MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: VB inc on June 14, 2011, 11:39
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It just seems like that has been the case with me anyways. Add to that the discontented buyers leaving with every new "collection" stuffed at the front. It really seems like Getty content before istock content now.
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hey... you are fast to predict :)
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It seems to boost on demand sales with SS.
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It seems to boost on demand sales with Shutterstock.
perhaps.. that might be true
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It seems to boost on demand sales with Shutterstock.
perhaps.. that might be true
Mine are on the rise last few months, but so are all the other types of DLS (subs and 25/day as well). SS is almost the mirrored image of IS (almost because IS sales are stagnating not dropping - but they should be rising)
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I've never really felt that exclusivity was a great deal. It looked a little more appealing with the price increases for exclusives (before the royalty cut), but that obviously was short-lived. But now I think it's fair to ask: Do any exclusives really still feel like their benefiting from the crown anymore?
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I've never really felt that exclusivity was a great deal. It looked a little more appealing with the price increases for exclusives (before the royalty cut), but that obviously was short-lived. But now I think it's fair to ask: Do any exclusives really still feel like their benefiting from the crown anymore?
Absolutely yes.
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I've never really felt that exclusivity was a great deal. It looked a little more appealing with the price increases for exclusives (before the royalty cut), but that obviously was short-lived. But now I think it's fair to ask: Do any exclusives really still feel like their benefiting from the crown anymore?
Absolutely yes.
Unless you have tons of good selling A/V you'd be better off independent. If you just look at how great SS is doing for everyone and how sales at IS is dropping for most contributors you can see what a bad deal it is. And independents got P+ and we're soon gonna get Vetta as well and then you'll just start pulling your hair out :P
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I've never really felt that exclusivity was a great deal. It looked a little more appealing with the price increases for exclusives (before the royalty cut), but that obviously was short-lived. But now I think it's fair to ask: Do any exclusives really still feel like their benefiting from the crown anymore?
Absolutely yes.
Unless you have tons of good selling A/V you'd be better off independent. If you just look at how great Shutterstock is doing for everyone and how sales at IS is dropping for most contributors you can see what a bad deal it is. And independents got P+ and we're soon gonna get Vetta as well and then you'll just start pulling your hair out :P
I beg to differ.
Exlusivity is great for us so far.
P+ is a good thing for exlusives as well.
If and when we will think exclusivity isn't profitable for us we will be the first to give our crown back.
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I've never really felt that exclusivity was a great deal. It looked a little more appealing with the price increases for exclusives (before the royalty cut), but that obviously was short-lived. But now I think it's fair to ask: Do any exclusives really still feel like their benefiting from the crown anymore?
Absolutely yes.
Unless you have tons of good selling A/V you'd be better off independent. If you just look at how great Shutterstock is doing for everyone and how sales at IS is dropping for most contributors you can see what a bad deal it is. And independents got P+ and we're soon gonna get Vetta as well and then you'll just start pulling your hair out :P
I beg to differ.
Exlusivity is great for us so far.
P+ is a good thing for exlusives as well.
If and when we will think exclusivity isn't profitable for us we will be the first to give our crown back.
That's great. I'm glad to see you doing well. It works for some but not others. that's the uniqueness of it all.
oh.. and for clarification, you mean E+ for exclusives, right? I think P+ is only for independents, right?
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Unless you have tons of good selling A/V you'd be better off independent.
There is no research to back this assertion and no two accounts are the same - what works for one person may not work for another.
I tend to look at things over at least a year - and, so far, year by year exclusivity has worked for me. Which is not say that I necessarily see it as a forever situation. But it works for me at the moment and as I work on improving the quality of my work. Which is where I see my opportunities, ultimately.
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Unless you have tons of good selling A/V you'd be better off independent.
There is no research to back this assertion and no two accounts are the same - what works for one person may not work for another.
I tend to look at things over at least a year - and, so far, year by year exclusivity has worked for me. Which is not say that I necessarily see it as a forever situation. But it works for me at the moment and as I work on improving the quality of my work. Which is where I see my opportunities, ultimately.
There sure is no research, one of those who's claiming that is Sean. His year to year DLs dropped for 22%, but his earnings rose just by 1% (I'm not 100% sure about the exactness of those numbers, but they're in this ballpark). At the same time he added 2000 files. He's doing as much A/V stuff as possible, because without plenty of those, his sales would drop by a similar rate that his DLs did. And there are many exclusives claiming the same thing. You have to get as many photos into A/V, they really make a difference, especially because they're pushed in front of all the files if you search using best match.
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I really should have clarified that the majority of my portfolio is vectors. So all these collections are taking more slots up in the front pages and i see less and less vectors on it.
Im sure someone is going to jump in here and say there are tons of vectors up in front of searches but these vectors are super sellers and they defy the normal best match in my view.
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I really should have clarified that the majority of my portfolio is vectors. So all these collections are taking more slots up in the front pages and i see less and less vectors on it.
Im sure someone is going to jump in here and say there are tons of vectors up in front of searches but these vectors are super sellers and they defy the normal best match in my view.
I don't think there is a "normal" to the best match. :)
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oh.. and for clarification, you mean E+ for exclusives, right? I think P+ is only for independents, right?
I could see how P+ could benefit exclusives. It eliminates the price advantage for buyers to buy non-exclusive images over exclusive regular collection ones. Particularly if a lot of independents put their most popular images in P+.
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oh.. and for clarification, you mean E+ for exclusives, right? I think P+ is only for independents, right?
I could see how P+ could benefit exclusives. It eliminates the price advantage for buyers to buy non-exclusive images over exclusive regular collection ones. Particularly if a lot of independents put their most popular images in P+.
Well not really. They're still far superior to exclusive files in most cases, because exclusives put their best in A/V, those that don't make it, they just put in e+.
So I think the in dependants are clear winners in this case;)
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Thank you lisa for explaining exactly what I meant.
We have maybe 5 photos on E+ (non sellers).
Slovenian: Don't you get tired of spitting out nonsense ?
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I'm sure there are quite a lot of exclusives that are doing really well. If you have a portfolio that works with istock, it's an option. Mine has always done much better on the other sites.
I don't think there would still be so many exclusives if they really thought they were losing out. It's also going to be really hard to submit a portfolio from scratch with the big independent sites. They reject much more than they used to.
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Slovenian: Don't you get tired of spitting out nonsense ?
What doesn't make sense? Or better said, what didn't you understand?
You can't get tired since you're a broken woo-yay record ;)
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You can't get tired since you're a broken woo-yay record ;)
LOLOL shut up :) IS rocks!
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I'm sure there are quite a lot of exclusives that are doing really well. If you have a portfolio that works with istock, it's an option. Mine has always done much better on the other sites.
I don't think there would still be so many exclusives if they really thought they were losing out. It's also going to be really hard to submit a portfolio from scratch with the big independent sites. They reject much more than they used to.
I would really like to hear stories of anyone doing better after sept 2010. Even with vetta heavy portfolios which translates to less downloads per file.
My point is that majority of contributors lose out no matter what with every new collection added. lets say my portfolio as a whole gets 100 views a day. vetta photo collection comes in. now i only get 90 views a day. then agency comes in... 80 views a day. vetta vectors, vetta video, editorial... all getty content being moved over... now i get maybe 60 views a day. add in buyer loss and there you go with everyone complaining about less downloads and only the relative noobs in the game hooraying for their double digit download numbers a month.
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I really should have clarified that the majority of my portfolio is vectors. So all these collections are taking more slots up in the front pages and i see less and less vectors on it.
Im sure someone is going to jump in here and say there are tons of vectors up in front of searches but these vectors are super sellers and they defy the normal best match in my view.
I don't think there is a "normal" to the best match. :)
The new normal to the best match is more money for getty.
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hey... you are fast to predict :)
im not predicting.. im observing ;)
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I'm having similar results. I've been on a gradual decline since mid-March and sales have been very choppy during the work week which is odd.
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I beg to differ.
Exlusivity is great for us so far.
P+ is a good thing for exlusives as well.
If and when we will think exclusivity isn't profitable for us we will be the first to give our crown back.
I used to honestly think that there were a small number of people who really did benefit from exclusivity, but I'm not convinced anymore. Sorry. I just don't believe it's mathematically possible today to earn more with the crown than without, unless without the crown you were doing something very wrong (not working with enough sites, the right sites, etc). I don't hear anyone talking about increased earnings at istock, either exclusives nor independents. Most people talk about declining earnings. Many talk about plummeting earnings. So it can't just be me doing the math and figuring that it's absolutely guaranteed that exclusivity would slash my microstock earnings to pieces. Maybe I'm an anomaly and istock represents an especially low percentage of my total microstock earnings (looking to be around 8% this month). But even with more favorable numbers, it's still a longshot that exclusivity would benefit anyone more than independence. Illustrators especially.
Frankly I think that most exclusives just don't know they'd do better outside of istock. And how could they? Most were never independent, so there's not even any historic data to look back on to help in crunching the numbers.
I just can't figure out why anyone is hanging on to the crown with everything that's going on. Exclusivity never added up for me. The numbers never made sense, ever. But now? It's unthinkable. I know you believe it's working out well for you, as most exclusives do. I just don't see it being a strong possibility that it's really to anyone's financial benefit anymore. It doesn't seem possible at all.
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I think actually some illustrators at iStock who are doing very well as exclusives would get disappointed as non-exclusives. Some of the illustrations I see are made in a special iStock-"style" that is unique to the site, but those blue flames could easily drown and never make it when uploaded to the other sites, especially this late. At FT for instance, it appears they're not giving any attention to new uploads at the moment.
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I beg to differ.
Exlusivity is great for us so far.
P+ is a good thing for exlusives as well.
If and when we will think exclusivity isn't profitable for us we will be the first to give our crown back.
I used to honestly think that there were a small number of people who really did benefit from exclusivity, but I'm not convinced anymore. Sorry. I just don't believe it's mathematically possible today to earn more with the crown than without, unless without the crown you were doing something very wrong (not working with enough sites, the right sites, etc). I don't hear anyone talking about increased earnings at istock, either exclusives nor independents. Most people talk about declining earnings. Many talk about plummeting earnings. So it can't just be me doing the math and figuring that it's absolutely guaranteed that exclusivity would slash my microstock earnings to pieces. Maybe I'm an anomaly and istock represents an especially low percentage of my total microstock earnings (looking to be around 8% this month). But even with more favorable numbers, it's still a longshot that exclusivity would benefit anyone more than independence. Illustrators especially.
Frankly I think that most exclusives just don't know they'd do better outside of istock. And how could they? Most were never independent, so there's not even any historic data to look back on to help in crunching the numbers.
I just can't figure out why anyone is hanging on to the crown with everything that's going on. Exclusivity never added up for me. The numbers never made sense, ever. But now? It's unthinkable. I know you believe it's working out well for you, as most exclusives do. I just don't see it being a strong possibility that it's really to anyone's financial benefit anymore. It doesn't seem possible at all.
Pssst! Don't try to bring us more competition, there's too much already. I think exclusivity is great and if you just think about it, you should go for it ;)
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I think actually some illustrators at iStock who are doing very well as exclusives would get disappointed as non-exclusives. Some of the illustrations I see are made in a special iStock-"style" that is unique to the site, but those blue flames could easily drown and never make it when uploaded to the other sites, especially this late. At Fotolia for instance, it appears they're not giving any attention to new uploads at the moment.
One of the reasons i hesitate to drop the crown is placement of my bestsellers. These vector files generate anywhere from $1k-$2k a year each for me. I expect them to keep generating for me for at least another 2 more years with minimal loss. Competition seems pretty fierce elsewhere and Im almost afraid they will get lost in the mix. If these files stopped generating for me, the decision would be so much easier.
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I think actually some illustrators at iStock who are doing very well as exclusives would get disappointed as non-exclusives. Some of the illustrations I see are made in a special iStock-"style" that is unique to the site, but those blue flames could easily drown and never make it when uploaded to the other sites, especially this late. At Fotolia for instance, it appears they're not giving any attention to new uploads at the moment.
One of the reasons i hesitate to drop the crown is placement of my bestsellers. These vector files generate anywhere from $1k-$2k a year each for me. I expect them to keep generating for me for at least another 2 more years with minimal loss. Competition seems pretty fierce elsewhere and Im almost afraid they will get lost in the mix. If these files stopped generating for me, the decision would be so much easier.
are you a vector only artist? because you can always stay exclusive as vector artist but drop exclusivity for photo or other. Just something to consider if you are possibly looking at alternatives.