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Messages - MicroVet
101
« on: October 24, 2018, 08:34 »
What kinds of images could be sell on Alamy?
Really?! Why don't you find out for yourself? In this day and age where everybody complains about falling sales, "slices of pie" shrinking to everyone due to competition, etc, do you really think people will tell you their secrets so they get even less sales?
Honestly, why don't you put your bank account number here so we can all start sending you money. Would save a lot of time for everybody.
Slow down. He didnt asked which images are selling in your port of anyones. He just asks what kind. Answer would be for example travel photos... editorial photos. Dont look always for a reason to blast around. This forum is becoming worse and worse.
What's the difference between asking what photos we sell and the types of photos that sell? Lets say I answer "Space Travel" after years of testing different types of images and understanding what sells or not. Next thing you know, thousands of photographers that just arrived and barely invested time, effort and money start buying tickets to visit Mars and Jupiter and even worse, Earth, submitting those images to alamy and diluting my work. It's not blasting around. This is a business and like all businesses there are trade secrets. And in stock photography the most important one is, what type of images sell. Try to make similar questions to Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Apple or the successful restaurant in your area for the recipe of the specialty that make people travel miles to eat it and you'll get a real feel of what is to be blast around.
102
« on: October 24, 2018, 02:32 »
The Alamy QC is as crazy as the SS accepting everything and anything!
It has always been like that from the beginning. The only criteria is technical quality. On the plus side, there are sales on images that would never have been accepted on micro or any curated agency on the first place. From exposures that would be considered wrong, to strange subjects.
103
« on: October 24, 2018, 02:02 »
What kinds of images could be sell on Alamy?
Really?! Why don't you find out for yourself? In this day and age where everybody complains about falling sales, "slices of pie" shrinking to everyone due to competition, etc, do you really think people will tell you their secrets so they get even less sales? Honestly, why don't you put your bank account number here so we can all start sending you money. Would save a lot of time for everybody.
104
« on: October 18, 2018, 10:13 »
Alamy does not have a record of being contributor unfriendly. Much by the contrary. In fact, it's the only agency that more than once has changed decisions based on contributors feedback. They're not perfect, but are among the best despite some criticism they occasionally get. So, I find it strange that they targeted you for a polite (as you describe it) conversation.
I sell an average of several hundreds of dollars every month for the past 11 eleven years on alamy. Yet, this year I had a month with no sales, especially when I was expecting a good number of sales. The first time since 2007! And I did nothing. Not even a polite conversation with them before that.
But I sold in the following months until today, after questioning about what happened in that month. By your logic I should have been punished, right?
I doubt the QC rank influences your sales and exposure on the site, but I do have 3 stars. Yet, to get them I have near 20.000 images on hundreds of batches and close to 10 years without rejections.
Install TOR browser which allows you to surf anonymoulsy and compare the results of the searches against the results on your browser. You'll see if your images are being damaged in their exposure when compared with what you see when logged in.
105
« on: October 13, 2018, 07:58 »
That short term marketing stunt may cost a lot in the long term.
As soon as buyers start perceiving the SS collection as little more than dross, and the time and effort to find anything suitable becomes too much to be practical they'll change to another more curated agency.
Even if SS then starts tightening the approval criteria the damage will be done. Millions of great images will already be buried in all that garbage and the photographers will not re-shoot and submit the same things. I know I will not.
106
« on: October 13, 2018, 02:05 »
Submitting to ten.
If I exclude the latest joined, because of video that now also accept photos, I'm just submitting to the same ones I had in 2007 or so except for one joined in 2014.
Never were the type to run after every new agency, especially when it was obvious that the project had no ability to compete with the top ones even back then, when things were still at the beginning.
A lot of people thought otherwise and we ended up with endless price wars between agencies, dragging prices and commissions down. The new ones tried to gain market share through low prices and the larger ones tried to keep customers by matching those prices.
All this was very discussed back then, with some people warning about the consequences of spreading the work through all the amateurish agencies, but most could not care as long as they could get $1 total out of those tenth of agencies per month.
12 years past and none of those new agencies are even close to the middle tier and most are dead doing who knows what with the images they got, but the damage is now done and it's irreversible.
107
« on: September 23, 2018, 10:53 »
Expecting a 40% drop from last years' September.
108
« on: July 16, 2018, 00:20 »
I'm not seeing a lot of love for Shutterstock right now.
Their customer service is a "  " For example, I've tried to ask for my own stats but they answer like robots. I hate that!
Contributor support is among the worse of all agencies. Slow and unhelpful most of the times. But to be honest it has always been like that since the beginning. A few years back it would have been the only thing I could point as a negative about SS.
109
« on: July 14, 2018, 00:17 »
Just had a perfect example of what I said earlier about SS and their absurd reviews.
Had a number of images rejected for similar, where each one was a variation of another image. I mean, different images where each one had a variation. Each variation not only has a different meaning it is also hard to make from the approved image by a designer.
So, I only got one approved of each and the variation rejected. At the same time I see tenths of images being approved that look like they are the exact same frame!
I really do not understand this.
110
« on: July 12, 2018, 10:14 »
I think that Alamy and Fotolia/Adobe are the ones that I "like" the most. But, as it has been said before they all have disappointed the contributors.
Depositphotos, for example, is downright dishonest.
After the scandal of images being sold by distributors for $30 as a single sale but paid to contributors like a subscription, I've taken knowledge of a contributor that demanded to be taken out of the distribution scheme which DP confirmed. But a few years later that contributor realized that DP blatantly lied to him and never took his portfolio out of the Distribution deal.
111
« on: July 10, 2018, 11:07 »
I don't see any reason to hate SS since they haven't been reducing contributor royalties.
Well, considering that they haven't raise the contributor commissions for about 10 years, while raising the price of subscriptions, you may say that they have somewhat reduced the royalties. In the past, when SS raised the price of the subscription plans, they usually raised the amount paid per download. Plus, they seriously dropped the price of the Extended Licenses. A couple years back we would get $28 and now it's rare for them to get to the $20 mark. I'm pretty sure that they also changed the requirements from which a buyer had to buy an EL, like the number of prints. Many sales that would have required an EL and for which you would receive $28, now you receive $0.38 or less depending on your rank because of the more permissive license. So yes, they have been reducing the royalties.
112
« on: July 10, 2018, 05:33 »
Some people were probably complaining here while they were uploading. Many of us stopped uploading, deleted images and eventually closed our accounts. That was the only way to hurt istock and at least make the other sites give us a bit more respect.
I understand what you are saying, but even in small companies people can't get a few dozen workers, who know and see each other every single day, united on a common goal. How would you expect a mass organized action based on MSG alone where only a small fraction of photographers come, on a global scale, between people that have never met, have absolutely different goals (professional/amateurs), different income expectations where some need 3000 to live and others are kings with 500, different points of view on the subject, etc. The only way to change an agency politics on this type of business is to threaten their income through competition. Or have the means to launch a persistent major campaign worldwide. And have the money to fight the agency lawyers who will try to sue you for defamation.
113
« on: July 10, 2018, 01:00 »
SS is making some some pretty awful decisions, that are damaging the income of a lot of photographers at the moment and making us predict that things may go bad for SS too in the future.
For example, the review process has become a complete joke:
- It has become almost random in their approvals and rejections. Images that are rejected for stupid reasons are almost guaranteed to be approved on a second submission. It makes everybody lose time.
- The quality level demand has dropped to zero. There are thousands of images approved daily that are appalling. Amateur to the worst level. You name every error anyone can make on a photo and they are approved.
- Similar images do not seem to be an issue anymore. In the past days there was a portfolio with hundreds of thousands of images where each object was submitted with a 1 degree difference in point of view. And that for every angle possible.
So, any photographer who tries to produce varied, high quality imagery (even if just an apple on white), and pics just the good images from a sessions to submit gets buried under all that.
It's not biting the hand that feeds us has it's said earlier. It's stating the obvious errors SS is making, which are making it to be an agency going from a high quality imagery shop to becoming the garbage landfill of stock agencies.
114
« on: June 23, 2018, 13:07 »
This May I've earned 45% of what I've earned in 2017. In fact it was the worst May since 2007. Well, to be honest almost every month of 2018 has been the worst since 2007.
When I look at the graphs and see that on IS in past years I've earned in a single month more than I have this whole year, is just mind blowing.
Sending them images, that sell on others agencies do not seem to make a difference. That's why IS dropped from being my second agency to 5th.
115
« on: April 24, 2018, 12:01 »
old are those, who are in the Microstock business for more than 7 years. They ran out of new ideas. And they remember the golden days.
That is not true. I still have ideas, I just keep forgetting them on my way to the studio. And sometimes I also forget why I was going there or where I am. Dr. Josephine, is this a symptom of being in the stock business for 12 years? Maybe you could prescribe a dose of instagram and free sharing social networks. The young people there seem to have a lot of ideas. Still confused why they live in their parents house at age 35, though...
116
« on: April 21, 2018, 08:35 »
I'm a Flickr member for many years now, and even had a Pro account in the past, but despite I keep my account open there I do not use it for a long time now. Even then I never uploaded nothing larger than 500px and with a small watermark. Their constant safety failures never assured me.
As a photographic community I also ended up detesting it. Everybody kissing each others ass, no real criticism made and accepted and small groups voting each other awful photos in the group contests, so they could get idiotic badges. I played this game successfully without having to be a member of a clique, but I detest these type of things that promote corruption over talent so after a while I stopped.
As for Smugmug I also had a paid account. Anyway, they decided to triple or quadruple (or more, can't remember) the annual fee so I left.
I can't predict what will happen by joining both of them but from my experience with both I'm not exactly thrilled.
117
« on: April 04, 2018, 12:56 »
Pathetic and disgusting. 
118
« on: March 31, 2018, 02:35 »
Alamy is hard and requires a lot of work and knowledge on its workings. Plus, the time of big sales has passed. Long gone are the days of multiple $200+ per month.
This month I'm close to 20 sales on alamy but only 50% of SS income.
119
« on: March 12, 2018, 14:29 »
Hi Mat,
will an exclusive option come at a later stage? Because everyone signing up now, can only do it via Adobe.
And will there be a program to add content for Premium distribution? At the moment I have content going to Adobe premium via stocksy and eyeem. But if there was a direct upload option, I would be interested.
Any idea when editorial will come to Adobe? Especially with video it brings reliable sales.
Yes, Editorial videos could be quite important!
Yes, editorial for both images and videos. I do not have any stats but on my biggest agency the editorial content makes up for about half of my income, or something close. On other agencies something similar happens.
120
« on: February 25, 2018, 14:12 »
Sammy! he doenst believe in caps! 
Considering he doesn't believe in it he has become almost evangelical in his zeal to
disprove our heathen beliefs and turn us to the one true path of righteousness 
Is it just me or it is a bit strange such commitment, such zeal, just to discredit the opinion of some people who cannot present evidence because they fear severe consequences from the agency? Is there anything like a Shutterstock Troll Factory? 
121
« on: February 20, 2018, 10:52 »
For those who are capped why not stop uploading and use the time more productively? If your content is really so good SS will see declining sales and customer dissatisfaction and do something about it.
Spoken like a true, clueless and ignorant hobbyist.
People who are professional and look at this as a business cannot simply abandon one of the major, if not the biggest earner of all their agencies.
Maybe you're in stock just to pay for a couple coffees, and despite that you are not shy about making ignorant comments towards professionals. But for a lot of people to abandon SS it means having to chose between paying the rent or buying food because half of their income would be lost.
Do you see why some people actually have reasons to take this issue seriously?
And this is the problems in these discussions. Some wannabees who need a year to make what professionals make in a month or even week think they have the same data and knowledge as them.
If you have reached your cap why would your sales go down if you stop uploading...Isn't that the whole point? As you are taking the issue seriously what are you actually doing about it? Did I say abandon? nope just stop uploading until a point when you feel resuming will actually bring an improved return. Seems perfectly sensible to me...perhaps you can tell me what I've missed?
But why should I stop uploading to SS? That does not make sense. After all I would still keep producing images to the other agencies who represent the other ~50% of my income. So, I already have the images why should I not send them to SS? As another member already said, the other agencies are much more volatile and work differently from SS, and still close to what SS was in the past. I mean, in the other agencies if you upload new content you actually see your sales increase like it has always been, despite the competition. Plus, nobody said that sales don't go down. There's still competition from new members and images that make the income split among more people. The problem is that extremely hard to stop this downfall. As I mentioned, if new images are uploaded they take the place of the older ones that were selling. So, there's no progression here. You may at best maintain your income. If I were to stop uploading nothing guarantees that the income wouldn't fall. And since no one can predict the future it's better to have a large portfolio than a small one.
122
« on: February 20, 2018, 08:25 »
Anyway, it's hard to discuss this subject when some people discussing it may have 100 images and others have 10.000. When someone who submits for about 3 months gets absolutely ecstatic because he/she made $50 in a month and contradict people that have data going back 12 years or more and make many hundreds or thousands of dollars per month.
Perfectly fair points.
Which is why I suggested that cap-theorists publish more details of their findings.
And you still haven't figured out why SS has in their terms the prohibition to make public info about our own earnings, right? Here's a clue... it's because of discussions like these and to make impossible to present factual data, so people like you can keep repeating that we're a bunch of conspiracy theorists.
123
« on: February 20, 2018, 07:47 »
For those who are capped why not stop uploading and use the time more productively? If your content is really so good SS will see declining sales and customer dissatisfaction and do something about it.
Spoken like a true, clueless and ignorant hobbyist. People who are professional and look at this as a business cannot simply abandon one of the major, if not the biggest earner of all their agencies. Maybe you're in stock just to pay for a couple coffees, and despite that you are not shy about making ignorant comments towards professionals. But for a lot of people to abandon SS it means having to chose between paying the rent or buying food because half of their income would be lost. Do you see why some people actually have reasons to take this issue seriously? And this is the problems in these discussions. Some wannabees who need a year to make what professionals make in a month or even week think they have the same data and knowledge as them.
124
« on: February 20, 2018, 04:04 »
Here's a real example, although with fictional numbers.
Lets say you have an average of about 50 downloads per day on a weekday. And that these 50 DL are from a portfolio that hasn't received new images in a while.
Then, you upload new content that does no compete with your old one, and you start selling about 10 images per day from these new images. It would be expected that you'd start to have 60 DL per day, no? At least for a while, since you've got images in the New filter and some may even get to the Popular.
Yet, what happens is that you still get about 50 DL per day, even with the 10 you get from the new content! That means that somehow your older images stopped being seen by buyers when in the previous period they sold regularly. How does this happen? And so often?
This has been happening to me. Almost half of my daily sales are from new content and my average is the same as before I uploaded them.
I've also had new approved images, missing from the New search for days several times, killing them at birth. And as mentioned before, I've seen new members with many similar images with terrible quality which I doubt had sales in front of the Popular search while my images which had downloads in the first days never got near to it. And I'm not talking about very competitive subjects.
Anyway, it's hard to discuss this subject when some people discussing it may have 100 images and others have 10.000. When someone who submits for about 3 months gets absolutely ecstatic because he/she made $50 in a month and contradict people that have data going back 12 years or more and make many hundreds or thousands of dollars per month.
125
« on: February 19, 2018, 13:15 »
To use your own argument, shouldn't our sales fluctuate then? Mine are steady. Rock steady. And when they are in the thousands and measured over years, you can absolutely see the consistency. I make xx amount each month. Regardless of what sells and when and how much I upload or don't upload. If I get high SODs then my sales after balance it out so I make virtually the same every month. If that is random chance, every month for years, then just... wow. Nothing more to be said here.
I am happy to compete with others. That inspires and promotes doing a better job. But if I can not grow or advance through no fault of my own, it gets a bit frustrating. I am currently off looking for greener pastures and not uploading there and you know what? Sales are exactly the same there.
I can attest to the same. A lot of consistency, with new uploads, no uploads, etc. If I upload new images that start selling than the old ones stop so the total is always more or less the same.
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