Jim Pickerell mentioned in one of his articles that istock had a revenue of 180 million. And a few years ago an istock admin told us that the revenue was over 300 million.

It is of course possible that some of that revenue has been redistributed to getty or thinkstock. But this doesn�t help the istock exclusives who make most of their money on istock itself.

ETA: he says that 75% of their sales make 180 million in revenue. So total revenue would be a little higher. Sorry.

http://www.selling-stock.com/Article/can-istock-turn-midstock-sales-around

Congratulations on a successful start to independence. Looking at the earnings chart  on the right I am shocked to see that exclusive income seems to be in drastic free fall. Wasn�t that number somewhere around 340 before?

They have really let the exclusives down badly. And it would be so easy to reverse the trend. Just let people nominate 20% of their portfolios for E+ again and mirror that content on Getty. It would make a huge difference for shooting new content and investing in your production if you know you can have some control over prices and dual exposure.

istock revenue used to be over 300 million dollars, now it is just 180 million. And probably going down if more and more customers switch to subs.

So it is encouraging to hear that you had a good start. i think many people are building vector and video portfolios (and some RM photos) to balance the loss of income when they jump.

Others sadly give up on stock completely. But the market is still there, the customers are just elsewhere.

A normal month, didn�t upload much. 3% more than June. SS was down, Fotolia was up, stocksy was up, pond5 was up, istock unchanged to May, Dreamstime extremely low. I guess the customers on DT just don�t like my work, it is a much slower agency than all the others for me.

Time to shoot and upload christmas stock.

I think it might be worth a try. A specific area where everyone is anonymous. And then we will see how many would use it. We wouldn't need to create a second anonymous account.

I don't know though, how difficult this would be for leaf to create.

But in light of recent events, this is a useful idea.

The most important is to keep uploading regularly, every month, ideally every week. You need regular uploads and a large portfolio if you want to make any serious money in stock.

I watched it. When he talks about editorial images, he knows the photographers, he knows the stories, not just about the images but also the artist.

But then when he talks about "crowd sourcing" it is clear he doesn't get it. He shows really famous images that have earned a lot of money, but he doesn't know the name of the artists. He belittles "cliches" without appreciating the very hard work that goes into creating them. These images sold because they are so useful. But artists that consistently produce these images are very few. Anna makes fantastic stuff and her story is just as interesting as that of the editorial artists that he happens to know personally.

We just see the same thing again, there is no real understanding how crowdsourcing really works.

Our plattforms are about nurturing talent, letting it develop and rise with hard work and education through networking. We are not a random mass of producers who happen to get a lucky shot once in a while.

The role the community spirit plays in creating the supportive environment that allows this international effort of people to help each other, inspire each other learn from each other....to create the "vibe" that allows creativity to flow...the interaction between agency, entrepreneurship and financial success...the importance of a regular income...it is all so much more than just a few people in a garage that said "everyone is a photographer"...

If he doesn't understand it, he cannot grow it. Which is what has been happening in the last few years.

Maybe they should just focus even more on editorial and news, that seems to be where his passion is.


ETA: I mean, who does he think will be the artists that will shoot the "authentic" images that he is looking for now? The random hobby amateur sending holiday snapshots or the sucessful "cliche" artist that has been earning thousands of dollars a month? "Authentic" is just a style. The people that know how to communicate visually will shoot any style, as long as it brings in the money.

Fotolia is the largest European agency and the strongest here in Germany. Many people earn more on Fotolia than on Shutterstock or istock or even both combined. Fotolia also pays out up to 63 % to their exclusive artists. Even at my lowly bronze level I would already be earning 40% with higher pricing if I was fully artist exclusive.

So this is a really major player for many of us and people will not just walk away.

Here in Germany Fotolia is also reaching out directly, in the German forum people are reporting that fotolia is calling up many artists and not just top level people to ask about DPC and invite them back in. They also ask about Fotolia in general etc...but I am not hearing that anyone was convinced and opted back in. Maybe some do but don�t share that in the forums, I don�t know.

There is a very active stock artist community around Fotolia, they are deeply involved in "fotocommunity" the German version of flickr.

Fotolia even has a gallery in Berlin that showcases the work of their artists.

Many artists would love to see more attention given to Fotolia and to have Fotolias presence expanded to the US, not DPC.

I understand that for many US artists Fotolia only brings in a negligible income, so giving it up completely is easy. But for the artists here the situation is different. Shutterstock, istock or anyone else is not bringing in the same level of income.

Personally, I have opted out of DPC, but I will continue to work with Fotolia, inspite of the known communication problems and surprising changes. But I don�t think that what they do is worse than istock/getty (they are still planning to pay for content...) and as an independent my risk is spread over several sites.

I have content for many price levels and many different agencies. Fotolia is in the "normal micro stock" group. I have more specific content for macro sites and lower value content for extremely cheap sites, or sites I am still new to and don�t know what to expect.

I think 1000 dollars a month with 1800 images after one year is very good. Especially because you are probably still climbing through the ranks of the various royalty systems. Once you reach higher levels (gold,ruby,emerald..whatever...) your income will increase even more. You should definitely continue doing stock, there are many people coming in who are earning much less than you with 1800 images.

istock has a subs program that is paying out less to even the exclusives than the indies make on SS. And they pay out a much lower rate to the indies than SS.

What makes you think Yuri wasn�t part of implementing that program as well? Or that he is driving for higher prices in any way?

I�d say it makes sense to assume that Yuri was involved or consulted when they created their subs program, because he has so much experience with sub sites.

I am all for having many agencies to choose from, but sadly for indies with 15% royalty and extremly low 28 cent subs (that don�t even count towards the credits) istock isn�t the first place to favor is it?

Sounds like he didn't see the increase in income that he was expecting and now wants to be more personally involved in the development of the site.

Looking at the recent problems istock has in just showing the sales data for the new subs, sending out wrong newsletters etc...the basics for the technology don't seem to be there. istock and getty are not technology companies, which is probably why he is pointing out that the top IT people are much better than the results we see in the way istock works.

So he is pushing them to become more competitive, which is probably good for istock.

If his income had taken of and he was making a lot more money by being exclusive he would have told us already, instead of promising us good results in a few months.

Although it is true that when you leave istock exclusivity your income will drop over 80%, however I have never heard or seen of a case where someone goes exclusive and their income rises 800%. I have seen people double their income. Maybe if someone goes exclusive and then all files go Vetta or something that such an extreme increase is possible, but 8 times more? Sounds very extreme to me. We would be hearing that all the time, if it was possible.

Like others have said, success on istock depends very much on the number of high priced files you have - s+ and Vetta.

You could also ask istock on the forums, or maybe in a contributor mail, how many of your files would be selected for s+ or vetta. I am sure someone could give you an idea to help you make your decision.

And this is also something I would ask recent exclusives.

Shutterstock is up 30% over April, but lower than March. Decent mix of photo, video,odd sales.

what do contributors say?   We want to kill the deal because the beta test period won't pay us for images that the testers use for a few weeks.  Are we really that short-sighted?!? (insert your tired arguments about who should pay for the beta test here... I'm looking at the big picture, and my "losses" during the beta test will be tiny drops compared to the big revenue that could be possible with the deal if it goes well.) 

Fact is, DT is one of the more fair-paying agencies out there.  We should give them some credit on this, and once the deal is finalized let them present the commission scenario to us.  If we don't like it, we can bail.  But for god's sake, let's give them the chance.

I am sorry, did I miss something? I am not seeing anyone say they want to "kill the deal". People just want to get paid. It�s normal.

If the potential partner thinks this is such a great opportunity, then what is the problem with paying us?

And if it is such a short test and only few images would probably be downloaded...well...even more reason to just pay us normally,right?

As has been said before, i don�t think the employees of dreamstime will accept not being paid for a few weeks. So why should we?

But the reaction from DT admins gives the impression that a majority of the artists have already opted out, right?

So why not come back with an offer that makes it interesting for the artists as well?

Negotiations have to be done in all directions with all business partners. You don�t�take one party for granted,especially if they own the product that is going to be sold.

At least this is the way business works in the real world that I know.