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Messages - pancaketom
Pages: 1 ... 47 48 49 50 51 [52] 53 54 55 56 57 ... 91
1276
« on: October 25, 2013, 11:53 »
3 weeks doesn't seem long enough to me, but maybe IS made him an offer he couldn't refuse?
1277
« on: October 24, 2013, 23:34 »
25% for the first sale always seemed a bit low to me, but at least with the pics there is a reasonable chance that you could get a bunch of sales and thus get a better percentage over time. In my quite limited video experience one or 2 sales might be all you get.
1278
« on: October 22, 2013, 21:02 »
Back when the PP was optional, I opted out. One of the main reasons for that was to support Shutterstock. Fast forward a couple of years, and all indies are now in the PP, whether they like it or not. Shutterstock has gone public, and is now answerable to shareholders.
I no longer see the point of starving the PP in favor of supporting Shutterstock. Don't get me wrong, I like SS, but my sales have been in the doldrums for over a year now, there and elsewhere.
It occurs to me that none of these sites are making decisions based on what's in my best interest, and I am not obligated to make my decisions based on what's in theirs.
Surely the reason we supported SS over the PP was because SS paid 38c per download and, originally, the PP only 25c? Ok, the PP eventually upped that to 28c, because so many of us would not provide our content, so then IS made it mandatory for independent images.
Even now my RPD at the PP is still only 40c whereas at SS it is 80c. That's a very big difference and I have no wish for sales from SS to be transferred to the PP.
The financial differential is only part of the issue. Sales at SS are fully credited, buyers can 'follow' you and stat's are reported in real time ... so at least you can project how the month is doing. None of that is true with the PP. Personally I trust the reporting of SS way ahead of that of Getty, IS or the PP. It's a matter of perceived competence as much as the lack of transparency at the latter.
Ok, SS is now an IPO. That's still streets ahead of being owned by a hedge-fund. At least we get the full disclosure of the financial reports. The only reason we get any financial detail about Getty is because their last hedge-fund owner left them so deeply in debt, by awarding themselves massive (unearned) special dividends, that the debt itself is now openly traded on the market (at a loss).
SS's strategy is both clear and long-term. They want to grow the business and the way you do that is .... by growing the business. Sure, you can make a little short-term extra profit by hammering your suppliers, but mostly that will end up damaging the business in the long-term and will almost certainly improve the opportunities for your competitors. Oringer didn't get where he is today by making such foolhardy short-term decisions. If he had wanted to make a quick buck then he'd have sold out long ago. As a self-made billionaire it is now just a game to him. He won't make the same stupid mistakes as Getty and Istock.
All the reasons we originally had for 'starving the PP' still apply IMHO (in so far as we have control). We earn far more with SS per download, we get full credit or our work (that's important to me) and SS are far more transparent and trustworthy than Getty/IS.
Agreed, except I fear that the SS strategy is to move things over to BS where the pay is heading the way of the PP. Or move the BS RC system over to SS, which would be even worse. I opted out of the PP when I could and I removed most of my files from IS when that was no longer an option. They need to pay at least level w/ SS to get me to consider sending them anything new, and even then I would suspect a bait and switch.
1279
« on: October 20, 2013, 21:33 »
Well IS - if you are listening, you will get even more content if you pay a decent percentage for IS sales and a decent amount for subs.
1280
« on: October 19, 2013, 21:00 »
My last batch took about 3 days.
1281
« on: October 19, 2013, 12:00 »
At one point I would have said - sure if you want to support .28 per dl instead of .38 per dl, but since SS seems to want to do that themselves it might not really make of a difference if you are getting lowballed from SS/BS or IS/PP.
Of course you still have to deal with the IS submission process which is a PITA even with deepmeta - and who knows what new fiendish things Getty will come up with next.
I'll be staying out myself, but that is more for personal satisfaction than pure economic decisions. Curiously enough I do have some pride (although not much).
1282
« on: October 18, 2013, 11:04 »
with IS+PP I got .64 rpd. That beat .39 last month and .37 the month before. Admittedly my depleted port is a small sample but it is a big jump up. For comparison on SS the last 3 months I got .81, .77, and .80 . The total dl #s are down there, but the occasional higher $ sale are propping the totals up somewhat. The question is are the PP and BS successfully skimming off regular subs buyers?
1283
« on: October 17, 2013, 20:20 »
It's only a matter of time before enough management folks at SS start asking why one side of the office is paying out so much more per download than the other side of the office...
I doubt it's even 2 sides of the office, or 2 groups of people. I'm guessing that at this point BS is just another 'brand' and associated marketing plans. Basically just a way to sell cheaper and pay us less, while avoiding a big public kickback that might occur if SS openly cut royalties.
agree
I wonder when the anger against BS jumps over to SS. While we all praise SS we seem to forget its the same CEO who is running the show over at BS.
Good cop/bad cop? 
probably more like a shell game
1284
« on: October 17, 2013, 10:30 »
The problem is that BS doesn't need to lower our cut - they already did that (at least for most of us who don't sell 50,000 per year). Sure, if you are on the bridge, they are stringing you along for another 6 months, but if they can move enough buyers from SS to BS (where they pay less), they will make more $ and we will make less. They keep saying that the BS customers don't come from SS, but I am doubtful that is 100% true. They figure that taking a short term loss (or maybe just breaking even instead of 75%) to move more buyers to BS (from SS and from the competition) is worth it. For them - yes, for me - no, since BS is about the cheapest paying sub site.
1285
« on: October 15, 2013, 22:29 »
I tend to think if your images are 'too precious' to be sold at sub rates, then they shouldn't be on microstock at all.
To me, it's not really about my images being too precious. I sold at a variety of different prices for a while. What I learned was that higher prices worked better for me. It doesn't make my images special or better than anybody else's images. It just means it is better for me to sell them at higher prices and less profitable to sell them at lower prices. I'd love the option to turn off subs at a number of sites and even set my own prices. It would most likely improve my income drastically overnight.
But isn't it the fact that the 'Big 5' agencies have way more data than any of will ever have, and they also have the same desire as us to optimise prices and profits ... and yet all of them have pretty much ended up embracing subs in one form or another. Nowadays your stuff needs to be really unique and special to warrant making it unavailable on subs.
I always assumed their deal was volume. I was never really able to do that massive volume as an individual (especially outside of SS), but they crowdsource so they can. The massive volume works for some though. It just didn't work that great for me (at least, not as well as other methods).
Also, what is good for the microstock sites is not necessarily good for the artists. For instance, their ideal sub buyer never downloads anything = money for the site and none for the artist. I do think the sub sales move the images up the levels at DT nicely, but I wish they hadn't gotten rid of the higher return for the higher level subs. It makes for very bi-modal sales (which is what I get at SS too I suppose)
1286
« on: October 15, 2013, 19:50 »
...the poll results look also negative...
Maybe I'm wrong, but at least 123RF seems to be not worse than a year ago.
My stats would back you up on that. 123RF is one of very few sites I am on where I've seen significant growth this year.
I do better on 123 then before the RC scheme
I don't seem to be experiencing that, in fact my RC totals have been dropping for at least the last 4 months (as long as I wrote them down) and pretty much every month this year is either very close or below the same month last year. I'll take the 50% please. My totals are about 2/3 of last years totals, but the year is 3/4 over. If only the IS claim of half the revenue in the 4th quarter was correct...
1287
« on: October 15, 2013, 15:42 »
I'd much rather the chance to choose a higher threshold or a fee. Really the fee should come out of their 50%. I could put up with more before they started lowering the percents.
I agree that if the US office is doing well, then they should be able to return the 5% or even bump it up since the US office is doing so well. Somehow that doesn't seem to be the trend though.
Guess I'll have to switch to direct deposit.
They probably have more sales than ever, but at a lower price and spread out over many more contributors. I certainly did a lot better there last year (I am at about 50% of the total but with 3/4 of the time).
1288
« on: October 14, 2013, 12:38 »
... watching CreativeLIVE, and seeing the reported sales on FAA, it seems that there's still a lot of discretionary money around in parts of the US.
But not if you're Banksy, apparently:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24518315
I'd be ok with $420 for less than a day of selling one color stencil spraypainted canvasses. Maybe I should go to NY and sell some "banksy's" myself... As for my photo sales - It seems that after the first few months my sales dropped this year and have been under last years numbers since then. No real noticeable summer drop or fall boost this year.
1289
« on: October 12, 2013, 16:51 »
Back before the RC mess I always thought that at some point I would have to make a hard decision about if or when to go exclusive at IS, but then they would "improve" search or something and sales would be cut in 1/2 and it would take a year of uploading to bring them back up. At least as an indie if one site (even SS) does that it isn't going to completely devastate your income.
Now I couldn't imagine putting all my eggs into that basket even if it looked like more income at the moment. I just have NO trust in them. Not that I trust the others much, but at least they probably won't screw me all at once.
1290
« on: October 04, 2013, 19:58 »
Funny, on SS authentic images are also known as rejected for LCV. Maybe I would have done better waiting for offset.
That said, there are many fantastic images there. If SS gets Bigstocked I'll definitely be looking for an outlet for better images.
1291
« on: October 02, 2013, 13:54 »
20% or less is only normal for greedy sites like IS and FT
1292
« on: October 02, 2013, 10:08 »
And today was my Best Day of the Month! Things are looking up.
OK, I was thinking October had begun badly; but of course yesterday was my BDM. 
Lucky you, it was my worst.
1293
« on: October 02, 2013, 10:00 »
Nice pics and good sales. I am surprised they accepted the Sydney Opera house though. I thought that wasn't allowed.
1294
« on: September 26, 2013, 13:20 »
Also 50% of you set the price at GL can be a nice sum, 50% of say .50 at CS isn't all that much.
I had a number of good months when I started at GL with nice EL's and a lot of promise, since then and especially since the google search change I suppose only a few a month. Hopefully google search or something can change again and sales will pick up. I think of it as an investment against the IS and FT and SS domination of the stock market.
One thing with getting a lot more images at a site is that it dilutes individual contributors earnings, but might not effect the site's bottom line much at all.
1295
« on: September 25, 2013, 21:06 »
This is a new problem, with firefox when I select the dropdown menu to edit submitted photos if the item is at the bottom of the list like "set image type" instead of selecting the item from the dropdown menu it selects the things from behind it on the page (like "about" "contact" or "jobs").
It worked fine last week, so I guess this really isn't what should we improve, but what you shouldn't have broken.
1296
« on: September 23, 2013, 17:17 »
am I allowed to mention that my downloads rhymed with hero for the first time in years and years saturday and the whole weekend only rhymed with chew. Have they also implemented some sort of DT rolling preferences now?
you advisors need to not tell anyone.
1297
« on: September 21, 2013, 20:39 »
I don't much care for the dark haze on the bottom half of the cover picture. I'd rather just have the picture, although I suppose if it was an exceedingly light picture the text wouldn't show.
oh, and more sales please.
1298
« on: September 17, 2013, 20:26 »
I am your advisor and you are my advisor, now we need to talk about finances...
What an odd clause. It does make me worry they are planning on porting the horrible RC system from bigstock. That would get me a lot of very non-specific negative press from me.
I always get a little nervouse when they change the terms, as they are NEVER changes in our favor (at least not in my experience).
1299
« on: September 13, 2013, 21:06 »
They were about 50% of what I made on 123RF last month - unfortunately more to poor sales on 123 than great sales on FP, still they are ticking along slowly for me.
1300
« on: September 12, 2013, 20:05 »
FTP still doesn't work as far as I can tell - it fails to get directory listing or something like that.
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