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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
5526
« on: April 13, 2012, 00:43 »
Another contributor who contacted support already was told by Veer that this was credit card fraud. They're sorry, but when the sale is cancelled the royalties must be taken back. That contributor was hit a whole lot harder than my measly $7 refund.
I know we went through all this when iStock snatched back a bunch of cash, but I still feel the same way - the agency allowed the fraud to happen; our files were delivered to the customer; the agency can't/won't get the files back but they want to take away contributor royalties anyway. The agency takes the lions share of the gross and part of their expense should be dealing with fraud.
I think the agencies are just trying to boost their profits at contributors' expense when they can't grow the top line (revenues). It's not right, but short of taking our content and walking away, I don't know how (at the moment) we can get the agencies to behave fairly and decently. My only thought is that at some point they'll need something from us and that will be the point at which we can try to undo some of these "more cash for the agency" policies. At this point, I think the only agency that hasn't ever hit me with a refund is SS.
5527
« on: April 12, 2012, 00:16 »
And now I see that I was lucky enough to receive a refund today for a sale made April 1st - "Flowering trees Refund Standard XXLarge Return √ ($7.00)"
So why this sudden rash of refunds for so many people? If Veer doesn't step in here this week, I think I'll send something to support asking for an explanation next week.
5528
« on: April 11, 2012, 12:06 »
Just you - at least with Chrome 18.0.1025.151 on Mac OSX 10.6.8
5529
« on: April 11, 2012, 11:03 »
Seven months?! Might be worth e-mail to support to ask them why a refund was given such a very long time after a sale. They may pull an iStock and tell you to piss off (that's how I interpret iStock's garbage answer that they're too busy to give you the exact reason) but it might be worth a try.
I really think there needs to be a time limit on refunds. Stores do it with physical goods, why not with image licenses? Given that we don't know the buyer, we can't even check up to see that they're being honest about it. I'm sure the agency isn't returning money to the customer, just credits, so it's no skin off their nose if they allow this sort of thing.
5530
« on: April 11, 2012, 09:44 »
I've never had a refund at Veer (that I know of) - how do they record that? Does it show up on the statistics tab of the Dashboard?
5531
« on: April 10, 2012, 19:47 »
I'm getting sales, but it's just very, very slow (as someone who returned to independence last June, most of my portfolio is "new" and thus hurt by best seller default search). Two so far today, three yesterday - more like a slow weekend.
5533
« on: April 10, 2012, 13:12 »
I don't think so, but a google search revealed that a rear end eye is part of a spring in a car, so perhaps they were trying to do something with that and goofed in placing it in the CV hierarchy??
5534
« on: April 09, 2012, 13:48 »
If they don't fix the search, I don't care what levels they make the images, it won't make any difference to me 
5535
« on: April 09, 2012, 01:27 »
I think it's pretty simple to set the standard, and on this issue, IMO iStock has it right. You have to own the copyright to any reference image you use in creating an illustration. IOW you need to have taken the photo if you use one as a reference. If you draw from scratch you need screen captures of the work in progress at varying stages to show you drew it. These get uploaded (along with a model release if necessary) with your illustration.
I don't understand if this interview is with someone who sells the tutorials on Envato, but I think the same standard should apply to any work used in a tutorial too.
Saying "it's hard" doesn't excuse using other people's copyrighted work in material you sell.
5536
« on: April 09, 2012, 01:17 »
Those of you who are actively submitting - what's your opinion of the inspections? Are they sensible and consistent? I see some changes are in the works, but no schedule was given.
I've just come back from a week away, so perhaps things have become sane in the interim, but in general I've found their (outsourced) inspections utterly inconsistent. I just upload and forget it (unlike other sites where I try to learn their likes and dislikes to feed them only what they want).
5537
« on: April 09, 2012, 00:44 »
I use the Wacom tablet and stylus for everything. It isn't everyone's choice, but after about a decade of using one I can't imagine going back to a mouse. I think for mask making, painting as well as work with the pen tool in illustrator or Photoshop, the pen works so much more like a pen or brush in the real world.
5538
« on: April 08, 2012, 02:08 »
It didn't used to be like this...
Am I the only one who remembers Peebert?
Although I should admit that I don't know much about what it is like there now. I go to request payments, remove a few more of my flamed images when I have some spare time, and don't need IS for anything.
No, I remember Peebert too. Brusque to a fault and merciless, but as Lisa says, very funny. Heart, heart, unicorn, rainbow. The iStock forums have changed dramatically in the last 18 months. I don't post there any more because Lobo banned me too - for one sarcastic post in a thread about the Feast site that they started (the sarcasm was about why they were starting up a new site when we had a list of bugs as long as your arm that weren't being fixed for the main site). Getty's running the show now...
5539
« on: April 05, 2012, 22:27 »
I wondered if the site had been down - one sale on a weekday was pretty surprising!
5540
« on: April 05, 2012, 18:57 »
Good news bad news situation.
Good news I went over $100 in earnings so I went to request a payout (it's actually a $50 threshold but I had never looked). The bad news is that requesting today, they'll pay me on the 15th of May. I can't believe that there's such a long wait - I assumed the 15th of this month, having apparently misread the text. I think I'd have done better to choose the other option - to pay me everything I was owed on April 30th.
Why they could pay me more, sooner if I picked the other option I have no idea. All seems pretty unreasonable to me. I understand they have to avoid too much administrative overhead, but some sort of balance with contributors getting their cash is important too.
5541
« on: March 29, 2012, 11:45 »
I bow to your superiority, both of you Do let us know how things work out over time - eating humble pie and trying again might be an option if it becomes the hot new place to sell...
5542
« on: March 27, 2012, 20:31 »
If a new agency was offering higher commissions, then sure, I'd be on board. But if the commissions are lower, aren't we just racing ourselves to the bottom?
One new agency that may have potential is AYCS ; They are very new, but going against the grain of what we're used to seeing from every other agency which is selling stock for pennies, at least they allow you to set your own price, and on top of that are paying out 75% commission.
i decided to upload there and I know sales will initially be slow, but I think giving it a year or so may be a better investment than getting 25-30 cents per sale at some of the other newer sites
They need to fix their search - I did one for Boston harbor and got a bunch of spam from other places - apparently they do an "OR" search by default.
5543
« on: March 27, 2012, 15:09 »
I think they've given up on reviewing altogether. I have a batch of images uploaded 8 days ago still sitting in the pending queue. Is anyone else getting files reviewed by them at the moment?
5544
« on: March 27, 2012, 09:41 »
I haven't had that rejection, but I do make sure that my titles are different and include important keywords from the image. I think some people had claimed this made a difference in search placement at DT - an image with keywords and title having the same words ranked higher than one with just that keyword.
The particularly unpleasant part of new "rules" like this is that it whacks your approval percentage which some think affects search placement as well. I don't think any of the sites have the number of punishments for contributors that DT does. If they were going to make a rule of this sort, then they should do a quick search of the database when you click submit and tell you that you can't use that title or description because it's already in use (as someone else could have used it already). That would at least avoid this "gotcha" approach - and theoretically help out their inspectors as they'd only receive files that passed the long list of rules imposed...
5545
« on: March 26, 2012, 17:45 »
Insipired by Marisa's success with Photocase, I thought I'd give it a try. I have plenty of non-studio shots and I picked three to try - rejected. Picked another three (in all cases different images - nothing from a series). Rejected. Had a thought about something that might work - those four rejected. Given 10/10 rejections and no clue beyond "we don't like these", I'm done. If sales were through the roof it might be worth trying to reverse engineer what they want - all they will say is look at the images already on the site for a clue. Clearly I'm clueless. The only good thing I have to say about/for them is that I received an e-mail a week after signing up asking how I liked photocase and with links to various things. Good idea to do that and try and stay in touch with customers/contributors. I did reply to that "tell us what you think" e-mail explaining that I clearly wasn't for them, and if at some point they want to increase the number of images they have, they might think about a little more coaching for newbies about what exactly they're looking for (and not). I'll go away and lick my wounds now
5546
« on: March 26, 2012, 11:40 »
I just checked my spam filters and the e-mails aren't there. Nothing for the last several batches (but they are showing up in my portfolio, including some uploaded yesterday and approved this morning)
5547
« on: March 25, 2012, 12:16 »
I'm now seeing 1,031 and all have thumbnails
5548
« on: March 23, 2012, 21:37 »
I thought subscriptions had died completely - but today I saw a post for a 25 cent sale yesterday. The last (subscription) sale before that was Jan 12th. I don't know if that's good news or bad news The reason it would be bad news is a subscription at the very low minimum payout, as most of them have been.
5549
« on: March 22, 2012, 19:21 »
They didn't send me one either, but then I'm not on their favorite people list
5550
« on: March 20, 2012, 21:31 »
I was pretty good for the week or so after, but things have settled in to a slow but steady pace of sales. Being on the front page almost never hurts
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