It's changed a lot.  There used to be much more full time professionals on here.  The attitude towards them was very negative and now you see many more people that are just starting.

"There's a lot of misinformation here.  Seriously I'm working a lot and this is one of my break time sites."


i too usually come here to get up to date on a few items mostly is of which is the microstock industry, so forums have their place. but i would not consider this forum the place to be for the stock industry as a whole.
i too find their is a lot of misinformation, speculation, and complaining posted here.
i think the main reason there are fewer and fewer real professionals here is that for the most part this is not the forum to be.
also, anytime a seasoned pro does come in here and comments, more often then not they are kicked in the nuts for anything they say.
if a seasoned pro even suggests that they making a successful living as a full time photographer with IS and GI, they once again get kicked in the nuts for doing so, and always need to verify they do indeed make a good living or else they are lying.
if a season pro does come in here and venture to share their knowledge, they will soon realize they will be drawn a quartered by a bunch of micro groupies who are upset they could not make it in the real world, and they more often than not leave without a trace.
there is an overwhelming amount of complaining and speculation going on here.
the last thing i do however is come here for a community feeling, or to get warm and fuzzy feeling by being part of a community. i don't come here to get little heart.

cobalt...

i think it safe to say that each and every photographer will have different results from their work they produce, regardless of where they choose to submit their work to.

some people will have amazing success, others not so, this is life.

one fellow comes to mind on this forum (no names) he is constantly angry on this forum, and on the IS forums. he produces very lovely work, at least i think so. he is what i would deem to be very good at what he shoots, but alas, it is not really what stock photo buyers are looking for, the result is he is not selling. add to this that the locations he shoots are all covered from the same angle by hundreds of other photographers, albeit not quit as refined, on multiple sites. for me, i see this particular individuals work as standing out from the crowd, it truly is great stuff, but his work is lost in the hundreds of other very similar images taken from the same angle. i am also sure his results are diminishing on every site he contributes to for exactly the same reasons, but for some reason the rage is full on with IS.

i have been shooting stock for far too long and seen the business change a lot, not all of it for the better.
i don't like GI as a company at all. i have been with several agencies over the years, big name agencies, and they have all eventually been bought out by GI. i have witnessed the devaluation of images drastically over the last 25 years.

for the most part i think it safe to assume that most (at least an overwhelming majority) photographers - including myself have seen their incomes drop drastically in the last few years, regardless of where they choose to place their images. there are several factors that come into play on this, namely the cannibalization of the valuation of images by microstock agencies, and further so by the agencies that are subscription sites. this is an industry wide problem and it won't go away any time soon. there is much more at play here than perhaps you are willing to accept or even acknowledge.

i am sure there are advantages to being non-exclusive, as there is being exclusive. we all have choices, you make yours, i make mine. for me it suits my needs best to keep a successful ball rolling with GI and IS, even if the income is slowly declining. it's a system i understand and it works very well for me. i am so deep in with GI and sort of IS that i'd be a fool to leave them to try and make up my losses. the mere thought of all that additional work, and an immediate reduction is my income, only to start out again with numerous agencies and get royalties of 0.30c to start would be foolish. i'd rather keep feeding the machine that is well greased.

i too wish you the best of success in whichever route you take in selling your work. but mark my words, very few of us will be making 50% of what we make today within the next 5-7 years, regardless of where you place your work. the writing is on the wall, and perhaps you'd just have to be around long enough and a seasoned professional to notice it.

in my professional opinion, the decline of the industry is not in GI or IS, or even microstock sites in general, rather the decline is totally at the mercy of subscription sites. subscription sites are killing the industry as it once was and what it currently is. buyers could care less about our well being, just as GI, IS, or SS, could care less. also another factor is the fact that almost every microstock agency accepts almost every image submitted due to a complete lack of editing, thus this creates a situation of over supply of images, the result being less and less sales for individual contributors, but alas, an ever increasing income for the agencies.

now to conclude, if i make a good living shooting for GI and IS there is nothing wrong with this at all. if anything many would like to be in the same situation. it took a lot of work and still does. i can only say that i am glad i am not starting my career in today's climate. yes all of my eggs are in one basket, but i firmly believe when and if that basket breaks, it is game over for the whole industry. i don't know why there is such a hate on for people who have made a successful go of GI and IS, it's actually kind of annoying and childish. in particular this whole concept of needing to verify ones success to people they don't know over a forum.

as for your comments regarding meeting people on forums and this being the possibility of being my next deal, i am not a fan of social media and don't gain my clients in this manner. i still prefer the old fashioned way of picking up the phone and meeting people in person.

any way, peace out, and good luck with your sales wherever you choose to place your images.

and fyi, shudderstock is exactly how i feel about SS, i shudder that stock could be sold for so low and payouts so low, and that people actually contribute there work there wanting to sell in volume to make a go of it. it makes no sense to me at all. but to each his/her own.

I�ve read it all. Thank you for a really solid reply.

I agree that the oversupply of files will make it harder and harder to get reliable sales, but I believe the pros will just adapt and shoot things that are not so easy to do. Supply and demand works both ways. If it is not profitable to sell stock and invest in production a certain kind of stock will simply not be provided. So customers have to either commission photographers to do it or look at the agencies that have more advanced content at higher prices.

The days of "easy money" are certainly over.

But I do believe in high volume sites, for me SS is just like the app store for mobile phones. Software is incredibly cheap there and yet people make money because of the extremly high volume of sales. So having a steady stream of income from ultracheap stock sales is an attractive revenue stream for me.

But I don�t believe every file is right for subscription. All files are not created equal.

Of course after 4 months of independence I haven�t yet recovered my income from istock/getty. But I am uploading very slowly and the results are good. In video also much better than expected. Without the Getty/Googe Deal etc...I would probably still be photo exclusive.

I am not recommending that other people should do what I do. But I know that many are following my journey to see if it would also be an option for them.

What I keep pointing out is that if you are new to istock and go exclusive and are building a portfolio there, it also takes two years to reach a "livable" income. I have seen (and encouraged) enough people who went exclusive. Even in 2010/2011 artists with excellent content had to wait a long, long time to see daily sales and reliable returns.

So wether you want to go indie or be exclusive,if you are starting out now it will take at least two years with a normal production rhythm to get good results.

Anyway, happy shooting.

for me SS is just like the app store for mobile phones. Software is incredibly cheap there and yet people make money because of the extremly high volume of sales

It is apparently becoming increasingly difficult for independents to recoup development costs at the App Store as the market expands. As with microstock, a significant issue is copying. And you are at the mercy of the search. Or else you effectively have to pay for social media promotion - in which case sales will typically receive a short boost and then tail off very quickly.

We have an impression that the App Store is doing very well for people partly because we inevitably hear about the apps which trend.

The App Store is a fantastic model from the consumer perspective but it is by no means clear that it will be long term viable for small independent developers.

'i hate IS' because its their fault nonsense.
...

i also pointed out in an earlier post that it is ultimately the buyer who makes or breaks our success, not any particular agency.

Hmmm. The buyers seemed OK with certain of my photos at E/S prices but not at S+ prices. I didn't nominate them for S+. Whose fault is that?
And two of the volume buyers where I used to find 'in-uses' now use TS. Who chose to start TS and to direct their volume buyers there, contrary to the line they spun us that TS was for 'new buyers'?

Quote from: shudderstok on September 02, 2013, 05:38

'i hate IS' because its their fault nonsense.
...

i also pointed out in an earlier post that it is ultimately the buyer who makes or breaks our success, not any particular agency.

Hmmm. The buyers seemed OK with certain of my photos at E/S prices but not at S+ prices. I didn't nominate them for S+. Whose fault is that?

in a situation like this, then yes it is a consequence of the decision of upper management of Gi which is motivated by sheer greed and profit, i too have been affected in a similar fashion with some images, some of which were my best sellers which have more or less tanked since. that said, their executive decision also put 350+ of my images into the S+ collection (images i would have never put into S+) and they are selling very well to my surprise, and by that decision alone it also put 350+ of my images onto GI which in turn have also added $$$ to my account, which again is a surprise.

to speculate a bit here, the new collection thing is all about slowly but surely reducing RC levels ultimately reducing royalties.

i don't profess to know what makes GI tick apart from sheer greed and unilateral profit, but they have also been around for a while and know how the market works, what buyers want, what buyers are willing to pay, and of course to line their own pockets to the detriment of its suppliers - which be us, the lowly contributor. whether i agree with it or not, or any of us agree with it or not is a whole other conversation for another day.

as i keep saying, and have done so for a long time now, it's a slow and steady sinking ship, the whole industry in terms of being a supplier, regardless of where you submit to. one could of course deem this view to be negative and/or pessimistic, but i'd rather be negative and pessimistic over rose tinted glasses when it comes to my livelihood and not really being able to control the outcome as i am/we are always at the mercy of corporate greed.

just wait till SS has to pay out dividends to its shareholders in the next AGM, it will turn ugly. that is when GI got ugly, when years ago they were a publicly listed company the first thing they did was cut expenses, or should i say their liabilities, ahem - contributors royalties.

 ... reading these last posts I have a feeling that MSG influence is far greater than someone would think ...

 - not to mention Symbiostock ... 

Quote from: ShadySue on September 02, 2013, 06:44

Hmmm. The buyers seemed OK with certain of my photos at E/S prices but not at S+ prices. I didn't nominate them for S+. Whose fault is that?

It's not about "fault". Those images may well average you more money ultimately. It's much too early to say. Look at them again 2 or 3 years from now. I doubt they have all even been migrated to GI yet.

A reasonable percentage of my old E+ images from over a year ago haven't been migrated yet.
But the files I didn't plus because of the better, newer rivals will still be competing against them at Getty, so even if they manage eventually to get over there, it's unlikely to do me any good.

But even if these newly promoted images do sell (I doubt it, I deliberately didn't plus them because there are now better rivals than there were when I uploaded them, which is why they had good early sales. I'd have minused them, given a chance.), I'd have to balance that with the low-demand, low-supply images which are now selling in Main, but not (now, and I wouldn't expect ever) in increased volume.

With all my personal caveats about the validity of the poll on the right, that's a huge drop for exclusives on iS reported so far.

Just quickly adding up the numbers it looks to be down a lot for all sites.  Also it seems like for a lot of exclusives, they couldn't answer the poll yet because they don't know what the pp and GI sales are going to be for a few more weeks, unless you've already hit the upper limit of the poll.  For me I have no idea what GI will be this month but it wouldn't surprise me to anywhere from $400 to $1500.

I mentioned the GI thing a while back, and the suggestion was to just put in the month that you got the money, so if you got the GI money for July in August, count that as your August earnings, and that would apply to TS also for those who opted in.

Just quickly adding up the numbers it looks to be down a lot for all sites.  Also it seems like for a lot of exclusives, they couldn't answer the poll yet because they don't know what the pp and GI sales are going to be for a few more weeks, unless you've already hit the upper limit of the poll.  For me I have no idea what GI will be this month but it wouldn't surprise me to be anywhere from $400 to $1500.

i guess i could zap the $2500 + choice today as it already exceeds that by much more, regardless of what GI turns in, i don't do any PP images as i will not support any subscription site in any way. i really wish they would offer choices of $3500+ $4500+ $5500+ etc. it might give a more accurate reading for every site as some people do make that much from all the various sites.

not that it matters of course.

i'd also like to see a few zaps on the stocksy site as my curiosity is activated.

Got my DT Newsletter this morning:  Very Professional.   

I guess I haven't got it but I can tell you what is professional, perhaps a candle glowing severely underexposed?

Quote from: luissantos84 on September 03, 2013, 08:14

I risk saying that the poll will become more and more irrelevant, this month I only added results for SS per example (usually I enter over 30/40 agencies), I just don't look at the poll with serious eyes anymore because its very different for everybody, if I have one agency doing very well why should I tell the "all world" about it? as time goes I believe that contributors will give less and less information at least regarding earnings, I have recently found an agency that was rarely talked about here and it looks very exciting

Good to know now you keep your cards closer to your chest.  I hated how you used to reveal so much information in your blog.   

that su-cker is sleeping since November 2011