How is the Mac version going ?

I think this is great Good way to maximize sales from all the photos in your portfolio.

Quote from: lefty on August 19, 2010, 16:59

Quote from: andresr on August 19, 2010, 16:43

Quote from: sjlocke on August 19, 2010, 16:25

Quote from: andresr on August 19, 2010, 16:09
I have been slowly stopping to shoot for micro and looking for more avenues as there is no sign of possibilities to grow sales within the agencies we used to so submit images to. My income has grown but it has grown because I have more distributors, and I will be shooting for the traditional market, at least 80% of my work will go there. It has been a very frustrating year in microstock, but yet exciting in the rest of the stock industry.

Maybe because you're cannibalizing your own sales.  Looking at your latest in IS, it looks like you're just reshooting groups on white, girls with phones, business people.  So, people buy the newer one, or the older one, but they don't need both.

What are you doing differently for the "traditional" market, and where?  My Getty sales are less than encouraging, as well, the contributor side of the workflow (stats, sales data) is very unhelpful.

Yeah that's partly true ..... I'm leaving the different stuff for traditional places or premium collections. I have tried uploading different topics in micro and there is simply too much supply and not enough demand anymore so I am just shooting to mantain sales while I try to make the other avenues as profitable as micro once was for me.
A really good image even if it's "Different" will sell 12 times at the most on a day in shutterstock just after uploading, I use to see 48 dls in a day for a good image.

Good point by sjlocke. Also I remember sjlocke say somewhere too it is not Shutterstock not growing over time, it is seller's piece ofpie is smaller
because more supply by new contributors with better idea. Or maybe another Istock quote , the drop of sales for specific contributor is not
indication that agency sales is bad , only the contributor share of commission is in decrease.

Yeah all true, and it could be easily mended by making adjustments but all the agencies are scared of making the first step  as they think they will loose market share ..... I think it will benefit everyone, higher prices = higher budgets = better quality images.

Quote from: sjlocke on August 19, 2010, 16:25

Quote from: andresr on August 19, 2010, 16:09
I have been slowly stopping to shoot for micro and looking for more avenues as there is no sign of possibilities to grow sales within the agencies we used to so submit images to. My income has grown but it has grown because I have more distributors, and I will be shooting for the traditional market, at least 80% of my work will go there. It has been a very frustrating year in microstock, but yet exciting in the rest of the stock industry.

Maybe because you're cannibalizing your own sales.  Looking at your latest in IS, it looks like you're just reshooting groups on white, girls with phones, business people.  So, people buy the newer one, or the older one, but they don't need both.

What are you doing differently for the "traditional" market, and where?  My Getty sales are less than encouraging, as well, the contributor side of the workflow (stats, sales data) is very unhelpful.

Yeah that's partly true ..... I'm leaving the different stuff for traditional places or premium collections. I have tried uploading different topics in micro and there is simply too much supply and not enough demand anymore so I am just shooting to mantain sales while I try to make the other avenues as profitable as micro once was for me.
A really good image even if it's "Different" will sell 12 times at the most on a day in shutterstock just after uploading, I use to see 48 dls in a day for a good image.

Quote from: lisafx on August 18, 2010, 19:23
I have 6k images and 5+ years in microstock.  I am seeing the same stagnation at SS, however my portfolio seems to have "hit the wall" on all sites in the past several months. 

I reported in the July Stats thread that over the past year I have added 36% to my portfolio and overall income has dropped by 21%.  So in the case of SS, merely being stagnant doesn't look so bad.   

FWIW, if you had asked this in March of this year I would have had a much rosier picture to report.  I really don't know how much of this is the economy, or summer slowdown, or simply point of diminishing returns.  I would wait until October or so to get a better idea of sales patterns.   

I am seeing a similar pattern Lisa. But I think number of sales in microstock has never actually gone higher that much. What has gone up is the costs of images to buyers and thus our comissions.
I just simply dont understand why this trend of putting up prices stopped all of a sudden. Shutterstock could make double or triple if they did a proper size set for buyers from $1 to $15 like other agencies rather than having just 2 sizes at very low prices, same applies to bigstock.

123rf has NEVER put prices up which is annoying, an XXL for $5?

DT could easily stretch their higher levels, instead of charging 4,5,6,7 and 8 for xs, s, m, l and xl they could charge 4, 6 , 8, 10 and 14 for example, and coule keep stretching them year by year ....... They could also introduce a premium collection like FT and istock, shutterstock could do the same.

Fotolia stopped us from growing the minute they changed the ranking levels.

Istock is hardly worth it anymore unless you are exclusive.



I have been slowly stopping to shoot for micro and looking for more avenues as there is no sign of possibilities to grow sales within the agencies we used to so submit images to. My income has grown but it has grown because I have more distributors, and I will be shooting for the traditional market, at least 80% of my work will go there. It has been a very frustrating year in microstock, but yet exciting in the rest of the stock industry.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on March 16, 2010, 13:48
Now all my earnings data has vanished. I thought they were meant to have sorted the site out.

Same here, sales are not being displayed since yesterday

Quote from: rene on April 15, 2010, 09:33
Andresr is still uploading but I think he is not very concentrated on this task. Take a look on titles and keywords of his last images (especially the reading man)

Hey Rene, thanks for pointing out. I just fixed some will fix the others later because there were too many mistakes. It was in the actual uploads the mistake rather than the embedded keywords ..... one uploader less at the company and  thanks to your remark as I found tons of mistakes everywhere made by him.

Any News Elena? I ma curious as what they will tell you, Im not experiencing that (touch wood) but you never know.

Averages on the site are from the time you joined and not in the past 6 months ........ at the beginning I only obviously started small like everyone else, uploading 50 images a month and about the 2000 ............ I mean I produce 2000 in general, DT didn't get all my images although I am not 100% sure maybe they did because for a few days they increased it to 100. Have to check with the person who manages uploads in the company but well the whole point is that it is silly, they should do something like Elena say, keep the ratio of sales/image and not approval ratio.

Numbers have nothing to do with existing stuff or not .......... and many hobbyists will upload existing stuff whether they are allowed 1 a day or 100 a day so I don't really see the connection.

Totally agree with you Elena

2000 images they will lose? 2000 images they will lose a month from myself alone! Yuri has uploaded 2000 images a month average for the past few months, my record month is 3400 ...  what they don't realize is that if one more other site does this there is no point in uploading to microstock anymore, or well I shall rephrase that, Exclusivity to istock or somewhere like fotolia normal or infinite will be the only posibility to still make a profit for big submitters.
I am sure this is just temporary while they clear the queue.

It has been 10 months since the news about the new uploading system came out ...... and if I read right it was 2-4 weeks it will be 52 weeks I think when it is launched, I'm really looking forward to seeing it because my images keep getting piled up as there is no way to upload fast to the site

But even if she didn't like the price increase I am 100% sure she will keep on buying ........

I agree with the things being said. Istock exclusivity is extremely attractive now that they are increasing prices etc ........ If they decided to let non-exclusives upload exclusive images I might try it and who knows I  would considering stopping uploading elsewhere anymore to upload solely to istock.

I think other agencies need to start seriously putting prices up unless they want people to go exclusive to istock, fotolia infinite, or simply other avenues, increasing the cash received every month in the industry is becoming harder and harder.

Quote from: leaf on December 08, 2009, 22:51

Quote from: lisafx on December 08, 2009, 22:40

Quote from: RT on December 08, 2009, 22:35
... but one part of the statement I did find interesting was this:

"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."

Good catch Richard.  I missed that.  Definitely sounds like the door to image exclusivity may be opening a crack.

yeah, interesting take on that sentence.  I would find it hard to believe that iStock would let non-exclusives upload exclusive images but i would be very interested in seeing it happen.  iStock seems very protective of their exclusives and is their trump card in a way.  If they let people upload as partial exclusives it could feel like they are loosening their grip a little.  If they did so however, it might encourage photographers to test the water before jumping all in.  

Ridiculous:

European photographers: 0.83 to 1 current xchange rate= 0.78 (didn't even reach fotolias previsous xchange rate)
Uk photographers: 0.57 to 0.60 - current xchange rate 0.67 (despite the "increase" we are still losing money on the xchange rate)
SO to summarize, Europe went up 20% and we went up 4% ....... when the pound has fallen a lot faster than the Euro against the dollar.

Not happy about this at all

Its finally here ........... I am getting mine delivered tomorrow. (UK, preordered at warehouse express)

Rahul it was great to meet you in person in NY at photoplus expo. I have had a look at the site and opened an account and it is unbelievable. The potential you have there for development is amazing, honestly.
I can not wait until you have the full version running, any ideas on when will this happen?

May he rest in piece, sad news.
You will be remembered MIZ.

Uhm the images are the same but the guy changed the windmills I wonder where he took them from now

Sorry to hear about your experience I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else , I think Fotolia should have taken further action against him

I am part of a subscription site in asia which pays 50% of the royalties made from subscriptions to photographers and I average between $0.65 and 0.70 per sale, that means subscription agencies in micro are getting about 65-75% of subscription sales earnings.

I hate subscriptions, we have no control over our images and it is the best place for thieves.
I am seriously going to reconsider my position in microstock later this year.

Quote from: rene on May 30, 2008, 11:54

Quote from: RT on May 30, 2008, 11:09

Quote from: leaf on May 30, 2008, 10:19
I hope they introduce individual image exclusivity

That's something I've wanted for a long time, I love iStock but I'll never go totally exclusive because photography is my job, and yet I would upload exclusive images, in fact I'd probably make them the only microstock site I upload to.

Mind you I'm upset now that I've found out everyone got the email, I thought they'd done it just for me 

Exactly my feelings.

Me too, I would go for it with several if not almost all my images. That way I can sell my best RF work at Macro. I am not happy with Fotolia introducing subscriptions, I simply hate subscriptions apart from istock's model.

Hay mas de 300 personas que viven o ganan lo suficiente para vivir de esto en Europa/USA. Yo llevo viviendo del micro hace mas dos annios y estoy seguro que no tendre problemas en seguir viviendo de esto por muchos annios mas. Es cierto que hay mas competencia pero aun hay campo para mucho. Solo como dato interesante, la persona que mas vende en microstock tendra 1 millon de dolares en ventas en el 2008 solamente.

haha that image is really funny. I guess fotolia is accepting agencies representing photographers and they don't review the photos, It must be the only explanation.