contained only images that were approved in other submissions, but some were rejected nevertheless. It was worth the effort, though, because I now get daily sales at SS (although at 33 cents per sale, it will take a long time to realize any significant income). I make payout every other month, working diligently toward making it every month.
You have c800 pics of models on SS and 'make payout every other month' - Please tell me they have a high payout bar!
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Only 3 more days of being shackled to IS and then freedom :-) I have just over 300 files already in at SS. I am sure it will be worth it. IS has flatlined for me so I won't miss anything really and most of my downloads there are for audio.
You've uploaded to ss but opted out of ss til the IS shackles come off? On the front page of ss they have a lightbox called New Artists, this is partly why those who join get a tremendous amount of downloads initially. Once u opt in to ss, I hope you still appear there.
How can I do any other ? If I go live before my IS exclusivity is over I could jepordize my place at IS. Are you suggesting I do the wrong thing ?
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You've uploaded to ss but opted out of ss til the IS shackles come off? On the front page of ss they have a lightbox called New Artists, this is partly why those who join get a tremendous amount of downloads initially. Once u opt in to ss, I hope you still appear there.
How can I do any other ? If I go live before my IS exclusivity is over I could jepordize my place at IS. Are you suggesting I do the wrong thing ?
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The lightbox has only got 30 images in it __ out of 88K new images uploaded in the last week alone. How much difference can it possibly make?
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With any site I have found an initial "honeymoon" period before things drop and find their equilibrium.
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I wasn't suggesting anything at all. I just think it will be a shame if u don't appear in the New Artist lightbox on the homepage. I understand the predicament though.
However, as gostwyck says it probably doesn't make much of a difference. At the time of posting I thought it did.
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Ok, I'll let you off ;) I know what you mean though.
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I dropped iS exclusivity in june 2011. I am happy with the decision I made, because it truly revitalized my love of photography, and re-motivated me. That said, I still have not recovered to where I was before, earnings-wise. I'm getting there, but not there yet. However, I do think I'd be ahead relative to where I WOULD be if I had not rescinded, because the RC change would have hit me very hard. But that's all speculation.
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For SS, it took no less than eight submissions! It seemed to be a moving target. At least one submission contained only images that were approved in other submissions, but some were rejected nevertheless. It was worth the effort, though, because I now get daily sales at SS (although at 33 cents per sale, it will take a long time to realize any significant income). I make payout every other month, working diligently toward making it every month.
You have c800 pics of models on SS and 'make payout every other month' - Please tell me they have a high payout bar!
It depends on your definition of "high." After all, you've gotta sell a lotta pictures at 33 cents each in order to make any money. For example, so far this month I've had 28 sales resulting in a whopping $11.39*. That's just plain wrong! :P Ya know how many sales it takes to get that amount of money at AllYouCanStock.com? THREE!
Don't get me wrong - I'm honored to be a SS contributor, and I appreciate the steady volume, which I don't get (yet) at AYCS. But I'm definitely not a fan of subscription sales. I think it devalues our work. But the truth is that it's just the simple law of supply and demand at work here. If I were to delete my SS portfolio, it would have the same lasting effect as withdrawing my finger from a glass of water. ::)
(*In case you're doing the math, there was one on-demand sale for $2.48.)
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I didn't realize prices were so low for images sold at SS. Why does everyone seem to rate them then if they don't pay like IS ?
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Because SS sells images like crazy. It's been my top earner for over six years now. IS never came remotely close to bringing in the number of downloads or the money.
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I didn't realize prices were so low for images sold at SS.
You move heaven and earth to get into a site and you haven't read the earnings schedule?
http://submit.shutterstock.com/earnings_schedule.mhtml (http://submit.shutterstock.com/earnings_schedule.mhtml)
Why does everyone seem to rate them then if they don't pay like IS ?
That's what I totally can't get my head around. Pics of any size that the contributor gets 25c for (max 38c) on the sub scheme, 20% - 30% for 'single images on demand'.[/quote]
Admittedly, better than TS, but that's about all.
I don't submit to TS either. If iStock forced us all into it, that could be the last straw unless there were big compensations in some other way.
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Because SS sells images like crazy. It's been my top earner for over six years now. IS never came remotely close to bringing in the number of downloads or the money.
Out of respect for contributors, they really need to up prices.
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Because SS sells images like crazy. It's been my top earner for over six years now. IS never came remotely close to bringing in the number of downloads or the money.
Out of respect for contributors, they really need to up prices.
Agreed...and our royalties. It's been a couple of years since we last had a raise.
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Because SS sells images like crazy. It's been my top earner for over six years now. IS never came remotely close to bringing in the number of downloads or the money.
Out of respect for contributors, they really need to up prices.
why ? they do not want to go on IS path.... Like in any other thriving business ...small price but huge volumes....
SS has become by far my best earner despite the fact i have half of images compared with other agencies.
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If they could pay me more and keep providing me with the consistent upward trend in income that I've experienced these years, then of course I'd be even happier with them than I am now. My concern would be that if they push buyers too far, they'll lose market share and my income would stabilise or fall. I wouldn't want that.
I think their 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' approach has served them (and me) very well so far. For that reason, I tend to trust Jon Oringer's judgement.
ETA: Removing a paragraph, because I don't want to encourage the competition over to SS TOO much! ;)
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I didn't realize prices were so low for images sold at SS.
You move heaven and earth to get into a site and you haven't read the earnings schedule?
http://submit.shutterstock.com/earnings_schedule.mhtml (http://submit.shutterstock.com/earnings_schedule.mhtml)
I didn't need to as SS are coming out on top ;-)
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why ? they do not want to go on IS path.... Like in any other thriving business ...small price but huge volumes....
Not remotely 'like any other thriving business' most of which are forced out of business when they cut prices too far.
It is doable with agencies because their stock costs are very low and they can sell many times for an initial low cost (inspection) and a small ongoing cost (server space and maintenance).
However, while attractive to the customer, these prices, as was mentioned earlier, devalue the work and expense of contributors.
On the other hand, many people with better ports than me don't seem to mind that.
It is interesting that anecdotally they are pushing the acceptance standards up and up, but the recompense isn't following suit.
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After all, you've gotta sell a lotta pictures at 33 cents each in order to make any money. For example, so far this month I've had 28 sales resulting in a whopping $11.39*. That's just plain wrong! :P Ya know how many sales it takes to get that amount of money at AllYouCanStock.com? THREE!
Don't get me wrong - I'm honored to be a SS contributor, and I appreciate the steady volume, which I don't get (yet) at AYCS. But I'm definitely not a fan of subscription sales. I think it devalues our work.
Why do people keep bleating on about "SS sells at just 25/33c"? My average sale at SS this month is over 70c and that figure has been steadily rising for the last 3 years.
Without the context of volume such statements are utterly meaningless. Nowadays I sell roughly 4x more images at SS than I do on Istock. Yes, I get paid about 2x more per sale at Istock but do they produce the volume? No __ nowhere near. That's why my portfolio makes more than twice as much money on SS.
In June 2010 I had a sale at Istock that netted me just 5c. Yes honestly, see here;
http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/5c-royalty-at-istock/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/5c-royalty-at-istock/)
But do people go on about "Istock sells at just 5c"? No. Why not?
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5c?
Wow. I must have missed that. I think the lowest I've had at IS is 7c, and my share of 10cs.
I was astounded by 7c. But 5c?!!!
How low can they go?
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But do people go on about "Istock sells at just 5c"? No. Why not?
They do: when low sales happen, they often get mentioned both over on the iStock forums and here.
If these are genuinely old credits, fair enough - but there can hardly be that many of these flying around.
What I believe is wrong is that new credits are being sold at well below the published rate for big buyers, but this isn't visible to us plebs, who sign up on the basis of the prices which are visible. (Same on Alamy, of course - pics are being sold at way below the rack rate for big buyers.)
What people do go on about is the %age earned by contributors. Yes, it's insulting at 15% for many indies at iStock; and probably Yuri is about the indie earning 20%. Plus many/most of us aren't getting the %age we were promised ("grandfathered in") before the bombshell.
But how do you know what percentage your flat rate of 25c - 38c is of a subscription payment? And it seems from the earnings schedule that the maximum you can ever get at SS is 30%.
So what you're (not 'you', Gostwyck, in particular) really saying is that SS is good because it sells your very high quality (nowadays) images at very low prices so you get more sales? Some keen iStockers say the same about TS. :(
I know that not all who submit to SS get good volumes of sales, like anywhere else. However, I accept that people will say as they find, and that's fine. Except that for the past few months those who aren't doing so well there, with only one or two exceptions, seem a bit intimidated to admit that on here.
Don't interpret the above as an apologia for iStock or a demonisation of SS. It's neither.
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Because SS sells images like crazy. It's been my top earner for over six years now. IS never came remotely close to bringing in the number of downloads or the money.
Out of respect for contributors, they really need to up prices.
Agreed...and our royalties. It's been a couple of years since we last had a raise.
Not exactly. My income per sale at SS has been steadily rising for about 3 years. In Jan 2009 for example my average sale price was 50c (and I was already on the maximum commission) and now it is over 70c.
My total income from SS is projected to be roughly double what it was in Jan 2009 too. If that's not 'a rise' then I don't know what one is. All that in the teeth of the worst Worldwide recession/depression since the 1930's.
What sort of 'a rise' would satisfy you?
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If they could pay me more and keep providing me with the consistent upward trend in income that I've experienced these years, then of course I'd be even happier with them than I am now. My concern would be that if they push buyers too far, they'll lose market share and my income would stabilise or fall. I wouldn't want that.
I think their 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' approach has served them (and me) very well so far. For that reason, I tend to trust Jon Oringer's judgement.
Exactly. Oringer has always taken a slow and scientific approach to increases on image prices, testing customer resistance for several months before fully implementing changes. It is in sharp contrast to Istock's recklessness and greed ... and there will be only one winner.
I believe many microstockers need to 'reset' their expectations of monthly/yearly increases. Yes, it was great for the first few years when the market was finding its own level, images prices soared each year and we could double the sizes of our portfolios ... but now things are different. Microstock has become a mature market and is highly competitive both for agencies and individual contributors. Increases in income from here on in will have to be hard won by talent, investment and graft rather than being simply handed out annually by the agencies via ever-increasing prices. Better get used to it because that's how it's going to be.
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If they could pay me more and keep providing me with the consistent upward trend in income that I've experienced these years, then of course I'd be even happier with them than I am now. My concern would be that if they push buyers too far, they'll lose market share and my income would stabilise or fall. I wouldn't want that.
I think their 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' approach has served them (and me) very well so far. For that reason, I tend to trust Jon Oringer's judgement.
Exactly. Oringer has always taken a slow and scientific approach to increases on image prices, testing customer resistance for several months before fully implementing changes. It is in sharp contrast to Istock's recklessness and greed ... and there will be only one winner.
I believe many microstockers need to 'reset' their expectations of monthly/yearly increases. Yes, it was great for the first few years when the market was finding its own level, images prices soared each year and we could double the sizes of our portfolios ... but now things are different. Microstock has become a mature market and is highly competitive both for agencies and individual contributors. Increases in income from here on in will have to be hard won by talent, investment and graft rather than being simply handed out annually by the agencies via ever-increasing prices. Better get used to it because that's how it's going to be.
Can't see how that's anything to cheer about unless you're a customer.
While pleasing the customer is a Good Thing, there has to be a fair balance. IMO neither 25c nor 70c for a full sized image, or even a medium sized one is fair to the producer. IMO these prices are no better than an occasional 7c for an XSm.
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Low price + high sales volume is what defined the microstock model. As iStock gradually pushed its way out of microstock into the non-existent midstock category people started looking at price per sale rather than total earnings. Price-per-sale it a trad-stock way of thinking.
One of the reasons I went with the PP was that when you get down to basics, the arguments against it are the same as the arguments against the entire microstock model and it seemed irrational to be willing to sell images at $250 per monthly subscription on SS but to be unwilling to sell them for $250 per subscription on TS.
It is worth noting that from the buyer's perspective, a purchase from the SS subscription involves spending $250, while a purchase from iS, using the smallest available credit pack is probably less than 10% of that. So from one point of view, it can be argued that iS is devaluing images more than SS is.
From the microstocker's perspective, what matters is not the return on individual sales, or even the percentage commission, it is the bottom line at the end of the month. That is what got us into this game in the first place.
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From the microstocker's perspective, what matters is not the return on individual sales, or even the percentage commission, it is the bottom line at the end of the month. That is what got us into this game in the first place.
Oh, and there was me thinking it was an opportunity for those outside the old boy network of the trad macros.
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Because SS sells images like crazy. It's been my top earner for over six years now. IS never came remotely close to bringing in the number of downloads or the money.
Out of respect for contributors, they really need to up prices.
Agreed...and our royalties. It's been a couple of years since we last had a raise.
Not exactly. My income per sale at SS has been steadily rising for about 3 years. In Jan 2009 for example my average sale price was 50c (and I was already on the maximum commission) and now it is over 70c.
My total income from SS is projected to be roughly double what it was in Jan 2009 too. If that's not 'a rise' then I don't know what one is. All that in the teeth of the worst Worldwide recession/depression since the 1930's.
What sort of 'a rise' would satisfy you?
I wasn't talking about a "rise." I was talking about a "raise." When I started there in 2005, contributors earned 20 cents per subscription sale. Then they raised it to 25 cents, then 30 cents, and then they implemented the tiered system with a max of 38 cents. Used to be we could expect a raise every year, but we haven't had one since the economy tanked.
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I wasn't talking about a "rise." I was talking about a "raise." When I started there in 2005, contributors earned 20 cents per subscription sale. Then they raised it to 25 cents, then 30 cents, and then they implemented the tiered system with a max of 38 cents. Used to be we could expect a raise every year, but we haven't had one since the economy tanked.
I think what Americans call 'a raise' in the UK would be referred to as 'a rise' We have pay rises (hopefully) not pay raises.
I'm sure Jon would like to increases prices, and thereby commissions, but has concluded it would be a poor business move to do so. He's having to compete for sub customers against FT, DT and TS amongst others so to charge significantly more could be catastrophic for his business. Instead he is growing his business 'organically' (to use that horrible expression) by offering better site functionality and service than his competitors.
All those price increases don't seemed to have helped Istock much as far as I can see. Most folk are reporting stagnant or falling incomes from them. As BT observes above microstock was always about low prices and high volumes. When Istock forgot about that minor detail they were sunk. FT have made several moves to decrease prices recently and even DT has had to change its pricing architecture and introduce an easy system for customers to seek out cheap images from search results. Against all that SS appears to be doing a pretty good job.
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All together now.... "you say 'tomayto'; I say 'tomahto'.... you say potayto; I say potahto..." ;D
I agree very much with your post Gostwyck.
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From the microstocker's perspective, what matters is not the return on individual sales, or even the percentage commission, it is the bottom line at the end of the month. That is what got us into this game in the first place.
Oh, and there was me thinking it was an opportunity for those outside the old boy network of the trad macros.
An opportunity to do what? Call yourself a stock photographer or make some money? If the answer is "make some money" then the bottom line comes back into it.
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From the microstocker's perspective, what matters is not the return on individual sales, or even the percentage commission, it is the bottom line at the end of the month. That is what got us into this game in the first place.
Oh, and there was me thinking it was an opportunity for those outside the old boy network of the trad macros.
An opportunity to do what? Call yourself a stock photographer or make some money? If the answer is "make some money" then the bottom line comes back into it.
True, the bottom line is more important to me than RPI, but it's not the only thing, or I guess I wouldn't have uploaded almost equal numbers to Alamy last year than I did to iStock. But deciding what should go where is a stab in the dark.
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What people do go on about is the %age earned by contributors. Yes, it's insulting at 15% for many indies at iStock; and probably Yuri is about the indie earning 20%. Plus many/most of us aren't getting the %age we were promised ("grandfathered in") before the bombshell.
But how do you know what percentage your flat rate of 25c - 38c is of a subscription payment? And it seems from the earnings schedule that the maximum you can ever get at SS is 30%.
This is what bothered me about IS and I think SS has the same problem. Only it is hidden in a cloud of mystery. I'd be surprised if it was over 30%. Maybe even closer to 20-25%. That doesn't even factor in if subs damage regular sales.
Sure they earn good money and have high sales volume, but how much money is left on the table that you'll never see?
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From the microstocker's perspective, what matters is not the return on individual sales, or even the percentage commission, it is the bottom line at the end of the month. That is what got us into this game in the first place.
Oh, and there was me thinking it was an opportunity for those outside the old boy network of the trad macros.
An opportunity to do what? Call yourself a stock photographer or make some money? If the answer is "make some money" then the bottom line comes back into it.
True, the bottom line is more important to me than RPI, but it's not the only thing, or I guess I wouldn't have uploaded almost equal numbers to Alamy last year than I did to iStock. But deciding what should go where is a stab in the dark.
So glad that you pointed that out. I've been racking my brain, trying to figure out how you guys decide what is microstock and what goes traditional or macrostock.
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From the microstocker's perspective, what matters is not the return on individual sales, or even the percentage commission, it is the bottom line at the end of the month. That is what got us into this game in the first place.
Oh, and there was me thinking it was an opportunity for those outside the old boy network of the trad macros.
An opportunity to do what? Call yourself a stock photographer or make some money? If the answer is "make some money" then the bottom line comes back into it.
True, the bottom line is more important to me than RPI, but it's not the only thing, or I guess I wouldn't have uploaded almost equal numbers to Alamy last year than I did to iStock. But deciding what should go where is a stab in the dark.
So glad that you pointed that out. I've been racking my brain, trying to figure out how you guys decide what is microstock and what goes traditional or macrostock.
It was much easier before iStock started selling editorial.
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I don't do macrostock. I'm strictly a microstocker. For now, anyway.
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I wasn't talking about a "rise." I was talking about a "raise." When I started there in 2005, contributors earned 20 cents per subscription sale. Then they raised it to 25 cents, then 30 cents, and then they implemented the tiered system with a max of 38 cents. Used to be we could expect a raise every year, but we haven't had one since the economy tanked.
I think what Americans call 'a raise' in the UK would be referred to as 'a rise' We have pay rises (hopefully) not pay raises.
Thanks for the clarification. Yes, Americans do call it a "raise." First new thing I learned today. :)
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Because SS sells images like crazy. It's been my top earner for over six years now. IS never came remotely close to bringing in the number of downloads or the money.
Out of respect for contributors, they really need to up prices.
Agreed...and our royalties. It's been a couple of years since we last had a raise.
I am certain that the reason we haven't gotten a raise from SS in the past two years is because that's about the length of time TS has been around. When TS gets away with paying .25 - .28 to contributors, why should SS increase its .38 max sub royalty? If they raise prices, then they will be at a competitive disadvantage.
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That's entirely possible, Lisa...and is another reason why I keep plugging away at slowly deactivating my IS images.
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Ok, so I switched my account back on with SS now I am indie. Nothing has changed. I can't see my now accepted images. I can't even use catalog manager because it tells me I have nothing to organize. I have 317 images up. Is there a delay before they are online ?
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Things can take a while to get indexed and percolate through the servers etc. First things will show up in your port and searched under "new" then after they are visible to a general search you can see them in the catalog manager too.
Hopefully they have fixed the bug where new files would show up briefly and then disappear for a few days.
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Things can take a while to get indexed and percolate through the servers etc. First things will show up in your port and searched under "new" then after they are visible to a general search you can see them in the catalog manager too.
Hopefully they have fixed the bug where new files would show up briefly and then disappear for a few days.
Things seem pretty immediate at SS to me now.
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But do people go on about "Istock sells at just 5c"? No. Why not?
They do: when low sales happen, they often get mentioned both over on the iStock forums and here.
If these are genuinely old credits, fair enough - but there can hardly be that many of these flying around.
What I believe is wrong is that new credits are being sold at well below the published rate for big buyers, but this isn't visible to us plebs, who sign up on the basis of the prices which are visible. (Same on Alamy, of course - pics are being sold at way below the rack rate for big buyers.)
What people do go on about is the %age earned by contributors. Yes, it's insulting at 15% for many indies at iStock; and probably Yuri is about the indie earning 20%. Plus many/most of us aren't getting the %age we were promised ("grandfathered in") before the bombshell.
But how do you know what percentage your flat rate of 25c - 38c is of a subscription payment? And it seems from the earnings schedule that the maximum you can ever get at SS is 30%.
So what you're (not 'you', Gostwyck, in particular) really saying is that SS is good because it sells your very high quality (nowadays) images at very low prices so you get more sales? Some keen iStockers say the same about TS. :(
I know that not all who submit to SS get good volumes of sales, like anywhere else. However, I accept that people will say as they find, and that's fine. Except that for the past few months those who aren't doing so well there, with only one or two exceptions, seem a bit intimidated to admit that on here.
Don't interpret the above as an apologia for iStock or a demonisation of SS. It's neither.
Sometimes it's better to be a bit more "dumb", or better said willingly ignorant and just care about the bottom line: how much do I make on a certain site. If I look at 2011, IS brought me just shy of 2/3 of SS earnings (PP included, but of course the Dec earnings are not in yet). Since they decided to impose a genocide on indie content my MTD earnings aren't even at 20%. Let say PP sales remained at the normal level since best match can't affect them, then my MTD earnings would increase to a whopping 35-40%.
So I really don't care wether I'm being payed 1c or 300$/DL, I just care about the sum (though selling a file for 300$ probably gives you a nice warm feeling inside). And the way the company is headed, it seems that for SS the sky is not the limit, while IS looks like Icarus.
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Things can take a while to get indexed and percolate through the servers etc. First things will show up in your port and searched under "new" then after they are visible to a general search you can see them in the catalog manager too.
Hopefully they have fixed the bug where new files would show up briefly and then disappear for a few days.
Things seem pretty immediate at SS to me now.
Yes it seems so. For a couple of weeks, things seem to be back to normal. They show up first as NEW and then sometime later the servers sync. and things are everywhere. I hope it sticks!
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Well it's next morning and still nothing showing in my port or in the search. "You don't have any content to organize. Please upload some so you can use this tool!"
The first time I was accepted, I already had a sale before I switched my live account off. That was immediate. Now it seems to be not working.
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In the past few months I have found that SS has it's immediate-days, it's wait-fourorfive-days, or it's let's-remove-these-live-photos-forafew-days. Don't worry, they will show up.
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After a couple of weeks I can report all my files are up and running but sales went from slow to flat line. Even though I am un-exclusive with IS I am still making more money with them. Up to now - very disappointing :-\
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After a couple of weeks I can report all my files are up and running but sales went from slow to flat line. Even though I am un-exclusive with IS I am still making more money with them. Up to now - very disappointing :-\
Herg, have you tried using the SS forum and asking for advice? If your keywording is good and your pictures are good then I'm sorry your sales are not. I still think its a mistake to upload before going live as I believe, though not 100% sure, they will not enter at the top of the pile.
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Sue! the maths here is really easy. What would you rather have? 30 sales per day at 0.38c plus say 15 sales per day at, 2.85, dollars, OR, at IS, 10 sales per day at an average of say 2.50.
At SS, its the magnitude of sales plus the extras like ODs, single-sales and ELs, in the end, I bet you would double if not even trebble your earnings at SS.
Thats what micro is all about, plenty and plenty of minor sales. :)
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I'll wait and see what happens. One thing about keywording, do you use words such as Horizontal, vertical, nobody, photography ?
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Sue! the maths here is really easy. What would you rather have? 30 sales per day at 0.38c plus say 15 sales per day at, 2.85, dollars, OR, at IS, 10 sales per day at an average of say 2.50.
At SS, its the magnitude of sales plus the extras like ODs, single-sales and ELs, in the end, I bet you would double if not even trebble your earnings at SS.
Thats what micro is all about, plenty and plenty of minor sales. :)
You forget, as an iStock, exclusive, you get a higher %age; so even though they capped me at 30%, my average this month has been $3.70 per sale, and in December it was $4.01.
Herg hasn't 'doubled or trebled his earnings at SS', and others I've heard about haven't either.
I'm guessing that SS buyers want a much narrower range of subjects, maybe because only certain sorts of buyers have a need for buying subs (I know, it's not all subs nowadays, but still). As they don't supply dl figures, I have no way of confirming or rejecting my theory.
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Sue! the maths here is really easy. What would you rather have? 30 sales per day at 0.38c plus say 15 sales per day at, 2.85, dollars, OR, at IS, 10 sales per day at an average of say 2.50.
At SS, its the magnitude of sales plus the extras like ODs, single-sales and ELs, in the end, I bet you would double if not even trebble your earnings at SS.
Thats what micro is all about, plenty and plenty of minor sales. :)
You forget, as an iStock, exclusive, you get a higher %age; so even though they capped me at 30%, my average this month has been $3.70 per sale, and in December it was $4.01.
Herg hasn't 'doubled or trebled his earnings at SS', and others I've heard about haven't either.
I'm guessing that SS buyers want a much narrower range of subjects, maybe because only certain sorts of buyers have a need for buying subs (I know, it's not all subs nowadays, but still). As they don't supply dl figures, I have no way of confirming or rejecting my theory.
All I can say is, in the "good old days" and this is a very good example, a friend of mine, diamond with IS, was earning as an exclusive, the same as he picks up from SS, today, as a non exclusive, this clearly show the progress of SS, but also the horrific downslope of IS.
best.
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Sue! the maths here is really easy. What would you rather have? 30 sales per day at 0.38c plus say 15 sales per day at, 2.85, dollars, OR, at IS, 10 sales per day at an average of say 2.50.
At SS, its the magnitude of sales plus the extras like ODs, single-sales and ELs, in the end, I bet you would double if not even trebble your earnings at SS.
Thats what micro is all about, plenty and plenty of minor sales. :)
You forget, as an iStock, exclusive, you get a higher %age; so even though they capped me at 30%, my average this month has been $3.70 per sale, and in December it was $4.01.
Herg hasn't 'doubled or trebled his earnings at SS', and others I've heard about haven't either.
I'm guessing that SS buyers want a much narrower range of subjects, maybe because only certain sorts of buyers have a need for buying subs (I know, it's not all subs nowadays, but still). As they don't supply dl figures, I have no way of confirming or rejecting my theory.
As a former exclusive, let me tell you my personal experience :
- SS is earning around 60% of my entire microstock earning, ( with an average of 300 dls/ month , in 3 months of contributing with them) with an port of 620 photos.
- DT around 20% (port of 1092 files )
- FT 15% (760 pics)
- 123RF 5%( port around 730 files)
I will never go exclusive with one agency again. In my opinion people that are exclusive with IS, DT or FT are afraid to go independent because they don't want to lose a big share of the income. I personally have lose only $50 in the transition ( lucky me).
What i try to say is that anyone with an above average portfolio that is exclusive will earn at least 30-40% more after Max. 2-3 month after they dropped exclusivity. There is no business in the world without risks or financial delays.
You want to make more money you have to assume those risks or delays.
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What i try to say is that anyone with an above average portfolio that is exclusive will earn at least 30-40% more after Max. 2-3 month after they dropped exclusivity. There is no business in the world without risks or financial delays.
That confirms my suspicion.
As I do not have an 'above average portfolio', I'm best to stay where I am at the moment.
Not to say that things won't change in the future.
Thanks for your input.
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What i try to say is that anyone with an above average portfolio that is exclusive will earn at least 30-40% more after Max. 2-3 month after they dropped exclusivity. There is no business in the world without risks or financial delays.
That confirms my suspicion.
As I do not have an 'above average portfolio', I'm best to stay where I am at the moment.
Not to say that things won't change in the future.
Thanks for your input.
by average port i refer to content not size.... course in microstock size matters. i believe you have a good port to do the move; except FT every other agencies accepts editorial.
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What i try to say is that anyone with an above average portfolio that is exclusive will earn at least 30-40% more after Max. 2-3 month after they dropped exclusivity. There is no business in the world without risks or financial delays.
That confirms my suspicion.
As I do not have an 'above average portfolio', I'm best to stay where I am at the moment.
Not to say that things won't change in the future.
Thanks for your input.
by average port i refer to content not size.... course in microstock size matters. i believe you have a good port to do the move; except FT every other agencies accepts editorial.
I was talking about content!
It's also time and hassle. iStock keywording is dead easy because of the CV (except for a few times where a meaning for a keyword doesn't exist but another meaning for that word does). At Alamy, I find keywording a total nightmare, and I'm guessing everywhere else is in between.
I keep hearing SS would reject many of my photos, expecially my editorial photos, which is their prerogative; but I'm not willingly going to waste my time for that hassle. I'm sure what they really want is business concepts. Fine.
Hey - the farmer and the cowman should be friends. I'll be exclusive for as long as it works for me, and no longer; but I wouldn't necessarily persuade anyone else to do the same.
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As a former exclusive, let me tell you my personal experience :
Where were you as an exclusive? I'm not sure IS would accept a lot of your content anyway (but don't quote me) :)
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DT.
Yes, IS is not.... but SS accepts, and it selling... very well ;)
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All I can say is, in the "good old days" and this is a very good example, a friend of mine, diamond with IS, was earning as an exclusive, the same as he picks up from SS, today, as a non exclusive, this clearly show the progress of SS, but also the horrific downslope of IS.
best.
He's probably shooting models in studios or other stuff that SS wants and sells well. I hear that stuff is doing very well at SS.
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DT.
Yes IS is not.... but SS yes, and it sells... very well ;)
Oh, that puts a very different complexion on things.
I've never, ever read that being a DT exclusive is a good move! (again, that might or might not change in the future!)
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As a former exclusive, let me tell you my personal experience :
Where were you as an exclusive? I'm not sure IS would accept a lot of your content anyway (but don't quote me) :)
They might: apart from Hulton Archive, at least two contributors do well with scans or photos of old engravings of historic people.
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DT.
Yes, IS is not.... but SS accepts, and it selling... very well ;)
DT is not IS
Also your SS content may or may not always be there - rules change often for this kind of content.
Anyway, as they say, Horses for Courses :)
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They might: apart from Hulton Archive, at least two contributors do well with scans or photos of old engravings of historic people.
Oh please, don't go putting ideas into my head :) I have a $1500 flatbed scanner sitting beside my computer that I've hardly ever used.
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I do have a lot of niche type images I admit but they did ok on IS. The other thing, I suspect you are right about missing the boat regarding images being uploaded a month before they went live. The reason is because when my initial 10 were accepted I had a download straight away. With 354 images it's tumbleweed city.
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After a couple of weeks I can report all my files are up and running but sales went from slow to flat line. Even though I am un-exclusive with IS I am still making more money with them. Up to now - very disappointing :-\
Can you link me to your Portfolio on SS so I can see your images?
Melissa
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except FT every other agencies accepts editorial.
But I understand that SS only wants newsworthy editorial.
I can't see any value in supplying newsworthy images at micro prices.
Is the review time fast enough for news photos, and do the news buyers look at SS first?
I'm really only interested in secondary editorial - articles, textbooks, guidebooks etc. Mainly I'm interested in wildlife, but that's well oversupplied by excellent people who have much more time in the field than I do.
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istock is the hardest to keyword for. All the others you just do it in the iptc data once and all done.
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DT.
Yes, IS is not.... but SS accepts, and it selling... very well ;)
DT is not IS
Also your SS content may or may not always be there - rules change often for this kind of content.
Anyway, as they say, Horses for Courses :)
As a former exclusive, let me tell you my personal experience :
Where were you as an exclusive? I'm not sure IS would accept a lot of your content anyway (but don't quote me) :)
I am talking about leaving exclusivity concept. Course IS exclusives will earn more than DT exclusives. and an ex exclusive with an average port of 800 images is not comparable with a 5000 pics exclusive that want to go independent ( in revenue and sales expectations ).
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Regarding at what i sell on SS i am shore that will sell very good for a long period. The reason is simple; i am the only one with that content in microstock industry.
For now. ;)
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..... yap
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istock is the hardest to keyword for. All the others you just do it in the iptc data once and all done.
Bingo! Keyword once prior to upload, and that's it. Veer is handy for discovering missed keyword opportunities. And as for Alamy, when I enter my keywords into the metadata, I do so following their priority order, so it makes copying and pasting easier.
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I'm just wondering if it's worth email support to see what has happened to my account as I am convinced something is wrong. It's absolutely gone dead for the last 2 days. For me IS is making me the most money by far. So far with 354 files on SS I have made a mere $15 on 49 downloads.
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Have you tried some searches Herg, to see where your images come up? I have made just shy of $100 this month on 113 images at SS, so if your stuff is any good then it sounds like something may be wrong. Have you been to your homepage (with the world map) and checked at Resources, Your Account to make sure all the radio buttons at the bottom of the page are set to 'opt in'?
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Yes, they are all checked :-\
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May I see them?
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You mean his images? Yes, I would like to see them too. Mine are here:
http://www.shutterstock.com/g/stockcube (http://www.shutterstock.com/g/stockcube)
ps - I don't have any one image that sells up a storm or anything, my earnings are pretty well spread across my portfolio. I have had one ED this month for $28, so the remainder is from regular sales. I have had 128 sales btw, in case that helps. I am on the $500 earnings band.
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I'm just wondering if it's worth email support to see what has happened to my account as I am convinced something is wrong. It's absolutely gone dead for the last 2 days. For me IS is making me the most money by far. So far with 354 files on SS I have made a mere $15 on 49 downloads.
which numbers were you expecting? I am sure there are many contributors with 400 files having like 800 downloads (like rimglow said a few time ago here, he have a stunning work) or even a lot more from some contributors (illustrators perhaps).. donīt know your portfolio but I would say you need a lot more pics if you are having that number, you are also starting at SS so I believe if your work is good it wil go up, but first need to get there, without sales it won't..
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Similar numbers to stock Cube's I would have thought. I would be well happy with $100 a month (I get more with IS)
http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-272143p1.html (http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-272143p1.html)
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You mean his images? Yes, I would like to see them too. Mine are here:
[url]http://www.shutterstock.com/g/stockcube[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/g/stockcube[/url])
ps - I don't have any one image that sells up a storm or anything, my earnings are pretty well spread across my portfolio. I have had one ED this month for $28, so the remainder is from regular sales. I have had 128 sales btw, in case that helps. I am on the $500 earnings band.
ja thats what I meant.
mine are here:
http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=88729&safesearch=1&prev_sort_method=popular&sort_method=newest&page=1 (http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=88729&safesearch=1&prev_sort_method=popular&sort_method=newest&page=1)
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You mean his images? Yes, I would like to see them too. Mine are here:
[url]http://www.shutterstock.com/g/stockcube[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/g/stockcube[/url])
ps - I don't have any one image that sells up a storm or anything, my earnings are pretty well spread across my portfolio. I have had one ED this month for $28, so the remainder is from regular sales. I have had 128 sales btw, in case that helps. I am on the $500 earnings band.
its incredible how you managed to have 200$ beside iStock with around 100 pics (just seen your excel sheet) :) honestly I donīt see how you can make it with your portfolio but it sure is selling well :) congrats!
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Thanks Luis :)
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Similar numbers to stock Cube's I would have thought. I would be well happy with $100 a month (I get more with IS)
[url]http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-272143p1.html[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-272143p1.html[/url])
Her portfolio is better, a lot of your shots are peeling paint and urban snapshots, etc
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mine are here:
[url]http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=88729&safesearch=1&prev_sort_method=popular&sort_method=newest&page=1[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=88729&safesearch=1&prev_sort_method=popular&sort_method=newest&page=1[/url])
I like your skateboarder Jens.
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You are both not precise enough. Sorry to say. Your photos are fine. BUT they are not focused on the keyword.
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mine are here:
[url]http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=88729&safesearch=1&prev_sort_method=popular&sort_method=newest&page=1[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=88729&safesearch=1&prev_sort_method=popular&sort_method=newest&page=1[/url])
I like your skateboarder Jens.
Thanks cube.
Sometimes you are lucky, arent you?
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You are both not precise enough. Sorry to say. Your photos are fine. BUT they are not focused on the keyword.
I believe StockCube pics look well keyworded
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Thats not the point.
its not about the keywords you add.
its about how you photograph the main keyword.
Like... Take the Famous tower of Pisa.
If you want it to show up in a search for Pisa + tower.
You need a photograph of the tower and ONLY the tower.
And such the photo should be of only the tower, no distractions. No pizza, now gladiators no nothing.
if you do a shot with a tourist in front of the tower at would be applicaple to a search of
Italy+ tourism + pisa
By having a tourist inside the frame you really degrade your image / keyword relation.
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of course, I believe we all know about distractions and I am not talking about hot woman, they can show up, no prob!
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My first month was pretty bad too, but things did pick up. Up to ~$175 this month, on between 200 and 250 images. I think it does take time, just like like it does on all websites.
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That is of course right.
and very untrue.
Which you know, we are making fun here.
If you place a woman from the swedish bikini team in front of the Pisa tower you will loose ― of your costumers.
All those knitting aunts graphic designers that cant cope with genuine competition.
and also dont have a reason to fit that image into a design... and only men would have.
HOWEVER, if you add certain keywords to that picture, your target group will suddently be much bigger than the original.
You can imagine the keywords.
Cant you?
its all about keywords, and presition.
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If you place a woman from the swedish bikini team in front of the Pisa tower you will loose ― of your costumers.
if they see her they might get her... and then she would ask to take the picture down.. lol
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Herg, I think maybe we have gone about things in different ways - you have readied a large number of images and uploaded them all at once while I have uploaded slowly in small batches over time. The benefit of this is that it has given me the opportunity to see what images are accepted at SS and which ones will sell and refine my future uploads accordingly. I do not plan on uploading all my old iStock portfolio to SS or elsewhere. I think I got lazy and complacent at iStock - it was easy just to shoot any old thing and upload it as it would often sell for a buck or two and it all adds up. A lot of these sort of images would just get a 'LCV' rejection at SS.
I said on my blog that I think that going exclusive has made me a far better photographer than I was when I was at iStock. I am not looking to pad out my portfolio with any old junk, I am now far more critical and only shoot and upload images that I think will sell. I think SS has been largely responsible for further training my eye. I think you can chose to deal with this situation by getting annoyed and pissed off about it or you can see it as a valuable lesson and try and learn from it.
There are a lot of similarities in our portfolios - we are both UK shooters without access to models so we have to strive extra hard to achieve downloads. I think you have a great portfolio, but I am sure you can do better yet, particularly in regard to punchy colour and simplicity. Think like a designer and best of luck,
Bridget
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thats a very good way of thinking Bridget but honestly upload all you got, you wouldnīt image the EL I had the other day :D you donīt have anything to lose at SS, if you have iptc its just a few minutes to upload, go for it seriously
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You should never put a new picture online that is not better than what you already have.
There is such a thing as competing woth yourself.
and there is such a thing as portefolio degredation.
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You should never put a new picture online that is not better than what you already have.
There is such a thing as competing woth yourself.
and there is such a thing as portefolio degredation.
In which case people shouldn't upload the same photos to price cutting sites, new "hopeful" agencies and low earners, because they are also competing with themselves. At least that's the way I came around to see it. Why compete with myself when I have 3000 people like you, with better images, to butt heads with. :D
Funny that I have uploaded some "better" versions of just a few that sell and guess what? The old ones still sell and the new ones have languished. That whole new photo honeymoon died long ago, and now being buried under the weight of 17,839,898 royalty-free stock photos / 83,081 new stock photos added this week, there's even less of a new boost.
Hey do we get some kind of 20 Million pool started, day and hour, closest wins? (besides the admiration of the hoards here) New thread idea.
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You should never put a new picture online that is not better than what you already have.
There is such a thing as competing woth yourself.
and there is such a thing as portefolio degredation.
In which case people shouldn't upload the same photos to price cutting sites, new "hopeful" agencies and low earners, because they are also competing with themselves. At least that's the way I came around to see it. Why compete with myself when I have 3000 people like you, with better images, to butt heads with. :D
That's precisely why I would say you should still upload photos that might compete with some of your current ones. Sure, you are competing with yourself, but also with 3000 other people. It's all about getting a bigger slice of the pie. Same reason soft drink companies keep introducing new types of soft drinks.
edited to clarify: still not better than uploading photos which dont compete with your portfolio at all, but if you already have them, I think competing with yourself AND everyone else is better than not.
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You should never put a new picture online that is not better than what you already have.
There is such a thing as competing woth yourself.
and there is such a thing as portefolio degredation.
it depends on a lot of stuff actually, I honestly donīt agree, if it is crap let them reject, it depends on the time you have, depends on the subject, depends if you have it online or not already, if I do a pic for stock and work on it I wil upload it (off course I see somehow it will be worth) come on, we arenīt here since yesterday, every new pic is worth (some more other less), really depends on what you would do instead of work/upload it, what would you do?? tv, going out, shopping?? are we talking about RPI?? seriously we can go now and delete half of our work.. and boy we will have much higher rpi
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Similar numbers to stock Cube's I would have thought. I would be well happy with $100 a month (I get more with IS)
[url]http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-272143p1.html[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-272143p1.html[/url])
Her portfolio is better, a lot of your shots are peeling paint and urban snapshots, etc
Thanks for being so blunt. Peeling paint does sell as well as the commercial stuff. These "snapshots" sell on IS. One thing I do see is that I can't get that colour punch with my Nikon D200. I don't have Photoshop, only the free Raw Shooter Essentials.
michealo- What about your work. Can we have a look ? ;-)
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These "snapshots" sell on IS.
Not all agencies are the same, as you are finding out. Shutterstock is so big that anything that doesn't grab the buyer's attention will sink pretty fast. You need Photoshop. I can't see how you can be a photographer without it. I am lagging a long way behind with CS2, but it is as essential as my camera.
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ps - If you are a Nikon shooter then you must be using CNX no? If not then you can download a free trial that lasts a month from the Nikon site. You could do a lot of editing in a month. ;)
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There are a lot of similarities in our portfolios - we are both UK shooters without access to models so we have to strive extra hard to achieve downloads. I think you have a great portfolio, but I am sure you can do better yet, particularly in regard to punchy colour and simplicity. Think like a designer and best of luck,
Funny enough this week I'm probably going to ask for a refund on two photos I bought because they were so over saturated the details were lost in the background and makes them useless for the purpose I require them for. But hey, they looked great at thumbnail and preview size. I think this policy should be stopped. Let the designer do the thinking!
Herg, I'm now almost certain uploading before you went live was your downfall.
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Noodles, you're right and I wish that true. The problem is, too many people dont plan on editing the photo, and just buy whichever one grabs them. Therefore by not including that 'pop', a photographer will probably limit his sales, even you are right, they damaged the photo to get that. In an ideal world, we could submit the exact same photo with and without the pop, and perfectly cater them to each different type of audience, but I don't see that ever happening.
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As it is now, there is an oversupply of photographers and they compete heavily among eachother.
If photographers were a scarce species, the competition would be at other places.
And the photographeres would upload straight out of the camera and not bother to ajust anything.
and about competing with your self.
To not be left behind in this world of super competition. And with super competition I mean that both the number of available files and their quality increase exponentially.
Its important that you continue to be both innovative and improve the quality of your pictures AND increase the number of files you upload.
And funny enough... Noone can continue to do that for ever, its just a question of time before your sales level out, no matter how hard(er) you work.
So get your slice of the pie while you can.
A good thing is, that because you have been in this super competitive environment, you have earned qualifications that are competitive in other fields of photography.
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And why on SS does my current earnings not match my overall earnings which are lower ? It doesn't make sense.
What has Photoshop got that is better than Raw shooter ?
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And why on SS does my current earnings not match my overall earnings which are lower ? It doesn't make sense.
New month. Just use the drop-down menu to see January earnings.
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Stll don't get it. Earnings this month $0. Overall earnings $14.76 and yet yesterday I had $15.51 in my account.
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Similar numbers to stock Cube's I would have thought. I would be well happy with $100 a month (I get more with IS)
[url]http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-272143p1.html[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-272143p1.html[/url])
Her portfolio is better, a lot of your shots are peeling paint and urban snapshots, etc
Thanks for being so blunt. Peeling paint does sell as well as the commercial stuff. These "snapshots" sell on IS. One thing I do see is that I can't get that colour punch with my Nikon D200. I don't have Photoshop, only the free Raw Shooter Essentials.
michealo- What about your work. Can we have a look ? ;-)
My portfolio is irrelevant because I'm not complaining about lack of sales.
I would second the comments regarding software
and would recommend Lightroom (which is a free 30 day trial on mac or pc)
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Similar numbers to stock Cube's I would have thought. I would be well happy with $100 a month (I get more with IS)
[url]http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-272143p1.html[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-272143p1.html[/url])
Her portfolio is better, a lot of your shots are peeling paint and urban snapshots, etc
As with all Nikons, to get it spot on, you should really use NX, as a raw-converter, its optimized for Nikon and ,really you should work in PS or Elements. Lightroom is OK, but it tend to clip the reds and yellows which is a bummer.
All these third party softwares are really just generals, not optimized for anything. If you want to be serious about photography you should at least invest in proper softwares, or everything becomes just compromizes.
Thanks for being so blunt. Peeling paint does sell as well as the commercial stuff. These "snapshots" sell on IS. One thing I do see is that I can't get that colour punch with my Nikon D200. I don't have Photoshop, only the free Raw Shooter Essentials.
michealo- What about your work. Can we have a look ? ;-)
My portfolio is irrelevant because I'm not complaining about lack of sales.
I would second the comments regarding software
and would recommend Lightroom (which is a free 30 day trial on mac or pc)
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What improvement would this software give from my Raw images other than using Raw shooter. Colour, saturation ?
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What improvement would this software give from my Raw images other than using Raw shooter. Colour, saturation ?
Yes, the NX raw-converter give far superior colors, the right colors, etc, correct WB, etc plus a whole string of extras. A converter optimized for its camera system is in my opinion a must.
PS, well, thats the industry standard, dont see how anybody shooting digital can do without it.
Most third party softwares render artifacts, noise-red (even when its off) and still some sharpening even with sharpening set to zero. all this render in artifacts and ofcourse, rejections.
best.
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So I need to spend over Ģ100 on Nikon software JUST to convert RAW files AND need Photoshop or the like. Is that all the Nikon software does ?
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So I need to spend over Ģ100 on Nikon software JUST to convert RAW files AND need Photoshop or the like. Is that all the Nikon software does ?
Well mate, 100 bucks and youve done pretty well ! Ive got softwares here for over 10K. PS, Binuscan, this and that, I could probably open up a shop. :)
yeah, probably the most effective 100 bucks youll ever spend.
The Nikon NX, does a whole lot more then just convert, some I know, does all their PP, in NX.
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Why would you need to have that amount for software to open up a shop ? You must me made of money ;)
If the Nikon software converts the Raw into a good Jpeg, isn't that all I need ?
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Why would you need to have that amount for software to open up a shop ? You must me made of money ;)
If the Nikon software converts the Raw into a good Jpeg, isn't that all I need ?
Yeah but I got other softwares for MF, Hasselblads and that kind of stuff. Anyway, reason you need NX and PS, is to set your parameters, highlights, shadows, exposure, hue and saturation, etc and both NX and PS, will give you a much superior jpg conversion to any third party software.
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Ok, you are off my radar a bit because I am from the old school of using film (when I was at college 20 odd years ago) and digital is relatively new to me. I must admit, I should know more about it other than the basics picked up here and there but that's probably a college course in itself.
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Ok, you are off my radar a bit because I am from the old school of using film (when I was at college 20 odd years ago) and digital is relatively new to me. I must admit, I should know more about it other than the basics picked up here and there but that's probably a college course in itself.
Dont worry, I am old school myself, all the way back to Velvia and Kodachrome 25. :)
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CNX is an awesome prog. It does in a few clicks what it takes PS a lot of layers to achieve. It's sharpening for example is vastly superior to what you get in photoshop - it cleans and defines without being noticeable or introducing artefacts. I also use it for colour balance, levels adjustments, and I use the spot adjuster Colour Control Points a lot, they are worth the money alone. If you go to the Nikon site they have some great video tutorials there which you can watch for free and then, as I said before, you can try the prog free for a month. I always start my editing in CNX then export as a Tiff to Photoshop for sensor spot removal, cropping and a bunch of other things that I can't get CNX to do to my liking. Final export as a JPEG and that way I have a Tiff copy if I later need to go back to re-edit.
I think it is a bit crazy to complain of low earnings and not be willing to shell out a hundred bucks for the very thing that can make your images more saleable - CNX. It will be money well spent as it will come back to you many times over.
Best of luck
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ps - I am considering switching from Nikon back to Sony now that they have brought out the A77, but I would still use CNX for my editing for sure. I will just get the Sony Raw converter to make me a Tiff then open it in CNX and go from there.
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Having said all that, I have still had the sales on IS without all this software. I have converted Raw shooter edits into Tiffs and further editing in the free Gimp software. You can remove sensor spots in Raw shooter, adjust hue, tint, WB and all the other parameters. The trouble is, I can't afford the space to store a Tiff for every shot taken. My hard drive would be filled in no time. I think I tried the Nikon trial software when I got my D200 and didn't like it but I might have another go.
I have emailed support because I am convinced something is wrong. 0.25 c in 3 days with 354 images that have sold on IS. Yes, I never expected anything high but as folk keep saying, they get more downloads at SS with 10% of the images at IS. I think coming to these forums may have helped in my downfall because perhaps, and just perhaps there could be some SS admin watching here :(
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Having said all that, I have still had the sales on IS without all this software. I have converted Raw shooter edits into Tiffs and further editing in the free Gimp software. You can remove sensor spots in Raw shooter, adjust hue, tint, WB and all the other parameters. The trouble is, I can't afford the space to store a Tiff for every shot taken. My hard drive would be filled in no time. I think I tried the Nikon trial software when I got my D200 and didn't like it but I might have another go.
I have emailed support because I am convinced something is wrong. 0.25 c in 3 days with 354 images that have sold on IS. Yes, I never expected anything high but as folk keep saying, they get more downloads at SS with 10% of the images at IS. I think coming to these forums may have helped in my downfall because perhaps, and just perhaps there could be some SS admin watching here :(
It's funny lots of people spent time to give you feedback and help and rather than use those suggestions you choose instead to believe you are being victimised.
Get real
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Having said all that, I have still had the sales on IS without all this software. I have converted Raw shooter edits into Tiffs and further editing in the free Gimp software. You can remove sensor spots in Raw shooter, adjust hue, tint, WB and all the other parameters. The trouble is, I can't afford the space to store a Tiff for every shot taken. My hard drive would be filled in no time. I think I tried the Nikon trial software when I got my D200 and didn't like it but I might have another go.
I have emailed support because I am convinced something is wrong. 0.25 c in 3 days with 354 images that have sold on IS. Yes, I never expected anything high but as folk keep saying, they get more downloads at SS with 10% of the images at IS. I think coming to these forums may have helped in my downfall because perhaps, and just perhaps there could be some SS admin watching here :(
It's funny lots of people spent time to give you feedback and help and rather than use those suggestions you choose instead to believe you are being victimised.
Get real
Yeah, funny isnt it, some people think theres shortcuts to just about anything. :)
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When did I say I was being "victimized" ?
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Having said all that, I have still had the sales on IS without all this software. I have converted Raw shooter edits into Tiffs and further editing in the free Gimp software. You can remove sensor spots in Raw shooter, adjust hue, tint, WB and all the other parameters. The trouble is, I can't afford the space to store a Tiff for every shot taken. My hard drive would be filled in no time. I think I tried the Nikon trial software when I got my D200 and didn't like it but I might have another go.
I have emailed support because I am convinced something is wrong. 0.25 c in 3 days with 354 images that have sold on IS. Yes, I never expected anything high but as folk keep saying, they get more downloads at SS with 10% of the images at IS. I think coming to these forums may have helped in my downfall because perhaps, and just perhaps there could be some SS admin watching here :(
Herg, it seems that no matter what you do it isn't working out and you're frustrated.
Maybe the title of this should have just been "Moving on".
Find something to do that you enjoy.
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Yeah, funny isnt it, some people think theres shortcuts to just about anything. :)
What? There aren't? (http://s5.postimage.org/82g60ygkj/doh.gif)
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I have given up on SS and going to concentrate on my main earner which is IS (and that's still low). SS might be great for most people here but for me it has proved no returns on the time invested. I can't see it being any different from what it is now in the future. For me SS is the "Emperor's New Clothes" of microstock. With 1 or 2 sales a day of around 25 cents I can't understand how this can be sustainable.
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I have given up on SS and going to concentrate on my main earner which is IS (and that's still low). SS might be great for most people here but for me it has proved no returns on the time invested. I can't see it being any different from what it is now in the future. For me SS is the "Emperor's New Clothes" of microstock. With 1 or 2 sales a day of around 25 cents I can't understand how this can be sustainable.
income ainīt built in a day or two, not even one or two months, you need very good files and keep on working hard, uploading and trying to be better..
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I have given up on SS and going to concentrate on my main earner which is IS (and that's still low). SS might be great for most people here but for me it has proved no returns on the time invested. I can't see it being any different from what it is now in the future. For me SS is the "Emperor's New Clothes" of microstock. With 1 or 2 sales a day of around 25 cents I can't understand how this can be sustainable.
You'll either have to go the whole hog and return to exclusivity :o or keep uploading to both sites and consider your returns at the end of a year.
Added:
There's no use in concentrating on IS yet accepting the lower %age from being indie.
IMHO, having jumped ship and started uploading to SS you should give it a few more months and submit equally and consider submitting to a wider range of agenices. You need to give independence a fair try to see if it's a better match for you over time.
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I have given up on SS and going to concentrate on my main earner which is IS (and that's still low). SS might be great for most people here but for me it has proved no returns on the time invested. I can't see it being any different from what it is now in the future. For me SS is the "Emperor's New Clothes" of microstock. With 1 or 2 sales a day of around 25 cents I can't understand how this can be sustainable.
You're saying that both top earnings sites, IS and SS, are performing poorly for you. If one performed great, and the other didn't, the problem could be the agency.
If all sites are performing poorly what could that indicate? Maybe that the content you're producing isn't overly sellable?
If you want to sell more images, which it sounds like you do, maybe it's time to evaluate your work and determine what adjustments need to be made to make the concepts and appearance more attractive to buyers. Or, if you don't want to make adjustments and you like your style, maybe try to find a market other than micro where there's demand for your style such as prints.
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lets be real here.. you have 354 pictures, looking at my own portfolio which I think it is better than yours (talking about subjects) but still below average of a good portfolio, take a look at my stats, number of pictures and earnings from Mar 09 until Set 11
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ONoItwr6ZOo/TqvrvfFYPoI/AAAAAAAAAzI/W2BL7X62QGU/s1600/sep%2Bearns%2B4.png (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ONoItwr6ZOo/TqvrvfFYPoI/AAAAAAAAAzI/W2BL7X62QGU/s1600/sep%2Bearns%2B4.png)
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When did I say I was being "victimized" ?
Herg, I have to say that it is not uncommon for groups to jump to conclusions without having all the facts. There are submitters at SS having port issues and some submitters on the site are experiencing significant bug issues that are impacting sales. So without all the facts who are we to say that your sales are low because they deserve to be low. There is not such a great deal of difference between some of the links that have been bandied about and yours.
If there is something wrong I would not hold my breath until SS fixes it, because if it costs to much to repair they may leave the bugs as is until they impact the majority of submitters to the point they will no longer put up with them. As it stands there are many members who have not been hit by SS bugs and until they have been, those people will continue to let their egos rule their opinions about your sales.
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When did I say I was being "victimized" ?
Herg, I have to say that it is not uncommon for groups to jump to conclusions without having all the facts. There are submitters at SS having port issues and some submitters on the site are experiencing significant bug issues that are impacting sales. So without all the facts who are we to say that your sales are low because they deserve to be low. There is not such a great deal of difference between some of the links that have been bandied about and yours.
If there is something wrong I would not hold my breath until SS fixes it, because if it costs to much to repair they may leave the bugs as is until they impact the majority of submitters to the point they will no longer put up with them. As it stands there are many members who have not been hit by SS bugs and until they have been, those people will continue to let their egos rule their opinions about your sales.
Thankyou. At last someone is thinking on my level. There is a climate of ivory tower-isms going on here with sardonic remarks about people's work. I am aware it isn't perfect, and yes we all have room for improvement but from the comments I have had publicly and privately it has a variety of subject matter and there are some good images . That is why I have been reluctant to post a link of my work. I know for certain that something technical must be wrong because I am still getting better sales at IS minus my crown. It doesn't take much to work out I should be getting as good, if not better sales at SS (going by what people report here and the stats to the right of the forum lists)
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I have given up on SS and going to concentrate on my main earner which is IS (and that's still low). SS might be great for most people here but for me it has proved no returns on the time invested. I can't see it being any different from what it is now in the future. For me SS is the "Emperor's New Clothes" of microstock. With 1 or 2 sales a day of around 25 cents I can't understand how this can be sustainable.
I went back to page 1 of this topic when you first posted, which was the end of November. So if I am correct, you have only had images up on SS for a couple of months? If that is correct, I don't think that you are being entirely fair to SS. I started with these sites in 2005, and even back then, when things were going great, I never started seeing good returns until after I had about 500 images up, and that includes on IS too.
It is, of course, your decision as far as being non-exclusive or exclusive, but I don't understand your expectations. Of course you aren't going to see great returns with that few of images in that short amount of time. It sounds like you were expecting almost instanteous returns and microstock, really, is all about quantity and a slow build.
I totally agree with Shady Sue:
IMHO, having jumped ship and started uploading to SS you should give it a few more months and submit equally and consider submitting to a wider range of agenices. You need to give independence a fair try to see if it's a better match for you over time.
You should at least give it a year. And increasing your uploads and as others have stated, maybe branching out into other subjects.
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As much as I hate photos being modified for impact, I fear in your case it may be the only solution to see some results. SS is quite lenient in this area so experiment Herg, experiment!
For example (and these are quick and rough)
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Maybe someone who knows how keywording works on SS will chip in on this specific:
You've got a photo of a Herring Gull, keyworded inter alia Seagull, gull, herring.
Herring can't possibly be correct, as there isn't a herring in the photo.
I don't know if SS has keyword phrases, so if you put , Herring Gull, does that make a keyword search term? Or do you need to put "Herring Gull"? Or ... ?
Also you should put the scientific binomial, in case people whose first language isn't English are looking for a photo of that species. (though IME, most people seem to search on 'seagull' ::) )
Similarly, you've got a photo of a marsh marigold, which is tagged marigold and marsh. You do have the scientific binomial, but it's split, as each individual word seems to be in alphabetical order - is that how SS works? Other bizarre keywords you've got for that flower are mother, direction, sun, water and Easter (detail and detailed are debatable, but I wouldn't have put them on that photo).
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Shady Sue (and others) bring up an excellent point. Keywording for IS is WAY different than keywording for SS. You will definitely need to go through and edit those. For IS, at one time, they suggested adding all the superfluous words like isolated, horizontal, vertical, from above, etc. ad nauseum. You might as well remove those words for SS.
Since I have uploaded to several sites all along, typically what I did was keyword for all the other sites, then duplicated my image and saved for IS, then added all those DA words they liked to have.
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It doesn't take much to work out I should be getting as good, if not better sales at SS (going by what people report here and the stats to the right of the forum lists)
Like I said before, it seems you didn't look at the portfolios of those who said they were doing well at SS to see what sells well there.
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Shady Sue (and others) bring up an excellent point. Keywording for IS is WAY different than keywording for SS. You will definitely need to go through and edit those.
The way he's keyworded these two particular files definitely wouldn't work at iStock. Both 'Herring Gull' and 'Marsh Marigold' are in the CV. What I don't know is whether SS has keyword phrases like that, or not, like Alamy ( >:( )
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What improvement would this software give from my Raw images other than using Raw shooter. Colour, saturation ?
First off all you must have calibrated monitor. Without that any software RAW converter will not be accurate...
Dont be so trustworthy this days/months at acceptance ratio at IS because they desperate needs any files for feeding ThingStok, so in my case I have nearly acceptance ratio on both sites which isnt be same few years ago.
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OK, I do not shoot in raw.
UNLESS it is unimportant pictures for the news, like burning houses at night. Then is nice to have a raw file that you can step up or down.
Else not.
For micro exposure HAS to be correct.
So I shoot jpg for microstock
I use photoshop elements to trim the photos. (CS5 is better)
I use Dusegard to keyword.
http://dusegard.se/PhotoKeywording.aspx (http://dusegard.se/PhotoKeywording.aspx)
the whole point in microstock is to shoot keywords, not attach keywords to your photo.
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Some good points I will take on board. Thanks.
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As much as I hate photos being modified for impact, I fear in your case it may be the only solution to see some results. SS is quite lenient in this area so experiment Herg, experiment!
For example (and these are quick and rough)
nice job :) think you deserve these words once Herg havenīt congratulate u or even a simple thanks!
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Shady Sue (and others) bring up an excellent point. Keywording for IS is WAY different than keywording for SS. You will definitely need to go through and edit those.
The way he's keyworded these two particular files definitely wouldn't work at iStock. Both 'Herring Gull' and 'Marsh Marigold' are in the CV. What I don't know is whether SS has keyword phrases like that, or not, like Alamy ( >:( )
Since SS doesn't have a CV, you can enter most anything that's relevant. It's up to the reviewer to catch spam and such. The trick is to enter it the way SS wants it to be entered. If you enter "Herring Gull", with the quotation marks, in your IPTC, when uploaded, the SS system will break that into two words (dumb, but that's what it does). When you are in the preparation window, selecting categories and such, you can type in the two or more word phrase, put the quotation marks back in and the system will accept the phrase. It's often advisable to leave the two words split up, even though there may not be a herring in the image, as designers will often enter each word by itself (gull, herring). As for scientific names, you don't want those split up. Re-enter those with the quotation marks and delete the individual words. Some other wording may be a judgement call as to how to enter, but at least you can go back in after the image has been accepted and add/delete keywords. They used to review the image again when this was done, but I believe that is no longer the practice today. Leaves open the danger of spamming the daylights out of an image, but whether or not that is actually happening I can't say. Honor system ... what are your ethical standards? ;D
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Since SS doesn't have a CV, you can enter most anything that's relevant. It's up to the reviewer to catch spam and such. The trick is to enter it the way SS wants it to be entered. If you enter "Herring Gull", with the quotation marks, in your IPTC, when uploaded, the SS system will break that into two words (dumb, but that's what it does). When you are in the preparation window, selecting categories and such, you can type in the two or more word phrase, put the quotation marks back in and the system will accept the phrase. It's often advisable to leave the two words split up, even though there may not be a herring in the image, as designers will often enter each word by itself (gull, herring). As for scientific names, you don't want those split up. Re-enter those with the quotation marks and delete the individual words. Some other wording may be a judgement call as to how to enter, but at least you can go back in after the image has been accepted and add/delete keywords. They used to review the image again when this was done, but I believe that is no longer the practice today. Leaves open the danger of spamming the daylights out of an image, but whether or not that is actually happening I can't say. Honor system ... what are your ethical standards? ;D
Just an FYI, I uploaded some new photos to SS last week. I had entered some two word phrases so I just went back to check them and fix them, per your instructions above. It appears as though the new uploading software doesn't split up multi-word phrases, as it did before. And I did not put those phrases in quotes. I keyword in PS file info with commas between words or phrases and then upload. Maybe they have finally changed that?
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Lord that would be wonderful if they did. We've only been asking for that for what seems like forever. If I remember correctly, it used to be that if you submitted an image and it came back for spelling, the quotation marks were dropped again and you had to go in and put them back. PITA >:( I haven't had occasion to enter a two word phrase in some time. Maybe I'll put a couple of test words together on my next upload just to see what happens. I can always pull them apart before submitting.
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As much as I hate photos being modified for impact, I fear in your case it may be the only solution to see some results. SS is quite lenient in this area so experiment Herg, experiment!
For example (and these are quick and rough)
nice job :) think you deserve these words once Herg havenīt congratulate u or even a simple thanks!
Or perhaps if the grammar was a bit easier to understand ;) If you read my post above you will see the word "Thanks" ::)
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As much as I hate photos being modified for impact, I fear in your case it may be the only solution to see some results. SS is quite lenient in this area so experiment Herg, experiment!
For example (and these are quick and rough)
Not quite sure why you think my images need such drastic filtering. The smoke image in itself has enough impact. SS will def fail images overfiltered like this anyway as they don't even like it if the WB is out.
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lets be real here.. you have 354 pictures, looking at my own portfolio which I think it is better than yours (talking about subjects) but still below average of a good portfolio, take a look at my stats, number of pictures and earnings from Mar 09 until Set 11
[url]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ONoItwr6ZOo/TqvrvfFYPoI/AAAAAAAAAzI/W2BL7X62QGU/s1600/sep%2Bearns%2B4.png[/url] ([url]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ONoItwr6ZOo/TqvrvfFYPoI/AAAAAAAAAzI/W2BL7X62QGU/s1600/sep%2Bearns%2B4.png[/url])
Nothing like blowing one's own trumpet. As a reference, I would be interested to see a link to your work so I know what I am aiming for.
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As much as I hate photos being modified for impact, I fear in your case it may be the only solution to see some results. SS is quite lenient in this area so experiment Herg, experiment!
For example (and these are quick and rough)
Not quite sure why you think my images need such drastic filtering. The smoke image in itself has enough impact. SS will def fail images overfiltered like this anyway as they don't even like it if the WB is out.
Well the theory is that vibrant, over saturated images are more eyecatching at thumbnail size and thus more likely to be selected and bought. All I'm suggesting is you experiment with this theory and think about ways your images can stand out from the crowd.
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I see where you are coming from now. Cheers.
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Things seem to be picking up a bit so there is some light. :)
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To review after 2 months at SS I have made a grand total of $44. I can't get excited about that. 1-4 sales a day at a mere 33 cents is hardly anything. Meanwhile, IS earned me $216 this month alone and I am no longer exclusive. To me the top tier is def IS. No contest.
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To review after 2 months at SS I have made a grand total of $44. I can't get excited about that. 1-4 sales a day at a mere 33 cents is hardly anything. Meanwhile, IS earned me $216 this month alone and I am no longer exclusive. To me the top tier is def IS. No contest.
Stick with it. I think this will pay off in the long run. Just as a single example of what you might hope to get out of this... My istock earnings for February were 9% of my SS earnings. Imagine if you get to a similar point. If you're earning $200 at istock and if that only represented 9% of your SS earnings, your SS take would be over $2200.
Granted using my percentages against your earnings may illustrate a bit of an extreme case. Not many people see their SS earnings outpace istock by that much. But even if you fall somewhere in the middle of that. You get the point. The potential at SS is significant, and while it may take some time for things to pick up speed, I think you will come out of this better off.
One last bit of info: February was my BME at SS by $900 over my previous BME (January). A lot of people are seeing huge growth and back-to-back BMEs. Just my opinion based on my personal experience, but I think you're making the right move by getting into SS.
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To review after 2 months at SS I have made a grand total of $44. I can't get excited about that. 1-4 sales a day at a mere 33 cents is hardly anything. Meanwhile, IS earned me $216 this month alone and I am no longer exclusive. To me the top tier is def IS. No contest.
Stick with it. I think this will pay off in the long run. Just as a single example of what you might hope to get out of this... My istock earnings for February were 9% of my SS earnings. Imagine if you get to a similar point. If you're earning $200 at istock and if that only represented 9% of your SS earnings, your SS take would be over $2200.
Granted using my percentages against your earnings may illustrate a bit of an extreme case. Not many people see their SS earnings outpace istock by that much. But even if you fall somewhere in the middle of that. You get the point. The potential at SS is significant, and while it may take some time for things to pick up speed, I think you will come out of this better off.
One last bit of info: February was my BME at SS by $900 over my previous BME (January). A lot of people are seeing huge growth and back-to-back BMEs. Just my opinion based on my personal experience, but I think you're making the right move by getting into SS.
I would be very happy if SS even matched my IS earnings but if things pick up as you say you never know. I am only going on my experience so far which I think has evened to an equilibrium.
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To review after 2 months at SS I have made a grand total of $44. I can't get excited about that. 1-4 sales a day at a mere 33 cents is hardly anything.
Did SS raise their minimum rate? I thought it used to be a quarter per sale until you reached a certain sales threshold ($500?). Or were you independent and with SS before? Anyway, I hope things pick up for you there. How much of your IS portfolio is on SS now?
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OK, I do not shoot in raw.
UNLESS it is unimportant pictures for the news, like burning houses at night. Then is nice to have a raw file that you can step up or down.
Else not.
For micro exposure HAS to be correct.
So I shoot jpg for microstock
I use photoshop elements to trim the photos. (CS5 is better)
I use Dusegard to keyword.
[url]http://dusegard.se/PhotoKeywording.aspx[/url] ([url]http://dusegard.se/PhotoKeywording.aspx[/url])
the whole point in microstock is to shoot keywords, not attach keywords to your photo.
I wouldn't follow this advice personally. I think it is imperative to shoot in RAW. why wouldn't you if you can? only in specific live feed situations do I shoot jpegs for editorial stuff. RAW files allow you to correct and modify without compression and to have a baseline from which to start again if you screw up while processing.
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One last bit of info: February was my BME at SS by $900 over my previous BME (January). A lot of people are seeing huge growth and back-to-back BMEs. Just my opinion based on my personal experience, but I think you're making the right move by getting into SS.
But aren't you an illustrator?
I'm noticing that there are certain ports in SS which are doing well, and some which aren't. It seems that SS buyers are looking for a narrower range of images than iStock's. Or maybe nowadays they are accepting a narrower range of images.
I'm not saying Herg has made a bad move, necessarily - I guess he'll know after another four months; but SS isn't wonderful for everyone - even more than iStock it seems to depend on your port.
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Since so many indies like SS so much, I have no issue that SS is doing very well. Good luck to Herg!
IS has been quite solid and steady lately, too. Nothing one would call home about, but the growth is picking up again. I kinda like the low-key approach of Rebecca.
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But aren't you an illustrator?
I'm noticing that there are certain ports in SS which are doing well, and some which aren't. It seems that SS buyers are looking for a narrower range of images than iStock's. Or maybe nowadays they are accepting a narrower range of images.
I'm not saying Herg has made a bad move, necessarily - I guess he'll know after another four months; but SS isn't wonderful for everyone - even more than iStock it seems to depend on your port.
Yes, I'm an illustrator. And sure it depends on your portfolio. But in general, across all types of portfolios (both photo and illustration), SS seems to be doing very well. I fully acknowledge that my experience with SS as it compares to istock may be a little extreme. But many people report fairly similar results. It is common for SS to make up 50% or more of someone's earnings, and for istock to represent 25% or less.
Plenty of photographers are also reporting big BMEs at SS for January and February. It's definitely not limited to illustrators.
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IS has been quite solid and steady lately, too. Nothing one would call home about, but the growth is picking up again. I kinda like the low-key approach of Rebecca.
Isn't 'the growth picking up' just natural seasonal variation at best? Even Sean has reported that his downloads are down 50% over the last couple of years despite increasing his portfolio by about 40%. There's a limit to how far prices can be stretched to maintain incomes and Istock have probably already hit it. If that is the case, and the same pattern continues then income from mature portfolios may also halve over the next couple of years.
Rebbecca is 'low key' because she doesn't want her name attached to Istock's future (the last person that did got sacked). That's why Istock is apparently now being run by a faceless committee.
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IS has been quite solid and steady lately, too. Nothing one would call home about, but the growth is picking up again. I kinda like the low-key approach of Rebecca.
Isn't 'the growth picking up' just natural seasonal variation at best? Even Sean has reported that his downloads are down 50% over the last couple of years despite increasing his portfolio by about 40%. There's a limit to how far prices can be stretched to maintain incomes and Istock have probably already hit it. If that is the case, and the same pattern continues then income from mature portfolios may also halve over the next couple of years.
Rebbecca is 'low key' because she doesn't want her name attached to Istock's future (the last person that did got sacked). That's why Istock is apparently now being run by a faceless committee.
I haven't read a lot from Sean lately so I wonder how he is doing now. Traditionally January was the worst month of the year for me, however this January was the BME in income. Feb is on par with January. That was why I said it was solid and steady.
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Herg, I feel bad for you. You are reporting under-performance on both SS and DT. It may be that for whatever reason, your portfolio just performs a lot better on Istock. Are you considering going back to exclusivity?
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Herg, I feel bad for you. You are reporting under-performance on both SS and DT. It may be that for whatever reason, your portfolio just performs a lot better on Istock. Are you considering going back to exclusivity?
No, I have invested too much time uploading and keywording. IS isn't much less than what it was earning me before so I am not losing out. DT picked up after a couple of weeks and I was getting very good, regular sales until recently when it has ground to a halt. And I mean a halt. I have been told on the DT forums that sales come in "waves" which I still can't get my head round. Ok, my portfolio isn't amazing or anything but it certainly isn't bad enough to warrant terrible SS sales. Perhaps as was said ealier, I should have held back on joining until I was clear of exclusivity of IS but I didn't want to give up IS exclusivity until I was sure of getting into SS. If this is the case (and I suspect it is) it isn't fair at all that this sets the precedent for your future chance of sales. March has started off great at SS with no sales today. I am finding it very hard to be positive and not to get depressed and despondent.
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Herg, I feel bad for you. You are reporting under-performance on both SS and DT. It may be that for whatever reason, your portfolio just performs a lot better on Istock. Are you considering going back to exclusivity?
No, I have invested too much time uploading and keywording. IS isn't much less than what it was earning me before so I am not losing out. DT picked up after a couple of weeks and I was getting very good, regular sales until recently when it has ground to a halt. And I mean a halt. I have been told on the DT forums that sales come in "waves" which I still can't get my head round. Ok, my portfolio isn't amazing or anything but it certainly isn't bad enough to warrant terrible SS sales. Perhaps as was said ealier, I should have held back on joining until I was clear of exclusivity of IS but I didn't want to give up IS exclusivity until I was sure of getting into SS. If this is the case (and I suspect it is) it isn't fair at all that this sets the precedent for your future chance of sales. March has started off great at SS with no sales today. I am finding it very hard to be positive and not to get depressed and despondent.
Well, I am glad to hear that you haven't lost too much income overall. I think you may be right about what happened to your SS sales. If you work on getting some new images uploaded there, you may see things turn around. Hopefully :)
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IS isn't much less than what it was earning me before so I am not losing out.
How is that possible? You went down 50% or more in royalty % and 50% on RCs, so right off the bat you would have lost 75% of income per sale not to mention worse best match placement. Are you saying your sales nearly quadrupled since dropping exclusivity?
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IS isn't much less than what it was earning me before so I am not losing out.
How is that possible? You went down 50% or more in royalty % and 50% on RCs, so right off the bat you would have lost 75% of income per sale not to mention worse best match placement. Are you saying your sales nearly quadrupled since dropping exclusivity?
Just to share my experience here as a recent indie. I went live on SS on 23rd of Feb and have managed to build a portfolio of about 330 images there, most (75%) of which was added either just before (as in a few days before) I went live or since I went live (yes I have been busy). I have been averaging about 8-10 dls a day (so $2-$3) since going live and a few dollars a day. Quite frankly I expected a lot more, especially while my images were "new" (maybe they are still "new" - when does the "newness" wear off?). I have achieved about 75% acceptanceof the images I have submitted and have about another 400 to submit so expect to end up with about 600 images on SS once the portoflio upload is complete. I'm uploading in large batches in order to grow my portfolio there as quickly as possible - the slwo inspections are killing me though. 6 or 7 days for inspections is not the sort of responsiveness I expected and by the sound of it is a mor recent problem on SS.
Meanwhile over on iStock I have seen the 75% reduction in royalties traveler1116 was talking about, even though most of my DLs are images I put into P+. My actual number of downloads is surprisingly, not too bad and at least comparable to what I was getting as an exclusive which I was a little surprised about. That may however drop off if most of the downloads I'm getting now are the result of people lightboxing my images prior to going indie (in which case they have saved themselves a bunch of money!).
So basically I'm taking a big hit financially at the moment (I was averaging about $20-$25 a day as exclusive on iStock, now it's more like $7 -$10). I really hope SS picks up because otherwise going indie is looking like a false step. I realise I need to spread out to other sites which I will do as I go, but I was expecting a lot more from SS. It seems like, in most cases SS is indie contributors No.2 and occasionally No.1. If my No.2 is going to only bring in a few $ a day, then it is not going to work. The reasons I went indie are still there, so I will stick with it for a few months and start uploading to other sites and see what happens.
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dcdp time to invest in other agencies too, best of luck
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dcdp time to invest in other agencies too, best of luck
True, but I am wary of the lock in on sites like DT and sites like FT and 123RF are behaving much like iStock (dropping royalties, poor contributor relations, general insanity, etc) from what I read on the forums so I don't know if I want to upload to them either. Then the smaller ones might only bring in a few $/month which will mean I may never even hit payout on those sites so it is debatable whether the effort to upload is worth it.
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Success as and indy really means multiple agencies. SS and IS combined totaled just over 1/3 of my income in February. Obviously different ports behave differently but it is a mistake to assume you can trade IS for SS. You should really view it as replacing IS with IS(minus)+SS+DT+FT+ 4 to 10 other sites. Yes the uploading is a commitment and a PITA and the return on the smaller sites is considerably less but it does add up. Based on my revenue tracking I can't imagine a scenario where a single agency (including SS) would return more than the combination of all of the sites I choose to upload to.
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dcdp time to invest in other agencies too, best of luck
True, but I am wary of the lock in on sites like DT and sites like FT and 123RF are behaving much like iStock (dropping royalties, poor contributor relations, general insanity, etc) from what I read on the forums so I don't know if I want to upload to them either. Then the smaller ones might only bring in a few $/month which will mean I may never even hit payout on those sites so it is debatable whether the effort to upload is worth it.
I understand but you arenīt going to recover your exclusive IS income with only SS and IS :/
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dcdp time to invest in other agencies too, best of luck
True, but I am wary of the lock in on sites like DT and sites like FT and 123RF are behaving much like iStock (dropping royalties, poor contributor relations, general insanity, etc) from what I read on the forums so I don't know if I want to upload to them either. Then the smaller ones might only bring in a few $/month which will mean I may never even hit payout on those sites so it is debatable whether the effort to upload is worth it.
I understand but you arenīt going to recover your exclusive IS income with only SS and IS :/
As much as I hate to say it I have to agree :-\
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dcdp time to invest in other agencies too, best of luck
True, but I am wary of the lock in on sites like DT and sites like FT and 123RF are behaving much like iStock (dropping royalties, poor contributor relations, general insanity, etc) from what I read on the forums so I don't know if I want to upload to them either. Then the smaller ones might only bring in a few $/month which will mean I may never even hit payout on those sites so it is debatable whether the effort to upload is worth it.
I understand but you arenīt going to recover your exclusive IS income with only SS and IS :/
As much as I hate to say it I have to agree :-\
you need to get from 10$ to 25$, 15$ per day which is lets see at 25 cents (40 with OD/EL), you need 38 sales per day, not saying it isnīt possible, you do have a very nice portfolio but joining other would help you out a bit..
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I understand but you arenīt going to recover your exclusive IS income with only SS and IS :/
It's not impossible. SS alone represented 57% of my February earnings. That's just SS, out of the 21 sites I work with.
I know, I'm an illustrator, it's not the same, yada yada... Just saying it's not impossible, though. SS can be a beast some months.
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IS isn't much less than what it was earning me before so I am not losing out.
How is that possible? You went down 50% or more in royalty % and 50% on RCs, so right off the bat you would have lost 75% of income per sale not to mention worse best match placement. Are you saying your sales nearly quadrupled since dropping exclusivity?
Because I sell mainly SFX sounds on IS. The photos dropped down in the last 2 years so I am already used to that. I think SS is more mainstream and less niche. I was led to believe that you can sell more images on SS with far less files than IS but that is not true. I have pretty much given up on any hope of making money on SS for now which is sad.
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IS isn't much less than what it was earning me before so I am not losing out.
How is that possible? You went down 50% or more in royalty % and 50% on RCs, so right off the bat you would have lost 75% of income per sale not to mention worse best match placement. Are you saying your sales nearly quadrupled since dropping exclusivity?
Just to share my experience here as a recent indie. I went live on SS on 23rd of Feb and have managed to build a portfolio of about 330 images there, most (75%) of which was added either just before (as in a few days before) I went live or since I went live (yes I have been busy). I have been averaging about 8-10 dls a day (so $2-$3) since going live and a few dollars a day. Quite frankly I expected a lot more, especially while my images were "new" (maybe they are still "new" - when does the "newness" wear off?). I have achieved about 75% acceptanceof the images I have submitted and have about another 400 to submit so expect to end up with about 600 images on SS once the portoflio upload is complete. I'm uploading in large batches in order to grow my portfolio there as quickly as possible - the slwo inspections are killing me though. 6 or 7 days for inspections is not the sort of responsiveness I expected and by the sound of it is a mor recent problem on SS.
Meanwhile over on iStock I have seen the 75% reduction in royalties traveler1116 was talking about, even though most of my DLs are images I put into P+. My actual number of downloads is surprisingly, not too bad and at least comparable to what I was getting as an exclusive which I was a little surprised about. That may however drop off if most of the downloads I'm getting now are the result of people lightboxing my images prior to going indie (in which case they have saved themselves a bunch of money!).
So basically I'm taking a big hit financially at the moment (I was averaging about $20-$25 a day as exclusive on iStock, now it's more like $7 -$10). I really hope SS picks up because otherwise going indie is looking like a false step. I realise I need to spread out to other sites which I will do as I go, but I was expecting a lot more from SS. It seems like, in most cases SS is indie contributors No.2 and occasionally No.1. If my No.2 is going to only bring in a few $ a day, then it is not going to work. The reasons I went indie are still there, so I will stick with it for a few months and start uploading to other sites and see what happens.
In my personal case after 3 months of independence i started to earn two times more. in march i expect at least +20% more revenue than the last month. i new from the beginning that for a period of time i will earn less than when i was exclusive.
now SS is making 60% of all my microstock earnings with many dozens of dls/day
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I understand but you arenīt going to recover your exclusive IS income with only SS and IS :/
It's not impossible. SS alone represented 57% of my February earnings. That's just SS, out of the 21 sites I work with.
I know, I'm an illustrator, it's not the same, yada yada... Just saying it's not impossible, though. SS can be a beast some months.
I don't think you can recover your lost istock income with only SS and IS, even though it's not impossible. But I also don't think it is a reasonable expectation to recover that lost income in a month or two. I think that it would take at least 6 months, maybe even a year to see your images move up into a position where you start to see your sales take off. And I'm not addressing my comments to any particular person, but to any exclusive leaving IS and expecting this. Your images might be totally awesome, but realistically, with so many contributors, the way the sites are now futzing with the best match on a daily basis and other factors, your results just aren't going to be instanteous. Unfortunately. Just because exclusives at IS may have received special treatment (at one time, long ago) doesn't mean those bennies carry over to other sites.
And I also think how many images you are offering makes a difference. You will be much more visible if you have 3,000 images than if you have 300. I know I'm stating the obvious, but I have seen comments by folks with 200 or 300 images bummed out because their sales aren't sky high yet.
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I understand but you arenīt going to recover your exclusive IS income with only SS and IS :/
It's not impossible. SS alone represented 57% of my February earnings. That's just SS, out of the 21 sites I work with.
I know, I'm an illustrator, it's not the same, yada yada... Just saying it's not impossible, though. SS can be a beast some months.
I don't think you can recover your lost istock income with only SS and IS, even though it's not impossible. But I also don't think it is a reasonable expectation to recover that lost income in a month or two. I think that it would take at least 6 months, maybe even a year to see your images move up into a position where you start to see your sales take off. And I'm not addressing my comments to any particular person, but to any exclusive leaving IS and expecting this. Your images might be totally awesome, but realistically, with so many contributors, the way the sites are now futzing with the best match on a daily basis and other factors, your results just aren't going to be instanteous. Unfortunately. Just because exclusives at IS may have received special treatment (at one time, long ago) doesn't mean those bennies carry over to other sites.
And I also think how many images you are offering makes a difference. You will be much more visible if you have 3,000 images than if you have 300. I know I'm stating the obvious, but I have seen comments by folks with 200 or 300 images bummed out because their sales aren't sky high yet.
I would settle for around $10 a day and not sky high. I have just over 300 images on SS but that would be 800 if they hadn't turned so many down. Some are my best earners on IS.
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300 files on SS might make huge income to great files, sorry but you donīt have people, isolations, niche stuff or high commercial value, you arenīt going to make 10$ with that, sorry but thats the real thing
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That's your opinion.
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That's your opinion.
Were you not seeking opinions?
I expect you may find that to be a majority opinion.
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That's strange because I have had pm's here off a few people saying I have good stuff that should do quite well (again, I know I have more to shoot and better myself). I may not have the top salable images but I should be earning more than I am on SS.
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That's your opinion.
it can be my opinion but its based on my own experience too, back in 2009 when I was uploading whatever I saw around my sales were crap, as I got continuous, then strobes and approached other subjects things went up, far from something great but thats the reality, without demand "your work" will never sell..
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That's strange because I have had pm's here off a few people saying I have good stuff that should do quite well (again, I know I have more to shoot and better myself). The trouble with here is too many people looking down from an ivory tower (it's been said by other people) who just write rude, blunt remarks that are not constructive or helpful.
I am not that guy, you should look at my comments if you have any doubt
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That's your opinion.
That may very well be but it is also the opinion of the customers on SS ...
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In my personal case after 3 months of independence i started to earn two times more. in march i expect at least +20% more revenue than the last month. i new from the beginning that for a period of time i will earn less than when i was exclusive.
now SS is making 60% of all my microstock earnings with many dozens of dls/day
Yes, but how many images do you have at SS and how many do you have left at istock? Your portfolio there appears to be empty.)
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nicku, were you exclusive at IS or DT? I somehow remembered that you were exclusive at DT, and not IS. Sorry if my memory fails me. If you were exclusive at DT, I am not surprised that you earn much more as an indie.
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Still dire sales :-\ in 3 months I still haven't made enough to make my first earnings withdrawal.
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Still dire sales :-\ in 3 months I still haven't made enough to make my first earnings withdrawal.
Maybe it's an indication of just how much better the images of istock 'exclusives' are placed. Once our port is available with no preferential treatment and we're competing with the true masses, we get an indication of how well our port fairs. As an independent my small ports do extremely well with agencies in the top 5. Maybe I should go exclusive at iStock. ;)
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Still dire sales :-\ in 3 months I still haven't made enough to make my first earnings withdrawal.
Maybe it's an indication of just how much better the images of istock 'exclusives' are placed. Once our port is available with no preferential treatment and we're competing with the true masses, we get an indication of how well our port fairs. As an independent my small ports do extremely well with agencies in the top 5. Maybe I should go exclusive at iStock. ;)
I am interested to see your port if your sales are so good ;-)
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Still dire sales :-\ in 3 months I still haven't made enough to make my first earnings withdrawal.
Maybe it's an indication of just how much better the images of istock 'exclusives' are placed. Once our port is available with no preferential treatment and we're competing with the true masses, we get an indication of how well our port fairs. As an independent my small ports do extremely well with agencies in the top 5. Maybe I should go exclusive at iStock. ;)
I am interested to see your port if your sales are so good ;-)
Herg in every thread you complain about sales. I have no complaints about sales from the ms sites which are known for selling, I particularly like all the Els in the past year or so. If you think your sales are 'dire', something must be up, or you have overestimated what you would get.
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But then again, you complain about sales at DT, being dead for a week etc. I guess bugs are attacking your port everywhere... :o
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Don't know what to tell you anymore, Herg. It's all been said already here. I think you need to give it more time, and in the end it will pay off. And by more time, I mean about a year. Three months isn't much time to get up to speed at SS.
The vast majority of people do very well at SS. In fact, it's extremely unusual for anyone not to do well there. Hate to say it (although it's already been said in this thread) but it is possible that SS isn't the problem.
Again, give it more time. If in 6 months you're still not seeing any growth, then it might be fair to say that something is off. Could be your work, keywording, something else, who knows. But it's still way too soon to come to any conclusions. Weekly updates about how bad your sales are isn't going to help. If you're 3 months in, I'd say you need to give it at least another 3 months before anything else can be said about this.