Author Topic: Deactivating files on IS (Read 12007 times)

cathyslife · « **on:** November 03, 2010, 21:14 »

I deactivated some of my low selling files yesterday morning around 8:30am EDT. They are still showing in my portfolio. When you click on the thumbnail, it says that it is deactivated and no one would be able to buy it, but I was under the impression that changes to the database took place every evening. Has that changed? I apologize if this has been discussed, but there are so many freakin threads about problems with the IS website, I can't keep up. I try, but...

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #1 on:** November 04, 2010, 01:23 »

Although they've been nagged a lot about updates, their current position is that the database is updated once every 24 to 48 hours. It does sometimes go beyond that.

I don't think that's good enough - once every 24 hours should be the bare minimum - and have said so in their forums multiple times. However that's probably why you're still seeing your file's thumb.

iclick · « **Reply #2 on:** November 04, 2010, 03:54 »

Yes usually a 24 Hour turn around

So by now should be resolved?

At the other end of the spectrum I will be deactivating my best sellers and better Files come January and will take great pleasure in leaving my low selling Images there and concentrate my efforts on their competitors

cathyslife · « **Reply #3 on:** November 04, 2010, 07:47 »

Thanks for the update. Yeah, wonder what happened to the 24-hour update. It's not too important, as long as what I have deactivated stays deactivated.

Just wondering...do you think there are tons of contributors deactivating and they don't want to show their image database numbers going down, if indeed they are gearing up for a sale? That would explain the lack of updates. I'm not sure how all that technical stuff works, so I could be way out in left field (according to some, I am anyways)

Chico · « **Reply #4 on:** November 06, 2010, 04:09 »

9lives ( www.9livesillustrations.com ), an amazing gold illustrator put down all portfolio and wrote at illustration forum:

"I don't think they'd want that to be easy for us, especially right now.

Call me crazy, but I am on strike easily reversible or not. I have dropped exclusive status, deactivated my portfolio and will not be uploading at iStock anymore. Short of a change in management and/or a drastic change in company policy, I am moving on.

I'm done with the corporate double speak, lack of communication, pay cuts, unfair sales targets, random "price testing", bugs that affect getting paid properly (EL's, subscriptions etc), and above all the apparent lack of concern and respect for vector artists in particular but all contributors in general.

When designers I work with ask me about what's going on at iStock recently (and they do), you can bet I'm not holding back. There are limits to how you can treat people and still expect to profit from them. For me, iStock/Getty is way past that limit."

iclick · « **Reply #5 on:** November 06, 2010, 04:55 »

With January and the New Year will come the true responses to changes

Think IS will loose a great deal of quality established content and with it Buyers, there will always the rosy faced newbies and of course the cliché .....

Talking of which Interestingly enough I always find that I gleam more from when certain normally vocal parties remain silent than anything else

very much an uneasy increased 'Club' feeling about IS these days with so many ridiculous divisions being created amongst the Contributers. Remember when it was simply Independents who got the raw deal

Not sure if anyone can feel to safe tho, and sure things will kick off again very soon

ShadySue · « **Reply #6 on:** November 06, 2010, 05:11 »

Quote from: iclick on November 06, 2010, 04:55

Talking of which Interestingly enough I always find that I gleam more from when certain normally vocal parties remain silent than anything else

Oh yes.
It's called the Threat of the Ban Hammer.

trek · « **Reply #7 on:** November 06, 2010, 07:26 »

Perhaps we should make January zero istock upload month. Or at least deactivate a file for every one that gets accepted. Turning the "new files in 30 days column" on the contributor charts into page after page of zeros may get their attention. It would only work if the diamond crowns take part. I don't think the current management looks past page one.

cathyslife · « **Reply #8 on:** November 06, 2010, 07:37 »

Quote from: Chico on November 06, 2010, 04:09

9lives ( www.9livesillustrations.com ), an amazing gold illustrator put down all portfolio and wrote at illustration forum:

"I don't think they'd want that to be easy for us, especially right now.

Call me crazy, but I am on strike easily reversible or not. I have dropped exclusive status, deactivated my portfolio and will not be uploading at iStock anymore. Short of a change in management and/or a drastic change in company policy, I am moving on.

I'm done with the corporate double speak, lack of communication, pay cuts, unfair sales targets, random "price testing", bugs that affect getting paid properly (EL's, subscriptions etc), and above all the apparent lack of concern and respect for vector artists in particular but all contributors in general.

When designers I work with ask me about what's going on at iStock recently (and they do), you can bet I'm not holding back. There are limits to how you can treat people and still expect to profit from them. For me, iStock/Getty is way past that limit."

Very well stated post.

Chico · « **Reply #9 on:** November 06, 2010, 08:00 »

Quote from: cclapper on November 06, 2010, 07:37

Quote from: Chico on November 06, 2010, 04:09
9lives ( www.9livesillustrations.com ), an amazing gold illustrator put down all portfolio and wrote at illustration forum:

"I don't think they'd want that to be easy for us, especially right now.

Call me crazy, but I am on strike easily reversible or not. I have dropped exclusive status, deactivated my portfolio and will not be uploading at iStock anymore. Short of a change in management and/or a drastic change in company policy, I am moving on.

I'm done with the corporate double speak, lack of communication, pay cuts, unfair sales targets, random "price testing", bugs that affect getting paid properly (EL's, subscriptions etc), and above all the apparent lack of concern and respect for vector artists in particular but all contributors in general.

When designers I work with ask me about what's going on at iStock recently (and they do), you can bet I'm not holding back. There are limits to how you can treat people and still expect to profit from them. For me, iStock/Getty is way past that limit."

Very well stated post.

Yes, but it's a very sad for us. I'm really pissed of with all this crap of last moths. I'm a vector gold illustrator also and my royalties will be cuted to 25% next year. It's a complete unfair system. 25 for me and 75 for Getty?!?!?!? IT'S A SHAME, UNFAIR.

MR. THOMPSON, GO HOME!!!

sharpshot · « **Reply #10 on:** November 06, 2010, 08:50 »

Quote from: scoutingstock on November 06, 2010, 07:26

Perhaps we should make January zero istock upload month. Or at least deactivate a file for every one that gets accepted. Turning the "new files in 30 days column" on the contributor charts into page after page of zeros may get their attention. It would only work if the diamond crowns take part. I don't think the current management looks past page one.

I haven't uploaded anything since the commission cuts announcement. I will only be deleting in January. Not sure why people are waiting for January? They aren't going to change their minds, the choice is to accept the lowest commission in the industry being cut or do something about it. Even if they hadn't cut commissions, haven't the past few months been a complete shambles? They obviously don't care about their contributors anymore, only their profit targets.

Having seen the initial reaction, I have no confidence in a January rebellion. I am stopping uploading and deleting because I don't want to go along with the majority and end up with low commissions while the site owners get rich. I expect most people will fall for 15-20% of something being better than nothing. They just don't see that letting them get away with this will probably bring commissions down everywhere and microstock contributors will end up with much smaller earnings in the future.

Clivia · « **Reply #11 on:** November 06, 2010, 12:52 »

I have started deleting the poor sellers, and I will not upload anything new ever again. The good sellers I am going to delete in January. I think a lot more people are going to do the same.

cathyslife · « **Reply #12 on:** November 06, 2010, 12:55 »

Quote from: Clivia on November 06, 2010, 12:52

I have started deleting the poor sellers, and I will not upload anything new ever again. The good sellers I am going to delete in January. I think a lot more people are going to do the same.

I think a lot of people are going to do the same, too, just not saying too much about it.

donding · « **Reply #13 on:** November 06, 2010, 13:25 »

I've already deleted my low seller ones and have not uploaded any new content and don't plan to. When January comes I plan to delete the rest. Might as well suck them dry before they suck us dry.

gaja · « **Reply #14 on:** November 11, 2010, 14:56 »

I have deleted all my MR-released pics today. Will be interesting to see when they disappear from the site. I have reached the payout limit, so I'll remove the rest on January 1.

cathyslife · « **Reply #15 on:** November 11, 2010, 15:05 »

Quote from: gaja on November 11, 2010, 14:56

I have deleted all my MR-released pics today. Will be interesting to see when they disappear from the site. I have reached the payout limit, so I'll remove the rest on January 1.

I've been noticing that it takes about 2 days for my deactivated files to disappear from my port.

helix7 · « **Reply #16 on:** November 11, 2010, 16:11 »

Quote from: Chico on November 06, 2010, 08:00

Yes, but it's a very sad for us. I'm really pissed of with all this crap of last moths. I'm a vector gold illustrator also and my royalties will be cuted to 25% next year. It's a complete unfair system. 25 for me and 75 for Getty?!?!?!? IT'S A SHAME, UNFAIR.

MR. THOMPSON, GO HOME!!!

I'm assuming you'll be dropping exclusivity soon then?

I hope people aren't just deleting portfolios and getting out of stock entirely because of this. Hopefully 9lives is taking her images to the competition.

lisafx · « **Reply #17 on:** November 11, 2010, 16:13 »

Quote from: helix7 on November 11, 2010, 16:11

I hope people aren't just deleting portfolios and getting out of stock entirely because of this. Hopefully 9lives is taking her images to the competition.

That would be a bit like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

OTOH, if someone wants to leave micro altogether I would not try and stop them

Amanda_K · « **Reply #18 on:** November 11, 2010, 17:00 »

Don't worry, I have big plans.

I have been testing out over a dozen other sites with a specific batch of images to get a feel for their policies, sales potential and uploading process. More exciting (to me at least) I've been working like crazy on getting a new site built as my own outlet for selling directly.

Edited to add: I was going to go into why I think this was a viable option before I realized that was wildly off topic

Let's just say I'm setting out to prove that we can make money in this business without someone taking up to 85% commission on our sales.

helix7 · « **Reply #19 on:** November 11, 2010, 17:51 »

Quote from: 9lives on November 11, 2010, 17:00

...Let's just say I'm setting out to prove that we can make money in this business without someone taking up to 85% commission on our sales.

Good to hear you're venturing out in new directions.

And not to take anything away from your goal of proving that you can do well without iStock, I think it has been proven many times over already that iStock is not the only worthwhile game in town, it's just not as widely known that you can be successful without them. I hate to generalize, but I think there is a misconception among some exclusive contributors that iStock is the only microstock company that you can really earn any decent money with. I think a similar mindset is also prevalent among buyers, that iStock is really the only good microstock company to purchase images from, when we all know that there are equally good-quality sites out there, many far cheaper than iStock while offering better royalty rates.

Honestly, the real money is with other companies. And I'm not talking collectively. Individually, I do better every month with SS and DT than I do with iStock, as do a lot of people. Add in Fotolia, the middle tier sites, and the various other agencies, and it's not hard to prove over and over again that we don't need iStock.

But they do need us. I think they've forgotten that lately, though, and you're a perfect example of how that naive position of theirs is costing them quality artists. They went from having your images exclusively to not having them at all, and now the competition has them.

ShadySue · « **Reply #20 on:** November 11, 2010, 18:04 »

Quote from: helix7 on November 11, 2010, 17:51

Honestly, the real money is with other companies. And I'm not talking collectively. Individually, I do better every month with SS and DT than I do with iStock, as do a lot of people. Add in Fotolia, the middle tier sites, and the various other agencies, and it's not hard to prove over and over again that we don't need iStock.

I'm sure it's perfectly true that people can make good or better money elsewhere. The monthly thread here and anecdotal evidence isn't very helpful in illustrating that, because it all depends how many images people have at the different sites, and for how long. For example on iStock, stuff that I've loaded since cJan 09 is hardly moving.

Amanda_K · « **Reply #21 on:** November 11, 2010, 18:22 »

Oh I agree people can do very well without iStock and hopefully the misconception that you can't goes away sooner rather than later. As far as earning potential on the other micros goes I was very pleasantly surprised with sales numbers in my first month even with a very tiny sample group of images. Based on my experience so far I have absolutely no doubt I could get back to my average monthly earnings within a couple of months without the Getty beast.

I'm more hoping to prove that it's possible to do well with direct sales. I'm an idealist, I guess. I love the idea of not being at the mercy of waiting on payouts and worrying about search placement and being forced to offer extended licenses at some sites. (Not to mention the potential for some of these agencies to be bought out.) I'm taking it as a fun and hopefully profitable challenge. All I know is I have thoroughly learned my lesson about relying on agencies to stick to their word and putting all my eggs in one basket.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #22 on:** November 11, 2010, 18:40 »

Quote from: 9lives on November 11, 2010, 18:22

Oh I agree people can do very well without iStock and hopefully the misconception that you can't goes away sooner rather than later. As far as earning potential on the other micros goes I was very pleasantly surprised with sales numbers in my first month even with a very tiny sample group of images. Based on my experience so far I have absolutely no doubt I could get back to my average monthly earnings within a couple of months without the Getty beast.

Since people never post real numbers, and just vague percentages of X up or Y down, or generalized statements, I doubt any IS contributor really has any sense of what people make outside of IS.

aeonf · « **Reply #23 on:** November 11, 2010, 19:15 »

Quote from: sjlocke on November 11, 2010, 18:40

Quote from: 9lives on November 11, 2010, 18:22
Oh I agree people can do very well without iStock and hopefully the misconception that you can't goes away sooner rather than later. As far as earning potential on the other micros goes I was very pleasantly surprised with sales numbers in my first month even with a very tiny sample group of images. Based on my experience so far I have absolutely no doubt I could get back to my average monthly earnings within a couple of months without the Getty beast.

Since people never post real numbers, and just vague percentages of X up or Y down, or generalized statements, I doubt any IS contributor really has any sense of what people make outside of IS.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours

Amanda_K · « **Reply #24 on:** November 11, 2010, 19:50 »

I can definitely say as an exclusive I had no sense of what people make at the other sites, but I'm happy to be finding out and significantly less worried than I was when I hit that cancel exclusivity button.

FYI iStock apparently deletes your stats tab if you deactivate your portfolio

So if any of you who are deleting want to keep your past stats to compare I'd make sure you grab them first. Fair warning.

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Author Topic: Deactivating files on IS (Read 12007 times)

cathyslife

Jo Ann Snover

iclick

cathyslife

Chico

iclick

ShadySue

trek

cathyslife

Chico

sharpshot

Clivia

cathyslife

donding

gaja

cathyslife

helix7

lisafx

Amanda_K

helix7

ShadySue

Amanda_K

Sean Locke Photography

aeonf

Amanda_K

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