MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: Bateleur on September 25, 2007, 13:56
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I don't usually hang out in the iStock forums (fora?). The 'Gee! Wow! That's way too cool iStock!' tone is vomit-inducing, and I like to keep my meals inside me. ;D
But people on here have been mentioning a slow down in sales with IS lately.
For some reason (I've forgotten why I did it now) I did go on, and I came across this thread ...
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=57785&page=1 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=57785&page=1)
Interesting?
And it's been locked, too.
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Glad you liked it. It was locked because they directed all outage discussion here:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=57796&page=1
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Okay ...
... now I'm doubly glad I didn't go exclusive.
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iStock has a lot of problems. In my world, they're losing market shares, and it started long before the current technical problems. I've had sinking sales there since April, but what is even more interesting is that, when I watch my weekly sales statistics, the sales of Fotolia and StockXpert is getting closer and closer. Dreamstime is already up there om iStock level, partly due to regular EL's. Never had any of those at IS.
I don't have a clue why this is happening, and discussing it on the IS forums is obviously a no-go, unless I want a lecture in religious idioms for stock photographers.
Maybe their "community spirit" doesn't match the real world when the organisation reaches a certain size.
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Strange, I get EL's with istock but have never had one with dreamstime.
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I have enjoyed reading the linked threads and came across this letter from a loyal istock contibutor,
"We should not complain too much and just be patienced. Staff will make all to get things in right way.
iStock is the best lever to earn money - one day off is nothing if you just think there is no istock what would you do, where would you share photos and get reviews, where would you meet so many friends worldwide, would you get money to buy gear, where would you get happiness looking at numbers of sales ...
So we just have to be thankful for letting us to enjoy all those benefits in this global community.
istock will maybe reward us somehow (don't forget rewards on Punctum day). We are rewarded with just that iStock exists.
So viva iStock - I love you! "
Guess I never spent enough time on the forums there to realize what a "club" it was over there.
Rosta
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Yeah, the ra-ra club. :)
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strange enough sept will be my BME on IS. But yet SS and ST will be a BME too.
I do understand those who went exclusive a few years ago, that made sense back then. But I don't understand why someone would go exclusive nowadays.
firstly, it doesn't pay off. IS makes only around 35% of the total income of those who contribute to multiple sites. So even when you double your royalties (diamond) you're still losing money.
Secondly, it doesn't seem wise to put all your eggs in one basket in such a rapid changing business as stock photography is today.
There is only one reason why I could understand someone goes exclusive. And that is the improved protections when you're images are misused. BUT ... does anyone has ever heard of legal actions taken by IS to copyright offenders ?
There are 2 pirate CD's going around with only IS images on. Is IS taking legal actions ?
I don't know ...
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I do understand those who went exclusive a few years ago, that made sense back then. But I don't understand why someone would go exclusive nowadays.
firstly, it doesn't pay off. IS makes only around 35% of the total income of those who contribute to multiple sites. So even when you double your royalties (diamond) you're still losing money.
I think you are writing from your personal experience. Right now I have well over 50% of my income from iStock (it is around 60%). I have pretty much the same pictures on 5 of the big sites (I don't have pics on StockXpert).
SO if I would be at the diamond level I would go exclusive now (I am bronze now).
I am not particularly huge fan of istock but they do make the most money for me right now. And I don't blame them for treating exclusives better than the rest of us, exclusives are the reason iStock is #1 site (sales wise).
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Maco, of course there are exceptions. But as you can see in the table under 7.1
http://www.perrush.be/SYF_micro_E_7.html
IS is for most of us not the big seller. At average on 23% comes from IS.
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Maco, of course there are exceptions. But as you can see in the table under 7.1
[url]http://www.perrush.be/SYF_micro_E_7.html[/url]
IS is for most of us not the big seller. At average on 23% comes from IS.
You're citing yourself. ;) Since those stats don't actually mean anything (13 people is not a proper sample for the number of contributors) I wouldn't have even published them let alone relied on them to make any meaningful conclusions.
P.S. If you add my stats from pre-exclusive then your stats would change drastically.
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Hey yingyang0,
What made you go exclusive at iStock at bronze level? Were you really making so much on iStock that the loss of other agencies didn't matter?
Or you just didn't want to deal with so many different places?
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Going exclusive with IS now, only makes sense for some of the photographers with a relatively low production. With a large production, and due to the upload limits at IS (at the moment: zero), the portfolio at other sites will always be much bigger than that on IS. For the "old" exclusives, the situation is entirely different. They built their portfolios when the upload limits were much higher, and due to their "elevated" status, they can still upload more or less as much as they want.
The earnings per photo may be better at IS (in my case, they aren't), but that doesn't matter much if your portfolio is much smaller.
There's also the case of rejects and photos selling at different speeds at different agencies. I have photos that sell great at some agencies, but haven't sold a single copy at IS, and the other way around.
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Going exclusive with IS now, only makes sense for some of the photographers with a relatively low production. With a large production, and due to the upload limits at IS (at the moment: zero), the portfolio at other sites will always be much bigger than that on IS. For the "old" exclusives, the situation is entirely different. They built their portfolios when the upload limits were much higher, and due to their "elevated" status, they can still upload more or less as much as they want.
The earnings per photo may be better at IS (in my case, they aren't), but that doesn't matter much if your portfolio is much smaller.
There's also the case of rejects and photos selling at different speeds at different agencies. I have photos that sell great at some agencies, but haven't sold a single copy at IS, and the other way around.
Epixx,
Do you consider yourself as someone with high production. I looked at your IS portfolio and you have 444 files and you have been there since March 2006. Do you max out the upload limit?
I would really like to know how many people max out the upload limit (I can see Yuri Arcus, Phil Date,...). Maybe if you just sign up and have 200-300 files to upload it suck but after a year you should have good amount of pictures there.
I am just curious. I wish I had enough time to process enough pictures to use the upload limit.
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Epixx,
Do you consider yourself as someone with high production. I looked at your IS portfolio and you have 444 files and you have been there since March 2006. Do you max out the upload limit?
I would really like to know how many people max out the upload limit (I can see Yuri Arcus, Phil Date,...). Maybe if you just sign up and have 200-300 files to upload it suck but after a year you should have good amount of pictures there.
I am just curious. I wish I had enough time to process enough pictures to use the upload limit.
My production is much larger than the iStock upload limit, but not all the time. I'm travelling a lot, and only spend around two weeks of each month at home, which is where I do my uploads. That means that, since the iStock limits are on a weekly basis, I lose lots of upload slots.
This is actually my biggest gripe with iStock. Their whole system is based on photographers who stay at home, reading the forums and uploading as soon as there's an available upload slot. That works for some, but is a serious limitation for me.
Most professional photographers with a studio can obviously produce much more than the initial quotas offered, and since images are often made in batches over a period of at least a couple of days, adapting to small, weekly quotas, conflicts with most normal work-flows, particularly when those quotas are changed without warning on a very frequent basis.
I have btw. discussed this on their forums on several occasions. For some strange reason though, they don't seem to be willing to adapt their system to my personal needs :D
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Hey yingyang0,
What made you go exclusive at iStock at bronze level? Were you really making so much on iStock that the loss of other agencies didn't matter?
Or you just didn't want to deal with so many different places?
I was on SS and a few others before and it just wasn't worth the effort to me. If you care about your total revenue then it wouldn't make financial sense (IS only accounted for 72% of total). Frankly, I only joined the microstocks to get acquainted with the licenses and business models in order to do work for a client. My main reason for staying with iStock even with the problems would be for image security reasons. I know if it didn't come from iStock then it was stolen and since I register the copyright to all my images before submitting them it would make for an easy case of infringement with the possibility of a decent amount of damages. Epixx made a great observation that it wouldn't make sense for high production people, that's not me.
I'm not a fan of their forums though. It is amazing that every time they post about there outages and problems people actually congratulate an thank them. Especially the diamond exclusives that depend on iStock for a living.
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I'm not a fan of their forums though. It is amazing that every time they post about there outages and problems people actually congratulate an thank them. Especially the diamond exclusives that depend on iStock for a living.
I know numerous people who sell on istock for a living on some level (meaning at least 50% of their income comes from it). I have very few images on it and don't participate in their forums because it seems too clickish for me, but everyone I know who's really into it has told me they've had a huge loss of sales in the last year, and it's gotten worse in the last few months. Two of them were banned from the boards for basically going in and demanding that istock stop screwing around with their system workings and stop being so cool to their nonexclusives. Seems like there is certainly trouble in paradise over there. It's just a classic case of a company wanting to grow too fast for their own good - in the real world that's how companies get in trouble and many times, fall. A slow stready growth is always the best. Trying for the leaps-and-bounds stuff just leads to troubles. That's why even in the last 24 hours after weeks of problems, it was still nearly impossible to even log on over there for at least an hour. I do feel for those who went exclusive with them and who rely heavily on the income, but hey, if you choose to put all your stock in one company, and it tumbles - it was your choice.
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I'm not a fan of their forums though. It is amazing that every time they post about there outages and problems people actually congratulate an thank them. Especially the diamond exclusives that depend on iStock for a living.
What I find particularly annoying with some of the attitudes I see at the forums, particularly when questions about upload quotas come up, is the fact that most of those diamond members built their portfolios when upload limits were much higher. Sometimes I get a feeling that they are saying "since you didn't become a member when we started out, you are not one of us, and should be thankful that you are allowed in here at all."
Many of them are great photographers, but there's no greatness in the way they treat newcomers.
Oh, and btw: after first week of October, IS is 35% behind DT and 70% behind SS for me. If the sales continue at the same level, the result will be about the same level as September, but that's only because there are 3 or 4 more working days in October :(
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I noticed that in the last two days. The search engine work half of the time. I tried many times whit different settings and it say there is no files matching whit the search.
Then it work again after an hour or two and suddenly the next search doesn't ? Is this just me ?
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So IS has search problems too? (*sigh*)
Regards,
Adelaide
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i have not been around forums recently and have not uploaded recently too.....but sales have dropped drastically since Feb/Apr period....i am only at 25% or less of what I sell and it was much in the first place.....sigh.,...i am glad i am not exclusive ;D
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Well here's my experience this year.
(http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z293/yingyang0/ScreenHunter_01Oct072315.gif)
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This is a dumb question I know, but how do I go into istock and do a chart like the one above, only I want to print out let's say, the last 12 months, or the last 15 months, etc?
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This is a dumb question I know, but how do I go into istock and do a chart like the one above, only I want to print out let's say, the last 12 months, or the last 15 months, etc?
Go to your member profile, then click on the "stats" tab.
Here's another question:
I tried to attach my own stats to a reply in this thread, but it wasn't possible. Do I have to host it somewhere to do that?
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Yep.
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After a good few weeks, I was hoping for new highs but my sales have fallen again. I was doing better with a much smaller portfolio.
(http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/834/21662084cj7.jpg)
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Go to your member profile, then click on the "stats" tab.
Here's another question:
I tried to attach my own stats to a reply in this thread, but it wasn't possible. Do I have to host it somewhere to do that?
I use photobucket to host the photos.
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Here are my stats. Not a pretty sight :(
(http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd76/epixx_photos/istockmonths.jpg)
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Go to your member profile, then click on the "stats" tab.
Here's another question:
I tried to attach my own stats to a reply in this thread, but it wasn't possible. Do I have to host it somewhere to do that?
I use photobucket to host the photos.
Thanks, that worked, but what a horribly ugly website :D
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Well as you can see from below things have been on a downward trend since March, with SS knocking IS of top spot as my best performing Agency.
Last month steadied a little SOoo .... one can hope, you never know with Istock ;)
(http://images.andale.com/f2/115/106/3673029/2007/10/8/stats.jpg)
Sue
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I use photobucket to host the photos.
Thanks, that worked, but what a horribly ugly website :D
The name ain't much prettier either ;)
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Well as you can see from below things have been on a downward trend since March, with SS knocking IS of top spot as my best performing Agency.
Ha ha, for a moment, I thought you had copied my stats. They show an almost identical trend :)
I have to add, that I've almost doubled my portfolio at IS since April. That makes it even worse, doesn't it?
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Here's an interesting curve, the Alexa statistics for IS. I picked it from the forum over there. There's actually a discussion going on about the falling sales. It's been going on since 3 October without being locked. That must be a new iStock record or something :D
(http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd76/epixx_photos/istocktrend.jpg)
Seems to follow my sales-trend pretty well.
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OMG!
Ok, so I'm trying to copy/paste the image from the stats page so I can load it into Elements 4.0 and save it up to my pbase account to show it here, and it won't copy?? What's up with that?
I usually just hit the "PrtScn" button and it copies the browser page, but Elements doesn't recognize that there's anything in the clipboard. Tried Control/C as well... nothing. Right-clicking won't copy it either. Does istock do something so you can't copy these things? How can I copy/paste this simply into Elements so I can save/host it to show? This is weird.
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What I find particularly annoying with some of the attitudes I see at the forums, particularly when questions about upload quotas come up, is the fact that most of those diamond members built their portfolios when upload limits were much higher. Sometimes I get a feeling that they are saying "since you didn't become a member when we started out, you are not one of us, and should be thankful that you are allowed in here at all."
This is not at all true. Upload limits have varied all over the place from 10 on up, since I started in August 2004.
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When I started, March 2006, the limit per day was around the current weekly level. Correct me if I'm wrong. The weekly limits were introduced shortly after. I don't know the exact history, but from what I've been able to gather, the current levels are much lower than they were two or more years ago.
But I don't really worry that much anymore. If the current sales development continues, IS is a bit down on my priority list anyway.
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I definitely remember an upload limit of 10 or 15 a week when I first started.
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I'm not exclusive but I agree with Sean. I have never had that feeling from the exclusive members and have always found them willing to help anyone. Most of my CN members are exclusive and almost everyone of them asked me to be in their CN. This feeling of 'them and us' I think is just in peoples heads.
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Hey you and me both eppix used to be the first place I uploaded, but no longer ;)
That is through choice btw as I never get to my upload limit anyway
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Jeez, I feel like an old timer here. I started in 2004 but still have a fairly small portfolio. I remember when it was like 10 pictures a day for everyone and as time goes on it gets smaller and smaller. I rarely fill up my weekly quota, but recently I've been hitting it and wish I could get more in.
I ran into the same problem last year that epixx is running into. I went through this period from March to September where after making best month for like a year straight, I ran into a brick wall. Then a year ago, things picked up through May of this year. A lot can be attributed to the seasonality of the stock business. The one thing I've found is that IS changes it the search engine algorithm many times. One image I had went to flames in a couple of months and about a year ago something changed and I've had like two downloads in a month. That took a huge bite out of my monthly downloads.
The one thing I find with IS is that it takes a while for images to start getting downloads vs. SS or DT...
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I think we can agree that the views on the IS forums are very divided. People either love them or hate them. I've always found them to be weird. The helpfulness is there, by all means, but only until there's a hint of criticism. The contrast to this forum is almost beyond description. Even if some of the agencies are criticized heavily here, we are still able to have a constructive dialog with their admins.
But this is really OT, since the thread is about the sinking sales at IS. While staying away from the IS forums doesn't cost me a dime, sinking sales do. As I see it, there are two possible reasons for that: either IS is losing market shares, or the number of photos online increases fast than what the market is willing to absorb. A combination is also possible, that the number of agencies with large portfolios is growing too fast for IS to keep up with.
Since IS is obviously protecting the exclusives (from what I see, 80-90% of the first page of most searches are from exclusives), being a non-exclusive at IS becomes less attractive. It's also impossible for photographers to read from their own sales where this is going, since exclusives and non-exclusives develop differently.
It's a pity, since IS used to be a great place for everyone to sell photos. Now, the non-exclusives seem to be ignored mostly. Add to that the lowest pay in the business, and the conclusion for many may soon be that it's simply no fun anymore.
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I ran into the same problem last year that epixx is running into. I went through this period from March to September where after making best month for like a year straight, I ran into a brick wall. Then a year ago, things picked up through May of this year. A lot can be attributed to the seasonality of the stock business. The one thing I've found is that IS changes it the search engine algorithm many times. One image I had went to flames in a couple of months and about a year ago something changed and I've had like two downloads in a month. That took a huge bite out of my monthly downloads.
The one thing I find with IS is that it takes a while for images to start getting downloads vs. SS or DT...
While I agree with you on many points, there are two elements that are radically different from previous years:
- IS favors exclusives much stronger than before.
- The competition from other agencies is much fiercer. There are more micro-agencies around, and the big ones are doing a much better job selling their images than before. In a few months, SnapperTown (that is the name, isn't it ??? ) will be up and running full steam, and we can be quite sure that they will use all the resources they have to gain a significant market share.
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I've never heard of snappertown. Did a search but couldn't find any info on them. (?)
Figured out how to do the stats page. Elements just won't do a copy/paste of it, but I did it with another program. This includes my adding to my portfolio as well, which didn't seem to do much good.
(http://www.pbase.com/powdersprings/image/86906887.jpg)
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I've never heard of snappertown.
I believe they were trying to be funny. They were probably talking about SnapVillage.
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What evidence is there that istock favors exclusives? I have seen lots of exclusives complaining about sales and I have seen istock deny that they favor exclusives.
The exclusives have higher commissions and istock must make more profit from non-exclusives, so I don't see what advantage it would have for them to favor exclusives.
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"What evidence is there that istock favors exclusives?"
Your having a laugh right!?
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I haven't been around that long, but I agree with hatman. The only bias towards exclusives I've noticed is the use of their imagery to promote the agency (both in print and online).
As a whole, IS is currently experiencing record sales days. Perhaps the culprit for decreased sales on older images is increased competition.
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or perhaps it is because as already stated very few non exclusive files show up in the first pages of best match for one ....
Anyhoo still not to distressed as I have a smallish Porfolio and my sales are flying elswhere to compensate
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or perhaps it is because as already stated very few non exclusive files show up in the first pages of best match for one ....
Just did a search for the classic "business" only 6 out of the first 10 were exclusive (didn't look past that). My guess is that exclusives just upload more than non-exclusives.
My images didn't jump up in the search when I went exclusive. The biggest factor in the search right now is dl/month. If exclusive plays a role it doesn't appear to be a big one.
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Just did a search for the classic "business" only 6 out of the first 10 were exclusive (didn't look past that). My guess is that exclusives just upload more than non-exclusives.
My images didn't jump up in the search when I went exclusive. The biggest factor in the search right now is dl/month. If exclusive plays a role it doesn't appear to be a big one.
I did 5 different searches (sailboat, London, man telephone, tomato meal, pencil) and on average, of the 24 first images (the first page), 70% were from exclusives. This is understandable, since photos from exclusives don't exist elsewhere, and are supposed to give IS a competitive edge. I would have been surprised if it looked much differently.
Obviously, with higher upload limits, exclusives have the possibility to upload more. If they really do so is another question. The exclusive vs non-exclusive debate isn't really that interesting. It's the way IS has chosen to go, and we can accept it or leave.
Much more interesting is how much market share they are losing, and to whom. It would also be interesting to know why they have the technical problems that they have, and why they repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot with activities that could easily have been avoided (unlimited upload for exclusives a few weekends ago springs to my mind).
Things like that annoy me because I think their basic concept is great. In spite of meager paybacks, and in spite of horrible routines for almost everything, I have chosen to invest a lot of work uploading photos to IS. When my sales at the same time go down instead of up, not for a month or two, but for almost six consecutive months, I have to start wondering where they are going.
We will probably never know. Nobody keep their cards as close to the body as the guys at IS, which again is understandable, but it also makes me feel that the community thing and "human touch" is more a gimmick developed by some marketing guru than anything else. "What's good for Getty is good for the world". These things were most probably very different in the past, but IS today isn't less of a commercial enterprise than Coca-Cola.
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Well... they favor exclusives several ways. More uploads, more money per download and faster approval times. A couple of intangible ways are that the bar for approving an image is lower for exclusives and they show higher in "best match". Sean L. may tell you otherwise, but a bunch of us on the Micropayment list proved it about a year ago...
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Well... they favor exclusives several ways. More uploads, more money per download and faster approval times. A couple of intangible ways are that the bar for approving an image is lower for exclusives and they show higher in "best match". Sean L. may tell you otherwise, but a bunch of us on the Micropayment list proved it about a year ago...
Um...more uploads, more money per download, and faster approval times are part of the exclusive contract. Nothing about those should be a surprise. Could you show the thread where you "proved" that exclusives have a lower bar? The bar seems to be the same to me.
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Yep, don't know anything about that.
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Well... they favor exclusives several ways. More uploads, more money per download and faster approval times. A couple of intangible ways are that the bar for approving an image is lower for exclusives and they show higher in "best match". Sean L. may tell you otherwise, but a bunch of us on the Micropayment list proved it about a year ago...
There was something else recently. I remember reading in the forums on istock that some people were angry because they had a special day where the exclusives got to keep 100% of sales commissions of their images for that one day. The nonexclusives were left out of it. Now, I can understand allowing people who are exclusive members upload more pics than nons, and I can also understand the faster approval time and overall higher commissions, too. But I would have to agree with the angry villagers on that one - that special day thing was just tacky. All contributors should have been allowed to keep the commissions that day, as they all contribute to istock's success.
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Well... they favor exclusives several ways. More uploads, more money per download and faster approval times. A couple of intangible ways are that the bar for approving an image is lower for exclusives and they show higher in "best match". Sean L. may tell you otherwise, but a bunch of us on the Micropayment list proved it about a year ago...
There was something else recently. I remember reading in the forums on istock that some people were angry because they had a special day where the exclusives got to keep 100% of sales commissions of their images for that one day. The nonexclusives were left out of it. Now, I can understand allowing people who are exclusive members upload more pics than nons, and I can also understand the faster approval time and overall higher commissions, too. But I would have to agree with the angry villagers on that one - that special day thing was just tacky. All contributors should have been allowed to keep the commissions that day, as they all contribute to istock's success.
I disagree. Exclusives commit a lot by being exclusive (to me the biggest thing is that once IS rejects your image you can't sell it anywhere else, which is important for me since 30% of my images would be a waste of time). So exclusives SHOULD be rewarded greatly. Honestly I don't think that IS appreciates them enough.
And just to clarify I am NOT exclusive.
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I agree that exclusives should have priority, and as long as it doesn't create problems for the rest, good for them. But when exclusives had unlimited uploads a whole weekend not so long ago, with the result that they had to halt uploads for everybody, before reducing it to the crawl we are seeing now, they really shot themselves in the foot. And mind you, this happened only days after they had increased the limits for non-exclusives to fairly acceptable levels.
Incidents like that makes me place a big question mark over the abilities of the current management. That kind of stunt can work well in a small organisation, but when you have tens of thousands of suppliers and customers spread all over the globe, it's not a good idea.
Most people prefer predictability and stability in any business relationship, and a business relationship is basically what IS is offering their suppliers as well as customers. A couple of "Yay" or "Hallelujah" in the forums don't change that fact.
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I do not mind exclusives getting preferred treatment, I think they should! I mean they just sell their stuff at iStockphoto. And I think iStock offers them a good deal. It allways can be better, but overall the deal is not too bad. iS favours exclusives in the search engine. Although not so strong as they used too at one time. I am even ok with this although it would be better not to favour them in the search engine, because customers can search just for exclusive images as a search option, if they prefer exclusive images. Also iS earns more money with non exclusives. (IS gets a higher commission).
I do not believe, that exclusives can submit lower quality images which will be accepted, that makes no sense to me.
I am very interested in the future development. Currently most photographers who are on all major agencies seem to make just 30% on iStock from their overall microstock earnings. Will they make more or less in future, that would be an interesting question..
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I agree that exclusives should have priority, and as long as it doesn't create problems for the rest, good for them. But when exclusives had unlimited uploads a whole weekend not so long ago, with the result that they had to halt uploads for everybody, before reducing it to the crawl we are seeing now, they really shot themselves in the foot.
That really didn't have anything to do with the queue. Most exclusives reported uploading their normal amount that weekend. Only a couple said they had a few extras. The queue was more affected by the decision to have a ton of admins/inspectors at the France meetup for several days. Plus the site outages.
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And they reduced the bronze level to 250 downloads, so a lot of new contributors could go exclusive and have higher upload limits. They will probably have lots to upload with the low weekly quota. That just adds to the queue problems.
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That really didn't have anything to do with the queue. Most exclusives reported uploading their normal amount that weekend. Only a couple said they had a few extras. The queue was more affected by the decision to have a ton of admins/inspectors at the France meetup for several days. Plus the site outages.
Here's the official explanation from IS:
"Here's what happened. Last weekend, we raised the limits to effectively allow unlimited uploads. Y'all took advantage of this and uploaded a whole bunch of files. When the free-for-all was over, we lowered the limits to normal levels. Unfortunately, with the lower limits, and the fact that we normally count the number of uploads over the past 7 days (168 hours actually), many of you are now over your limit.
As a temporary measure, so you can start uploading again, I've change the system so that it only counts uploads in the past 24 hours against your limit (the limits have been reduced by 1/7 as a result). Next week, when the unlimited upload days are history, we will bring back the "x uploads per 168" period limits."
For me, the effect was that I had no upload slots for a week.
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But I would have to agree with the angry villagers on that one - that special day thing was just tacky. All contributors should have been allowed to keep the commissions that day, as they all contribute to istock's success.
How did that event actually effect non-exclusives? Did it somehow lower your income? No. I found it rather childish when all the non-exclusives complained on the IS forum. It was a special perk to being exclusive in order to compensate exclusives for not uploading to other sites. What all the people that were complaining were basically saying is that there should be no/few benefits for exclusives, and that exclusives and non-exclusives should be treated exactly the same. That's ludicrous.
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How did that event actually effect non-exclusives? Did it somehow lower your income? No. I found it rather childish when all the non-exclusives complained on the IS forum. It was a special perk to being exclusive in order to compensate exclusives for not uploading to other sites. What all the people that were complaining were basically saying is that there should be no/few benefits for exclusives, and that exclusives and non-exclusives should be treated exactly the same. That's ludicrous.
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Yes it is ludicrous! yingyang0 and very much your own interpretation, I doubt very much that any non Exclusives begrudge the Exclusives "percs" goodness knows they have earned some extra for giving that added Commitment.
It is the way it is done!.... the amount of times it is done!!.... and the effect on non-exclusive's Portfolio performance and moral... Istock need to keep everyone happy to keep up high Standards
Let the Cream float to the top regardless of the status of the Member says I 8)
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For me, the effect was that I had no upload slots for a week.
That's not how that worked. The effect was that it parceled out upload slots by the day, instead of by the week. So, if your limit was 15, you could upload two each day, instead of 15 at a time. Inconvenient, but that was over with in a week, and it certainly wasn't the cause of the large queue.
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For me, the effect was that I had no upload slots for a week.
That's not how that worked. The effect was that it parceled out upload slots by the day, instead of by the week. So, if your limit was 15, you could upload two each day, instead of 15 at a time. Inconvenient, but that was over with in a week, and it certainly wasn't the cause of the large queue.
That was not how it worked in reality because:
- The uploads I had just before the weekend were deducted from the first days
- It required people to stay home every day to upload, since the quota from one day wasn't transferred to the next.
But this isn't really anything new. I lose around half of my upload slots because I travel a lot. Why the quotas can't be on a monthly basis is beyond me, but things are what they are, and I've chosen to live with that.
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What all the people that were complaining were basically saying is that there should be no/few benefits for exclusives, and that exclusives and non-exclusives should be treated exactly the same. That's ludicrous.
yingyang,
IS has the right to give all advantages they want to exclusives. Not that I think it's fair. Not that I think it's good if you want to attract some new talented people who have just started.
I think however that they should be clear about such policies. What is visible today is basically the upload limits. Everyone here has opinions about other "hidden" advantages, which may or may not exist.
Again, it's their right. I just think they should say rules clearly, and I think in some occasions they don't.
Regards,
Adelaide
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Yes it is ludicrous! yingyang0 and very much your own interpretation, I doubt very much that any non Exclusives begrudge the Exclusives "percs" goodness knows they have earned some extra for giving that added Commitment.
It is the way it is done!.... the amount of times it is done!!.... and the effect on non-exclusive's Portfolio performance and moral... Istock need to keep everyone happy to keep up high Standards
That's just it, the 100% royalties day didn't have an effect on non-exclusives. It's different if the perk has an effect on non-exclusives (such as the supposed favoring in the best match). Perks that actually hurt non-exclusives shouldn't be allowed, but all this one did was provide an extra benefit for a day. It didn't diminish the downloads or royalties for non-exclusives. The problem is that people are saying exclusives and non-exclusives should have all the same benefits. Exclusives sarcafice the right to sell on the other sites and should be compensated for it.
@ madelaide - which advantages has iStock not made clear?
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I haven't seen anyone say that exclusives and non-exclusives should be treated the same. There was probably some bad feelings about the 100% royalties day because istock take 80% commission from us and there are better ways they could spend it.
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The gods must be reading this forum. While we are discussing this, I'm having my best day ever at IS, and way over anything I've had since April. Weird ;D
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I've been having a terrible week at iStock. Anyone else? It's probably just me.
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I am having a good week :)
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I just started with IS recently and it is by far [knocks on wood] picking up momentum more quickly than any of the other sites I'm with.
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not so good :'(
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mine is just ok.
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I'm having a good month, best in the past 6 months. IS and StockXpert are disputing head to head.
One thing I noticed this month is a higher $/dld. I still sell many XS images, but I'm getting a good portion of higher sizes.
Regards,
Adelaide
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Disappointing a little bit for me... and the review time is loooong, a lot longer that what they post.
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After 5 months of diminishing sales at IS, it seems to be picking up again, and this month will be my SBME (Second-Best-Month-Ever :) ), if not the best. Another change, is that my new photos have suddenly started to sell, while a few weeks ago, hardly any photos newer than 3 months were selling.
I haven't decided yet if I'm going to believe that this is a coincidence or a result of their endless tweaking of search engine parameters. I tend towards the latter at the moment and will keep my smile up for the time being at least ;D
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Slow sales?
Hmmm, I guess not! :-\
(http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/4504/isstatsxp2.jpg)
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I ended up with 27 downloads yesterday. I think that is my BEDD (Best ever downloads day).
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IS sales keep increasing for me. My sales from sep to oct will increase roughly 20%. IS revenue are now more than double SS revenue. If it keeps going this way, I might become exclusive by the end of 2008.
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Slow sales?
Hmmm, I guess not! :-\
([url]http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/4504/isstatsxp2.jpg[/url])
Well, this has been my best month so far too. However, the last two weeks just haven't been that good. But other sites have taken up the slack, so it's okay.
(http://jrtmedia.com/img/st.jpg)
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IS sales keep increasing for me. My sales from sep to oct will increase roughly 20%. IS revenue are now more than double SS revenue. If it keeps going this way, I might become exclusive by the end of 2008.
Same here!
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Exclusives commit a lot by being exclusive (to me the biggest thing is that once IS rejects your image you can't sell it anywhere else, which is important for me since 30% of my images would be a waste of time). So exclusives SHOULD be rewarded greatly. Honestly I don't think that IS appreciates them enough.
How does that work. If the photo is rejected, how can they still want to control the use. I'm not saying it's not true, I'm asking how they can demand that? They said, we don't want your photo, it's not good enough... but we don't want you to use it somewhere else. >:(
Doesn't seem right.
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How does that work. If the photo is rejected, how can they still want to control the use.
Read the small print of their Agreement for exclusives ...
Full artist exclusivity means no images may be sold on other Royalty-Free sites or businesses with the exception of Getty Images. Individual image exclusivity is not enough.
Doesn't seem right.
It isn't ... in my opinion.
It's one thing to demand exclusivity for individual images. That's perfectly legitimate. But to say you can't sell anything, even the ones we don't want, with another agency, is much too restrictive.
As far as I am aware, iStock is the only microstock agency that has such a condition.
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I think, they can still sell other types of licences...
But it doesn't seem right anyway...
How does that work. If the photo is rejected, how can they still want to control the use.
Read the small print of their Agreement for exclusives ...
Full artist exclusivity means no images may be sold on other Royalty-Free sites or businesses with the exception of Getty Images. Individual image exclusivity is not enough.
Doesn't seem right.
It isn't ... in my opinion.
It's one thing to demand exclusivity for individual images. That's perfectly legitimate. But to say you can't sell anything, even the ones we don't want, with another agency, is much too restrictive.
As far as I am aware, iStock is the only microstock agency that has such a condition.
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Slow sales?
Hmmm, I guess not! :-\
([url]http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/4504/isstatsxp2.jpg[/url])
Based on how many uploads? My stats looked really good the first six months, but unless you can keep uploading large quantities of images every month, you will hit a wall at some point
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Based on how many uploads? My stats looked really good the first six months, but unless you can keep uploading large quantities of images every month, you will hit a wall at some point
34! And I didn't upload much the last 6 months!
I did hit that wall on Shutterstock already because of my low upload rate!
But Istock is doing better and better every month, I don't know why!
And Im not exclusive!
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Based on how many uploads? My stats looked really good the first six months, but unless you can keep uploading large quantities of images every month, you will hit a wall at some point
34! And I didn't upload much the last 6 months!
I did hit that wall on Shutterstock already because of my low upload rate!
But Istock is doing better and better every month, I don't know why!
And Im not exclusive!
Do you have one VERY good seller? Can you give a link to your portfolio?
When you have a very small portfolio (34 images is very small) one good seller can drive your entire performance on iStock. I have 250 files (which is still a small portfolio) on iStock and even for me in October about 1/3 of my sales came from one image.
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Based on how many uploads? My stats looked really good the first six months, but unless you can keep uploading large quantities of images every month, you will hit a wall at some point
34! And I didn't upload much the last 6 months!
I did hit that wall on Shutterstock already because of my low upload rate!
But Istock is doing better and better every month, I don't know why!
And Im not exclusive!
Sometimes, I have seen that my sales increase when I stop uploading at IS. That has happened on two or three occasions. It may be a coincidence, but you never know what is hidden in their complicated search engine.
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34 images! Either you have an image that is selling like crazy, or that chart while it looks impressive, is misleading.
For me, uploads to IS start off real so, but seem to stay steady over the months. With Shutterstock, things take off right away, and quickly trail off.
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Yeah I have good seller. (http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&majorterms=%7B%22csv%22%3A%22%22%2C%22conjunction%22%3A%22AND%22%7D©Space=%7B%22Tolerance%22%3A1%2C%22Matrix%22%3A%5B%5D%7D&userID=1028054&fileTypeSizePrice=%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22Image%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22All%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%221%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Illustration+%5BVector%5D%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22Vector+Image%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%22All%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Flash%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22Flash+Document%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%22None%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Video%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22None%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%221%22%7D%5D&orientation=7&filterContent=true&illustrationLimit=Exactly&flashLimit=Exactly&order=6&perPage=20&page=1&showFileNumber=true&enableLoupe=true)
Christmas related I guess!
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Yeah I have good seller. ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&majorterms=%7B%22csv%22%3A%22%22%2C%22conjunction%22%3A%22AND%22%7D©Space=%7B%22Tolerance%22%3A1%2C%22Matrix%22%3A%5B%5D%7D&userID=1028054&fileTypeSizePrice=%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22Image%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22All%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%221%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Illustration+%5BVector%5D%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22Vector+Image%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%22All%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Flash%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22Flash+Document%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%22None%22%7D%2C%7B%22type%22%3A%22Video%22%2C%22size%22%3A%22None%22%2C%22priceOption%22%3A%221%22%7D%5D&orientation=7&filterContent=true&illustrationLimit=Exactly&flashLimit=Exactly&order=6&perPage=20&page=1&showFileNumber=true&enableLoupe=true[/url])
Christmas related I guess!
WOW! 34 files and over 3000 sales!!!
That is impressive! I wonder why don't you produce more files, you could be making a lot of money on iStock. But I have to say that your success is heavily offset but that superseller.
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Nice work Gregor. Very, very nice work.
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Thank you guys! :)
I wonder why don't you produce more files
I have ADD :-[
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OK, you do illustration versus just photography. Illustrators can make far more money on fewer images and you do have two images that are more than 2/3 of your downloads...
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Awesome indeed. "CO2 reduction" is very creative. Congrats, Gregor!!
Regards,
Adelaide
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Thanks :)
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Istock just overtook SS for me in terms of this months earning as the number one site.. never thought this would happen to be honest...
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Something strange is happening. After 5 months of sinking sales, I suddenly have BME at IS (twice the sales of last month with two days left), and my first EL there as well. SS on the other hand, has hit bottom like a rock this week, after very steady sales all October.
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Something strange is happening. After 5 months of sinking sales, I suddenly have BME at IS (twice the sales of last month with two days left), and my first EL there as well. SS on the other hand, has hit bottom like a rock this week, after very steady sales all October.
I too have noticed a definite upswing at IS this month resulting in a BME. Sure is a welcome change!!
(http://pixelbrat.com/images/istock_oct.jpg)
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Not me... but that's partly my fault for taking a hiatus for about six months from my stock portfolios. I uploaded dozens of new images in September and sales won't kick in for a few more weeks. I'm hoping for BME in a month or two...
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It still looks my best month in the past 6 months, and I doubt I'll get enough more to make it a BME, but nevertheless sales have increased in the past week, surpassing StockXpert in earnings this month.
Regards,
Adelaide
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I've been knocking on the 1000 DL/month door at IS for a few months now, and this is the first month I'll pass through it. Next IS milestone for me ... 1000 $/month!
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Nowhere near the joys of the beginning of year and still way behind Shutterstock in $ this month however seemed to have turned the corner and on the way back up at Istock ...
That said it has been a Brilliant month at all the sites for me
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I've been knocking on the 1000 DL/month door at IS for a few months now, and this is the first month I'll pass through it. Next IS milestone for me ... 1000 $/month!
I'm knocking on the $1000/month today ($998,24)! /me so so happy!!! ;D
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I haven't made US$1000 yet after 20 months there! :'(
Regards,
Adelaide
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Don't be sad, Adelaide, it all depends on the time and $$$ you invest, like on any other business. I am more than 40 hours a week on this, for me is a full time job. You can do it too! I think you have what it takes :).
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Had my BME in October by $1. This is not very good, as my previous BME was in March and I have uploaded hundreds of images since then.
Don't know what is happening today, I haven't had a download yet. This is the slowest week day there for me this year.