Author Topic: Is Being exclusive the way to go? (Read 10823 times)

BoBoBolinski · « **Reply #25 on:** July 22, 2013, 12:56 »

"but I do know I'd have tossed away a ton of money if I ever were exclusive. I don't care what the poll says."

All you can know, is you don't know. Why would people bother to come here as IS exclusives and bother to exaggerate their income? How do you equally know that independents don't do the same? It's a pointless argument with no way of knowing which is the better way. We all have to just make our own judgement and hope we have made the right decision.

cobalt · « **Reply #26 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:00 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on July 22, 2013, 12:25

Quote from: cobalt on July 22, 2013, 12:17
So I prefer to upload to agencies that sell my files than to upload only to one agency and see them pile up without even getting any views.

And I am still sending files to istock as an independent.

I am very confused looking at these 2 sentences, aren't they somehow opposite?

When I was exclusive my new files didn´t sell, and this still seems to be the case for many exclusives now, see the link posted. But now that I am indie all my files are extremly cheap in the main collection and the volume of sales is going up and also new files are being sold.

So - no sales or few sales for new files while i was exclusive, more sales but little money for new files as an indie.

Hope that is clearer.

EmberMike · « **Reply #27 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:05 »

Quote from: BoBoBolinski on July 22, 2013, 12:56

All you can know, is you don't know. Why would people bother to come here as IS exclusives and bother to exaggerate their income? How do you equally know that independents don't do the same? It's a pointless argument with no way of knowing which is the better way. We all have to just make our own judgement and hope we have made the right decision.

I know that if my istock income is 5% of my total monthly microstock income, there is no mathematical way possible that going exclusive would make up the missing 95%.

So yes, I know for sure that being exclusive would have cost me a ton of money.

tickstock · « **Reply #28 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:08 »

cobalt · « **Reply #29 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:17 »

"I think a much higher % of exclusives go over the $2500 mark than Shutterstock contributors btw, I think that's pretty much a fact."

If my rumour mill of friends and family is correct, then that is true. But then SS is just a part of the overall income and I really cannot say that exclusives and indies with similar quality portfolios and sizes that one is earning more or less than the other. To me they seem to be on similar levels, provided they put the hard work into it. But you cannot compare exclusives with those that just went indie a few months ago.

You need to talk to people who have been uploading for about the same amount of time, say from 2004 until now. And then I really don´t see a big difference in earnings. Most important to me was that I could see the earnings of my longtime indie friends increase steadily, while the exclusives seem to be standing still or even going down inspite of regular uploads.

The results I heard seemed to be mirroring the traffic trends.

It is hard to get comparable data of course, because every bodies portfolio is different.

But in any case I would always recommend to a newbie to upload to several agencies first and get a feeling for the sites. If you then find an exclusive program interesting, by all means go and do it. It is a personal choice.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #30 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:18 »

Quote from: tickstock on July 22, 2013, 12:06

Well they should probably use all the available data to make that guess shouldn't they? Whether it's poll results or testimonials, what else do you have to help you decide? The polls here have always shown exclusives making more than nonexclusives

Personally, I would give the greatest weighting to my own sales at different places if I was trying to make that decision, rather than relying on a poll which, at its best, only gives an indication of what the microstock elite are achieving.
And you're completely wrong about the poll "always" showing exclusives making more than non-exclusives. The exclusives were only separated out a year or so ago, before that there was no comparison of exclusives and non-exclusives in the poll results.
In any case, exclusivity probably only seriously started to outstrip independence about three or four years ago, when iS created a separate pricing structure for exclusives and gave them some limited access to Getty. Prior to that, exclusives were just getting up to double the commission rate for sales which were not charged differently for different groups. My non-iS earnings were always about 60% of the total, so going from a commission rate of 20% to 40% would probably still have left me down by 20%.
The point where exclusivity started to look really attractive was also the point at which everyone started being messed about and the trust in iS as a fair, long-term prospect started to evaporate. So one offset the other. I know a number of people who were about to jump into exclusivity, only to jump back at the last moment as more and more negative news started to break.

tickstock · « **Reply #31 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:21 »

cthoman · « **Reply #32 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:27 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 22, 2013, 13:18

Personally, I would give the greatest weighting to my own sales at different places if I was trying to make that decision...

That's pretty much all you can do. The poll doesn't mean anything to my personal numbers. It's not even remotely close.

tickstock · « **Reply #33 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:30 »

cobalt · « **Reply #34 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:33 »

...in 2010...many, many things have happened since then...and just look at what is happening now. Do you enjoy losing control over which files go into s+ and get mirrored on getty?

tickstock · « **Reply #35 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:35 »

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #36 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:35 »

Quote from: tickstock on July 22, 2013, 13:30

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 22, 2013, 13:18
Quote from: tickstock on July 22, 2013, 12:06
Well they should probably use all the available data to make that guess shouldn't they? Whether it's poll results or testimonials, what else do you have to help you decide? The polls here have always shown exclusives making more than nonexclusives

Personally, I would give the greatest weighting to my own sales at different places if I was trying to make that decision, rather than relying on a poll which, at its best, only gives an indication of what the microstock elite are achieving.
And you're completely wrong about the poll "always" showing exclusives making more than non-exclusives. The exclusives were only separated out a year or so ago, before that there was no comparison of exclusives and non-exclusives in the poll results.
In any case, exclusivity probably only seriously started to outstrip independence about three or four years ago, when iS created a separate pricing structure for exclusives and gave them some limited access to Getty. Prior to that, exclusives were just getting up to double the commission rate for sales which were not charged differently for different groups. My non-iS earnings were always about 60% of the total, so going from a commission rate of 20% to 40% would probably still have left me down by 20%.
The point where exclusivity started to look really attractive was also the point at which everyone started being messed about and the trust in iS as a fair, long-term prospect started to evaporate. So one offset the other. I know a number of people who were about to jump into exclusivity, only to jump back at the last moment as more and more negative news started to break.

Actually you're wrong. There was the annual microstock poll that showed exclusives making more than nonexclusives years ago. http://blog.microstockgroup.com/microstock-income-vs-portfolio-size/ for Chromaco it shows the average portfolio size too, surprise surprise they aren't that different (10%).
Here are a couple things Leaf said back then:
"Wow! Simply put, I’m amazed. I was expecting non-exclusive photographers to earn more than exclusive photographers, but the graph appears to show quite the opposite."

Actually I'm not wrong, because 2010 was only three years ago. Leaf's amazement reflects the state of knowledge up to when that poll came out. I'm not certain of the timing, but I think that 2010 would just about have given time for the effect of splitting the commission regimes for indes and exclusives to come into effect.

cthoman · « **Reply #37 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:40 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 22, 2013, 13:35

Actually I'm not wrong, because 2010 was only three years ago. Leaf's amazement reflects the state of knowledge up to when that poll came out. I'm not certain of the timing, but I think that 2010 would just about have given time for the effect of splitting the commission regimes for indes and exclusives to come into effect.

I think that is the timeline. They raised the commissions for exclusives January 2010, then started RC credits January of 2011.

travelwitness · « **Reply #38 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:46 »

Probably true in 2010.

My Sept 2012 was half of my Sept 2010 as an exclusive with about a 30% portfolio increase.

2010 was the peak for me - after that it started to go south.

tickstock · « **Reply #39 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:46 »

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #40 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:48 »

Quote from: cthoman on July 22, 2013, 13:40

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 22, 2013, 13:35
Actually I'm not wrong, because 2010 was only three years ago. Leaf's amazement reflects the state of knowledge up to when that poll came out. I'm not certain of the timing, but I think that 2010 would just about have given time for the effect of splitting the commission regimes for indes and exclusives to come into effect.

I think that is the timeline. They raised the commissions for exclusives January 2010, then started RC credits January of 2011.

Yeah, and the survey was published in July 2011, only TWO years ago, covering the year 2010 when the commission rises took effect.
The idea a lot of people had of going exclusive because of the higher earnings potential was put on hold during the great "grandfathering canisters" crisis, and then the flood of Agency files filling up top spots, the slippage in iStock's internet ranking etc. etc.
I wouldn't be surprised if 2010 was the high tide for exclusives' earnings.

tickstock · « **Reply #41 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:50 »

chromaco · « **Reply #42 on:** July 22, 2013, 13:51 »

Quote from: tickstock on July 22, 2013, 13:35

Quote from: cobalt on July 22, 2013, 13:33
...in 2010...
Right. That link was in response to baldrick saying we didn't have any comparison until last year. It also debunked chromaco's assertion that exclusives have much higher port sizes.

My assertion is that there are a lot more contributors with small portfolios in the non-exclusive camp than there are in the exclusive camp and the poll results reflect that.

ETA: The median port size for exclusives is close to double in that report, that is what is skewing the poll results.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #43 on:** July 22, 2013, 14:00 »

Quote from: cobalt on July 22, 2013, 13:00

But now that I am indie all my files are extremly cheap in the main collection and the volume of sales is going up and also new files are being sold.

I have been hearing the opposite here at MSG, Paul (BT) was one of them

tickstock · « **Reply #44 on:** July 22, 2013, 14:01 »

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #45 on:** July 22, 2013, 14:06 »

In any case, independence was and is an insurance policy. Even if exclusives still earn more they remain completely at the mercy of the agency. They can be thrown out if they displease the big-wigs and they have no power to do anything except accept whatever terms are proclaimed from on high. They can't shift their efforts between agencies to take account of who is currently behaving most reasonably, they can't take advantage of other opportunities such as creating their own sales channels and if they dump exclusivity their portfolios tend to land on the other sites in a lump, with a mass of images that quickly ages without picking up the sales needed to support a good position in the search - either for the files or for the contributor, if overall sales are taken into account in the best match as they probably are.

If exclusives are better off then they are paying a price for the extra money.

Quote from: luissantos84 on July 22, 2013, 14:00

Quote from: cobalt on July 22, 2013, 13:00
But now that I am indie all my files are extremly cheap in the main collection and the volume of sales is going up and also new files are being sold.

I have been hearing the opposite here at MSG, Paul (BT) was one of them

My sales at iS are going up since they shoved everything into the main collection, but my earnings are going down because they did that.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #46 on:** July 22, 2013, 14:11 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 16, 2013, 02:33

It's bizarre, but for the first time ever I have a gut feeling that not uploading there will not make the slightest difference to my earnings.
I just checked - I've uploaded 60 files there since Dec 12, twenty-two of them up to early Jan, the other half during May, and I've got six sales out of that for a total of about $3.50.
BUT then I went to the PP and found I had made $5.20 there from the 22 Dec-Jan uploads, even though we still haven't got the figures for May and June. I guess once (if) that comes in, I will discover that I'm making seven or eight times as much from PP (which really means TS) with my recent uploads as I am from iS.
So it seems that TS - even before the price change - had become a more important agency for new uploads than iS.
And that, in turn, makes me wonder what percentage of the monthly payout from iS is now for the partner prog... It might be far more significant than I've been thinking.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #47 on:** July 22, 2013, 14:21 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on July 22, 2013, 14:11

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 16, 2013, 02:33
It's bizarre, but for the first time ever I have a gut feeling that not uploading there will not make the slightest difference to my earnings.
I just checked - I've uploaded 60 files there since Dec 12, twenty-two of them up to early Jan, the other half during May, and I've got six sales out of that for a total of about $3.50.
BUT then I went to the PP and found I had made $5.20 there from the 22 Dec-Jan uploads, even though we still haven't got the figures for May and June. I guess once (if) that comes in, I will discover that I'm making seven or eight times as much from PP (which really means TS) with my recent uploads as I am from iS.
So it seems that TS - even before the price change - had become a more important agency for new uploads than iS.
And that, in turn, makes me wonder what percentage of the monthly payout from iS is now for the partner prog... It might be far more significant than I've been thinking.

Yes, that's the case. New files don't seem to move at all but the older ones are selling better than they did. I don't often see a sale on a file that hasn't sold before.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #48 on:** July 22, 2013, 14:39 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 22, 2013, 14:21

Quote from: luissantos84 on July 22, 2013, 14:11
Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 16, 2013, 02:33
It's bizarre, but for the first time ever I have a gut feeling that not uploading there will not make the slightest difference to my earnings.
I just checked - I've uploaded 60 files there since Dec 12, twenty-two of them up to early Jan, the other half during May, and I've got six sales out of that for a total of about $3.50.
BUT then I went to the PP and found I had made $5.20 there from the 22 Dec-Jan uploads, even though we still haven't got the figures for May and June. I guess once (if) that comes in, I will discover that I'm making seven or eight times as much from PP (which really means TS) with my recent uploads as I am from iS.
So it seems that TS - even before the price change - had become a more important agency for new uploads than iS.
And that, in turn, makes me wonder what percentage of the monthly payout from iS is now for the partner prog... It might be far more significant than I've been thinking.

Yes, that's the case. New files don't seem to move at all but the older ones are selling better than they did. I don't often see a sale on a file that hasn't sold before.

so my files aren't just selling, it has nothing to do with my decision of no more uploading there, are we talking about files with previous flags, over 100, etc?

ShadySue · « **Reply #49 on:** July 22, 2013, 14:44 »

Quote from: tickstock on July 22, 2013, 13:21

Quote from: EmberMike on July 22, 2013, 13:05
Quote from: BoBoBolinski on July 22, 2013, 12:56
All you can know, is you don't know. Why would people bother to come here as IS exclusives and bother to exaggerate their income? How do you equally know that independents don't do the same? It's a pointless argument with no way of knowing which is the better way. We all have to just make our own judgement and hope we have made the right decision.

I know that if my istock income is 5% of my total monthly microstock income, there is no mathematical way possible that going exclusive would make up the missing 95%.

So yes, I know for sure that being exclusive would have cost me a ton of money.
A couple things. Your experience doesn't mean that others experience will be the same. I'm sure you don't think all nonexclusives only make 5% of their income from Istock, taking your own numbers and applying them to others isn't very helpful.
Here's a true way to do the math you tell me if it would make up the missing 95%. XXXL Main files 7 credits, XXXL Vetta files 160 credits and nonexclusive royalty rate of 15%, exclusive royalty rate of 22%. Assuming $1/credit you get $1.05 as a nonexclusive and $35.20 as an exclusive for the same file.

Yeah, but they might have taken your best sellers and plussed them inappropriately so they don't sell now.

It's absolutely not that simple.

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Author Topic: Is Being exclusive the way to go? (Read 10823 times)

BoBoBolinski

cobalt

EmberMike

tickstock

cobalt

BaldricksTrousers

tickstock

cthoman

tickstock

cobalt

tickstock

BaldricksTrousers

cthoman

travelwitness

tickstock

BaldricksTrousers

tickstock

chromaco

luissantos84

tickstock

BaldricksTrousers

luissantos84

BaldricksTrousers

luissantos84

ShadySue

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