MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: josephjacobs on March 22, 2017, 20:11
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I've been reading through lots of iStock posts and have come to the consensus that most people are furious with iStock's new flat (and low) royalty rates. I'm a newbie to the stock world and am completely and amateur, I just upload as a hobby and enjoy the extra cash on the side when it comes. I've uploaded most of my collection to iStock, but stopped uploading after the site went down at the end of last year. I haven't uploaded since, but I'm thinking of starting up again now that I'm able to see my earnings. I'm not thrilled with the 15% rate but I'm not making too much less than I am on other sites, and the volume I'm selling has gotten me, at least over the past few months, a balance I'm happy with. Should I start uploading again, or should I keep holding out? I'm fine with the amount of money I'm making, but I don't want to be on the wrong side of the battle for decent royalty rates.
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I've been reading through lots of iStock posts and have come to the consensus that most people are furious with iStock's new flat (and low) royalty rates. I'm a newbie to the stock world and am completely and amateur, I just upload as a hobby and enjoy the extra cash on the side when it comes. I've uploaded most of my collection to iStock, but stopped uploading after the site went down at the end of last year. I haven't uploaded since, but I'm thinking of starting up again now that I'm able to see my earnings. I'm not thrilled with the 15% rate but I'm not making too much less than I am on other sites, and the volume I'm selling has gotten me, at least over the past few months, a balance I'm happy with. Should I start uploading again, or should I keep holding out? I'm fine with the amount of money I'm making, but I don't want to be on the wrong side of the battle for decent royalty rates.
You already answered your own question.
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No. Not any more.
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If youre a masochist yes if not dont even think about it! seriously.
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I have the same problem. I earn with iStock as much as I earn with SS. I am not doing that well on Fotolia. I only have about 340 images so far. I checked my iStock statement yesterday and for many of my images i got 6 cents, 7 cents and 8 cents. I would cut my earnings by half if I would delete my iStock account but I find it absolutely wrong to support a company that sells images for 39 cents. They are selling photos to businesses. Businesses can very well afford to pay 2 dollars and more per image. I was told that most companies have a budget of 9 dollars for each image. 6 cents before paying tax and PayPal fees. Is that how we value our hard work?
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Every time you upload to istock, it makes it more likely that the other sites will cut the amount they pay us. Why would sites pay 30 to 50% if we all accept 15%? And those low prices make it even worse, how will any of us make money if istock keep cutting the amount they pay us? So it might seem that you're making some extra money but you're actually killing future earnings potential. Everyone that stops uploading or leaves istock encourages buyers to use other sites, when they can't find what they want with istock.
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If you really can't afford to delete your portfolio on istock you could just stop uploading new content. Then you will have made up for any loss with growth on other sites. Continuing to upload makes it a necessity for other sites to start paying 1c royalties to compete.
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iStock is a BIG JOKE these days. I have been a contributor like 8 years. I have seen the good years and now the bad years. After Getty bought the iStock it's been only downhill. It's so fun watch how they trying get there crap toghether but never get anything done. And this has lasted three years...There is always an explanation from iStock to every F**** problem. Plaa plaa plaa. In Shutterstock you have all the good and stuff to upload images, handel your data, etc. But in iStock you dont have nothing! Only some incorrectly calculated diagram. All I can say that...They have screwed up!
And by the way...After 2013 my income has droped something like 90%. My best month was something about 13 500$ and it realy, realy, REALY far from there!
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Not uploading new content is not the solution. It won't hurt iStock if they don't have my 340 images. I don't know how that could work but somehow we should all close our accounts. I am seriously thinking about it. Only other solution would be to go exclusive and get 40% commission. But why reward them for selling images for 39 cents. I make half of my income with iStock but I think I rather earn half of the amount of money than to let them ruin microstock. Microstock should start charging more for images and not less.
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Not uploading new content is not the solution. It won't hurt iStock if they don't have my 340 images. I don't know how that could work but somehow we should all close our accounts. I am seriously thinking about it. Only other solution would be to go exclusive and get 40% commission. But why reward them for selling images for 39 cents. I make half of my income with iStock but I think I rather earn half of the amount of money than to let them ruin microstock. Microstock should start charging more for images and not less.
Correct. By leaving your account open and leaving images up, you are sill doing business with them, which to them means you are AOK with whatever they dish out.
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If you go exclusive you will NOT get 40%. You have to have sales enough to work your way up the scale. Under the plan during 2016 there was maybe a 1% chance anybody could make it to 40%. I've been exclusive since around 2005 and the various payout scale changes only make me lose percentage and I'm now at 30%. Their grandfather clauses are the only thing that even kept me at 30%. Under the 2017 plan we have no real experience to know if it is even possible to advance within the exclusive scale, let alone we don't know if it is possible to even reach the top. So, unless you are already up the scale, there is no income sense for beginners to sell via iStock.
iS, for a brief while back around 2002, paid royalties of nickels, then dimes, then quarters, while they set out to monetize the business. In those days the sales volumes still made noticeable money for new contributors. Today many of the sales pay less and there is no contributor volume support. It will take many thousands of images selling well as exclusive to make a positive impact on your income scale. Better to move along now and leave iS. If you don't believe me, try it for 6 months. Then look back at your equipment, hours, and travel expenses and compare to the income you have received. If you plan to be financially successful at this business then you need to keep the financial records - even if only a personal spreadsheet. Start now.
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Not uploading new content is not the solution. It won't hurt iStock if they don't have my 340 images. I don't know how that could work but somehow we should all close our accounts. I am seriously thinking about it. Only other solution would be to go exclusive and get 40% commission. But why reward them for selling images for 39 cents. I make half of my income with iStock but I think I rather earn half of the amount of money than to let them ruin microstock. Microstock should start charging more for images and not less.
A lot of us have already left istock. Is there really much to think about now? You will feel much better getting rid of them and it isn't difficult to make up the small loss of earnings with all their many rival sites that pay us more.
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The information here on MSG forum is very confusing: recommendations, not only in this thread, are very clear: stay away from iStock! Yet I see at the right hand side of my screen that they are still firmly ranked as no. 2 of the "big four". Apparently people are still making good money despite the low royalties. Note that the rating, whatever the number means, increased from 31.9 yesterday to 35 today which at least means that the list is active and kept up to date. As a newbie, why would one not want to contribute to the second best in the list? Unless the list is completely meaningless, I would know where to go....
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The information here on MSG forum is very confusing: recommendations, not only in this thread, are very clear: stay away from iStock! Yet I see at the right hand side of my screen that they are still firmly ranked as no. 2 of the "big four". Apparently people are still making good money despite the low royalties. Note that the rating, whatever the number means, increased from 31.9 yesterday to 35 today which at least means that the list is active and kept up to date. As a newbie, why would one not want to contribute to the second best in the list? Unless the list is completely meaningless, I would know where to go....
That's a good question but for a different reason. I doubt the truthfulness of the poll, especially iStock. Everyone knows iStock had stopped releasing sale info between Dec 2015-Jan 2016. But in those two months, their rating climbed to about 40-ish, 42 perhaps. How could that be?
Fotolia/Adobe is number 2 for me, after SS.
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Most of the high earners probably started with istock many years ago. Many of them might of been exclusive for several years and that would help boost downloads and image placement. Just a few big earners that have been there for many years can skew the poll results. It's misleading to new people but it doesn't take long looking on this forum to see how badly istock are doing for most people now.
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I've been reading through lots of iStock posts and have come to the consensus that most people are furious with iStock's new flat (and low) royalty rates. I'm a newbie to the stock world and am completely and amateur, I just upload as a hobby and enjoy the extra cash on the side when it comes. I've uploaded most of my collection to iStock, but stopped uploading after the site went down at the end of last year. I haven't uploaded since, but I'm thinking of starting up again now that I'm able to see my earnings. I'm not thrilled with the 15% rate but I'm not making too much less than I am on other sites, and the volume I'm selling has gotten me, at least over the past few months, a balance I'm happy with. Should I start uploading again, or should I keep holding out? I'm fine with the amount of money I'm making, but I don't want to be on the wrong side of the battle for decent royalty rates.
You answered your own question.
Seriously, what are you making? $20 a month? $30? Drop it now while it's still insignificant and then you won't miss it.
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The information here on MSG forum is very confusing: recommendations, not only in this thread, are very clear: stay away from iStock! Yet I see at the right hand side of my screen that they are still firmly ranked as no. 2 of the "big four". Apparently people are still making good money despite the low royalties. Note that the rating, whatever the number means, increased from 31.9 yesterday to 35 today which at least means that the list is active and kept up to date. As a newbie, why would one not want to contribute to the second best in the list? Unless the list is completely meaningless, I would know where to go....
Its easier to tell other people to drop I-Stock than actually do it yourself. Personally I'm watching how this develops before pulling the plug and I suspect a lot of others are too.
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Its easier to tell other people to drop I-Stock than actually do it yourself. Personally I'm watching how this develops before pulling the plug and I suspect a lot of others are too.
Me too. Istock was my starting point 13 years ago and it will feel like the end of an era to dump them, and scrap all the effort that went into a decade of uploading. But its really starting to feel like when, rather than if, I will decide to do that.
Added to which, I've already dumped Fotolia because I couldn't trust them, and payment method problems mean I'm not on Envanto or Pond 5, so I will be missing 4 of the top 5 earners without istock.
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Its easier to tell other people to drop I-Stock than actually do it yourself. Personally I'm watching how this develops before pulling the plug and I suspect a lot of others are too.
Me too. Istock was my starting point 13 years ago and it will feel like the end of an era to dump them, and scrap all the effort that went into a decade of uploading. But its really starting to feel like when, rather than if, I will decide to do that.
Added to which, I've already dumped Fotolia because I couldn't trust them, and payment method problems mean I'm not on Envanto or Pond 5, so I will be missing 4 of the top 5 earners without istock.
In a way I'd quite like them to fall into oblivion to make the decision easier.
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Its easier to tell other people to drop I-Stock than actually do it yourself. Personally I'm watching how this develops before pulling the plug and I suspect a lot of others are too.
Me too. Istock was my starting point 13 years ago and it will feel like the end of an era to dump them, and scrap all the effort that went into a decade of uploading. But its really starting to feel like when, rather than if, I will decide to do that.
Added to which, I've already dumped Fotolia because I couldn't trust them, and payment method problems mean I'm not on Envanto or Pond 5, so I will be missing 4 of the top 5 earners without istock.
If you have the option it could be time to take FL back on. They are a different company now what with the new management and all.
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Its easier to tell other people to drop I-Stock than actually do it yourself. Personally I'm watching how this develops before pulling the plug and I suspect a lot of others are too.
Me too. Istock was my starting point 13 years ago and it will feel like the end of an era to dump them, and scrap all the effort that went into a decade of uploading. But its really starting to feel like when, rather than if, I will decide to do that.
Added to which, I've already dumped Fotolia because I couldn't trust them, and payment method problems mean I'm not on Envanto or Pond 5, so I will be missing 4 of the top 5 earners without istock.
If you have the option it could be time to take FL back on. They are a different company now what with the new management and all.
I doubt if they would have me back anyway, after I said what they'd done. Plus I gather that The Chad is still hanging there, which is something of a no-no for me.
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Its easier to tell other people to drop I-Stock than actually do it yourself. Personally I'm watching how this develops before pulling the plug and I suspect a lot of others are too.
Me too. Istock was my starting point 13 years ago and it will feel like the end of an era to dump them, and scrap all the effort that went into a decade of uploading. But its really starting to feel like when, rather than if, I will decide to do that.
Added to which, I've already dumped Fotolia because I couldn't trust them, and payment method problems mean I'm not on Envanto or Pond 5, so I will be missing 4 of the top 5 earners without istock.
If you have the option it could be time to take FL back on. They are a different company now what with the new management and all.
I doubt if they would have me back anyway, after I said what they'd done. Plus I gather that The Chad is still hanging there, which is something of a no-no for me.
That sucks. I can't remember the details of your case but I was also not a fan to say the least. They have burnt so many bridges, hopefully they they will learn from their mistakes. Is Chad a big deal there? does he actually make the decisions or is he just the guy who answers the emails and comments on the forum? If the latter, unless they actually booted you, I would give them another shot.
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That sucks. I can't remember the details of your case but I was also not a fan to say the least. They have burnt so many bridges, hopefully they they will learn from their mistakes. Is Chad a big deal there? does he actually make the decisions or is he just the guy who answers the emails and comments on the forum? If the latter, unless they actually booted you, I would give them another shot.
It was a payment issue - it's probably not fair to go into it again with new owners in place. As for Chad, I found him gratuitously offensive and I have no desire to work in association with him. Fortunately I can afford to indulge my indignation. I've done very little with stock for the last couple of years but now I've got time on my hands and it's something to occupy me. The days when I was making very decent money out of it are long gone and not coming back, so avoiding boredom is more of an incentive than the cash.
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The information here on MSG forum is very confusing: recommendations, not only in this thread, are very clear: stay away from iStock! Yet I see at the right hand side of my screen that they are still firmly ranked as no. 2 of the "big four". Apparently people are still making good money despite the low royalties. Note that the rating, whatever the number means, increased from 31.9 yesterday to 35 today which at least means that the list is active and kept up to date. As a newbie, why would one not want to contribute to the second best in the list? Unless the list is completely meaningless, I would know where to go....
Its easier to tell other people to drop I-Stock than actually do it yourself. Personally I'm watching how this develops before pulling the plug and I suspect a lot of others are too.
I didn't find it difficult. What I found really difficult was only getting whatever crazy low percentage they were paying me, I couldn't visit the site because I didn't want to see how low it was. The loss in earnings is easy to make up on other sites. Leaving gave me determination not to lose money. I actually make more than my peak earnings with istock on one site I hadn't bothered with before. Came as quite a surprise but maybe that's good karma :)
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That sucks. I can't remember the details of your case but I was also not a fan to say the least. They have burnt so many bridges, hopefully they they will learn from their mistakes. Is Chad a big deal there? does he actually make the decisions or is he just the guy who answers the emails and comments on the forum? If the latter, unless they actually booted you, I would give them another shot.
It was a payment issue - it's probably not fair to go into it again with new owners in place. As for Chad, I found him gratuitously offensive and I have no desire to work in association with him. Fortunately I can afford to indulge my indignation. I've done very little with stock for the last couple of years but now I've got time on my hands and it's something to occupy me. The days when I was making very decent money out of it are long gone and not coming back, so avoiding boredom is more of an incentive than the cash.
Fair enough, life's too short to work with a**holes if you can avoid it!
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It is worth for me. They are very good at negotiating higher priced licenses. On average I earn more there per download than I earn at SS.
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It is worth for me. They are very good at negotiating higher priced licenses. On average I earn more there per download than I earn at SS.
Are you exclusive? I cant believe an independent has a higher RPD on IS than SS once the compulsory PP and Subs sales are taken into account.
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It is worth for me. They are very good at negotiating higher priced licenses. On average I earn more there per download than I earn at SS.
Are you exclusive? I cant believe an independent has a higher RPD on IS than SS once the compulsory PP and Subs sales are taken into account.
I went to look at my stats and surprisingly for me as non-exclusive, RPD from IS and SS are not that different. In Jan. the RPDs are 0.98 vs 1.0; In Feb. IS is 0.9 while SS is 1.5 because of multiple Single & other downloads. This month SS is around 0.6 because I have 0 large sale. So on average for me RPDs from IS and SS are comparable, maybe SS a tiny bit ahead. RPD from FT was lower, almost always around 0.6.
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The information here on MSG forum is very confusing: recommendations, not only in this thread, are very clear: stay away from iStock! Yet I see at the right hand side of my screen that they are still firmly ranked as no. 2 of the "big four". Apparently people are still making good money despite the low royalties. Note that the rating, whatever the number means, increased from 31.9 yesterday to 35 today which at least means that the list is active and kept up to date. As a newbie, why would one not want to contribute to the second best in the list? Unless the list is completely meaningless, I would know where to go....
The poll results on the right hand side do not reflect the royalty changes since 23 December last year. Also the main trend is that the earnings ratings are falling.
https://www.change.org/p/jonathan-klein-getty-images-istock-don-t-slash-our-royalties?recruiter=63598560&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_term=des-lg-share_petition-reason_msg (https://www.change.org/p/jonathan-klein-getty-images-istock-don-t-slash-our-royalties?recruiter=63598560&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_term=des-lg-share_petition-reason_msg)
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
thanks for popping in Lobo!
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
thanks for popping in Lobo!
Sorry you don't like hearing differing views.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
thanks for popping in Lobo!
Sorry you don't like hearing differing views.
I am happy for you if that is true! Do not forget to take off the December GI sales from the January statement though.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
thanks for popping in Lobo!
Sorry you don't like hearing differing views.
I am happy for you if that is true! Do not forget to take off the December GI sales from the January statement though.
Even taking out some sales from Jan, it was up year on year. Feb. was way up though and that's why I'm optimistic.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
thanks for popping in Lobo!
Sorry you don't like hearing differing views.
I am happy for you if that is true! Do not forget to take off the December GI sales from the January statement though.
Even taking out some sales from Jan, it was up year on year. Feb. was way up though and that's why I'm optimistic.
You have to see how many more images you have sold compared to last year jan and feb. Now everyone is in the fog because of the new pricing system and I wonder how much more we would get with previous royalties system.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
thanks for popping in Lobo!
Sorry you don't like hearing differing views.
I am happy for you if that is true! Do not forget to take off the December GI sales from the January statement though.
Even taking out some sales from Jan, it was up year on year. Feb. was way up though and that's why I'm optimistic.
You have to see how many more images you have sold compared to last year jan and feb. Now everyone is in the fog because of the new pricing system and I wonder how much more we would get with previous royalties system.
As an exclusive I think I get more per sale under the new system.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
thanks for popping in Lobo!
Sorry you don't like hearing differing views.
I am happy for you if that is true! Do not forget to take off the December GI sales from the January statement though.
Even taking out some sales from Jan, it was up year on year. Feb. was way up though and that's why I'm optimistic.
You have to see how many more images you have sold compared to last year jan and feb. Now everyone is in the fog because of the new pricing system and I wonder how much more we would get with previous royalties system.
As an exclusive I think I get more per sale under the new system.
Good for you! I don't get the same rpd.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March etc since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
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I am up on previous years and think it is even more reason to stop uploading to them.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
you say you are exclusive at istock and that you are happy with 19c per image? btw I got even lower than that...
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Sub as in lower than I think, not as in subscription sale.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
you say you are exclusive at istock and that you are happy with 19c per image? btw I got even lower than that...
19c is for the lowest royalty rate, not my rate. That's also the minimum for a sub sale some sub sales get $10 or $15.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
you say you are exclusive at istock and that you are happy with 19c per image? btw I got even lower than that...
19c is for the lowest royalty rate, not my rate. That's also the minimum for a sub sale some sub sales get $10 or $15.
Ha ha ha ha ha... $10 and $15 for a sub sale. How many of these have you got??! I got ZERO!
PS: seriously Lobo or whoever you are from istock/getty STOP the fake news!
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It's a big mix maybe one day I'll go through and see what the average is.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I've had sales as low as 6c. I've queried it but no response as yet. Also, I'm by no means the only exclusive who has 6c sales. That's for these 'premium access' sales whereby iS gets more money without officially lowering our percentage. Under G+ I had sales so low (down to 12c) I questioned it and support told me they were correct and that my percentage was 30%. Premium access shows as 20%. However, that isn't going to make up the difference between 6c and 19c.
In any case, 19c as a sale for an exclusive is nothing to be happy about.
There have been lots of questions on both the iS forums and two official Fb groups I'm on about the large numbers of sales below the official minimum, but nothing on Fb, and nothing the last time I was on their forum. In fact, there are far too many important questions on their forum which are never answered.
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Not sure the exact questions you have but most have been answered on the forums, it's not always easy to find that answer though.
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Not sure the exact questions you have but most have been answered on the forums, it's not always easy to find that answer though.
Seems to me her question is "why are there large numbers of sales below the minimum commission rate iStock announced", saying that you don't know the question she's referring to and then dismissing it with a vague suggestion that it's probable been answered sounds like a corporate fobbing off to me.
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Not sure the exact questions you have but most have been answered on the forums, it's not always easy to find that answer though.
Seems to me her question is "why are there large numbers of sales below the minimum commission rate iStock announced", saying that you don't know the question she's referring to and then dismissing it with a vague suggestion that it's probable been answered sounds like a corporate fobbing off to me.
It's not that, there are different answers for different things. Lower royalties for subs has a different answer than lower for Premium Access. Both of those have been answered in the forums. Maybe there are specifics of her case that make it different I don't know.
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The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I wonder why my Feb report has the following 'iStock Subscription' sale entries then?
0.03
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.14
0.15
0.15
I guess "minimum" means, "the lowest you can get ... except when it's lower". ::) Or, maybe all those sales were reported incorrectly?
But what's this? My Jan statement has these sub sales listed:
0.03
0.06
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.08
0.15
I guess those were all a mistake, too.
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The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I wonder why my Feb report has the following 'iStock Subscription' sale entries then?
0.03
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.14
0.15
0.15
I guess "minimum" means, "the lowest you can get ... except when it's lower". ::) Or, maybe all those sales were reported incorrectly?
But what's this? My Jan statement has these sub sales listed:
0.03
0.06
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.08
0.15
I guess those were all a mistake, too.
Are you exclusive? If yes, have you read the forums?
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Yes, I have too sub sales for 8 $, one of 17$ etc. But I don't think they make up for the 1.68 sales for an S+ (that until Dec were 2.50).Or maybe yes. But the only way to have a RPD a bit (just a bit higher) is to be at 40 or 45%%. According to todayis20 my RPD right now is about 3.15. On the other hand, I see some sales with royalties that seem to be below the minimun guaranteed.
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The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I wonder why my Feb report has the following 'iStock Subscription' sale entries then?
0.03
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.14
0.15
0.15
I guess "minimum" means, "the lowest you can get ... except when it's lower". ::) Or, maybe all those sales were reported incorrectly?
But what's this? My Jan statement has these sub sales listed:
0.03
0.06
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.08
0.15
I guess those were all a mistake, too.
Are you exclusive? If yes, have you read the forums?
Yes. No. Why should I bother? If 19c is the minimum (I mistakenly thought it was 16c, so there are more that should be listed above), it's the minimum. Apparently there are exceptions; I don't care what they are. It means there IS no minimum in reality.
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The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I wonder why my Feb report has the following 'iStock Subscription' sale entries then?
0.03
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.14
0.15
0.15
I guess "minimum" means, "the lowest you can get ... except when it's lower". ::) Or, maybe all those sales were reported incorrectly?
But what's this? My Jan statement has these sub sales listed:
0.03
0.06
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.08
0.15
I guess those were all a mistake, too.
Are you exclusive? If yes, have you read the forums?
Yes. No. Why should I bother? If 19c is the minimum (I mistakenly thought it was 16c, so there are more that should be listed above), it's the minimum. Apparently there are exceptions; I don't care what they are. It means there IS no minimum in reality.
19c is the lowest for exclusives.
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The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I wonder why my Feb report has the following 'iStock Subscription' sale entries then?
0.03
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.14
0.15
0.15
I guess "minimum" means, "the lowest you can get ... except when it's lower". ::) Or, maybe all those sales were reported incorrectly?
But what's this? My Jan statement has these sub sales listed:
0.03
0.06
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.08
0.15
I guess those were all a mistake, too.
Are you exclusive? If yes, have you read the forums?
Yes. No. Why should I bother? If 19c is the minimum (I mistakenly thought it was 16c, so there are more that should be listed above), it's the minimum. Apparently there are exceptions; I don't care what they are. It means there IS no minimum in reality.
19c is the lowest for exclusives.
OH!!
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Sorry but it's my understanding we aren't supposed to be quoting things from the forum so you'll have to go there yourself.
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Not sure the exact questions you have but most have been answered on the forums, it's not always easy to find that answer though.
Whenever I ask a question, you can bet I follow a thread very closely for at least two weeks afterwards. Likewise if I see someone else has asked a question I'd like to know the answer to.
If they answer somewhere else altogether without posting a link in the original thread, that is deliberate unhelpfulness.
BTW, when I raised the point about serious questions going unanswered in the forums, admin said it was because they wanted to be sure the issue had been solved. Not sure how that relates to sales below the quoted minimum, or what to do about files whose most important keywords not added a year after request and not in Getty's CV. I guess it's time to take out tickets to see if "you have rendered my file unfindable" is reason enough to have a file deactivated.
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According to todayis20, my RPD for Jan was $1.99, but I'm only at 30%, because of their previous broken promise.
And when I think about it, some of the tiny sales I've had over the past year have been listed as Getty sales, not G+, premium access etc
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
Well, that was the theory, but the truth is that exclusives are getting as low as $0.02 per subscription. $0.19 is already ridiculous, mainly for such a low volume of subscriptions that iStock has.
-
As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
Well, that was the theory, but the truth is that exclusives are getting as low as $0.02 per subscription. $0.19 is already ridiculous, mainly for such a low volume of subscriptions that iStock has.
If someone got less I'm sure it will be corrected, 19c is the minimum.
-
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I wonder why my Feb report has the following 'iStock Subscription' sale entries then?
0.03
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.14
0.15
0.15
I guess "minimum" means, "the lowest you can get ... except when it's lower". ::) Or, maybe all those sales were reported incorrectly?
But what's this? My Jan statement has these sub sales listed:
0.03
0.06
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.08
0.15
I guess those were all a mistake, too.
Are you exclusive? If yes, have you read the forums?
Yes. No. Why should I bother? If 19c is the minimum (I mistakenly thought it was 16c, so there are more that should be listed above), it's the minimum. Apparently there are exceptions; I don't care what they are. It means there IS no minimum in reality.
19c is the lowest for exclusives.
No, that's just what they told us.
That doesn't make it true, like grandfathering us in at our next level, or it will ne er be possible to exclude exclusive files from search, or mirroring all editorial to Getty - a very limited and in my case at least random selection has been mirrored, and instead of calling it editorial, they're calling it 'unreleased creative' or some such meaningless title, meaning people looking for editorial almost certainly bypass that collection. Still, at only 20% for these sales, which are someimes very low anyway, that's not necessarily totally bad news, just another broken promise.
-
No, that's just what they told us.
That doesn't make it true, like grandfathering us in at our next level, or it will ne er be possible to exclude exclusive files from search, or mirroring all editorial to Getty - a very limited and in my case at least random selection has been mirrored, and instead of calling it editorial, they're calling it 'unreleased creative' or some such meaningless title, meaning people looking for editorial almost certainly bypass that collection. Still, at only 20% for these sales, which are someimes very low anyway, that's not necessarily totally bad news, just another broken promise.
So you're saying they changed the minimum for subs? Where did you see that?
-
No, that's just what they told us.
That doesn't make it true, like grandfathering us in at our next level, or it will ne er be possible to exclude exclusive files from search, or mirroring all editorial to Getty - a very limited and in my case at least random selection has been mirrored, and instead of calling it editorial, they're calling it 'unreleased creative' or some such meaningless title, meaning people looking for editorial almost certainly bypass that collection. Still, at only 20% for these sales, which are someimes very low anyway, that's not necessarily totally bad news, just another broken promise.
So you're saying they changed the minimum for subs? Where did you see that?
It's de facto, e.g. from the figures quoted above by KB. Many people have reported subs sales lower than iS's stated minimum.
-
No, that's just what they told us.
That doesn't make it true, like grandfathering us in at our next level, or it will ne er be possible to exclude exclusive files from search, or mirroring all editorial to Getty - a very limited and in my case at least random selection has been mirrored, and instead of calling it editorial, they're calling it 'unreleased creative' or some such meaningless title, meaning people looking for editorial almost certainly bypass that collection. Still, at only 20% for these sales, which are someimes very low anyway, that's not necessarily totally bad news, just another broken promise.
So you're saying they changed the minimum for subs? Where did you see that?
It's de facto, e.g. from the figures quoted above by KB. Many people have reported subs sales lower than iS's stated minimum.
It's been discussed in the feb earnings thread.
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Years ago, there was some debate about what a decent royalty rate was. And certainly it's still debatable today. But what has changed in the last few years is that the myth that higher rates were impossible for companies to pay while sustaining their own business has been debunked.
Companies like Getty will still say that they can't afford to pay more, but it's B.S. We've seen other companies come along that pay a reversed royalty rate, instead of keeping the majority, they pay out the majority percentage. Companies like Creative Market are paying 70%. And not going out of business while doing it. In fact, they're thriving, and so are contributors.
It's been said in this forum by myself and many others that no company jumping into this business today should offer anything less than a 50% royalty at minimum. We all know too well that 50% or more is not only sustainable, but it's the only truly fair starting point.
So by today's standards, istock's rates are sub-standard, by a lot. Add in the deceit they've become famous for over the years, the shady subscription deals, the condescending attitudes and treating contributors like garbage, it's just too much.
I still have images at iStock but I haven't uploaded there in a long time, and won't ever again. I'm ok with my older stuff getting low subs royalties and the occasional 20% on a credit sale. But I wouldn't lift a finger to give them anything new or help them grow in any way. If I were new to this, I'd have zero images there and I'd leave it that way.
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No, that's just what they told us.
That doesn't make it true, like grandfathering us in at our next level, or it will ne er be possible to exclude exclusive files from search, or mirroring all editorial to Getty - a very limited and in my case at least random selection has been mirrored, and instead of calling it editorial, they're calling it 'unreleased creative' or some such meaningless title, meaning people looking for editorial almost certainly bypass that collection. Still, at only 20% for these sales, which are someimes very low anyway, that's not necessarily totally bad news, just another broken promise.
So you're saying they changed the minimum for subs? Where did you see that?
It's de facto, e.g. from the figures quoted above by KB. Many people have reported subs sales lower than iS's stated minimum.
It's been discussed in the feb earnings thread.
You are correct. There are a lot of pages in that thread, and it took a lot of time before I finally found the post with the explanation. I don't know why they want to hide this, but whatever. Then it took even longer for me to try to get the data together in a format to actually verify what they were saying, but verify it I did.
So the bottom line for me is, my sub RPD is higher than I thought (about where it had been before these changes), but the number of sub sales is lower (and has been declining steadily now for over half a year). But it's true, there were very few sub sales in the lower reaches, and none under 19c. So thanks for letting me know.
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I am sorry but you are out of the line with some of your statements. I sell many thousands licenses a month at Getty/Istock. Some of them are even for 0.05c even as a 40% exclusive, so right now (for 2 months already) they are not respecting minimum ppf.
Also "diamond "exclusives (look at their forums) are reporting less average return per subscription file. Sure, you get a few 5+$ licenses for 10 images/month subs that killed many credit sales but all those 2.5$ E+ sub sales are gone and usually the revenue is now much lower. On normal E files I would say that in my case the revenue per file is a few cents higher.
-
As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I am sorry but you are out of the line with some of your statements. I sell many thousands licenses a month at Getty/Istock. Some of them are even for 0.05c even as a 40% exclusive, so right now (for 2 months already) they are not respecting minimum ppf.
Also "diamond "exclusives (look at their forums) are reporting less average return per subscription file. Sure, you get a few 5+$ licenses for 10 images/month subs that killed many credit sales but all those 2.5$ E+ sub sales are gone and usually the revenue is now much lower. On normal E files I would say that in my case the revenue per file is a few cents higher.
19c is the minimum for sub sales for exclusives, I wasn't talking about any other type of licenses. I also wasn't saying everyone is doing better, I have no idea what other people are doing all I can see is what I'm doing.
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Companies like Getty will still say that they can't afford to pay more, but it's B.S.
Not necessarily. Remember that they have piled up gigantic debts in the vulture capitalist merry-go-round of buying the company, borrowing in the market to repay the people who bought it all charged against (our) future earnings, then selling it on to somebody else who repeats the process. They've piled up so much debt to line the pockets of the "investors" that the rating agencies were starting to downgrade them the last I heard of it.
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Companies like Getty will still say that they can't afford to pay more, but it's B.S.
Not necessarily. Remember that they have piled up gigantic debts in the vulture capitalist merry-go-round of buying the company, borrowing in the market to repay the people who bought it all charged against (our) future earnings, then selling it on to somebody else who repeats the process. They've piled up so much debt to line the pockets of the "investors" that the rating agencies were starting to downgrade them the last I heard of it.
That's true but I still think if they had offered everyone 50% a few years ago, when they still had some credibility, they would of wiped away the competition. They have lost billions over the long term because they got greedy in the short term. Now like every other business that doesn't do what's best for long term sustainability, they're in serious trouble. Their rival sites have taken a huge chunk of the market. So they can't afford to pay 50% now and they will probably have to keep squeezing contributors but that will kill them in the long term.
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Companies like Getty will still say that they can't afford to pay more, but it's B.S.
They've piled up so much debt to line the pockets of the "investors" that the rating agencies were starting to downgrade them the last I heard of it.
Here is some info on this: https://www.moodys.com/credit-ratings/Getty-Images-Inc-credit-rating-823229142 (https://www.moodys.com/credit-ratings/Getty-Images-Inc-credit-rating-823229142)
Something else happening at Getty, which I haven't heard of until today:
https://www.law360.com/articles/874422/ex-getty-vp-restrained-from-sharing-trade-secrets (https://www.law360.com/articles/874422/ex-getty-vp-restrained-from-sharing-trade-secrets)
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As an exclusive I can say I'm excited about IS for the first time in a long while. Jan. and Feb. earnings were better than almost every month from the past couple years.
Good for you.
For me, Jan and Feb were both far lower than every month last year. And every month in 2016 was the worst Jan, Feb, March since becoming exclusive in 2007. Certainly no reason for me to resume uploading - far too many tiny value sales (sub 10c as an exclusive) which isn't fair trade, but interesting to see at least one person is having a different experience.
The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I am sorry but you are out of the line with some of your statements. I sell many thousands licenses a month at Getty/Istock. Some of them are even for 0.05c even as a 40% exclusive, so right now (for 2 months already) they are not respecting minimum ppf.
Also "diamond "exclusives (look at their forums) are reporting less average return per subscription file. Sure, you get a few 5+$ licenses for 10 images/month subs that killed many credit sales but all those 2.5$ E+ sub sales are gone and usually the revenue is now much lower. On normal E files I would say that in my case the revenue per file is a few cents higher.
19c is the minimum for sub sales for exclusives, I wasn't talking about any other type of licenses. I also wasn't saying everyone is doing better, I have no idea what other people are doing all I can see is what I'm doing.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that we had a misunderstanding at first. I said I had far too many sub 10c sales and you apparently thought I was talking about subs.
Some might think you were deliberately trying to muddy the waters, but 19c is nothing to be happy about.
Fact is, 19c for subs and less than 10c for any sort of sale is totally unacceptable, especially for exclusives. At the moment, I'll keep my port there, but can't see any reason to resume uploading. My next move will be to try to have my unfindable files released.
And if as you say they answered the question about submitted I mum subs in the Feb thread, that's just disingenuous, since questions were being asked about this from the day the new system reports came out.
Any idea in which thread they've answered the question about why ESP reports the total for every month in 2016 to be different from the figure in their charts? (At least for some contributors, of which I'm one).
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Companies like Getty will still say that they can't afford to pay more, but it's B.S.
Not necessarily. Remember that they have piled up gigantic debts in the vulture capitalist merry-go-round of buying the company, borrowing in the market to repay the people who bought it all charged against (our) future earnings, then selling it on to somebody else who repeats the process. They've piled up so much debt to line the pockets of the "investors" that the rating agencies were starting to downgrade them the last I heard of it.
I suspect this is also why they seem to be doing a lot of the tech stuff in house using a team that can't even seem to keep the existing framework bug free (with disastrous results). Implementing a new system like esp would have cost them in hundreds of thousands to do properly outsourcing to a company with the specialist knowledge required. They don't have that sort of money, the lenders wouldn't stand for it.
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Companies like Getty will still say that they can't afford to pay more, but it's B.S.
Not necessarily. Remember that they have piled up gigantic debts in the vulture capitalist merry-go-round of buying the company, borrowing in the market to repay the people who bought it all charged against (our) future earnings, then selling it on to somebody else who repeats the process. They've piled up so much debt to line the pockets of the "investors" that the rating agencies were starting to downgrade them the last I heard of it.
I suspect this is also why they seem to be doing a lot of the tech stuff in house using a team that can't even seem to keep the existing framework bug free (with disastrous results). Implementing a new system like esp would have cost them in hundreds of thousands to do properly outsourcing to a company with the specialist knowledge required. They don't have that sort of money, the lenders wouldn't stand for it.
It beggars belief that they even tried, given their long history of technical balls-ups. Why do they never learn?
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I'll give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that we had a misunderstanding at first. I said I had far too many sub 10c sales and you apparently thought I was talking about subs.
Some might think you were deliberately trying to muddy the waters, but 19c is nothing to be happy about.
Fact is, 19c for subs and less than 10c for any sort of sale is totally unacceptable, especially for exclusives. At the moment, I'll keep my port there, but can't see any reason to resume uploading. My next move will be to try to have my unfindable files released.
And if as you say they answered the question about submitted I mum subs in the Feb thread, that's just disingenuous, since questions were being asked about this from the day the new system reports came out.
Any idea in which thread they've answered the question about why ESP reports the total for every month in 2016 to be different from the figure in their charts? (At least for some contributors, of which I'm one).
I did misunderstand you it sounded like you were talking about subs, my bad. "And if as you say they answered the question about submitted I mum subs in the Feb thread, that's just disingenuous, since questions were being asked about this from the day the new system reports came out." Sorry but I don't know what this means? I was saying the answer about sub 19c subs was in that thread, that's all.
I wasn't trying to say everything was perfect just that for me earnings were way up in jan and feb.
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^^ My lack of clarity. I meant iS is disingenuous ( at kindest ), not you.
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The lowest you could get paid is 19c for subs.
I wonder why my Feb report has the following 'iStock Subscription' sale entries then?
0.03
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.14
0.15
0.15
I guess "minimum" means, "the lowest you can get ... except when it's lower". ::) Or, maybe all those sales were reported incorrectly?
But what's this? My Jan statement has these sub sales listed:
0.03
0.06
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.08
0.15
I guess those were all a mistake, too.
Are you exclusive? If yes, have you read the forums?
Yes. No. Why should I bother? If 19c is the minimum (I mistakenly thought it was 16c, so there are more that should be listed above), it's the minimum. Apparently there are exceptions; I don't care what they are. It means there IS no minimum in reality.
Reading the rates exclusives are getting is really shocking. Not just the above numbers, but the stated minimum of .19, and even the slightly higher. These are all lower than you would get as an indie ANYWHERE! Why would anyone stay exclusive now? You can make up for any nominal losses at istock instantly by uploading to just a couple sites, like SS and Adobe. Even Tickstock with his optimistic posts cant possibly make exclusivity look good now.
As for the OP, do NOT allow yourself to get sucked into istock. As bad as they are now, history has shown they consistently roll out worse and worse deals for contributors every year, so as pathetic as their current royalties are, by the end of the year they will announce another cut. Now there are three things you can count on in life. Death, taxes, and Getty will f**k their contributors worse each year.
-
Reading the rates exclusives are getting is really shocking. Not just the above numbers, but the stated minimum of .19, and even the slightly higher. These are all lower than you would get as an indie ANYWHERE! Why would anyone stay exclusive now? You can make up for any nominal losses at istock instantly by uploading to just a couple sites, like SS and Adobe. Even Tickstock with his optimistic posts cant possibly make exclusivity look good now.
As for the OP, do NOT allow yourself to get sucked into istock. As bad as they are now, history has shown they consistently roll out worse and worse deals for contributors every year, so as pathetic as their current royalties are, by the end of the year they will announce another cut. Now there are three things you can count on in life. Death, taxes, and Getty will f**k their contributors worse each year.
Those are minimums (for the lowest royalty rate). Where else do you get $15+ for a sub sale? Sure a few low sales are no good but if the first couple months of the year are any indication of the new normal, I'm very excited. I'm only being optimistic because the payouts have been very good.
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^^ My lack of clarity. I meant iS is disingenuous ( at kindest ), not you.
I meant what was the question you were asking? "question about submitted I mum subs in the Feb thread"
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Pardon me for my ignorance, where do you people see those 19 cents or 9 cents?
From my ESP, I could only see the total, and not the individual sales.
Thanks for enlightening me!
-
Reading the rates exclusives are getting is really shocking. Not just the above numbers, but the stated minimum of .19, and even the slightly higher. These are all lower than you would get as an indie ANYWHERE! Why would anyone stay exclusive now? You can make up for any nominal losses at istock instantly by uploading to just a couple sites, like SS and Adobe. Even Tickstock with his optimistic posts cant possibly make exclusivity look good now.
As for the OP, do NOT allow yourself to get sucked into istock. As bad as they are now, history has shown they consistently roll out worse and worse deals for contributors every year, so as pathetic as their current royalties are, by the end of the year they will announce another cut. Now there are three things you can count on in life. Death, taxes, and Getty will f**k their contributors worse each year.
Those are minimums (for the lowest royalty rate). Where else do you get $15+ for a sub sale? Sure a few low sales are no good but if the first couple months of the year are any indication of the new normal, I'm very excited. I'm only being optimistic because the payouts have been very good.
I'm excited, too. I am down 35% from Jan. Really very exciting ;D As an indy I expected to get hosed by Getty and I have. When you say you're doing well, against what benchmark are you using to make that claim? I think that is a very important part to anyone's claim that they are 'UP'. Up over last month? Up over last year? Up over 24 months?
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Reading the rates exclusives are getting is really shocking. Not just the above numbers, but the stated minimum of .19, and even the slightly higher. These are all lower than you would get as an indie ANYWHERE! Why would anyone stay exclusive now? You can make up for any nominal losses at istock instantly by uploading to just a couple sites, like SS and Adobe. Even Tickstock with his optimistic posts cant possibly make exclusivity look good now.
As for the OP, do NOT allow yourself to get sucked into istock. As bad as they are now, history has shown they consistently roll out worse and worse deals for contributors every year, so as pathetic as their current royalties are, by the end of the year they will announce another cut. Now there are three things you can count on in life. Death, taxes, and Getty will f**k their contributors worse each year.
Those are minimums (for the lowest royalty rate). Where else do you get $15+ for a sub sale? Sure a few low sales are no good but if the first couple months of the year are any indication of the new normal, I'm very excited. I'm only being optimistic because the payouts have been very good.
I'm excited, too. I am down 35% from Jan. Really very exciting ;D As an indy I expected to get hosed by Getty and I have. When you say you're doing well, against what benchmark are you using to make that claim? I think that is a very important part to anyone's claim that they are 'UP'. Up over last month? Up over last year? Up over 24 months?
I think it was probably my best Feb ever and beat almost every month from the last 2 years.
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Pardon me for my ignorance, where do you people see those 19 cents or 9 cents?
From my ESP, I could only see the total, and not the individual sales.
Thanks for enlightening me!
Download the ESP report it comes as a text or a PDF
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I'm also excited I got 1.5 cent royalties in fact 50% plus were for less than 28 cents
I made $35 out of 1900 images WOO YAY GO FOR IT GETTY :-\
I LOVE YOU ::)
That agency is simply the best, great guys, always keeping us close to their hearts and going the extra mile for us contributors
Yeah right ..... :(
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Reading the rates exclusives are getting is really shocking. Not just the above numbers, but the stated minimum of .19, and even the slightly higher. These are all lower than you would get as an indie ANYWHERE! Why would anyone stay exclusive now? You can make up for any nominal losses at istock instantly by uploading to just a couple sites, like SS and Adobe. Even Tickstock with his optimistic posts cant possibly make exclusivity look good now.
As for the OP, do NOT allow yourself to get sucked into istock. As bad as they are now, history has shown they consistently roll out worse and worse deals for contributors every year, so as pathetic as their current royalties are, by the end of the year they will announce another cut. Now there are three things you can count on in life. Death, taxes, and Getty will f**k their contributors worse each year.
Those are minimums (for the lowest royalty rate). Where else do you get $15+ for a sub sale? Sure a few low sales are no good but if the first couple months of the year are any indication of the new normal, I'm very excited. I'm only being optimistic because the payouts have been very good.
If I get a $15 sale, who cares if its a sub or not. I get those and much higher sales on other sites. The question isn't where is the ceiling, but where is the floor, and at Getty the floor is 0, with a whole lot of <.10. That is an insult to anyone selling a product that has value and is useful. But it is a downright disgrace to do this to exclusives who have gone all in with your company, and provide you a collection other sites don't have. I can't imagine why anybody would stay exclusive at Getty /iStockphoto when the benefits of exclusivity are virtually nil over independence, and going indie offers the chance to double or more your stock income. They can even leave their stuff on istock earning those pennies until they have a steady and much better income stream elsewhere, or even forever if they want.
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The question isn't where is the ceiling, but where is the floor, and at Getty the floor is 0, with a whole lot of <.10. That is an insult to anyone selling a product that has value and is useful. But it is a downright disgrace to do this to exclusives who have gone all in with your company, and provide you a collection other sites don't have. I can't imagine why anybody would stay exclusive at Getty /iStockphoto when the benefits of exclusivity are virtually nil over independence, and going indie offers the chance to double or more your stock income. They can even leave their stuff on istock earning those pennies until they have a steady and much better income stream elsewhere, or even forever if they want.
You can focus on the smallest possible sales, the biggest sales, or the average. For me royalty rate, RPD and overall earnings are most important. Things look good for now.
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Companies like Getty will still say that they can't afford to pay more, but it's B.S.
They've piled up so much debt to line the pockets of the "investors" that the rating agencies were starting to downgrade them the last I heard of it.
Here is some info on this: [url]https://www.moodys.com/credit-ratings/Getty-Images-Inc-credit-rating-823229142[/url] ([url]https://www.moodys.com/credit-ratings/Getty-Images-Inc-credit-rating-823229142[/url])
Something else happening at Getty, which I haven't heard of until today:
[url]https://www.law360.com/articles/874422/ex-getty-vp-restrained-from-sharing-trade-secrets[/url] ([url]https://www.law360.com/articles/874422/ex-getty-vp-restrained-from-sharing-trade-secrets[/url])
I hadn't heard about that lawsuit either. In searching for some more details, I happened upon this site with some interesting extracts from the legal briefs - about who Getty considers their competition to be these days (Adobe and Shutterstock)...
http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/getty-images-v-motamedi-(injunction-ex-employee-sharing-secrets-w-competitor)/ (http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/getty-images-v-motamedi-(injunction-ex-employee-sharing-secrets-w-competitor)/)
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Pardon me for my ignorance, where do you people see those 19 cents or 9 cents?
From my ESP, I could only see the total, and not the individual sales.
Thanks for enlightening me!
Download the ESP report it comes as a text or a PDF
Thanks!
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Where else do you get $15+ for a sub sale?
How many of these have you got? 1 out of 1000?
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I made $35 out of 1900 images WOO YAY GO FOR IT GETTY :-\
Oh, wow, I'm really surprised, sorry to hear that. :( It is interesting, that every agency can be performing so different for every single contributor.
I do vector illustrations and happen to have luck with iStock (for me it's like Shutterstock, both of them only behind Fotolia). But for now I'm also very curious how things will change. February was good, very stable compared to January and second best month ever, but it may be also because I've uploaded a lot of new files. I'm waiting for the March report though, to be able to see a bigger picture.
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Where else do you get $15+ for a sub sale?
How many of these have you got? 1 out of 1000?
I have a few larger sales but the stats are very comprehensive so I'm not exactly sure what the ratio is. I'm hoping there are some improvements coming soon.
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Simply looking at the financial side of getty this company has no way to escape its bankruptcy. Looking at the upcoming interest rate hikes and the overheated economy getty will be one of the first one to file bankruptcy.
I have been with getty for 9 years have 10000+ unique files with getty/istock and am an exclusive 40% contributor. I agree on most posts here and the only reason I am still exclusive is because I have to keyword all my files with meta tags, which I am preparing until end of the year. My Income has dropped over 90% within the last 4 years even though I have doubled my portfolio and I would consider my content one of the best on istock. They have quite obviously capped all the top contributors, so no matter on how much unique content you upload you will still at least earn 20-30% less every year.
i feel sorry for all the people working for getty, who still believe the crap the Managers are telling them. They all know (even Lobo) that they have really *removed coarse language* up and have killed one of the sustainable stock places in the internet. But that is how capitalism goes. The owners of getty will continue to milk the cow dry until it dies. We have passed the point of no return in 2012/13.
So to answer your question in quick. Don't waste your time with this company. By 2020 they are not around any more.
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Simply looking at the financial side of getty this company has no way to escape its bankruptcy. Looking at the upcoming interest rate hikes and the overheated economy getty will be one of the first one to file bankruptcy.
I have been with getty for 9 years have 10000+ unique files with getty/istock and am an exclusive 40% contributor. I agree on most posts here and the only reason I am still exclusive is because I have to keyword all my files with meta tags, which I am preparing until end of the year. My Income has dropped over 90% within the last 4 years even though I have doubled my portfolio and I would consider my content one of the best on istock. They have quite obviously capped all the top contributors, so no matter on how much unique content you upload you will still at least earn 20-30% less every year.
i feel sorry for all the people working for getty, who still believe the crap the Managers are telling them. They all know (even Lobo) that they have really *removed coarse language* up and have killed one of the sustainable stock places in the internet. But that is how capitalism goes. The owners of getty will continue to milk the cow dry until it dies. We have passed the point of no return in 2012/13.
So to answer your question in quick. Don't waste your time with this company. By 2020 they are not around any more.
Hi I'm also exclusive 40% contributor with large portfolio and few days ago I sent request to drop exclusivity. Keywording it's not a problem. In DeepMeta you can export csv file and then with exiftool replace all your IPTC data. So you can do it if you want
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Simply looking at the financial side of getty this company has no way to escape its bankruptcy. Looking at the upcoming interest rate hikes and the overheated economy getty will be one of the first one to file bankruptcy.
I have been with getty for 9 years have 10000+ unique files with getty/istock and am an exclusive 40% contributor. I agree on most posts here and the only reason I am still exclusive is because I have to keyword all my files with meta tags, which I am preparing until end of the year. My Income has dropped over 90% within the last 4 years even though I have doubled my portfolio and I would consider my content one of the best on istock. They have quite obviously capped all the top contributors, so no matter on how much unique content you upload you will still at least earn 20-30% less every year.
i feel sorry for all the people working for getty, who still believe the crap the Managers are telling them. They all know (even Lobo) that they have really *removed coarse language* up and have killed one of the sustainable stock places in the internet. But that is how capitalism goes. The owners of getty will continue to milk the cow dry until it dies. We have passed the point of no return in 2012/13.
So to answer your question in quick. Don't waste your time with this company. By 2020 they are not around any more.
Hi I'm also exclusive 40% contributor with large portfolio and few days ago I sent request to drop exclusivity. Keywording it's not a problem. In DeepMeta you can export csv file and then with exiftool replace all your IPTC data. So you can do it if you want
Can you elaborate on this please? ExifTool is not easy to use and cannot find export csv in DeepMeta.
Good luck as Indie!
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Simply looking at the financial side of getty this company has no way to escape its bankruptcy. Looking at the upcoming interest rate hikes and the overheated economy getty will be one of the first one to file bankruptcy.
I have been with getty for 9 years have 10000+ unique files with getty/istock and am an exclusive 40% contributor. I agree on most posts here and the only reason I am still exclusive is because I have to keyword all my files with meta tags, which I am preparing until end of the year. My Income has dropped over 90% within the last 4 years even though I have doubled my portfolio and I would consider my content one of the best on istock. They have quite obviously capped all the top contributors, so no matter on how much unique content you upload you will still at least earn 20-30% less every year.
i feel sorry for all the people working for getty, who still believe the crap the Managers are telling them. They all know (even Lobo) that they have really *removed coarse language* up and have killed one of the sustainable stock places in the internet. But that is how capitalism goes. The owners of getty will continue to milk the cow dry until it dies. We have passed the point of no return in 2012/13.
So to answer your question in quick. Don't waste your time with this company. By 2020 they are not around any more.
Hi I'm also exclusive 40% contributor with large portfolio and few days ago I sent request to drop exclusivity. Keywording it's not a problem. In DeepMeta you can export csv file and then with exiftool replace all your IPTC data. So you can do it if you want
Can you elaborate on this please? ExifTool is not easy to use and cannot find export csv in DeepMeta.
Good luck as Indie!
Just select files what you want to export to csv, right mouse click, copy and then paste in Notepad or other program. That's all :)
Exiftool is quite hard to explain. This link helps me a lot:
http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php?topic=3468.0 (http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php?topic=3468.0)
You have to figure it out by yourself. It took me about one hour to solve how this program works.
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Simply looking at the financial side of getty this company has no way to escape its bankruptcy. Looking at the upcoming interest rate hikes and the overheated economy getty will be one of the first one to file bankruptcy.
I have been with getty for 9 years have 10000+ unique files with getty/istock and am an exclusive 40% contributor. I agree on most posts here and the only reason I am still exclusive is because I have to keyword all my files with meta tags, which I am preparing until end of the year. My Income has dropped over 90% within the last 4 years even though I have doubled my portfolio and I would consider my content one of the best on istock. They have quite obviously capped all the top contributors, so no matter on how much unique content you upload you will still at least earn 20-30% less every year.
i feel sorry for all the people working for getty, who still believe the crap the Managers are telling them. They all know (even Lobo) that they have really *removed coarse language* up and have killed one of the sustainable stock places in the internet. But that is how capitalism goes. The owners of getty will continue to milk the cow dry until it dies. We have passed the point of no return in 2012/13.
So to answer your question in quick. Don't waste your time with this company. By 2020 they are not around any more.
Hi I'm also exclusive 40% contributor with large portfolio and few days ago I sent request to drop exclusivity. Keywording it's not a problem. In DeepMeta you can export csv file and then with exiftool replace all your IPTC data. So you can do it if you want
Can you elaborate on this please? ExifTool is not easy to use and cannot find export csv in DeepMeta.
Good luck as Indie!
Just select files what you want to export to csv, right mouse click, copy and then paste in Notepad or other program. That's all :)
Exiftool is quite hard to explain. This link helps me a lot:
[url]http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php?topic=3468.0[/url] ([url]http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php?topic=3468.0[/url])
You have to figure it out by yourself. It took me about one hour to solve how this program works.
Copy/Paste multiple images doesn't work in DM3, but yes it does work in the older version. Once I get the csv from Deep Meta and figure out what to do in ExifTool is the meta writing automated on all files?
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Copy/Paste multiple images doesn't work in DM3, but yes it does work in the older version. Once I get the csv from Deep Meta and figure out what to do in ExifTool is the meta writing automated on all files?
I was using DM by the almost ten years, so all my data are in second version.
You have to put exiftool program, all images and csv file in to one folder. Exiftool read csv file and replace IPTC in all files from csv list.
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Simply looking at the financial side of getty this company has no way to escape its bankruptcy. Looking at the upcoming interest rate hikes and the overheated economy getty will be one of the first one to file bankruptcy.
I have been with getty for 9 years have 10000+ unique files with getty/istock and am an exclusive 40% contributor. I agree on most posts here and the only reason I am still exclusive is because I have to keyword all my files with meta tags, which I am preparing until end of the year. My Income has dropped over 90% within the last 4 years even though I have doubled my portfolio and I would consider my content one of the best on istock. They have quite obviously capped all the top contributors, so no matter on how much unique content you upload you will still at least earn 20-30% less every year.
i feel sorry for all the people working for getty, who still believe the crap the Managers are telling them. They all know (even Lobo) that they have really *removed coarse language* up and have killed one of the sustainable stock places in the internet. But that is how capitalism goes. The owners of getty will continue to milk the cow dry until it dies. We have passed the point of no return in 2012/13.
So to answer your question in quick. Don't waste your time with this company. By 2020 they are not around any more.
It's interesting what comes up when you Google Carlyle Group Chapter 11 bankruptcy. I have no idea how these big hedge funds operate, never thought the previous one would be able to sell Getty. I remember laughing when someone joked about SS buying Getty one day but perhaps that's not such a joke now?
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further uploads to istock or give myself a stiff uppercut - I'll take the latter
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Companies like Getty will still say that they can't afford to pay more, but it's B.S.
Not necessarily. Remember that they have piled up gigantic debts in the vulture capitalist merry-go-round of buying the company, borrowing in the market to repay the people who bought it all charged against (our) future earnings, then selling it on to somebody else who repeats the process. They've piled up so much debt to line the pockets of the "investors" that the rating agencies were starting to downgrade them the last I heard of it.
I was thinking more historically, from back in the beginning up to the years around the Getty deal. More recent events have certainly made it impossible for them to raise royalty rates to anything even close to 50%. But in 2010 and prior, they could have done it. Back when they called it "unsustainable" to continue paying rates on the system before the redeemed credit scheme, I think that was kind of a dishonest statement. Maybe at the time it was becoming unsustainable, but it certainly wasn't always that way and we now know that 50% and above is sustainable if a company operates in a way that views contributors as valuable (and critical) asset.
Today, sure, it is unsustainable to pay more. It's impossible, actually, and really it's kind of amazing that they survive at all considering how many hooks investors have in the company and how bad things are over there financially.
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It was never unsustainable. All they meant was it cost them more than they wanted to pay. Even the top tiers were quite modest.
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It's interesting what comes up when you Google Carlyle Group Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
WOW! That's more than interesting, it's astounding. Or maybe not.....
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It's interesting what comes up when you Google Carlyle Group Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
WOW! That's more than interesting, it's astounding. Or maybe not.....
The old saying if you owe the bank $600 you have a problem if you owe the bank $600m the bank has a problem
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Pardon me for my ignorance, where do you people see those 19 cents or 9 cents?
From my ESP, I could only see the total, and not the individual sales.
Thanks for enlightening me!
In ESP, go to Royalties - Export
Download the text file - it will look like garbage, but if you then import it into a spreadsheet like Excel or Google sheets, you'll have your details (delimited text file - auto detect or tab-delimited).
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Interesting what you guys keep digging up.
A friend of mine with a 9k portfolio is giving up exclusivity this week.
Looks like there is a new wave of exclusives leaving the sinking ship and this means lots of good content coming to the other sites.
I don´t think Getty itself will die, it will eventually be sold again for a very low price, so that the owners can get at least some money back. They might have to file for bankrupcy first, but the vultures will be ready.
Adobe and SS might split Getty between themselves, Adobe does not have an editorial division, but they already have macrostock. SS has editorial, but only a small macro collection with offset.
They are the two biggest companies with money, I really don´t see anyone else getting in.
They have fooled too many people too many times, so I doubt they can find an outside investor again.
But you never know, maybe the reality distortion field of Klein will work one last time.
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Interesting what you guys keep digging up.
A friend of mine with a 9k portfolio is giving up exclusivity this week.
Looks like there is a new wave of exclusives leaving the sinking ship and this means lots of good content coming to the other sites.
I don´t think Getty itself will die, it will eventually be sold again for a very low price, so that the owners can get at least some money back. They might have to file for bankrupcy first, but the vultures will be ready.
Adobe and SS might split Getty between themselves, Adobe does not have an editorial division, but they already have macrostock. SS has editorial, but only a small macro collection with offset.
They are the two biggest companies with money, I really don´t see anyone else getting in.
They have fooled too many people too many times, so I doubt they can find an outside investor again.
But you never know, maybe the reality distortion field of Klein will work one last time.
Wasn't there a hypothesis that Getty/Istock wanted to eliminate exclusivity? Push out exclusives to the point where they could kill the exclusivity program? Because there is no way Getty will keep paying them more than 15%? Something along those lines.
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Interesting what you guys keep digging up.
A friend of mine with a 9k portfolio is giving up exclusivity this week.
Looks like there is a new wave of exclusives leaving the sinking ship and this means lots of good content coming to the other sites.
I don´t think Getty itself will die, it will eventually be sold again for a very low price, so that the owners can get at least some money back. They might have to file for bankrupcy first, but the vultures will be ready.
Adobe and SS might split Getty between themselves, Adobe does not have an editorial division, but they already have macrostock. SS has editorial, but only a small macro collection with offset.
They are the two biggest companies with money, I really don´t see anyone else getting in.
They have fooled too many people too many times, so I doubt they can find an outside investor again.
But you never know, maybe the reality distortion field of Klein will work one last time.
Wasn't there a hypothesis that Getty/Istock wanted to eliminate exclusivity? Push out exclusives to the point where they could kill the exclusivity program? Because there is no way Getty will keep paying them more than 15%? Something along those lines.
Yeah, I remember that idea being floated awhile back. Makes sense. If that's their plan, it's another short sighted one IMO. Once their exclusive little birds have been out of the cages and seen how well they can do elsewhere, they may just fly the coop altogether.
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Interesting what you guys keep digging up.
A friend of mine with a 9k portfolio is giving up exclusivity this week.
Looks like there is a new wave of exclusives leaving the sinking ship and this means lots of good content coming to the other sites.
I don´t think Getty itself will die, it will eventually be sold again for a very low price, so that the owners can get at least some money back. They might have to file for bankrupcy first, but the vultures will be ready.
Adobe and SS might split Getty between themselves, Adobe does not have an editorial division, but they already have macrostock. SS has editorial, but only a small macro collection with offset.
They are the two biggest companies with money, I really don´t see anyone else getting in.
They have fooled too many people too many times, so I doubt they can find an outside investor again.
But you never know, maybe the reality distortion field of Klein will work one last time.
Wasn't there a hypothesis that Getty/Istock wanted to eliminate exclusivity? Push out exclusives to the point where they could kill the exclusivity program? Because there is no way Getty will keep paying them more than 15%? Something along those lines.
Yeah, I remember that idea being floated awhile back. Makes sense. If that's their plan, it's another short sighted one IMO. Once their exclusive little birds have been out of the cages and seen how well they can do elsewhere, they may just fly the coop altogether.
That idea was never floated as far as I know. It has however been said on this forum for years. As far back as I can remember no one that left exclusivity (high level) has come back here and said they are making more as an independent, can you think of anyone?
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That idea was never floated as far as I know. It has however been said on this forum for years. As far back as I can remember no one that left exclusivity (high level) has come back here and said they are making more as an independent, can you think of anyone?
Conversely, has any former high-level exclusive come back here and said they're earning less, in the medium-long term?
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That idea was never floated as far as I know. It has however been said on this forum for years. As far back as I can remember no one that left exclusivity (high level) has come back here and said they are making more as an independent, can you think of anyone?
Conversely, has any former high-level exclusive come back here and said they're earning less, in the medium-long term?
Yes.
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That idea was never floated as far as I know. It has however been said on this forum for years. As far back as I can remember no one that left exclusivity (high level) has come back here and said they are making more as an independent, can you think of anyone?
Conversely, has any former high-level exclusive come back here and said they're earning less, in the medium-long term?
Yes.
Which was who? or just link to their post. As they posted here, it's not revealng a confidence.
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That idea was never floated as far as I know. It has however been said on this forum for years. As far back as I can remember no one that left exclusivity (high level) has come back here and said they are making more as an independent, can you think of anyone?
Conversely, has any former high-level exclusive come back here and said they're earning less, in the medium-long term?
Yes.
Which was who? or just link to their post. As they posted here, it's not revealng a confidence.
Cobalt, here is the table with iStock indie included:
([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/experiences-after-quitting-istock-exclusivity/?action=dlattach;attach=11309;image[/url])
Now, no more tables until some months ahead. :0) I need to go back and upload and categorize images. kkkk. Just kidding.
After 10 months he was at 51% of income for one month, on average it would have been down about 66% for those 10 months. I can't think of anyone else who came back and gave numbers though.
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I'm not sure I'd have expected much more in ten months, though I did say medium term.
However, nowadays, with the vast fall in income many people, even high ranking exclusives from what I'm reading, are making on iS, it wouldn't be so difficult. 2012 was my best year on iS; it's been downhill all the way from there. 2012 was peak year for quite a few.
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That idea was never floated as far as I know. It has however been said on this forum for years. As far back as I can remember no one that left exclusivity (high level) has come back here and said they are making more as an independent, can you think of anyone?
Conversely, has any former high-level exclusive come back here and said they're earning less, in the medium-long term?
Yes.
Which was who? or just link to their post. As they posted here, it's not revealng a confidence.
Cobalt, here is the table with iStock indie included:
([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/experiences-after-quitting-istock-exclusivity/?action=dlattach;attach=11309;image[/url])
Now, no more tables until some months ahead. :0) I need to go back and upload and categorize images. kkkk. Just kidding.
After 10 months he was at 51% of income for one month, on average it would have been down about 66% for those 10 months. I can't think of anyone else who came back and gave numbers though.
Not a full benchmark. Lucato at that time had thousands of files still needing to be uploaded to the other micros. You cannot upload one fraction of your port to other micros then make the claim that indy sales aren't cutting it. A proper comparison would be to have all 7K ish files on the main micros he has listed and let it ride for at least one year. That snapshot was five years ago. A lot has changed at IStock since then...and other micros as well. Would love to see his snapshot today and hear his feedback.
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Not a full benchmark. Lucato at that time had thousands of files still needing to be uploaded to the other micros. You cannot upload one fraction of your port to other micros then make the claim that indy sales aren't cutting it. A proper comparison would be to have all 7K ish files on the main micros he has listed and let it ride for at least one year. That snapshot was five years ago. A lot has changed at IStock since then...and other micros as well. Would love to see his snapshot today and hear his feedback.
Yep it's not a full benchmark but I would guess he put his best work up first. Do you have a better set of data to look at?
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Not a full benchmark. Lucato at that time had thousands of files still needing to be uploaded to the other micros. You cannot upload one fraction of your port to other micros then make the claim that indy sales aren't cutting it. A proper comparison would be to have all 7K ish files on the main micros he has listed and let it ride for at least one year. That snapshot was five years ago. A lot has changed at IStock since then...and other micros as well. Would love to see his snapshot today and hear his feedback.
Yep it's not a full benchmark but I would guess he put his best work up first. Do you have a better set of data to look at?
No and I am not questioning your post. It's better than we usually see here. I was merely stating that it would be nice to see a 'full' benchmark is all.
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I left exclusivity two years ago. I was diamond with 110,000 downloads. My portfolio isn't huge - just 4,000 images.
I have spent the last two years rekeywording, reprocessing, and gradually uploading to agencies on a seasonal basis. Doing the rekeywording has been exceptionally time consuming, but necessary.
In my second full year (just finished) I earned about 15% LESS than I used to earn in my final few months as an istock exclusive. I have never had a month as an independent where I earned more than I used to earn as an exclusive.
Nearly all the independent agencies have met my expectations. The one exception is Shutterstock which has been a big disappointment. It's been very hard indeed building momentum there, and I am earning about $1,000 a month LESS from Shutterstock than I expected at this point. Had Shutterstock met my expectations I would now be earning a little more each month compared to when I was exclusive (and probably quite a bit more than I would now be making at istock had I remained exclusive). Anyone deciding to leave the exclusive ranks now needs to be aware that Shutterstock is probably NOT going to meet expectations.
Having said all of this, I'll bet that had I stayed at istock my earnings would have continued to decline (as others are experiencing), and I suspect that my independent earnings are now slightly higher than I would now be making as an exclusive.
So the grass is not greener, but I can tell everyone that it is a HUGE relief not to have the stress and worry of being tied to an agency that is clearly in long term decline.
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Lucato said his iS sales fell off after his best year which was 2010.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/april-earnings-percentages/msg417696/#msg417696 (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/april-earnings-percentages/msg417696/#msg417696)
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Lucato said his iS sales fell off after his best year which was 2010.
[url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/april-earnings-percentages/msg417696/#msg417696[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/april-earnings-percentages/msg417696/#msg417696[/url])
Yeah but weren't there people back then saying everyone should drop exclusivity, it's much better as an independent? With iStock "declining" and every other site doing great you would think it would obviously result in an increase.
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I left exclusivity two years ago. I was diamond with 110,000 downloads. My portfolio isn't huge - just 4,000 images.
I have spent the last two years rekeywording, reprocessing, and gradually uploading to agencies on a seasonal basis. Doing the rekeywording has been exceptionally time consuming, but necessary.
In my second full year (just finished) I earned about 15% LESS than I used to earn in my final few months as an istock exclusive. I have never had a month as an independent where I earned more than I used to earn as an exclusive.
Nearly all the independent agencies have met my expectations. The one exception is Shutterstock which has been a big disappointment. It's been very hard indeed building momentum there, and I am earning about $1,000 a month LESS from Shutterstock than I expected at this point. Had Shutterstock met my expectations I would now be earning a little more each month compared to when I was exclusive (and probably quite a bit more than I would now be making at istock had I remained exclusive). Anyone deciding to leave the exclusive ranks now needs to be aware that Shutterstock is probably NOT going to meet expectations.
Having said all of this, I'll bet that had I stayed at istock my earnings would have continued to decline (as others are experiencing), and I suspect that my independent earnings are now slightly higher than I would now be making as an exclusive.
So the grass is not greener, but I can tell everyone that it is a HUGE relief not to have the stress and worry of being tied to an agency that is clearly in long term decline.
Thanks for that. You said after 2 years you earned 85% of what you used to, what happened during the 2 years? FWIW these first couple months of the year have been very encouraging, I'm more optimistic now than I've been in probably 4 or 5 years but I'll have to see how it plays out in the next few months.
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Pardon me for my ignorance, where do you people see those 19 cents or 9 cents?
From my ESP, I could only see the total, and not the individual sales.
Thanks for enlightening me!
In ESP, go to Royalties - Export
Download the text file - it will look like garbage, but if you then import it into a spreadsheet like Excel or Google sheets, you'll have your details (delimited text file - auto detect or tab-delimited).
Thanks for the guidance, RoamingPro. Opened fine tab-delimited in Libreoffice 5 Calc. Not that I was all that excited about seeing those stats anyway. Oh, well, at least I had only one 15-cent royalty in Jan-Feb---what a comfort....
[To be fair, there were a few >$1 and a couple >$2. Still, not even enough to make payout this month.]
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Thanks for that. You said after 2 years you earned 85% of what you used to, what happened during the 2 years? FWIW these first couple months of the year have been very encouraging, I'm more optimistic now than I've been in probably 4 or 5 years but I'll have to see how it plays out in the next few months.
I still don't get it. Are you trying to convince us or yourself that istock is still worth it?
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Thanks for that. You said after 2 years you earned 85% of what you used to, what happened during the 2 years? FWIW these first couple months of the year have been very encouraging, I'm more optimistic now than I've been in probably 4 or 5 years but I'll have to see how it plays out in the next few months.
I still don't get it. Are you trying to convince us or yourself that istock is still worth it?
Tickstock is a well known fan for all things Getty/iStock ;)
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I left exclusivity two years ago. I was diamond with 110,000 downloads. My portfolio isn't huge - just 4,000 images.
I have spent the last two years rekeywording, reprocessing, and gradually uploading to agencies on a seasonal basis. Doing the rekeywording has been exceptionally time consuming, but necessary.
In my second full year (just finished) I earned about 15% LESS than I used to earn in my final few months as an istock exclusive. I have never had a month as an independent where I earned more than I used to earn as an exclusive.
Nearly all the independent agencies have met my expectations. The one exception is Shutterstock which has been a big disappointment. It's been very hard indeed building momentum there, and I am earning about $1,000 a month LESS from Shutterstock than I expected at this point. Had Shutterstock met my expectations I would now be earning a little more each month compared to when I was exclusive (and probably quite a bit more than I would now be making at istock had I remained exclusive). Anyone deciding to leave the exclusive ranks now needs to be aware that Shutterstock is probably NOT going to meet expectations.
Having said all of this, I'll bet that had I stayed at istock my earnings would have continued to decline (as others are experiencing), and I suspect that my independent earnings are now slightly higher than I would now be making as an exclusive.
So the grass is not greener, but I can tell everyone that it is a HUGE relief not to have the stress and worry of being tied to an agency that is clearly in long term decline.
It takes time to build momentum at Shutterstock. I had a 3 year uploading pause with sinking sales as a result, particularly towards the end of the period. After 18 months of uploading again, I'm still not nearly where I was, but sales are increasing.
My iStock sales are going one way only: down. I'm now at 10-15% of the income that I had 5-6 years ago, and I have no idea what images are selling. Time to remove my portfolio.
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Last month i had two downloads of 11 and 18 cents
That's too low!
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Pardon me for my ignorance, where do you people see those 19 cents or 9 cents?
From my ESP, I could only see the total, and not the individual sales.
Thanks for enlightening me!
In ESP, go to Royalties - Export
Download the text file - it will look like garbage, but if you then import it into a spreadsheet like Excel or Google sheets, you'll have your details (delimited text file - auto detect or tab-delimited).
Thanks for the guidance, RoamingPro. Opened fine tab-delimited in Libreoffice 5 Calc. Not that I was all that excited about seeing those stats anyway. Oh, well, at least I had only one 15-cent royalty in Jan-Feb---what a comfort....
[To be fair, there were a few >$1 and a couple >$2. Still, not even enough to make payout this month.]
This is actually funny. The downloaded file reminds me of the hex dumps we took from mainframe computers during the seventies. I would assume that the world had moved on slightly since then, but apparently not at Getty's.
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That idea was never floated as far as I know. It has however been said on this forum for years. As far back as I can remember no one that left exclusivity (high level) has come back here and said they are making more as an independent, can you think of anyone?
Conversely, has any former high-level exclusive come back here and said they're earning less, in the medium-long term?
ShadeSue, just curious, are you still exclusive? Reason?
Not that I am a fan of Getty, my guess is that the revenue drop may not be as bad for exclusives yet.
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FWIW these first couple months of the year have been very encouraging, I'm more optimistic now than I've been in probably 4 or 5 years but I'll have to see how it plays out in the next few months.
Tickstock, I find your posts extremely entertaining, but do you really believe in what you write?
You'd make a fantastic career as a fiction writer, you're a man of many talents. A modern-day Leonardo da Vinci. ;)
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FWIW these first couple months of the year have been very encouraging, I'm more optimistic now than I've been in probably 4 or 5 years but I'll have to see how it plays out in the next few months.
Tickstock, I find your posts extremely entertaining, but do you really believe in what you write?
You'd make a fantastic career as a fiction writer, you're a man of many talents. A modern-day Leonardo da Vinci. ;)
I can see my earnings from this year compared to the last few and they are much better now. About Leonardo da Vinci, I didn't even know he wrote fiction.
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I can see my earnings from this year compared to the last few and they are much better now.
Maybe because you're so exceptional :)
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I can see my earnings from this year compared to the last few and they are much better now.
Maybe because you're so exceptional :)
Very flattering but I doubt that's why.
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I can see my earnings from this year compared to the last few and they are much better now.
Maybe because you're so exceptional :)
Very flattering but I doubt that's why.
Well, there must be something special about you because you are literally the only person reporting gains and optimism with istock now.
Old posts from the past where the royalty structure was totally different don't count.
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I can see my earnings from this year compared to the last few and they are much better now.
Maybe because you're so exceptional :)
Very flattering but I doubt that's why.
Well, there must be something special about you because you are literally the only person reporting gains and optimism with istock now.
Old posts from the past where the royalty structure was totally different don't count.
There aren't too many exclusives who come here any more. I'm curious to hear how others are doing too. If it is just me then maybe these two months are outliers and I shouldn't get too optimistic.
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ShadeSue, just curious, are you still exclusive? Reason?
Not that I am a fan of Getty, my guess is that the revenue drop may not be as bad for exclusives yet.
I'm still exclusive.
I've given my reason many times. I have no intention atm of uploading anywhere in the knowledge I'd get 25c a sale. When I'm finished with iS, I'm finished with micro, unless something totally uinexpected is round the corner. I'll donate my wildlife pics, many of which aren't in any agency atm, between some charities and that'll be that. I'll probably stay with Alamy/editorial for a while.
My personal revenue drop at iS is very deep. I haven't uploaded for nine months and counting, because some sales, even as an exclusive, are as low as 6c (not even counting Connect). My average RPD for Jan was $1.99, and for Feb it was $1.51, and sales are falling rapidly.
Tickstock is one of the very few who are reporting buoyant sales.
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Anyway I am now officially on my way out of Getty/iStock :D
YAY!!!
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ShadeSue, just curious, are you still exclusive? Reason?
Not that I am a fan of Getty, my guess is that the revenue drop may not be as bad for exclusives yet.
I'm still exclusive.
I've given my reason many times. I have no intention atm of uploading anywhere in the knowledge I'd get 25c a sale. When I'm finished with iS, I'm finished with micro, unless something totally uinexpected is round the corner. I'll donate my wildlife pics, many of which aren't in any agency atm, between some charities and that'll be that. I'll probably stay with Alamy/editorial for a while.
My personal revenue drop at iS is very deep. I haven't uploaded for nine months and counting, because some sales, even as an exclusive, are as low as 6c (not even counting Connect). My average RPD for Jan was $1.99, and for Feb it was $1.51, and sales are falling rapidly.
Tickstock is one of the very few who are reporting buoyant sales.
Thanks for sharing. I see what you mean.
My drop is about 30% per year. Like you, my port will remain with Getty for now. I have hardly uploaded in recent years. There are other things that I am focusing on.
Perhaps TC is still uploading aggressively?
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ShadeSue, just curious, are you still exclusive? Reason?
Not that I am a fan of Getty, my guess is that the revenue drop may not be as bad for exclusives yet.
. . .Tickstock is one of the very few who are reporting buoyant sales.
My sales are buoyant. Because they are in the toilet. ;)
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My personal revenue drop at iS is very deep. I haven't uploaded for nine months and counting, because some sales, even as an exclusive, are as low as 6c (not even counting Connect). My average RPD for Jan was $1.99, and for Feb it was $1.51, and sales are falling rapidly.
Tickstock is one of the very few who are reporting buoyant sales.
I've seen almost no reports of sales from other exclusives. Not uploading for 9 months is a sure way to have sales drop.
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There aren't too many exclusives who come here any more. I'm curious to hear how others are doing too. If it is just me then maybe these two months are outliers and I shouldn't get too optimistic.
I wish I was in your situation. Despite uploading, my trend of total revenue is slowly going down since 2012. The bleeding has increased another 20% since the last changes. I think by many posts of the monthly revenue thread at Getty forums, most established diamond and blackdiamonds report the same trend to the bottom. So whatever makes you not being in this downward direction... congratulations! I wish I could say otherwise but that is the reality for me.
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There aren't too many exclusives who come here any more. I'm curious to hear how others are doing too. If it is just me then maybe these two months are outliers and I shouldn't get too optimistic.
I wish I was in your situation. Despite uploading, my trend of total revenue is slowly going down since 2012. The bleeding has increased another 20% since the last changes. I think by many posts of the monthly revenue thread at Getty forums, most established diamond and blackdiamonds report the same trend to the bottom. So whatever makes you not being in this downward direction... congratulations! I wish I could say otherwise but that is the reality for me.
Thanks for sharing more info is better.
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There aren't too many exclusives who come here any more. I'm curious to hear how others are doing too. If it is just me then maybe these two months are outliers and I shouldn't get too optimistic.
I wish I was in your situation. Despite uploading, my trend of total revenue is slowly going down since 2012. The bleeding has increased another 20% since the last changes. I think by many posts of the monthly revenue thread at Getty forums, most established diamond and blackdiamonds report the same trend to the bottom. So whatever makes you not being in this downward direction... congratulations! I wish I could say otherwise but that is the reality for me.
Yep, I'm full time diamond and compared to 2012 my income is less by about 85%-90% I just drop the crown. I've been waiting to long to do this.
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There are lots of posts from exclusives here and on the istock forum regarding falling sales.
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There aren't too many exclusives who come here any more. I'm curious to hear how others are doing too. If it is just me then maybe these two months are outliers and I shouldn't get too optimistic.
I wish I was in your situation. Despite uploading, my trend of total revenue is slowly going down since 2012. The bleeding has increased another 20% since the last changes. I think by many posts of the monthly revenue thread at Getty forums, most established diamond and blackdiamonds report the same trend to the bottom. So whatever makes you not being in this downward direction... congratulations! I wish I could say otherwise but that is the reality for me.
Yep, I'm full time diamond and compared to 2012 my income is less by about 85%-90% I just drop the crown. I've been waiting to long to do this.
Wow, 90% drop is bad. I hope you'll let us know how it goes as an independent.
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There aren't too many exclusives who come here any more. I'm curious to hear how others are doing too. If it is just me then maybe these two months are outliers and I shouldn't get too optimistic.
I wish I was in your situation. Despite uploading, my trend of total revenue is slowly going down since 2012. The bleeding has increased another 20% since the last changes. I think by many posts of the monthly revenue thread at Getty forums, most established diamond and blackdiamonds report the same trend to the bottom. So whatever makes you not being in this downward direction... congratulations! I wish I could say otherwise but that is the reality for me.
Yep, I'm full time diamond and compared to 2012 my income is less by about 85%-90% I just drop the crown. I've been waiting to long to do this.
Wow, 90% drop is bad. I hope you'll let us know how it goes as an independent.
Sure :) that is my plan. I will give you charts, data etc but you have to wait about 2-3 months for this
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There aren't too many exclusives who come here any more. I'm curious to hear how others are doing too. If it is just me then maybe these two months are outliers and I shouldn't get too optimistic.
I wish I was in your situation. Despite uploading, my trend of total revenue is slowly going down since 2012. The bleeding has increased another 20% since the last changes. I think by many posts of the monthly revenue thread at Getty forums, most established diamond and blackdiamonds report the same trend to the bottom. So whatever makes you not being in this downward direction... congratulations! I wish I could say otherwise but that is the reality for me.
Yep, I'm full time diamond and compared to 2012 my income is less by about 85%-90% I just drop the crown. I've been waiting to long to do this.
Wow, 90% drop is bad. I hope you'll let us know how it goes as an independent.
Sure :) that is my plan. I will give you charts, data etc but you have to wait about 2-3 months for this
Great, good luck.
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There are lots of posts from exclusives here and on the istock forum regarding falling sales.
Yes, and several here, on the iS forums and on Fb iS groups who are dropping exclusivity because of falling sales combined with falling rpd.
Also I see that at least a few BDs and high-ranking Diamonds haven't uploaded for months. There could be lots of reasons for that, but presumably at least some of them stopped because of concerns about falling sales, lowering rpd or overall fall in income.
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My personal revenue drop at iS is very deep. I haven't uploaded for nine months and counting, because some sales, even as an exclusive, are as low as 6c (not even counting Connect). My average RPD for Jan was $1.99, and for Feb it was $1.51, and sales are falling rapidly.
Tickstock is one of the very few who are reporting buoyant sales.
I've seen almost no reports of sales from other exclusives. Not uploading for 9 months is a sure way to have sales drop.
Not necessarily, as for a long time best match was favouring older, lower selling files - my bestsellers just dropped off the radar. Add to their long-standing refusal (I'm sure it's Getty, not iS's nice Team Keywords ) to add new keywords to the CV.
However, the bottom line is that my rôle in life is not to help pay off some company's debt, neither is it to make images for commercial companies to use for peanuts.
But I'm in a stronger position than most. No-one starves because of my decisions; my time, not my money, is needed.
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The sad thing about this iStock/Getty debacle is that once upon a time they made up 25% of my earnings. I started with them in 2009 as one my first agencies.
Since the "exciting news" their sales revenue has dwindled to so little now my earnings overall have not been affected but increased as earnings from other agencies picked up the slack.
Now they contribute only about 5% and in 90 days they will cease to contribute anything at all having requested and been accepted for contract cancellation.
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I was a Diamond level video artist when I dropped about this time last year. My sales have still been decent as when you drop they don't move your clips into the cheap section. If I upload more material then they all go in the cheap seats and I get peanuts. Is it more work uploading to other sites? YES but I am happier and enjoy shooting again and I don't stress over the $0.11 video sales anymore. I would be happy to upload to iStock/Getty if my files where not sold in the cheaper section. I have around 10,000 files there and was exclusive for over 10 years. Earnings are better but not amazingly better I just have more peace.
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I was a Diamond level video artist when I dropped about this time last year. My sales have still been decent as when you drop they don't move your clips into the cheap section. If I upload more material then they all go in the cheap seats and I get peanuts. Is it more work uploading to other sites? YES but I am happier and enjoy shooting again and I don't stress over the $0.11 video sales anymore. I would be happy to upload to iStock/Getty if my files where not sold in the cheaper section. I have around 10,000 files there and was exclusive for over 10 years. Earnings are better but not amazingly better I just have more peace.
That interesting. I was also video exclusive and when i drop the crown(about 8 months ago) they move all my video files to E collection. Strange