Opted out at StockXpert
Yuri Arcurs
Freezingpictures
GeoPappas
Smithore
rene
sharpshot
ldambies
epixx
latex
FlemishDreams.
RTimages
Vonkara
helix7
Travelling-light
Mjp
northflyboy
ason
sorsillo
boatman
Alex
Eco
Rozmaryna
Pixelbrat
Read_My_Rights
vphoto
faber
dbvirago
cmcderm1
boryak
HughStoneIan

Quote from: hatman12 on January 07, 2008, 02:17A photographer of your quality and experience Yuri should be taking on bespoke corporate client projects in the $150,000 and above budget range.

That goes without saying, but I'm glad you said it anyway.  Abandon microstock, Yuri.  Your future could be so much brighter! 

What Hatman said.

It's back up again.  Weird.  They never seem to have site/server problems.


Late note added:  I can get to the main page, but can't seem to go anywhere else except the forum.

Is anyone else having problems getting to the Featurepics website?  I haven't been able to sign on all day.  I don't remember seeing a notice on the their site yesterday about scheduled down-time. 

Quote from: sharpshot on January 03, 2008, 07:17

Quote from: yingyang
What yuri said about SS's subscription based model confirmed my suspicions that contributors there get paid a worse percentage than most thought.

Why?  How can Yuri have enough data to know this?  I think the only people who know how much commission we make with shutterstock are the shutterstock management.  It would be nice if they told us:)  They do post here sometimes and a rough figure would do.

Ha Ha!!!  Does anyone think the SS management is even going to give us a little hint at what our real percentage is on their site??  No way, they want to keep us dumb and happy, ignorance is bliss, so don't look for them to make an appearance here or anywhere else with regards to a real percentage quote, rough or otherwise. 

I would trust Yuri's guesstimate over most anyone else's, though.

Quote from: FlemishDreams on January 02, 2008, 22:02

iStock started from nothing and was sold to Getty for 50 million dollars a couple of years later. That's where the money is going to. Not to marketing, not to contributors, but to Getty that has to get its 50 million back - with interest. Getty doesn't win much, the current iStock people don't win much. The original founder(s) won much, and they count their greenbacks in the Bahamas with a big smile, Champagne and caviar on the table and a fat cigar in their mouth. It's that simple. The sweat of the Photoshoppers and shooters gets converted into caviar. Such is the magic of Capitalism. Correct me if I'm wrong; economy was never my best side 

So very true.  However, it appears that the sweat of the photoshoppers in this case is totally voluntary (i.e., we were not forced to join at gunpoint and we won't starve without micro, I hope)

And I do agree with Hatman---I would rather have 20% of 8000 downloads on IS than no downloads at all by not being on Istock.  Again, nobody is forcing me to stay at Istock or at any other microstock agency.  I just wish there was a way in reality to persuade them to up their base commission.   Sometimes exclusivity is tempting....and most of the time it's not.

Looking at this from the contributor's perspective:  the truth is that most of us are in this for the money, whether it's just to keep us in camera gear for our hobby or whatever other reason, the money matters.  If you're dubious about that, just peruse this and other archives for all the heated threads about payment problems from stock sites, and you'll see just how much the money matters!  Unfortunately, Istock is at the top 1 or 2 total earnings spot of many if not most contributors' lists, the other one being Shutterstock.    Istock are a royal pain to deal with for contributors (tedious uploading, weird rejections, and on and on), but they pay well on volume even at 20% commission, and I almost never hear about them paying late.  It's definitely a love-hate relationship for many.  The cold hard fact is that contributors try to go where they get the best (read "most") pay, except for pure hobbyists who care more about community and the fun of getting their pictures sold anywhere (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, if that's what you like). 
  At this moment, LuckyO is not famous for bringing in large financial returns to the majority of their contributors, but hopefully that will change over time and they are definitely one of the most open and user-approachable sites out there.
  Now if FeaturePics at 70% could have the same volume of payments as IS....wow.  I think FP has the best overall interface for contributors of any site, but sadly they are lagging far behind the others in financial returns.
  So there's no easy answers for you.  The sites that are the most contributor-centered and pay the highest % also pay the least amount overall.  The coldest and least user-friendly sites have the lowest per-picture % but pay the most overall in terms of total $$.

Ha!  I guess this has morphed into a FeaturePics thread.  Anyway, in keeping with my previous post, I was cruising another micro forum and found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aygodbI4Dr4

Pete Baxter promoting his Bigstock portfolio as a video on YouTube.  Submit a video or 2 promoting your FP port, and right there is instant worldwide promotion!!

Quote from: sharpshot on January 01, 2008, 10:59
It would be great if all the buyers went to featurepics as we could all get a better deal but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening.

I've been studying FeaturePics very seriously, studying, studying, studying, and finally uploading.  Sharpshot's statement above is so true.  One recurring theme that I've been finding is this:  WE (the SUBMITTERS) need to promote Featurepics and our portfolios there in every way, shape, form, fashion, and size imaginable, and not give up even when we're tired of doing it.  What kind of promotion? You name it!!  Websites, e-mail signature links to your portfolio, talking to everyone you think might have an interest in downloading quality photos, and any other way you can find to do it.  I think we're only limited by our own imaginations, so use your imaginations, your contacts, the WWW, and whatever else!!.  With FP, the sky really is the limit.  We do the footwork for FP and ourselves, and we pocket the 70% commission, simple as that.  FP in turn provides the server space, customer relations, etc.   If you're really good with websites, you could build your own and do the same thing for your own pictures and keep even more %.  However, many of the rest of us are not so tech-savvy or don't have the time to learn, plus having a large collection of pics in one place will probably tend to draw more customers than a single individual's website, methinks.  The key to just about any business success is active promotion and marketing, not just one time of setting your sign out front and sitting and waiting for the customers to come in---you've got to keep trying to find them.   Istock does a huge amount of marketing and it costs them a lot and they pay us 20% or so.  Apparently, FP doesn't do a lot of self-promotion yet, but they pay you 70% and let you adjust your prices as you will.  Hmmm.  You figure out where that extra 50% comes from.  It's your choice.

How about this, posted today at the other general microstock forum:
(btw, Rand McNally is the preeminent US publisher of maps, atlases, other travel materials)

"Ok check this one out. ShutterStock claimed that Rand McNally had contacted them wanting my private contact info because they said that you could see part of one of their maps in 2 of my images. They froze my entire collection of 1500 images until they could verify from me that the images were ok to stay or needed to be removed. I replied the same day that it was a bogus copyright complaint and politely gave detailed info on how the images were created .. the primary fact being that it was not even a Rand McNally map that I used kinda settled everything right off the bat. Then I waited ... hmmm a week goes by and no response .. meaning notta sales for a week. I contacted the women from SS directly again with no response. A month later Im still asking why is my account froze and not getting any type of reply.
So now its like 3+ months later and guess what ... MY ACCOUNT IS UNFROZEN !!!!!!!!!! .. but ... yup there is a but .. they wiped out all 1500 images and say I need to re-upload .. A pain but ok I can deal with that. Now for but number 2. I have to upload 10 for review like Im a newbie ... Guess what all 10 were rejected and they say I can wait a month and try again.
So just to test things out I setup a new account with completly different contact info and uploaded 10 of what was my best sellers I had already uploaded on SS ... All 10 denied for ridiculous reasons. ( I'm an admin so I know what noise is LOL ) ... I do this again from a different IP address just in case and get the same rejections.
So to test it out further I take the same photos and have them uploaded under another photographers existing account and guess what .. Oh my gosh they are all accepted and praised for excellence.
So my question is ....
How naive is that ??"

I'm not taking anyone's side on this one yet since I don't know all the facts.  It's just that statements similar to the above are starting to appear with alarming frequency in regards to SS.  Why does it take so long for submitters to get replies back from admin at a major site like SS?  For two-bit home-operated sites I can understand, almost expect it, but for a major player like Shutterstock??  And deleting all 1500 files without banning the submitter?  What's the point of that reaction?   It sounds like that if one photographer has a grudge against another, he can just call up Rand McNally or whoever and say, "Hey, I think this guy's been using your copyrighted stuff in his pictures," they call SS, and BOOM!, the other submitter is history.  It's really starting to sound not-so-right over there....or maybe it's been like that for a long time and I just never noticed.

Quote from: ale1969 on December 29, 2007, 22:52

(Btw Editorial, go read the definition of "forum troll")

I decided to take your advice to Editorial, and went and got myself educated on "forum trolls" quite thoroughly.  I highly recommend to anyone on this and other forums to learn all you can about trolls.  I'm sure this is old stuff for some of you, but not everyone is aware of it.  One interesting passage from that research is the following:

"The only way to deal with trolls is to limit your reaction to reminding others not to respond to trolls.  By posting such a message, you let the troll know that you know what he is, and that you are not going to get dragged into his twisted little hobby."

Wow.  Doesn't that description just fit in this case?? 


And thanks again, Leaf.   Some of us actually appreciate your work!

Leaf,

Thank you for practising environmentally-friendly censorship on your non-government-owned website.  It keeps the air clean and smelling much better around here.  I don't think most of us are interested in being around the smell of a garbage dump.

Quote from: CCK on December 29, 2007, 04:01
I see even Yuri gets rejections, certainly makes me feel better about the 40% rejections I get at IS!

HA HA!  Yeah!!

However, now IStock can have no excuse for rejecting his Hassy photos for noise, pixelation, or artifacting, I think.  They'll have to come up with something more creative.  Perhaps "This photo is much too clear, sharp, and noise-free for our library."

Quote from: sharply_done on December 29, 2007, 00:44
He's not raising the bar - it was already that high.

Wow again!  I guess with seasoned pros like Chapple or Rinder, I would expect them to be using the most megapixels in the business for big-ticket assignment/advertising/commercial-type shoots.  It just surprises me that they would use such gear with microstock in mind.

WOW!  Did you read on the SS forums about Yuri Arcurs' newest equipment acquisition for microstock work, a Hasselblad digital, 39mpx!!?  Using medium-format digital for microstock surely seems like overkill to me. 

I hope this doesn't become a standard anytime soon, or many of us will be sunk!  $80,000 for photo equipment is more than I can shell out right now (or at least this month.....)

I got into microstock a little over a year ago but never considered FP seriously until recently.  Now after hearing how more and more of the other sites are ignoring and otherwise being rude to contributors, FP is looking better and better all the time.  One thing I've consistently heard about them is that they are very responsive to the needs of contributors.  I've checked out their pricing, and the flexibility of it seems to be a very welcome change.  Now if the sales potential can begin to pick up, this may be one of the great stock sites of the future.  Let's hope they don't get bought out by one of the big boys!!

Joined but haven't begun uploading yet.  I'm looking to try to sell RM there.  For you RM sellers on FP, I am curious about one thing: when you make an RM sale, do they tell you who bought your picture and where it will be used (which magazine, website, etc)??

Quote from: sharply_done on December 21, 2007, 08:04
January 07 - almost one year. I wish I had started years ago!

AMEN!!!    Aug '06 on IS, then later SS and gradually 6 others.

I hope micro grows greatly & lasts for a long time to come.  It's great to be in such a wide open field where your success is determined 100% by what you put into it and not by whom you know.

I really hope they were just cut-and-paste mistakes.  From what Pete says, it sounds like those keywords appeared in his lists after he already uploaded the images.  Perhaps he and the others cut and pasted a bunch of keywords without thinking of what the contents were.  I hope so.  The alternative is not pleasant to think about---someone else besides the admins being able to alter your keywords after the files are uploaded.

SS seems to be downplaying this, but it appears DT thought it was serious enough to disable all its files that have both Dale and Hogan in them.  Several bamboo texture files are affected (attention, Scrappinstacy!!).  This is really weird!

PS- here's the thread at SS, http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30113

they've locked it!

Late addition:  Wow!  DT didn't just disable those files, they suspended those contributors' accounts !!!

Pete Bax on the SS forum sounded this alarm.  He believes a worm infection is possibly responsible for this.  He received a warning from the SS admin about his keywording.  Apparently some keywords were being added to his images without his knowledge and he was reprimanded for it!  "Dale Hogan" appeared in some of his keywords lists, which of course has nothing to do with his images, and thus caused the faulty keyword warning against him.  I've been playing with searches of "Dale Hogan" on various sites, and the results are really weird.  You can try it for yourself, but the main point is that you may want to do random checks of your keywords to make sure no unauthorized changes have been made to yours.

Quote from: dbvirago on December 16, 2007, 23:37
They do fairly well for me, on par with DT, IS, and BS, much better than Fotolia.

Wow!  How do you do it?  I wonder what your "secret" is?  For me IStock stays constantly light years ahead of 123, even with having more files on 123.  I have a forever give-up/keep-trying relationship with 123.  The others are also ahead of 123, except LO, and BS is creeping farther ahead very steadily.

Louoates,

I don't read every single thread so don't know if anyone's already mentioned it, but that avatar of yours is somewhat disturbing (but I like it anyway).  I guess we don't know who everyone really is here.  Maybe that's a good thing??   

Steve,

Thanks!  And thanks so much for keeping us updated.  It's very appreciated.