So, go figure...

Regarding this topic, I've received this text message from a "unknown sender" last year in August. Ive pqssed it over to Jeff from audio crew cause at that time I was returning to exclusivity for audio. Anyway, it was a bit clumsy written and nothing was "published" anywhere after the sms. Afaik. Some others received it also. Heres the copy paste

You are being played and rigged! Istock owns you money! This message is for Mirko Pernjakovic and several others who received it also. You are robbed from your daily and monthly earnings and limited to a daily download limit set by IS. We have a proof and we will announce it. Share this! - end of quote.

The best match shifted a bit selling older files but my new files are selling here and there. Not as much as I hoped but, they sell. I've added over 4000 files since September last year and nothing spectacular happened regarding sales. I hope to see some results this year... Wait, you asked and they've told you that they know about that "issue" but there are no plans of dealing with it?

Also, audio at IS is the last media in GI agenda. Bad...

Well, it's a derivative work of your own files. Good question. I think it's not allowed but it's a question for IS.

 

Hey all! I hope you guys are doing great... as always, reading and lurking and not to much talking

Anyways, when I was "inbetween" my cameras, I had only 7mpx canon point and shoot and I had to do something so while I was waiting for my new camera to arrive, I've taken some photos with post photoshop/layers/cloning/aftereffects in mind. And I can tell you that you can make "almost" everything move in those images. I remember starting a photo with my son walking with his sister, starting to manipulate it, and the best thing is to take another image while nobody is in the frame so you save yourself a half an hour of cloning. And then, you can make any part of any object/subject move in the image... not really suitable for real time but for some crazy one million frames slow motion, it can be more than believable. If done right. I never finished that image. But I managed to upload some on Istock five years ago. Had several sales since but if one would pursue only that type of work, I think there is money to be made. It's a whole new approach to "moving images" and old/new technique. Here is something that you can do with 2d image and cloning ) And some are just simple snapshots of lights with streaks and glow added. 15 minutes of work, with rendering time

This is my kitchen light, streaks and glow added. With change of exposure.
http://www.istockphoto.com/video/abstract-flickering-light-gm113817883-14259201?st=4e67742

This is mine shaving foam from shot from above, just spin, motion blur and slow in and out.
http://www.istockphoto.com/video/spray-bottle-on-a-tiled-floor-spinning-gm113818039-14362297?st=073a130

Now in this one, the original photo is at the end of video, I cloned all the cracks and just slowly show them through the video.
http://www.istockphoto.com/video/crack-appearing-in-the-ground-gm114144274-14373255?st=073a130
http://www.istockphoto.com/video/cracks-slowly-appearing-in-marble-floor-gm113818026-14343784?st=073a130

Another light, in my hallway. Added wobbling effect, green light and shake...
http://www.istockphoto.com/video/spooky-greenish-light-gm113811766-14174565?st=073a130
http://www.istockphoto.com/video/spooky-wobbling-light-gm113811765-14174561?st=073a130

Elevator ceiling. Added strobe light and movement... that light was always flickering in that elevator so it gave me an idea.
http://www.istockphoto.com/video/industrial-game-like-ceiling-rotation-with-strobe-gm113811764-14174560?st=bf91cc7

Here, I shoot a light in my bathroom through my wife's (the plastic thing you roll in your hair to make it curly... can't recall the name) and added movement and flickr
http://www.istockphoto.com/video/abstract-blue-light-with-rays-gm113818038-14362256?st=4e67742

And the only one that I really put effort in, this nature tilt with sunlight and some strange things flying around... You can still see some bad photoshopping on hay stacks )) I animated almost everything here. Trees, branches, blur. And I got 4 sales
http://www.istockphoto.com/video/powerful-nature-background-tilt-gm113808935-13973328?st=073a130


Anyways, after several weeks, my camera arrived and I never did any of those again. Today, when I see this guy doing all those simple movements, and with the knowledge, technology and experience I got in these five years, who knows, maybe I give it another shot I think he must be selling something cause he wouldn't be doing that much clips if there's no money out of it. And he already got the keywords ready from photos
Sorry for the long post. Back to lurking.

Guys, I got my first payment on the 15th, and two days before that I got an email that I wasn't approved for payment (I forgot to submit my tax info), so I went back, did what I was asked to do and I thought that I will miss this deadline and that I will be payed in August. But, no. I was cleared for payment and money was on my Payoneer account yesterday

For a relatively new agency they are doing far greater job then some other relatively old agencies... Sales are there, royalties are ok, payment is on time... I'm from Serbia and no problem with the payment at all. Check your accounts people, maybe you forgot to fill in something like I did.

Anyways, pond5 almost dead this month yet SS is going like crazy If it weren't for some private matters I would pursue Dissolve, SS and Videblocks head on.
And Dissolve is a surprise this month also (last month). Biggest payout since they started.
My 2c.

Last month was wme for me. February. First time ever I barely passed payment threshold. And that was on the last day, a sale that made my payment possibile. I have over 2500 video clips and have +-$100 months during the year. But february was awful. I was on the verge of calling and asking them are they mad at me )) Pond and the rest of the agencies were as usual (video) but SS sales plunged. And Dissolve had a bme for me.

Anyways, that's not the topic. I have a series of days without sales at SS. Don't know how and why. I stopped thinking about it. Added almost 600 new files last year and the sales stayed the same. Somehow I always get +-$100 the same amount of money. New year, summer, spring... it's the same for me. I have one file over 10 dl's and the rest are 9, 8, 7, etc... Ebb and flow? Didn't wrote that a long time. I don't know. And I don't have a "bestseller" file

Good days-bad days? In February I had six days of sales. Usually I have 15+ days with sales.
That's my 2 cents on this.

What can happen? They can steal two clips from Dissolve cause their budget is only $5? Pleaseeeee. There is to much drama in almost any move from any agency. ONE agency thats different and brings in the money after only four months of contribution is (in my case) Dissolve. Do you guys really think that Istock, SS, P5 and many others dont have "high rollers" that are using unwatermarked images/audio/footage... I'm behind Dissolve until/if proven wrong. But also, I dont think like that. I think they have already harvested some big players (customers) with their business. Thats only my opinion. Not a fact. You can go ahead and give all of my 3000+ clips unwatermarked full res to any of the big companies. Great move. Nice try to bring in the cash.

I got video and audio sales every month. It's not much but they are selling. If you have metadata sorted, upload of the clips is the only thing you should do. Afterwards, just upload your csv and you're done. I would give them a try. They are selling more than Pixta. 4000 files, footage and sounds. 

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on February 02, 2015, 22:10
"And every time you upload a photo/video/whatever of nature, just check the photographs and "apply the nature template". And all your photos will have the same info, let's say, generic keywords like green, fresh, foliage, ecology etc."

My series don't really tend to have similar themes, and they're all keyworded anyways...

Then, I would use csv. Download it, make the changes, upload it and thats it. If it's worth uploading photos to P5 that is

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on February 02, 2015, 21:40
No idea what "templates" are for there, or why I should worry about them.  Editing uploads requires a pop-up window every time that I have to minimize.  It's just an awkward process.

It is a bit awkward when you do it like that. But you could give those "templates" a test ride. You can pre-fill, if I can write it like that, everything from keywords, description, to camera model, year and all the less relevant stuff and call that template "nature" for example. And every time you upload a photo/video/whatever of nature, just check the photographs and "apply the nature template". And all your photos will have the same info, let's say, generic keywords like green, fresh, foliage, ecology etc... You can do that for the subjects you upload the most. People, landscapes, holidays etc.

It's not much but it beats IS uploading process (excluding deep meta).

Or, how I like to do it, I upload everything I got, I go to P5, I export my CSV with all the names of the clips/sounds I uploaded and I fill them in offline in excel (you get formatted csv file with all the columns of the files you uploaded) and slide it back on the P5 and I'm done. And I get to keep my CSV file with all the keywords, descriptions, original filenames, etc that I can use on other agencies (with some minor modifications).

I think that's really easy. You upload your stuff, Pond5 generate a list of files you've uploaded, you write that data in (I have my main csv file from which I pull the most of my keywords for the similar files so thats neat, you don't have to re-write most of your stuff) and you upload it back on Pond5. Done! Better than doing it one by one.
And you have a list for your new batch that you can use on other agencies (I do mostly sound and footage and 90% of agencies selling those are csv friendly. Dissolve, Dreamstime, 123rf, Pond5, AudioMicro, Productiontrax, MotionElements, Pixta, Shutterstock, Depostiphotos, Revostock).

Also, If you just want to edit something, and you got your metadata on the photos themselves, again, download the csv file, edit the stuff you need, and upload it back to Pond.

Again, those pop-ups are annoying.

I'm selling every single day min two sound effects $10 a pop. And every week min of 2 videos. $50 per clip. December was awesome, so was January. But this last few days have been quiet. And one more thing, upload process? Man, when I canceled exclusivity at IS and started doing my metadata in excel and stuff, I was on the verge of madness. Now? I can't live without it. Every single agency (serious ones) accept CSV/XML files. You upload your clips, upload your metadata sheet and you're done. Plus Pond5 READ FOOTAGE IPTC. So you can enter data in bridge or lightroom and just upload. And you're done. Plus you got templates. I tried those too. And they are great. I have several generic ones (swoosh, whoosh, nature, animals etc... same categories, price, and stuff) and I just click a few clicks when I'm uploading one or ten clips or sounds. But I mostly doing large batches and then I'm sending them day by day to review (curators).

I don't know. I wouldn't change anything at P5 right now except the customers )) I would like more of those. Much, much more. But also, I lowered the prices of my video clips and pumped the ones for sound effects and it makes hell of a difference. For audio that is. For video, not so much, I'm selling almost the same when they were priced $90. There are people that are willing to pay big money (it depends what do guys consider big money). There are photos sold for $500+ last month. Videos for $800!

Pond5, improve you contributors sales and everything will be alright

Just to be clear for others, if you buy the yearly subscription, and before that you've installed free trial, it will say that you've payed the yearly amount but it wont be deducted from your card until the free trial period expires. In my case, when the trial expired, I didn't have 10 bucks on my card and there for, they've declined my subscription. Nothing to be alarmed for. Just a good thing to know. The app is still great, google still sucks and that's that

Yeah, just checked google wallet transaction and they declined my credit card?! It seems that they didn't charged anything in January and they've cancelled the payment that they didn't charge. It's not quite clear to me.

Oh, ok. I just wrote an email. I hope you can help me with this. Cause, at the moment, Microstockr is the only app that does all the agencies I need. Thanks

Hey Paul. My one year subscription just ended?! Less than a month after purchasing it. I'm from Serbia, I used my own credit card, google wallet etc but also a tunnel bear so I can buy the app. Some may disagree with this kind of purchase but that's the only way to buy on google play from Serbia. I don't know if you issued a refund or  did they? In the subscription policy it say - Subscriptions differ from app purchases in that there is no two-hour refund period - all refunds are at the discretion of the content's developer. And that's, if I understand it well, if I ask for a refund.

I paid my own money, nothing illegal except the google thingy. They don't allow people from Serbia to buy apps on google play. It was active for several months in 2011 I think, and then they ended it. So we (all the people that can't buy on google play, now the paradox) download a little app FROM google play, and it's free, called Tunnel Bear. And it tricks google play and google wallet that you are from some other country and it validates your payment method. I added my Payoneer credit card and made the purchase. If they refunded the purchase after seeing that I'm from Serbia, then ok. They are asswipes anyway. It's up to them. But if you did, could you please explain why? And is there any way to get the app back tomorrow? Cause it seems that my one year subscription is ending in one day )

This is what I got in my email

Your Subscription - 1 year (Microstockr) subscription from MR SERBAN POP on Google Play has been canceled. No refunds will be issued (Refund Policy). Your subscription will remain active through Feb 2, 2015.


Order number: 12999763169054705758.1356867606872455
Order date: Jan 3, 2015 1:47:54 PM EST

And print screen in the attachment.

I don't want a refund, I want a functional app. It's a great app and I gladly payed the money you deserve.

+1 for Dissolve team and their work!

Got two payments in last two months. Thats awesome for starters. Great people, great support, good quality etc. They do love their jobs. For now Also, 30% could be a bit higher. But also, they introduced Payoneer beside Paypal, your only work is to upload to FTP and provide a CSV and thats it

High hopes for them! Fingers crossed!

@etudiante_rapide

Hey there! Nice to meet you

Yes, it's all individual regarding agencies except the obvious stuff (dpc at fotolia, istock doing an istock on itself, getty being getty etc...) People express their opinions and thoughts and others agree cause of the similar experiences with the matter in hand or they don't and then we talk to each other trying to get to the bottom of things.
I know that I never understood Istock to the core. Ever. No matter what I did, I was mediocre there (still am) compering myself to some of my friends with much, much more money and success (IS exclusives). But when I jumped the ship, a whole new world opened up to me. Sometimes scary and sometimes wonderful. It kinda showed me where I can end up. With low sales and me not working - dead end. I might as well stayed at IS and linger on. But when I start working and thinking about what I'm working on and why I'm working - sales start pouring in (well, not really but I had days like, 20 audio sales and 5 video sales on one agency at morning, and the other ones were just warming up for that day/week - that happened maybe twice and with not the exact numbers but it was a wind in my back. Earning a $700 for a day is a great deal for me. Also, earning $500 a month from all agencies is a big deal)
I got problems with some agencies and I feel free to express that problems publicly so I could show some week spots or mistakes I've made during the process of rebuilding my Istock earnings on other sites so someone could avoid them or someone could point out at some other stuff or just help with the those problems.
By all means, everything here is 100% truth and it's also only my opinion derived from two years of experience dealing with stuff that I was afraid to deal with in the beginning of this thread. I also think that there are many people asking the same questions I was asking myself when I was at IS. I hope I can help )

I started with photos at IS in 2006, and it was a hilarious start, I can say Wasn't exclusive from the beginning but when footage kicked in, I was all IS. Had much more photos but deleted almost a half cause I divorced my wife back then and just didn't want to have those online (it was a great divorce and beautiful marriage, believe me, we just lost ourselves during the journey and continued as great friends) and that was a mistake cause few years later she told me something like "are you crazy, we all need that money, put those photos online again..." something like that. But I didn't. It wasn't fair to her even though she wanted them back online:)  And, those were my bestsellers   Trashed half of my video portfolio also... Anyways, enough personal chit chat. I was selling back then till 2008, everywhere. LuckyOliver, Featurepics, SS, Ft, Dt, Bs, IS, Inmagine, etc... It was ok, but video just blew all that out of the water. Money x4 in several months when I started contributing to IS. I stopped doing photos almost right away.

And audio... well, I love it. Went to Las Vegas on first AudioLypse. All expenses paid by IS. Made some great friendships and learned a lot. Got to know SJLocke there for some 15 minutes in some irish pub as I remember I asked him - how do you pronounce your name (that was a mystery for me when I had to say it out loud when I was talking to a living person, not writing on my comp), and I think I asked him something like - what's up with the IS forum attitude man? (he, as always, had some witty comment about everything and some people liked him and some liked him a bit less... Something like that. Can't remember.
Back OT. I was convinced that it will NEVER END. Me and ISaudio. But it did. Sadly.

And regarding curveballs, I don't know. crap happens. (sorry for the language). You just take it and that's it. Don't know what else to say about it

Look at me, writing miles again. Sorry for that. Just feeling good and I'm still sober
Hope this helps.

@bunhill

That's a good idea

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand last nigh, Wednesday, 13th of August, at 23:06, in Belgrade, my third child, second daughter, inhaled her first breath ))) Whooooooohooooo! Enough about that, back on topic... well, this is on topic, it's a nervous breakdown, but positive )))

Anyways, @Toopy

I considered Alamy several years ago when I was still excl at IS and year after year I remember them (being midstock agency, I figure, hey more money for me) but I just cannot shake off the feeling - send us your hard drive and we'll do the rest... man, I live in middle ages regarding country and geographic location (stupid politicians broke the time machine dialer) and some of my fellow citizens act like they live in middle ages (almost) but to send a hard drive with my whole port by mail?!?! Even if it's a DHL or UPS or whatever... I don't think so. I know that many other agencies do that (getty) and that several years ago that was the least painful way of sending 1 tb of stock footage to an agency, but I just didn't do it. I pop in to check from time to time if they came to their senses and managed to implement FTP or web uploader for footage but nothing... You have to contact them, send them a link to your port, they review it and then they contact you and decide if they want or they don't want to work with you. Again, this is my personal decision and from the business side view, it's bad. I'm not selling through them cause I have a problem sending a hard drive to them... maybe I should talk to myself about that. Now that I think about it, I'm the one being jackass.
And I don't know anyone selling footage through them. Would like to know about pricing, percentage and how are sales there.

@Monty-m-gue
Just tell your daughter to keep uploading EVERY DAY. Even if it's just one clip, let it be one clip per day. But more something like 10 per day... I was told something like that regarding audio and best match at IS. So I just implemented it to everything else. Continuity. Every day, one, five, ten clips and in a year or two, she will feel good about her port. Again, just my personal observation. I'm faaaar away from some mega super seller etc )) But I think that this advice can't hurt her.
And everything about the agencies I wrote in my "big post" is something I brushed off my mind at the time writing it. There's much more to each agency, good and bad. Don't take it for granted. We all have some opinion and, well, bugs in our heads that are influencing our working and living habits (I have a problem sending in a hard drive to Alamy and I'm missing some sales and money because of it, yet I talk about serious approach and working hard and bla,bla,bla,... get my point?).

@fotoVoyager
+1

@cobalt
Thanks! It's been a bumpy ride and it aint over yet Just starting.

No prob Sorry for the long read. This morning, I remembered many things that I have forgotten about that one year journey. Will fill in the details later on.

Hey guys! Two years and a few months after starting this thread I'm here with some info that may come in handy to someone in same situation like I was

Two years ago, Feb 2012, I was on a verge of a nervous breakdown regarding IS and it's new business habits. Money was way to low, sales were slow, no progress of any kind. Go to page one of this topic to refresh your memory for this one.

Anyways, that year started very clumsy and fearful but ended like my IS exclusivity. At the end of 2012 I've spread my footage portfolio (and some photos) to:
Pond5 (full port)
Shutterstock (full port)
Fotolia (full port but not all online. No csv support, high rejections and low prices)
123rf (full port)
Revostock (full port)
Clipdealer (few dozens of clips, very hard to do metadata, no csv support etc)
Canstockphoto (full port)
Depositphotos (full port)
Clipcanvas (few clips)
Lori.ru
and later that year to
Pixta (full port)
Motionelements (full port)
Dreamstime (last year I think, few hundred clips)

This year
Stockeon (several clips)
Dissolve (still uploading)


On most of the agencies, support was great, community (were exist) is cool and tech side of things is, well, ok.

My metadata (csv, xls) was a mess. File naming was as I exported them from premiere, ae or whatever. The stupid names like watertert01.mov, water02a.mov, mommywithdaughter.mov etc. So I had to rename all of those and match them with existing descriptions and keywords from IS. Did that manually. Through deepmeta. It got everything except original filenames of the files online. So one week after, I got my names and metadata right. Also, there are several programs out there that can help you guys with renaming files from text files and plain list files but that's another story.
Then my hard drive crashed and I lost over 600 files IS don't offer anymore dl of your own portfolio for money. They did opened the gates to my portfolio but only web resolution was available to dl. And I used that to download my whole audio portfolio cause that file naming was number id's and I knew that down the road I'm gona break the excl contract for audio too and that my audio metadata is even worse then footage so I used that benefit. And it payed out in 2013/2014 when I jumped the audio ship.

After a long intro comes even longer start

Files were uploaded to P5, SS, Fotolia and several others (can't remember) and keyworded (except the ones I wrote up). First mistake was the switch on SS to activate my whole portfolio. I think.
It sunken like a bag of rocks. No sales, no nothing. First week, month, second month, knees trembling, wife screaming, thinking to myself: "another mistake, you money hungry moron, now you have nothing..." and stuff like that... It never recovered and performed as I think it would if I was smart enough to pump in 50 after 50 after 50 files week after week. Later on more about SS.

Pond5 was a different kind of stress. Nothing was working. Views were broken, add to cart (stats) were maybe broken maybe not (added to cart with no views etc). But very quickly (relative), one month and longer, after first clips were online, some of them started selling. $70 a pop, $35 for me. I played a bit with prices to see how it goes and I settled on $60 per clip even though I sold several for $90 but long time passed between those sales. And then things started to shape up a bit on Pond5. I was levitating on $180 to $300 per month on P5. In my head that was a piece that was missing on IS. Month after month sales disappeared from IS. Footage sales. And P5 was making that right.

In that moment I had a downtrend regarding audio on IS. That was another disaster waiting to happen but more on that later on.

SS never woke up. I started getting sales every week. And it stopped at some $200 per month. That was a party breaker in my head. I have 2000+ files online and 10 dl's per month... bummer. At that point, even with much lower sales at SS and P5 than I expected, I passed the IS footage income just with those two. And I was still getting Getty footage sales which were about $200 to $400 per month depending on the mood of the guy that pushes the "give him some money for his clips" button at Getty HQ.

Other nice surprises were on the other, oooother side of the world. Asia. Pixta and Motion Elements were selling a clip per week for me. No mistake there. And I uploaded there cause in my head it was like – another market, different habits, different needs, maybe something will sell there. And it did and it still does. I'm gonna support those two that's for sure. Helpful, clean, smart, working, easy upload process, csv support. ... And Motion Elements is starting music (sound) and while I'm writing this, I'm finishing uploading my port there. When it will be live I don't know but it sure does sound tempting. Yet Shutter failed to deliver. They have announced music and partnered up with Rumblefish and that's it. No contribution, no nothing. I asked them on three different sides (four if you count forums) and answers were very different. Long story short – they wont be accepting music from contributors just yet OR they will be accepting and you can go to this link and apply OR what a great idea about sound effects Mirko, I'll let you know when we start accepting those, but not just yet ))) Ok, I get it, it's a test balloon but I think (hope) they would skyrocket if they were to open the gates for audio guys... anyway, back on topic.

Asia – done! Awesome for starters.

Fotolia was/is very muddy if I can say it like that. I just can't get to finish my uploads over there. I keyword a batch and they reject everything, low commercial value. Several times like that and then they approve something and it get sold and I got like two bucks or something... just can't start with them properly but maybe I should give them a chance.

Canstockphoto and footage

Easy upload, everything online, a sale here and there. After one year, yesterday I made it to $100 )) Enough said.

123rf.
Strange people I'll tell you. Nothing for weeks and then waterfall of sales. Nice ones. Since last year summer I'm getting payed every month there. And they have audio so that's a big plus for people like me. Double earning, footage plus sound. Will keep them that's for sure. And very easy upload process. Csv support, fast approvals, etc.

I know this is going into some kind of personal review of agencies but I'm just trying to explain how my non exclusive life was flowing for year and a half now. I hope you guys don't mind

Deposiphotos

They scared me when I finished uploading. Done the metadata, uploaded and they started adding it. The reviewers. Or someone else Don't know. They really tried hard to make things easier for contributor. I had several payments from them since.

Revostock

Great people, friendly, small company. Very, very helpful. I started there when they (I didn't know that at that time) were in a patent troll lawsuit over some piece of code on their website. Two years after, they won the lawsuit but were almost broke. And it was a one of a kind question for the contributors – could you guys wait with payments for a bit so we can stand on our feet (simplified and paraphrased  question from)? And all of the people there (almost) agreed to that. And we waited and got our payments after a short period of time. They are very transparent about were they are headed and what are their golds. A thing to admire in these times. I offered them a hand by proposing to do the sfx review for free for a couple of months cause they had to lay off the guy that was there doing it, and got several constructive conversation emails with Craig (owner) and I did that only because I knew they needed help at the moment. At the end I didn't do the extra work but I was glad my proposition was taken seriously and they needed a moral boost from every one. So, I gave them my part. Got a sale here and there. And they don't accept everything. That's good. Still have to do my audio port there and give that a chance. Big up for Revo from me.

Dreamstime.

They are hilarious. Started footage but their batch uploading process is (was I hope) a mistery for them too )) I managed to upload several batches and I sold some clips there. Have to do all of them to see how it goes. No payment from them still.

Lori.ru

Mother Russia Nice people, nice agency, no sales.

Clip dealer and Clipcanvas
Nothing to say there

Stockeon

Very slick layout and strange for an agency. I'll give them a shoot cause I got a friend who sold several clips there. And every dime counts for me, sadly. They got csv for clips but for nothing else for that matter.

Dissolve
Aggressive approach to with all the adds popping everywhere on the net. Got a looooong write off with  George and several other people there and I hope they rise to be a strong and serious player in this world. They sound like that, look like that and I hope they will sell like that. I'm uploading my port there too. Very, very helpful and friendly folks. Also, some of them you know from IS.
I think we'll be seing more of them in the future (agency, not IS people )

Now, after this strange list, I would like to say I didn't upload ALMOST one single new clip to any of the agencies for one whole year. There were some uploads but nothing that would keep the flow going (money). Guess what? It didn't rise and it didn't fall. The money is the same as it was one year ago )) That's awesome. But not so awesome for someone like me who, last year in July, gave their resignation to the company they worked for over ten years as a layout editor for magazines in Ringier Axel Springer Serbia. Yes. I was imagining the day when I quit my day job and when I start doing stock full time. And it happened. Accidentally I had a fight (verbal) with one of the directors about something I didn't do, and I went to my vacation. Got and email on Sunday evening that my payment for June is being lowered 5%. And I dropped my job as I dropped my IS excl status. My wife was behind me all the way. One child 6 and the other several month old at that time. Five bank loans, living in rented apartment, paying off my camera, car, and credit cards and several phones and gadgets that we picked up on our way. Before, we had very little money. After that we had no money at all except stock and my wife's salary. Good timing, right ))

Well, this is a follow up letter/post whatever )) You guys said to keep you posted so here you go ))

Anyways, nothing happened (crucial) till December last year when we found out that we are pregnant again Wife with baby, me with beer Then I realised that now there's no turning back! It was fun, but I had my job and stock was giving more boost in our lives but now it was over. No job, stock wasn't going up or down (thank god), and we're going to have out third kid )) Wake up, wake up, wake up!!!

So in January I broke of audio exclusivity and started uploading everywhere. My index finger got injured from copy/paste. For real. No kidding here. I calculated that I pressed over 40.000 times the same buttons in one week. It took several months to heal.

Started shooting again, recording, playing music, doing everything. And for the first time in my life, I disregarded everything that was distracting me (news, fb, I wanna have my own blog, I want my own agency, I want to go fishing, I want to watch tv)... and started doing some serious things. I saw it as a business for the first time in my life. Ok, a bit fun in it, that's for sure but it was all fun for me back then. Now it's not so funny anymore.

Digression (not really)
Istock started selling my files on Iphone tone store since the beginning of the tone store in 2012. I was always in the top 10 or 50 files there. And it was some good money in 2012. Over 30.000 sales only from those 5 files there. And 30.000 people has my sounds for their notifications )) How cool is that. Anyways, the Apple sales dried out. They are 5 to 20 per day now. And they were 100 to 150 per day back in 2012. Getty sales are still there. Sometimes $500 sometimes $1500... Sometimes $0... Can't figure those.

And yesterday I did my math (not meth) and here we go. 2013 was $3000 better non exclusively with IS and Getty counted in than just IS and Getty Excl in 2012. IS still counts but much less than before.

Could I done better? Hell yes! Shutterstock "portfolio switch" is a no no! Don't do it! Who ever is out there wondering the same thing, upload, keyword but send 50 by 50 everyday. And that's for all agencies, and google and caching and algorithms and best/fresh/newest match etc... That's only my opinion.

Pond is striking hard these days. SS also. I started working like a horse these past couple of weeks. Got over 1000 new clips and over 4000 new audio clips. And I'm preparing them for winter )) 100 by 100. Uploading and sending to curator/reviewer

One year of doing nothing was still better than one year of doing everything at IS. And I didn't add anything to IS. Just for the record. And still got some great friends there at HQ.

Anyways, guys, I know this is a bit confusing but overall, being non exclusive is demanding a bit more work when you look at it that way but, he who uploaded 5000 clips to IS and disambiguated them knows that every single uploading system is easier than that one at IS. So, as I've said, a bit more work and it's paying off.

I wish sometimes to have only one agency and to work just with them (that's were Stocksy fit in but im not in yet) but that's just wishful thinking

My wife should give birth to our second daughter every day now. I gave her a green light, I said I was ready ))) Trying not to fall under influence that I must read this and that and watch this and this and do that and that on the web. Just focusing on stock. Bought the cms account script from Anton. Got my own agency )) For me only, no contributors etc. It's doing great. I bought several files from my self in the past couple of months and I'm always first in every search )) Hehheheh. Didn't uploaded videos yet, but I'm on it. Just some photos and audios. Rigged it with Amazon s3 for storage and it's awesome like that. No cost, no slow servers etc. And I'm not a web programer, designer but I managed to make it happen. It's videoaudiostock.com. Need to change some colors, but it's kinda cool to have your own place. Also, I'm making my blog (don't know what to write but I'm making it that's for sure) about sound in microstock. No one is doing that right now. It's microstocksound.com. Not active. Just Hello World from WP. But I'm gonna invite you guys to my grand opening:)

And now, when stock is my only source of income and I can say, my job, it's getting even harder to think and not get stressed. Where we'll be in the next decade? 100 million files agencies? What search engine....
Trying not to think that much. Anyways, I salute you all, I'll say my prayers for Robbin Williams, he was my favorite actor and I'll go to sleep now.
I hope I helped someone out who is trying to get away from some nasty situation. Also, I hope I didn't put to sleep too many of you with this short retrospective

Yes, dropping the crown payed off. Yes, I'm balder and fatter than before
I would do it again.
Choice is a great thing.
Deciding is better.
Money is the best ))

Cheers guys. Sorry for the long post. Got many info on most of the agencies now so if anyone wants to know something about footage or sound and certaing agencies, please, do ask.

Mirko.

Quote from: paul on March 14, 2014, 16:28
i think there is something wrong wit you phone software if it crashes when you try to buy, i cannot give you in app purchases because this products are hosted on apple server and i cannot control them and i cannot activate them remotely

Are you on iOS 7?

Hey Paul,
No, I'm on Android, Galaxy S4 and S3. All I can see now that Google play stopped support for in app purchase for Serbia (( That sucks. Yet as I remember I think I bought the app via Mslide or something like that...

A year now and I still cannot buy any of the offered agencies in app? More details, I need Pond5. When I click the shopping cart, it freezes and crash. Can I send you money for the agencies I need and you send me the "instalations' ?
Thanks
Great app btw. Using it non stop