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Messages - Mantis
4126
« on: March 28, 2013, 07:20 »
I'd like to thank everyone here for their comments in this thread - we read all the feedback we can, not just on our own site and find it all very useful.
Best wishes
James Allsworth.
And thank you for coming into MSG and being upfront about what you are currently doing and listening to our feedback. means a lot when you consider other agencies who ignore this forum and the (mostly) quite good ideas and alternatives offered up by some pretty experienced artists. Really makes a big difference.
4127
« on: March 28, 2013, 07:15 »
Do categories even matter? When I put my buyer hat on I never use them.
4128
« on: March 27, 2013, 19:33 »
You can email them and ask for another inspector.
4129
« on: March 27, 2013, 07:29 »
I've got an initial batch there and they told me 2 to 3 weeks when I wrote to them.
My bad, you're correct. It was GL that reviewed my stuff in 4 days. I still show my images pending at P5.
4130
« on: March 27, 2013, 07:26 »
with a dx lens on a fx camera at 10 mp, you will get somewhere around a 6 mp images instead of the 10 you'd get with an fx lens.
4131
« on: March 27, 2013, 07:05 »
I just had a batch of 30 approved in about four days.
4132
« on: March 26, 2013, 09:02 »
Would be REALLY nice if you had a nice, succinct financial summary by month, quarter and calendar year and also specified date range summaries.
Again, it's something we are aware is cumbersome and not very user friendly - even though it does technically work and is functional. Have you looked at the Net Revenue pages? You can set specific date ranges to suit you...
We've launched phase one of the new site today with some great features (http://www.alamy.com/whatsnew.asp) - the next phase is to improve some contributor facing pages. I can't say for sure when the financial summary pages will get a re-work, but I can assure you that it is on our road-map of improvements to be made. We are already working on the next version of "My Alamy" and a great looking contributor dashboard that will help you get to the important information much quicker - and it will look a darn sight nicer than it does currently.
All in all, many more improvements are on the way and it's always good for us to get this kind of feedback, so thank you.
Cheers
James
Thanks a bunch. Glad it's on your to do list.
4133
« on: March 26, 2013, 07:32 »
Here is a graphic of what fotografer is saying.
4134
« on: March 26, 2013, 07:16 »
Hi James,
While we're pinging ideas off of you, can you redesign the stats summary page? It is time consuming and cumbersome to figure out your monthly, quarterly and annual sales in a summary format. For example:
March 2013:
$2150 Gross sales
$1000 Contributor commissions
Breakdown
$36 Novel Use Gross Sales
$18 Novel use Contributor commission
$400 Distributor Gross Sales
$160 Distributor commission (40%)
$120 Alamy Commission (30%)
$120 Contibutor Commission
Alamy Sales
$1714 Gross
$857 Contributor commission
Even your CSV file requires you to manipulate it in Excel. Would be REALLY nice if you had a nice, succinct financial summary by month, quarter and calendar year and also specified date range summaries.
4135
« on: March 26, 2013, 06:55 »
It would really be nice to see the inspector's guidelines for:
1. Image message/subject matter
2. Technical standards
4136
« on: March 25, 2013, 19:50 »
4137
« on: March 25, 2013, 19:00 »
I upgraded D70 -> D200 -> D300 -> D800. My images got dramatically better when I moved to the D300, even though many of the reviews said I wouldn't see much of a difference. The move to the D800 has been even more dramatic, and not just because it's better in low light and has so much more resolution. Even looking at a 100% view I can see a huge improvement in detail and cotrast.
It helps that I've been upgrading my lenses since my D200 days. More F/2.8 lenses, more FX lenses, and of course much higher cost. But the results are amazing, so I'm okay with the expense.
I bought two D800's and scrapped them. Very high noise level in virtually all shadow areas, crunch at 100% and focus soft. Downsizing helped but then why pay for all the MP's if you have to downsize? Maybe I got duds because both of mine has the left focus point issue where auto focus said it was sharp when it wasn't. Focusing manually, the results simply were not impressive.
4138
« on: March 25, 2013, 16:16 »
My image submissions ALWAYS take 7-14 days, never sooner. So I guess I am screwed. I really like the idea of tagging the image with the acceptance date, and not the submission date....if indeed the positioning of images is based on that.
4139
« on: March 25, 2013, 07:59 »
I guess it depends on the terms they offer. Placement, commissions, deactivate terms, etc. I would experiment with some and if it didn't pay off I'd want the option to convert back to non-exclusive. If all I got was 20%, probably would not consider.
4140
« on: March 25, 2013, 07:32 »
Sure they sell to different markets - until now. What happens as buyers figure out they can get the same photos cheaper under the new "brand"?
Lots of big names in clothing, shoes etc have bargain "outlet" stores. They're typically located about 50 miles outside of the big city, so they don't compete with the full line stores. But on the internet, SS and BS are right next door.
SS and BS are 2 faces of the same company. They're starting down the road of reducing payments to contributors and 'spinning' it as another brand and a different market.
Well stated.
4141
« on: March 23, 2013, 06:36 »
Well, when you go to "explore" and look at "popular contributions", that is true.
However, that is not how the buyers look for images. They search for keywords and then it is the images that have been sold and viewed the most that end up first in the search results.
Lina @ Mostphotos
[/quote]
If this is true then why even have the "popular contributor" feature? It's misleading for the reasons stated, not based on merit.
4142
« on: March 22, 2013, 17:25 »
My head is kind of still spinning. Let me get this straight:
Newsletter:
To our exclusives: we love you and want to know what we can do improve our relationship
In the same newsletter:
To our exclusives: We cut your commission on Partner sales to 20%
Am I missing something here? Are they dyslexic?
Exclusives were already making 20% on Partner Sales. Sad to see so many +'s for faulty information but hearing what you want is better than facts I guess?
Here is a link to the thread: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=352445&page=1
Here is the line in bold, like it is in the thread: NOTE: Royalty rates for exclusive content will not change and will be paid at the standard 20% rate.
It was more of a question....than a fact. Glad the 20% was clarified. Feel free to give me a minus if you fee so compelled.
4143
« on: March 22, 2013, 07:34 »
My head is kind of still spinning. Let me get this straight:
Newsletter:
To our exclusives: we love you and want to know what we can do improve our relationship
In the same newsletter:
To our exclusives: We cut your commission on Partner sales to 20%
Am I missing something here? Are they dyslexic?
4144
« on: March 19, 2013, 09:01 »
YAY, are you doing anything to drive prices up instead of down (19 cents)?
Yay make $0.38 for web size images. What sub sites charge that much? We get 50% of the money Yay make and you can opt out. Shouldn't you really be asking the other sites why they cant do it a well as Yay?
No. What should be asked is can yay and the others do what pond5 and gl do...allow us to set our own prices...I mean if you want to get technical and all. The 50 percent argument is bs if you are applying it to such low rates. So I get 50 percent of a nickle and that makes them awesome!!
4145
« on: March 19, 2013, 08:57 »
....With the introduction of Novel use, they are slowly (in my opinion) migrating to a more microstock model...
They've said that theyre getting rid of the novel use scheme. I've noticed a decline in novel use sales, probably as they don't renew contracts when they run out.
Yea, sharpshot, I've heard that last year too and it didn't happen. So I suppose time will tell.
4146
« on: March 19, 2013, 07:44 »
I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I wonder how many UNREPORTED sales they enjoy?
Based on everything I've experienced and read concerning Alamy, I prefer to believe that the sale was indeed unreported to them (in which case, they wouldn't enjoy any of them). Though I don't understand what kind of system they have in which a distributor can make a sale and deliver the file without Alamy being notified. 
Yea. My point was that you had to discover your image in use to make the claim. How many contributors actually ever stumble upon their image as you did? I'd say very few. As for Alamy not enjoying the benefit, good point. But in the end the contributor doesn't enjoy squat regardless of whether it's Alamy or the distributor who didn't report. And just think if it were an unreported $300 sale?
4147
« on: March 19, 2013, 07:36 »
YAY, are you doing anything to drive prices up instead of down (19 cents)?
4148
« on: March 19, 2013, 07:25 »
Tick, have you read some of that stuff they post on the IS forum??? Our sales are going down like the Titanic (We Luv IS!). They screwed us over with that Getty deal (We luv IS anyway!). Sean got the boot (Oh, they'd never do that to US....We Luv IS!)
Yup, pet rats.
Sorry, kinda off-topic.
I think most of the people with bad sales are not writing we love Istock, and the people that are writing it have good sales.
Or the woo-yayers have 50 images in their port, don't have much skin in the game and think making 16% is FANTASTIC!!!! 
4149
« on: March 19, 2013, 07:16 »
Yes they have RF and it pays way more, in general, that microstock. You can sell RM or RF there. You get 50% of Alamy sales. It used to be 65%, then they cut commissions to 60% then they cut commissions again to 50%, so who know where they are going. With the introduction of Novel use, they are slowly (in my opinion) migrating to a more microstock model. Novel use is 50% as well but you get somewhere around $1 to $5 per download. Those seem to come in in large bundles at the beginning of the month. You can opt out of Novel use if you want, but I believe only in March or April. Also, distributor sales are a killer. You end up keeping 30% while making the distributor a lot more money. Really crummy deal given the lousy volume of sales that doesn't help offset the 30% commission. You can also opt out of distributor sales in April if you want. I still like Alamy but I am a bit weary of them given their last big 10% pay cut and the drop in sales. I was doing about $1000 a month there until about mid 2012 then sales fell off a cliff. Now all I seem to get are these monthly $27 downloads (5-10 a month), 10-20 Novel use downloads for about $1-2 each and an occasional $7-$12 DL. I haven't seen much of the $150 to $400 downloads that used to be a lot more common.
So that's my experience in a nutshell.
4150
« on: March 18, 2013, 20:27 »
I had a first-time sale at Alamy last month, and searched to see if I could find the in-use. To my surprise I did find one -- but it was in an article dated May 18, 2011. It was in a different country than the sale I just got, so I knew that this one was not it.
A few days earlier I had written to Alamy about an in-use I found that was stolen from a legitimate buyer's website, and was disappointed to learn they do not pursue such "third-party" thefts. So I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, which could have only been gotten from Alamy's site.
But the response was a positive one, saying it was an unreported distributor sale. It has now appeared in my sales list, though it's dated this month instead of almost 2 years ago, so I get less commission than I really should. However, since it's a $6 gross sale, it doesn't really matter either way. I'm just glad they had to pay something, so it wasn't another stolen in-use.
Though come to think of it, the start & end period is one month long (already expired, but the photo's still there), when it should really be years long. Doesn't that affect the actual price of the sale (this is RM, obviously)? Eh, I give up. Time to move on ....
I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I wonder how many UNREPORTED sales they enjoy?
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