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Messages - Minsc
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426
« on: July 29, 2016, 19:20 »
Getty is planning to give everyone 10% royalty. When contributors get angry, they won't be able to delete anything so they can continue to reap the rewards. It has nothing to do with lightboxes. It has everything to do with control and specifically, pricing control.
I have a small portfolio on iStock, and I won't be uploading anymore images. I think a nice small lawsuit will force Getty to give people the delete function. What they are doing is not legal or ethical.
427
« on: July 29, 2016, 19:08 »
I have no sympathy for Getty. They had it coming for their indiscriminate extortion letters. Their unethical behavior has finally caught up with them.
With that being said, there are also some unethical contributors, who take public domain images and sell them on stock websites. I've seen contributors sell NASA photos, historical photos, historical drawings and selling work that was traced from my work. Non-US contributors are the biggest offenders.
I know that it's hard for the agencies to track everything, but Getty's tactics invite trouble. And to make things worse, they threaten the copyright owner and didn't take the photos down when she made it clear she was the copyright owner. I can imagine the case being brought up to management and some idiot higher up think he's playing poker and tried to call her bluff. She has a royal flush and he's stuck with a junk hand.
428
« on: July 27, 2016, 21:33 »
Don't have very good equipment at the moment, but looking to upgrade to this in a couple months. https://goo.gl/rtAQuhFujifilm X-T2. Well, either this or a Sony a6300.
429
« on: July 19, 2016, 19:17 »
The barrier for entry has gotten significantly lower over the years. Today's mobile phone cameras can produce photos better than semi-pro cameras from 10 years ago. Today's mirrorless cameras are very affordable and they produce high quality photos that be used for almost anything. Give anyone a decent lens that can defocus the background and a lesson in basic composition and most people won't be able to tell if the photo is taken by a pro or an amateur. Well, most pros can, but some the buyers won't. But pros are uploading some high quality work to SS. I can probably find anything on SS that can rival most of Getty's premium work. The quality gap is getting smaller by the day and there will come a point where the buyer will only notice the huge price difference. Buyers have it good. They have ridiculous variety to choose from and sometimes they only need 1 photo. So 1 person get lucky and 10,000 others won't. Let's do a search for pets on a Getty and SS site: http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?search_source=base_lohp&searchterm=petshttp://www.gettyimages.com/photos/pet?family=creative&license=rf&phrase=pet&sort=best&excludenudity=true#licenseOne can argue that images on SS have more commercial appeal with quality to match. Pros and talented semi-pros are making SS looking better by the day and I don't think anyone can stop it. That is what happens with any competitive environment, regardless of field.
430
« on: July 16, 2016, 13:32 »
I think the one subject that people are afraid to talk about... because it may hurt the feeling of some contributors is that not all portfolios are created equal and to further extend that, not all photographers and not all designers are equal. Some people use duration of time spend on something as a measure of skill and ability. It isn't.
................ Telling someone to "up their game" may sound harsh, but it's also a brutally honest suggestion.
I think you are totally missing the crux of the matter here.
No one is denying that there are some outstanding small portfolios that will outstrip many of the larger ones every day of the week, or that there are young and inexperienced 18 year olds oozing talent that some of us will only ever dream of - that's a given.
However, what you are failing to address here is that many of us are seeing sudden sales anomalies.
I measure the success of my portfolio by number of downloads achieved, and that has suddenly shifted, while my portfolio has remained 'equal'. Coming to this forum is to see if anyone has any tangible reasons that may explain this shift, is a sensible way to try and find either a solution or a method to address the problem, it is not about having a moan for the sake of it.
Telling people to 'up their game', whilst it may be 'harsh and brutally honest', is inappropriate in this set of circumstances.
Then I'll also suggest a solution. If your old images are not selling, consider updating the keywords. Nobody does it right the first time. If the algorithm changed and no longer favor your old images, then make some changes to the metadata. The system may see it as an updated image and re-sort its ranking. I've done it before and I've seen results. While it may be boring, it's a lot cheaper and less time consuming than creating new content. If you have total confidence in your work, then it will rise up the rankings. I believe that the best will always rise to the top on SS. It's only a matter of time.
431
« on: July 15, 2016, 21:49 »
I think the one subject that people are afraid to talk about... because it may hurt the feeling of some contributors is that not all portfolios are created equal and to further extend that, not all photographers and not all designers are equal. Some people use duration of time spend on something as a measure of skill and ability. It isn't.
It's been demonstrated time and time again that you don't need to spend 20 years or even 10 years on something to be good at it. It doesn't matter if someone is newbie. If they have the skills, they have the skills. I'm fortunate enough to be in a position to see young kids as young as 18 outperforming people with 20 years of experience in a number of fields. It's crazy to see, but it's reality. One reason is because they're optimistic and they open their mind to knowledge as opposed to cynicism developed over years of frustration and a closed mind because they think they know everything.
There is a reason why Zuckerberg is a billionaire and I'm not. There's a reason why Jon Oringer at age 42 (founded SS at the 'inexperienced' age of 29) is the billionaire owner of SS and people much older than him are not. There's a reason why some people's small portfolios are performing beyond expectations while others with large portfolios are barely performing. Sometimes an adjustment of mindset is all you need to become more successful at something. Telling someone to "up their game" may sound harsh, but it's also a brutally honest suggestion.
432
« on: July 14, 2016, 23:17 »
that most popular algorithm changed over a year ago if not longer, has been explained countless times it is not about sales only, but keep complaining about it, that helps
we are sharing the pie with a lot more people than when we joined, simple math, you get less per head, it will never go back to the golden days, accept it or move on
A year ago? Try march 12th 2012 man. Thats when the so called switch was thrown. I dont want less and I won't accept less and I don't want Myself or my friends who have done the work and helped Build SS accept Less.. if you want to be fatalistic about this and say thats the way it is. your part of the Problem.!!! Period. We had the chance to do something 4/5 years ago and we simply didn't we were very Busy trying to stop the DFC at fotolia. which was a joke.. Myself and others could have done so much more. maybe you weren't here then. maybe you were. being anonymous makes it hard to tell. Ya never know if your talking to some veteran or some kid sitting on his parents computer in Tulsa Oklahoma submitting tomatoes.
lets see your port. the work speaks, words don't. Heres Mine.http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=7918 and google.https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=laurin+rinder&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003
I'm sorry to hear about the drop, but I don't think anyone could have stopped SS, not even an organized group of talented contributors. There are always people ready to take their place. They are over 30,000 contributors on SS right now. Even if 1000 of them leave, there are still 29000 of them. Remember 500PX? They're gaining ground again. Their traffic dropped after the royalty cut. That was in June. Now their traffic is the highest it has ever been. There is simply no stopping most agencies...unless it's Getty cause they like to shoot themselves on the foot constantly. I think we like to see ourselves as bigger and more important than we really are. We're all contributors, playing by the same rules, feeding the same machine. I don't think anger and negativity is the solution. Anger clouds the mind, misdirect priorities and makes you lose motivation.
433
« on: July 14, 2016, 17:44 »
The point is that my portfolio, with the exception of some recent additions, was the same in June as it is now.
June sales were fine.
July sales are in the toilet.
The addition of a million images a week is nothing new, and was happening throughout June, in just the same way as it has for the first two weeks of July. This cannot be rationally explained away by saying that 'competition is tough so up your game'.
My gut feeling on this is some sort of rotation, and I'm currently on the bottom of a cycle. Holiday period, site outages, etc. can explain fluctuations, but not a 60% loss of earnings overnight.
Just as an observation, I would say there is plenty up with the search. I just checked one of my very recent uploads, which is of a very specific and hard to come by subject, and found it is already on page 4 when searching by new. I wouldn't mind if the 300+ images ahead of it actually pertained to the same subject, but only about 35-40% were relevant.
My sales are down for July. I'm on pace to earn about 20% less compared to June. Historically, July has not the best month for microstock sales on SS. I know a number of people on vacation and some people are out there catching their Pokemon. I'm not too concerned about it. When August comes around, sales will pick back up again.
434
« on: July 14, 2016, 16:37 »
I think it has a lot to do with SS adding nearly 1 Million images PER WEEK (2 million since July 1st). We don't know what is in those 2 million images and how it affects existing portfolios.
There is more competition than ever on SS and that's just the reality of it. Some contributors are more affected than others.
435
« on: July 14, 2016, 16:15 »
I think you are missing my point here, and I fully understand and agree with exactly what you are saying about commercial value, the importance of keyboarding, etc.
I know I am producing consistently good work, because up until 30th June, it was selling very well on all sites. From 1st July it continues to sell well on all other sites, it just nosed-dived on Shutterstock. Why? The quality of my 6000+ images didn't change overnight, so something else did.
It's hard to know without knowing what's in your portfolio. I haven't seen any changes in the search algorithm for any of the sections. What I do know is that they added roughly 2 million new images since July 1st.
436
« on: July 14, 2016, 15:37 »
There are solutions to competition. Work hard, come up with new ideas, learn new skills, keep up with market trends, or enter new markets. And yes, I subscribe to my own advice.
As previously stated, I too subscribe to this advice. How are you finding it? I find that I am working harder, learning more skill, striving to develop new ideas, uploading better and more diverse work, but I'm still buried in the search.
This isn't about complaining, although sometimes it does help to get it off your chest, it's about trying to gauge what others are experiencing and trying to establish a sense of whether everyone is reporting the same issues, similar issues or if this is unique to me.
My work ethic hasn't changed, and my last photoshoot cost me $2400. I'm worker harder than ever and investing more time and money into my business but, from 1st July 2016, my sales fell off a cliff. Not a gradual decline due to increased competition - I could accept it if my Shutterstock sales dropped from a daily average of 100 downloads to 90 to 80, etc. - that has been the pattern for the last couple of years.
From 1st July 2016, my daily sales have dropped to 40%of my daily average of June 2016 - literally overnight. Can someone please explain that without telling me I should work harder? If the issue was just about the quality of my work, I would be seeing similar declines across all the sites I contribute to, but this sudden change, at least for me, is unique to Shutterstock.
I find that it works for me. I can't say it'll work for everyone since everyone has a different portfolio, but I know it works for me. I know that a lot of people work hard, but are not producing results. My guess is that one part is not coming together and it's usually commercial value or keywording. Someone posted a SS tracking website before he took it down not too long ago. When you look at the top 100 selling images, the most popular images on that list were related to business, marketing, family, technology and concepts that are currently trending, like feminism and empowerment. Those are the type of images that sell well. If you have quality work and you believe it will sell, then maybe keywording needs improvement. That's one of the most critical mistakes that many contributors make. They don't think it through and see it as a chore, so they don't put their best effort forward. I don't believe my work is amazing, but I know that my keywording is top notch because of my knowledge in SEO and marketing. I'm always thinking about new concepts and there are new emerging concepts everyday. Some are temporary, some are permanent. A fellow contributor here recently made a killing on Brexit, because he was first and had quality work. Even saw his work on a news site I regularly visit. If you're first to market and you have quality work, not even copy cats can displace you.
437
« on: July 14, 2016, 13:32 »
OK, sales are down. What is your solution? complaining alone isn't going to solve anything, it never does and it never will.
Nobody is entitled to anything. Millennials are not entitled to a job because they have a degree. The veterans are not entitled to better sales because they were there first. "The World is Flat" is a great book detailing the leveling of the playing due to ease of access to education & technology.
No matter how good we are, we can always improve and gain different perspectives. Competition is one of the great constants of life. Just recently, some Amazon seller was complaining about how Chinese sellers are producing similar products and destroying her sales. The other day, a woman told me how a guy dumped her to date another woman. And just yesterday, we had to reject 5 designers because we made an offer to a more talented designer.
There are solutions to competition. Work hard, come up with new ideas, learn new skills, keep up with market trends, or enter new markets. And yes, I subscribe to my own advice.
438
« on: July 13, 2016, 12:28 »
Do you submit to Offset?
If so, what has your experience been? Is it worth approaching them? What type of images do you shoot for them?
Thanks for sharing any info.
I haven't seen anyone talk about offset. Maybe that's part of the Offset contributor agreement. The first rule of Offset is don't talk about Offset.
439
« on: July 12, 2016, 12:41 »
Not too sure hitting emerald will result in any increase at all. I remember Lisa wrote something about once you get to that level the sort order will not be in your favour. I know as a Gold I was earning almost double of what I'm getting now and I am not the only one.
I'll know when I get there. I haven't seen a conspiracy theory that amounts to reality yet, so I'm not too concerned about it. I'm looking forward to Emerald to set my own prices for my images.
440
« on: July 11, 2016, 19:10 »
Based on what I'm seeing, FT has better overall RPI...like 50% more return per image. My FT downloads are 2/3 of what get on SS, but the revenue is similar. SS has bigger single downloads which continue to push beyond expectations.
I don't think my FT download numbers can match my SS download numbers in the long term, so I think there is more potential with SS. I also feel like I'm going to hit a wall on FT soon since I don't know how much higher I can climb on the weekly ranks.
441
« on: July 11, 2016, 13:18 »
FT has been inching closer and closer to matching my earnings on SS. This month, it may actually surpass it. FT revenue is currently about 15% higher than SS for the month of July, but we're only a third into the month. I have a similar size portfolio on both websites.
I won't say that FT is going to be like that for everyone, because everyone has a different portfolio. For me, things are looking pretty even at the moment. Once I hit Emerald tier, I have no doubt it'll surpass SS.
442
« on: July 08, 2016, 20:43 »
I pick one and no matter what the other is I click Background...LOL
That's useful for photos most of the time. If it's not...Miscellaneous is always my favorite backup.
443
« on: July 08, 2016, 02:26 »
Just saw something interesting while looking at the sales graph. US sales accounts for nearly 70% of my revenue now. It looks like they also back filled the previous months.
I remember looking at the graph a few weeks ago and only about 10% were from US sales. I wonder if they messed up the reporting metrics previously and just fixed it recently. It kinda make sense that 70% of sales would come from US buyers.
444
« on: July 07, 2016, 13:15 »
SS is still my highest earner, but FT is closing in fast. The gold tier gave a nice little boost to my earnings.
I see a lot of people worrying about things they can't control. Why bother? You can't change what you can't control. You can only change what you can control.
Anyone who deals with search engines will face this problem. Google flooded with deceptive links. App store flooded with low-quality apps. Shutterstock flooded with low-quality work. Everyone complains the same way, but the results are all the same.
It doesn't matter how much you upload, it's what you upload. My small portfolio can outperform other portfolios 10x its size. Don't worry about them...you can't control them. Focus on creating content with commercial value. Understand how search engines work and put some effort into keywording.
445
« on: July 04, 2016, 22:53 »
Your portfolio needs better diversity. I would stay away from throwing a bunch of text on the same background over and over again. That stuff rarely sells.
446
« on: July 02, 2016, 11:30 »
Today was a bad day, I swear if july is going to be worse than June then it might be time to put my 4000 portfolio of popular images online at full res for free and let Karma take care of the rest! Hopefully it was due to outages at SS today but I am not so sure thats it.
July 4th weekend. Most people were off today. Personally, sales are down 20%, but that's expected.
If you have 4000 images and sales are declining, consider re-keywording some of your images.
When the SS email came out I started looking at my accepted images starting in late 2006. I've gotten so much better at key wording today, and am in fact going to go through all of my older images and cleaning the keywords......albeit taking my time and not panicking against a 2-3 week timeline. I've already plowed through 100 images in a few hours.
That's great. When I first uploaded, I used the shutterstock keywording tool a lot as a clutch. It turned out to be fairly ineffective when competing against established images because there is nothing unique about your keywording. I went back and re-keyworded my earlier images and sales started trickling in for them.
447
« on: July 01, 2016, 22:59 »
Sales are good. Had my best month ever on FT. Reached the highest rank ever, but fell back down toward the end of the month.
448
« on: July 01, 2016, 22:57 »
Today was a bad day, I swear if july is going to be worse than June then it might be time to put my 4000 portfolio of popular images online at full res for free and let Karma take care of the rest! Hopefully it was due to outages at SS today but I am not so sure thats it.
July 4th weekend. Most people were off today. Personally, sales are down 20%, but that's expected. If you have 4000 images and sales are declining, consider re-keywording some of your images.
449
« on: July 01, 2016, 01:46 »
If their spam detector flags up just about every account and can't separate spammers from everyone else it is rather hard to see how they will identify the real spammers and close them down.
It'll be easy for them. All they have to do is identify images with a single keywords repeated more than 2 times. They just need to filter out common words like "and", "of" and "with". If an image title repeats a keyword 3 times, there's a really good chance it's spammer. They can easily pull up a list of all their titles and if they're all titled the same way, they will get banned. I think this is an opportunity for all of us. By doing this, SS will improve the ranking system and flush out all the spammers from the top of the relevant category. This will lead to better discovery of relevant images. I think that benefits all non-spamming contributors.
450
« on: July 01, 2016, 01:21 »
I know some of you guys are worried and angry, but I don't think SS is crazy or stupid enough to ban unintentional violators. They're not going to go after people with a couple repeated keywords, but they will go after the blatant violators.
The ban hammer will come down and it's going to to be brutal for hundreds of spammy contributors. Those type of spammers probably have tens of thousands of the images and they're all titled the same way. Despite the warming, I don't think many of you guys won't be affected. If you think you have some images that violates their policy, change it. I've already gone through all of my images and made changes to some of the titles.
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