Author Topic: Quit Istockphoto exclusivity or not?! (Read 12863 times)

vuk8691 · « **on:** November 20, 2017, 14:06 »

Hi,

Can you tell me your opinion about quitting Istockphoto exclusivity or not?

obj owl · « **Reply #1 on:** November 20, 2017, 14:19 »

Quote from: vuk8691 on November 20, 2017, 14:06

Hi,

Can you tell me your opinion about quitting Istockphoto exclusivity or not?

You were pondering the same question three and a half years ago, has your situation change since then?

Brightontl · « **Reply #2 on:** November 20, 2017, 14:29 »

It depends on how much are you earning at the moment as exclusive.
If we don't know it there is no way we can give you suggestions.
Also you do photo or video?

cobalt · « **Reply #3 on:** November 20, 2017, 16:27 »

Do you also have a gettycontract? Then you could keep supplying Getty with exclusive material, while playing the whole market as a non exclusive.

But i don´t know what you shoot, how many files you have etc...

Going indie is hard work and it takes time to understand what will sell best at which agency.

But look around on the net, there are many people reporting their experiences. Michael jay was able to recover his income in 6 months. But he was extremly disciplined.

For video it seems to be a lot easier than with photos, especially if you have very good content.

I don´t regret my decision, there are so many different agencies out there, now I can literally shoot anything, there is always a place where you can sell it.

But it took me quite a while to experiment and try different places, but now I feel very comfortable.

vuk8691 · « **Reply #4 on:** November 20, 2017, 18:03 »

Quote from: obj owl on November 20, 2017, 14:19

Quote from: vuk8691 on November 20, 2017, 14:06
Hi,

Can you tell me your opinion about quitting Istockphoto exclusivity or not?

You were pondering the same question three and a half years ago, has your situation change since then?

It’s a hard decision because I have about 13000 photos and it’s a big job to upload it on 5-10 agencies but I’m sick from Istock false promises and non-transparency.

vuk8691 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 20, 2017, 18:12 »

Quote from: Brightontl on November 20, 2017, 14:29

It depends on how much are you earning at the moment as exclusive.
If we don't know it there is no way we can give you suggestions.
Also you do photo or video?

Now I have about 13000 photos and I earn same amount like when I started exclusivity in 2010 with about 3500 photos.

In addition, the current photos are much better quality.

My income dropped for about 50 percent in last few years and now is the same like in beginning.
I do mostly photos and some videos.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #6 on:** November 21, 2017, 08:55 »

I dropped exclusivity a couple years ago. Was great for the few years before that. But like you, income growth wasn't keeping up with adding new files. The stats trending was showing things were headed downward so I bailed early.

It all depends on your breaking point. You can wait to see how far down it goes or you can be proactive and make a move. Maybe the drop will stop or maybe you'll get to 20,000 images with half the income of when you had 3,500.

You know the answer.

ShadySue · « **Reply #7 on:** November 21, 2017, 09:03 »

It all depends on where you would be submitting instead of, or in addition to iS.
Read as much as you can: seems DT is near-moribund, and many reports show that SS and Ft aren't super-great either. All of the agencies are over-supplied and probably established players there will be in better search positions, unless the sites promote new suppliers who are paid less (?).
It also depends on what cr*p you are willing to put up with, and your own circumstances (whether your decision only affects you, or if others depend on your income).
Seems the people who quite successfully are those who move on to supply the macros, so if you're in that sort of genre and league, it may be a good move for you.

vuk8691 · « **Reply #8 on:** November 21, 2017, 10:54 »

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on November 21, 2017, 08:55

I dropped exclusivity a couple years ago. Was great for the few years before that. But like you, income growth wasn't keeping up with adding new files. The stats trending was showing things were headed downward so I bailed early.

It all depends on your breaking point. You can wait to see how far down it goes or you can be proactive and make a move. Maybe the drop will stop or maybe you'll get to 20,000 images with half the income of when you had 3,500.

You know the answer.

Can you tell me if your earnings have risen since the day you dropped exclusivity?

ShadySue · « **Reply #9 on:** November 21, 2017, 11:27 »

Quote from: vuk8691 on November 21, 2017, 10:54

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on November 21, 2017, 08:55
I dropped exclusivity a couple years ago. Was great for the few years before that. But like you, income growth wasn't keeping up with adding new files. The stats trending was showing things were headed downward so I bailed early.

It all depends on your breaking point. You can wait to see how far down it goes or you can be proactive and make a move. Maybe the drop will stop or maybe you'll get to 20,000 images with half the income of when you had 3,500.

You know the answer.
Can you tell me if your earnings have risen since the day you dropped exclusivity?

I haven't done it, but it's pretty obvious that that will not happen.
Even if you spent your month's notice uploading to all the other sites and made them live on the day your notice was up, you're hardly going to do better the very next day, unless you happened to get some superduper extended licence that day. And each iS sale will earn you less; though perhaps your sales would increase because they're cheaper (?)
You should probably expect six months to a year to see if you're going to break even, but you'd never know for sure if your iS exclusive sales would continue to fall or go up again.
You're going to have to stay or leave based more on hunch than on any sort of certainty.
And what someone else's experience was won't necessarily apply to you, right now, with your port, compared to them, whenever, with theirs. (That's not a comment on your port, just a generalised statement)
[/quote]

Clair Voyant · « **Reply #10 on:** November 21, 2017, 11:57 »

Quote from: vuk8691 on November 20, 2017, 14:06

Hi,

Can you tell me your opinion about quitting Istockphoto exclusivity or not?

This has to be the most asked trivial question on this forum. The answer only lies within you.

I think you should be asking yourself what % of my work gets accepted into S+ and therefore mirrored onto Getty Images. I find from personal results if you are getting 10% or more of your work accepted into S+ and mirrored on Getty Images thenyou will be doing just fine as there is an actual editing process in place. If you are getting anything less than 10% or more accepted then it is fairly safe to say your talents are best suited to micros and macros just are not for you.

Also keep in consideration whatever you decide, the market is simply saturated with photographs and unless you honestly are producing quality content as opposed to the same old same old I don't think you will find greener grass on the other side.

Be honest with yourself and the answer will become evident as to your next move.

I personally don't like Getty Images but I look around at what the options are and I choose to remain exclusive and work hard at it and I am seeing results, albeit not as effortless as the past when there were fewer images available at rock bottom prices when the micros first came to be.

The industry is in trouble from a contributor's point of view. You just need to decide which ship you want to be on when it sinks.

vuk8691 · « **Reply #11 on:** November 21, 2017, 14:36 »

I wonder if any of those who are not the exclusive can write what percentage of earnings come from every individual agency?!

niktol · « **Reply #12 on:** November 21, 2017, 14:46 »

Quote from: vuk8691 on November 21, 2017, 14:36

I wonder if any of those who are not the exclusive can write what percentage of earnings come from every individual agency?!

Not a photographer, but about 20% comes from non-exclusive Istock content. It could vary quite a bit between portfolios.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #13 on:** November 21, 2017, 14:57 »

Quote from: vuk8691 on November 21, 2017, 14:36

I wonder if any of those who are not the exclusive can write what percentage of earnings come from every individual agency?!

The table on the right is probably as good a guide to that as any

tätarätä · « **Reply #14 on:** November 21, 2017, 16:04 »

It all depends what you are shooting. If you are shooting Landscape, Food, Travel, etc. your earnings will get less and less. To many photographers eating your profit as they are shooting the same.
You have to learn to shoot lifestyle themes with group of peoples - about 3 to 6 peoples at good locations.
This is the only chance to survive the mass production game at microstock.
Getty images is the best place to sell good lifestyle photography. istock exclusive is to expensive for medium stuff.
So it depends on your work - good lifestyle photography - stay exclusive at istock. Medium stuff (Food, Landscape, pests, etc) go non ex.

vuk8691 · « **Reply #15 on:** November 21, 2017, 16:14 »

Huh, it will be still heavy decision. I’v got mixed portfolio:traveling,landscapes,bodybuilders, fighters, parachutiers, studio photos etc.

vuk8691 · « **Reply #16 on:** November 21, 2017, 16:26 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on November 21, 2017, 14:57

Quote from: vuk8691 on November 21, 2017, 14:36
I wonder if any of those who are not the exclusive can write what percentage of earnings come from every individual agency?!
The table on the right is probably as good a guide to that as any

If this table shows true informations, IStock exclusivity is still best option but I’m not convinced in this. If so, the life of the photographer will be all the harder.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #17 on:** November 21, 2017, 20:43 »

Quote from: vuk8691 on November 21, 2017, 10:54

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on November 21, 2017, 08:55
I dropped exclusivity a couple years ago. Was great for the few years before that. But like you, income growth wasn't keeping up with adding new files. The stats trending was showing things were headed downward so I bailed early.

It all depends on your breaking point. You can wait to see how far down it goes or you can be proactive and make a move. Maybe the drop will stop or maybe you'll get to 20,000 images with half the income of when you had 3,500.

You know the answer.
Can you tell me if your earnings have risen since the day you dropped exclusivity?

There's really no straightforward answer to this. Too many variables.

I dropped exclusivity for a bunch of reasons. Lack of control over where and how I could sell my photos was one of them. Now that I'm free to do what I want, yes I'm making a lot more money. I licensed a photo directly yesterday for $400. That's about 4x what I make at IS in a month now. I used to make well into four figures a month there as an exclusive during the good times.

But what you're asking is about exclusive vs spreading across multiple micro sites. Based on Return Per Image Per Month I'd say if I had stayed exclusive my RPI would have probably dropped close to what my RPI is now with files across four sites. No way to tell what would happen in your situation. You can only stay or go and see what happens. For me is was a pretty clear choice that it was no longer worth it. You dont seem to be at that point yet.

tätarätä · « **Reply #18 on:** November 22, 2017, 12:28 »

I was exclusive at istock from 2009 till 2015. Before i applied for exclusivity the RPI at istock, Fotolia, Shutterstock and Dreamstime together was about $9 per year. With exclusivity on istock i had never an RPI more than $7. But istock was doing quite well till 2011. My problem with istock exclusivity began when istock was rising and rising, and rising ... the prices after bought by Getty.
My images became to expensive. So my sales dropped from year to year even i was uploading more and more.
At the end in year 2015 my RPI at istock was about $2 per year. This was about the RPI i had at Shutterstock or Fotolia non ex 2008.
When you look at the blog at Stockperformer - are you uploading enough. then you see that for every upload at istock 2008 - there are 18 uploads in 2016. At Shutterstock and Fotolia even more. Most of the new uploads are quite cheap productions like Food, landscape etc. Expensive Productions like lifestyle are not so affected.
So there are 2 Options - shoot little more expensive lifestyle productions or produce 18 X to 80X more ( cheap production) images than 2008.

vuk8691 · « **Reply #19 on:** November 22, 2017, 12:29 »

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on November 21, 2017, 20:43

Quote from: vuk8691 on November 21, 2017, 10:54
Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on November 21, 2017, 08:55
I dropped exclusivity a couple years ago. Was great for the few years before that. But like you, income growth wasn't keeping up with adding new files. The stats trending was showing things were headed downward so I bailed early.

It all depends on your breaking point. You can wait to see how far down it goes or you can be proactive and make a move. Maybe the drop will stop or maybe you'll get to 20,000 images with half the income of when you had 3,500.

You know the answer.
Can you tell me if your earnings have risen since the day you dropped exclusivity?

There's really no straightforward answer to this. Too many variables.

I dropped exclusivity for a bunch of reasons. Lack of control over where and how I could sell my photos was one of them. Now that I'm free to do what I want, yes I'm making a lot more money. I licensed a photo directly yesterday for $400. That's about 4x what I make at IS in a month now. I used to make well into four figures a month there as an exclusive during the good times.

But what you're asking is about exclusive vs spreading across multiple micro sites. Based on Return Per Image Per Month I'd say if I had stayed exclusive my RPI would have probably dropped close to what my RPI is now with files across four sites. No way to tell what would happen in your situation. You can only stay or go and see what happens. For me is was a pretty clear choice that it was no longer worth it. You dont seem to be at that point yet.

Thanks for the answer but now I’m still hesitant.

obj owl · « **Reply #20 on:** November 22, 2017, 12:53 »

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. Theodore Roosevelt

“On an important decision one rarely has 100% of the information needed for a good decision no matter how much one spends or how long one waits. And, if one waits too long, he has a different problem and has to start all over. This is the terrible dilemma of the hesitant decision maker.”
Robert K. Greenleaf

“You can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.”
Michelle Obama

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision. Maimonides

and there's more https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/decision

StanRohrer · « **Reply #21 on:** November 22, 2017, 18:21 »

If you look at the chart at the right of this page, iStock has a second number. This is the relative number for an iS Exclusive. Today that number is very heavily skewed in favor of Ex. Usually the sum of the top 4 or 5 sites are a close match to the iS Ex number. Today all sites don't add up to the iS Ex number. I'm certain these numbers are very far from a perfect representation of the market, and very unlikely to represent your portfolio. But, it may be all the data we have. So in round numbers, can you leave iS exclusivity and contribute to the top 5 or 6 sites?

pancaketom · « **Reply #22 on:** November 22, 2017, 21:22 »

I am guessing that the people that remain IS exclusive are those who are still doing well or don't care or just don't have the time and effort to go through the work to start fresh on all the other sites. That would tend to skew towards the upper end of things since those that don't care probably don't take part in the poll either.

miR156 · « **Reply #23 on:** November 22, 2017, 22:55 »

Hard question indeed

StanRohrer · « **Reply #24 on:** November 23, 2017, 19:34 »

I went iS Exc back about 2004 or 05. I'm still Exc. There are other factors than just the exclusivity and related current income. Quite a few of my uploads in 2003 through, say, 2009, would not be accepted now due to quality, or more likely, current disallowed content. But iS didn't cull the old stuff when they set the new rules so it still sells when the search algorithm allows some older content. iS also transfers the clipping path from upload to download, though this has been sporadic over the years and today the buyers cannot read a description that indicates the path is included. I don't know of another site that transmits the clipping path for intricate clipped objects. Some of my early images have ISO noise that would likely be unacceptable (at least to me) today. So I have a lot of concern that my old file content and quality may not be accepted today across the rest of the top agencies. Keeping them at iS Exc is not a big moneymaker anymore but current income would likely go down a lot to go non-Exc and then not be able to put them on the other sites as an income recovery. So consider if your portfolio would be accepted by enough sites to make up for the quitting iS Exc.

If these old files were to be accepted at some agencies today, the good thing is, it would be "fresh" and hang earlier in a lot of the searches for a while.

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Author Topic: Quit Istockphoto exclusivity or not?! (Read 12863 times)

vuk8691

obj owl

Brightontl

cobalt

vuk8691

vuk8691

PaulieWalnuts

ShadySue

vuk8691

ShadySue

Clair Voyant

vuk8691

niktol

Pauws99

tätarätä

vuk8691

vuk8691

PaulieWalnuts

tätarätä

vuk8691

obj owl

StanRohrer

pancaketom

miR156

StanRohrer

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