It's a relief that it's staying the same. I had been nervous they were going to vastly increase them. 

My earnings are so far down this year that I'm dropping one point to 16%. Awesome. But I knew that already. They'd have to lower the targets big time for me to have retained my 17%.

The best I can hope for with istock is that the pile of work I wasn't able to upload all year because of text usage can now start earning well for me, now that they're finally accepting images with text. So far, it looks to be working. But that could also be because of the fact that I don't have a lot of competition in this area yet. Time will tell if I can turn this around. I'm hopeful, but realistically I know it's probably a long shot.

Looks like they will be paying people for levels they passed earlier in the year, that's a bit surprising to me if that's what this means:

"Regarding people who have gone up a level this year: we'll have a follow up post next week with the details of how that will all be credited."

Why is that surprising? That is what they should do and they're only going to have to do it because the RC targets were announced 8 months over the deadline. If they did announce them in time, people would start getting the higher percentage the moment they've reached their (next level) target.

Quote from: traveler1116 on August 30, 2012, 17:23

Looks like they will be paying people for levels they passed earlier in the year, that's a bit surprising to me if that's what this means:

"Regarding people who have gone up a level this year: we'll have a follow up post next week with the details of how that will all be credited."

Why is that surprising? That is what they should do and they're only going to have to do it because the RC targets were announced 8 months over the deadline. If they did announce them in time, people would start getting the higher percentage the moment they've reached their (next level) target.

Wonder if they will pay with interest?

Quote from: Mantis on August 30, 2012, 17:36

Wonder if they will pay with interest?

Don't count on that but at least they payout every week instead of once a month, do you get the interest from those sites?

Of course not, and it was meant as a joke, mostly.

The new targets are at least realistic. If you look at the survey we have recently, most of the contributors (who are also the forum members too) have reached or expect to maintain last year's levels.

Yay, I get to keep my measly 16%.  Should I be dancing?  Why don't I feel like dancing?

"They didn't do it last year though when they revised the targets downwards, so doing it this year is a surprise to me."

I don't remember them not paying back money.

"Takes out onion" Wow __ so apparently they actually agreed to beletedly up someone from 15% to 16% out of the goodness of their hearts? If true that's got to be worth a Nobel nomination for humanity alone. Otherwise it'll be good for a Pulitzer for fiction anyway.

"They didn't do it last year though when they revised the targets downwards, so doing it this year is a surprise to me."

I don't remember them not paying back money.

Yeah but this year their record of paying back royalties is not that great, as you know

Quote from: corepics on August 30, 2012, 19:02

Overall, the targets have dropped. In some segments, significantluy so, in others, they've stayed the same. A useful telltale of how iStock's business is evolving.

Comparison chart:

They have not changed from the revised 2011 targets
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=338873

In that case, they never adjusted their RC charts on http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=1090. The revisement didn't affect us last time, so I didn't pay notice to it.

Quote from: cmannphoto on August 30, 2012, 19:06

Quote from: corepics on August 30, 2012, 19:02

Overall, the targets have dropped. In some segments, significantluy so, in others, they've stayed the same. A useful telltale of how iStock's business is evolving.

Comparison chart:

They have not changed from the revised 2011 targets
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=338873

In that case, they never adjusted their RC charts on http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=1090. The revisement didn't affect us last time, so I didn't pay notice to it.

They haven't fixed a lot of things on the site. 

Based on the revised targets, it appears that I'll be going down again. Before this redeemed credit thing I was making 35% as exclusive Gold illustrator and patiently waiting for Diamond to roll over for the 40% cut... Now it's going to 25% the base exclusive royalty. meh - kills the enthusiasm.