MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: lisafx on January 14, 2013, 10:13
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I know some folks have already deactivated their Istock ports because of previous bad behavior by Getty.
My question is what happened to your income on other sites? Did is rise to make up the difference, rise slightly, stay about the same, or fall?
Wondering if enough of us pull all or most of our ports from Istock, how big of a hit will we be taking ITLR
In addition to voting, any comments from you previous de-activators would be most welcome...
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Bear in mind a lot has happened since then which may or may not make results today the same. Plus, with so many contributors leaving istockgetty and going to other sites will likely overload their inspectors which might mean 1. Images taking longer to get online and 2. More competition all at once, fighting for the top. Not saying its an impossible situation at all, just saying the circumstances are different. Good images will sell anywhere. Might just take longer today to recoup $$$ than it did back then.
After i left istock, my sales increased on both ss and dt (and even other smaller sites) to make up for it. Of course, since then, i have left dt, but thats another thread.
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Thanks for the reply Cathy. I know there are others who quit. Hopefully some of them will discover this poll and give us some idea what we might expect.
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I think the initial drop caused by so many free images hitting the market is tapering off. I'm starting to see a little more action on all sites. Once everyone has a copy of the free stuff, sales ought to pick back up.
But, I'm afraid it will take a while...
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Hey Lisa, I didn't do your poll as I don't really fit it.
I left most of my port on iStock but deactivated about 20 of my best sellers. Since I deleted them my indie income there has gone up, but only because of the PP.
I think if you do delete your images there then there will inevitibly be a loss, but it is a trade-off for the mental health benefits of not having to deal with the iS nonsense. You already have an excellent collection of images on all the major sites - you may have to work harder to make up the diference if you do cut iS completely, but as sales there have been falling and may continue to do so it may just be that you get ahead of yourself and deal with what would have happened eventually anyway. Best of luck whatever you do.
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I've deactivated half my portfolio over the course of about 2 years, and haven't noticed any difference elsewhere.
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Hey Lisa, I didn't do your poll as I don't really fit it.
I left most of my port on iStock but deactivated about 20 of my best sellers. Since I deleted them my indie income there has gone up, but only because of the PP.
I think if you do delete your images there then there will inevitibly be a loss, but it is a trade-off for the mental health benefits of not having to deal with the iS nonsense. You already have an excellent collection of images on all the major sites - you may have to work harder to make up the diference if you do cut iS completely, but as sales there have been falling and may continue to do so it may just be that you get ahead of yourself and deal with what would have happened eventually anyway. Best of luck whatever you do.
Thanks so much Bridget, for the very helpful advice and the kind words. First optimistic post I have read in days. Bless you :)
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I stopped uploading when they announced the RC thing, then when images were going to be forced into PP I went from about 950 images to 50. I kept ones that didn't get accepted at SS and that seemed to sell well at IS but not elsewhere as well as a bunch of old and smaller images. So I didn't really delete my port, but I did remove most of it. My IS income seemed to only go down about 70% for a while (a few months) and then it plummeted. Based on my December sales, I have essentially left Istock - but maybe not the PP.
I didn't notice any great boost at other sites, but my total has gone up the last 3 years. I think Alamy and SS took up the slack last year (2012), and Veer had a nice run in 2011 plus their dash for cash kicked in a nice bit in 2010 - they were flat in 2012 though.
IS was never a major player for me, they seemed to reject a lot of my stuff combined with the upload limits and the best match changes killing any promising sellers. Still, before they jumped the shark (v1) they were my #2 site with about 25%.