MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: Sean Locke Photography on December 08, 2009, 15:57
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A look ahead was just posted:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=151691&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=151691&page=1)
Some interesting points and thoughts, some I agree with, some not. Just FYI.
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Getting screwed with the cannisters, just like with fotolia. I see a lot of people getting frustrated on this one. I wonder how the prices are gonna affect the downloads. Maybe non exclusives will get more downloads now that exclusive prices will be higher (problably not, let's see if they'll tweak best match to show a bit more of exclusive files infront).
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Thanks for linking... Yes the new canisters will own me too. I was getting close to silver slowly. Now I just have to wait until I do something else of my life, for opening my silver canister wine bottle. I guess it will taste better in 3 years _Sigh_
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Yep, don't like the cannister change.
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Just like in FT, I have to give up any hopes of changing level in my lifetime. ;D
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Who cares for cannister levels, it doesn't change anything for non-exclusives (yes, I know, upload limits... until they are "temporarily" lowered anyway ;D).
But lowering prices for non-exclusive files is what I don't like.
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So basically no good news for non-exclusives. Seems IS is keen to make the gap between exclusives and non-exclusives bigger. Its becoming pretty clear that the direction is to treat non-exclusives as cannon fodder.
The canister changes are bad for non-exclusives because they make it harder to reach higher upload limits.
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Suddenly silver is very far away. I don't know whether silver means higher yield or just higher upload limits.
"Holy cow! That's a lot of good stuff coming up. This place rocks!" - that's why avoid IS forums.
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Base: 1 - 499
Bronze: 500 - 4,999
Silver: 5,000 - 19,000
Gold: 20,000 - 49,000
Diamond: 50,000 - 399,000
Black Diamond: 400,000 +
Current contributors will be grandfathered in to their existing levels. So if you have 15,000 downloads when the change happens, you will remain at your gold canister for the purposes of upload limits and Exclusive royalties. No contributor will drop a level. We are aiming to make these changes on February 24, 2010.
I am currently at a gold canister with 13024 downloads. I don't understand what he means when he says "So if you have 15,000 downloads when the change happens, you will remain at your gold canister for the purposes of upload limits and Exclusive royalties".
What about non-exclusives? Gold used to start at 10,000 downloads. so when he says no contributor will drop a level, I will still be a gold, correct? Little confusing, to me anyway.
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Suddenly silver is very far away. I don't know whether silver means higher yield or just higher upload limits.
Yup, same here... I was looking forward to probably hitting silver this year, but that does not look like a possibility now.
And for the record, as an exclusive it would have meant a slight royalty bump.
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seems like some exciting changes. I hope the other sites take a hint and provide more tiered pricing. iStock has proven that buyers are willing to pay for more expensive content and they seem to be the only agency who is really making it work. Dreamstime's image levels work in a similar way however but i think they could have a premium collection too.
The cannister levels - yeah it is a bit of a hit, but like dirkr said - it doesn't really change anything. Fotolias change was bigger since it essentially just lowered everyone's commissions by 2%. That, and the fact that Fotolia's announcement was retro active while iStock is giving us 2.5 months notice.
I don't mind the extra pricing for exclusives. I can only think of good results.
A. Buyers will buy the cheaper images, which means non exclusives
B. For those who are exclusive or thinking of going exclusive - it will increase their income
C. Buyers will get used to paying higher prices and other agencies should be able to charge higher prices
D. Other agencies will perhaps start using more tiered pricing - giving us more income.
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Wow __ this is HUGE news. Thanks for the heads-up Sean.
My average sale price on IS as an independent contributor is currently about $1.20 (ignoring EL's, etc for the time being) which means the average sale price is $6 or a little less than Medium size.
Under the new exclusive prices the average sale price should rise to about $10 which would be worth $4 commission. If over the last couple of months my IS sales had averaged $4 a pop then I'd have made 20-25% more money than I did from all the sites.
This has to be serious food for thought.
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iStock may seriously increase their exclusive attractiveness with this move. I am curious about how other sites will respond.
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Like them or hate them you have to admit that iStock are constantly trying to raise the bar, time will tell what effect this has on non-exclusives but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:
"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."
You can read that two ways but I'm hoping they are going to (at long last and not before time) allow us independents to submit a selection of exclusive images (with perks) as appose to total exclusivity, if that were the case I would seriously consider making them the only 'microstock' agency I submit to.
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Very interesting news indeed. Some of the things that strike me on first reading:
1. Canister level changes. This is exactly what Fotolia did that angered contributors so much. Moving the goal posts in the middle of the game just seems wrong. Of course as a non-exclusive diamond my income won't be affected in any way. Still, I was looking forward to black diamond anyway. So now I have to get 30k DL's by February in order to qualify. Not likely to happen :(
2. Higher prices for exclusive images. As Tyler points out, this could be a double edge sword for exclusives. On the one hand, they will be making REALLY good money per sale. On the other hand, unless they produce extremely unique content - which many do not - they stand to lose sales to independents whose images will be lower priced. I hope you are right, Tyler, and that if this is successful the industry will resume the trend toward higher prices.
3. Credit price increase. Great for istock, great for contributors. At least on the face of it. For us non-exclusives this will be the only raise we get at IS. But Sean makes an excellent point in the IS thread - this is not the ideal economic time to be squeezing customers. Could backfire and send more to the competition.
4. Plans for JIU - Wonder if this means they will be dumping StockXpert content from JIU as they did Photos.com. I will be sorry to see that extra income go, but remain convinced that .25/sale is just not adequate compensation for sub sales at this point in the game. This is not 4 years ago and many of us are not doing this for giggles and grins anymore.
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Getting screwed with the cannisters, just like with fotolia.
Oh, h*ll, it's a cartel. :'(
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3. Credit price increase. Great for istock, great for contributors. At least on the face of it. For us non-exclusives this will be the only raise we get at IS. But Sean makes an excellent point in the IS thread - this is not the ideal economic time to be squeezing customers. Could backfire and send more to the competition.
And I guess they'll be hoping that they'll go to photos.com
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... but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:
"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."
Good catch Richard. I missed that. Definitely sounds like the door to image exclusivity may be opening a crack.
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3. Credit price increase. Great for istock, great for contributors. At least on the face of it. For us non-exclusives this will be the only raise we get at IS. But Sean makes an excellent point in the IS thread - this is not the ideal economic time to be squeezing customers. Could backfire and send more to the competition.
Not really an increase if it comes along with a decrease in the number of credits needed to buy non-exclusive files... >:(
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Another thought...
In 2009 I don't recall getting any of the usual yearly raises we had been getting from the other micros. In fact we had to eat some royalty cuts.
With Istock making a major play to tempt independents into exclusivity with significantly more money, can we perhaps expect the other players to sweeten the pot to keep us?
I, for one, would not be very happy with a second year in a row without any raise in my royalties from the major micros. The only income gains I saw in 2009 have been due to increasing portfolio size, and for the last 6 months I have been at a virtual standstill incomewise, even with steady uploading.
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Getting screwed with the cannisters, just like with fotolia.
Oh, h*ll, it's a cartel. :'(
Not exactly. At least IS have given a couple of months notice and are open to helping out those on the verge. FT didn't even have the decency to make an announcement let alone negotiate on the issue.
Having said that IS's wailing that "the current canister levels are unsustainable" is patent nonsense as all it affects is how little commission they pay out (and only to some of their exclusive contributors) and much more profit they get to keep themselves. IS are already eye-wateringly profitable and still growing at a staggering rate. To say they can't continue to pay the same levels of commission is simply absurd and downright greedy.
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... but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:
"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."
Good catch Richard. I missed that. Definitely sounds like the door to image exclusivity may be opening a crack.
yeah, interesting take on that sentence. I would find it hard to believe that iStock would let non-exclusives upload exclusive images but i would be very interested in seeing it happen. iStock seems very protective of their exclusives and is their trump card in a way. If they let people upload as partial exclusives it could feel like they are loosening their grip a little. If they did so however, it might encourage photographers to test the water before jumping all in.
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Not really an increase if it comes along with a decrease in the number of credits needed to buy non-exclusive files... >:(
Good point. Although with the very low volume of XL and larger sales, the only real affect will be the 2 credit reduction in L sizes.
Hopefully we will make it up in volume as the more cost-conscious buyers choose the cheaper non-exclusive files over exclusive ones.
If I were exclusive I would want to option to choose which of my exclusive images were put in the various collections. I might want to keep my more commonplace ones in the "main collection".
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... but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:
"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."
Good catch Richard. I missed that. Definitely sounds like the door to image exclusivity may be opening a crack.
Not a chance __ all they are referring to is the opportunity to earn more via the higher prices for exclusive files. They know well enough that the people they are referring to generally report IS to be about 35-40% of their total earnings and this has been pitched perfectly to ensure they would get a fairly significant increase in revenue from exclusivity. My only surprise is that they didn't do it sooner.
Of course the 'strongest talent' they'd really like to snare would be a certain Mr Arcurs and his mighty portfolio.
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Hopefully we will make it up in volume as the more cost-conscious buyers choose the cheaper non-exclusive files over exclusive ones.
Right, that might bring more sales to non-exclusives...
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Hopefully we will make it up in volume as the more cost-conscious buyers choose the cheaper non-exclusive files over exclusive ones.
If I were exclusive I would want to option to choose which of my exclusive images were put in the various collections. I might want to keep my more commonplace ones in the "main collection".
I'm not sure that this is going to be significant __ is there much evidence of FT's customers avoiding the images of Emerald+ members which are higher priced? Also a very high % of IS's images are exclusive so a cheapskate buyer would be limiting themselves to a relatively small collection from which to choose. If they were that price-concious they wouldn't be at IS in the first place.
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... but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:
"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."
Good catch Richard. I missed that. Definitely sounds like the door to image exclusivity may be opening a crack.
yeah, interesting take on that sentence. I would find it hard to believe that iStock would let non-exclusives upload exclusive images but i would be very interested in seeing it happen. iStock seems very protective of their exclusives and is their trump card in a way. If they let people upload as partial exclusives it could feel like they are loosening their grip a little. If they did so however, it might encourage photographers to test the water before jumping all in.
Why not Getty, Corbis etc have exclusive images and yet do not require photographer exclusivity, the buyer doesn't care whether the photographer is exclusive or not, but having exclusive images is a huge advantage to iStock and that is their trump card, I can understand they would be concerned that some contributors may be tempted to bend the rules which is why the term "strongest talents in stock today" would be very apt, many of us who do this for a living and have a proven sales record are not the kind that would breach the agreement.
Give wholly exclusive photographers 40%, non-exclusives get 20% on normal images and 30% on exclusive one's. Simple and everybody wins even the iStock exclusives because it will bring more buyers through the door.
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Why not Getty, Corbis etc have exclusive images and yet do not require photographer exclusivity, the buyer doesn't care whether the photographer is exclusive or not, but having exclusive images is a huge advantage to iStock and that is their trump card, I can understand they would be concerned that some contributors may be tempted to bend the rules which is why the term "strongest talents in stock today" would be very apt, many of us who do this for a living and have a proven sales record are not the kind that would breach the agreement.
Give wholly exclusive photographers 40%, non-exclusives get 20% on normal images and 30% on exclusive one's. Simple and everybody wins even the iStock exclusives because it will bring more buyers through the door.
Because they don't want you feeding their competitors, that's why. That is also why you can be exclusive but still sell RM anywhere else.
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Hopefully we will make it up in volume as the more cost-conscious buyers choose the cheaper non-exclusive files over exclusive ones.
If I were exclusive I would want to option to choose which of my exclusive images were put in the various collections. I might want to keep my more commonplace ones in the "main collection".
I'm not sure that this is going to be significant __ is there much evidence of FT's customers avoiding the images of Emerald+ members which are higher priced? Also a very high % of IS's images are exclusive so a cheapskate buyer would be limiting themselves to a relatively small collection from which to choose. If they were that price-concious they wouldn't be at IS in the first place.
You may be right. When I turned Emerald I put my base price up to $2. I would say my sales dropped by maybe 25% or so. The loss was more than made up for by the higher royalties.
If the same happens on Istock then it would be a win/win for exclusives and independents alike. We would get those extra 25% or so of price conscious sales, and exclusives would not miss them because of their higher overall income.
The point was also made in the istock thread that perhaps the best match will be slanted even more to favor exclusive images. In which case us independents would be pretty well screwed there.
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"the average number of downloads per contributor has also risen significantly since 2006"
Wonder what that means.
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Having said that IS's wailing that "the current canister levels are unsustainable" is patent nonsense as all it affects is how little commission they pay out (and only to some of their exclusive contributors) and much more profit they get to keep themselves. IS are already eye-wateringly profitable and still growing at a staggering rate. To say they can't continue to pay the same levels of commission is simply absurd and downright greedy.
Quite. It's an insult to our intelligence for them to suggest otherwise.
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"the average number of downloads per contributor has also risen significantly since 2006"
Wonder what that means.
I guess it can mean whatever they want it to mean. My own DL's this year will be about 25% higher than they were in 2006 (with about 1/3 of the portfolio size). Maybe 25% could be described as 'significant' ... but over a 3 year period?
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I think one day istock might let non-exclusives contribute to an exclusive images collection. A lot of us would find it almost impossible to go exclusive now and lots of the people that are already with the traditional agencies can't go RF exclusive with istock. This is millions of images that are on their rivals sites, they could cut the competition and increase their profits by allowing us to upload images exclusively. As their current owners are renowned for buying and selling companies for a profit, they are likely to look at every way possible to make more money. As Getty already have exclusive images and not exclusive contributors, I don't see why istock wont do the same one day.
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I think one day istock might let non-exclusives contribute to an exclusive images collection. A lot of us would find it almost impossible to go exclusive now and lots of the people that are already with the traditional agencies can't go RF exclusive with istock. This is millions of images that are on their rivals sites, they could cut the competition and increase their profits by allowing us to upload images exclusively. As their current owners are renowned for buying and selling companies for a profit, they are likely to look at every way possible to make more money. As Getty already have exclusive images and not exclusive contributors, I don't see why istock wont do the same one day.
Originally I would have thought that would never happen. I have always believed it would dilute the exclusive brand too much.
But then I would never have foreseen a lot of what was announced today. Nor, for that matter, many of the changes that have occurred there over the past year or so. While the Vetta collection certainly strengthens the exclusive brand, Photos.com deal considerably weakens it.
I am beginning to wonder if Getty's goal is to divide Istock exclusives, not only by exclusivity status, but also by talent and/or sales potential. With the higher canister people encouraged to submit to Getty, low quality images siphoned off to Photos.com, and now multiple levels of "exclusive content", it appears a definite hierarchy is emerging within the ranks of Istock exclusives. Separating the wheat (Vetta, Getty) from the chafe (Photos.com & low end Istock collection).
If that is their goal, and they don't really care if they tick off low canister exclusives (which judging from the canister changes, they don't), then what is to prevent them from widening their quest for "top level content" to include some from the long-time trad pros and top microstock pros who are unable to be fully artist exclusive?
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From a certain point of view exclusivity looks better than ever and from another one it looks like a stupid deal. Let's see these two opposites:
- a pretty high ranked non-exclusive which would get a nice royalty increase (maybe even double earnings just on this one), add increased image prices, vetta collection, visibility in best match,... Sounds tempting.
- a newbie, just starting out. It's almost impossible for him to reach higher level ranks because of upload restrictions, increasing saturation of images, high standards, much higher download limits for canisters,... So a newbie would have to put all his eggs in one basket even though he may be years from reaching a higher royalty. There's almost nothing that would make him go exclusive.
Could all this be istocks plan? Get all the established players and make the newbies pay for them?
Another thing that got me thinking was admins saying "canister change had to be done,...". Is the whole model not sustainable or do they just want more money? I don't see what other reasons could trigger the change? I also don't know which of the two options sounds worse to me.
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I think that iStock continuously trying to play this brainstorming educative game with us.
http://www.flashgames247.com/play/2326.html (http://www.flashgames247.com/play/2326.html)
:o
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I am beginning to wonder if Getty's goal is to divide Istock exclusives, not only by exclusivity status, but also by talent and/or sales potential. With the higher canister people encouraged to submit to Getty,
Getty returns have certainly been nothing to write home about.
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I am beginning to wonder if Getty's goal is to divide Istock exclusives, not only by exclusivity status, but also by talent and/or sales potential. With the higher canister people encouraged to submit to Getty,
Getty returns have certainly been nothing to write home about.
That is just so bizarre. Could it be the collection the IS contributors' images are in?
If they want to attract unique content from Istock's top contributors they really need to open up one of the more lucrative collections to them :-\
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Man, it's seriously hard not to take this personally. I'm at 9732 downloads, and at the rate I'm going, I might just squeak by with 10,000 by the deadline. If I don't, I can figure on another five years to get to gold, all so I can have five more uploads a week. Way to make a supplier feel appreciated.
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I think one day istock might let non-exclusives contribute to an exclusive images collection. A lot of us would find it almost impossible to go exclusive now and lots of the people that are already with the traditional agencies can't go RF exclusive with istock. This is millions of images that are on their rivals sites, they could cut the competition and increase their profits by allowing us to upload images exclusively. As their current owners are renowned for buying and selling companies for a profit, they are likely to look at every way possible to make more money. As Getty already have exclusive images and not exclusive contributors, I don't see why istock wont do the same one day.
I am beginning to wonder if Getty's goal is to divide Istock exclusives, not only by exclusivity status, but also by talent and/or sales potential. With the higher canister people encouraged to submit to Getty, low quality images siphoned off to Photos.com, and now multiple levels of "exclusive content", it appears a definite hierarchy is emerging within the ranks of Istock exclusives. Separating the wheat (Vetta, Getty) from the chafe (Photos.com & low end Istock collection).
I suspect that Getty's goals are quite simple - they want to pay less in commissions.
Back in the summer they sent Pump Audio artists a letter saying that their 50% commission would now be 35%. For those who had enough sales, they offered them a deal to keep the 50% commission if they became exclusive.
The partner program was about trying to get content for Photos.com+/JIU unlimited at the lowest possible commission (cutting the 30cents to 25 cents for StockXpert contributors who now would have to go via iStock).
They want the benefits of an exclusive collection as a marketing weapon but don't want to pay for it.
Sucks.
Big time.
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Base: 1 - 499
Bronze: 500 - 4,999
Silver: 5,000 - 19,000
Gold: 20,000 - 49,000
Diamond: 50,000 - 399,000
Black Diamond: 400,000 +
Current contributors will be grandfathered in to their existing levels. So if you have 15,000 downloads when the change happens, you will remain at your gold canister for the purposes of upload limits and Exclusive royalties. No contributor will drop a level. We are aiming to make these changes on February 24, 2010.
I am currently at a gold canister with 13024 downloads. I don't understand what he means when he says "So if you have 15,000 downloads when the change happens, you will remain at your gold canister for the purposes of upload limits and Exclusive royalties".
What about non-exclusives? Gold used to start at 10,000 downloads. so when he says no contributor will drop a level, I will still be a gold, correct? Little confusing, to me anyway.
You will not drop a level. The only reason they say "exclusive royalties" is because they increase based on canister. Non-exclusive royalties are not affected by canister levels, only the upload limits are. If you are gold, you're still gonna be gold when the change hits. Nobody is going to go backwards.
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"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."
You can read that two ways but I'm hoping they are going to (at long last and not before time) allow us independents to submit a selection of exclusive images (with perks) as appose to total exclusivity, if that were the case I would seriously consider making them the only 'microstock' agency I submit to.
That would make a lot of sense. I was planning to upload my very (salable) best exclusively to DT because of the high earnings (even as a sub) that level 3 and up images make there. It makes much more sense to attribute exclusivity and tiered pricing to images, rather than to contributors.
5.6% of my total income on DT comes from one single level 5 image and it never had an EL.
Apparently, buyers don't care about the higher price level as sub (1.26$) if it is the image they want.
Flamers on IS still make the same amount. A buyer, after all, isn't interested in a contributor, but in an (exclusive) image.
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Non-exclusive royalties are not affected by canister levels, only the upload limits are.
Thanks for making that clear. Fifteen per week is large enough with some planning for a modest amateur. I use Deepmeta as a buffer for times of high production: you can do all tagging etc... there and forget, just like on other sites. You just have to set your clock every 8 days to drag 15 more from "waiting" to "uploading", a matter of seconds. Many thanks to Deepmeta.
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Hi All,
Boy does this bring back memories, just my opinion after working with this company for 12 years but it has always rang true. This does not surprise me in the least. I was waiting for this and what else will be to follow. The idea is to bring in exclusives and stack the deck with their work. They want a corral of shooters that can only shoot for them but not for the quality of their work it is easy to get an exclusive with Istock. Far more about the control it will give them as they move forward with this corral.
At first they can take that work, load it to the front of the searches and everyone is happy. The new guys make more money they get tons of new shooters and they send their other work off to another of their Micro sites that sells for a smaller price range. Then after a while they can start changing up the contract even more. But just a little at a time so you don't really feel it is enough to leave them.
Will they remove the wall and let their Macro RF people have a chance to become exclusive. What comes next.... Stay tuned. Just my buck and a half.
Best,
Jonathan
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I think it will be very hard for anyone who is not an experienced professional (or insanely talented amateur) to become an istock exclusive in future. Reaching 500 dls (the new limit for bronze/exclusivity) with few upload slots and bias against in search is a big barrier.
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Old
Base: 1 - 249
Bronze: 250 - 2,499
Silver: 2,500 - 9,999
Gold: 10,000 - 24,999
Diamond: 25,000 - 199,999
Black Diamond: 200,000+
New all double
Base: 1 - 499
Bronze: 500 - 4,999
Silver: 5,000 - 19,999
Gold: 20,000 - 49,999
Diamond: 50,000 - 399,999
Black Diamond: 400,000 +
Good news for the 20 black diamonds the rest will take 5 more years to catch you. The look ahead could have said smile we're going to be screwing you all exclusives who don't make the next level in 90 days but during that double time we will be making the money that you would have earned. One the IS forum people are smiling and looking for the free jar of vasiline that comes for exclusives in 2010.
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If I've read this and the other recent discussions correctly and I'm a non-exclusive, it doesn't change anything for me, does it. That's assuming that I seldom have more than six new photos in a week, I don't run out of upload limits and whether I'm "dirt" or double-black-diamond, I still get the same commission. ;D
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Black Diamonds don't get extra commission. Diamond (40%) is the top.
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Hi All,
Boy does this bring back memories, just my opinion after working with this company for 12 years but it has always rang true. This does not surprise me in the least. I was waiting for this and what else will be to follow. The idea is to bring in exclusives and stack the deck with their work. They want a corral of shooters that can only shoot for them but not for the quality of their work it is easy to get an exclusive with Istock. Far more about the control it will give them as they move forward with this corral.
At first they can take that work, load it to the front of the searches and everyone is happy. The new guys make more money they get tons of new shooters and they send their other work off to another of their Micro sites that sells for a smaller price range. Then after a while they can start changing up the contract even more. But just a little at a time so you don't really feel it is enough to leave them.
Will they remove the wall and let their Macro RF people have a chance to become exclusive. What comes next.... Stay tuned. Just my buck and a half.
Best,
Jonathan
Yep I can't understand all the excitement about this news. The shift in canister levels betrays what this move is all about - increasing profit margins at IS at the expense of contributors and buyers.
While exclusive contributors will benefit in the short term, this signals that conditions in the contributors' contact are up for grabs if Getty wants to increase its profit margins in the future.
Another factor driving the move is the pending sale of Getty - good time to make the growth part of the business look better than it is by pumping up short term profits.
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If I've read this and the other recent discussions correctly and I'm a non-exclusive, it doesn't change anything for me, does it. That's assuming that I seldom have more than six new photos in a week, I don't run out of upload limits and whether I'm "dirt" or double-black-diamond, I still get the same commission. ;D
You might end up with more in the way of sales given this shift of the "main" collection to the images of independents with exclusive images priced higher than yours and not automatically included in search results. Could be a big win for independents.
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whether I'm "dirt" or double-black-diamond, I still get the same commission. ;D
Oh, but you forget the invaluable honor to be represented by the World's oldest and most prestigious Microstock Agency! You don't seem to realize what a competitive advantage that gives you, when it comes to free downloads on Flickr! ;D
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Getting screwed with the cannisters, just like with fotolia.
Oh, h*ll, it's a cartel. :'(
that is probably the most surprising change in the whole announcement. They are essentially cutting exclusive commissions by somewhere between 12.5%-20% depending on your canister level (@5% increase for each canister level, if you are at 25% commission level (bronze) and now won't move up to 30% (silver) you receive a 5/25=20% cut in earnings)
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Getting screwed with the cannisters, just like with fotolia. I see a lot of people getting frustrated on this one. I wonder how the prices are gonna affect the downloads. Maybe non exclusives will get more downloads now that exclusive prices will be higher (problably not, let's see if they'll tweak best match to show a bit more of exclusive files infront).
JJRD confirmed this one.
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I don't think I could take another fall in earnings with istock. They have removed my goal to reach the diamond level, if the best match change favors exclusives and my sales drop, I will concentrate on alamy and try and get in to some of the other higher paying sites next year.
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Of course the 'strongest talent' they'd really like to snare would be a certain Mr Arcurs and his mighty portfolio.
Except that he can't and they know he can't, he's in the same boat as me and many others who sell RF via Macro agencies and distribution partners, were tied in to contracts for 3 years or more, which is why I mentioned the possibility they may be thinking of image exclusivity, it makes sense for them money and marketing wise and at the end of the day that's the only thing they and all other agencies are interested in, as are we.
There is a huge talent base in macro RF that at the moment are not interested in microstock because of the low commission subscription services the majority of the main sites have, if iStock introduced an exclusive image scheme and collection I guarantee they'd attract some of these people because they are used to the "Getty" way of doing business and from a macro RF photographers point of view iStock is the only microstock agency worth dealing with.
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Will they remove the wall and let their Macro RF people have a chance to become exclusive.
No, because you can't be exclusive to the Getty "family" with RF available everywhere.
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Getting screwed with the cannisters, just like with fotolia.
Oh, h*ll, it's a cartel. :'(
that is probably the most surprising change in the whole announcement. They are essentially cutting exclusive commissions by somewhere between 12.5%-20% depending on your canister level (@5% increase for each canister level, if you are at 25% commission level (bronze) and now won't move up to 30% (silver) you receive a 5/25=20% cut in earnings)
Admittedly I have not read past the first page at iStock, but I'm confused by this statement. If current canisters are being grandfathered in, how does that translate into a lowering of exclusive commissions. And what do you mean "and now won't move up to 30% (silver)" ... why wouldn't someone move up? (though it will take longer) and how is it a pay cut if they never had it?
Back in my day, we had to have 500 downloads to be exclusive. ;) I was exclusive when they dropped the requirement to 250 and I remember being ticked about that. I wonder what percentage of relative newbies that signed up at 250 are now going to be stuck at bronze for a very very long time. I also wonder how many of that 125,000 monthly new members are becoming contributors.
I'm curious to see how it plays out with the tiered pricing, especially since I've heard that it's pretty common to see images fairly similar to top selling exclusives popping up at other sites. As a buyer I'm happy to see the lowering of the large size price, because even though I do search a couple of other sites, I almost always end up purchasing from istock because that is where I most often find what I need. I recently was given 10 free credits at another site. After about 2 weeks of starting every image search there and not finding what I needed, I finally was able to use half of my credits last night.
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Let's say we have an exclusive contributer with 2000 downloads right now - lets call him Thor. Thor is currently a Bronze contributor earning 25% comissions. Thor won't make it to silver before February when they change the system. In March Thor reaches 2500 downloads. With the new system however, he stays at Bronze canister level 25% comission instead of getting silver and 30% comission. So from march 2010 onwards, iStock is getting 5% more of Thor's earnings than they would have without the change. that 5% would have been a 20% increase in earnings for Thor (5/20 = 20%).
make sense? iStock are taking a higher percentage of the sale whenever someone SHOULD have reached the next canister but didn't because of the change.
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Slightly off-topic but related: as Editorial doesn't sell well at micro (with some exceptions) and I stopped uploading at SS for their fancy rules that define Editorial more as "News" (leaving only DT - I stepped out of YAY), I decided to upload most Editorial to Macro RF.
Now would that rule me out as an iStock exclusive, even if iStock doesn't have Editorial yet? What do exclusives do with their Editorial shots? Just let them gather dust at their HD?
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Slightly off-topic but related: as Editorial doesn't sell well at micro (with some exceptions) and I stopped uploading at SS for their fancy rules that define Editorial more as "News" (leaving only DT - I stepped out of YAY), I decided to upload most Editorial to Macro RF.
Now would that rule me out as an iStock exclusive, even if iStock doesn't have Editorial yet? What do exclusives do with their Editorial shots? Just let them gather dust at their HD?
they sell them as editorial RM.
Where are selling your editorial shots as RF. I think Alamy only allows editorial as RM.
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they sell them as editorial RM.
Where are selling your editorial shots as RF. I think Alamy only allows editorial as RM.
I'm only doing commercial RF now on Alamy. I wasn't aware they only have commercial RF and not Editorial RF. It was just a plan for now.
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Do photos.com DLs count toward obtaining a new canister level? If so, if some one was close to the next canister level it might make sense to temporarily opt into the partner program in hopes of making it to the next canister level before February 24th.
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they sell them as editorial RM.
Where are selling your editorial shots as RF. I think Alamy only allows editorial as RM.
I'm only doing commercial RF now on Alamy. I wasn't aware they only have commercial RF and not Editorial RF. It was just a plan for now.
Or perhaps more specifically any image with people in it that isn't released HAS to be uploaded as RM on Alamy. You could have pictures of say, a volcano erupting that would be editorial, but could still be uploaded as RF because it has no unreleased people in it.
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Or perhaps more specifically any image with people in it that isn't released HAS to be uploaded as RM on Alamy. You could have pictures of say, a volcano erupting that would be editorial, but could still be uploaded as RF because it has no unreleased people in it.
Ah thanks for the clarification. I would never upload Editorial for being too lazy to ask for a MRF, but only if the shot has some relevance and asking a MRF would be too cumbersome, like here (http://bit.ly/6cXftH). Although it's an OK shot at DT (level 3) and SS, I wonder if I shouldn't upload this kind of stuff to Alamy, as RM then.
In that case (to stay on topic), iStock wouldn't mind presumably. But imagine iStock ever does Editorial or Alamy allows RF Editorial...
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Let's say we have an exclusive contributer with 2000 downloads right now - lets call him Thor. Thor is currently a Bronze contributor earning 25% comissions. Thor won't make it to silver before February when they change the system. In March Thor reaches 2500 downloads. With the new system however, he stays at Bronze canister level 25% comission instead of getting silver and 30% comission. So from march 2010 onwards, iStock is getting 5% more of Thor's earnings than they would have without the change. that 5% would have been a 20% increase in earnings for Thor (5/20 = 20%).
make sense? iStock are taking a higher percentage of the sale whenever someone SHOULD have reached the next canister but didn't because of the change.
Yeah, thats the way it is. You can also think about it this way: IS will grab 5% from all the downloads from your current canister level till you reach diamond with the new canister levels. So for a gold exclusive member who won't reach diamond by Feb 24th it means 5% of earnings from 25000 downloads! And for a newbie just starting its 5% out of his 50000 downloads (assuming he will someday reach that many downloads). The numbers are only worse when you consider the numbers like Leaf did.
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Do photos.com DLs count toward obtaining a new canister level? If so, if some one was close to the next canister level it might make sense to temporarily opt into the partner program in hopes of making it to the next canister level before February 24th.
Nope.
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Admittedly I have not read past the first page at iStock, but I'm confused by this statement. If current canisters are being grandfathered in, how does that translate into a lowering of exclusive commissions. And what do you mean "and now won't move up to 30% (silver)" ... why wouldn't someone move up? (though it will take longer) and how is it a pay cut if they never had it?
Back in my day[/i], we had to have 500 downloads to be exclusive. ;) I was exclusive when they dropped the requirement to 250 and I remember being ticked about that. I wonder what percentage of relative newbies that signed up at 250 are now going to be stuck at bronze for a very very long time. I also wonder how many of that 125,000 monthly new members are becoming contributors.
You were ticked when others got a raise but taking away something that was promised (and written in your agreement) seems just fine? Don't you understand that you had the raise waiting there for you but it has been taken further? You think that changing agreement like that is fine? What if the next thing is to lower the caninsters by a level, would that also be fine?
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they sell them as editorial RM.
Where are selling your editorial shots as RF. I think Alamy only allows editorial as RM.
I'm only doing commercial RF now on Alamy. I wasn't aware they only have commercial RF and not Editorial RF. It was just a plan for now.
Same for me. I was planning to go exclusive with IS, now it might be a little more a clear choice. Though I think I can still submit editorial to Alamy, not sure as I don't remember. Anyway, when I'll be sure, I'll start to get into riots and sell those pics at Alamy
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Hopefully we will make it up in volume as the more cost-conscious buyers choose the cheaper non-exclusive files over exclusive ones.
This may be the case. In August of 2007, iStock raised prices and again in January of 2008 (at least for vectors). Before these raises, I was averaging about twice as many downloads per month in 2007 versus 2008. Downloads dropped off, but I was also making more with the raise. I don't know if it is price conscious or if companies have a fixed budget for images or maybe all the price savvy buyers just left iStock. Whatever the case, downloads were definitely affected by price in the past. I make more with iStock almost every month, but I'm still way below my most downloads month ever of 2007.
Also, I'm never going to get those precious 5 more uploads for gold. Maybe, iStock should use all their new wealth in 2010 and hire some f'n reviewers.
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Admittedly I have not read past the first page at iStock, but I'm confused by this statement. If current canisters are being grandfathered in, how does that translate into a lowering of exclusive commissions. And what do you mean "and now won't move up to 30% (silver)" ... why wouldn't someone move up? (though it will take longer) and how is it a pay cut if they never had it?
Back in my day, we had to have 500 downloads to be exclusive. ;) I was exclusive when they dropped the requirement to 250 and I remember being ticked about that. I wonder what percentage of relative newbies that signed up at 250 are now going to be stuck at bronze for a very very long time. I also wonder how many of that 125,000 monthly new members are becoming contributors.
You were ticked when others got a raise but taking away something that was promised (and written in your agreement) seems just fine? Don't you understand that you had the raise waiting there for you but it has been taken further? You think that changing agreement like that is fine? What if the next thing is to lower the caninsters by a level, would that also be fine?
Excuse me? I didn't say I was "just fine" with anything! I was asking Leaf to clarify his statement, since when I read the announcement, I did not see anything about a real paycut (a reduction of future earnings that someone may or may not have received in the first place is what we are talking here, and I did not give any opinion of what I think of that.)
I said I was ticked when they lowered the requirement to 250 in order to apply for exclusive. That has nothing to do with a raise. After having to wait until 500 when I applied, yeah, it didn't seem fair. How would you like it if you were on a job that earned you a week's vacation after a year, and then a new guy started and a couple months later they announced a policy that you only had to be there six months to get a week's vacation? Maybe you'd be thrilled for the guy and not be even the slightest bit annoyed. If so, good for you. You're a better person than most.
For your information I am no longer exclusive with istock, and I do not appreciate your presumptive attitude about things I never said.
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With new cannister levels they dont need to employ additional reviewers, maybe even kick few of them and keep they money in own pocket ;)
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Hi Race,
Don't count on that, there is a big factor in sales and image placement on the site. If you get buried under lots of new exclusives your sales will drop. Being non-exclusive does not remove you from this problem. You are also limited as to how many images you can upload, that will also effect sales.
Best,
Jonathan
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If you get buried under lots of new exclusives your sales will drop. Being non-exclusive does not remove you from this problem.
This is exactly my concern. There has always been a bias toward exclusive files in the best match, but up to now IS has had some incentive to keep non-exclusive content visible because they make more $ on it.
Now, by more than doubling the price of exclusive content, they stand to make more profit on it. There is now NO incentive for them to give any kind of decent search placement to non-exclusive content at all.
If they plan to jerry rig the best match against non-exclusive content then we can all kiss the volume of our sales at Istock goodbye.
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There has always been a bias toward exclusive files in the best match, but up to now IS has had some incentive to keep non-exclusive content visible because they make more $ on it.
Now, by more than doubling the price of exclusive content, they stand to make more profit on it. There is now NO incentive for them to give any kind of decent search placement to non-exclusive content at all.
If they plan to jerry rig the best match against non-exclusive content then we can all kiss the volume of our sales at Istock goodbye.
That's a very good point. Having said that I think the real focus here is all about the average percentage commission, not just the bottom-line, which must have been steadily rising as more exclusives attain higher levels. Sales from independent contributors help drive the average commission downwards hugely so maybe we don't have too much to worry about.
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Kelly Thompson is promising significant dollar increases to exclusives under the new deal.
There is one thing I want our exclusives to take away from this. We are confident that with the new Exclusive prices, you'll have the chance to see some significant increases in your payouts – more than enough to counterbalance any delay in your next 5% canister increase.
How many independents might now consider going exclusive on istock?
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If you get buried under lots of new exclusives your sales will drop. Being non-exclusive does not remove you from this problem.
This is exactly my concern. There has always been a bias toward exclusive files in the best match, but up to now IS has had some incentive to keep non-exclusive content visible because they make more $ on it.
Now, by more than doubling the price of exclusive content, they stand to make more profit on it. There is now NO incentive for them to give any kind of decent search placement to non-exclusive content at all.
If they plan to jerry rig the best match against non-exclusive content then we can all kiss the volume of our sales at Istock goodbye.
BINGO
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How many independents might now consider going exclusive on istock?
It's difficult not to at least consider it. My projections suggest that it could lead to as much as a 30% increase in revenue.
It's not a decision I'm looking forward to making though. Up to now it has been easy as the independent route was inherently more stable, less risky and you earned 20-25% more. All of a sudden that seems to have been turned on it's head. I just hope that the other major agencies can react accordingly to keep us interested.
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How many independents might now consider going exclusive on istock?
It's difficult not to at least consider it. My projections suggest that it could lead to as much as a 30% increase in revenue.
It's not a decision I'm looking forward to making though. Up to now it has been easy as the independent route was inherently more stable, less risky and you earned 20-25% more. All of a sudden that seems to have been turned on it's head. I just hope that the other major agencies can react accordingly to keep us interested.
Yep, same here.
For the first time, I'm giving serious consideration to going exclusive, despite how scary that seems to me.
Based on the new prices and my canister level, I would make at least double what I'm making now, and probably more. That's enough for my IS income to come close to matching what I make UL'ing to 8-10 agencies in total (for a bit less work, but far more risk).
I'm going to wait at least 6 months (obviously I have to), but exclusivity looks more attractive than it ever did before.
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I see alot of worry on the IStock forum from exclusives, but in my opinion, there shouldn't be. Lisa is exactly right, IStock now has more incentive to promote the exclusive collection, AND THEY WILL.
Look at the figures, they now stand to make MORE from exclusive photgrapher sales in all sales up to X-Large (which the majority of the sales fall within) and that is taking into account the exclusive is at the high end of 40%.
If the exclusive is at 30% they will make more from the exclusive at ALL image size sales.
I see them tweaking the best match to HEAVILY favor exclusives more than ever before. I'm sure their raising the canister levels is anticipation of alot more folks going exclusive when they do.
Independents are in for a shock IMHO. Thank god IStock makes up less than 1% of my earnings!
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Kelly Thompson is promising significant dollar increases to exclusives under the new deal.
There is one thing I want our exclusives to take away from this. We are confident that with the new Exclusive prices, you'll have the chance to see some significant increases in your payouts – more than enough to counterbalance any delay in your next 5% canister increase.
It's not a promise, it's an opportunity - we're taking a chance. We read into it what we like, e.g. the 'become exclusive' hype which says "you WILL see a difference" - and we all choose to assume it means a difference for the better.
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Kelly Thompson is promising significant dollar increases to exclusives under the new deal.
There is one thing I want our exclusives to take away from this. We are confident that with the new Exclusive prices, you'll have the chance to see some significant increases in your payouts – more than enough to counterbalance any delay in your next 5% canister increase.
How many independents might now consider going exclusive on istock?
Given the upending of long standing terms of the exclusivity deal with virtually no notice, you'd have to be really happy with high risk to go for exclusivity right now.
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I wouldn't feel comfortable going exclusive with IS. They are one of the most volatile sites. How could you trust them?
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BOHICA... wow, changing the canister goalposts is a really poor move. It sucked when Fot did it and it sucks when IS does it. what a bunch of greedy pigs. "hey, we're making money hand over fist (first part of statement) - sorry, we're going to have to keep more of it for ourselves (second part)."
Had IS done image exclusivity from the beginning (before the disambiguation and best match flip flops) they'd own most of the good content. You'd be nuts not to make any image that started getting decent sales on IS exclusive. I for one am underwhelmed with them now.
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As I said in a poll, "I'm only with IS because they make me money." There is NO WAY that I would EVER go exclusive with them! This announcement is insulting to non-exclusives, at best.
Why don't they do what they would really like to and make IS exclusive only?
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I don't think I will ever go exclusive with istock mainly because it would be a difficult time consuming and costly task to remove all my RF images from the other sites. It would be even worse getting them back on if I decided exclusivity wasn't working.
Some of the decisions istock have made don't fill me with confidence. Their subscriptions didn't work, I still don't understand what they are doing with photos.com and StockXpert and now they have followed a bad move by fotolia in raising the canister levels. They do have good sales and that keeps me interested for now but there have been a few times in the past when my sales have slumped there and I am so pleased I have other places to sell my images.
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Why don't they do what they would really like to and make IS exclusive only?
i've wondered about this too. but in this latest announcement, they made it clear that they need to cater to the cheaper end of the market (after listening to their customer wants) and voila, we independents fit the bill. i guess the istock exclusives who are not yet vetta enough are like the middle class being squeezed everywhere.
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I had always wanted to go exclusive with IS. But this new announcement has reminded me how vulnerable you will become once you put all eggs in one basket.
On the surface, IS is said to want to enhance the earnings for the exclusives. But the bottom line is always the company's bottom line, and never that of the contributors. Who do you trust? Bruce? He's gone, K Thompson? Will he be there forever? Who will filfull the promises? Who carries more weight in the decision making process? The corporate board and shareholders? Or contributors? Think clearly.
Another point is, it's sad that some of the exclusive colleagues thought they could always gain at the expense of their non-exclusive colleagues. As the exclusive pool gets larger, sooner or later they would have to fight for their own survivals. Can Istock afford so many exclusives in the long run? Are the exclusive images really far more superior than non-exclusives? Another reality check.
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Why don't they do what they would really like to and make IS exclusive only?
It's clear to me that they have been on the path to exclusive only ever since Getty bought the company. Every move they have made leads in that direction and they haven't come right out and done it in one swoop because financially it makes better sense to do exactly what they are doing. But one way or another you can believe that that is the final goal.
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Which strikes me as odd because Getty were the ones who freed us from agency/photographer exclusive agreements when they bought Image Bank and others, and we became image exclusive...now it seems they are heading back to the dark ages of servitude.
Why don't they do what they would really like to and make IS exclusive only?
It's clear to me that they have been on the path to exclusive only ever since Getty bought the company. Every move they have made leads in that direction and they haven't come right out and done it in one swoop because financially it makes better sense to do exactly what they are doing. But one way or another you can believe that that is the final goal.
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I don't think they are looking to go exclusive only. Their customers know the non-exclusives are on the other sites and istock would lose lots of money if they removed them. Perhaps they could of done it a few years ago but it looks too late now.
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Hi Race,
Don't count on that, there is a big factor in sales and image placement on the site. If you get buried under lots of new exclusives your sales will drop. Being non-exclusive does not remove you from this problem. You are also limited as to how many images you can upload, that will also effect sales.
Best,
Jonathan
You need to consider the source. I hardly ever have more than 12 new images in a week. If I do, I can wait, because the next week, I may have nothing new. Upload limits are not an issue for a low volume non-exclusive contributor. (hobbiest) My sales are pretty consistent on IS and SS. Nothing special but there are some people who may want them or need them. It's not like I do anything with business people, headsets, handshakes or model releases. I have one model released photo and that's of my Mother, Christmas 2008. I may do another one in April of 2010.
For other "nons", it may make a difference, but for me, the new scheme changes nothing. The people who will be effected in more ways will be the exclusives.
For those reasons I've told myself to butt out of the discussion of pay cuts, lost commissions and adverse canister changes.
As for increased sales for Non-Exclusive, someone using the beta picture scanning software, that finds original copyright owner and sources posted this comment.
I see interesting results at iStockphoto. Hardly any non exclusive pics on the front pages, loads and loads at the end of the searches.
Who's at the front of the searches? Exclusives.
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I can not see anywhere in the statement : Can you still become exclusive with 250 downloads or is it 500 now? Because, if it is 500 downloads now, a lot of newbies will give up of this idea and start uploading to all other sites. And once they reach 500 dls, it will be harder to decide to become exclusive because they have to go through all this hard work of deleting pictures from other sites.
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I can not see anywhere in the statement : Can you still become exclusive with 250 downloads or is it 500 now? Because, if it is 500 downloads now, a lot of newbies will give up of this idea and start uploading to all other sites. And once they reach 500 dls, it will be harder to decide to become exclusive because they have to go through all this hard work of deleting pictures from other sites.
It is 250 now, but 500 after the Feb change. It's been stated several times on that 1000+ post thread.
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Like them or hate them you have to admit that iStock are constantly trying to raise the bar, time will tell what effect this has on non-exclusives but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:
"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."
You can read that two ways but I'm hoping they are going to (at long last and not before time) allow us independents to submit a selection of exclusive images (with perks) as appose to total exclusivity, if that were the case I would seriously consider making them the only 'microstock' agency I submit to.
If they would allow image exclusivity I would probably stop uploading to other micro agencies and send all my future images to iStock ONLY. This is what I can not do now because photographer exclusivity is not a real option. We will see. It would be a VERY logical move for them.
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I agree with that, image specific exclusivity would be very tempting on the iStock front. I just think it would be too difficult for them to police, should some people be tempted to put similar but not identical images up elsewhere. I think that is the main reason we see them sweetening the pot for all-out exclusives, and I expect we will never see the oh-so-desirable image exclusivity at iStock. Its just too hard to make sure people aren't cheating with piecemeal exclusivity.
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I agree with that, image specific exclusivity would be very tempting on the iStock front. I just think it would be too difficult for them to police, should some people be tempted to put similar but not identical images up elsewhere. I think that is the main reason we see them sweetening the pot for all-out exclusives, and I expect we will never see the oh-so-desirable image exclusivity at iStock. Its just too hard to make sure people aren't cheating with piecemeal exclusivity.
It'll never happen. The exclusivity programme was brought in to twart the emerging competition and the same objectives still apply.
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Image exclusivity will give Istock the true monopoly of the best images in the market.
However tiime and time again, big agencies, be it Getty/Istock, SS, FT, DT or Alamy, have proven that the agreements are only binding on the contributors, and they have the disrection to change the agreement as they see fit.
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This thread is so cheerful.
Merry Christmas :)
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How many independents might now consider going exclusive on istock?
I think most here had the same observation: what flies at one site gets buried at another, and vice versa. Since the images and tags are the same, this can only be explained by search engine placement and search algorithm. Let's face it, when a buyer is looking for a concept, he takes the first image that will do, and he won't crawl (at the expense of costly time) through all the images in the hope to find a marginally better one that is buried.
Being independent and be present on all selling microstock sites gives the best chance to all your images. Being exclusive means that you run the risk that very good images stay buried as you are at the mercy of one particular search engine with its unavoidable idiosyncrasies. So, no, no exclusivity, certainly not at iStock. You can't even sell your images directly (it happens) and your rejected ones are a total loss. Exclusivity on a per-image base would make more sense, on condition that they are pimped in the search engine.
Moreover, with earnings like 1:2:3 on IS:DT:SS, an increase in commission on IS wouldn't make up for the loss on other sites. The picture might be different for those independents that have most of their income already at IS.
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what flies at one site gets buried at another, and vice versa.
I agree. It is always amusing for me to look at what sells best for me on the different sites. I also like being independent because if any site tries too hard to screw me, I can always remove my images from there and only lose a portion of my stock income rather than all of it.
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I might consider it if I was already at the Diamond level. As it is I'm a good 5800 off of that mark, so 33,000 to go makes that a lot less attractive given that many of my iStock sales came in the earlier years. There is no way to estimate how much your sales will increase by going exclusive, and there is no way to estimate how much your sales may drop by staying independent. We simply won't know anything until it rolls around and we see how things change.
That's just how iStock works, sometimes changes are good, sometimes bad, and sometimes everything changes with no net differences in the results, but you never know for sure until it happens. So ebb and flow, wait and see, F5, yadda yadda yadda.
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Never is a long time. I try to never use the word : )
J
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How many independents might now consider going exclusive on istock?
Not a chance. They'd have to jack up the exclusive prices a hell of a lot more in order for it to make any financial sense for me to go exclusive.
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And if they put up prices too much, it will reduce the number of sales. I don't think most buyers are that bothered about image exclusivity, they buy lots from non-exclusives and the other sites. If they really want to know how many times an image has sold and how it has been used, they need to look at RM.
I don't understand the excuse that they can't track exclusive images. They seem to be able to find images on other sites when someone wants to go exclusive. Getty have image exclusivity, so istock can as well. Some people will abuse the system but 99% will know that will be a costly mistake, if they get caught and their portfolio is removed from istock. I don't think it would be a big problem.
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I'm honestly pretty gutted about the canister changes. I've been working hard to reach gold (currently at 8412) and was all set to hit 10k around March-April next year.
For a long time I'd been thinking about the real possibility of going exclusive once I was gold due to the royalty increase, but the new canister levels will mean it's now going to be years until I reach a gold canister. iStock have pretty much guaranteed I won't be going exclusive as a result.
If they'd given a 6 month notice period for the changes, it would have given those close to the next canister a real opportunity to work hard and reach it :'(
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I can not see anywhere in the statement : Can you still become exclusive with 250 downloads or is it 500 now? Because, if it is 500 downloads now, a lot of newbies will give up of this idea and start uploading to all other sites. And once they reach 500 dls, it will be harder to decide to become exclusive because they have to go through all this hard work of deleting pictures from other sites.
It is 250 now, but 500 after the Feb change. It's been stated several times on that 1000+ post thread.
Nice one, just when I was getting close to 250 after more than a year :)
IS is incredibly slow for me. They dont like me. But I like them somehow...
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IS is incredibly slow for me. They dont like me. But I like them somehow...
Shoot less street lamps and more models doing something ;)
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There are a lot of simple vector, type and raster graphics that IS won't take. Those would be gone completely if I went exclusive.
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There are a lot of simple vector, type and raster graphics that IS won't take. Those would be gone completely if I went exclusive.
True they should open their mind on that a little bit. Especially on rasters. I know Dreamstime accept work from superb raster artist and this make them a little more a special agency to look at.
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If they'd given a 6 month notice period for the changes, it would have given those close to the next canister a real opportunity to work hard and reach it :'(
I agree with what you're saying, but "close" is so relative.
When you're talking about Gold or Diamond, the new distances are so much further than the previous that even 6-months time is not enough.
They stated they knew they "had" to do this, but have been delaying it. Well, that's their huge mistake. What they needed to have done was, when they first figured out they had to do it, to do it , for new accounts. So anyone signing up after Mar 1, 2007, or whatever, would've been subjected to the new rules, and everyone already signed up would be grandfathered in. That was the only fair way to do something like this. But obviously they do not care about fair; it's simply a business decision that needed to be implemented.
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I wouldn't be surprised if they modify the changes they announced for the canister levels. It seems that the sites often give us really bad news, receive a huge negative reaction, make a small change for the better and then most people think they have been reasonable. It has happened a few times now and is starting to look like a deliberate ploy.
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I wouldn't be surprised if they modify the changes they announced for the canister levels. It seems that the sites often give us really bad news, receive a huge negative reaction, make a small change for the better and then most people think they have been reasonable. It has happened a few times now and is starting to look like a deliberate ploy.
That would actually make sense. They double the canister levels thinking that they'll have to bargain down.
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IS is incredibly slow for me. They dont like me. But I like them somehow...
Shoot less street lamps and more models doing something ;)
I abandoned street lamps a year ago and am using myself as model... we'll see how it goes :D
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IS is incredibly slow for me. They dont like me. But I like them somehow...
Shoot less street lamps and more models doing something ;)
I abandoned street lamps a year ago and am using myself as model... we'll see how it goes :D
dont give up the street lamps. I hear they are going to be huge in 2010 ;)
I know I have a few I am hopping will finally pay off.
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I wouldn't be surprised if they modify the changes they announced for the canister levels. It seems that the sites often give us really bad news, receive a huge negative reaction, make a small change for the better and then most people think they have been reasonable. It has happened a few times now and is starting to look like a deliberate ploy.
I think they will modify it also...I don't know that I would say it is a malicious ploy, more of a testing the waters scenario
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dont give up the street lamps. I hear they are going to be huge in 2010 ;)
I know I have a few I am hopping will finally pay off.
thanks for the heads up, guys. i'm going to try and get in on the action before it really heats up. :D
actually, i've been into football stadium lights lately, but i send them to the more arty sites.
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more of a testing the waters scenario
They're taking a page from politicians...run it up the flagpole and see if it flys. If the masses revolt, give something back to them and look like the hero. Psychology 101.
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I wouldn't be surprised if they modify the changes they announced for the canister levels. It seems that the sites often give us really bad news, receive a huge negative reaction, make a small change for the better and then most people think they have been reasonable. It has happened a few times now and is starting to look like a deliberate ploy.
I think they will modify it also...I don't know that I would say it is a malicious ploy, more of a testing the waters scenario
Yup, that's my take too. They already know the numbers they are going with, but they throw out an exponetially higher number so when they bring it back down, they look like the good guys. It's actually quite effective.
I'm very curious to see how big the hit will be independents with these changes. The best match dial is going to be turned so far towards exclusives, it will be like nothing ever experienced before. Independents look out!
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Not sure if people saw this:
I've edited the "Quick Facts" post to remove the part about filtering the different collections. I also added this:
Q: Will people be able to filter out normal Exclusive images or illustrations from searches?
No. The standard Exclusive content will show up in all searches.
So basically even less joy for non-exclusives.
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I'm very curious to see how big the hit will be independents with these changes. The best match dial is going to be turned so far towards exclusives, it will be like nothing ever experienced before. Independents look out!
this doesn't make sense though. if one of their goals is to broaden their less expensive collection, it doesn't help the buyer if they can't find it.
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They're taking a page from politicians...run it up the flagpole and see if it flys. If the masses revolt, give something back to them and look like the hero. Psychology 101.
I wouldn't necessarily assume that this is just a test, that they are worried about a revolt. Things like this have happened before, where istock makes a big change and the forums blow up for a few days. In the end, things settle down and usually everyone just gets on with life. This could go the same way. Regardless of the public outcry, istock can do whatever they want and really there isn't much anyone can do about it. They can push this new policy through and contributors have little choice but to accept it or take their business elsewhere. And frankly, I think istock knows what we all know but don't want to admit; that the exclusives aren't going to drop exclusivity over this. I think istock could drop canisters altogether and the contributor landscape at istock would look pretty much the same the next day. No one would quit, few people would drop exclusivity, contributors would just get over it and move on.
I'm not betting on istock conceding anything to the masses in this one. They stand to make a hell of a lot more money from their exclusives by delaying canister increases and jacking up image prices, and it'll be hard to convince any of the upper brass that they should scale this thing back and not rake in all that extra cash. I bet they go through with the whole plan as-is.
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It seems that the sites often give us really bad news, receive a huge negative reaction, make a small change for the better and then most people think they have been reasonable.
Did they get negative reaction? When I read the thread it was all about "well done" and "yiipie".
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It seems that the sites often give us really bad news, receive a huge negative reaction, make a small change for the better and then most people think they have been reasonable.
Did they get negative reaction? When I read the thread it was all about "well done" and "yiipie".
Did you read it 2 seconds after the initial post? Cause it is anything but "well done" and "yiipie".
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I'm very curious to see how big the hit will be independents with these changes. The best match dial is going to be turned so far towards exclusives, it will be like nothing ever experienced before. Independents look out!
As I've said before I think this is all about reducing the average percentage commission which must have been rising inexorably as more exclusives achieve higher canister levels. Sales of independent images help keep this figure down so it would be self-defeating to hammer us too much. Certainly they'll want to promote the the more expensive collections, like Vetta and Exclusive Plus, but hopefully we won't be disadvantaged beyond that.
Also there are many independents who produce popular images that they buyers want so if they are hidden too far back then it may reduce the perceived quality of the collection. Additionally Istock want the best independents to sign up for exclusivity so if they artificially reduce their sales then it is going to appear a less attractive option financially.
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October '08 I think it was that istock decided to encourage contributors who were 'sitting on the fence' (rogermexico's term I think) about exclusivity by favouring best match even more towards exclusives than usual. istock dropped to number 5 position on that poll over on the right, independents got totally hammered, and exclusives still remember those heady days when the dls never stopped. I think that's what's about to happen again.
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The great thing about being non-exclusive is that no individual site has a huge impact on my earnings. I have experienced big swings with istock before and I just concentrate more on the other sites when my sales are poor. None of us really know how these changes will impact us, I will wait and see but if they reduce my earnings too far, I wont waste my time uploading new images.
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dont give up the street lamps. I hear they are going to be huge in 2010 ;)
I know I have a few I am hopping will finally pay off.
I won't promise. After all I love to shoot what I dont have to talk to :D
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October '08 I think it was that istock decided to encourage contributors who were 'sitting on the fence' (rogermexico's term I think) about exclusivity by favouring best match even more towards exclusives than usual. istock dropped to number 5 position on that poll over on the right, independents got totally hammered, and exclusives still remember those heady days when the dls never stopped. I think that's what's about to happen again.
If your sales plummet at Istock then surely it is going to make you less likely to go exclusive isn't it? You can only project future revenues based on historical earnings and that's difficult enough to assess reliably without assuming some unquantifiable best match 'boost factor' that you may or may not gain as an exclusive.
The huge swings of fortune that Istock created in the past with their crass modifications to the best match is probably the biggest factor in my remaining independent. I can cope with the seasonal swings to my income but I'm extremely reluctant to lay it all on the line whilst some unknown developer meddles and experiments with unknown outcomes.
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Given the upending of long standing terms of the exclusivity deal with virtually no notice, you'd have to be really happy with high risk to go for exclusivity right now.
I wouldn't feel comfortable going exclusive with IS. They are one of the most volatile sites. How could you trust them?
I am a couple pages back trying to catch up with this thread, but Epantha and JSnover sum up my feelings on this exactly.
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I abandoned street lamps a year ago and am using myself as model... we'll see how it goes :D
I like your girls better. ;D
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They stated they knew they "had" to do this, but have been delaying it. Well, that's their huge mistake. What they needed to have done was, when they first figured out they had to do it, to do it , for new accounts. So anyone signing up after Mar 1, 2007, or whatever, would've been subjected to the new rules, and everyone already signed up would be grandfathered in.
This is so EXACTLY what Fotolia did that it seems obvious IS realized this "had" to be done when Fotolia did this (Nov. 2008) and got away with it.
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October '08 I think it was that istock decided to encourage contributors who were 'sitting on the fence' (rogermexico's term I think) about exclusivity by favouring best match even more towards exclusives than usual. istock dropped to number 5 position on that poll over on the right, independents got totally hammered, and exclusives still remember those heady days when the dls never stopped. I think that's what's about to happen again.
I think Avril is right about this. My sales the last several days would seem to indicate the tap for non-exclusives has already been turned WAY down.
I do think Gostwyck is right, though, that this will backfire as a motivator to get independents to go exclusive. The lower my sales at IS, the less likely I would ever be to consider exclusivity. In fact the gutting of my sales in last year's best match was when I finally stopped torturing myself with the question of whether or not to go exclusive.
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I think Avril is right about this. My sales the last several days would seem to indicate the tap for non-exclusives has already been turned WAY down.
Yep, I also noticed a significant drop in sales starting on Monday of this week. I hate it when they make these radical changes and expect us to just say nothing about it and the last thing I'd do is drop all my other sites and put all my work with IS. Just not sensible or practical.
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Did you read it 2 seconds after the initial post? Cause it is anything but "well done" and "yiipie".
I read the first page. The first page has basically support for the changes - including "wows" and "well dones", a few mild complaints about the cannister level changes. Complaints when FT changed were far more incisive.
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I don't think this is really about exclusives vs non- exclusives. The more I look about it, the more I think its about increasing Istock (Getty's) margins in time for a sale.
Basically the increase in price of exclusives' images is to offset the cut in canister levels and try to keep them happy, while hiding the fact that they've actually increased prices massively for buyers. IS will be winning through higher file prices, and from lower royalty payments - exactly the way FT did.
Overall I think the move is bad for buyers and bad for contributors - exclusive and non-exclusive alike.
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October '08 I think it was that istock decided to encourage contributors who were 'sitting on the fence' (rogermexico's term I think) about exclusivity by favouring best match even more towards exclusives than usual. istock dropped to number 5 position on that poll over on the right, independents got totally hammered, and exclusives still remember those heady days when the dls never stopped. I think that's what's about to happen again.
I think Avril is right about this. My sales the last several days would seem to indicate the tap for non-exclusives has already been turned WAY down.
I do think Gostwyck is right, though, that this will backfire as a motivator to get independents to go exclusive. The lower my sales at IS, the less likely I would ever be to consider exclusivity. In fact the gutting of my sales in last year's best match was when I finally stopped torturing myself with the question of whether or not to go exclusive.
Stop it Lisa! You know we're coming to the end of the Christmas rush.
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Did you read it 2 seconds after the initial post? Cause it is anything but "well done" and "yiipie".
I read the first page. The first page has basically support for the changes - including "wows" and "well dones", a few mild complaints about the cannister level changes. Complaints when FT changed were far more incisive.
Looks to me like it started to blowup around post 11, guess you didn't read that far down.
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I think Avril is right about this. My sales the last several days would seem to indicate the tap for non-exclusives has already been turned WAY down.
Yep, I also noticed a significant drop in sales starting on Monday of this week. I hate it when they make these radical changes and expect us to just say nothing about it and the last thing I'd do is drop all my other sites and put all my work with IS. Just not sensible or practical.
I've been having a very good week so far, so I'm not sure there's any conclusion we can draw. Probably just the normal ebb & flow.
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I think Avril is right about this. My sales the last several days would seem to indicate the tap for non-exclusives has already been turned WAY down.
Yep, I also noticed a significant drop in sales starting on Monday of this week. I hate it when they make these radical changes and expect us to just say nothing about it and the last thing I'd do is drop all my other sites and put all my work with IS. Just not sensible or practical.
I've been having a very good week so far, so I'm not sure there's any conclusion we can draw. Probably just the normal ebb & flow.
Same here, not noticed anything bad happening yet. I had a bit of a slow down this time last year on the run up to Christmas.
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Yep, I also noticed a significant drop in sales starting on Monday of this week.
Well this might be ebb and flow. I had an unusual good week at IS, when IS normally is far behind DT and especially IS. At the moment, my December $ count for IS is the same as DT, also because DT went dead for me the last 3 days. As I assumed, the best match changes that should favor exclusives at IS were announced, but not implemented yet. So maybe it's just the time of year.
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Mine are off 50% from last week and the previous months have been pretty steady. So lets see, three long term independent contributors are seeing significant drops, and two relatively low volume/newer contributors are seeing much improvement. I'd say that is pretty suggestive that something has been changed to encourage the newer independents to hop on the exclusivity bandwagon. Look how great IS is doing for you now! Pie. F5.
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So lets see, three long term independent contributors are seeing significant drops, and two relatively low volume/newer contributors are seeing much improvement.
I'm low volume, but not new. I'm on iStock since 2005, although I neglected them after the CV mid-2006. As far as I know, only SS favors new contributors.
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Yep, I also noticed a significant drop in sales starting on Monday of this week.
Well this might be ebb and flow. I had an unusual good week at IS, when IS normally is far behind DT and especially IS. At the moment, my December $ count for IS is the same as DT, also because DT went dead for me the last 3 days. As I assumed, the best match changes that should favor exclusives at IS were announced, but not implemented yet. So maybe it's just the time of year.
Not sure that adding one more annecdote makes data, but I haven't seen any huge spike in sales in the last week or two. It's been an exceedingly good November and December, but it's continuing to be great at the same level - no noticeable change in the last few days.
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The more I read it, the more I realize one thing: IS has to reduce the percentage from the exclusives in order to make more profit. For the independents, it doesn't matter if you are base or black diamond, you make the same amount. Yes independents can upload a few more as the level goes up, but the more they sell as independents, the bigger IS profit margin will become.
However, it willl not be a smart strategy for IS to admit this. Besides it wants to create the myth that the exclusive contents make IS very unique. The exclusives have few options because what can you do? Even if you dump your clown, you won't be able to boost your ports with other agencies in a short time to compensate the loss of the clown.
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iStock get a minimum of 60% gross profit and say it is unsustainable, what a joke. The worse thing is there is nothing contributors can do without hurting themselves more than iStock.
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Did you read it 2 seconds after the initial post? Cause it is anything but "well done" and "yiipie".
I read the first page. The first page has basically support for the changes - including "wows" and "well dones", a few mild complaints about the cannister level changes. Complaints when FT changed were far more incisive.
Looks to me like it started to blowup around post 11, guess you didn't read that far down.
Yeah, the thread is well over 70 pages long now. I'd say you should read a little more before declaring it a woo yay thread. It's far from that.
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If the buyers can't sort between the regular collection and the exclusive collection, then they are going to be seeing a mix of prices on the images, which I would think they would find very annoying, and if they can sort some way or even tell which is which without zooming, then it could greatly pump up independent sales. Maybe some of them will realize that the cheaper images are available even cheaper elsewhere... Somehow I doubt most IS buyers are that price concious though.
I fear they will tweak the best match even more against independents though, and my slow sales will crawl to a virtual standstill. I can't see how all this monkeying would make me want to become exclusive though, they are just showing how they are fickle and don't respect the contributors. What next, automatic opt in of all content to Jupiter Unlimited with 10c/ download payout?
Hopefully the price increases will trickle across to all the sites and overall income will go up.
I suppose we shall see what happens, but I get the impression that short term gains are what IS is looking for now.
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I suppose we shall see what happens, but I get the impression that short term gains are what IS is looking for now.
Short term gains. You may have hit the nail on the head there. I read some speculation in that monster thread that this could be Getty's effort to increase short term profits in preparation for a sale. Could just be another conspiracy theory, but it does sound plausible...
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To me this seems more and more like a big push in a campaign that istock has quietly pursued for years. They've always said that they want more exclusive content. They dropped the minimum threshold for exclusivity to get more people on board early on. They push exclusive images in the search results (and will even more now under this new plan). They shook up the best match last year to even more heavily favor exclusive images and the non-exclusive sales tanked. In a perfect istock world, they would only have exclusive artists.
The message to independents seems to be "Go exclusive or we'll keep murdering your sales." The problem is that the more they slam my sales, the less I'm inclined to even look at exclusivity. A couple of years ago, I gave it serious thought. Before the best match shake, I gave it some moderate consideration. After the shake, I dropped the idea. Now I can only think, "Are they insane? They must think I hate money. Why would I ever choose exclusivity now?"
And I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought. What the istock brass fail to realize is that despite this effort to entice independent artists to finally become exclusive to istock, this move only further pushes independents away.
I can only imagine the competing agencies breathing a collective sigh of relief and saying, "Oh thank you, istock, for guaranteeing that our top sellers stay independent." This new istock plan keeps the competitors in business for years to come. Heck, maybe I should be thanking istock. My sales there will surely suffer next year, but maybe this opens the door for new growth among the competition.
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There may be some, though, who take the attitude if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Particularly if increased payouts close the gap financially.
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If the buyers can't sort between the regular collection and the exclusive collection, then they are going to be seeing a mix of prices on the images, which I would think they would find very annoying, and if they can sort some way or even tell which is which without zooming, then it could greatly pump up independent sales. Maybe some of them will realize that the cheaper images are available even cheaper elsewhere... Somehow I doubt most IS buyers are that price concious though.
Not cost conscious?
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=150701&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=150701&page=1) "This thread has been locked."
Lower prices on non-exclusive images could backfire on IS and the exclusives and have the opposite effect than that intended: increased sales for non-exclusives. Then IS will have to re-stack the deck yet again to give more advantatges to its pets.
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I find the new numbers enticing to become exclusive. I have a while to think about it because of the lock in at Dreamstime, but I'm definitely going to look at it again. I'd like to see how the new prices play out first though. Also, I'll have to reread the exclusive contract. Some of the wording in that thing scares me.
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To me this seems more and more like a big push in a campaign that istock has quietly pursued for years. They've always said that they want more exclusive content. They dropped the minimum threshold for exclusivity to get more people on board early on. They push exclusive images in the search results (and will even more now under this new plan). They shook up the best match last year to even more heavily favor exclusive images and the non-exclusive sales tanked. In a perfect istock world, they would only have exclusive artists.
The message to independents seems to be "Go exclusive or we'll keep murdering your sales." The problem is that the more they slam my sales, the less I'm inclined to even look at exclusivity. A couple of years ago, I gave it serious thought. Before the best match shake, I gave it some moderate consideration. After the shake, I dropped the idea. Now I can only think, "Are they insane? They must think I hate money. Why would I ever choose exclusivity now?"
And I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought. What the istock brass fail to realize is that despite this effort to entice independent artists to finally become exclusive to istock, this move only further pushes independents away.
I can only imagine the competing agencies breathing a collective sigh of relief and saying, "Oh thank you, istock, for guaranteeing that our top sellers stay independent." This new istock plan keeps the competitors in business for years to come. Heck, maybe I should be thanking istock. My sales there will surely suffer next year, but maybe this opens the door for new growth among the competition.
Just think, if they were willing to push Exclusive content hard before this change, when they were making MORE money on independent content, just imagine what they will do after this change when every single sale with the excpetion of xx-large (from diamond exclusives), xxx-large (from diamond excluisves), and xxx-large (from gold exclusives) will net IStock MORE than their independent couterparts.
And this doesn't even take into consideration Vetta, and Premium Plus, if customers don't filter that out, which will net IStock A LOT more that independent files.
If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.
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Mine are off 50% from last week and the previous months have been pretty steady. So lets see, three long term independent contributors are seeing significant drops, and two relatively low volume/newer contributors are seeing much improvement. I'd say that is pretty suggestive that something has been changed to encourage the newer independents to hop on the exclusivity bandwagon. Look how great IS is doing for you now! Pie. F5.
I would say it is statistically insignificant. We would need a much bigger sample size to know if it meant anything and if independents sales had been cut significantly, there would probably be a big thread about it here by now. There is also the seasonal fluctuations, every year we seem to see stronger sales in Autumn and a winter slow down.
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To me this seems more and more like a big push in a campaign that istock has quietly pursued for years. They've always said that they want more exclusive content. They dropped the minimum threshold for exclusivity to get more people on board early on. They push exclusive images in the search results (and will even more now under this new plan). They shook up the best match last year to even more heavily favor exclusive images and the non-exclusive sales tanked. In a perfect istock world, they would only have exclusive artists.
The message to independents seems to be "Go exclusive or we'll keep murdering your sales." The problem is that the more they slam my sales, the less I'm inclined to even look at exclusivity. A couple of years ago, I gave it serious thought. Before the best match shake, I gave it some moderate consideration. After the shake, I dropped the idea. Now I can only think, "Are they insane? They must think I hate money. Why would I ever choose exclusivity now?"
And I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought. What the istock brass fail to realize is that despite this effort to entice independent artists to finally become exclusive to istock, this move only further pushes independents away.
I can only imagine the competing agencies breathing a collective sigh of relief and saying, "Oh thank you, istock, for guaranteeing that our top sellers stay independent." This new istock plan keeps the competitors in business for years to come. Heck, maybe I should be thanking istock. My sales there will surely suffer next year, but maybe this opens the door for new growth among the competition.
Just think, if they were willing to push Exclusive content hard before this change, when they were making MORE money on independent content, just imagine what they will do after this change when every single sale with the excpetion of xx-large (from diamond exclusives), xxx-large (from diamond excluisves), and xxx-large (from gold exclusives) will net IStock MORE than their independent couterparts.
And this doesn't even take into consideration Vetta, and Premium Plus, if customers don't filter that out, which will net IStock A LOT more that independent files.
If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.
But if they hit independents too hard, they will stop using istock and a lot of the buyers will find istock's prices too high and will go to the other sites. We would lose sales with istock but make more on the other sites. They must know that, so I don't think they can afford to be too aggressive.
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I haven't noticed a drop in downloads in IS in the last few days - the last 2 weeks were down, but this week they're back up again.
I don't think the results of one or 2 independents are enough to draw any conclusions about whether there have been changes to the formula based on this vs exclusivity at the moment. We really need a much larger sample to draw data from.
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If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.
Absolutely. We are really getting boned on this. To be honest, from a purely financial viewpoint, IS will have finally closed the earning gap between being independent vs. exclusive.
Currently (accounting for the exclusive bonus) I make 20% more by being independent. With the changes at IS, if I were to go exclusive I would almost certainly make up that 20% and quite possibly make even more.
OTOH if I continue to be independent and my sales at IS tank I am looking at a fairly large net loss. With a daughter headed to (an expensive private) college I don't know how much of a hit I can afford.
I am still very distrustful of putting all my eggs in one basket - particularly the Getty family basket. But with the monetary incentive to be independent gone it may be harder to hold out. After 5 years building a 5k plus portfolio, I am definitely NOT in this to lose money.
I expect I will not be the only diamond level non-exclusive who is watching to see if the other sites are willing to do something to make it financially viable to stay independent.
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Sorry, most of my post was in jest :) Hence the pie and F5 reference. Too subtle, my apologies.
I'm kind of in agreement with Lisa, I don't like the eggs in one basket approach, but clearing the same revenue without the hassle of dealing with multiple sites does have its appeal.
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To me this seems more and more like a big push in a campaign that istock has quietly pursued for years. They've always said that they want more exclusive content. They dropped the minimum threshold for exclusivity to get more people on board early on. They push exclusive images in the search results (and will even more now under this new plan). They shook up the best match last year to even more heavily favor exclusive images and the non-exclusive sales tanked. In a perfect istock world, they would only have exclusive artists.
The message to independents seems to be "Go exclusive or we'll keep murdering your sales." The problem is that the more they slam my sales, the less I'm inclined to even look at exclusivity. A couple of years ago, I gave it serious thought. Before the best match shake, I gave it some moderate consideration. After the shake, I dropped the idea. Now I can only think, "Are they insane? They must think I hate money. Why would I ever choose exclusivity now?"
And I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought. What the istock brass fail to realize is that despite this effort to entice independent artists to finally become exclusive to istock, this move only further pushes independents away.
I can only imagine the competing agencies breathing a collective sigh of relief and saying, "Oh thank you, istock, for guaranteeing that our top sellers stay independent." This new istock plan keeps the competitors in business for years to come. Heck, maybe I should be thanking istock. My sales there will surely suffer next year, but maybe this opens the door for new growth among the competition.
Just think, if they were willing to push Exclusive content hard before this change, when they were making MORE money on independent content, just imagine what they will do after this change when every single sale with the excpetion of xx-large (from diamond exclusives), xxx-large (from diamond excluisves), and xxx-large (from gold exclusives) will net IStock MORE than their independent couterparts.
And this doesn't even take into consideration Vetta, and Premium Plus, if customers don't filter that out, which will net IStock A LOT more that independent files.
If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.
But if they hit independents too hard, they will stop using istock and a lot of the buyers will find istock's prices too high and will go to the other sites. We would lose sales with istock but make more on the other sites. They must know that, so I don't think they can afford to be too aggressive.
I don't think the buyers are really sweating the prices, I know I don't. Fact most of the designers I know Istock is the 2nd stop when looking for images 1st stop being Getty. Why? higher cost higher markup more profit for them. 1$ 2$ 3$ more it's still dirt cheap to buy images from istock. I know each time the prices go up some buyers freak out, but in the end each year you make more money. If I was an independent I'd be getting very worried about now, time we tell.
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To me this seems more and more like a big push in a campaign that istock has quietly pursued for years. They've always said that they want more exclusive content. They dropped the minimum threshold for exclusivity to get more people on board early on. They push exclusive images in the search results (and will even more now under this new plan). They shook up the best match last year to even more heavily favor exclusive images and the non-exclusive sales tanked. In a perfect istock world, they would only have exclusive artists.
The message to independents seems to be "Go exclusive or we'll keep murdering your sales." The problem is that the more they slam my sales, the less I'm inclined to even look at exclusivity. A couple of years ago, I gave it serious thought. Before the best match shake, I gave it some moderate consideration. After the shake, I dropped the idea. Now I can only think, "Are they insane? They must think I hate money. Why would I ever choose exclusivity now?"
And I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought. What the istock brass fail to realize is that despite this effort to entice independent artists to finally become exclusive to istock, this move only further pushes independents away.
I can only imagine the competing agencies breathing a collective sigh of relief and saying, "Oh thank you, istock, for guaranteeing that our top sellers stay independent." This new istock plan keeps the competitors in business for years to come. Heck, maybe I should be thanking istock. My sales there will surely suffer next year, but maybe this opens the door for new growth among the competition.
Just think, if they were willing to push Exclusive content hard before this change, when they were making MORE money on independent content, just imagine what they will do after this change when every single sale with the excpetion of xx-large (from diamond exclusives), xxx-large (from diamond excluisves), and xxx-large (from gold exclusives) will net IStock MORE than their independent couterparts.
And this doesn't even take into consideration Vetta, and Premium Plus, if customers don't filter that out, which will net IStock A LOT more that independent files.
If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.
But if they hit independents too hard, they will stop using istock and a lot of the buyers will find istock's prices too high and will go to the other sites. We would lose sales with istock but make more on the other sites. They must know that, so I don't think they can afford to be too aggressive.
I don't think the buyers are really sweating the prices, I know I don't. Fact most of the designers I know Istock is the 2nd stop when looking for images 1st stop being Getty. Why? higher cost higher markup more profit for them. 1$ 2$ 3$ more it's still dirt cheap to buy images from istock. I know each time the prices go up some buyers freak out, but in the end each year you make more money. If I was an independent I'd be getting very worried about now, time we tell.
^ Agree, also, IStock's been down this proverbial price increase road before, they know how many buyers they will lose and they don't seem to worried about it so it's probably minimal.
And I don't think they're too worried about independents abandoning ship, afterall, they upload to sites like Crestock, Canstock, etc, which pay next to nothing. I would be willing to bet, even if independents profits were cut in half at IStock, most independents would remain.
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If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.
Absolutely. We are really getting boned on this. To be honest, from a purely financial viewpoint, IS will have finally closed the earning gap between being independent vs. exclusive.
Currently (accounting for the exclusive bonus) I make 20% more by being independent. With the changes at IS, if I were to go exclusive I would almost certainly make up that 20% and quite possibly make even more.
OTOH if I continue to be independent and my sales at IS tank I am looking at a fairly large net loss. With a daughter headed to (an expensive private) college I don't know how much of a hit I can afford.
I am still very distrustful of putting all my eggs in one basket - particularly the Getty family basket. But with the monetary incentive to be independent gone it may be harder to hold out. After 5 years building a 5k plus portfolio, I am definitely NOT in this to lose money.
I expect I will not be the only diamond level non-exclusive who is watching to see if the other sites are willing to do something to make it financially viable to stay independent.
Great perpective. You are absolutely right, unfortunately, the more negatively this affects independents, it may also benefit IStock not only financially now, but also in encouraging higher level independents to go exclulsive. Maybe that is what IStock meant when they wrote this:
"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."
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Even if you are only with ISP it makes sense to also keyword your work for other sites as you build a library. This is easy to do if you manage the portfolio via Aperture or Lightroom. Then you can easily output your work for uploading to another site if you think about going independent later. Doing that as you go along will make you feel much more free. It also makes your work potentially more useful.
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...I would be willing to bet, even if independents profits were cut in half at IStock, most independents would remain.
Absolutely. No one is going anywhere. There's no reason to abandon istock. If I'm making $10 a month at istock, I'd still stick around. That's my coffee budget for 2 weeks. :)
I think where this differs from previous price increases is that this complicates things greatly for buyers and their clients. There are just too many variables in pricing now, and I don't think clients are going to respond well to paying more for images just because they are exclusive. Buyers (designers) will now have to go to their clients with all of these different prices and try to convince them that paying more for exclusive images somehow benefits them. What I predict a lot of clients will say is that they don't get why some images cost more than others, and they will want their designers to start sourcing images elsewhere. And I think designers may be the ones to suggest looking elsewhere for images. I might do it myself. My clients are used to istock, but this may piss them off when I'm constantly giving them prices all over the map. To make my life easier and make my clients happier, I'd probably be better off just suggesting that we get images somewhere else with lower prices and consistent pricing schedules.
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...I would be willing to bet, even if independents profits were cut in half at IStock, most independents would remain.
Absolutely. No one is going anywhere. There's no reason to abandon istock. If I'm making $10 a month at istock, I'd still stick around. That's my coffee budget for 2 weeks. :)
I think where this differs from previous price increases is that this complicates things greatly for buyers and their clients. There are just too many variables in pricing now, and I don't think clients are going to respond well to paying more for images just because they are exclusive. Buyers (designers) will now have to go to their clients with all of these different prices and try to convince them that paying more for exclusive images somehow benefits them. What I predict a lot of clients will say is that they don't get why some images cost more than others, and they will want their designers to start sourcing images elsewhere. And I think designers may be the ones to suggest looking elsewhere for images. I might do it myself. My clients are used to istock, but this may piss them off when I'm constantly giving them prices all over the map. To make my life easier and make my clients happier, I'd probably be better off just suggesting that we get images somewhere else with lower prices and consistent pricing schedules.
Dreamstime's pricing is just as variable with their various levels. is it really a big deal when the difference is a few dollars?
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...I would be willing to bet, even if independents profits were cut in half at IStock, most independents would remain.
Absolutely. No one is going anywhere. There's no reason to abandon istock. If I'm making $10 a month at istock, I'd still stick around. That's my coffee budget for 2 weeks. :)
I think where this differs from previous price increases is that this complicates things greatly for buyers and their clients. There are just too many variables in pricing now, and I don't think clients are going to respond well to paying more for images just because they are exclusive. Buyers (designers) will now have to go to their clients with all of these different prices and try to convince them that paying more for exclusive images somehow benefits them. What I predict a lot of clients will say is that they don't get why some images cost more than others, and they will want their designers to start sourcing images elsewhere. And I think designers may be the ones to suggest looking elsewhere for images. I might do it myself. My clients are used to istock, but this may piss them off when I'm constantly giving them prices all over the map. To make my life easier and make my clients happier, I'd probably be better off just suggesting that we get images somewhere else with lower prices and consistent pricing schedules.
No need to convince the clients of anything, I just need to know the client's budget for job. My job is to find images that fit within the budget, add my markup move on to next job. I've yet to find a clients that couldn't afford something on istock.
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I'd probably be better off just suggesting that we get images somewhere else with lower prices and consistent pricing schedules.
Like where? Dreamstime? Fotolia? Don't they all have tiered pricing. Vector pricing at iStock is all over the map and people buy those everyday. I don't really see that much has changed.
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I'd probably be better off just suggesting that we get images somewhere else with lower prices and consistent pricing schedules.
Like where? Dreamstime? Fotolia? Don't they all have tiered pricing. Vector pricing at iStock is all over the map and people buy those everyday. I don't really see that much has changed.
yeah, I forgot. Fotolia does too - with there emerald and above members being able to double prices
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There are definitely a lot of conspiracy theories and people trying to convince themselves that the end is nigh in this thread.
My question in stock has always been how can I make more. iStock seems to be coming up with an answer directed right at that question. I don't know how it will play out, but I'm paying attention.
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My question in stock has always been how can I make more. iStock seems to be coming up with an answer directed right at that question. I don't know how it will play out, but I'm paying attention.
Danger with Getty is that they have a habit of eating the competition, then paying photographers less. Which often forces other companies to do the same. Which is not to say that they are not also great and interesting. Ever since they started. They totally get pictures.
Seems a pity if ISP ends up being squeezed for money to pay off debts incurred on other bits of their empire. I'd rather see them shut down the flagship bits that are loosing them money. Especially as they continually refer to ISP as their amateurs business. On the other hand they've obviously put a lot of money into ISP.
I'm pro Getty because they are interesting but I hope there is some serious money making competition. And sooner or later I hope a different sort of market place emerges. There has to be a way for photographers and buyers to interact directly. After it happens it will seem obvious.
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There are definitely a lot of conspiracy theories and people trying to convince themselves that the end is nigh in this thread.
Why would this be any different than any other istock announcement discussion? ;)
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...I would be willing to bet, even if independents profits were cut in half at IStock, most independents would remain.
Absolutely. No one is going anywhere. There's no reason to abandon istock. If I'm making $10 a month at istock, I'd still stick around. That's my coffee budget for 2 weeks. :)
Dreamstime's pricing is just as variable with their various levels. is it really a big deal when the difference is a few dollars?
But DT's prices vary according to the image's popularity. That more popular images cost more should make at least some sense to a buyer. But what sense does it make to a buyer that he has to pay more because the creator of the image is exclusive at IS?
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Yeah, the thread is well over 70 pages long now. I'd say you should read a little more before declaring it a woo yay thread. It's far from that.
Sorry for not wasting my time in IS forum. I really tried from the start, but could not stand it.
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Yeah, the thread is well over 70 pages long now. I'd say you should read a little more before declaring it a woo yay thread. It's far from that.
Sorry for not wasting my time in IS forum. I really tried from the start, but could not stand it.
I would imagine so, if you thought they were all cheering for this crap deal being handed down. Trust me, it's not a happy place. ;)
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Hi All,
Here is a little example of sales ad how everyone comes out feeling a winner. A guy goes into a car lot sees a car he loves for $5,000 he knows that he would be really happy at $4,000 but not $5,000. The salesman would love to get $3,500 for the car. So they start to haggle and complain about how its to much so the salesman says " I'll make you a special deal I'll go as low as $4,000 but I can't go any further, " I'm losing my commission on this one ".
Buyer is happy getting what he wants and feels empowered by complaining and getting the price he wants. Salesman is happy because he sold it for 500 more than he really wanted. Perception is everything.
If they want to pull back on the canisters being set to high because of to many negative responses they have already factored that in. They then reduce the number and all the exclusives feel like they are being heard and really have a voice in their company.
If not enough complaints then the company comes out even further ahead by setting the bar so high. Either way the agency ends up with just what it wants. The bar where they really want it and a group of photographers that feel empowered. Long one huh : )
Best,
Jonathan
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Yeah, my daughter used to use the same negitiating tactic on me.
"Dad I need a dress for the prom. I found the perfect one and its only $1500 US"
Me: "What?!! No way, you better look for something more reasonable"
A few days later... "Dad, I found a really cute dress and it's only $300 US and since I am saving you all that money on the dress; I need the matching shoes, earrings and a clutch bag that go with it. The whole ensemble comes to only $675 US. Good deal huh Dad?"
Daughter says the above with huge smile and a hopeful gleam in her eye.
I've been had again :'(
@Jonathan, be happy you only have sons ;D
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Hi Nasoya,
Yea till they need my car for a date. Uh, I don't think so but I'd be happy to drive you and your date ( silence ). We talked about this when you were 14 how you needed to start saving for your own car: ) The oldest is 14 right now and is talking a big game about saving but as Cuba Gooding would say " Show me the money ". ;D
Best,
Jonathan
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Currently (accounting for the exclusive bonus) I make 20% more by being independent. With the changes at IS, if I were to go exclusive I would almost certainly make up that 20% and quite possibly make even more.
Are you saying that 80% of your microstock income comes from IS???
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As you can see by the chart I've included, IS accounts for less than 1/4 of my all-time earnings. The only reason that they are so high is the amounts that I used to make there back in the beginning. Now, IS is about 1/5 (20%) of my monthly earnings, perhaps even less. Even if I could upload a reasonable number of images each week and didn't hate their upload system, I can't afford to go exclusive!
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Currently (accounting for the exclusive bonus) I make 20% more by being independent. With the changes at IS, if I were to go exclusive I would almost certainly make up that 20% and quite possibly make even more.
Are you saying that 80% of your microstock income comes from IS???
I would imagine Lisa means that if she were exclusive her commissions would double (as a diamond level), so she must be making roughly 40% of her total earnings from IS.
My level is about the same - it fluctuates between 39%-42%. So it will be a matter of watching and waiting in the New year to see how IS sales alter, before making the exclusivity decision. I do this full-time, so it's a decision that I would not make lightly, and even then with lots of trepidation!
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Currently (accounting for the exclusive bonus) I make 20% more by being independent. With the changes at IS, if I were to go exclusive I would almost certainly make up that 20% and quite possibly make even more.
Are you saying that 80% of your microstock income comes from IS???
I would imagine Lisa means that if she were exclusive her commissions would double (as a diamond level), so she must be making roughly 40% of her total earnings from IS.
Exactly! Thanks for clarifying, Robyn :)
@Geopappas - if Istock was already 80% of my earnings I would be able to double that to 160% as a diamond exclusive. That would have been way too much to resist all these years!
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I think IS stands to gain huge profits from these changes, and maybe lose a few customers to cheaper sites.
Unlike the best match sorts (at least for exclusives) where you get the feeling that they are just moving sales around, sometimes you get them, sometimes someone else gets them. Now they are moving the goalposts. Since too many people getting up to the top tiers is an "unsustainable" situation for them (something I find hard to believe), it looks like they will just move the goalposts again when the group that is almost there now, is almost there again.
an admin (I think) posted something suggesting that they would tweak the best match to insure that the more expensive exclusive content sold more than the cheaper independent content. That is scary.
Maybe they feel they have enough premium submitters and are starting to close the doors for everyone else. Between the suggested best match massacre and the new levels, surely it would now take years for all but the best new shooters to move up the ranks to the point where exclusivity makes financial sense.
Maybe they are making a grab for the non-exclusive diamonds, but they are kicking everyone else in the teeth.
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I am a base cont at IS, do you think all this could help me with downloads? Do you think customers will really care if it is a exclusive image, if they have to pay more? my thinking is that designers would rather have more for less. Unless it is a high profile add campaign.
I have a small port but it seems downloads are just starting to happen and I started thinking there was a ray of hope for that 250. Now holy crap! that tunnel just got very very dark. :'(
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I agree with the things being said. Istock exclusivity is extremely attractive now that they are increasing prices etc ........ If they decided to let non-exclusives upload exclusive images I might try it and who knows I would considering stopping uploading elsewhere anymore to upload solely to istock.
I think other agencies need to start seriously putting prices up unless they want people to go exclusive to istock, fotolia infinite, or simply other avenues, increasing the cash received every month in the industry is becoming harder and harder.
... but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:
"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."
Good catch Richard. I missed that. Definitely sounds like the door to image exclusivity may be opening a crack.
yeah, interesting take on that sentence. I would find it hard to believe that iStock would let non-exclusives upload exclusive images but i would be very interested in seeing it happen. iStock seems very protective of their exclusives and is their trump card in a way. If they let people upload as partial exclusives it could feel like they are loosening their grip a little. If they did so however, it might encourage photographers to test the water before jumping all in.
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I don't see any image exclusivity implied here. istock always wants 'your best work'. If a diamond independent goes exclusive then they would probably upload their most successful images (that weren't already on istock) first, and maybe not bother with their less successful stuff.
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I agree with the things being said. Istock exclusivity is extremely attractive now that they are increasing prices etc ...
Thanks for your perspective, Andres. Through all of this I have been wondering what you top guys have been thinking and if exclusivity suddenly looked any different to you. I must say, I'm a bit surprised, although I can also understand how this might look appealing to some.
After letting this istock news soak in over the weekend I think I've come to the conclusion that my "sky is falling" attitude was a little unnecessary and without any good theoretical basis, since other sites do have tiered pricing as several folks have pointed out and those sites are still doing well. Not sure exactly how the buyers will respond to this new structure, but I think I'm a little more open to the idea now than I was last week. I'll be taking a "wait and see" approach with this going forward. It will be an interesting 2010 to watch and see how things play out at istock.
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an admin (I think) posted something suggesting that they would tweak the best match to insure that the more expensive exclusive content sold more than the cheaper independent content. That is scary.
Maybe they feel they have enough premium submitters and are starting to close the doors for everyone else. Between the suggested best match massacre and the new levels, surely it would now take years for all but the best new shooters to move up the ranks to the point where exclusivity makes financial sense.
Let me help you out here: There were two posts by JJRD stating something about "giving exclusives more exposure" and making their files "easier to find" - you can find them here:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=151691&page=21 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=151691&page=21) - right at the top
and here:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=151691&page=55 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=151691&page=55) - sixth post from the top
In the first one JJRD says - answering a question if exclusives would have a better postition in the best match come February: "We do not like, as you know, to answer such questions... with that said, if we introduce such a thing as ''Exclusive +'', controlled by exclusive contributors, chances are that the answer to your question could be yes.", in the second it's less obvious, but he still states that: "So given that statement, the conclusion is obvious, needless to say: yes, it will be easier, somehow, to find files that have been flagged by exclusive contributors as deserving to be included in Exclusive +''.
50 pages later:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=151691&page=110 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=151691&page=110)
someone calculates, that with the new prices, Istock makes more money on an exclusive sale than on an independent sale - no matter the size of the photo. To me it is obvious where this is going, and you are right: It is scary :o
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In the first one JJRD says - answering a question if exclusives would have a better postition in the best match come February: "We do not like, as you know, to answer such questions... with that said, if we introduce such a thing as ''Exclusive +'', controlled by exclusive contributors, chances are that the answer to your question could be yes.", in the second it's less obvious, but he still states that: "So given that statement, the conclusion is obvious, needless to say: yes, it will be easier, somehow, to find files that have been flagged by exclusive contributors as deserving to be included in Exclusive +''.
Just to make sure everybody understands these quotes correctly: It's about "Exclusive Plus", a collection which is planned to be added some time next year. This collection will be at a higher price point than regular images, somewhere between regular exclusive images and Vetta. In those posts, JJRD mentions that - similar to Vetta files today - those Exclusive Plus images might get a benefit in search positioning over regular images.
Whatever it is about best match positioning for regular exclusive vs. regular non-exclusive images is based on speculation. But those quotes have nothing to do with "regular" files.
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In the first one JJRD says - answering a question if exclusives would have a better postition in the best match come February: "We do not like, as you know, to answer such questions... with that said, if we introduce such a thing as ''Exclusive +'', controlled by exclusive contributors, chances are that the answer to your question could be yes.", in the second it's less obvious, but he still states that: "So given that statement, the conclusion is obvious, needless to say: yes, it will be easier, somehow, to find files that have been flagged by exclusive contributors as deserving to be included in Exclusive +''.
Just to make sure everybody understands these quotes correctly: It's about "Exclusive Plus", a collection which is planned to be added some time next year. This collection will be at a higher price point than regular images, somewhere between regular exclusive images and Vetta. In those posts, JJRD mentions that - similar to Vetta files today - those Exclusive Plus images might get a benefit in search positioning over regular images.
Whatever it is about best match positioning for regular exclusive vs. regular non-exclusive images is based on speculation. But those quotes have nothing to do with "regular" files.
Still, if some files get promoted in the best match, others will have to fall back - and, at 20% of eligible exclusive content, we are talking a possible amount of 600.000 photos here - if every exclusive uses his/her full quota...
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Still, if some files get promoted in the best match, others will have to fall back - and, at 20% of eligible exclusive content, we are talking a possible amount of 600.000 photos here - if every exclusive uses his/her full quota...
No objection.
Just wanted to point out that those quotes are not about the regular images. :-)
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For those interested, I have tried to summarize a bit of what has been said here and in the iStock forum (and what the changes are in the first place) in a blog post
http://blog.microstockgroup.com/2009/istock-2010-changes/ (http://blog.microstockgroup.com/2009/istock-2010-changes/)
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I've been on the fence for a couple of years. Started making preparations twice and chickened out both times. After looking at the numbers for diamond exclusive, it's an easy decision for me. The new nonexclusive best match search placement sounds a little scary. Not sure how that loss would be replaced. There are 4 solid Micro sites and I don't see that # growing. I've always felt that Istock is moving in the right direction and like the idea of submitting to their multiple collections.
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The new nonexclusive best match search placement sounds a little scary. Not sure how that loss would be replaced.
We have no idea yet what effect it will have on the best match __ all they've actually said is that the Exclusive+ collection will be promoted (just as Vetta is now). They haven't even said how many images will be in the E+ collection. If they are so keen to reduce the average % commission, which it appears they are, then it would make no sense to hide independents' images on which they pay the least.
We also don't know how the customers are going to react when faced with such huge price rises on so many of the images. An 'average' sale of a Medium exclusive image is going up nearly 70% __ in this climate! It could end up being the biggest gift to the other agencies that they've ever had. It is also conceivable that many lower-canister exclusives could give up their crowns in protest if their commission is reduced __ another gift to the competition.
It is certainly going to be interesting to see how this all plays out with both customers and contributors.
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They haven't even said how many images will be in the E+ collection.
I beg to differ: They said they would allow 20% of an exclusive's portfolio - which at roughly 3.000.000 exclusive images translates to 600.000 possibles - which is a lot more than Vetta is. I do not think that independents are in for a happy time at IS next year, the question - as you say - is how the price hike will play out for IStock's competition and the customers...
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I beg to differ: They said they would allow 20% of an exclusive's portfolio - which at roughly 3.000.000 exclusive images translates to 600.000 possibles - which is a lot more than Vetta is. I do not think that independents are in for a happy time at IS next year, the question - as you say - is how the price hike will play out for IStock's competition and the customers...
Good point __ I missed that. Of course they've also said that E+ won't be starting until 'later on in 2010' so at least we should be able to monitor the effect of the price increases before our images are affected by it.
It seems to me that independents are in a good place whatever happens. If the IS plan works out we can go exclusive for a significant increase in pay, if it doesn't then maybe we'll get more sales at the other sites. Hopefully Istocks competitors will also react appropriately to close the gap too. It's all very interesting!
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The new nonexclusive best match search placement sounds a little scary. Not sure how that loss would be replaced.
We also don't know how the customers are going to react when faced with such huge price rises on so many of the images. An 'average' sale of a Medium exclusive image is going up nearly 70% __ in this climate! It could end up being the biggest gift to the other agencies that they've ever had.
It is certainly going to be interesting to see how this all plays out with both customers and contributors.
Is the difference between $6.00 and $10.00 that big of deal to the average buyer? It would be nice to hear from some buyers. The cost of a gallon of milk where I live is about $7.00, I could move to a cheaper Island, but I like it here. It offers a little more of what I'm looking for. I'm sure Istock lost a few customers during the last big price hike, but not that many. If prices were going from $60.00 to $100.00 I think that would be more significant.
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I've been on the fence for a couple of years. Started making preparations twice and chickened out both times. After looking at the numbers for diamond exclusive, it's an easy decision for me. The new nonexclusive best match search placement sounds a little scary. Not sure how that loss would be replaced. There are 4 solid Micro sites and I don't see that # growing. I've always felt that Istock is moving in the right direction and like the idea of submitting to their multiple collections.
The best match thing is kind of the wild card. Without knowing how much damage that will do to non-exclusive files in search placement, it's hard to come to any conclusions about exclusivity. In theory, the royalty percentage increase plus the price increase plus the best match factor could result in similar (or more) earnings compared to independent earnings. But there is no way to know just yet how the best match factor will pan out.
I think it is safe to say, however, that some shift to favor exclusive files will happen, regardless of how vague the istock admins may be about it. They'd be crazy not to favor exclusive files in search results if they are going to start making more money from those files on each sale.
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The new nonexclusive best match search placement sounds a little scary. Not sure how that loss would be replaced.
If they are so keen to reduce the average % commission, which it appears they are, then it would make no sense to hide independents' images on which they pay the least.
They may pay the least, but after the new changes, they will also be making the least on independents images. This is a big change.
I made a chart showing the changes - look in the "How does this affect the seller?" section
http://blog.microstockgroup.com/2009/istock-2010-changes/ (http://blog.microstockgroup.com/2009/istock-2010-changes/)
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I've been on the fence for a couple of years. Started making preparations twice and chickened out both times. After looking at the numbers for diamond exclusive, it's an easy decision for me. The new nonexclusive best match search placement sounds a little scary. Not sure how that loss would be replaced. There are 4 solid Micro sites and I don't see that # growing. I've always felt that Istock is moving in the right direction and like the idea of submitting to their multiple collections.
The best match thing is kind of the wild card. Without knowing how much damage that will do to non-exclusive files in search placement, it's hard to come to any conclusions about exclusivity. In theory, the royalty percentage increase plus the price increase plus the best match factor could result in similar (or more) earnings compared to independent earnings. But there is no way to know just yet how the best match factor will pan out.
I think it is safe to say, however, that some shift to favor exclusive files will happen, regardless of how vague the istock admins may be about it. They'd be crazy not to favor exclusive files in search results if they are going to start making more money from those files on each sale.
best match seems pretty stable these days, no huge swings like in the past. It does look like exclusives get a little push which is understandable. If newer higher priced collections are getting good placement which nonexclusives have no access to, there is only one direction for nonexclusive earnings to go. Less visibility=less sales, regarless of what happens with best match. But, like you said, what point is there in keeping nonexclusive files up front if they are making less on them.
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I thought only exclusives complained about the best match. I've never really seen it affect my sales. As a non-exclusive, I've always been at the back. I just assumed people used the other searches to find my files.
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But, like you said, what point is there in keeping nonexclusive files up front if they are making less on them.
Because they said this;
"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."
I think they'll also want plenty of the lower-priced images highly visible to counteract any customer dissatisfactions about the price hikes.
Those that remain independent generally do so for reasons of finance, stability and security. Istock would have a pretty hard time convincing them to go exclusive if they keep screwing around with the best match and artificially suppress their sales. Many of us suffered badly in previous amateurish dabblings with the best match and have long memories.
Speaking personally I'll be making my plans based more on what I think might happen to the industry over the next few years rather than the next few weeks or months. The micro market is still in it's infancy and a lot can happen yet. For starters it does rather look as if Istock is 'being fattened for market' (as one of m'learned friends put it via site-mail) and who knows what further changes to canisters/commissions a new owner could make if they wanted to recoup their investment quickly?
I'd need a sizeable financial incentive and a lot of confidence in both the stability of the site and the moral conduct of the owners (to not keep hacking away at commissions, T&C, etc) before I put all my eggs in their basket.
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I thought only exclusives complained about the best match. I've never really seen it affect my sales. As a non-exclusive, I've always been at the back. I just assumed people used the other searches to find my files.
The biggest upheaval to the best match in my experience happened in Sept 2006, just as you joined Istock. My own sales, which had been growing steadily for a couple of years as I built my portfolio, were suddenly slashed by over 30%. Not nice when it happens.
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Let me help you out here: There were two posts by JJRD stating something about "giving exclusives more exposure" and making their files "easier to find" - you can find them here:
SNIP
someone calculates, that with the new prices, Istock makes more money on an exclusive sale than on an independent sale - no matter the size of the photo. To me it is obvious where this is going, and you are right: It is scary :o
Thanks for posting those links Ploink. I have been trying to keep up with that massive thread, but it is really hard to find the nuggets of relevance among all the complaints and arguments ;)
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The biggest upheaval to the best match in my experience happened in Sept 2006, just as you joined Istock. My own sales, which had been growing steadily for a couple of years as I built my portfolio, were suddenly slashed by over 30%. Not nice when it happens.
Absolutely. I experienced the same thing, but in October - December 08. My sales dropped 40% during the busiest and (formerly) most lucrative season of the year.
Before that my sales had been steady and predictable for almost 4 years and I was seriously considering exclusivity. When that big drop happened to so many people it was obviously a best match change. It was certainly a big wakeup call to me.
For the first time I contemplated how I would fare financially without my istock income. With Istock dropping from 40% to barely 30% of my income it turned out I could survive alright with the other 70%.
The prospect of a big raise in my overall income as an istock exclusive is very, very tempting. OTOH if the best match were to become volatile again that would be a large disincentive to go exclusive.
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I was hit by a 40% drop in October - December 08 too. It has been more stable since BM2 but it looks like they might be going to put profits ahead of contributor earnings stability, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the return of the big dipper on my stats charts. Luckily for me, istock rarely make more than 30% of my earnings, so the swings aren't too painful.
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I'm still not convinced, but it could be the structure of my portfolio. I don't really have any super popular files in my portfolio just a bunch of solid sellers. So, I may be more immune to wild swings in changes to search rankings. Usually when I see someone complaining about the best match, they are complaining about their best seller getting buried in the search.
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Is the difference between $6.00 and $10.00 that big of deal to the average buyer? It would be nice to hear from some buyers.
I'm a web developer first and a stock shooter second, so I have a bit of insight for you. Please bear in mind that I'm a small shop and try to keep my overhead low (I don't charge clients for photos, they are included in my fees).
Pricing is DEFINITELY a concern for me! I look at StockXpert first because I can get more image for my money there. Then, if I can't find what I need, I go to IS.
On another note, as my clients are all small businesses, they don't care how many times an image has been used. They just want the finished design to look good. I couldn't possibly care less whether the photographer is exclusive or not. It's all about the image.
Hope that helps!
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I'm still not convinced, but it could be the structure of my portfolio. I don't really have any super popular files in my portfolio just a bunch of solid sellers. So, I may be more immune to wild swings in changes to search rankings. Usually when I see someone complaining about the best match, they are complaining about their best seller getting buried in the search.
I thought the same until it happened to me :)
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I'm still not convinced, but it could be the structure of my portfolio. I don't really have any super popular files in my portfolio just a bunch of solid sellers. So, I may be more immune to wild swings in changes to search rankings. Usually when I see someone complaining about the best match, they are complaining about their best seller getting buried in the search.
I thought the same until it happened to me :)
Everybody does!
When their sales are good it's the deserved reward for their clearly superior images.
I saw a few images tank in the 2006 best match shift (several hot images just stopped selling cold turkey) and the fall of 2008 was truly awful. The fact that this coincided with me going exclusive might have made it slightly less awful, but I had a dreadful time until bm2.0 came out. Things have been great since then.
I don't have one or two best sellers and then the rest, so I'm not dependent on the fortunes of one or two images. I like to think that good results in BM2.0 are the result of good keywording on my part which is finally having an effect on search placement. But that could be another delusion - an attempt to rationalize something I can't see the logic behind.
My take on the price increases is that they aren't going to be good for exclusives - that the success of Vetta has made them think they can up the price on run-of-the-mill content too. I do know that overall download numbers have gone down as prices have gone up and I think that's even accounting for the increased number of contributors sharing the pie (lots and lots of contributors join; only a few really build a substantial portfolio and stick with it).
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...The prospect of a big raise in my overall income as an istock exclusive is very, very tempting. OTOH if the best match were to become volatile again that would be a large disincentive to go exclusive.
Yep. I think that's the tricky part for most people. As long as your istock earnings represent at least a third of your total microstock earnings each month, mathematically you might benefit from going exclusive under this new plan (assuming you are Gold canister level or higher). It's the other factors that could shake things up.
I did some quick math on my numbers and figured that anything over 33% (istock earnings out of my monthly total) would be within my threshold for exclusivity to make sense once I reach Diamond. Of course Diamond is a long ways from here now under the new plan, and currently I only make about 25% of my money with istock, so there's not much of a chance you'll ever see a crown by my name. But for anyone that is Diamond or anyone who earns more than 33% of their income each month from istock, it could work. Throw in the upcoming bump in the search results for exclusive files and you might see a significant pay increase by going exclusive. The wild card is everything we can't mathematically calculate. What happens if there is a best match 3.0 shake up? Could canister royalty rates change again down the road? What if buyers respond negatively to the new pricing and istock decides to drop the prices? Anything can happen. It's a gamble, for sure.
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I'm still not convinced, but it could be the structure of my portfolio. I don't really have any super popular files in my portfolio just a bunch of solid sellers. So, I may be more immune to wild swings in changes to search rankings. Usually when I see someone complaining about the best match, they are complaining about their best seller getting buried in the search.
That's what I thought too. I have over 5k images and just over 1/2 % of them are red or blue flames. My sales are pretty evenly distributed over a wide variety of images including both new and older images.
Which is why I was so surprised to have them gutted late last year. Only thing that really slashes my sales is when they bump independents to the back.
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Makes sense. Thanks for the perspective everybody. I guess it is not a problem until it happens to me. ;D Just kidding.
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Here is an interesting way to look at the iStock 2010 thread to get a sense of who is talking about what:
http://davidgilder.com/misc/iStockfulator/is2010thread.html (http://davidgilder.com/misc/iStockfulator/is2010thread.html)
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Here is an interesting way to look at the iStock 2010 thread to get a sense of who is talking about what:
[url]http://davidgilder.com/misc/iStockfulator/is2010thread.html[/url] ([url]http://davidgilder.com/misc/iStockfulator/is2010thread.html[/url])
Looks like the Matrix to me.
All I see is Blond, Redhead, Brunette...
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Here is an interesting way to look at the iStock 2010 thread to get a sense of who is talking about what:
[url]http://davidgilder.com/misc/iStockfulator/is2010thread.html[/url] ([url]http://davidgilder.com/misc/iStockfulator/is2010thread.html[/url])
very cool!
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I don't know what happened with any best match or so, but suddenly this month iStock gave more income than DT. The old greedy lady has some surprises from time to time. :P - In French: pourvu que ca dure.
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I've been thinking about the canister changes, and I realized that the only problem I have with the change is that my paltry upload quota might remain just as paltry for another five years. I'll never go exclusive with iStock, or at least can't imagine a scenario where I'd consider it. So the only benefit I can see is the chance to work through my image backlog just a little faster when I hit gold.
Which is only a problem because iStock has made it a problem. You see, there are three different features that have been tied to the same milestone: upload quota for independents, upload quota for exclusives, and commission rate for exclusives. Right now they all hit at the same moment: with X downloads.
But why? Why does the change in uploads for independents and exclusives have to hit at the same point? And why does that have to be tied to exclusives' commissions? If the reason for changing the goalposts is one of cost, surely the cost of reviewing a few more images a week (and only for those of us who fill our quota every week) is small compared to a bump of 5% in commissions for the other guys.
If I were running things, I'd separate the commission increases from the upload quotas. I might not use the same download count for both, or I might use a different one for independents vs. exclusives. But the point is that I'd let independents have that one tiny benefit sooner rather than later. 10,000 downloads is a lot; enough, I'd argue, to justify a few more uploads a week.
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If my sales do plummet with istock, I wont be uploading anymore, so the limits wont matter. If they make it harder for non-exclusives, less people will use them and buyers will have to go to the other sites to see what they are missing. The other sites already have huge portfolios from some of the best microstock contributors that have lots of their images missing on istock. I think more and more buyers will have a second account on one of the other sites.
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I can always count on IS to bring loads of changes and brand identity confusion :)
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The biggest upheaval to the best match in my experience happened in Sept 2006, just as you joined Istock. My own sales, which had been growing steadily for a couple of years as I built my portfolio, were suddenly slashed by over 30%. Not nice when it happens.
Absolutely. I experienced the same thing, but in October - December 08. My sales dropped 40% during the busiest and (formerly) most lucrative season of the year.
Before that my sales had been steady and predictable for almost 4 years and I was seriously considering exclusivity. When that big drop happened to so many people it was obviously a best match change. It was certainly a big wakeup call to me.
For the first time I contemplated how I would fare financially without my istock income. With Istock dropping from 40% to barely 30% of my income it turned out I could survive alright with the other 70%.
The prospect of a big raise in my overall income as an istock exclusive is very, very tempting. OTOH if the best match were to become volatile again that would be a large disincentive to go exclusive.
I, too, had a huge drop in sales at Istock beginning in October of last year. I vowed then to never go exclusive anywhere.
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I suppose we shall see what happens, but I get the impression that short term gains are what IS is looking for now.
Short term gains. You may have hit the nail on the head there. I read some speculation in that monster thread that this could be Getty's effort to increase short term profits in preparation for a sale. Could just be another conspiracy theory, but it does sound plausible...
So are they go in one pocket, so iStock will have same fate like StockXpert now ;D
or iStock will be as two left shoes to sell...
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If going exclusive is so tempting, then why hasn't Yuri Arcurs done it? I would think that he is a good role model to emulate. He seems to have figured out the business end of microstock.
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If going exclusive is so tempting, then why hasn't Yuri Arcurs done it? I would think that he is a good role model to emulate. He seems to have figured out the business end of microstock.
One could just as easily ask "If being independent is so great why haven't Lise Gagne, Sean Locke, etc. done it?" :)
Yuri is very successful and very talented. However, with all the people he has working for him, and with his massive overhead, he is really more of a factory than a simple microstock contributor.
Most of us sole proprietors will never be able to produce the quantity of content he does, so what works for him might not work for others of us and visa versa.
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I would think that he is a good role model to emulate. He seems to have figured out the business end of microstock.
He has found something that works for him, to whatever goal he worked toward. That doesn't necessarily work or make sense for anyone else.
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If going exclusive is so tempting, then why hasn't Yuri Arcurs done it? I would think that he is a good role model to emulate. He seems to have figured out the business end of microstock.
I am pretty sure that Yuri said he would go exclusive at istock if starting today ..
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If going exclusive is so tempting, then why hasn't Yuri Arcurs done it? I would think that he is a good role model to emulate. He seems to have figured out the business end of microstock.
One could just as easily ask "If being independent is so great why haven't Lise Gagne, Sean Locke, etc. done it?" :)
Yuri is very successful and very talented. However, with all the people he has working for him, and with his massive overhead, he is really more of a factory than a simple microstock contributor.
Most of us sole proprietors will never be able to produce the quantity of content he does, so what works for him might not work for others of us and visa versa.
I see Lise is less than 50,000 from the 1,000,000 mark.
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I am pretty sure that Yuri said he would go exclusive at istock if starting today ..
Can you provide a link to that quote? I'd love to read what he has to say about it.
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Actually Yuri's girlfriend, who started later than him, went straigth to exclusivity.
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Hi All,
Yuri sells in Macro RF so he cannot go Exclusive at Istock as well as anyone that has Macro RF images. It takes some planning but you have very long term contracts in Macro so you can't pull your work. Some contracts run 7 years in Macro RF. I am in the same boat, at this time.
http://www.tetraimagesrf.com/SwishSearch?glo=1&max_res=200&Keywords=yuri+arcurs (http://www.tetraimagesrf.com/SwishSearch?glo=1&max_res=200&Keywords=yuri+arcurs)
Best,
Jonathan
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Actually Yuri's girlfriend, who started later than him, went straigth to exclusivity.
Ah yes, and is she using by any coincidence the same cam and the same models? :P
Great idea. I thought about camera-sharing too.
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Actually Yuri's girlfriend, who started later than him, went straigth to exclusivity.
Ah yes, and is she using by any coincidence the same cam and the same models? :P
Great idea. I thought about camera-sharing too.
What a wise move... Having one account independant and one exclusive with diferent images :D
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Having one account independant and one exclusive with diferent images
A great way to explore both sides of the coin!
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moved to another thread
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moved to another thread
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Hi All,
Yuri sells in Macro RF so he cannot go Exclusive at Istock as well as anyone that has Macro RF images. It takes some planning but you have very long term contracts in Macro so you can't pull your work. Some contracts run 7 years in Macro RF. I am in the same boat, at this time.
[url]http://www.tetraimagesrf.com/SwishSearch?glo=1&max_res=200&Keywords=yuri+arcurs[/url] ([url]http://www.tetraimagesrf.com/SwishSearch?glo=1&max_res=200&Keywords=yuri+arcurs[/url])
Best,
Jonathan
if the world (non exclusive Macro RF)..is yours to cultivate, why would you want to restrict (IS exclusive) your agriculture???
can anyone explain?
isn't this putting all your eggs in one basket?
or have you all taken leave of your senses??? ;D
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iStock is coming in at just a hair under 45% of my microstock volume at the moment. Because of the changes in credit prices and best match favoring exclusives, it makes sense to become exclusive with iStock. Yes, it is all eggs in one basket, but a very lucrative basket. If iStock were to fail or severely drop off, then I can always go back to spreading things around among the sites. iStock is letting independents lock in their next canister levels as well, which means I will be able to obtain a diamond canister in the near future rather than the far. That extra 5% will be nice, and I can only lock that in if I go exclusive as soon as possible. I have more to gain monetarily (possibly significantly) by going exclusive, and stand to potentially lose much of my income from iStock if their best match pushes the independents further down the rankings. So I'm putting my eggs in the basket that is most important to me financially in the microstock world.
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iStock is coming in at just a hair under 45% of my microstock volume at the moment. Because of the changes in credit prices and best match favoring exclusives, it makes sense to become exclusive with iStock. Yes, it is all eggs in one basket, but a very lucrative basket. If iStock were to fail or severely drop off, then I can always go back to spreading things around among the sites. iStock is letting independents lock in their next canister levels as well, which means I will be able to obtain a diamond canister in the near future rather than the far. That extra 5% will be nice, and I can only lock that in if I go exclusive as soon as possible. I have more to gain monetarily (possibly significantly) by going exclusive, and stand to potentially lose much of my income from iStock if their best match pushes the independents further down the rankings. So I'm putting my eggs in the basket that is most important to me financially in the microstock world.
These are exactly the same reasons I decided to go exclusive. If I had stayed non-exclusive and my earnings at istock had started to fall (due to the changes) I would have been extremely disappointed. Granted, having to make the decision so quickly (before 12th Jan) wasn't great as I would have preferred more time to think about it but I'm really hoping this move will give me a boost in both moral and earnings, almost like starting completely fresh for 2010.
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iStock is letting independents lock in their next canister levels as well, which means I will be able to obtain a diamond canister in the near future rather than the far.
This is not what I got from the letter Cathy posted in her thread. Looks like the only way of independents getting their next canister levels is to withdraw from all agencies now and lose all that income while waiting out the Dreamstime commitment. Fine maybe if this is your hobby, but I certainly can't afford to lose 60% of my income for the better part of the year.
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iStock is letting independents lock in their next canister levels as well, which means I will be able to obtain a diamond canister in the near future rather than the far.
This is not what I got from the letter Cathy posted in her thread. Looks like the only way of independents getting their next canister levels is to withdraw from all agencies now and lose all that income while waiting out the Dreamstime commitment. Fine maybe if this is your hobby, but I certainly can't afford to lose 60% of my income for the better part of the year.
If I was considering going exclusive, that would certainly kill it for me. No way would I disable everything now while waiting for my commitment to end.
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iStock is letting independents lock in their next canister levels as well, which means I will be able to obtain a diamond canister in the near future rather than the far.
This is not what I got from the letter Cathy posted in her thread. Looks like the only way of independents getting their next canister levels is to withdraw from all agencies now and lose all that income while waiting out the Dreamstime commitment. Fine maybe if this is your hobby, but I certainly can't afford to lose 60% of my income for the better part of the year.
You are right of course, and I was in the unique position of being able to remove all of my Dreamstime images by Feb 4th, since a busy summer put 70% of my images uploaded before August 4th (I used the 30% I was allowed to remove to take down all my most recent photos first). I would email iStock and verify rather than relying on third party info. I sent an email earlier today to verify my situation, but from what I can tell I will be able to go exclusive on Feb 5th and still lock in the canister. If iStock is requiring everyone to remove everything now, then wait six months, then that is unfortunate.
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I would email iStock and verify rather than relying on third party info. I sent an email earlier today to verify my situation, but from what I can tell I will be able to go exclusive on Feb 5th and still lock in the canister. If iStock is requiring everyone to remove everything now, then wait six months, then that is unfortunate.
The email I posted came from IS, it is not third party info. Check the other thread again, I have added the copy from the pdf that comes attached with the email and it explains it all in more detail.
One may not have to remove all photos right now to comply, but one must give all other sites notice now (before Jan. 11) and give IS proof that one has done so (before Jan. 11).
I can see many advantages to being exclusive and for me, it is not off the table. Just don't want to be forced to make the commitment before Jan. 11. Too many changes have been made in the last month and I would like to see the outcome of those changes.
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I can see many advantages to being exclusive and for me, it is not off the table. Just don't want to be forced to make the commitment before Jan. 11. Too many changes have been made in the last month and I would like to see the outcome of those changes.
^^ Well said Cathy. This sums up my feelings on the subject too.
We still haven't heard from Shutterstock whether or not there will be a raise there this year, either. Still time for the sites to sweeten the pot for independents....
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I would email iStock and verify rather than relying on third party info. I sent an email earlier today to verify my situation, but from what I can tell I will be able to go exclusive on Feb 5th and still lock in the canister. If iStock is requiring everyone to remove everything now, then wait six months, then that is unfortunate.
The email I posted came from IS, it is not third party info. Check the other thread again, I have added the copy from the pdf that comes attached with the email and it explains it all in more detail.
One may not have to remove all photos right now to comply, but one must give all other sites notice now (before Jan. 11) and give IS proof that one has done so (before Jan. 11).
I can see many advantages to being exclusive and for me, it is not off the table. Just don't want to be forced to make the commitment before Jan. 11. Too many changes have been made in the last month and I would like to see the outcome of those changes.
Ah ok, I had missed that thread. Going to take a look now.
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Even if I were in a position to go exclusive with IS, I don't think I would on the back of a move like this by them.
While I can see the benefits for contributors of higher royalties - the canister shifts are really nothing but a profit share grab by a company that is already the most profitable in the industry. Long term I think that this change, and Fotolia's changes are bad for all contributors.
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... While I can see the benefits for contributors of higher royalties - the canister shifts are really nothing but a profit share grab by a company that is already the most profitable in the industry. ...
My thoughts exactly.
To me, IS response to the question "Why are you changing canister levels?" is an insult to anyone's intelligence:
"We have grown far beyond anyone's expectations since the original canister levels were set. The current system just isn't sustainable. We must increase the canister levels in order to maintain current royalty rates."
>:(
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.... If iStock were to fail or severely drop off, then I can always go back to spreading things around among the sites. ...
The only problem is that you would loose your Search Positions from your established files at the other agencies. I doubt I would do so well, if I would delete my portfolio and upload it again.
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.... If iStock were to fail or severely drop off, then I can always go back to spreading things around among the sites. ...
The only problem is that you would loose your Search Positions from your established files at the other agencies. I doubt I would do so well, if I would delete my portfolio and upload it again.
and start again 0.25$ from SS, start again white level from FOTOLIA, one level file from DT....
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and start again 0.25$ from SS, start again white level from FOTOLIA, one level file from DT....
I'm not 100% sure, but I think you can simply remove all images and retain your levels both in SS and FT. No luck for DT obviously, but you should retain your search placement (AR).
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Both SS and DT allow you to disable your images and/or portfolio without deleting them - so I assume that's okay for going exclusive with IS or do IS have an issue with it?
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Do you have to disable each image with DT and then re-enable them if you go back? It must cost a lot in lost earnings going exclusive and then even more if your earnings fall and you cancel it. Not something I would consider doing, unless istock start paying us a big lump sum to go exclusive. That seems about as likely as them raising commissions :)
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The iStock credits/image price change has taken place.
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.... If iStock were to fail or severely drop off, then I can always go back to spreading things around among the sites. ...
The only problem is that you would loose your Search Positions from your established files at the other agencies. I doubt I would do so well, if I would delete my portfolio and upload it again.
good point .
other factors not mentioned are such things as
- keywording style with IS is different with say DT
- IS preference for less" saturation" less "overprocessed" work to use their own words
that seems to plague SS regulars and vice versa
not to mention the images IS takes are most times quite distinct from the other Big 6.
iow, you have to reinvent your wheel all over again which will be more like a newbie.
just my own observations, as always... nothing to confirm i am a "stock-xpert" (argghh bad pun). ;)
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The iStock credits/image price change has taken place.
Let's now see the effects of the new credit/image prices for exclusives and non exclusives.
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Let's now see the effects of the new credit/image prices for exclusives and non exclusives.
One exclusive reported a Medium sale for $5.50. That's over 3x what an independent contributor would receive for a similar sale __ and that's before the Exclusive+ collection comes in. I'm expecting mainly jubilant reports from exclusives in the end-of-month forum thread.
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Let's now see the effects of the new credit/image prices for exclusives and non exclusives.
One exclusive reported a Medium sale for $5.50. That's over 3x what an independent contributor would receive for a similar sale __ and that's before the Exclusive+ collection comes in. I'm expecting mainly jubilant reports from exclusives in the end-of-month forum thread.
Time will tell... Some will be happy :) , some will be angry >:( , others will cry :'( , and others won't not know what to do ???
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Time will tell... Some will be happy :) , some will be angry >:( , others will cry :'( , and others won't not know what to do ???
[/quote]
Exclusive members will be happy :) , Designers will be angry >:( , Clients will cry :'( , and Non-exclusive won't not know what to do ???
:P
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Had a small for $3.00, an X-small for $1.20, Medium for $5.80 among a few others... these smaller sizes are where exclusives will see the biggest increase in earnings due to their frequency and their higher percentage increase.
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Perhaps a lot of buyers will see the new prices and wont be able to find non-exclusive images so easy, so they will go elsewhere and a lot of non-exclusives will be :) There has been so much speculation about what will happen. I expect to see my istock earning slump and have become used to that happening with best match changes. If the slump isn't too big and I can make up for it with the other sites, I will be pleased.
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The iStock credits/image price change has taken place.
Yes, but the more important question is: Did the best match change?
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Had a small for $3.00, an X-small for $1.20, Medium for $5.80 among a few others... these smaller sizes are where exclusives will see the biggest increase in earnings due to their frequency and their higher percentage increase.
For the sake of comparison,
I just sold a Medium for 1.50$ royalty. * that's almost 4 times less.
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Right now it is easy for the buyers to determine the pricing with out clicking on the thumbnail (crown vs. no crown).
Also, from a couple of sample searches I did, it does not appear the best match has changed. Not yet anyway.
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Had a small for $3.00, an X-small for $1.20, Medium for $5.80 among a few others... these smaller sizes are where exclusives will see the biggest increase in earnings due to their frequency and their higher percentage increase.
For the sake of comparison,
I just sold a Medium for 1.50$ royalty. that's almost 4 times less.
for the sake of comparision too,
i just had 5 combined sales of one image at IS totalling $5 odd,
and the same image also got a single dl at 3 d studio totalling $5 odd.
hmm, i wonder if the same buyer went to IS first or 3 d studio.
oh well, some of us paid more at the shopping centre while others pick up the same good at the dollar store. i guess more ppl visited the dollar store in micro stock ;)
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I noticed that the advanced price search for illustrations went to ranges to lump the exclusives and non-exclusives together, so it functions the same as the size search for photos. I wonder if buyers will ask for a sort by price search and will IS comply if they do.
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Had a small for $3.00, an X-small for $1.20, Medium for $5.80 among a few others... these smaller sizes are where exclusives will see the biggest increase in earnings due to their frequency and their higher percentage increase.
For the sake of comparison,
I just sold a Medium for 1.50$ royalty. that's almost 4 times less.
I sold a medium today for $1.74. Doesn't the difference come from what kind of package the buyer purchased? Your buyer must have bought a larger package with a volume discount (or has older credits).
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Yeah but the difference isn't so dramatic. I always thought that IS exclusivity was logical only if your IS earnings are more than 60% of total or so, things look different now. Oh well it's not like I qualify, just started out.
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Based on a gross credit value of $1.50 USD, IS royalties are now the following (according to my calculations):
Image Size xs s m l xl xxl xxxl
Non-exclusive 0,30 0,90 1,80 3,00 4,50 6,00 7,50
Bronze Exclusive 0,75 1,88 3,75 5,63 7,50 9,38 11,25
Silver Exclusive 0,90 2,25 4,50 6,75 9,00 11,25 13,50
Gold Exclusive 1,05 2,63 5,25 7,88 10,50 13,13 15,75
Diamond Exclus 1,20 3,00 6,00 9,00 12,00 15,00 18,00
It's clear that the difference between exclusives' and non-exclusives' earnings are bigger now.
The most important thing to study now (for me at least) are the effects on the number of downlods for exclusives and non exclusives. Will exclusives keep selling as they have so far? Will they sell more? Or less? Will non exclusives have more sales now that their images are cheaper?
As for me, I have decided to wait and see before making any decision about becoming IS exclusive...
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Perhaps a lot of buyers will see the new prices and wont be able to find non-exclusive images so easy, so they will go elsewhere and a lot of non-exclusives will be :)
Why won't they be able to find them easily? They don't have little crowns under them: 'it's not rocket surgery' (TM)
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'it's not rocket surgery' (TM)
LOL! Great mixed metaphor ;D
I think when looking at 50 - 100 thumbnails on a page it is a bit of work to pick out the crownless images.
If I go exclusive I hope there is no sort by price. If I stay independent I hope there is.
Unfortunately what I hope means absolutely nothing to anyone be me... We will just have to wait and see what pans out.
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'it's not rocket surgery' (TM)
LOL! Great mixed metaphor ;D
I think when looking at 50 - 100 thumbnails on a page it is a bit of work to pick out the crownless images.
If I go exclusive I hope there is no sort by price. If I stay independent I hope there is.
Unfortunately what I hope means absolutely nothing to anyone be me... We will just have to wait and see what pans out.
I think there should be a search by price option. Why make it more difficult for the buyer to find the image that he needs at the price that he wants? If they're having to wade through hundreds of images at many different price points, they may just get disgusted with the whole process and go somewhere else.
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Most of designers don't care about prices. The difficulty to find the perfect image is more important than finding lower prices. They always have to deal with deadlines, limited budget is second in the priority order.
You can look at how the Vetta collection is successful, as an example of that.
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Most of designers don't care about prices. The difficulty to find the perfect image is more important than finding lower prices. They always have to deal with deadlines, limited budget is second in the priority order.
You can look at how the Vetta collection is successful, as an example of that.
Why do they buy from microstock then ?
I do agree thought the difference between $5 and $10 is less important than between $10 and $500
but I'm sure that sorting by price is an option that a lot of buyers will want.
Istock however will be unwilling to provide it because it will lessen the benefit for themselves and exclusive artists.
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Why do they buy from microstock then ?
To be honest the volume, variety (and the quality too) can actually be much higher on microstock than most trad agencies especially with niche subjects. Try a search for 'bacon sandwich' for example (or virtually any food subject) on Getty/Corbis/etc against a similar search on Istock. Trust me, IS wins hands down almost every time.
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umm I can see your point with that search. Looks like I won't be using getty for bacon sandwich needs.
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(http://c2.alamy.com/thumbs/4/%7B1492D728-D720-41F2-A16D-7B0CBD088671%7D/ARGMA7.jpg)(http://c1.alamy.com/thumbs/4/%7BA09FE12F-F576-4544-99AC-A99623A219CE%7D/A5KJRE.jpg)
This is on page 2 of Alamy for "sandwich"... It's worth 365$ at full size (RF) and the image is upsized
Edited: This is why they buy at microstock
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([url]http://c2.alamy.com/thumbs/4/%7B1492D728-D720-41F2-A16D-7B0CBD088671%7D/ARGMA7.jpg[/url])([url]http://c1.alamy.com/thumbs/4/%7BA09FE12F-F576-4544-99AC-A99623A219CE%7D/A5KJRE.jpg[/url])
This is on page 2 of Alamy for "sandwich"... It's worth 365$ at full size (RF) and the image is upsized
yes i remember someone telling me that.
i think we have all been brainwashed by the proliferation of micro sites to think that low price is the way to make money, and that everybody else is starving. that 's warped mentality . but it's not unusual.
ask any fool in the street about the food business, and they will say xxx you know who serves million in food that taste (quote a chef) like paper. you won't hear too many will say that Cordon Bleu restaurant make as much or more money than the quick food business. simply because less people spend their time dining in Cordon Bleu restaurants than a quick food joint.
people do pay more, and those restaurant do have less customers to serve, but these customers do insist on paying more .
stock photographs are the same. but we are led to believe that only micro sites make money.
it's simple, if i am making money selling in an agency that pays more, do you think i would come here to brag about it?
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Seems like it is just a matter of time before it becomes financially smart to go exclusive for me. Once iStock accounts for 40-50% of my earnings it will be worth it. It was 36% last month.
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Is it financially smart to put all your eggs in one basket or to look at more markets to sell RF? I haven't tried Getty or Corbis yet and have hardly any RF photos with alamy. There are lots of other places too. I have spread my portfolio around a lot on the lower priced sites and istock usually makes around 30% of my income. I can't see it being a smart decision for me to go exclusive there in the foreseeable future.
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Most of designers don't care about prices. The difficulty to find the perfect image is more important than finding lower prices. They always have to deal with deadlines, limited budget is second in the priority order.
You can look at how the Vetta collection is successful, as an example of that.
That may be true for some, but not all. Surely there are designers who are also looking for the best price. Some of them may not care about exclusivity of an image. Also, buyers are not all designers. I'm just saying that if you have your collection split up into several different price points for buyers, then you shouldn't make it difficult for them to find the image that they need at any particular point.