Quote from: ShadySue on May 10, 2014, 22:39
Oh you're right.
Without .com, there is a clear crossover.
Apparently coinciding exactly with the announcement of RCs at iS. 
That was the beginning of contributor-shafting at iS, but the downturn ... 

As a IS buyer that is exactly when I started purchasing images on other sites. And I will follow suit for any site that shafts contributors.

Quote from: gbalex on May 11, 2014, 14:24

Quote from: ShadySue on May 10, 2014, 22:39
Oh you're right.
Without .com, there is a clear crossover.
Apparently coinciding exactly with the announcement of RCs at iS. 
That was the beginning of contributor-shafting at iS, but the downturn ... 

As a IS buyer that is exactly when I started purchasing images on other sites. And I will follow suit for any site that shafts contributors.

Which sites are you left with?
Although there are more options for buyers than for sellers, i.e. many of the fairer-trade sites don't garner enough sales to be worth the effort.

But as far s I can see Getty generates additional income to exclusives to overcome the gap between reduced DL from signature and S+ collections

Quote from: miladin14 on May 12, 2014, 22:22
But as far s I can see Getty generates additional income to exclusives to overcome the gap between reduced DL from signature and S+ collections

True for some, not all.
But it was heralded as an 'extra' to normal iS earnings, not to 'bridge the gap' of reduced iS earnings.

I am still missing PP income from Feb which showed on my stats but NOT in my balance. My support ticket is almost 2 months not answered. When I posted on the forum it was locked and I was told to be patient.

Quote from: gbalex on May 11, 2014, 14:24

Quote from: ShadySue on May 10, 2014, 22:39
Oh you're right.
Without .com, there is a clear crossover.
Apparently coinciding exactly with the announcement of RCs at iS. 
That was the beginning of contributor-shafting at iS, but the downturn ... 

As a IS buyer that is exactly when I started purchasing images on other sites. And I will follow suit for any site that shafts contributors.

so where do you buy your images? from what i can tell contributors have been getting the shaft since the beginning of microstock. all of the traditional agencies have dropped royalties since then and also pricing to play catch up. so please let us know which sites don't shaft contributors.

Quote from: Herg on May 12, 2014, 23:10
I am still missing PP income from Feb which showed on my stats but NOT in my balance. My support ticket is almost 2 months not answered. When I posted on the forum it was locked and I was told to be patient.

It might be answered soon. My latest answered support ticket was answered a few weeks ago, after almost exactly a 2 month wait.

Quote from: gillian on May 11, 2014, 11:03
I don't understand how being exclusive works so well anymore. sure you may be placed higher in the search, but thanks to the price sliders buyers can simply remove your stuff and still have cheap and high quality offerings.

Gillian, exclusivity only works if there is a dominant industry leader, which iStock was when it was under good management (up until 2011). I've been with the agency for 12 years, and have amassed about 300,000 sales, but iStock needs to perform an extremely dramatic turnaround if I'm going to maintain my exclusivity in 2014 / 2015. At this point, I'm sure a lot of artists, myself included, are just riding out the last little bit of sales and looking forward to a more healthier way of marketing our work.

Quote from: ranplett on May 14, 2014, 19:14

Quote from: gillian on May 11, 2014, 11:03
I don't understand how being exclusive works so well anymore. sure you may be placed higher in the search, but thanks to the price sliders buyers can simply remove your stuff and still have cheap and high quality offerings.

Gillian, exclusivity only works if there is a dominant industry leader, which iStock was when it was under good management (up until 2011). I've been with the agency for 12 years, and have amassed about 300,000 sales, but iStock needs to perform an extremely dramatic turnaround if I'm going to maintain my exclusivity in 2014 / 2015. At this point, I'm sure a lot of artists, myself included, are just riding out the last little bit of sales and looking forward to a more healthier way of marketing our work.

I'm exclusive and I'm about where you're at. Most of the benefits that were in place when I became exclusive back in 2008 are now gone. My download levels are also back to 2008 levels when I had a handful of files and I now have 100x that. For the first time since becoming exclusive, this year I started having zero downloads on weekends and some weekdays. The trends aren't good and haven't been good for a while.

And bringing back 100% Punctum Day? Nice but this should have been done a year or two ago. The day is half over and I have 3 downloads. Yippie.

The only things that are keeping me exclusive are IS sales and my Getty House contract. IS sales are drying up. My only options are to go into an all Getty RM/RF headlock chokehold and hope there's some life left in macro or drop exclusivity and go with other channels like selling direct or through a specialty agency.

2015 will probably be the make-or-break for me.

I'm exclusive and income has been bouncing around as iStock fiddles with the prices. The bad trend is the continuously decreasing downloads. Like Paulie, weekdays with no downloads are becoming all to common. Selling price is of no matter if there are no sales at any price. PP and Getty income is only a few dollars a month most months and not worth considering for me. I haven't decided if or when to make the break. Based on early last year trends I expected to already be dead  - but I'm hanging on barely. One question still lingering - if I break Exclusivity, to where to I jump? SS for sure. After that I don't know what makes sense.

The no.1 reason that is killing me at iS is the unpredictability and lack of new downloads and promotion. I'd rather have cheaper but more frequent downloads than few S+ DLs here and there.

My portfolio is very small but I consider it successful. Since January '14 I have upped it for about 20% or should I say 30% if I count only the material that gets most of DLs for me. But my income didn't increase. I didn't make more money or get more exposure for the other files. It's always more or less the same. If new files are being downloaded, older images suffer and vice versa. It's very frustrating.

Quote from: StanRohrer on May 14, 2014, 21:30
I'm exclusive and income has been bouncing around as iStock fiddles with the prices. The bad trend is the continuously decreasing downloads. Like Paulie, weekdays with no downloads are becoming all to common. Selling price is of no matter if there are no sales at any price. PP and Getty income is only a few dollars a month most months and not worth considering for me. I haven't decided if or when to make the break. Based on early last year trends I expected to already be dead  - but I'm hanging on barely. One question still lingering - if I break Exclusivity, to where to I jump? SS for sure. After that I don't know what makes sense.

I think there are a lot of us in the same boat Stan. I can't really see subs making up the losses we're seeing.  PP seems to have dropped to nothing for exclusives, and Getty income, while welcome, isn't big, or reliable enough. Anyway, as far as I was concerned these things were supposed to be "extras", and they have ended up taking up the slack from normal sales. Or rather in my case at the moment, not doing so.
I'm getting very near being pushed out of exclusivity. I'd rather jump I think.
   

This month I am getting more daily sales on Photodune than Istock. And Pdune is not a big seller and not increasing.  Just Istock sales are gone.  Never thought that would happen.

Do you think it is new subs program taking credit sales?