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Messages - pancaketom
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1951
« on: May 14, 2011, 13:11 »
I certainly have the lowest % age I've had in a while - at least the last year. Mostly supposed (or real) duplicates and "not quite what we are looking for". Hopefully either my pictures get better or they start to make sense to me. I suspect the former is more likely.
1952
« on: May 13, 2011, 16:22 »
Leslie, just one additional piece of advice about Dreamstime. Recently they are VERY strict on uploading similars. I would suggest culling out a few of the very best images from each series, rather than uploading them all to Dreamstime. It is important to have a high acceptance ratio at Dreamstime, more so than the other sites, because it is a big factor in search placement.
Lisa -by similars, does that mean they won't take a series of expressions? For instance, where I have a model isolated on white and she's looking up in one, looking to the side in another, smiling in one and with a neutral expression in another, would they consider those to be similar? Otherwise, I don't think I'll run into that problem. It takes me sooo long to process one image it's hard to imagine having time to process multiples! Also, on the istock forums awhile back, didn't you say you were having trouble becoming exclusive at istock because other agencies had long lag times for removing your images on their sites? Is that still an issue? Thanks for the advice! Leslie
If you have a man and a woman, they might be too similar, or apparently if it is similar to something someone else uploaded, so maybe now you get one person pic, one object pic, one landscape pic, and that is about it. or maybe they will take a whole series with only minor differences between pics. Sometimes it really just feels like a crapshoot, but if they reject pictures apparently it does hurt your placement. Good luck and have fun trying to figure out what they want and don't want.
1953
« on: May 11, 2011, 22:13 »
This is what I wrote to IStockphoto... My exclusive application has been stuck on pending for days now. How long does the process take? I originally applied on April 26th 2011. It has been way over 48 hours.
(I would like to get my 35% back instead of this 17% I have now. That's why I reapplied)
The reply i got was this...
There is currently a hold on evaluating Exclusivity Applications. The Development Team is doing some maintenance within this area of the site.
You will need to wait until this routine maintenance is finished. After this point in time your Exclusivity Application will be reviewed. Unfortunately I do not have an ETA as to when this will be completed.
I don't understand what that means. Is this normal? 
P.S sorry if this is in the wrong thread.
Broken is the new normal at IS- sad but maybe true. but what I wanted to comment on was that if you are getting 17% there now as an exclusive you would get 30%, not 35% (as I understand the RC targets, I could be wrong).
1954
« on: May 11, 2011, 01:12 »
Don't know what your problem is. Sean himself says for quite a while now that his revenue is stagnating. Am I wrong  Not that I wouldn't trade places with him any day... Hell I'll settle for 15% of his revenue.
All I am saying (giving sean as an example) is that if your portfolio grew by 20% but your revenue stayed more or less the same, it is a safe assumption that if you grow your portfolio by 30% (for example) you CAN expect a rise in revenue. No need for a math degree for this. If one wants to predict future revenue and hence RC's, you must ALSO take into account by how much your RPI will drop (and it willl) and how much your portfolio will grow, nothing more, nothing less.
And no, 20% for an exclusive doing MS as a full time job isn't that high IMO. Then again, its not just a numbers game.
Please don't take this personal anyone, these are only numbers and opinions. I have great respect for Sean, and many other individuals not only becuase of how much $$ they make a month but because they are talented artists (which I might add, I am NOT!).
In my experience best match changes make a much bigger change than portfolio degradation. 20% might not be that hard for a few years, but eventually if you are working solo it will become unsustainable. If you are not exclusive there the upload limits alone will stop you.
1955
« on: May 10, 2011, 12:46 »
18% down. My port has 100% stagnated since the commission drop announcement. Unless there are some drastic changes to the RC targets I'll still end up in the same low % category.
1956
« on: May 09, 2011, 13:42 »
I would add Stockfresh for a few reasons: they have a very quick review process (usually within 1-2 hours), they accept almost everything, they have a fair commission (50% and subs sales are limited to M size) and their site looks clean and nice. The main problem is that the sales are very slow (been there since July 2010 and I only sold 3 images with a portfolio of 700+).
If there sales are as slow as getting approved...I have been waiting so long I have lost track of how long its been..., I am not sure its worth the effort.
By quick review process you mean on a geological time scale I presume (as far as my experience goes anyway). Over 11 months so far.
1957
« on: May 07, 2011, 16:14 »
I assumed the .1% change was what IS paid to the contributors, and IS is taking more for now (and total downloads have dropped).
1958
« on: May 07, 2011, 11:44 »
It would be interesting if the sites could come up with a few more search methods - like "artsy", "simple", "insider access", etc. etc. It would be a real pain in the butt to set them up though. Seeing what shows up in the top of the searches for a subject you are familiar with is often pretty painful. That doesn't even touch the spam - on purpose or otherwise. IS tried to fix a lot of these problems w/ the CV etc, but we all know how that worked out.
I am guessing most people just search on the best match and with a keyword or 2 and if they don't see what they want in the first few pages then they have to get more creative. Simple and isolated is often what they are looking for.
1959
« on: May 07, 2011, 11:36 »
and we all pretty much settled down too.
If the payouts have barely changed (less than .1%), that means that for most people their RC count should be higher (lower %, same payouts). Maybe that is so, but it doesn't seem that way for me. Look forward to higher RC #s for this year if this is true.
It would be interesting to see their real books.
1960
« on: May 06, 2011, 21:30 »
Thanks for coming on here and explaining things, I for one appreciate that.
1961
« on: May 06, 2011, 21:07 »
My only real complaint with the level 0 is the 25%. That doesn't make the sale any cheaper, it just gets us less. If they had gone with the level 0 scheme without the 25%, I'd be 100% for it.
What's next, level -1 with 20%, and then level IS with 15%?
Did they change level 1 to 1-4 downloads, it used to be 0-5 as I remember, same for level 2, they now say 5-9 and it used to be 6-10 as I remember? That is nice if it is in fact true.
No they didn't change the levels. I copied both the Jan 2010 prices page and the Jan 2010 commissions page a while ago and both of them show the downloads for each level as they are today.
That's odd, as I thought the 5th sale was still level 1... In fact I had the 6th sale of an image today (level 2), and the 5th sale was level 1 on 3/22/2011 with 2010 credits. After some reflection I suppose that still fits what you are saying, as it had sold 4 times before. Just a different way of looking at the number of times it has sold before vs. the number of that specific sale.
1962
« on: May 06, 2011, 15:06 »
I wonder if the reason this rollout is so scattered is that after KK said that only .1% were seriously affected and that people had calmed down they quick needed a diversion so they brought this up early...
Although looking at all their other problems lately I suppose this is nothing special.
1963
« on: May 06, 2011, 12:08 »
My only real complaint with the level 0 is the 25%. That doesn't make the sale any cheaper, it just gets us less. If they had gone with the level 0 scheme without the 25%, I'd be 100% for it.
What's next, level -1 with 20%, and then level IS with 15%?
Did they change level 1 to 1-4 downloads, it used to be 0-5 as I remember, same for level 2, they now say 5-9 and it used to be 6-10 as I remember? That is nice if it is in fact true.
1964
« on: May 05, 2011, 19:14 »
I wouldn't be surprised if they lock a bunch of images in for at least 6 months, then surprise - they are all getting moved over to thinkstock. Then after 6 months if you pull the plug, it will still take months for them to come off of their subs site...
If it seems like a nefarious idea, that is probably what they are going to do. (this is the new kind of trust that IS has now, I trust them to try to screw us).
1965
« on: May 05, 2011, 16:12 »
get 2 more accepted and you can be at 668 - the neighbor of the beast.
1966
« on: May 05, 2011, 11:49 »
wow, I'm one in a thousand... does that mean he thinks only around 100 submitters were dramatically affected? Either he is way out of touch or full of hot air.
1967
« on: May 05, 2011, 11:33 »
Dude, they are from the same Contributor!
then it is only not ok for DT. but actually, they are different contributors or at least different accounts (the mirror image is the same contributor though).
1968
« on: May 04, 2011, 19:55 »
It seems like when IS messes up the site and hurts us, they offer big discounts to pacify buyers, which - you guessed it - hurts us. I suppose you could argue with 55 -85 % going to them it hurts them more, but I am not sympathetic to that argument.
1969
« on: May 04, 2011, 12:10 »
Is the exclusive pricing part of the member loyalty program too? How do they treat sub sales? Since we can't really control the prices at most sites, I don't see much use of it unless they expect us to lower the prices at 3d to undercut all other sites. (I still don't know how they would treat subs. I suppose if they wanted to be aggro it would be the cost of an image with a maxed out max price sub plan - which is very low). Maybe a more realistic way would be to make your commission the same as the lowest commission- then I'd definitely have to dump IS.
In any case as I understand it now, No thanks.
1970
« on: May 04, 2011, 12:01 »
I'm still not convinced that THEY are making less money, but it sure seems to be hurting us, which ultimately is unsustainable (if that word means what I think it means). As they push wholly owned and expensive high %age (for them) content to the front, they might still be making more. Eventually that might bite them, or maybe they will manage to continue to make enough profit to get their bonuses.
1971
« on: May 03, 2011, 23:12 »
I think my lowest was .10 - but that was back in the heady days of 20%
You know something ain't right when 20% is considered the "heady" days.
that's the truth. What is the ironic emoticon?
1972
« on: May 03, 2011, 22:50 »
I think my lowest was .10 - but that was back in the heady days of 20%
1973
« on: May 03, 2011, 00:16 »
While I would agree that it was a bad month at IS and many are not happy about it, as reported on that thread there are some exclusives that had good months, some even BME's. I think one non exclusive reported a bme too.
I had my lowest RPI there ever last month. (since Feb 2007)
While I would agree that things look dire there - perhaps the Gostwyck hypothesis is correct - I do think it is incorrect to say that thread only reports bad news.
1974
« on: May 02, 2011, 23:04 »
Most if not all sites have a minimum payout and if you cancel before you reach it you should expect to lose the money in your account. Seeing how low the minimum is is one of the details you have to read and decide on before you join and start submitting. Most people who are planning on leaving a site wait 'til they hit the minimum before leaving or keep a balance above the minimum for the last chunk of time so they can empty out their account as the last step.
I haven't tried to leave Canstock, so I can't say if the process is a pain or not, but if I had a heap of images I wanted removed I'd definitely be writing them with a request rather than doing it one at a time.
I am ready to jump all over a site when they lower commissions or otherwise screw the artists, but the minimum payout is something we all joined with full knowledge of (or should have if we read the fine print).
1975
« on: May 01, 2011, 15:02 »
From looking here it seems like IS is trying to keep the exclusives happy at the expense of the rest of us.
If you check out the iStock April thread you'll find many exclusives are very unhappy. http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=328242&page=1
I skimmed through that forum a bit and I could have missed some but I only saw one non exclusive that was up - someone w/ under 250 DL total. There were plenty of exclusives reporting good months and BME. (and a lot that weren't happy, but I imagine any month there will be some people that are unhappy). It seems to me like they are shifting much of a shrinking pie to the exclusives, but the pie is still too small. I'd love to see an overview of their real stats.
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