|
MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - Jo Ann Snover
5151
« on: October 12, 2012, 14:06 »
Shutterstock offers:
- 1 on demand image for $19
- 5 on demand images for $49 = $9.80 per image
- 750 images (a month) for $249 = $0.33 per high resolution image
I don't see what Crestock does different than Shutterstock besides doing a terrible job at marketing their collection amongst potential buyers.
Leaving the rest of your points to one side for a minute, the difference here is that SS has a higher price subscription that requires a commitment. They offer you a lower price - 5 images for $49 if you don't want to cough up $249. Given the price per image of the on demand images, they're not really undercutting their subscriptions Masterfile is offering images at up to the maximum size at $1 each, undercutting their apparent attempt to sell images for from $10 to $35 based on size. I'm not arguing with offering buyers a bargain, but in this case with what seems like a completely backwards set of incentives. It's not great, but it's reasonable (for contributors) to offer a low per-image price if you commit to a decent volume of sales - the purchase of a monthly subscription, essentially. On your other issues, I'm just trying to reassess where it makes sense to sell. All the agencies treat us less than optimally, even SS, so no, I'm not advocating leaving those that don't treat us right. I do think it's worth looking at whether cutting off the bottom feeders (and it's easier to do that than the agencies that make a bunch each month) might make sense.
5152
« on: October 12, 2012, 13:08 »
I have never uploaded there, so my interest is theoretical. Lisa, I've used one of your lovely images as an example as it's on all the sites. How is it that Masterfile expects to sell an RF image from $10 to $35 (if you buy without a subscription) when for $50 they will sell you 50 images that would otherwise cost you $35 each? The only thing I can imagine is that sales are so low at the "regular" price they feel they have little to lose. When you consider BigStock's prices - $2.99 to $12.99 - or CanStock's - $2.50 to $6.00 - or PhotoDune - $1 to $7 - asking $10 to $35 ( which is iStock pricing, if it's P+ - $4 to $34) seems insane. Fotolia doesn't do cash sales, but they say about $1 to $10. 123rf doesn't do cash either but 1 to 5 credits is about $1 to $5 Given all of these deals, Thinkstock offers 5 images for $100 - you do get a year and get a wider choice of images than Masterfile's 1.7 million images and one month, but still, it's a huge gap. I'm not sure what to make of this huge disparity, but it seems that the smaller agencies aren't able to do much with their price cutting ways to boost themselves up the rankings for earnings for us. So perhaps that's good news for contributors???
5153
« on: October 12, 2012, 12:24 »
I'd rather have a raise than stock in the company. I don't see SS, good as they are, as another amazon that can expand broadly into a range of businesses. It's a good business, but I think the potential for huge profit growth - unless they acquire Getty & co from Carlyle Group and the unpleasant Mr. Klein - is limited. Even upping our earnings a small amount per sale would be a very nice thank-you. And I did think the letter was a classy gesture - although putting in the contributor name would have been the cherry on the cupcake 
5154
« on: October 12, 2012, 10:00 »
I decided to hold off uploading anything until the site settles down a bit (or until all sales move to Thinkstock/Photos.com, whichever comes first!). But this past week has been horrendously bad - sales about half of a so-so month whereas October is typically my second-best month of the year (November is always best for me).
Given that you're reporting that new files aren't what's selling (IOW the absence of new files is not why my sales stink) I can only assume it's something more general (like the zoom feature being removed)
5155
« on: October 11, 2012, 12:45 »
5156
« on: October 11, 2012, 10:32 »
I don't think there is a way to opt out of them either. I'm pretty annoyed with Veer right now about throwing my files anywhere and everywhere. I think it may be coming to an end for me there.
I'm pondering the same question - should I remove my portfolio from there as they don't seem to have any interest in dealing with contributor concerns over third party sales - after they removed files from Alamy, there's been no communication about the general issue at all
5157
« on: October 11, 2012, 10:00 »
My reply from Ryan in contributor service yesterday was "... our tech team is working to correct it now, but it may still be a few days until we have things rolling more efficiently. " The suggested workaround of refreshing the page no longer works for me (it used to).
I appreciate getting a prompt response from support, but I find it impossible to believe this problem would take long to fix if it were any sort of priority - IOW if this were a customer focused part of the site it would be fixed in hours.
It seems that spending any money or time on contributor related things isn't happening at any of the agencies (even SS has left the mobile site for iPhones broken since iOS6 shipped weeks ago).
5158
« on: October 10, 2012, 15:25 »
I recently joined istockphoto by the request of a fellow photographer friend who told me istockphoto is the best.
Well I submitted my best 3 photo sellers I used on a few other sites only to get rejected by istockphoto.
Maybe their reviewers need a refresher course 
Without knowing what your 3 best sellers looked like, it's entirely possible that these were things that iStock "doesn't like" - for example, SS loves things very vivid and iStock is more likely to hand out "overfiltering" rejections. Raster illustrations - often among the best sellers elsewhere - are subject to almost 100% rejection rates at iStock. Each agency has its own criteria - rational or not - and so you can find very salable work that some agency won't take (DT and its similars policy, for example). It's a pain, but you could post here asking for suggestions about what to submit to iStock if you're willing to give links to your portfolios elsewhere.
5159
« on: October 10, 2012, 11:38 »
I love SS sales, but I think their reviewing is highly inconsistent and often borders on the bizarre. I've had images that were accepted at IS and DT rejected for being out of focus at SS (just had a batch of 3 rejected this way yesterday). LCV rejections on images that have sold really well elsewhere. At least they don't have an "overfiltered" rejection If the shot is outdoors and in dramatic light, the odds go way up that they'll reject - but that if they do happen to accept it, that it will sell very well there. Funnily enough, BigStock (which now appears to be doing everything via SS) just rejected some images from last fall (I had stopped uploading to BigStock) that SS accepted - BS says out of focus. I know the images aren't out of focus. I have a lovely picture I was given of a pickup truck in a swamp with the caption "Words of wisdom doni't mean sh*t until you're ready for them". IMO until SS has any interest in setting up a process to fix the things that are broken with reviewing, contributor complaints are a waste of breath - SS isn't interested in or ready for them. I've been doing this for long enough, you'd think I'd just be able to brush it off, but it still p*sses me off!
5160
« on: October 09, 2012, 19:57 »
The little icon on the right under the picture is an Add to Lightbox button
5161
« on: October 09, 2012, 19:15 »
I can't find any link either on any of my files. I have a bunch of orphaned files which have been approved, with lightbox links in their descriptions, but which I can't actually add to those lightboxes.
If the new files show up in your portfolio, sort your port by newest first and from the search results page you can add those files to the correct lightboxes (unless they broke that when trying to fix the detail page )
5162
« on: October 09, 2012, 09:43 »
I find the forums a useful resource - somewhere contributors can discuss things without being banned or having content deleted, and where we can exchange information about being a contributor to multiple sites. I think it's worth supporting it so it doesn't go away.
I found the day of ads (after my membership expired) awful - mostly because they were flashing. I found that sufficiently irritating that I'd beg that you make the ads non-flashing if you do bring them to the premium members.
5163
« on: October 07, 2012, 09:45 »
I haven't been able to get to that stats page for days, so whoever is "working on it" needs to work faster or better!
I can get to the contributor dashboard and see from the summary numbers there that they have processed a pending payment for later this month and that there is a small amount earned since October 1st. As soon as I get the money owed, I'll need to decide whether or not to pull the plug. I keep hoping they'll get their act together.
5164
« on: October 07, 2012, 09:35 »
Only for Saturday sales. My Sunday sales aren't reflected in the total
5165
« on: October 06, 2012, 19:45 »
Two weekends in a row? I would think they had hired iStock IT people, but we know they don't work weekends, so it can't be
5166
« on: October 06, 2012, 17:13 »
I put 35 in the queue on October 1st and they're still pending - I guess reviewing is slow for everyone?
5167
« on: October 04, 2012, 11:34 »
I did my version of the stats you posted and it's interesting that although there are some similarities, in spite of you having sold more overall at IS than me, my RPI for September was 17 cents and my highest this year so far - April - was 25 cents. No PP sales are included in those numbers (because of the bug on IS's side that has them all on one day). I'm at 17% royalty now too. On a separate topic, it's a shame that IS has no data showing as to when images become (or left) Photo+. It appears that StatsPlus marks something that is now P+ as having been P+ always, even though it hasn't been. Might make trying to assess pre- and post-Photo+ performance a problem. I also liked the display of monthly top 10 images over time. It was interesting to see the items that seasonally find their way back to the list (Christmas images in my case) and some that have their time and then fade away
5168
« on: October 04, 2012, 09:38 »
Alex is correct - I received a reply from support this morning. The purchase was made with 45 cent credits - "From time to time, we do give large discounts to loyal and consistent clients who buy large amount of credits in bulk and the discount is given at the discretion of our Sales and Marketing director."
So I guess luissantos84 and I were both blessed by purchases from one of these loyal and consistent clients.
5169
« on: October 04, 2012, 00:48 »
I've been around iStock since fall 2004 and I've seen a number of big ups and downs in that time - some related to earlier software eff-ups and some to best match lurches and shifts. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before though. It's overused to talk about a perfect storm, but I think they've got a combination of site problems (and the zoom and lightbox problems are biggies, not minor annoyances) following a year of relentless price increases, a deluge of dreck (mostly - there's obviously some good stuff in there too) from Getty and too many best match tweaks trying to keep the money coming and contributors somewhat calm. Can't count out the push to promote Thinkstock - they're almost caught up with getting my portfolio there after a whole year. Also bear in mind that people's September numbers are better than they think they are - I used the beta of Stats Plus to look at my September sales and found my DLs were 12% higher and $$ 15% higher than the IS stats showed me. It didn't make it a good September, but it did lift it up from the gutter a bit. I suspect that after so many other hiccups over the last few years, for some buyers who put up with things the first several times may just have had enough and moved elsewhere. A long time ago, Fotolia nearly destroyed the functioning of their site when they moved to "V2.0" and it didn't work for a couple of months. I thought it might take the site under (it was still a relative newcomer) but they fixed the problems and did really well afterwards. They've undone all that good work more recently (long story), and it may be that it was easier to recover then (summer 2007) than now. FT has recently appeared to be deliberately moving further back the images from contributors who get higher royalties - lots of complaints in MSG from emeralds whose sales dropped overnight to very much lower levels than in years past. It's certainly possible that IS might be trying to manage search results to try and sell more images on which they make the most, versus looking solely from the buyer's perspective. They'd never say if they were doing that, and there are other possible reasons for the seeming top-heavy bias in those seeing big drops at IS, but I have wondered if they were trying to do some sort of yield management on the search results. Bottom line is I have no idea! But those are my guesses
5170
« on: October 04, 2012, 00:26 »
Even if all three images were technically perfect, none of them are really useful as stock images. Nature subjects are in general over supplied and except for the stunning shots, or very well known places, or something that works as a metaphor (climber conquering mountain, for example), it's not as much in demand.
LCV is limited commercial value.
Variety would be one outdoor shot - no puppies, kitties, sunsets or flowers - one shot of a person doing something and one studio still life. Don't include shots from a point and shoot (the underwater shot) as the quality is just not good enough.
Go and shoot three new images specifically for your applicatoin - don't dredge up images from 2009, 2010 and 2011 (when these images were shot), and don't try to reprocess these.
Sorry if blunt seems a bit harsh, but it's better you know where you stand. Look at the bestselling images in the categories you chose and see what you're competing against. The bar has become quite high at the top tier agencies.
5171
« on: October 03, 2012, 19:18 »
@oxman - do you like photocase? If not, is there currently an agency that has the type of hand-picked work you'd like to see?
5172
« on: October 03, 2012, 19:16 »
I just sent in a support ticket. They do come here on and off, but even if the answer is that they're flogging very discounted credits, I'd like to get them to say that's what they're doing. I'll post here when I get a reply if they don't jump into the thread first
5173
« on: October 03, 2012, 17:15 »
...
Oh dear, that was also my point.
I think I was too obtuse. 
It must be the accent (I always hear a lovely Scottish accent, so don't spoil it! if you actually sound all R.P. I don't want to know )
5174
« on: October 03, 2012, 13:12 »
boldpixel.com is a domain for sale. Is the name just a placeholder?
How are you planning to market to buyers?
I'm less concerned with the wonderful deal contributors will get - those are easy to have at sites that don't sell - than I am with how you will market to - and appeal to - buyers.
Otherwise, the approach sounds like photocase - be quirky and edgy. I found they didn't care for anything I submitted and they have no contributor feedback other than "no thanks". All the sites say they want "quality" although what that means varies from site to site. And "...creative and beautiful..." are perfectly valid but highly subjective criteria. I completely get that there is a lot of competent but repetitive stuff on the existing microstock sites (and would note that competent and repetitive sells, so don't knock it too hard). How would you give feedback - if at all - in trying to educate contributors as to what it is you would like them to submit?
5175
« on: October 03, 2012, 10:31 »
PEL for 11.25$ ??
I just got two of those today. If we're still being paid 50% royalty, that means we got paid 22.5 cents per credit (it's 50 credits for a PEL) and the buyer paid 45 cents per. Using their online purchase tool, you can't get lower than 68 cents a credit (I tried up to 60,000 and it was still 68 cents per). So either they're shortchanging us on the percentage already - and it wasn't supposed to happen until January - or they're discounting the credits way beyond what they say on the site (as iStock does). We should have received $17 at a minimum (50% of 68 cents x 50 credits). Did you already contact support about this? I don't suppose it'll change anything, but FWIW I'll find out what weasley excuse they can come up with for this if no one else already has.
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
