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Messages - Allsa
Pages: 1 ... 4 5 6 7 8 [9] 10 11 12 13 14 ... 17
201
« on: June 13, 2011, 20:51 »
So far this month I've sold 3 extended licenses on IS. Two of them only paid a paltry $6.06! How is that possible? 
202
« on: June 07, 2011, 06:18 »
There has been a sharp decline in my earnings at Fotolia as well. Interesting the way the agencies that slashed our royalties are in decline, while the sites that treat us fairly are doing much better - poetic justice at work.
203
« on: June 06, 2011, 13:27 »
With IS, everything is just leading up to one thing only. When our RM shots according to the new contract by Getty finally start arriving at TS, there will later be an incorporation of IS, into TS.
Its got to be this way. Pretty pointless and down out stupid to run two gigantic micro-outfits with pretty much the same exclusives, alongside each other, spending a fortune on advertising for TS and not a penny on IS.
The competition will be murderous, especially with all the RM stuff turned into micro and many IS exclusives will be totally outmanouvered. Not a nice situation at all.
Why so negative? Getty makes one idiotic decision after another, they've turned iStock into a sinking ship - and you're assuming they've already won? I see a deluded dinosaur trying to use outmoded 20th century tactics in a 21st century world. Sure the dinosaurs were big & scary, but they're also extinct. It's not so hard to imagine a similar fate for Getty. I still have hope.
204
« on: June 02, 2011, 12:28 »
^^^Black Sheep/Old Hippy likes to poke fun at us here. Unfortunately he usually goes way to far at some point and gets banned. Then he reappears a few months later and we go through all this again. Someone did post his real identity here once and I remember that he does this on other forums too.
Macrosaur/old hippy/pesaus and alike
I was thinking Molka.
205
« on: June 02, 2011, 10:44 »
I resumed uploading to iStock awhile back, I felt like a sellout, but I did it anyway, because I was worried about my declining income. As it turns out, I wonder if I've sold out for very little return. My iStock earnings continue to drop at an alarming rate, it's getting harder to get images accepted, and even when I send rejected files to Scout they usually just get rejected a second time. They insist that every pixel be perfect, and in return I am rewarded with ever lower royalties and a continual decline in earnings.
But I will never upload to Thinkstock, I think we would all be much better off if The Abomination Known as Thinkstock fails. I would love nothing more than to see that site shut down.
206
« on: June 02, 2011, 10:26 »
I think the final straw for me has been the big increase in rejections with Shutterstock. They are rejecting things that I know would make money.
I have some interesting data on that as I've been uploading to Shutterstock a lot in the last few weeks. Most of the files are ones on which I have sales data already (from the last year or two). Shutterstock has rejected several of my best selling images on iStock as having limited commercial value. ex-Vetta images rejected as having poor lighting, images with shallow DOF as improper focus, etc.
They've accepted a ton of things too, but I half thought of challenging the LCV rejections on the basis of the proven sales value of those files. I decided it just isn't worth the time to do as each site will just do it's own thing and my sanity lies in just accepting their foibles if I'm to sell there.
If there's an image I feel very strongly about, that I really want to get into my portfolio, I resubmit with a note to the reviewer. In the note, I point out why I think the image has sales potential, and ask that they reconsider and give it a chance - which is a lot like sending images to Scout on iStock. I only do this with images I feel very strongly about. Also, if there is a technical problem you can correct and resubmit, with a note explaining that this is a corrected file.
207
« on: May 31, 2011, 12:56 »
I'm not a fan of istock these days. It's especially hard to be as I close out my worst month there in nearly 3 years.
This is actually what I was thinking when I read those forum threads. I was surprised more by the fact that people were still doing well or hadn't noticed a change in their numbers. I had to go back to May 2009 to find a month this poor. Well, aside from February and the other poor months this year. It really seems like someone flipped a switch there at the beginning of the year.
I had to go all the way back to January 2007 to find a month with earnings as low as they are this month on IS. Earnings keep falling and falling with no end in sight.
208
« on: May 30, 2011, 10:14 »
Thanks, I grabbed it! Great deal! 
209
« on: May 30, 2011, 09:12 »
I don't have any experience with Lightroom. How is it better than Bridge, which comes with Photoshop?
210
« on: May 28, 2011, 11:30 »
Hi All,
Even if my Istock sales had not tanked three months ago I would still be shocked that a professional service of their magnitude would answer a customer with such a smug reply. This is very surprising. Yes, one more month that makes three where my Istock sales dropped to half what they were at the beginning of the year and I have been adding new work at the same rate as always.
I am quite sure why this is happening to the photographers I believe it has to do with the point system they put in place. Now they move us around the best match in relation to how many credits we are earning in order to keep us from making the same or even a higher percentage next year. This is just my opinion but I have felt this way since the set the new system in to place and why the set the system in place. Just my opinion based on nothing but pure guesstimation.
Best,
Jonathan
Very interesting theory. Kind of hard to tell if this is true because Redeemed Credits are private and canisters don't really mean anything about sales performance. But that would absolutely allow them to control profit margins and could also explain why newer contributors are constantly having BME's.
Wouldn't this policy cause exclusives to leave istock in droves? High level exclusives are heavily represented among the top earners. If this really is their policy it would indicate that iStock no longer values the exclusives as they once did, since they offer so little incentive for people to hold onto the crown.
211
« on: May 26, 2011, 14:14 »
What happened to Peebert?
212
« on: May 19, 2011, 13:37 »
In my experience sales are a slow trickle - it does seem to be somewhat steady though. I do wonder if the increase in files from the bridge to BS has diluted sales somewhat though.
I am sure the B2B program has diluted my sales quite a bit. I had mostly the same portfolio on both sites and sales were pretty good. The last couple months since B2B sales are noticeably down for me.
Same here, I'll be lucky if my earnings for BS are half what they were in 2010.
213
« on: May 17, 2011, 19:38 »
If the software license says you can use it for commercial use, then Shutterstock is in the wrong to suspend this guy. They could reject the image as a matter of editing policy (but they should be consistent which they obviously aren't) but they shouldnt suspend him.
+1
214
« on: May 14, 2011, 13:31 »
As was mentioned in another thread - they are getting very strict about too many similar images. If you submit a batch of mostly similars, you can expect a lot of rejections.
215
« on: May 11, 2011, 19:38 »
I agree with the previous comments. My sales pattern at Dreamstime seems to be bi-polar. Last month was my BME but sales so far in May are definitely in "famine" mode.
Same feast or famine pattern with me, too.
216
« on: May 10, 2011, 20:52 »
... Very disappointing from a site that was doing so well.
I agree! Shutterstock has overtaken Fotolia as my #2 earning site. The way it's going, Fotolia might even fall below Dreamstime for me. Very sad. Sales and views of new images in particular seem to be well down. Thank goodness for improving sales on Shutterstock and Dreamstime! 
+2. I don't know what's happened at Fotolia either. This month they are virtually neck and neck with Dreamstime when usually they are more than 2x higher. My Absolute Rank has been steady for some weeks too which suggests I am doing no worse or better than those around me.
Maybe it is the curse of the greedy stock agency? At this rate only Shutterstock will be left. Can I be alone in thinking that sales at Shutterstock are off the wall this month though? Staggering numbers coming in and well on course for another BME at Shutterstock. It just seems that that's where all the buyers are migrating to.
+3 Misery loves company - both my rank and my earnings at Fotolia have dropped dramatically.
217
« on: April 26, 2011, 13:57 »
Uhh, something is going on here, several of my illustrations are for sale on that site, and I've never uploaded to Pixmac!
Wait, just checked and I'm listed as the artist. I have a whole portfolio of work there. Now I'm really confused...
218
« on: April 25, 2011, 11:05 »
I disagree - I like BS's uploading process, it's quick and easy.
219
« on: April 16, 2011, 21:06 »
I'd take the deduction if I had a room dedicated to my illustration work, but my 'office' is a corner of the dining room.
220
« on: April 15, 2011, 12:20 »
I'm getting really discouraged with them, too. Sales are dropping, new uploads just sit there, and with the commission cut on top of that I wonder why I keep uploading. If they used the increased revenue from the commission cut for advertising and promotion - resulting in more sales volume - I wouldn't resent it nearly as much. As it is, it just looks like yet another greedy money grab. I'd like to see the bad karma catch up with Fotolia and iStock, so that the agencies that pay a fair commission, like DT and SS, can surge ahead and take over the top slots. That would be poetic justice.
221
« on: April 05, 2011, 19:06 »
My weekly rank was somewhere around 150, now it's dropped down to over 700. My sales have tanked, and with the commission cut on top of that, March 2011 earnings were down almost 50% from March 2010. Things started going downhill around the end of 2010, beginning of 2011.
222
« on: April 05, 2011, 08:28 »
They've become more sparse there for me too. Fewer and farther between, but not completely stopped.
I think they changed the search function - and there are winners and losers, at least it seems that way from comments I've read on this forum. Unfortunately, I'm one of the losers, too 
223
« on: March 09, 2011, 12:57 »
The situation for me at Fotolia has gone from bad to worse, in the short span of a few weeks. In fact, for me it's turned out to be even worse that at iStock. Everything is going downhill there - first there was the commission cut, then they changed the search function in way that caused a huge drop in downloads for me, and now they are rejecting almost half of what I upload - and they used to accept most of it. I've resumed uploading to iStock - Fotolia is even worse, and I can't afford to stop uploading to both of them. This is really discouraging. Am I alone in this, or are others feeling the pain?
224
« on: March 01, 2011, 21:55 »
@Allsa - agree 100% with everything you said, except possibly the part about people rising up and not taking it anymore. I am shocked at how many people not only ACCEPT the infringement of their civil liberties, but enthusiastically support the people who are doing it.
Our country is filled with gullible sheep who can be easily fooled into misdirecting their anger. Saddens me to see it.
I know what you mean, it's so depressing, isn't it? But what I'm seeing happen in the Middle East gives me hope that maybe we can have a 'Great Awakening' in this country before it's too late. With so many people hurting badly in this economy, there's a lot of anger in the air. I just don't know how bad it has to get before enough people wake up to the fact that this country is no longer a democracy.
225
« on: February 28, 2011, 22:30 »
As an American citizen, this doesn't surprise me at all. The USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world. One in every 100 Americans is in jail or prison. We house 25% of the world's prisoners, yet we only account for 5% of the world's population. Incarceration is big business in the US, and many people are getting rich off of it. We have for profit prisons now, and prisons are the primary employer for many communities. The Drug War keeps the system supplied with a steady flow of 'customers'. Meanwhile the expense is bankrupting state's budgets.
Our politicians are bought off, and the system is rigged. This is not a Democracy, it's a Corporatocracy. Now Big Food is in on the act, they don't want the world to witness the horrendous abuse of farm animals that takes place on Factory Farms, so they lobby politicians to make it illegal to collect the evidence. We are are in the process of being systematically conditioned to accept ever greater assaults on our freedom.
I think the American people will wake up when things get bad enough. And then well, think of the revolutions we're seeing in the middle east. I think it's only a matter of time before it happens here.
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