Author Topic: Moving on from IS exclusive (Read 56516 times)

Freedom · « **Reply #175 on:** March 01, 2012, 12:39 »

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.

helix7 · « **Reply #176 on:** March 01, 2012, 12:48 »

Quote from: ShadySue on March 01, 2012, 12:30

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.

gostwyck · « **Reply #177 on:** March 01, 2012, 12:58 »

Quote from: Freedom on March 01, 2012, 12:39

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.

Freedom · « **Reply #178 on:** March 01, 2012, 13:21 »

Quote from: gostwyck on March 01, 2012, 12:58

Quote from: Freedom on March 01, 2012, 12:39
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.

lisafx · « **Reply #179 on:** March 01, 2012, 13:29 »

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?

Phadrea · « **Reply #180 on:** March 01, 2012, 14:18 »

Quote from: lisafx on March 01, 2012, 13:29

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.

lisafx · « **Reply #181 on:** March 01, 2012, 14:51 »

Quote from: Herg on March 01, 2012, 14:18

Quote from: lisafx on March 01, 2012, 13:29
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

traveler1116 · « **Reply #182 on:** March 01, 2012, 17:29 »

Quote from: Herg on March 01, 2012, 14:18

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?

dcdp · « **Reply #183 on:** March 01, 2012, 18:38 »

Quote from: traveler1116 on March 01, 2012, 17:29

Quote from: Herg on March 01, 2012, 14:18
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.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #184 on:** March 01, 2012, 19:09 »

dcdp time to invest in other agencies too, best of luck

dcdp · « **Reply #185 on:** March 01, 2012, 19:16 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on March 01, 2012, 19:09

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.

chromaco · « **Reply #186 on:** March 01, 2012, 19:43 »

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.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #187 on:** March 01, 2012, 19:56 »

Quote from: dcdp on March 01, 2012, 19:16

Quote from: luissantos84 on March 01, 2012, 19:09
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 aren´t going to recover your exclusive IS income with only SS and IS :/

dcdp · « **Reply #188 on:** March 01, 2012, 19:59 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on March 01, 2012, 19:56

Quote from: dcdp on March 01, 2012, 19:16
Quote from: luissantos84 on March 01, 2012, 19:09
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 aren´t going to recover your exclusive IS income with only SS and IS :/

As much as I hate to say it I have to agree $:-\$

luissantos84 · « **Reply #189 on:** March 01, 2012, 20:05 »

Quote from: dcdp on March 01, 2012, 19:59

Quote from: luissantos84 on March 01, 2012, 19:56
Quote from: dcdp on March 01, 2012, 19:16
Quote from: luissantos84 on March 01, 2012, 19:09
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 aren´t 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 isn´t possible, you do have a very nice portfolio but joining other would help you out a bit..

helix7 · « **Reply #190 on:** March 01, 2012, 22:21 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on March 01, 2012, 19:56

I understand but you aren´t 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.

Phadrea · « **Reply #191 on:** March 02, 2012, 03:21 »

Quote from: traveler1116 on March 01, 2012, 17:29

Quote from: Herg on March 01, 2012, 14:18
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.

nicku · « **Reply #192 on:** March 02, 2012, 07:37 »

Quote from: dcdp on March 01, 2012, 18:38

Quote from: traveler1116 on March 01, 2012, 17:29
Quote from: Herg on March 01, 2012, 14:18
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

cathyslife · « **Reply #193 on:** March 02, 2012, 08:14 »

Quote from: helix7 on March 01, 2012, 22:21

Quote from: luissantos84 on March 01, 2012, 19:56
I understand but you aren´t 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.

Phadrea · « **Reply #194 on:** March 02, 2012, 10:30 »

Quote from: cclapper on March 02, 2012, 08:14

Quote from: helix7 on March 01, 2012, 22:21
Quote from: luissantos84 on March 01, 2012, 19:56
I understand but you aren´t 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.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #195 on:** March 02, 2012, 11:04 »

300 files on SS might make huge income to great files, sorry but you don´t have people, isolations, niche stuff or high commercial value, you aren´t going to make 10$ with that, sorry but thats the real thing

Phadrea · « **Reply #196 on:** March 02, 2012, 12:41 »

That's your opinion.

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #197 on:** March 02, 2012, 12:58 »

Quote from: Herg on March 02, 2012, 12:41

That's your opinion.

Were you not seeking opinions?
I expect you may find that to be a majority opinion.

Phadrea · « **Reply #198 on:** March 02, 2012, 13:23 »

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.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #199 on:** March 02, 2012, 13:24 »

Quote from: Herg on March 02, 2012, 12:41

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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Author Topic: Moving on from IS exclusive (Read 56516 times)

Freedom

helix7

gostwyck

Freedom

lisafx

Phadrea

lisafx

traveler1116

dcdp

luissantos84

dcdp

chromaco

luissantos84

dcdp

luissantos84

helix7

Phadrea

nicku

cathyslife

Phadrea

luissantos84

Phadrea

WarrenPrice

Phadrea

luissantos84

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