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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: leaf on September 30, 2010, 02:34
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How was your September. One day left and I can say that it was a whole lot better than July. I started to see the signs of a hopefully good fall. Veer started to really pick up, as well as a few good days on Canstock. Shutterstock really shot ahead as well.
Anyhow, I'll post more numbers and a graph tommorow.
.... and don't forget to vote. (http://www.microstockgroup.com/pollsvote/)
It will be interesting to see what happens in the middle tier the next few months.
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every websites is moving..but i don't really understand what is wrong with dreamstime, i put up more portfolio as i did with the rest, but revenue had been up down a lot for the past few month...
it is still in top 4, but it is not seeing a consistent trend as the rest of 3... quite disappointed!
How was your September. One day left and I can say that it was a whole lot better than July. I started to see the signs of a hopefully good fall. Veer started to really pick up, as well as a few good days on Canstock. Shutterstock really shot ahead as well.
Anyhow, I'll post more numbers and a graph tommorow.
.... and don't forget to vote. ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/pollsvote/[/url])
It will be interesting to see what happens in the middle tier the next few months.
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SS acts normal,IS down,DT down.......
FT ,123 very very bad >"<
Deposit i dont know it exists..................>"<
:-\ :-\ :-\
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Just another regular old quiet month in microstock where nothing much happened really....
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Yeah it was really 'same old same old' wasn't it? :D
As for September results... hasta manana, hasty banana ;)
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BME !!! thanks to Alamy sales :)
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Yes, again fall has a good start to me. Not my BME, but really good.
SS near my BME, also for 123RF and Bigstock. Fotolia and Dreamstime really good, and yes, also Istock. So, a good month. Deposit is going started up, every day some little sales, and yesterday even an EL there. Yaymicro also some sales, I am happy!! Let's start october ;D
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I can't see a clear trend lately...
July was bad for me
August surprisingly good
September average
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This is an interesting month... I have been uploading a lot in the last few months and now everything seems to pay off.
IS is very close to BME (Best Month Ever), but I have to get the partner earnings in before I can judge if it's BME or just close.
SS is also very close to BME, I need about $6 more this day to get there... I have no idea how this will end up either. I have never hoped for an EL this hard :)
DT weak weak weak. If I don't get a few dollars more, this will be the weakest month of this year.
FT BME!
My Big4 as a whole is also very close to BME, I'm hoping now for some great sales for the last day....!
ALAMY a weak month, just a few low sales. But in case of Alamy things tend to turn around very quicky: a couple of decent sales next month will bring back the smile on my face.
VEER some nice extended licences makes my earnings very close to DT, I might include Veer in my Big5 (Now I have only Big4) next year if they perform well enough the rest of the year.
Other low earners are doing their job quietly, nothing to cheer about, but some money for christmas.
EDIT: Wow, I just got an EL at SS, that makes it BME, what a nice surprise! :)
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Interesting month.....
BME for photos with Shutterstock 1st, followed by Fotolia and... Veer.
One BME at Yaymicro....
I ll update my blog in the next few days:)
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BME at IS ... evidently because my portfolio was growing and maybe because of customers using up their credits.
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I had a bumper month across the board
SS BME by a large margin
DT BME
IS and FT 2nd best months ever
Even BS and 123 did better than the previous 5 months...although still crappy in relation to the others
So I'm really pleased ;D ;D
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Shutterstock and 123rf did about the same as last year's September, all the other sites went up, so the results are better than expected. Must say however that things usually are, since I'm a big pessimist. ;D
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september is still on, waiting for some EL's :P
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BME for me, helped a few EL's on Veer, IS and SS. DT is down, the rest of them normal. I noticed a slightly increase in sales at Fotolia, actually this is the only month FT earned better than DT.
Looking for October...
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bme at dt and is and bme across the board w/o the help of a single el.
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Finally month with momentum.
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CfD-money are in from Veer, so I'm a happy snapper. Otherwise DT is top on my list, because of a few very expensive sales (Tiff of high level). I had sales at all 10 micro agencies I contribute to; including 5 sales at Yay, and 2 at SSP.
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Very good month at IS (BME), DT (BME), SS, FT and Veer. Even 123RF excelled (Another BME)
CanStockPhoto is a bit of a dissapointment, this month, due to the lack of larger Fotosearch downloads, otherwise performing nicely in numbers
BS has shown no movement for over a year.
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Small port. Total exclusive FT and BME by a long chalk thanks to 2 EL's and doubling my prices on best selling images.
Views slightly down and volume down but quite a few XL dl's and few subs. Doubt it will last but 2X normal month in Sept.
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Ok, here is my September 2010 earnings pie.
Shutterstock had a BME by a long shot, The other sites were fairly regular but the 'Everyone Else' Category is getting pretty large now, thanks to some new OK earnings from Yay and Veer and still OK sales from Canstock and Crestock
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OK... today is the tomorrow I was thinking about yesterday... so I can get my figures out now (sorry for calling you a 'hasty banana' yesterday Leaf... it was an old joke of my Dad's (RIP) that gave me a private chuckle.). ;)
On with the figures:
iStock 40%
Shutterstock 25%
DT 19%
FT 9%
123RF 6%
BS 1%
BME at iStock, best month since June at SS, best month since Dec 09 at DT, just short of equalling BME at 123RF.
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OK... today is the tomorrow I was thinking about yesterday... so I can get my figures out now (sorry for calling you a 'hasty banana' yesterday Leaf... it was an old joke of my Dad's (RIP) that gave me a private chuckle.). ;)
On with the figures:
iStock 40%
Shutterstock 25%
DT 19%
FT 9%
123RF 6%
BS 1%
BME at iStock, best month since June at SS, best month since Dec 09 at DT, just short of equalling BME at 123RF.
wow our % splits are really different.
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Yes... I think my SS and iS percentages would have been a lot closer if I'd been uploading regularly - but I've been on a bit of an upload hiatus since June, as the Summer slump plus an equipment failure got me down and I decided to stick my head in photography books instead. Obviously SS takes the biggest impact when there's no fresh uploads. Just started again recently, and SS sales really started shooting up, so I'm expecting that gap will close over the coming months.
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For me was BME, but the distribution of percentages has changed, for instance some months ago IS was my best earner, now FT has overpass IS witch is on par with SS. This was my first month on Alamy and i´m loving it, just two sales but enought to let BS and 123rf behind. This pages never were good earners to me. Veer on the other side had a surpresive great day (several EL) in the month that has fixed what otherwise would have been a very bad month.
To summ it up, BME with an estimate increase of 15%.
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For me September was 14% up on August although still 5% down on Sept 2009, very similar to the previous 4 months.
Overall percentages as follows (with 2009);
IS 33% (37)
SS 29 (23) - BME!
FT 24 (20)
DT 9 (11)
BigStock 2.5 (2.6)
Three months of rising sales generated a BME at SS despite very few new uploads ('feeding the beast' is a myth). I think they've been doing some fairly serious marketing recently, particularly of PPD sales which is where most of the growth is coming from.
Istockphoto continued it's gentle slide backwards and September was the lowest overall percentage since Dec 2008 (when they finally settled on best match 2.0). We are perhaps approaching a tipping point in the short history of microstock.
FT still growing nicely although I can't help noticing that a truly bizarre proportion of my sales are coming from just 3 or 4 images.
DT pathetic as usual. Sales perpetually up and down 'like a whore's drawers' __ although mainly down. Why can't they get their act together and devise a decent sort-order algorithm that actually promotes best-selling images? We might then achieve some stability of sales.
BigStock still in the doldrums. No real change since SS bought them and not worth my time to upload new images for such a minuscule return.
In comparison to September 2009 my earnings at each agency were as follows;
IS -8.4%
SS +20.5%
FT +16.9%
DT -20.1%
BigStock -8.8%
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Interesting.
My sales are pretty consistant, apart form that foltlia gaining ground, probably because of my european content.
% of september:
SS: 25%
DT: 29%
FOT: 46%
year un til now:
IS: 5,9%
SS: 20,3%
DT: 21,4%
Alamy: 24,4%
FOT: 28%
Delleted everything on IS
New on CS, BS, CD and YAY - no sales there yet - still adding pics.
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A mixed bag. Down 6% vs. August, down 12% vs. September, 2009. That's not counting a very large D4C bonus at Veer that gave me a new monthly record.
Individually, DT continues to slide, Ftl fell back after a record month, ThinkStock dropped off considerably at both SX and iStock (iStock itself did very well after the Announcement from Hell), 123 did very well, and SS recovered from our summer slump.
| SS | 29.7% | +15.0% |
| iS | 23.6% | +59.9% |
| 123RF | 13.1% | +81.2% |
| Ftl | 11.8% | -48.1% |
| DT | 6.3% | -35.2% |
| CanStockPhoto | 5.6% | -42.8% |
| BigStock | 5.2% | -13.6% |
| SX | 1.7% | -43.8% |
| Veer | 1.1% | -46.5% |
| Cres | .9% | +19.0% |
| Scan | .7% | +33.3% |
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September was a big improvement over August. Thank goodness! I am up 20% over August, which was just dismal.
I am still down 10% from last September. But, hey, I'll take it. It's nice to see any forward movement after such a terrible summer.
Although most sites gained in % of my income over last year, that is a result of the closure of StockXpert, more than any actual gain in total royalties earned. As far as royalty % gains or losses, all the numbers below the top four are so small they are pretty statistically insignificant.
Sept '10 Sept '09 $ down or up
ISP 40% (41) (-13%)
SS 18% (15) (+8%)
DT 13% (11) (+8%)
Fot 19% (17) (+2%)
BigStock 4% (3) (+20%)
123RF 2% (=) (-21%)
Crest 1% (=) (-2%)
CanStockPhoto 2% (1) (+29%)
Almy 1% (3) (-55%)
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Lisa, it's interesting to see that FT is still (relatively) not a top player in your totals - you're emerald there and I thought for some at the highest levels, FT was beginning to rival SS & IS for earnings power. Is it the number of subs sales or overall volume?
My September was slightly up over August for $$ and 66% up over Sept 09 - a second BME (March '10 is current BME).
DLs were 17% lower than Sept 09
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Lisa, it's interesting to see that FT is still (relatively) not a top player in your totals - you're emerald there and I thought for some at the highest levels, FT was beginning to rival SS & IS for earnings power. Is it the number of subs sales or overall volume?
My September was slightly up over August for $$ and 66% up over Sept 09 - a second BME (March '10 is current BME).
DLs were 17% lower than Sept 09
Actually, for the last year FT has been my number two site, so it has surpassed SS in my totals....
I have always sold best at Istock. They are consistently around 38-40% of my income. No other site has ever surpassed 20% for me. FT has moved up to take the #2 spot, although SS seems to be rallying and they are neck-and-neck.
Roughly 1/3 of my FT sales are subscriptions, so the doubling of my credit prices has no affect on those.
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...FT has moved up to take the #2 spot, although SS seems to be rallying and they are neck-and-neck.
Sites rallying and competing in a race up sounds good - we need to look for small positives in the current cut-back-the-contributor-share environment :)
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Sites rallying and competing in a race up sounds good - we need to look for small positives in the current cut-back-the-contributor-share environment :)
Definitely! I am pleased to see sales picking up across the board. :)
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BME for us at IS (exclusives).
up 11% from last month (before PP's are in).
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Sept '10 Sept '09 $ down or up
ISP 40% (41) (-13%)
SS 18% (15) (+8%)
DT 13% (11) (+8%)
Fot 19% (17) (+2%)
BigStock 4% (3) (+20%)
123RF 2% (=) (-21%)
Crest 1% (=) (-2%)
CanStockPhoto 2% (1) (+29%)
Almy 1% (3) (-55%)
Interesting to see your stats Lisa. I am surprised too that your Shutterstock, Dreamstime and Fotolia are all relatively close. My SS is way ahead of the others, then Fotolia and DT is way down on the list (You can see my %'s lower down in an earlier post)
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Interesting to see your stats Lisa. I am surprised too that your Shutterstock, Dreamstime and Fotolia are all relatively close. My SS is way ahead of the others, then Fotolia and DT is way down on the list (You can see my %'s lower down in an earlier post)
It is definitely weird the variations from contributor to contributor. Seems like I am one of few independents that still gets a majority of sales from IS. Not sure why that is. I do take extra time to keyword specifically for them. Maybe that helps.
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BME for us at IS (exclusives).
up 11% from last month (before PP's are in).
Enjoy ... for now. Unless you happen to be amongst the Top 100 or so you've got just 3 more months before it's bye-bye to BME's as an Istockphoto exclusive.
Istockphoto's 'How was your month?' thread is going to be a blood-bath come January and every month afterwards.
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gostwyck: we are not yet at the top 100 or anywhere near that, but working out it :)
Since we are now at 25%, we will retain our 25% for next year and bump up to 30% sometime near July.
I don't know why you think its going to be a blood bath but we always have the option of becoming independent.
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gostwyck: we are not yet at the top 100 or anywhere near that, but working out it :)
Since we are now at 25%, we will retain our 25% for next year and bump up to 30% sometime near July.
I don't know why you think its going to be a blood bath but we always have the option of becoming independent.
Why are you exclusive for 25% (or 30% for that matter)? You sound ambitious to earn but you are just * money away by being exclusive at that level. If and when you do claw your way up to the (slightly) higher commission you can be sure that Istockphoto will soon move the goalposts and knock you back down again. I have no idea why you have such gushing enthusiasm and loyalty for Istock but I do know that it will not be reciprocated.
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I'm glad to see people are generally doing OK. I've taken a heavy hit on both iS and DT this month but a few sales from trad-type agencies have offset that so I'm almost at level pegging with last year.
For the last four months, the DT graph looks as if it is going down the side of a mountain, which is very disappointing. It has fallen by almost 50% since May but I suppose it could just turn around again this month .... hopefully.
iStock has dipped behind SS again in terms of earnings, and is roughly 25% of my month's earnings, compared with its usual 30%.
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gostwyck: My only loyalty is to me and my partners pocket! believe you me I have no stocks at IS/getty.
you forget that uploading to many sites has a huge overhead. uploading, keywording, disabmiguations, and keeping track of submissions and rejections all takes time. a LOT of time. This is a huge downside for us since we are essentially a one man crew.
In addition, this brings down our upload quota on IS to 20 instead of 60, and I hope 90 soon. add to that a much higher rejection rate.
Our decision was based purly on our own best economic interest. If we feel this will change in the future we will not hesitate giving up our crown.
If IS decide to play around with the goals (as I do suspect they will) then again, giving away the crown is ALLWAYS a possibilty.
(I appologize for any spelling mistakes, English isn't my daily language)
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Still on the road but trying to complete the monthly survey. Noticed there is no place for Thinkstock. Is it considered a part of iStock?
Also, if that is the case, what about the stuff still being reported through StockXpert???
Just wanting to know where to brag about my $6. ::) :P :-[
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Still on the road but trying to complete the monthly survey. Noticed there is no place for Thinkstock. Is it considered a part of iStock?
Also, if that is the case, what about the stuff still being reported through StockXpert???
Just wanting to know where to brag about my $6. ::) :P :-[
Actually I just fold it into the partner program sales because it's all the same coming from StockXpert or IS at 25c a download. Seems that when IS bought StockXpert and invented ThinkStock, even ProStockMaster decided that they didn't exist anymore, even thought ThinkStock earnings are reported on existing StockXpert accounts. It just vanished? :)
Wow you're doing good, I had five sales on ThinkStock for StockXpert last month for a whole $1.25! Just about to the point of calling is done, sticking a fork in it and cashing out. It's not doing anything that I can look forward to, and if I lose a dollar a month for a year, I'll have to skip going through the McDonald's drive through one night on the way to the office. :D But since I didn't have to upload anything and just left them sit long enough, I wanted to give ThinkStock a chance to earn. So far, I'm not excited about the possibilities or future potential.
On Topic portion of the message. Remember I'm small time haven't been uploading for about two months now. I have been taking some entertaining shots, just not getting around to them.
Just finished culling a couple thousand photos from an event, which are now up for sale on a private site that uses Smugmug. Not my site and I made more there last year than on Micro. No complaints with the 50/50 split that he offers me on sales.
IS Sept. doubled what I got in Aug. Don't have PP sales listed yet and I don't expect to see that for weeks. Regular sales were up.
SS ran about the same as usual. I need to prime that pump because the upload boost only lasts a month, and then everything falls down. Always funny because as soon as I upload something new, it seems some old file that's never sold before, gets a hit?
BigStock last sale was June and where they used to get some sales every month, I'm getting to the point of closing that one as well. Waste of time and energy to sell anywhere but SS and IS for me. (personal decision on time vs returns)
That's everywhere for me, four micro sites, which is really only two if you count owners.
Alamy (which isn't micro so I'm not commenting) and direct sales as a second shooter working some events which also isn't micro. Just an excuse why I'm not uploading and working like I could be. Micro returns according to effort. Small effort, small portfolio, small returns. Seems fair enough for me.
I can add that BW3 / Buffalo Wild Wings just opened near me and they have NTN trivia, so I'll be back to that addiction three nights a week.
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Here's mine. Fot and DT perform better for me than IS and SS.
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Record month after three years in micro. SS accounted for 45% of it. IS/FT/DT the same. Hope this continues next month, as it will then be in addition to a regular pay packet / check. After what seem's like a lifetime in this business, the numbers aren't adding up fast enought. It's 9-5 in a suit from next week with all my photo work confined to weekends and evenings.
It was either that, or a painful crawl into an abyss.
I'll keep you posted how this affects earnings in the next few months.
Oldhand the newboy
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gostwyck: we are not yet at the top 100 or anywhere near that, but working out it :)
Since we are now at 25%, we will retain our 25% for next year and bump up to 30% sometime near July.
I don't know why you think its going to be a blood bath but we always have the option of becoming independent.
Don't understand how you are going to "bump up to 30% somewhere near July".
If you're 25% in January, that's what you'll get all year.
(e.g. I expect to retain my 30%, but I had expected to go Gold/35% around April, which won't now happen.)
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. After what seem's like a lifetime in this business, the numbers aren't adding up fast enought. It's 9-5 in a suit from next week with all my photo work confined to weekends and evenings.
Oh that's huge, Oldhand. Just wanted to wish you well with this big change.
Good luck!
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ShadySue: then u missunderstood something in the new system at IS. if in the middle of the year you get to the redeemed credits goal you will be immidietly be upgraded to the higher royalty level in addition to the fact that you sart at that royalty rate the following year.
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ShadySue: then u missunderstood something in the new system at IS. if in the middle of the year you get to the redeemed credits goal you will be immidietly be upgraded to the higher royalty level in addition to the fact that you sart at that royalty rate the following year.
Ah, yes, starting from zero sales on January 1st; if you reach the next level up in RCs in that calendar year, you do indeed rise a level.
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. After what seem's like a lifetime in this business, the numbers aren't adding up fast enought. It's 9-5 in a suit from next week with all my photo work confined to weekends and evenings.
Oh that's huge, Oldhand. Just wanted to wish you well with this big change.
Good luck!
Many thanks. It's probably long overdue. My new salary will be the same as my Micro and Macro earnings, which alone are not reliable enough with a family. I'm hoping the the photography work will be a large bonus in the future as long I still put time into it.
Oldhand
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IS is drowning and SS is now my first earner.
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gostwyck: My only loyalty is to me and my partners pocket! believe you me I have no stocks at IS/getty.
you forget that uploading to many sites has a huge overhead. uploading, keywording, disabmiguations, and keeping track of submissions and rejections all takes time. a LOT of time. This is a huge downside for us since we are essentially a one man crew.
In addition, this brings down our upload quota on IS to 20 instead of 60, and I hope 90 soon. add to that a much higher rejection rate.
Our decision was based purly on our own best economic interest. If we feel this will change in the future we will not hesitate giving up our crown.
If IS decide to play around with the goals (as I do suspect they will) then again, giving away the crown is ALLWAYS a possibilty.
(I appologize for any spelling mistakes, English isn't my daily language)
It's no difference to me whether you stay exclusive or not. You may indeed be better off exclusive. Only you can determine that.
But with respect to the hassle of uploading to multiple sites, if you put your keywords, descriptions, and titles in the IPTC data using Photoshop, Irfanview, or other software, then you only have to do that once. All sites can read your IPTC. The other sites also have model release libraries, so you don't have to upload those more than once. And no disambiguation or controlled vocabulary to worry about. All you do is FTP to all sites at once, then assign releases (if necessary) pick a category, and you're done.
It takes me the same amount of time to submit images to IS as it does 8 other sites combined.
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Second best month of the year, SS and FT going most strongly.
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I really hate it that Istock has a fraction of my photos and they still were #1 with 27% earnings. HATE IT. Oh well, looks like they won't be #1 in January if I don't have the guts to take everything down.
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I just update my blog with september 2010 earnings: http://microstockexperiment.blogspot.com/ (http://microstockexperiment.blogspot.com/)
Best regards
L
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IS and SS were down about the same for downloads but SS maintained the royalty figures while IS dropped significantly. DT surprised me with a BME and FT has maintained.
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This is my stock photography sales statistic for September 2010. You can find a complete list of stock photography agencies (http://stock.hlehnerer.com/SA.html) that I work with here (http://stock.hlehnerer.com/SA.html).
(http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u97/hlehnerer/SalesStat/201009px550.jpg)
These are for me the best 4 performing stock agencies for September 2010:
1. Shutterstock
2. Fotolia
3. Can Stock Photo
4. iStockPhoto
Looks like the summer hole has ended. September had an increase of 39% compared to last month. Sepember was the best month ever for iStockPhoto, Can Stock Photo, and Zoonar.
(http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u97/hlehnerer/SalesStat/201009Timeline550px.jpg)
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Sales for me have been at their highest in my Microstock History but you never know from month to month. I hope it keeps going this direction.
Best,
Jonathan