Yes, BS is very reliable, better than StockXpert this month. They also pay promptly. I like them.

This subject can be debated ad infinitum.

My view is: low commissions give the agency spare budget to spend heavily on advertising - hence the low commissions at IS and SS for many people translate into the highest actual income.

At the other end of the scale is an agency like Featurepics - high commissions, no money left for anything else.  Result: low sales, low income.

True, but is that what's happening here? More and more we seem to be seeing agencies desperately offering lower and lower prices, to grab business from one another, resulting in less overall income for us.

Too many agencies at the moment, IMHO.

Too many photographers too, I daresay Some of you will have to give up

Linda

I just looked at the last 200 I could see, didn't worry about anything sold more than once.

I am really surprised to hear anyone wanting out of DT because of subscription sales.  They make up such a tiny portion of the overall earnings on the site, at least from my experience.  My per sale average there has been consistently over $1/DL since November and goes up a bit each month. 

Personally I think they are one of the most contributor friendly sites.  You really can't blame them for not wanting their forums littered with dozens of threads rehashing the same issue.  It has been discussed to death. 

Lisa, I don't think everyone has the same experience as you with DT subs. It's true that subs make a tiny portion of earnings, but they are a growing percentage of actual sales.

Until I took some action to stop the rot, subs were 30% of our downloads. Some groups of photos seem to sell as subs more often than others. Some files sell in maximum size more often than others.

Since I've stopped uploading to DT, we are selling many more large files on IS, and I don't think it's a coincidence.

Maybe DT should think up a scheme which distributes the loss of income more fairly between contributors.

Linda

I upload everywhere in Adobe RGB, and also  noticed that our photos look very dull on DT, as compared with IS and SS, so I uploaded some in sRGB They didn't seem to look any better, so went back to  Adobe RGB.

As others have said, it's easy enough to convert to sRGB, but you shouldn't do it the other way.

Apparently IS deliver (to the customer) the two smallest sizes in sRGB, but medium and above in Adobe RGB.

I don't know what the others do.

Linda

We're opted out. Here's our StockXpert % of total earnings since September.

Sep   7.42%
Oct    7.49%
Nov    8.81%
Dec    7.16%
Jan     7.45%
Feb     5.69%

We haven't uploaded to StockXpert in Feb, I assume that's the reason for the decrease this month.  I don't want to have an argument with you Sharply, we'll just agree to disagree:-)

Linda

We've been in microstock almost since the start, and in that time have done various things, such as uploading everything everywhere at the same time, not uploading to a particular site because of the commission structure, not uploading anywhere for several weeks because we were travelling, then catching up with big batches,

I can honestly say that it doesn't seem to make much difference. Our total income has risen at a fairly even pace.

I'm now experimenting with uploading only to IS, although I have just sent a few to SS, since IS upload limits have left me with time on my hands. So far, same story, it hasn't made any difference, we will have our BME by approximately the usual amount.

I'm currently deleting our portfolio from one site,  so the next  couple of months will be interesting. Can IS cover it? Time will tell.

If this continues, I suppose going exclusive would make sense, although I can still think of reasons for not doing so (eggs in one basket etc).

Linda

Fraud?

I wonder if state and Federal laws allow them to keep our money, if we refuse to submit to this unannounced change in the contract?

Well, no worries. We've never succeeded in uploading the right stuff to Fotolia, so if we delete our portfolio it won't be a big loss,  to them or us.

Linda

BME was October. November was lower, but since then, no change really.

January was about the same as November, December lower as expected.

First week in February is on target to be the same as Nov and Jan.

As happens most months, they are almost exactly level with FT and BS.

Linda

We opted out of subs at StockXpert from the beginning. We have also stopped uploading to DT.

This month we have seen many, many more large sales on IS than we have previously.

We have had our BME on IS in $$ and DL.

Is there a connection? I don't know.

However, we have decided to upload only to IS for a few months, and watch what happens.

Linda

It's a Catch 22 situation.

IS encourages us to go exclusive by favouring the exclusives, but the more people that do go this route, the more crowded becomes the first page of the best match.

We can't all be on page one.

That means IS have to decide which exclusives are on page one. Obviously those who are most profitable will get the best positions.

You have to ask yourself, am I good enough to win in that situation?

Linda

Thanks for these replies. I guess I have done more grumbling than most on subs, but from this information I feel justified.
You won't hear any more from me on this subject.
It's time for action
Linda

Quote from: Travelling-light on January 09, 2008, 03:05

When StockXpert first said they were introducing subscription, there was a big fuss, everyone said they didn't want it.
The solution was there for the taking, StockXpert said if not enough people joined, they would abandon it. What happened? Just about everyone opted in.
I said from the beginning that if subscription was introduced with no opt out, I would delete our portfolio. I'm still prepared to do that. I understand perfectly that my decision is of no importance to StockXpert, but it is to me.
When it comes to DT, I haven't uploaded there for a while. I'm still hopeful that they will abandon the idea. If they don't, I'm prepared to give them up too. Again, I realise that my decision is irrelevant.
But Steven, your decision is not irrelevant.  Yuri and Andres have had the guts to take some action. You, and a few others, could make a difference, but you aren't prepared to do that. I don't really understand why.
As for punishing the good guys, I don't see what you see. I see a company trying to grab a slice of a pie baked by someone else. When this first came up, Steve-oh talked about new customers. I asked if they were new to StockXpert, or new to Microstock. No answer was given.
Now we see people claiming that SS sales are down. Is it a coincidence?
Please don't say that you don't see a way out of this mess. You were partially to blame and you know it. You also know what the answer is.
Linda

To me it's not a big problem, would I like to see more money paid to contributors for high res images in subscription plans? Yes. Will I stop submitting or opt out if they don't? No.

Why? I fail to see how one person's bad business decisions (Thread starter here) means that subscription plans are bad. Look how much he pays in production costs. Is that typical of the average microstocker? I would say not. Yet many of his groupies follow along on his advice.

Shutterstock alone, pays back what I spend in production costs and alot more, so there is no way I'm going to bash subscription plans. StockXpert has never been better for me, they are the fastest growing site in my experience, even after Subscriptions were introduced.

I am not one of the major players, I do stock part-time which is what the majority of microstockers do, for the love of it, not the greed.

As for SS being down, it's that time of year. It happened last year, and will happen next year. Things ramp up to November and then take a dive for awhile. Let's wait awhile before we press the panick button shall we.

I still think it's hyprocritical to opt out of StockXpert, and not only still submit to Crestock, but to accept a lower subscription payout. That is what the thread starter is doing. Crestock gives a 30% commission (after 100 sales) and a 25 cent subscription payout. If anything he should be complaining about this and not StockXpert, who pays 50% commission and 30 cent subs.

Let's start a movement around getting Crestock up (commission % and subscription payout). I'm all for that. But no one else seems to want to take a stand on that.

We don't submit to Crestock and don't plan to. At the moment there are too many sites, IMHO.
Some of them will surely fail.
To be honest, I'm thinking very hard about going exclusive on IS. I have always been against putting all eggs in one basket, but just now all the other baskets seem to be broken.
Unfortunately a visit to the IS forums reveals many thinking of giving up their exclusivity.
And who's to say they won't start their own subscription plan?
I'm going to take the easy way out, stop thinking and go and take some photos
Linda