Author Topic: Time to cross out next ones (Read 6726 times)

melastmohican · « **on:** September 18, 2008, 13:14 »

I stopped uploading to CS first, then BigStock. Now I am thinking than FP got enough photos to produce some results. I just started with MP and CC so I give them 1 more month to show any progress. After September we should see if YAY makes any promotional efforts if not I stop doing anything with them too. If I got my DVD reviewed on SV I will give them couple months for showing results. It seems like anything besides Big 6 is pure waste of time.

MikLav · « **Reply #1 on:** September 18, 2008, 13:27 »

I just stopped with canstock - no single sale since January.

I don't see a reason to stop with any site that makes regular sales, even low.

Crestock is probably the lowest earner for me, but it brings sales regularly even with small portfolio - so I plan to upload my complete portfolio there.

123 and BS are doing better so I already have complete portfolio there...

With Yay I only had 2 sales so far, but I am going to give them a good time, at least several months.

Not sure about FP - they are doing better than canstock, but sales are very rare and random. May be I will stop with them too - they didn't really take off and they unlikely will...

Pixart · « **Reply #2 on:** September 18, 2008, 13:58 »

I struggle with slow earners all the time. When I need a reality check I try to look at the year-end results rather than daily or monthly.

What seems like a slump is usually just your turn on the bottom of the rotation on a search engine. For example, my sales have been worse than bad at BS for a while and today and yesterday they have outperformed SS and IS. It looks like it is my turn on the top of the rotation, but surely next week I will be off again and scratching my head.

But then again, maybe they have a well placed ad running at the moment.

If your data is attached to your photos already and you don't have to make time to submit, you would be surprized at how much these slow earners add at the end of the year. It doesn't seem like much when it takes more than a month to get a payout, but (in my case) it adds a few hundred dollars over the course of 12 months. Sometimes I just have to look at the year-to-date totals to see if it is worth it. The one I really wonder about is 123, apart from no sales I like them, so I'll wait and see how they look on January 1st.

melastmohican · « **Reply #3 on:** September 18, 2008, 14:41 »

I am not going to pull out my portfolios from these sites. If should be enough if I stop uploading. I can always resume if site starts taking off. I think that if I reached couple hundred photos and see no results it's time to move on.

On the other side there sites that really prevent me from uploading my portfolio by imposing limits or by having ridiculous UI. I stopped uploading until I wok out backlogs. In this category I see IS, FT and DT. I wish they accept DVD like SV so I could send it out and forget about uploading ;-)

Magnum · « **Reply #4 on:** September 18, 2008, 16:29 »

Melast@ You havent reach the magic point yet, were things roll by itself. Your sale per image at Dt are 0,05%, and about same at Istock. You got to be patient, or produce more selling stuff. Good luck!

melastmohican · « **Reply #5 on:** September 18, 2008, 16:51 »

The only problem I got with IS or DT is upload process. If I got less than 100 photos on IS I am not expecting to be noticed. Most viewed pictures got only 90 hits. With DT I was more pertinacious, despite of terrible UI, and I was able to squeeze around 700 pictures. Still best one got around 80 views only. Maybe I am naive or masochist but I still count on these two but I reduced efforts to minimum.

MikLav · « **Reply #6 on:** September 18, 2008, 17:21 »

You can use 3rd party software for uploads to iStock, that makes life much easier.

I use DeepMeta for that, but there are some other tools too.

I don't see an issue with Dreamstime though. FTP upload, than manual categorizing - but interface seems to be reasonable...

melastmohican · « **Reply #7 on:** September 18, 2008, 17:30 »

Yes, I use DeepMeta but it takes them 2 weeks to review. If you compare with 72 hours on SS it's 4x slower.

It would be much easier if DT got any form of bulk editing (see FP or CS as an example). Now I have to open each photo in separate tab, select category, scroll down (yes submit button does not fit a screen) and hit submit. Assuming that I often got series of pictures I wish to do this once for a group of selected photos.

madelaide · « **Reply #8 on:** September 18, 2008, 19:16 »

In DT, you can copy categories and even keywords from another file. They even show a list of the latest uploaded ones. Or have they removed this facility? I haven't uploaded in a while.

Regards,
Adelaide

Tim Markley · « **Reply #9 on:** September 18, 2008, 19:40 »

I would stick with bigstock they do well for me.

epixx · « **Reply #10 on:** September 18, 2008, 19:41 »

Quote from: madelaide on September 18, 2008, 19:16

In DT, you can copy categories and even keywords from another file. They even show a list of the latest uploaded ones. Or have they removed this facility? I haven't uploaded in a while.

Regards,
Adelaide

It's still there. I've never understood why slow review times is a problem. Since my photos are going to stay with these agencies for years, I couldn't care less if the review take 4 days or 4 weeks, but maybe I'm just too relaxed

Fred · « **Reply #11 on:** September 18, 2008, 23:50 »

Quote from: epixx on September 18, 2008, 19:41

Quote from: madelaide on September 18, 2008, 19:16
In DT, you can copy categories and even keywords from another file. They even show a list of the latest uploaded ones. Or have they removed this facility? I haven't uploaded in a while.

Regards,
Adelaide

It's still there. I've never understood why slow review times is a problem. Since my photos are going to stay with these agencies for years, I couldn't care less if the review take 4 days or 4 weeks, but maybe I'm just too relaxed

I agree. Just upload regularly and you will have new stuff getting reviewed all the time once you get past the initial wait. fred

Seren · « **Reply #12 on:** September 19, 2008, 00:53 »

Quote from: melastmohican on September 18, 2008, 13:14

I stopped uploading to CS first, then BigStock. Now I am thinking than FP got enough photos to produce some results. I just started with MP and CC so I give them 1 more month to show any progress. After September we should see if YAY makes any promotional efforts if not I stop doing anything with them too. If I got my DVD reviewed on SV I will give them couple months for showing results. It seems like anything besides Big 6 is pure waste of time.

I think you're being too hasty. In discussion with another photographer last night, he said "I'm going to wait another three years to see if agency X produce the sales for me". Not MONTHS, but YEARS.

Stock photography is not a get rich quick business. I had some image with a specialist traditional library who went under about 12 months ago. About three months ago a designer contacted me to say he'd downloaded a proof and wanted to buy it. That's over NINE MONTHS that it took the designer from downloading a comp to getting the OK on the final design. And that's not unusual!

Another reason I've left microstock. So many people expecting the world NOW. Stock photography is a slow processes. I'm shooting on average about 70 images a week at the moment, with a plan to be making full time wages in around THREE YEARS!

sharpshot · « **Reply #13 on:** September 19, 2008, 03:03 »

I concentrated on the top 5 sites until I had 1,000 images. Then I tried BigStock, 123rf and crestock. They were much better than I thought. I think they just need a lot of images. I have stopped with crestock but only because they haven't raised commissions.

a.k.a.-tom · « **Reply #14 on:** September 19, 2008, 20:36 »

Quote from: Seren on September 19, 2008, 00:53

I think you're being too hasty. In discussion with another photographer last night, he said "I'm going to wait another three years to see if agency X produce the sales for me". Not MONTHS, but YEARS.

Stock photography is not a get rich quick business. I had some image with a specialist traditional library who went under about 12 months ago. About three months ago a designer contacted me to say he'd downloaded a proof and wanted to buy it. That's over NINE MONTHS that it took the designer from downloading a comp to getting the OK on the final design. And that's not unusual!

MODIFIED, MODIFIED....

I had originally complimented you on your comments here, Seren. But when I next read your comments in another thread... I had to come back here and modify my thoughts. In the other thread you proceeded to rip up a newbie due to his initial rejections by SS. You implied that anyone could take 10 good shots and get into SS on the first try and if they didn't.... they should go practice some more before trying to play with the big people...
pretty sad. The purpose of MSG is to work with, support and encourage our fellow photogs. To help each other benefit from our own personal experience... particularly in the micro biz.
sorry to see you show your true colors.

=tom

fotografer · « **Reply #15 on:** September 20, 2008, 03:24 »

Exactly what I did. I have kept 123rf and BigStock because they bring me in about 80 - 90 $ a month each with very little effort but stopped uploading to Crestock after only uploading a 10th of my portfolio because it is nearly all 25c sales. I thought about pulling them in case people are buying my images there instead of one of the sites that pay more but there are so few sales there that I won't bother just yet.
I never upload to unproven sites but unfortunately I believed Yuri's recommendation but now I just think that he had an ulterior motive in reccomending them.

Quote from: sharpshot on September 19, 2008, 03:03

I concentrated on the top 5 sites until I had 1,000 images. Then I tried BigStock, 123rf and crestock. They were much better than I thought. I think they just need a lot of images. I have stopped with crestock but only because they haven't raised commissions.

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Author Topic: Time to cross out next ones (Read 6726 times)

melastmohican

MikLav

Pixart

melastmohican

Magnum

melastmohican

MikLav

melastmohican

madelaide

Tim Markley

epixx

Fred

Seren

sharpshot

a.k.a.-tom

fotografer

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