I agree this is one of those very personal preferences.

I've been using a Wacom Intuous for about 13 years (the kind they now call the Pro) and I not only use it for Photoshop and Illustrator but everything else. I have a mouse but I only use it in situations where the Wacom driver has crashed (which almost never happens).

For me, the thing that would rule out the Bamboo (the non-pro Intuous in the new naming scheme) is not having the keys and touchstrip. Cmd, Opt, shift spacebar and a zoom slider. I couldn't operate things efficiently without those.

The size isn't as important - I've used a small one that I keep for the laptop on a 24" desktop monitor and it works just fine.

There is a learning period where you built the muscle memory and if you have a low tolerance for frustration, you may not get through that. It does take some getting used to.

Isnt that defeating the whole purpose of an RM licence? Is that where RM meets RF? It puts RM in a whole different aspect.

Not at all. You are managing what specific uses and what time period - that's a specific set of rights. You can argue about the price being wrong, but just changing the term of a license from 3 years to perpetuity doesn't turn it into royalty free where you get any number of uses (within the set allowed).

In the case of a very tightly proscribed set of uses, you could argue that an RM license should be cheaper than RF

I thought they'd done away with CN to improve site performance - did I remember it wrong or have they just not managed to remove the feature?

Regarding the request, you have to wonder what's in someone's head, but perhaps it's like the old fashioned artist's apprentice who started by copying his master's work? Of course in that case the master got to sell it...

...and think I am at the overwhelmed stage that others seem to have gone through...

I completely understand. I went through that once when I first set up the site at the end of August and again more recently when I upgraded to the newest version and switched to Dragonfly (as Clean Theme is no longer being updated).

It does get easier once you know your way around a bit (and perhaps, like a lot of us, you weren't WordPress savvy when you started - the learning curve has lots of components )

Just wanted to be sure you knew about the main Symbiostock forum in case you didn't

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on November 13, 2013, 12:12

I have so few files remaining on iStock (109) that I was surprised to see a big balance jump from the start of the PP numbers. On Nov 3rd there was a 24.02 PP sale - just one, so I assume that must be some sort of EL?

If people start reporting good sales there would you think about uploading again ?

Not unless they do something to give back contributor control over special deals.

It was the Getty-Google deal and their unwillingness to offer an opt out that had me pull most of my portfolio earlier this year. They have made it pretty clear in what I've read that they will not offer an opt out and feel they may make any sort of deal with contributor content they see fit.

Things change - it's possible they may decide that their high-handed approach to their suppliers has been ill advised - but I'm not holding my breath

I have so few files remaining on iStock (109) that I was surprised to see a big balance jump from the start of the PP numbers. On Nov 3rd there was a 24.02 PP sale - just one, so I assume that must be some sort of EL?

That was a good interview, but I thought it was missing some insight into why (other than being an extremely hard worker) Sean has been so successful. Given the site is all about analysis of performance, perhaps that isn't really part of the goal for the interviews.

I have some theories of my own about Sean's success, but it would have been interesting to hear what he had to say on that topic

I don't understand why Bing doesn't crawl the site indexing pages but Google does. As Bing's share of search is about 15% (and less on mobile devices I would guess) I haven't worried about it.

I started getting my site ready at the very end of August and started submitting sitemaps early in September. As of today, Google has indexed 1,061 of 1,151 pages and 753 of the images (everyone tells me that goes more slowly).

I don't sell prints directly - I have FAA do that. And I'm assuming they have some way to deal with the inevitable nonsense over refund requests - I hope it's "NO!"

As far as my Symbiostock site, I don't do refunds, although buying a larger size (not a smaller one) is something I would do.

If someone was concerned about some aspect of an image and wanted to see the full size, I would e-mail them a full size watermarked image to inspect (should probably put that in my FAQ).

Alamy is a low earner and $50 is industry standard.. You either make it 100 or 50.. why $75 and not $78 or $71?   

Why not just make it $50 (what most agencies have, especially low earners)

SS is a $75 minimum. BigStock is $30. Many are at $50, it's true, but Veer, iStock & Dreamstime are $100. I don't think there is any such thing as an industry standard.

And what we could really use is increased sales volume, not lower payout thresholds.

The lower royalty rates were supposed to be to open offices in the US and increase marketing for creative customers. I don't know if anyone's seen an increase in business since these reductions - I see lots of comments here that Alamy sales have fallen off a cliff (which has certainly been my experience). That's the bigger concern, IMO

It is good news that you've changed your minds about charging fees to receive the money we're owed.

I wasn't among those affected, but given all the increases in Alamy's share of the total sale over the last few years, passing on a cost of doing business to the contributor really stung (like car dealers charging a "document preparation fee" when selling you a car).

Any chance you'll improve the time it takes after a "sale" for the balance to clear?

If you look at this article, the logo redesign included a version without the TM, so they haven't really scrapped the work he did:

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_istock_by_build.php#.UnVT_5TF36A

Although lots of the press about the new logo included only the version with the oddly placed TM

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/graphic-design/istockphoto-gets-new-logo-name/

I find most of their fiddling with the look of the site to be half-baked. They have the black of the new logo area and some dark blue-greens from the previous look, some turquoise from who knows where. For a site that's about visual things, it's a shame it looks so designed-by-committee

I can't really do year on year comparisons as I virtually quit iStock in February and actually quit BigStock in March, but SS had a barnstorming October in spite of the fact that I have uploaded very little this year (not on purpose; various real life things have been distractions).

SS was up 10% over September and 5.5% over last October (which was a very good month). My year typically has November, December and October as the top three months (in that order) so I am optimistic for the next two months.

DT was a huge surprise - in a good way! They've been bumping along with regular but lackluster performance, but October was up 48% over September and 28% over last October (for $$). Promisingly the October downloads were up 35% over September - in other words it wasn't just a few big ELs lifting the totals.

123rf had an OK month - flat with last October, but as I'm now down to 45% instead of 50% and haven't uploaded anything to them since they joined the dark side with an RC scheme, that's not bad (and I'd probably upload to them again if they'd just ditch the variable scheme and return to 50% royalties).

Alamy returned from the dead with a couple of sales, but as they haven't cleared I have to wait for payment, reduced payout threshold notwithstanding.

PhotoDune continues as a steady low earner, but October was slightly down on September which is the wrong direction!

CanStock is sadly flat and I may just wrap them up as they aren't getting enough of the Fotosearch non-subscription sales any more to make the low royalties on everything else make sense.

GL Stock came back with a few sales after a long break with nothing, but they just don't seem to be finding their feet. Veer had a decent month (especially given I have only 800 files there) but no ELs which is the one good thing about Veer.

However add Veer and Canstock together and I still made more from one sale at FAA.