Author Topic: 2013 Vector Sales (Read 15368 times)

runeer · « **on:** January 02, 2014, 06:34 »

Hi all vector artists,

How was your 2013 performance and experience?

I'm iStock exclusive and it was kinda bad in 2013, low views and new files hardly get consistent downloads...

Shelma1 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 02, 2014, 07:00 »

My income almost quadrupled at iStock, mostly thanks to PP. (not that I make a lot there.) Sorry. $:-\$

BoBoBolinski · « **Reply #2 on:** January 02, 2014, 07:53 »

Saying your income quadrupled is fairly meaningless from a comparison point of view.

Shelma1 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 02, 2014, 08:47 »

Quote from: BoBoBolinski on January 02, 2014, 07:53

Saying your income quadrupled is fairly meaningless from a comparison point of view.

Why? How'd you do, BTW?

BoBoBolinski · « **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2014, 09:19 »

Let me qualify my statement. Whenever I look in the IS sales thread at the beginning of the month over the last year or two, I would say the majority of sellers are reporting a downturn, but there are always a few, and often the same few, reporting BME. When you go and look at their figures, ie. their overall sales, they are inevitably low sellers. If you sell 20 files a month say, it doesn't take a small hike in sales to enable you to say "25% increase this month! Woo Yay!" When you drill down into their figures, you realise that 2 or 3 additional sales might give them what sounds like a big increase. That is what I meant by saying that percentages in themselves mean little.

Shelma1 · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2014, 10:05 »

I don't know what you consider a small number of sales. I make maybe 80-90 iStock sales per month, 1,000 PP sales. You? How'd your vectors do there last year?

cthoman · « **Reply #6 on:** January 02, 2014, 10:15 »

2013 was good. I did a little worse than 2012 in total revenue. I grew at some sites and shrunk or eliminated others, so it was sort of a transitional year. I'm looking to 2014 to be a big growth year, so I guess that will be the real test.

john_woodcock · « **Reply #7 on:** January 02, 2014, 10:23 »

My sales are down quite a bit. The most discouraging thing is the low performance of new files. I'm still uploading in reasonable numbers but sales on new images are fairly rare.

runeer · « **Reply #8 on:** January 02, 2014, 12:07 »

Quote from: cthoman on January 02, 2014, 10:15

2013 was good. I did a little worse than 2012 in total revenue. I grew at some sites and shrunk or eliminated others, so it was sort of a transitional year. I'm looking to 2014 to be a big growth year, so I guess that will be the real test.

*oops wrong quote
Michele, have you been exclusive to iStock before, or you've been exclusive to none all the while?

runeer · « **Reply #9 on:** January 02, 2014, 12:09 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on January 02, 2014, 10:05

I don't know what you consider a small number of sales. I make maybe 80-90 iStock sales per month, 1,000 PP sales. You? How'd your vectors do there last year?

Michele, have you been exclusive to iStock before, or you've been exclusive to none all the while?

runeer · « **Reply #10 on:** January 02, 2014, 12:14 »

Quote from: john_woodcock on January 02, 2014, 10:23

My sales are down quite a bit. The most discouraging thing is the low performance of new files. I'm still uploading in reasonable numbers but sales on new images are fairly rare.

Is this a vector market trend or iStock only problem? Is iStock getting too crowded or losing too many customers, or both??

Shelma1 · « **Reply #11 on:** January 02, 2014, 12:15 »

Quote from: runeer on January 02, 2014, 12:09

Quote from: Shelma1 on January 02, 2014, 10:05
I don't know what you consider a small number of sales. I make maybe 80-90 iStock sales per month, 1,000 PP sales. You? How'd your vectors do there last year?

Michele, have you been exclusive to iStock before, or you've been exclusive to none all the while?

No, never exclusive. So I have no idea how a direct exclusive/non-exclusive comparison would stack up. But it does sound like exclusives' sales have been dropping overall, while at least in my case the PP program really made a big difference in my earnings there. My iStock sales were stagnant, despite adding a couple hundred new images.

Shutterstock still earns me a lot more than iStock, even with PP. But my port is much larger at SS.

cthoman · « **Reply #12 on:** January 02, 2014, 12:20 »

Quote from: runeer on January 02, 2014, 12:14

Quote from: john_woodcock on January 02, 2014, 10:23
My sales are down quite a bit. The most discouraging thing is the low performance of new files. I'm still uploading in reasonable numbers but sales on new images are fairly rare.

Is this a vector market trend or iStock only problem? Is iStock getting too crowded or losing too many customers, or both??

My guess would be both. The field has definitely gotten more crowded and IS has taken a big dive from its once very high position. That said, I still think there are better opportunities for illustration work than photos.

Shelma1 · « **Reply #13 on:** January 02, 2014, 12:25 »

I agree.

BoBoBolinski · « **Reply #14 on:** January 02, 2014, 12:41 »

"You? How'd your vectors do there last year?"

I think you have taken what I said too personally, I didn't mean to offend, just to point out how difficult it is to gauge progress by figures, sorry if it came over as personal.

john_woodcock · « **Reply #15 on:** January 02, 2014, 12:50 »

Quote from: cthoman on January 02, 2014, 12:20

Quote from: runeer on January 02, 2014, 12:14
Quote from: john_woodcock on January 02, 2014, 10:23
My sales are down quite a bit. The most discouraging thing is the low performance of new files. I'm still uploading in reasonable numbers but sales on new images are fairly rare.

Is this a vector market trend or iStock only problem? Is iStock getting too crowded or losing too many customers, or both??

My guess would be both. The field has definitely gotten more crowded and IS has taken a big dive from its once very high position. That said, I still think there are better opportunities for illustration work than photos.

I personally think prices are too high, I'd halve them. I'd also go back to the more exacting standards that previously existed, too much low quality stuff now being accepted ( in my
opinion) , plus there's just such a volume of imagery available everywhere, it's hard to believe what it was like, say 20 years ago, things have changed so much, and continue to do so.

chromaco · « **Reply #16 on:** January 02, 2014, 13:25 »

I think sites like clipartof have shown illustrators that there are better options out there. I also believe that illustrators are starting to limit the uploads to the less friendly and lower rpd sites. Buyers seem to have no problem finding the smaller niche and personal sites if they like an illustration. I stopped uploading to the sub sites almost a year ago but my overall sales continue to rise. After a year of hosting my own sites I have started to realize that there are images that should be sold by the subscription model and those which will sell very well on higher rpd sites. In 2014 I will make images specifically for the high volume sites and I will leave my niche images for myself and a precious few agencies like CAO and Toonvectors.

Shelma1 · « **Reply #17 on:** January 02, 2014, 13:53 »

Quote from: BoBoBolinski on January 02, 2014, 12:41

"You? How'd your vectors do there last year?"

I think you have taken what I said too personally, I didn't mean to offend, just to point out how difficult it is to gauge progress by figures, sorry if it came over as personal.

Well, it seems by your icon over to the left that you don't do vectors, but somehow you found it necessary to post in a vector thread and attack the one person who (at that point) had actually responded to the OP's question.

EmberMike · « **Reply #18 on:** January 02, 2014, 15:51 »

iStock is actually on a bit of a comeback for me, but only because of the PP. Regular sales were about as expected throughout 2013, low in quantity and revenue.

My guess is that iStock kept pushing prices up and cut some bad deals for contributors, pushing both customers and contributors away. Hence the reduction in pricing for non-exclusive content and the reinstatement of the 20% non-exclusive royalty for vector artists. And also removing the upload limit. They went too far and were backpedaling trying to undo some of the damage.

But before that happened, of course they were promoting ThinkStock, so when customers became disillusioned with iStock and the ever-increasing prices, some of them went over to ThinkStock. PP numbers shot up, I think because of this.

Crazy as it sounds, I think the best way to make decent money with iStock today is through the PP. It's still not a good deal for us, but it's the only thing keeping iStock in any sort of decent shape earnings-wise for me.

runeer · « **Reply #19 on:** January 03, 2014, 00:31 »

Quote from: EmberMike on January 02, 2014, 15:51

iStock is actually on a bit of a comeback for me, but only because of the PP. Regular sales were about as expected throughout 2013, low in quantity and revenue.

My guess is that iStock kept pushing prices up and cut some bad deals for contributors, pushing both customers and contributors away. Hence the reduction in pricing for non-exclusive content and the reinstatement of the 20% non-exclusive royalty for vector artists. And also removing the upload limit. They went too far and were backpedaling trying to undo some of the damage.

But before that happened, of course they were promoting ThinkStock, so when customers became disillusioned with iStock and the ever-increasing prices, some of them went over to ThinkStock. PP numbers shot up, I think because of this.

Crazy as it sounds, I think the best way to make decent money with iStock today is through the PP. It's still not a good deal for us, but it's the only thing keeping iStock in any sort of decent shape earnings-wise for me.

You've got a point there, Thinkstock is offering just anything the iStock exclusive artists can offer. I think that hurts the exclusive artists' sales.

Curvabezier · « **Reply #20 on:** January 03, 2014, 00:33 »

Considering this was my dropping-crown-year, I think it was a decent one. Sales weren´t great, and I would like some other site to step up and get closer to IS and SS sales.
On the bright side, I´ve managed to learn a lot about the rest of the agencies... also, I like to think my skills improved a bit, and finally, got my symbiostock site, so I have great hopes for 2014.

runeer · « **Reply #21 on:** January 03, 2014, 05:56 »

Quote from: Curvabezier on January 03, 2014, 00:33

Considering this was my dropping-crown-year, I think it was a decent one. Sales weren´t great, and I would like some other site to step up and get closer to IS and SS sales.
On the bright side, I´ve managed to learn a lot about the rest of the agencies... also, I like to think my skills improved a bit, and finally, got my symbiostock site, so I have great hopes for 2014.

Is it worthwhile to drop the crown and uploading to multiple agencies?

Curvabezier · « **Reply #22 on:** January 03, 2014, 09:00 »

Quote from: runeer on January 03, 2014, 05:56

Quote from: Curvabezier on January 03, 2014, 00:33
Considering this was my dropping-crown-year, I think it was a decent one. Sales weren´t great, and I would like some other site to step up and get closer to IS and SS sales.
On the bright side, I´ve managed to learn a lot about the rest of the agencies... also, I like to think my skills improved a bit, and finally, got my symbiostock site, so I have great hopes for 2014.

Is it worthwhile to drop the crown and uploading to multiple agencies?

Not quite yet, but almost there.

Getting rid of that "my-future-depends-only-on-these-guys" feeling also helps through the wait.

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Author Topic: 2013 Vector Sales (Read 15368 times)

runeer

Shelma1

BoBoBolinski

Shelma1

BoBoBolinski

Shelma1

cthoman

john_woodcock

runeer

runeer

runeer

Shelma1

cthoman

Shelma1

BoBoBolinski

john_woodcock

chromaco

Shelma1

EmberMike

runeer

Curvabezier

runeer

Curvabezier

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