I dropped exclusivity shortly after the announcement in 2009.
the download is not so bad, but the pay is very low now.

i know I am beating a drum we have all heard; but if you drop exclusive, be prepared for a ton of work to get your port. on other sites.  i just drop excl. at DT and it is a ton of work to get the port. on the other sites.  Even with lightburner, it is still a ton of work.  Yes, some of the sites are a breeze but most are a royal pain, like BigStock and Panther.

This is my full-time job so must suck it up and work the long hours to get the port developed across the entire system.  Excl. is not an option at IS as I am only allowed 18 uploads a week and it would take years to get my port their.

Acceptance is going well, most sites well over 90%

I never found uploading to 5 or 6 sites that much more work than uploading to IS. Most sites have uploaders right on their site (unlike IS, where you have to download extra software). There are a lot of give and takes to both sides. Personally, I always thought spending 10 more minutes uploading to other sites was well worth the piece of mind in knowing that all my eggs weren't in one basket.

Once you get caught up with the uploading, I think you will find that the $$ made from the other sites makes up for your exclusive droppage (is that a word?  )

Quote from: cclapper on February 16, 2011, 10:08

Once you get caught up with the uploading, I think you will find that the $$ made from the other sites makes up for your exclusive droppage (is that a word?  )

That is the million-dollar question. If I didn't have to account for Vetta, Agency, and E+, it might be easier to quantify. But when one Vetta sale nets more than 50-100 shutterstock sales, it's hard to justify. Even one small E+ sale can account for 20+ SS sales. I go back and forth between desiring the "security" of having my eggs spread into multiple baskets, but ultimately, the high returns of being exclusive on iStock have outweighed the benefits of diversifying. I understand it is different for everyone though. Just expressing my thought process on the matter.

I am guessing that if you have a good number of vetta and E+ at IS and they sell, then exclusive is your best option. If you can't crack those clubs or the images you do get in just don't see many sales then being all over is probably a better option. That is just my guess though.

I have thrown in my crown.  As both a buyer and a contributor, I am not happy with the site from both sides.  I followed the sale of Istock to Getty quite closely and also followed the delisting of Getty from a public company to private (never a good deal for anyone really except the new owners).  Getty already had a horrible reputation of being cut throat to both contributors and customers.  I had a friend who warned me about them years ago and he is a big player in the regular stock market in rights managed and royalty free.

The site is a quagmire and nothings seems to work...yet they keep launching new things without ever fixing the others.  They fix one thing and have no idea that it that it breaks 3 others things.  The inner ranks of the people that run that place are so connected, cover each others asses and half of them should have been gone long ago.  The IT department took off more then they can chew and 7 months later...still a mess.   I find it odd that they can launch editorial images and have an option to "exclude editorial images" in the search but cant seem to add that for vetta, ex plus or agency.  They know including those pisses buyers off but wont do anything.  They moved several of my images to ex +1 (when that was launched) and one image that use to sell every few days halted to a stop and had maybe one download in a month that i got an extra 3 bucks for.  I look at the economics of my stock portfolio like the costco business model.  I rather move 200 widgets at 2 dollars then 20 widgets at 5.  I also look at my portfolio as a whole in profits.  I have some images at vetta quality that took longer and more effort to shoot and are less profitable then images that took me 30 seconds to shoot.  The price model they have doesn't work well for that.  With the current site...how many of you can accurately project what your sales will be on any given month?  For the last 3 years, I have been consistently around the same $$ based on file ratio.  I am now half or less each month from the last 3 years since going exclusive.

The moderators are at most times rude to the contributors and their attitudes are at times abusive and condescending.  The recent lobo postings about his distaste for people using "+1" is an important example that lobo needs to find other work as i guess it was a slow day for the forum bully.  I love that rogermexico added +1 to that post...and Lobo repsonded with "Dude".  Ha...just shows you what their own ranks respect level of one of their moderators.  I will never spend another dollar there that's for sure.  I have have had enough.  I have started uploading elsewhere (my accounts seem to be in tact at most other places).  I will monitor sales on certain files across each of the agencies and may pull out all together just out of principle.  I attend a regular meet-up group for designers and a 75% show of hands out of about 60-70 people are pretty tired of the site problems and another show of hands that landed under 50% say they are now going elsewhere for images.  50 percent of that were because of site problems and the other 50% was that it was too high priced now.

anyway...enough.

I have thrown in my crown.  As both a buyer and a contributor, I am not happy with the site from both sides.  I followed the sale of Istock to Getty quite closely and also followed the delisting of Getty from a public company to private (never a good deal for anyone really except the new owners).  Getty already had a horrible reputation of being cut throat to both contributors and customers.  I had a friend who warned me about them years ago and he is a big player in the regular stock market in rights managed and royalty free.

The site is a quagmire and nothings seems to work...yet they keep launching new things without ever fixing the others.  They fix one thing and have no idea that it that it breaks 3 others things.  The inner ranks of the people that run that place are so connected, cover each others asses and half of them should have been gone long ago.  The IT department took off more then they can chew and 7 months later...still a mess.   I find it odd that they can launch editorial images and have an option to "exclude editorial images" in the search but cant seem to add that for vetta, ex plus or agency.  They know including those pisses buyers off but wont do anything.  They moved several of my images to ex +1 (when that was launched) and one image that use to sell every few days halted to a stop and had maybe one download in a month that i got an extra 3 bucks for.  I look at the economics of my stock portfolio like the costco business model.  I rather move 200 widgets at 2 dollars then 20 widgets at 5.  I also look at my portfolio as a whole in profits.  I have some images at vetta quality that took longer and more effort to shoot and are less profitable then images that took me 30 seconds to shoot.  The price model they have doesn't work well for that.  With the current site...how many of you can accurately project what your sales will be on any given month?  For the last 3 years, I have been consistently around the same $$ based on file ratio.  I am now half or less each month from the last 3 years since going exclusive.

The moderators are at most times rude to the contributors and their attitudes are at times abusive and condescending.  The recent lobo postings about his distaste for people using "+1" is an important example that lobo needs to find other work as i guess it was a slow day for the forum bully.  I love that rogermexico added +1 to that post...and Lobo repsonded with "Dude".  Ha...just shows you what their own ranks respect level of one of their moderators.  I will never spend another dollar there that's for sure.  I have have had enough.  I have started uploading elsewhere (my accounts seem to be in tact at most other places).  I will monitor sales on certain files across each of the agencies and may pull out all together just out of principle.  I attend a regular meet-up group for designers and a 75% show of hands out of about 60-70 people are pretty tired of the site problems and another show of hands that landed under 50% say they are now going elsewhere for images.  50 percent of that were because of site problems and the other 50% was that it was too high priced now.

anyway...enough.

Great post __ some very interesting stuff in there. Good luck with the other sites too, I suspect you may be pleasantly surprised when you are fully up and running elewhere.

Thanks everyone so far. Lisa and Jo Ann, good stuff. I guess I should have made more clear I was looking for first hand experience of people who had been exclusive until the last few months at IS. Still on the fence, been really happy so far as a Gold level contributor, but dropping from $2000 a month to maybe $800 this month is disturbing. Most likely will see what Feb. brings and go from there, just not too optimistic about IS with all of the site issues. Just don't don't think they have the expertise or motivation to get it back like it was. Not wearing any rose colored glasses about how great it is at other sites either, but need to try and make up the difference if I can.

My story is similar, I "was" gold,now Im a silver equivalent and I totally halved my IS income, and from what march looks like so far I think Ill even a more major cut this month. Im absolutely worried and have started looking at others ex exclusive stories as Im considering ldropping my crown too. Im a bit scared about how much time it takes one to really start earning significant money, I rely on this for my home income.
I m an illustrator, so I think itmight be even harder.

Diamond contributor turning in their crown: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=312432&page=1

After waiting almost 50 days for my 30 day notice to go into effect (lol - so typical of iStock right now),

You didn't have to wait.  You only have to give 30 days notice.  If they don't push their button, it's their problem.

Quote from: OhGoAway! on March 02, 2011, 21:06

After waiting almost 50 days for my 30 day notice to go into effect (lol - so typical of iStock right now),

You didn't have to wait.  You only have to give 30 days notice.  If they don't push their button, it's their problem.

I think it makes other agencies nervous though, perhaps, if they see you're still exclusive elsewhere. Plus, it's just weird and confusing.

From what I understand, what they did to OhGoAway! they did to lots of other folks, too. Not sure if this is because they're so overloaded with requests to dump exclusivity or because they're just lazy and incompetent. Or both!

Good for you on taking the leap. I wish you the best of luck. You, I hope, will find a lot of support and information here.

Enough is enough. I've binned my crown for all file types and should be free at the end of March.

Welcome to the club! The more, the merrier.

Enough is enough. I've binned my crown for all file types and should be free at the end of March.

Well done and the very best of luck to you! I honestly welcome the extra competition of ex-exclusives on all other sites. It doesn't matter because the sales will follow eventually anyway.

Quote from: caspixel on March 10, 2011, 13:26

Diamond contributor turning in their crown: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=312432&page=1

Well, turning in the crown on 139 illustrations but not 3,000 photos, as far as I can make out. She's not risking the key part of her income and it could well be an astute business move.

She may have taken the leap after this round of claw backs.

It looks like a lot of people are now angry enough to drop the crown. At least they say they are going to.