Opted out in January -> thread "Are things going well in microstock?"

Since then, I experienced a sharp drop in credit sales (not a single DL last week, never had that since I joined StockXpert).

Yesterday, I opted in again to see if there is any correlation.

Quote from: ichiro17 on March 17, 2008, 16:04
stopped uploading to them almost 8 months ago.  not worth my time for 60 cents a month

ditto, 6 month ago, same reason

Joined  Mar-06-2007
-> 4566 dl so far. Stagnating at 350-400 dl/month. Once was my #1 site for revenue, but constantly dropping back.

-> holgs, are we still in the $ 1000,-- overall earnings race you started last month? Nobody else? Love your new istock travel images! Ever thought about putting them to macro-sites?

Quote from: FlemishDreams on March 13, 2008, 10:59
An apple is fruit and food, so "apple, isolated" would be enough. Don't forget "green" for the color. Not all apples are created equal.
So forget "apples, fruity, health, healthy, slimming, calory, calories, low, cholesterol, medicine, agriculture, nature, tasty, juicy, slim, diet, dieting, natural, sexy" 

So if I had an image of an apple, the keywords:

religion paradise adam eve serpent sin lust desire

would not be acceptable?? What a shame, these guys are just too restrictive... 

Congrats sharply, way to go!
Regards,
Manfred

Overall down -8% compared to January 2008 (was BME).

istock                           44,5%
shutterstock                  15,2%
panthermedia                  9,8% (BME)
dreamstime                     8,9%
shotshop (Germany)         6,5% (BME)
stockxpert                      5,8%
123rf                             3,5% (BME)
digitalstock (Germany)      3,0%
others (FT,BS)                2,8%

uups, I just checked my snapvillage account (I do that only once in a while due to VERY low expectations...): hard to believe, but my first DL there ($7,50). Time to upload some more images now....

330
-------------
4482

Quote from: holgs on February 02, 2008, 19:26
Also a very good month for me. BME on all sites except BS. Breakdown is:

SS - 42%
IS - 41%
DT - 10%
FL - 5%
BS - 1.8%

Canstock - 0%
Snapvilliage - 0%

Anyone up for a race to $1k per month?? This month has me at 65% of the way to that goal...

Just for the fun of it: I join for the $1k race: 70% of it in January.
BTW: great travel images!

35% sub dl (20 of 58)
meager $ 0,12 RPI (monthly return per image in portfolio)
7,7% of microstock earnings in January (=position #5)

not impressing at all....

Quote from: epixx on February 02, 2008, 04:04

Quote from: stokfoto on February 02, 2008, 00:22

Quote from: grp_photo on February 01, 2008, 23:36
Imho it's dumb to submit editorial images to Microstock-agencies and news related editorial even more.

I agree with that unless they apply a different pricing structure to it I don't see much point uploading editorial content a microstock site.

Agree

Agree

Quote from: faber on February 01, 2008, 05:03
Jan=BME (+ 10% compared to previous BME=Nov 07)
300+ images

iStock                     45,9% (BME)
shutterstock            15,5%
digitalstock.de          12,5%(BME, German site)
panthermedia            7,9% (BME)
dreamstime               7,7%
stockxpert                7,1%
other (bs,ft,123rf)      3,2%


As said by Nazdravie: "istock is absolutely rocking"!!!

Very disappointing results and declines at dreamstime, stockxpert, shutterstock.

Surprising good resuls at digitalstock and panthermedia despite low number of uploads (so far <90 images).

Results are something to think about regarding future upload strategies...(see also thread "are things going well in microstock")

I will add my numbers regarding site efficiency here, because I realized that they are important for me regarding future upload strategy.

RPI (monthly return per image in portfolio)
panthermedia      1,3
digitalstock         1,05
IS                     0,99
SS                    0,35
StockXpert                  0,17
DT                    0,12

Quote from: Travelling-light on January 31, 2008, 21:50
.........
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

Same here.

I will upload only to iStock and German mid-stock sites for some time and see what happens. And try to get accepted at alamy/photoshelter.

BTW, is istock still microstock or rather moving to midstock?

Jan=BME (+ 10% compared to previous BME=Nov 07)
300+ images

iStock                     45,9% (BME)
shutterstock            15,5%
digitalstock.de          12,5%(BME, German site)
panthermedia            7,9% (BME)
dreamstime               7,7%
stockxpert                7,1%
other (bs,ft,123rf)      3,2%


As said by Nazdravie: "istock is absolutely rocking"!!!

Very disappointing results and declines at dreamstime, stockxpert, shutterstock.

Surprising good resuls at digitalstock and panthermedia despite low number of uploads (so far <90 images).

Results are something to think about regarding future upload strategies...(see also thread "are things going well in microstock")

Quote from: holgs on January 26, 2008, 09:04
In any event I've decided over the next few months to:
1. Concentrate on uploads to IS
2. Continue uploading to SS - but with reduced resolution
3. Stop uploading to the "cheaper" or low volume sites such as DT, FL and BS
4. Convert my $8 in earnings on CS to credits, download someone else's photos and close my account there. I'd rather another photographer get some revenue than the site.
5. Consider exclusivity at IS if sales there continue to rise.

Similar thoughts here.

And I even might stop uploading to Shutterstock - if you consider uploading images as (at least medium-term) investments, its just a too bad return there.

My impression is that the market is willing to pay reasonable prices for images, no need for giving them away nearly for free.

And I will try to upload to macrostock sites (first on the list is alamy). Maybe we amateurs just have to do a little "trial and error" to learn how far we can go in this market and whats the right direction.

No slowdown in DL but significant increase in $$, so far 15% more than previous BME (Nov 2007) with 4 weekdays left for January.

Istock jumped to 46% of my microstock income for January. Needless to say I´m happy with the price adjustments.

My understanding (as an amateur/hobbyist in photography but business veteran in another area) is that for the microstock companies, its BUSINESS and not a hobby. So ordinary business rules apply (like in ANY business). And top on the list of those business rules are competitiveness and profitability. "share the wealth" (helix7) is not one of the main issues as far as I understand these rules.

As a "manufacturer" (photographer) my concern is to optimize my own profitability by choosing the best sales channel within the given market. With this, my first concern is how much money the sales organisation (=microstock company) puts in MY pocket. How they do this is their business - and market rules apply. How much they put in their pocket (and how they spend it) is secondary for me. So as long as iStock is putting more money in my pocket than other companies, its fine for me. Maybe they invest their 80% share in marketing and business development? Maybe this is one of the reasons they are among market leaders? Maybe they are smarter doing their business? Anyway, these are questions that their competitors should ask themselves. Its their job to challenge iStock, not mine as a contributor - I just want results and so far they are delivering better than other companies.

So I also agree with sharply_done regarding FP: 70/30 sounds great - but its worthless if they are not willing or able to penetrate the market thus creating not enough profit for the photographer.

And to come back to the thread: part of my efforts to optimize my "sales channel" is to opt out of subscription where possible and limit the size of images to sub-only companies. And I might follow other options in the future.

Maybe it´s a bit early. Overall rather slow start. But one surprise: based on $$/day istock shot up, so far twice as much as in December (which was bad) and even 12% higher as in November (was BME), resulting in 49% of overall revenue in January.

So far I like the price change at istock.

Quote from: faber on January 07, 2008, 21:18
Subscription opt-out and downsize list:

Yuri Arcurs
Freezingpictures
GeoPappas
Smithore
rene
sharpshot
ldambies
epixx
latex
FlemishDreams.
RTimages
Vonkara
helix7
Travelling-light
Mjp
northflyboy
ason
sorsillo
boatman
Alex
Eco
Rozmaryna
Pixelbrat
Read_My_Rights
vphoto
faber (300 images)

I just added the number of my images (see above). Maybe you can do that too, so we can easily see the overall number of images affected by this.

Subscription opt-out and downsize list:

Yuri Arcurs
Freezingpictures
GeoPappas
Smithore
rene
sharpshot
ldambies
epixx
latex
FlemishDreams.
RTimages
Vonkara
helix7
Travelling-light
Mjp
northflyboy
ason
sorsillo
boatman
Alex
Eco
Rozmaryna
Pixelbrat
Read_My_Rights
vphoto
faber (300 images)

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on January 07, 2008, 12:42

Quote from: faber on January 07, 2008, 12:35

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on January 07, 2008, 12:14

Quote from: faber on January 07, 2008, 12:00
Just a curious question from an amateur: why do you pros and semi-pros sell your images with margins of 0,25$ instead of selling through macrostock companies?

It's not like you just walk into a macro agency and say "hi, wanna sell my pictures" Macrostock is very conservative and highly concerned about image, so being a microstocker you are at the very bottom. People spend up to four years of work and get big loans paying for the production fees building a portfolio to present to macrostock agencies so they maybe can be accepted...

Yuri, thank you for your feedback and clarification! So my understanding is that you (and others) went "pro" via microstock - then it´s a different picture for me now (still have to learn a lot about this business...).

From that perspective, the "downsize" approach makes sense - to be specific: what maximum size would you suggest ("medium" at IS is 5.5 MP - a Nikon D50 is producing 6 MP, freezingpictures is suggesting "4-5 MP")?

Well, I´m just a tiny little contributor but if it helps you big guys (and it will not hurt me) you can add me to the list (ha - joining a little microstock-riot is fun...)

Nope. But if you want to join the good macros it's not easy...Getty, Corbis, Jubiter, Masterfile, Blend, Tetra. etc.

mmhhhh..... I regulary look at corbis and getty images (for "educational" purposes) - some are quite outstanding, but there is also a lot of mediocre stuff compared to top microstock images (I have to admit just from my amateur point of view...).

Could it be the these sites just protect a "closed market" regarding photographers?

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on January 07, 2008, 12:14

Quote from: faber on January 07, 2008, 12:00
Just a curious question from an amateur: why do you pros and semi-pros sell your images with margins of 0,25$ instead of selling through macrostock companies?

It's not like you just walk into a macro agency and say "hi, wanna sell my pictures" Macrostock is very conservative and highly concerned about image, so being a microstocker you are at the very bottom. People spend up to four years of work and get big loans paying for the production fees building a portfolio to present to macrostock agencies so they maybe can be accepted...

Yuri, thank you for your feedback and clarification! So my understanding is that you (and others) went "pro" via microstock - then it´s a different picture for me now (still have to learn a lot about this business...).

From that perspective, the "downsize" approach makes sense - to be specific: what maximum size would you suggest ("medium" at IS is 5.5 MP - a Nikon D50 is producing 6 MP, freezingpictures is suggesting "4-5 MP")?

Well, I´m just a tiny little contributor but if it helps you big guys (and it will not hurt me) you can add me to the list (ha - joining a little microstock-riot is fun...)

Just a curious question from an amateur: why do you pros and semi-pros sell your images with margins of 0,25$ instead of selling through macrostock companies?

I think the microstock business is great for:
1) microstock companies (if they do the job right)
2) designers looking for inexpensive  images
3) amateurs like me and others -> "....not gaining revenue is a downer, but seeing your images everywhere must be a buzz.." (quote josh_crestock) is true/valid for me - but I don´t have to pay my loans with that.....

But for professional photographers? Or is it just a place where you sell your second grade quality (hope its the right wording - me german, bad english.....) and your main income is created by specific customers and/or RM?

Again, I´m just curious (in fact this issue is puzzling me from a "business point of view" since I entered the "microstock-world" in early 2007).

Quote from: sharply_done on January 03, 2008, 22:04......... Powerful images are often accepted even when they contain many flaws. Weak images are often rejected even when they are technically perfect.

From my own (limited) expericence, I strongly agree with that. I guess it´s a generic "we dont like it" (because of overall weaknesses) response.

And to be honest, in my case most of these rejections were justified. Opinions may vary between the individual inspectors - but in general I still get valuable feedback from rejections (submitting to microstock sites since early 2007).

"rejections for no good reasons (-> quote cclapper)" are rare exceptions.

You kids play with your kid-cameras.....

THIS is a real camera!!!

http://www.ounae.com/2006/09/25/seitz-nos-ofrece-una-camara-tamano-xxl-de-160mpix

I just love the image with the guy doing a vertical shot...guess he spent years of hard exercise in the gym to get the muscles you need....and its so inconspicuous...

LOL....

December sales ($$) down 36% compared to November.


1. Shutterstock - 33,6%
2. iStockphoto - 30,4
3. dreamstime - 16.7%
4. stockXpert - 7,7
5. digitalstock - 6,7% -
6. other - 4,9% (123rf, fotolia, BigStock,shotshop)

Shutterstock back on first place due to 2 EL sales.