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Author Topic: IStock October sales in  (Read 16219 times)

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Justanotherphotographer

« on: November 18, 2017, 09:35 »
+5
October sales are in.

As predicted with the new changes, my RPD has now started to plummet. A shocking number of less than 10 or 20c sales. First few months were bound to be misleading as buyers would have been on old contracts.

I knew it would take a few months for the sales guys to really get in there with the deep discounts to steal buyers away from better paying sites but here it is. Only expect it to get worse people, if we tell Getty it's alright to sell for a minimum of 2c expect them to eventually move all sales to around 2c. It's their nature.

Glad they don't have my more recent work is all I can say.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2017, 09:40 by Justanotherphotographer »


« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2017, 10:40 »
+4
October sales are in.

As predicted with the new changes, my RPD has now started to plummet. A shocking number of less than 10 or 20c sales. First few months were bound to be misleading as buyers would have been on old contracts.

I knew it would take a few months for the sales guys to really get in there with the deep discounts to steal buyers away from better paying sites but here it is. Only expect it to get worse people, if we tell Getty it's alright to sell for a minimum of 2c expect them to eventually move all sales to around 2c. It's their nature.

Glad they don't have my more recent work is all I can say.

There will be a knock on effect with sales at other sites.  IStock pulled off a coup in the race to the bottom with their yearly package subs pay structure, which no other agency can compete with.  Hence Shutterstocks response with cheaper monthly subs negating much of the need to buy yearly packages, but also screwing us because we now get subs instead of ODs.  Depositphotos is now discounting ODs and paying out only 30c.  So if you supply iStock and your sub sales and ODs have sunk elsewhere in recent months consider yourself cannibalised, you are your worst competitor.

SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2017, 13:22 »
0
Best month ever... about $70 more than my second best month ever.

« Reply #3 on: November 18, 2017, 13:43 »
+1
Worse month of the year at IS.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #4 on: November 18, 2017, 13:47 »
+1
RPD double last month and BMY for $$ (thanks to one big Getty sale), but poor dls, so worst October for dls and $$ ever, back to 2007.

« Reply #5 on: November 18, 2017, 14:11 »
0
Very strong month. Now already two in a row. Hope the trend continues.

« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2017, 14:13 »
0
RPD double last month and BMY for $$ (thanks to one big Getty sale), but poor dls, so worst October for dls and $$ ever, back to 2007.

How big?

Second worst month this year.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #7 on: November 18, 2017, 14:27 »
0
RPD double last month and BMY for $$ (thanks to one big Getty sale), but poor dls, so worst October for dls and $$ ever, back to 2007.

How big?
$97.95
(compared to another sale of the same file for $1.25!)
Without that lucky sale the month would have been even more of a disaster.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2017, 17:49 by ShadySue »

jonbull

    This user is banned.
« Reply #8 on: November 18, 2017, 14:28 »
0
very good month, still small earning compared to ss but i have much less images, red 1,1 dollar due to some big sale from getty directly.
all in all i see a strong path of growth constant every month,

jonbull

    This user is banned.
« Reply #9 on: November 18, 2017, 14:37 »
0
biggest sale is 164 dollar..

« Reply #10 on: November 18, 2017, 15:02 »
+1
Worst Month of the Year and about the same as my monthly revenue in 2011.

Who cares, they're no longer a top 3 agency for me, SS and AS have taken iStock's place.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2017, 15:04 by Noedelhap »

« Reply #11 on: November 18, 2017, 15:35 »
+1
I was making good sales with iStock. That was before Getty. Now days my iStock sales are down the drains. I have about 3000 images with them. I was hoping things would get better. I was wrong. I Have not uploaded to them since September 2016. Getty's iStock will not see MY images anymore. And that because I respect my time and the work I do. Weather Mr Getty likes it or not, the images I create belong to me, and not to iStock. Therefore I demand to have full control over my property, and a reasonable  income that would motivate me to produce images for them. Shutterstock and Fotolia are my priorities at the moment.

« Reply #12 on: November 18, 2017, 19:11 »
0
Wow that was basically the worst month ever, only beaten by the first 2 months I was with IS with a handful of images.   i.e. third worst month since Jan 2007 !

Well like they say at Istock "money won't make me happy"

Edit   RPD = $0.42

« Last Edit: November 18, 2017, 19:20 by qwerty »

« Reply #13 on: November 18, 2017, 20:34 »
0
When you guys talk about big sales, do you mean the money they charge or you receive? Just curious.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #14 on: November 18, 2017, 20:41 »
0
When you guys talk about big sales, do you mean the money they charge or you receive? Just curious.
In my case, it was the money I received.
I have no idea why someone would have to pay that much, I'm on 20% for Getty sales (like most), so it seems like they paid almost $500. Maybe (?) it was some sort of Getty sale with an EL built in (?), but I have no idea if so.
And that's probably the largest Getty sale I've had, and I've had very few, partly because the numbers of my files on Getty fluctuates madly, they just keep disappearing and reappearing.  ::) iSNAFU.

« Reply #15 on: November 18, 2017, 21:17 »
0
When you guys talk about big sales, do you mean the money they charge or you receive? Just curious.
In my case, it was the money I received.
I have no idea why someone would have to pay that much, I'm on 20% for Getty sales (like most), so it seems like they paid almost $500. Maybe (?) it was some sort of Getty sale with an EL built in (?), but I have no idea if so.
And that's probably the largest Getty sale I've had, and I've had very few, partly because the numbers of my files on Getty fluctuates madly, they just keep disappearing and reappearing.  ::) iSNAFU.

Thanks for clarifying. That's a big sale for sure! From DM3, I could see I had a GI sale for 207, of which I got $41.

Justanotherphotographer

« Reply #16 on: November 19, 2017, 05:23 »
+1
October sales are in.

As predicted with the new changes, my RPD has now started to plummet. A shocking number of less than 10 or 20c sales. First few months were bound to be misleading as buyers would have been on old contracts.

I knew it would take a few months for the sales guys to really get in there with the deep discounts to steal buyers away from better paying sites but here it is. Only expect it to get worse people, if we tell Getty it's alright to sell for a minimum of 2c expect them to eventually move all sales to around 2c. It's their nature.

Glad they don't have my more recent work is all I can say.

There will be a knock on effect with sales at other sites.  IStock pulled off a coup in the race to the bottom with their yearly package subs pay structure, which no other agency can compete with.  Hence Shutterstocks response with cheaper monthly subs negating much of the need to buy yearly packages, but also screwing us because we now get subs instead of ODs.  Depositphotos is now discounting ODs and paying out only 30c.  So if you supply iStock and your sub sales and ODs have sunk elsewhere in recent months consider yourself cannibalised, you are your worst competitor.

My RPD on SS has never significantly dropped so I don't think I have really seen a switch away from higher RPD sales on SS. It is much higher than on IS for October. IS is more than year behind my portfolio on SS now anyway.

Last time IS was paying me more per download than SS was 2013/2014.

As far as Depositphotos, no one should be touching them with a barge pole. The only other site approaching them in terms of RPD is Bigstock. IMHO you would have to be nuts to be giving your work away with either of these two (or have work that is just snap shots and wouldn't sell outside of sub sales anywhere anyway).

namussi

« Reply #17 on: November 19, 2017, 07:08 »
+1
So if you supply iStock and your sub sales and ODs have sunk elsewhere in recent months consider yourself cannibalised, you are your worst competitor.

Better to cannibalise yourself than let other people cannibalise you first.

« Reply #18 on: November 19, 2017, 07:16 »
+4
So if you supply iStock and your sub sales and ODs have sunk elsewhere in recent months consider yourself cannibalised, you are your worst competitor.

Better to cannibalise yourself than let other people cannibalise you first.

That attitude is what allows the downward spiral to continue, contributors are their own worst enemy.

namussi

« Reply #19 on: November 19, 2017, 07:24 »
+1
So if you supply iStock and your sub sales and ODs have sunk elsewhere in recent months consider yourself cannibalised, you are your worst competitor.

Better to cannibalise yourself than let other people cannibalise you first.

That attitude is what allows the downward spiral to continue, contributors are their own worst enemy.

There's a passage in Catch-22 that goes something like this.

YOSSARIAN: From now on, I'm only thinking of myself.
CHAPLAIN: But Yossarian, what if everyone was like that?
YOSSARIAN: Then I'd be a * fool not to feel any other way, wouldn't I?


« Reply #20 on: November 19, 2017, 07:27 »
+2
October sales are in.

As predicted with the new changes, my RPD has now started to plummet. A shocking number of less than 10 or 20c sales. First few months were bound to be misleading as buyers would have been on old contracts.

I knew it would take a few months for the sales guys to really get in there with the deep discounts to steal buyers away from better paying sites but here it is. Only expect it to get worse people, if we tell Getty it's alright to sell for a minimum of 2c expect them to eventually move all sales to around 2c. It's their nature.

Glad they don't have my more recent work is all I can say.

There will be a knock on effect with sales at other sites.  IStock pulled off a coup in the race to the bottom with their yearly package subs pay structure, which no other agency can compete with.  Hence Shutterstocks response with cheaper monthly subs negating much of the need to buy yearly packages, but also screwing us because we now get subs instead of ODs.  Depositphotos is now discounting ODs and paying out only 30c.  So if you supply iStock and your sub sales and ODs have sunk elsewhere in recent months consider yourself cannibalised, you are your worst competitor.

My RPD on SS has never significantly dropped so I don't think I have really seen a switch away from higher RPD sales on SS. It is much higher than on IS for October. IS is more than year behind my portfolio on SS now anyway.

Last time IS was paying me more per download than SS was 2013/2014.

As far as Depositphotos, no one should be touching them with a barge pole. The only other site approaching them in terms of RPD is Bigstock. IMHO you would have to be nuts to be giving your work away with either of these two (or have work that is just snap shots and wouldn't sell outside of sub sales anywhere anyway).

RPD is not an effective measure of this situation.  My RPD is twice what it was, but I am selling 25% of what I did at peak, subs and ODs have been decimated.

I have never supplied iStock or Depositphotos, but I still suffer because others do.  The agencies do what they do because contributors do not discriminate.

namussi

« Reply #21 on: November 19, 2017, 08:39 »
+1

I have never supplied iStock or Depositphotos, but I still suffer because others do.  The agencies do what they do because contributors do not discriminate.

The agencies do what they do because they want to give customers what customers want.

Customers will always be more important than contributors.

The agencies also do what they do because they are far larger than 99.9% of contributors. Individual contributors, on the whole, have no bargaining power.

« Reply #22 on: November 19, 2017, 09:02 »
+1

I have never supplied iStock or Depositphotos, but I still suffer because others do.  The agencies do what they do because contributors do not discriminate.

The agencies do what they do because they want to give customers what customers want.

Customers will always be more important than contributors.

The agencies also do what they do because they are far larger than 99.9% of contributors. Individual contributors, on the whole, have no bargaining power.

The logical conclusion of your thinking is self annihilation, I will continue to rage against the machine.   The end result may be the same, but I too have myself to think of.

« Reply #23 on: November 19, 2017, 09:11 »
+4

I have never supplied iStock or Depositphotos, but I still suffer because others do.  The agencies do what they do because contributors do not discriminate.

The agencies do what they do because they want to give customers what customers want.

Customers will always be more important than contributors.

The agencies also do what they do because they are far larger than 99.9% of contributors. Individual contributors, on the whole, have no bargaining power.

There might be some cases where special arrangements are made for specific customer types, but agencies generally do not do what they do because customers want it. They do it because they are trying to create strategic advantages over the competition, and the go-to is always cheaper content.  Now, as a customer, I am going to say, "hey, if you want to sell me pics for 3 cents instead of 20 cents, yea, I don't mind at all." But I highly doubt customers are asking for cheaper content in today's micro stock world.  It is merely the agencies trying to attract new business and retain existing business by offering cheaper product - called market share strategies.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #24 on: November 19, 2017, 09:26 »
+2

I have never supplied iStock or Depositphotos, but I still suffer because others do.  The agencies do what they do because contributors do not discriminate.

The agencies do what they do because they want to give customers what customers want.

Customers will always be more important than contributors.

The agencies also do what they do because they are far larger than 99.9% of contributors. Individual contributors, on the whole, have no bargaining power.

The logical conclusion of your thinking is self annihilation, I will continue to rage against the machine.   The end result may be the same, but I too have myself to think of.
I thought similarly when I refused to supply subs sites.  ::)


 

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