It might just turn out to be a wise decision.
What do you think your percentage rate would be after going exclusive ?

by the end of the year, I'm going exclusive at IS, if sales will keep on rising the way they did in May.

"Sales can go up as well as down" - odd things happen, and you have no control over them.
Make sure you keep your eyes glued onto the iStock monthly thread. It isn't all ha ha hee hee, (nor is it aways all doom and gloom). Check the canisters of those who are falling fast despite lots of portfolio additions.
Last Jan - May, I thought I was dead in the water at iStock. Suddenly sank at the beginning of Jan after a good Dec, for no perceptible reason (no obvious constant, huge and overall best match drop, for example); suddenly shot up again in June, again for no obvious reason.

Plus, you never know what they have round the corner; again, they can make decisions which will impact your income, randomly and suddenly, that you can't control.

However, given your figures it may be a reasonable decision.

It's also mostly due to being sick and tired of constant hassle with trying to comply to so many different, ever changing sets of standards.

Certainly can understand that sentiment.

Quote from: wut on June 03, 2012, 11:10

by the end of the year, I'm going exclusive at IS, if sales will keep on rising the way they did in May.

"Sales can go up as well as down" - odd things happen, and you have no control over them.
Make sure you keep your eyes glued onto the iStock monthly thread. It isn't all ha ha hee hee, (nor is it aways all doom and gloom). Check the canisters of those who are falling fast despite lots of portfolio additions.
Last Jan - May, I thought I was dead in the water at iStock. Suddenly sank at the beginning of Jan after a good Dec, for no perceptible reason (no obvious constant, huge and overall best match drop, for example); suddenly shot up again in June, again for no obvious reason.

Plus, you never know what they have round the corner; again, they can make decisions which will impact your income, randomly and suddenly, that you can't control.

However, given your figures it may be a reasonable decision.

Quote

It's also mostly due to being sick and tired of constant hassle with trying to comply to so many different, ever changing sets of standards.

Certainly can understand that sentiment.

I know. But that's true for all of the other top 4 sites. FT has totally messed their search engine for instance, SS has other problems, volatile inspections (I dunno what's worse, sudden best match shakeups or inspectors with crazy mood quality standard swings).
I do read them every single month. Looks pretty good lately. BDs are down, but that is to be expected, if you expect infinite growth forever, well your trust in capitalism is just too big and unrealistic. I dismiss most ppl below silver canister and usually check their ports and number of new uploads. Silver-diamonds seem to be doing well, E+ looks to be a big hit and now they're going to mirror it to Getty, so yet another great opportunity to earn more. I'd also be motivated to shoot stuff for Vetta, do more creative stuff and not get bored with micro as fast as some do. Generally, I think IS gets out of the box and artsy shots more than other agencies, especially SS, looking at just the top 4. Those shots also have more shots of selling there.

I guess I'll just have to take a risk. Well I have to wait for over 5 months anyway, because of DT. I'll just see how SS and IS earnings will turn out in that period and also the ratio between them.

My figures are nothing special. I expect to reach 17/30%, I'm still at 16% now. They just significantly improved in May. Which of course means nothing, but it did made me think about exclusivity. But IS, as it is, really is the 2nd option, the way things are now.

Although I have no own experience and hate the idea of exclusivity I remember various people (exclusives) commenting their numbers to me and they were really satisfying. To me it always seemed that exclusivity might be a very good deal income-wise.

Also, there was a blog entry on the MSG which analyzed plenty of full-timers. The report showed that the istock exclusive - fulltimers seemed to earn more money for less work if I remember correctly.

I've been selling through iStock since fall 2004. I was exclusive from 2008 - 11. During my time at iStock there have been many big ups and downs - typically a result of best match changes (best match 2.0, then supposed to be the last big change - sort of like the war to end all wars? - and the run-up to it had some people coining the term Sudden Portfolio Death Syndrome).

The only thing you are guaranteed is that nothing is guaranteed. It could get better, it could get much worse and you can't know ahead of time. I completely get the frustration with the shenanigans from all the agencies (and that was a factor for me in part in deciding to become exclusive). IMO you are swapping one set of risks for another.

Other people's experiences - even other exclusives' experiences - mean nothing for you and how you would do. Do you look at Sean's declines in the face of a first class portfolio, steady uploading and substantial Vetta/Agency presence, or the small handful of diamond & up exclusives who report BMEs in the forums?

One more important thing: what's the procedure like when applying for exclusivity? Do you apply, they take a look and tell you exactly which sites you have to take images down from, or do you have to delete them and then wait for their response? If it's the latter option and you have to wait for a week or so, before they check for your images, you're loosing hundreds if not thousands of dollars (well I wouldn't loose thousands, obviously:). Because I know you even have to remove images from photo.net etc (I guess there is some way of buying photos there, although you can sell prints)

You have to remove all images from other sites first, or your application will be rejected until you do.

Note too that some sites require notice (up to 6 months) before they will remove your portfolio.

I've been selling through iStock since fall 2004. I was exclusive from 2008 - 11. During my time at iStock there have been many big ups and downs - typically a result of best match changes (best match 2.0, then supposed to be the last big change - sort of like the war to end all wars? - and the run-up to it had some people coining the term Sudden Portfolio Death Syndrome).

The only thing you are guaranteed is that nothing is guaranteed. It could get better, it could get much worse and you can't know ahead of time. I completely get the frustration with the shenanigans from all the agencies (and that was a factor for me in part in deciding to become exclusive). IMO you are swapping one set of risks for another.

Other people's experiences - even other exclusives' experiences - mean nothing for you and how you would do. Do you look at Sean's declines in the face of a first class portfolio, steady uploading and substantial Vetta/Agency presence, or the small handful of diamond & up exclusives who report BMEs in the forums?

You couldn't have put it any better!

I sure do not look at Sean's declines, since there's nothing to compare: not the volumes, the quality (perhaps "stockiness" would be a be a better, more suitable term) and also the subject matter (cabin crew etc, a great niche). The other things is, ppl like him have become so big that they can realistically only hope for their earnings to stagnate. But I'd be glad to loose 10% every year, after earning so much. If ms model won't break down, he'll get 5 figures monthly until the day he dies anyway. I'm way more comparable to silver and gold members, I watch their reports in the monthly thread the most, preferably of those that are still active and shoot lifestyle.

^ If you're on Alamy, note that they too will take 6 months before any deleted images are actually removed (though they will remove them from the search after 3 months).

As for making portfolios inactive on DT, I wouldn't know if that works, I was never on there;  I am only reporting what others have said.

Quote from: borg on June 04, 2012, 01:31

IS for example makes 25% (average cca) of my monthly earnings... 75% is coming from other agencies...
So I need to make three times more as an exclusive only to be on some kind of "positive zero"...

I haven't heard that someone is making 3x more on just one agency after becoming an exclusive contributor...

Most of them are exclusives from the early start...

You can just look at the pricing and royalty percentage difference and see how 3x more would be pretty easy.  Nonexclusive gets 1 credit for XS while exclusive gets 4 so already 4x more plus exclusive gets 2x more for royalty % so that's 8x more money.

And price differences between P+ and E+ are huge, they're gonna be mirrored to Getty, so even more sales and exclusives report that E+ is really contributing a big chunk of earnings. And then there's A/V and better search placements...

^ If you're on Alamy, note that they too will take 6 months before any deleted images are actually removed (though they will remove them from the search after 3 months).

As I understand it, if you ask for the images to be deleted, they take 3-6 months, but if you actually close out your Alamy account, they come down right away. 

Quote from: Gannet77 on June 04, 2012, 05:08

^ If you're on Alamy, note that they too will take 6 months before any deleted images are actually removed (though they will remove them from the search after 3 months).

As I understand it, if you ask for the images to be deleted, they take 3-6 months, but if you actually close out your Alamy account, they come down right away. 

Oh Really. I did not know that. thanks lisa.

Wut, it looks like you have almost made up your mind anyway.

It is perhaps interesting to note that, even though some exclusives complain a lot here, they still remain exclusive. You wonder why. Jsnover quit exclusive at the worst time, her doubts are understandable. From my experience, it hasn't gone worse at least. If you truly want my honest opinion, it's a lot better now.

If IS is going to go public in the near future, I doubt if they will do anything dramatic in the next few months. But it will take you a while to become exclusive, and there is no guarantee that the ride will continue though.