Doesn't this sound like a variation on the IS payment scheme - weekly payments one week in arrears? IOW if you request by the cutoff on a Friday, you get paid the following Friday.

Great service, but it does make clear why it is a terrible idea to put something into a premium collection on one site (an EVO example from 123rf is used by SpiderPic) and sell it at regular prices elsewhere.

Why on earth would a buyer pay $120 for an image when they can get it for  1/10th of that elsewhere.

It also points out the rotten deal selling large raster versions of a vector for $50 at ClipArtOf when the vector itself can be had for $15 at IS.

For image sizes up to L, the prices are more in line (excepting things like CanStock which is just way too cheap) but at XL and up, the contributor is not really getting that much more at the sites other than IS. From the buyer's point of view, going to FT, BigStock or StockXpert for an XXXL image would be a huge savings.

One more reason, if one were needed, not to put exclusive IS content on Photos.com/JIU or other partner sites for much less money...

I would strongly advise you against picking a site just because you think it'll be easy to get accepted - in the long run this will do you no favors. If you're going to give it a shot - and I see no reason you shouldn't - then start wtih iStock.

I'm now an exclusive but I was an independent for 4 years - I have uploaded to all the major sites (and a few that are no longer around). High standards, a consistent review process and a large volume of buyers are good if you're going to try and build a stock portfolio. Rejections stink - we all hate them even when they're totally justified and we understand them - but if you're willing to learn from them and improve, it can be a great experience.

You'll hear some chatter about random insane rejections and no standards for IS reviewers, but that's mostly from people who haven't figured out what they're doing wrong and would rather blame the reviewers than look dispassionately at their own shortcomings. It can be hard for some people to do, but that's the way to grow.

Good luck

sjlocke, averil, thanks, that answers a couple of my questions.


What they really need is, obviously, a way for us to suggest new keywords when we submit images.  Why would they not want that?  Wouldn't we just be giving them exactly what they need?

It's not the same as a keyword suggestion feature exactly, but if you feel like taking a few minutes to make a post in the keyword forum, the moderator and IS admins do make changes - and suggest terms to you if something's already in the CV and you haven't found it. It's also a place to Scout keyword removals that you feel are in error.

Things don't always happen instantly, but you do have a way to get interactions with the folks to handle the CV updates. There are also helpful contributors who will suggest keywords you might have overlooked.

I had a look at your portfolio at DT and FT just to see why you might have had trouble getting accepted at IS. You're right that the sort of thing you do - even if presented as a vector not a raster - has a low chance of getting you accepted as a vector contributor.

I think it'd be worth your while to give it a shot to up the complexity and composition of your vectors, not only to get accepted at IS which can be a really good place to sell vectors, but to avoid having to compete with the bazillion lookalike simple vectors, buttons, banners, etc. at places like SS. You still have a fairly small portfolio, so upping the volume is one option or changing the nature of the work a bit to get a higher price per item would be the other.

Some people do really well with raster illustrations (and tend not to be at IS which isn't very willing to accept them), but I don't think you want to compete with the button and banner factories that churn out huge volumes of lookalike stuff.

As noted above, artwork and identifying numbers/letters have to go. Don't get a property release,just clone it out and resubmit (if you want it accepted without the tattoo).

The property release, if you want to go that route, will have to come from the coyrightholder of the artwork, not the person on whose finger it is tattooed.

Quote from: jsnover on January 05, 2010, 10:50

I thought the whole notion of including acceptance percentage was insane anyway - how does it help a buyer find the best images? 

Surely it is not as 'insane' as Istock's various best match factors which have included exclusivity status, ratings (spawning rating clubs), limiting the number of images from a single contributor (within the first 100) and burying all the best-selling stuff miles down the search order. How did those things help the buyers find the best images?

I didn't say I thought IS's best match was sane - I was commenting about DT's. I believe at one point Achilles had defended via a forum post their inclusion of this factor, tacitly admitted that it was one.

I'm an exclusive contributor at IS, not the author of all their software

However, I will note that when I try some sample searches these days with Best Match (not on subjects where I have any files so I'm not biasing my view) I see a lot of relevant files in the first few pages, and I think it's much better than it used to be in delivering useful results.

@Traveller,
yes.
However they increased prices and changed Image Levels structure to benefit us. And if I remember correctly you too wanted to go exclusive with IS, just like Rene.
I'm beginning to think that this is a common syndrome.
Not to worry though. It (mostly) affects people who want to go exclusive with IS.
6 months is a long time, IS is great and I can understand your frustration.

If you're going to start trying to dismiss people's comments on the basis of their status (regarding wanting to go exclusive or whatever it is makes you see a "common syndrome"), then you open yourself up to similar comments. You have a very small portfolio at DT, you haven't been there long and have a small number of sales. Other people have been with them a long time - i.e. have a lot of experience of their behavior over time vs just the last 6 months - and their perspective could be a result of that.

If I were speculating I'd say you're feeling good about DT at the moment and want to invalidate those who have a different experience and have a negative opinion of them. And that 6 month would have been one year if not for a number of us pushing back hard on DT and stopping uploads when they first proposed the lock...

Six months isn't much of a commitment in the greater scheme of things. After all the agency does have to invest significant sums in the review process, etc and it is only natural for them to insist on a few months to recover those costs. As Jonathan has pointed out tie-ins of 5 years or more are common within the macro agencies.

But the lock in doesn't actually address the issue of costs - for a hypothetical portfolio that just doesn't sell, they might never get their costs covered. It's about leverage and when a contributor can't walk whenever they want to, it gives the agency a bit more power and the contributor a bit less. Even if IS weren't part of the picture, when DT can change any and all of its terms with no notice, but you can't pull your portfolio for 6 months even if you don't like the new terms, that seems highly unbalanced.

With all the agencies except DT and BigStock, if you don't like their new commission structure or license terms or whatever, you can pull your portfolio and be on your way (in general we don't, but we could). If DT or BigStock had some sort of reciprocity in delays before new terms went into effect so contributors who didn't like them wouldn't have to be bound by them, then it would seem more equitable.

When you consider how little work the agencies actually do in microstock - compared to traditional agencies which did all the keywording and other preparations for sale - I think comparing micro and macro isn't apples to apples in terms of who does what upfront anyway. The sites do have huge up front costs to get the site up and running and market themselves, but not getting the content ready for sale.

Not recent experience, but everywhere except IS took them and they generally would sell quite well. IS has a very uneasy relationship with raster illustrations and after too many "not suitable for stock" rejections, I just decided not to fight it.

One of the rejections of a Painter created piece said that it was a great compsoition, but I should do it in the real world and photograph it rather than doing it digitally.

For a long time one of my Painter creations was my SS best seller...

I would happily do this for you, but you might want to check on whether it will actually work for you.

I mention this because I have family in the UK. We have tried various ways to be able to deal with accessing an iTunes store not in your home country and to date, have given up. Attempts from the UK to access the US store kept getting redirected (I assume Apple does something to detect where you are physically based on your ISP).

We now PayPal money to the other country to let someone in that country do the buying for that country. The rules are so stupid, but I guess we're not quite at a global marketplace yet

Without knowing people's December sales, you're not going to get much useful info from asking about the change from December to January

I'm not sure how you expect to make 10,000 sales in less than two months, but I think you're the exceptional contributor if you can.

My experience is that I make a lot of sales in October to December with November the peak (and it's been that way for 5 years, the bulk of that as an independent but the last 16 months as an IS exclusive). For me, January/February is always down without the Christmas sales. I assume for folks who sell a lot of Valentines's stuff, things are better.

If you look at the sales thread on IS, many people report a dismal December - they don't have seasonal images and that's a huge part of what sells for me in the last couple of months of the year.

Given that you get to make diamond at 25K downloads even after Feb 24th I don't think you need to worry  either way.

And black diamonds should get another royalty bump - they're certainly pulling more than their share of the load

I guess this makes it a trend - cut royalty percentages and  (a) keep those at the very top happy with a raise or status quo, plus (b) increase prices to try and disguise the long term loss of lower share for everyone else.

Hard not to view this as something that IS's recent announcement gave FT (and others) cover to do.

It's interesting that Emeralds aren't viewed as important enough to placate - I'd have thought they'd have to include them in the group to "protect" from the cuts.