What's iStock?

Kidding (sort of). My income dropped about half before I deleted my portfolio there, but that was in 2011. So, I can't say what's been going on lately other than the things I hear here and there.

I've never been exclusive but its been noticeable that as my istock earnings declined, my SS earnings increased.  It seems obvious to me that a lot of istock buyers now use SS.  Some use Thinkstock and the other sites but they aren't likely to return to istock.  The Getty/istock management are either doing this deliberately or they're incompetent.  It looks like istock are doing a Kodak, perhaps there's time to halt the decline but they've shown no sign of wanting to do that.

So it's not me. 

The quality on SS is certainly impressive though I believe the royalties are much less.

Depends on how you look at it, SS pays you around 25-30% which is more, but in $$$ it could be less.

Quote from: Poncke on April 03, 2013, 04:59

Quote from: goober on April 02, 2013, 19:13

So it's not me. 

The quality on SS is certainly impressive though I believe the royalties are much less.

Depends on how you look at it, SS pays you around 25-30% which is more, but in $$$ it could be less.

Do SS pay themselves a big extra skim for non-USD purchases like iStock, or is their payment system too opaque for contributors to know?

Why dont you go and find out yourself. All prices are listed on SS. Good luck

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Why dont you go and find out yourself.

Is that how you deal with customers in your 'customer relations' job? Nice.

Is he my customer? Why does he ask me? I dont have the answer, and he can find the answers on Shutterstock if he wants to know. If I get a call at work that is not related to the company I work for I tell them to go somewhere else indeed. Thats quite normal. Or should I come up with a crap answer just to satisfy them?

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Is he my customer? Why does he ask me?

This is a forum where people come for help and advice.

So then you give him the answer.

Look, the question is a negative question, and a closed question where the answer is supposed to confirm one of the two negatives stated in the question. Its unrelated to the topic, and has nothing to do with my comment. So I have reason to believe the question was asked to revoke a reaction, or troll if you will, hence my specific reply for that person to go and find out himself.

Lets move on.

Spring break! Many image buyers take vacation at this time of year.

My sales have been disappointing since the pile-up of disasters last September.  And since iStock's only focus seems to be on finding new ways to reduce royalties and increase their own commission, it seems they'll continue to get less and less attractive for exclusives.  And still no sign of any interest in making real steps towards improving things.

I'm hoping that strong competition from obviously fairer new sites like Stocksy, and the fact that a lot of the very best of iStock's exclusive content vanished so quickly from them will finally alert iS/Getty to the fact that that they're not going to be able to attract and keep the best content if they continue paying such low royalty rates, constantly moving the goalposts, and acting as though they fully own all of the content they're supposed to be distributing responsibly with our agreement.

This weird obsession with getting down to a royalty rate of 20%, then 15%, and now even below that for many sales looks more and more 'abusive' when people look around at what else is available.

And with established agencies like SS continuing to build on their successes, I wouldn't like to be in the shoes of an iS/Getty exec who's probably charged with increasing profits by some large double digit percentage every year.

Quote from: ProArtwork on April 03, 2013, 10:35

Spring break! Many image buyers take vacation at this time of year.

So lots of college students have been buying my stuff! 

I think 'spring break' comes just before the 'summer slowdown'.

Quote from: Poncke on April 03, 2013, 04:59

Quote from: goober on April 02, 2013, 19:13

So it's not me. 

The quality on SS is certainly impressive though I believe the royalties are much less.

Depends on how you look at it, SS pays you around 25-30% which is more, but in $$$ it could be less.

Less %age than an exclusive makes at iS, and less than 25% when you start out at SS.

True, but the bar to the first pay raise is pretty low, even I made it past the first $500 with my small portfolio there.  And that first pay raise from .25 to .33 is a big jump and your earnings increase significantly after that.