Quote from: nruboc on September 23, 2010, 00:31
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Well.... I posted that to let people make their own decisions. But since you are denying it, I will expand later when I have the time. But I think you just opened a can of worms.

Can of worms? There's nothing below-the-table or sinister going on - you're looking for and/or seeing something that just isn't there. Not with me, anyway.

Quote from: nruboc on September 22, 2010, 23:55
http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/buyers-bailing-on-istock/msg161663/#msg161663

Does this mean you think I'm on some sort of magic list? How I wish that was true.
I'm sorry if what I wrote inferred anything like that - I merely wanted to say that my experience at iStock is not what gostwyck thinks it is.

Quote from: gostwyck on September 22, 2010, 22:50
Ten of my dollars says Sharply will not be exclusive with Istockphoto in 18 months time. Put this date in your diary __ 22nd March 2012. Will Sharply still be wearing his crown? I doubt it. Any takers for my money?

Hah - I'll take it alright ... I'll even go for more if you're up to it!

Before we proceed, and for fair warning, you should know that cdwheatley is very much 'in the know' about things with me and iStock - it's a good guess that if he's willing to pony up $1000, there just might be more going on than you expect.

Quote from: helix7 on September 22, 2010, 21:48
ThinkStock is only cheap if you're a volume buyer. For the casual buyer, who just wants a few images per week for their blog, neither ThinkStock nor iStock meet that need anymore.

I think the vast majority of bloggers prefer to use images for free, and in that regard no microstock agency can ever meet their needs - only Flickr can. And does.

Quote from: sharpshot on September 22, 2010, 21:21
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Sometimes it is hard to deal with some of the people in this forum but I still prefer it to any of the sites forums that delete or lock posts they don't like.

Yeah, same here.

Quote from: sharpshot on September 22, 2010, 19:39
And you have never said anything derogatory about non-exclusives?  You do edit some of your posts quickly but if you type something derogatory and press the post button, some of us will see it.  Shame I deleted the quote in my reply.

I'm sorry you saw what you saw, sharpshot, but apart from that I challenge you to go through my 1800+ posts here to find anything inflammatory or derogatory. I'm not saying I'm an angel or that I have a holier-than-thou attitude: Sure, I get ticked off sometimes, and sometimes it gets the better of me and I write stuff I shouldn't - but for the most part I come to my senses and either don't post it or delete my post very quickly. It's not a huge jump to say this common to a lot of people.

As far as being exclusive or nonexclusive goes, I couldn't really care less about how most people make their money. There are a few people here I've spoken to privately whom I think would gain significantly if they made the jump, but that's about it. That being said, it does bother me when people who have no experience with exclusivity blather on and on about the pitfalls of being exclusive ... yeah sure, like they know all about it.


Oh, and thank you for editing your reply to my deleted post - your politeness and manners are much appreciated!

Quote from: mtimber on September 22, 2010, 19:02
I accept it is not a particularly inspiring image and not suitable for stock, but that was not the stated rejection point.
...

According to what you've already said, the image was indeed rejected for because it was dull and flat:

Quote from: mtimber on September 16, 2010, 17:29
I forgot to add, it was rejected for these reasons, or one of them at least:
-Flat/dull colors
-Direct on-camera flash and/or flash fall-off (bright subject, dark background)
-Harsh lighting with blown-out highlights that lack details and/or distracting shadows
- Distracting lens flares
-Incorrect white balance
...

This shouldn't be such a difficult thing to warp your head around. As far as your shots having "exact representations of the colour of the item" goes, that is completely optional. You're not supposed to be making true-to-life images for a catalog, you're supposed to be making images to illustrate or augment a particular concept, so you're allowed to take as many liberties with colour, contrast, shadows, etc. as you need to. For a large part, the people who are good at taking these liberties are successful, and the people who aren't, aren't. Which side of that fence do you want to be on?

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on September 22, 2010, 18:46
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And before someone tries to paint me as an Istock fanboy, I'm not. Just presenting facts from my direct exerperience. I said a while ago I wouldn't be surprised if a performance model got rolled out and here it is.

Heh, I'm in the same boat. I was an independent longer than I've been an exclusive, but despite that I seem to get jumped on when I say anything even remotely positive about iStock. Given that there aren't too many people in this situation, and even fewer making a living from it, I'd like to think our experiences are worthy of more than derision. That doesn't seem to be the case, though.

Quote from: mtimber on September 22, 2010, 18:37
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Is it the number of highlights that is the issue?
Or is it that it should have more contrast etc?

It's just a dull and lifeless image. There's no 'magic' or 'spark'.
If you can't see what it needs you should travel around the various photo sites (Flickr, Photo.net, digital-photography-school, ...) and look at as many images as you can. Every time you see one that makes you stop and look longer or closer, take a few seconds and ask yourself why that is. Then revisit this image and encorporate some of what you learned.

Quote from: pseudonymous on September 22, 2010, 08:25
If earnings have increased, while downloads and commissions have decreased, the prices must have gone up a fair whack.  What percentage increase are we talking about and over period of time?

I guess it's just me, but when someone asks this sort of very basic question it makes me totally disregard any opinion they might have about microstock in general, and iStock in particular. How can you have an informed opinion when you don't even know the basic facts? Given some of the things you've said, pseudonymous, I'm surprised to be the only one to call you out on this. Although it's obvious you're not here for this reason, right now I think you should be doing more reading than writing.

Quote from: FD-regular on September 22, 2010, 01:57

Quote from: Pixel-Pizzazz on September 22, 2010, 01:49It is so hard to get the cursor where you need it!  arrgh!

If you are using FireFox/Win, the input box script on this site (the old SMF) is very resource intensive, which doesn't go well with the huge memory leaks in Firefox. Remedy: restart your PC or (better) kill the FireFox process three with the task manager (ctrl-alt-del). Do not close FireFox the conventional way in Windows since it will stay in memory.

The same thing happens with me using IE8 on WinXP. Very annoying.
You can make it go away by clicking the 'Compatibility View' button at the end of the address bar - it's the broken-sheet-of-paper thing next to the 'Refresh' & 'Stop' buttons.

Quote from: dgilder on September 21, 2010, 21:12
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Incorrect, I've been deleting based on my own cataloging system as I sort out what is going where next month.

Okay, my bad then - sorry.

As an independent you still might want to check up on product mix, though - you might find it more profitable to list some images exlcusively at DT/FT than have everything scattered everywhere. But then again, maybe the word "exclusive" isn't in your vocabulary anymore.

Quote from: dgilder on September 21, 2010, 20:00
Sharply, don't forget that I have already deleted over a third of my portfolio, and E+ along with the rest.

Yes, I know, but I assumed you'd only deleted those images which weren't generating income. Correct?

Quote from: ichiro17 on September 21, 2010, 19:44
funny because i average about 9.5, (approx 40 cents per credit) so it varies per person - and i was never going to get to diamond level 40% anyways under the previously new cannister changes as they put that well out of reach, so being grandfathered to gold was my aim.  And seeing as I will either hit or come very close to getting to that level, I'm totally fine with that.  i'll refrain from saying anything else because whatever i say you won't believe me because it doesn't suit your agendas

Mine works out to 13.1, but my numbers show I might be able to get it higher once I can change my E+ images in October. Needless to say, if you want to maximize your income, there's more involved than simply adding stuff to your portfolio.

Quote from: dgilder on September 21, 2010, 19:33

Quote from: gostwyck on September 21, 2010, 19:07
I gather an exclusive might average about 7 RC's per sale?

Yep, 6.9 here.

Yeah, but you guys either aren't exclusive (gostwyck) or have a mix of exclusive and nonexclusive sales data (dgilder).
Trust me, as someone who does a lot  of sales analyses, it works out differently when you consider only exclusive sales data.

Also, dgilder, a quick look at your portfolio shows a lack of attention to your E+ image management. I know it's moot now, but you might want to consider Googling "optimal product mix". Or maybe go here.

Quote from: gostwyck on September 21, 2010, 19:07

He's actually currently Silver. From January you'll need 40K RC's to stay at 35%, the existing level for Gold. I gather an exclusive might average about 7 RC's per sale? If so you'd need over 5000 sales per year to do achieve that. That looks like a big stretch to me and even then he'd only be getting what he'd have got anyway under the current system. He can certainly kiss his arse goodbye to ever getting 40%.

Yeah, I realized my mistake and corrected it while you were responding - sorry about that.

Your math is a bit off, but that's excusable because you don't have access to real exclusive sales data, and are going on speculation and heresay. Needless to say, gostwyck, being on the exclusive side of the fence puts me in a better position to make these calculations. As far as the numbers go, my data shows that 1 RC = $0.53 at Diamond, which can be scaled down to $0.46 for Gold. My data also shows that the average main collection commission for Gold to be about $4.80. Putting those numbers together gives 1 RC = 10 DLs. Or thereabouts - it's certainly not 7.

You may want to take a look at this chart to see how everything works out with respect to income and commission level.

Quote from: gostwyck on September 21, 2010, 18:41
I suppose it is ironic. I'd love hear a detailed explaination from him on how he thinks he's getting a 'rise'. I'm sure we'd all get a good chuckle from it.

The only thing I know is that he's currently at Silver level, and so would have to earn $15,900 in 2011 to be bumped up to Gold. If he hits Gold by Dec 31, he'll have to earn $18,550 to stay at there, which works out to somewhere around 3850 main collection DLs. Given the time he's been on iStock (4 years) and his total sales (9,000+), I'd say either is doable.

Quote from: gostwyck on September 21, 2010, 17:54
The point you're missing is that Istockphoto aren't merely reshuffling things to give a higher sellers more and lower sellers less __ they're just keeping more of the money for themselves. Nobody (that I'm aware of) is getting more money and everyone is getting less, one way or another.
...

Heh, you've ironically made a statement - "Nobody (that I'm aware of) is getting more money and everyone is getting less, one way or another." - to someone who claims to be getting more money.

Quote from: dgilder on September 21, 2010, 18:03
Again, math issues, 5% = 12.5% money loss for 40% royalties to 35%; 10% = 25% money loss for 40% to 30%;
...

Looks to me like you're off a bit: He's currently at Gold, so he might be looking at going down from 35% to 30% - a 14% income reduction.
On the bright side, if he can sell $18,550 per year he won't be affected. On the dark side, it looks like he was almost at Diamond - now he'll need to earn $69,500 before he can get that 40% commission he used to be so close to. See this chart for income references.

Quote from: sharpshot on September 21, 2010, 07:48
I think "never put all your eggs in one basket" sums it up more succinctly for me.  I would never feel comfortable only being able to sell RF with one site, as they have too much power and then they get greedy.

The 'all your eggs in one basket' thing has never held much credulity with me: Marketing images exclusively at one agency is, to me, akin to having a regular 9-5 job with a single employer. This is the normal employment paradigm, and not many seem to have a problem with it. I don't really understand why people in this industry are so against exclusivity. Some vehemently. I'm not really interested in learning why, either, so don't bother enlightening me.

Aside from that, isn't the moral of the tale that you shouldn't expect someone's behavior to change just because they say it will? Tiger-changing-stripes, Leopard-changing-spots, Wolf-changing-coat are similar analogies also not so pertinent to the iStock situation.

Quote from: hawk_eye on September 19, 2010, 23:38
dude, Jebus was supposedly a really nice guy. seriously? I'd sooner read Dawkins than the bible....and I still think anything other than the obvious--it was an error--is actually your own denial at work.

Or other things - a lot of people seem to just love conspiracies.

Quote from: mtimber on September 19, 2010, 21:28
... Simple logic is that once I can get my images on istock they are acceptable everywhere.

Not necessarily - just because one agency accepts an image dosn't mean another one will.
And just because an image sells well at one agency doesn't mean it'll sell well at others, either.

Quote from: mtimber on September 19, 2010, 21:29
If stock photography makes everyone this grumpy, I might have to review my decision...

Either that or your mindset: By posting questions here you are in effect asking your direct competitors to help you compete against them better. Some people will be better at this than others, but (just about) everyone who bothers to respond does so with a genuine helping hand.

Quote from: mtimber on September 19, 2010, 21:21
Good shots.

But what stops someone copying your niche?

Nothing ... I have plenty of competitors, and just because I'm successful now doesn't mean I always will be. I'm always keeping an eye on my competition and looking for ways to improve what it is I do - my livelihood depends on it!

Quote from: Vonkara on September 19, 2010, 21:09
A obvious answer     

Geez, you could've at least used one of my  images! (wink)