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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
6401
« on: June 07, 2011, 16:21 »
I think so - except that the hint of desperation doesn't come through as well in written form...
6402
« on: June 07, 2011, 16:16 »
I have no nuts to kick, however it does make me feel that having decided to return to independence now, versus wait out 2011 and see, was a good choice. Getty's clearly trying to milk iStock's traffic for all it's worth.
They didn't say anything about prices for this new stuff yet...
6403
« on: June 07, 2011, 15:53 »
I started a thread too - oops! Leaf, can you combine or zap mine, or...
6404
« on: June 07, 2011, 15:52 »
Not content with dumping the agency collection on iStock, they now plan to put editorial content from Getty on iStock - read here.The kind of content - news, entertainment etc. - is the kind we're not allowed to submit. Some animals are more equal than others...
6405
« on: June 07, 2011, 09:44 »
I had left 600 images there but when they got opted back in it was without any keywords! At any rate, I'm both old and new as it were
What so you mean had left? Were thy deactivated? Can you even do that on Shutterstock?
You can opt out of everything, so none of your work is for sale.
6406
« on: June 06, 2011, 20:32 »
Last week was very up and down - but I would say that the number of XL and up images in the mix was greater than I typically see. OTOH, if the total numbers aren't up, it doesn't do me any good to see the mix of sizes change.
Part of my Shutterstock portfolio went live on Saturday and my first sale of 36 cents beat the 28 cents I got for a (P+) XS image at iStock the same day. Has a way of softening any of my qualms about subscriptions 
If you just started at Shutterstock how are you getting, 36 cents instead of the usual 25 cent startup royalty? Did they continue your earnings total from when you were there before exclusive at IS? Just curious.
Because I didn't just start - I am contributor #249, so go way back. I still have my old account with enough sales from before to qualify me for 36 cents. I don't have all my old portfolio online - I had left 600 images there but when they got opted back in it was without any keywords! At any rate, I'm both old and new as it were
6407
« on: June 06, 2011, 17:36 »
It's hard to separate the effects of the last best match lurch from summer slowdown. But somebody's buying on SS even if not on iStock
6408
« on: June 06, 2011, 17:34 »
I think Lisa has made many good points. I'd slightly rephrase the last part about every picture tells a story.
I think every picture does tell a story - the problem is that some (which are not successful as stock) tell that story only to the photographer or one or two others. The best stock is something that a very large group of people can quickly grasp and relate to.
A realtor who had helped us relocate once had a notion of how many buyers out of 10 will a house appeal to enough that they'll take a look. If your home appeals to 7 buyers out of 10, you'll have a much easier time selling than if it appeals to 1 buyer of 10. (She was trying to dissuade us from buying a New England colonial in Austin Texas!)
I'm sure that your images would sooner or later appeal to one or two buyers, but that won't help you build a useful stock portfolio.
You will want to try and do two seemingly contradictory things. Shoot subjects and themes that have a broad appeal and avoid just mimicking what's already there (those subjects are often well covered)
Good luck
6409
« on: June 06, 2011, 13:16 »
Congrats on iStock and do keep working on Shutterstock - it's absolutely worth it.
6410
« on: June 06, 2011, 11:37 »
Well I liked it too. Thanks for resurrecting it here.
Did you get a note as to why this wasn't acceptable for the forums or did your post just get "disappeared"?
6411
« on: June 05, 2011, 19:46 »
Lobo* just took out a post altogether that he locked a short while ago - if I were CEO of iStock by dcdp. There was nothing rude or defamatory, just a list of specific suggestions about how to do things differently. They clearly aren't going to permit discussions of that sort, no matter how polite.
* I know lobo locked the post as I read the short "lock it" post he made. I don't know that he deleted the post afterwards, only that the post is gone.
6412
« on: June 05, 2011, 12:45 »
Its helping me! Ive made 8K, during this sale so far.
wow. that's amazing! congrats.
I don't know what he means, but I don't think it is possible that he means $8,000 in less than two weeks. His iStock profile says he's sold > 40,000 licenses with a portfolio of 1,600 images. At an average of $2 per download he'd have sold 4,000 licenses to make $8K.
6413
« on: June 05, 2011, 12:18 »
Last week was very up and down - but I would say that the number of XL and up images in the mix was greater than I typically see. OTOH, if the total numbers aren't up, it doesn't do me any good to see the mix of sizes change. Part of my SS portfolio went live on Saturday and my first sale of 36 cents beat the 28 cents I got for a (P+) XS image at iStock the same day. Has a way of softening any of my qualms about subscriptions
6414
« on: June 04, 2011, 14:51 »
I think the underlying issue is a power shift. Back in the earlier days of microstock there was an eagerness on the part of sites (for the most part) to build their collections. They weren't yet making much money and then wanted contributors and their photos, illustrations, videos, etc.
As the microstock segment of the industry stopped being just an idea the trads made fun of and started making real money for the sites, the collections got bigger and slowly the power balance shifted towards the agencies. Now, we're in a situation where we need them more than they need us - individually anyway.
Once in a while you get a situation where people with power don't wield it to their own advantage, but that's rare - and it's certainly not what we are seeing at the moment with the established microstock sites.
6415
« on: June 04, 2011, 12:41 »
I looked at my June iStock stats graph and decided it summed up pretty well how I feel about the whole thing
6416
« on: June 03, 2011, 19:37 »
If this is an application image, the harsh shadows from the on camera flash will get it rejected.
You need to diffuse the flash to soften the shadows (and perhaps use some flash exposure compensation to cut back the power a bit). A reflector would probably have given you a softer fill in a setting like this
6417
« on: June 03, 2011, 17:40 »
It took them six months to decide to keep them the same??
6418
« on: June 02, 2011, 22:05 »
is Shutterstock going with PNG too?
http://buzz.shutterstock.com/about-shutterstock-site-testing
I didn't see anything in that page mention PNG - what did you see that made you think that? @sjlocke - to be fair to SS, they may not have done annual raises the way they used to, but they haven't cut contributor payments either. At this point they may be the only site that hasn't.
6419
« on: June 02, 2011, 19:48 »
That's encouraging Lisa. Keep us posted on progress every so often.
@Vita: are you planning to offer direct upload to Pixmac more broadly, or is it a case by case basis for large contributors only? I ask as I'm now returning to independent status after 2.5 years as an iStock exclusive and trying to make sure I explore all opportunities.
6420
« on: June 02, 2011, 13:09 »
I do count ELs in the earnings total, but wanted to point out there wasn't a big discrepancy in ELs between May 2010 and 2011. IOW it was a fair comparison.
6421
« on: June 02, 2011, 12:04 »
Last month as an exclusive and although it was much better than April 2011 ($$ up 26%) that isn't saying much as April was a wreck.
Compared to May 2010, downloads were down 18% and $$ down 11%. I had one more EL in May 2011 than May 2010 so roughly comparable.
6422
« on: June 02, 2011, 11:09 »
But I will never upload to Thinkstock, I think we would all be much better off if The Abomination Known as Thinkstock fails. I would love nothing more than to see that site shut down.
I had a think about Thinkstock (!) as part of my return to independent status - I've opted out of the partner program from day 1. I decided I'd be better off supporting SS by remaining opted out of the iStock partner program. If at some point they make partner program mandatory, I'll just live with it (i.e. I'm not going to pull my port over it) but otherwise they'll have to up the ante before I'll reconsider. As Getty has just strong-armed its contributors into a contract permitting them to put anything into their subscription sites, I'm not expecting them to throw in the towel any time soon, even though I think that contract change was a sign that they're getting a bit desperate to keep revenues up.
6423
« on: June 02, 2011, 09:33 »
I think the final straw for me has been the big increase in rejections with Shutterstock. They are rejecting things that I know would make money.
I have some interesting data on that as I've been uploading to Shutterstock a lot in the last few weeks. Most of the files are ones on which I have sales data already (from the last year or two). SS has rejected several of my best selling images on iStock as having limited commercial value. ex-Vetta images rejected as having poor lighting, images with shallow DOF as improper focus, etc. They've accepted a ton of things too, but I half thought of challenging the LCV rejections on the basis of the proven sales value of those files. I decided it just isn't worth the time to do as each site will just do it's own thing and my sanity lies in just accepting their foibles if I'm to sell there.
6424
« on: June 01, 2011, 17:53 »
Quite silly realy, most if not all of the top dogs are old timers! I don't think anyone could say anthing bad about them!
This just isn't true. As but one example, see CEFutcher who joined in April 2008 was diamond just over 2 years later. Or see laflor who started in early 2009 and became diamond a year later in 2010. There are many other examples of recent successes. There are many (largely invisible) old timers who are stuck at bronze or silver and are unlikely to live long enough to reach diamond. The difference between those folks and those who did reach diamond was the quality and quantity of their uploads. The idea that the iStock ship was sinking under the weight of masses of old timer diamonds collecting large percentages without contributing actively is, I think, just a myth. I don't have any way to gather the statistics to back that up, but I think you probably don't either. You keep repeating that the old system meant an ever-decreasing profit for iStock and that isn't true. No one under the old system could earn more than 40% royalty no matter how long they hung around. 60% of the gross should have been very sustainable for iStock - it just wasn't enough to feed Getty whose other businesses were in decline or H&Fs need for a return on their investment in buying Getty. The one thing that was missing from the old system was some notion of compensation levels being based on the income you brought in - with multiple collections at varying prices, it would have been wrong to count a 150 credit download as the same as a 1 credit download. So they could have blended the models to use credits not downloads and made something sustainable and fair. There's no arguing with you that the old system is gone, but it's gone because of greed, not because of a lack of sustainability.
6425
« on: June 01, 2011, 13:32 »
The previous royalty system was idiotic and indeed unsustainable!
It will never return. (And that's a good thing!)
If the targets and percentages are reasonably set (what is "reasonable" is, is open for debate) it is a perfect system.
The only flaw I see in it is that different media types have different targets instead of only one.
The old system was completely sustainable. iStock had a guarantee that it would get no less than 60% of the gross. In reality, given what a small portion of the large pool of contributors ever really get serious about building a saleable portfolio, their take wouldn't ever get that low. The new system is clearly much more profitable for them - a grading on a curve scheme where they can guarantee no more than a certain number of people get each percentage. The assumption was that they want the overall payout to be 20% to contributors and 80% to them. What you should be alert to is that (a) any system they put in place today they can change completely tomorrow and (b) the clear indication of intent to minimize payouts to contributors wherever possible makes for a challenging business relationship. Look at what they've just done to Getty contributors, forcing their content onto Thinkstock whether they like it or not (they can drop selling via Getty if they don't like it). If you find more and more of the sales of your content uploaded at iStock is sold through other outlets that don't give you RCs to maintain your royalty percentage, how fair will you feel that is? without opting out of Vetta/Agency completely, you can't control where they sell your Vetta/Agency content which is increasingly going to be a major avenue for iStock contributors to keep their earnings up in an era of decreasing downloads. Look at Sean Locke's last two monthly reports. Downloads down about 20% over the prior year in spite of an increase of about 2K images in his portfolio. You can dismiss the rest of us as lazy idiots if you wish, but Sean is the model microstocker. It's easy to be very optimistic when you're benefitting from the current system, but for heavens' sake, keep your eyes and ears open.
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