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Messages - SNP
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201
« on: December 13, 2011, 14:01 »
^ I would modify the theory a little...I am a good case study for what is selling and what isn't (not that I'm successful like a Sean, I'm certainly not). but I have a large port, many of which are files that I uploaded while learning the ropes and that I barely even count as representative of my work today. I leave them in my port, because they still sell. My sales have grown (albeit very gradually) over the last years. Uploading (and improving my work) regularly seems to be the key...but I wouldn't say that files from the last twelve months are favoured. in my opinion, my greatest asset (and Achilles heel, preventing my work from really launching, is that I'm not a niche shooter)...my work isn't immediately recognizable. BUT I have just about every season, and concept somewhat covered in photo uploads. so I seem to ride out seasons and best match shifts consistently. my income is steady and I regularly (as in daily) sell older files. enough that I don't believe the best match is weighted to eliminate files older than 12 months. then again - they are clearly trying to coral images into the PP, maybe at some point it will be the old file dumping ground and only files newer than 18 months will be left in the iStock collection.
I'm going to reiterate another theory too, and I hope the comment will not be misconstrued again as me suggesting anyone isn't working hard. because that is just ridiculous. we're all different, doing this PT/FT/hobby. as stated above by someone else, we're individuals. exclusive contributors who seem to be taking the worst hits are contributors who were early days producers and superstars, who enjoyed major income growth that couldn't possibly be continued with the competition today. they had bestsellers that remained bestsellers for a long time, until the database starting growing faster and faster. these contributors may not have uploaded assuming the sales would keep up. riding the success of less than 1,000 files across five + years is proving to be a risky move. the majority (yes, not all) of diamond contributors reporting losses have this is common.
then there are contributors who upload the same stuff with different models over and over. this has to have a cannibalizing effect on their own sales. to some degree we all do this, but if you do this and you're a niche shooter...I think you're hurting yourself
202
« on: December 13, 2011, 02:06 »
I think they've just about pushed too far. but it is also a case of the devil you know.
nobody knows as you said. that's the point. and someone with 17 files at iStock shouldn't feel they can impart solid advice about the income drop from iStock being made up in no time. from many accounts from people I trust who have gone independent, or conversely gone exclusive--it seems to be a rude awakening when trying to make up the difference after dropping exclusivity and new exclusives seem quite surprised by the jump in income.
203
« on: December 13, 2011, 00:17 »
I was paying attention to and mine is under.....
204
« on: December 13, 2011, 00:05 »
JoAnn - what is your point? I apologize for missing the size of the portfolio on SS and DT...but you're just splitting hairs. My point is exactly the same. How can morphart give advice concerning lost IS income to SS gain-with JUST 17 files on iStock?
I certainly wish sodafish the best but I wouldn't expect income to be made up anytime soon.
Sorry we can't all be as amazing as you...oh, didn't you get excluded from some Getty inclusion because (as JJ said) you didn't work hard enough? Let he who cast the first stone...
^^ yuri is and always has been independent. you're comparing apples to oranges. I'm talking simply about 'replacing' iStock income with SS income. not whether iStock is falling and SS isn't. @ briciola: the fact remains that having an opinion about what may or may not happen to your iStock income after dropping exclusivity requires experience of more than 17 uploads. even if you have 50K on the other sites. I think sodafish is entirely justified and I understand the reason for dropping the crown. but I think it will be very difficult to make up the income. I would be happy to be wrong. it would be good to see viable competitive sales avenues to iStock exclusivity.
205
« on: December 12, 2011, 17:57 »
My royalty adjustment is very low. Are they doing this in increments? I'm out, haven't really looked at threads. I want the sales itemized like they promised.
206
« on: December 12, 2011, 17:39 »
Sales are below average, and they're made up of a weird mix of old files. Since Friday as far as I can tell
207
« on: December 12, 2011, 17:30 »
JoAnn - what is your point? I apologize for missing the size of the portfolio on SS and DT...but you're just splitting hairs. My point is exactly the same. How can morphart give advice concerning lost IS income to SS gain-with JUST 17 files on iStock?
I certainly wish sodafish the best but I wouldn't expect income to be made up anytime soon.
208
« on: December 12, 2011, 12:06 »
After 5 loyal years, I just ended my photo exclusivity.
While I truly hope I will still stay exclusive for vectors for a long time, I have to run my own business and want to be prepared for the worst. I'm simply too disappointed with their latest decisions at the moment, so I'm gonna test the waters for photo.
If you ask me you should be able to recover most of your revenue by simply submitting to Shutterstock. Add a few more decent agencies and you will get back what you had being exclusive, and maybe more.
how can you give this kind of general advice? you have 17 files on iStock and not many more with other agencies. just saying
209
« on: December 10, 2011, 12:27 »
I know, sorry if it came across that way. The site bugs and other issues are straining my patience. I hope 2012 will be a better year. It would be nice to have just one year of focussing on work without drama. But then - it is istock...
echo that....this comment is bang on. my guess is that it is a consensus throughout the serious contributor base. the cheesy, emotional drama was always a little irritating about iStock, but it was sometimes fun to get drawn into. over the last two years, they've eliminated much of the fun, and they've increased the drama. in another thread, there is a discussion about sodafish, a longtime exclusive going indie. someone commented (Sean maybe?) that iStock are losing the loyalty of exclusives. personally speaking, that loyalty was neutralized a long time ago. now it's dollars keeping me exclusive, the decision is about where I can make the most as what type of contributor. I am proud being an iStock contributor, because I still believe it is the leader and I believe it is still a brand that garners respect. but exclusivity isn't an emotional decision. I like the community thing, but the community of the industry. social media has enabled us to form a community outside the iStock parameters. it's no longer an iStock asset. I'd love a year without vague announcements, major site outages, 'projects that are good for the company and not for us but about which we're supposed to do back flips'.....just make the site work, let us do our work, with the bar set firmly in a fair position. lose the drama. I know how much the term F5 irritates me now. a week or so ago, a friend told me to F5 to refresh my screen and I cringed, lol, immediately realizing what an honest reaction it was.
210
« on: December 10, 2011, 01:56 »
good work is effort + experience + talent + evolution.....but, some people spend a lot of time and energy creating bad stuff. effort alone does not good work make. bad shots are sometimes just bad shots, I don't care if they took three weeks to set up and shoot.
buyers don't buy what's best for them, or what's best for suppliers. capitalism works so brilliantly because people buy crap all the time. I don't think iStock are intentionally filling Vetta with crap. that's not at all what I said (is that what it sounded like?). what I'm saying is that buyer behaviour probably suggests that it won't hurt if they dump into Vetta first and sort out later (as long as later doesn't become never). in terms of profiting from the odd sale of the bad files, while the crap is in there, this makes more sense (speaking purely financially).
211
« on: December 10, 2011, 00:58 »
^ I agree with you. philosophically. ethically.
BUT, from a PURELY business point of view, buyers don't look at collections as a whole. they see best match search results with bad files peppered here and there (don't read that as any sort of agreement). Bad files they probably ignore, or dismiss as dislikeable, or, gasp, buy because they have no taste. even if the bad files were not included, we've seen buyers complain about price at all levels of the collection anyways.
isn't there a greater financial advantage to placing everything in higher priced collections and then whittling? therefore increasing potential for greater-profit sales on crap files until they are removed. most of the comments being made operate on the assumption that buyers only buy good material. that's just not true. we see that in the creative briefings they're giving us re: photos....asking for more snapshot-style photos. buyers will spend money on crap as much as they will on good images. we see it everyday. financially it makes sense to do it the way they are doing it. again, I don't personally agree with this policy. but I don't agree with much of what big business does.
212
« on: December 09, 2011, 21:39 »
This is all relatively new - from the end of last month. What a total travesty of any pretense of inspection standards. Getty/H&F is just milking whatever they can get from iStock's traffic with no regard for the site's future. They should hang their heads in shame.
I'm afraid this is what is happening too. the alternative explanation, which is also plausible but not any better, is that they're dumping files in and inspecting them and removing them gradually. with the mindset that the good ones will float to the top and sell, and the bad ones will eventually be weeded out by inspectors. and to an extent this is a short-term way to maximize profits. I understand why you are surmising this could be at the expense of buyer perception when clients see blatant 'turkeys' being sold at Vetta prices, but it would be my guess that buyers wouldn't even notice the turkeys for the most part. wouldn't they be focused on the files they are interested in? disgruntled buyers/contributors might go weeding out turkeys as evidence, but that's not typical buyer behaviour.
213
« on: December 08, 2011, 01:17 »
@retrorocket ... collection growth, portfolio growth and sales dilution are genuine issues not just for SS but for suppliers to all agencies. However, they have nothing to do with upset customers.
(Calm down SNP, it's bad for the blood pressure)
don't worry, I had a big grin on typing that one.....and I did my five km run earlier this evening
214
« on: December 08, 2011, 01:13 »
reading the expert opinions about iStock in this thread, it's any wonder that iStock and we moronic exclusives can even afford our morning cups of coffee, since the buyers are all gone (because iStock kicked them in the you-know-whats one time too many), and the smart photographers are basking in the endless sunlight of Shutterstock Utopia--where nothing is wrong, there's no competition and buyers get belly rubs every hour on the hour.
215
« on: December 07, 2011, 22:45 »
Ok, tell me how to make a price slider. Someone, please. If you set a top price of $10, does it just show you images with only mediums available? Does it bring up all images and just make mediums available? Does it just bring up images with a size with a top price of $10?
Folks, these are things that have multiple prices per product, choosable by the buyer. Conveniently, they are sorted into collections, each of which is relatively more expensive then the next. Since they are "relatively" more expensive, an abstract way of representing it is needed.
This is not Amazon, where a 42" Samsung TV is $400 and only $400.
if you had empirical data, absolute proof, and a shiny new penny to boot....you wouldn't be able to convince this crowd. iStock bad, friend (any other agency) good. good effort Sean.
216
« on: December 07, 2011, 15:45 »
That's not the point, the point is that I can't understand someone having difficulties understanding how the slider works. Is graphic, intuitive and very simple.
yeah. I think more disparaging to buyers is how stupid some posters here make them sound...
217
« on: December 07, 2011, 12:01 »
since the site problems, sales are all older files....there is a marked best match difference since files that were selling everyday lately suddenly dropped off....inspections are smoking, but I only uploaded some test uploads to watch for indexing...
218
« on: December 06, 2011, 22:06 »
I'm just uploading an image, and noticed a mistake (mis-spelling) in a DA of an important keyword. I was just about to post a note in the keywording forum about it when I noticed that my two most recent posts have also been deleted.
What on earth is the point of that?
Why do I even bother?
You shouldn't bother.
It seems pretty obvious that Lobo has a personal vendetta against you, and whatever you post will be deleted, regardless of how helpful or useful it might be. You can't mess with The Lobo.
True actually. I know some angry people who are digging into his past. Will be interesting to see what they come up with.
I'm not defending the sarcasm that Lobo dishes out in the forum. contributors shouldn't be treated like children and his sarcasm is often unprovoked--but if contributors act like jerks, they deserve whatever he dishes IMO. your comment is as petty, and bullyish as anything you're accusing Lobo of. digging into his past? give me a break. what's that supposed to be, a threat? don't these friends of yours have anything better to do...like, say....work?
219
« on: December 06, 2011, 14:53 »
I'd argue that the industry is the basket, and not the agency. that's why I do a lot of assignment work outside stock.
220
« on: December 06, 2011, 14:00 »
^ yeah, exactly. and I've even been reluctant to sell too much as RM through traditional wires etc., in the event that down the road it limits my ability to sell editorial on iStock. I have patience for the evolution of iStock's editorial as long as it seems to be moving forward. I think it may be, jury is still out. It works so much better for me to be with one Agency selling....and then of course I have all my assignment stuff on the side too.
221
« on: December 06, 2011, 12:44 »
considering there have been just 3,500 sales of Edstock files out of 77,000 files...and literally just 1 download on all the Agency files....not too worried. as long as it wasn't a decision to place some of those crap files in Agency. what really kills me is that I have better shots from the TIFF premiere of The Town. I shoot the red carpets and press conferences/parties during the Toronto International Film Festival...along with all the other 'events' in Toronto...but Getty says they have Toronto covered...code for another pro shooter doesn't want anyone on his turf....
Put it up on Alamy.
I got my Alamy ducks in a row and prepared some of my editorial content to go up there....but I don't want to get established selling there with some of my files if we'll be able to upload this content to iStock eventually. I'm reluctant to split my work across agencies.....it's not that I don't want to do the work. it's that I'm so busy, and my portfolio so big that I'm worried about inadvertently infringing on my exclusivity
222
« on: December 06, 2011, 02:12 »
considering there have been just 3,500 sales of Edstock files out of 77,000 files...and literally just 1 download on all the Agency files....not too worried. as long as it wasn't a decision to place some of those crap files in Agency. what really kills me is that I have better shots from the TIFF premiere of The Town. I shoot the red carpets and press conferences/parties during the Toronto International Film Festival...along with all the other 'events' in Toronto...but Getty says they have Toronto covered...code for another pro shooter doesn't want anyone on his turf....
223
« on: December 05, 2011, 23:05 »
who cares if it takes a while for them to fix it, I can't imagine many will sell at Agency prices considering their lack of quality and time-sensitive content anyways. the problem was the apparent blanket Agency designation to Edstock files, regardless of quality. That isn't happening, so I'm not worried. I too think the focus should remain on keeping the site working for buyers.
224
« on: December 04, 2011, 17:41 »
Whow! I am surprised they would treat anyone like this, because it is obvious that you will post your experience here.
It's not obvious at all. Most people wouldn't post it here. They would take the cash and shut up, or never say anything in the first place and do without the money.
My name, btw, is Paul Cowan.
I once thought that was you Paul. but for the most part I wouldn't have guessed. now that you've outed yourself, I can hear your voice as Baldrick
225
« on: December 03, 2011, 21:36 »
my dls are up to date. I was nervous that they weren't coming back at all so I'm relieved it is back to a more normal functionality. in the meantime I was using the greasemonkey script. it's awesome.
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