Thanks a lot for the clarification!

My point exactly. Sort of the kind of thing you would hope to be informed about explicitly and officially. If the assumption's right, that is, of course.

I know. But on the page that was linked in the notification email, they have a table specifically about credit sales on fotolia, stating only: "Royalty rates are based on contributors ranks. The higher the rank, the higher the contributor's percentage." Nothing about exclusivity.

https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/royalty-details.html?trackingid=791Y6R5P&mv=email&as_channel=email&as_campclass=nonbrand&as_camptype=acquisition&as_audience=users&as_source=adobe

Quote from: obj owl on September 28, 2018, 00:34

Quote from: Pheby on September 28, 2018, 00:02
For the life of me I can't find the commission rates for exclusive contributors for credit sales on the fotolia site. What am I missing?

https://en.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors/Royalties

Thanks. Just hope that's still valid. The new commission table on adobe stock doesn't mention exclusivity at all...

For the life of me I can't find the commission rates for exclusive contributors for credit sales on the fotolia site. What am I missing?

Auch ich finde ein eigenes deutschsprachiges Forum wichtig. Das relota-Forum war jahrelang gut besucht und wird vom dem, was in Blogkommentaren und auf fb-Pinnwänden zu lesen ist, jetzt ziemlich vermisst (auch von mir).

Actually, Leaf, Robert ist talking about a different forum than magann. It seems that two people had the same idea at the same time.

Quote from: rene on January 11, 2012, 00:24
Congratulation. I'm sure it's a good decision. I made it 2 years ago and never regret.
But I don't think contributing to Fotolia is a good choice. They have lowest commissions.

Depends - they pay me 45 %.

Good luck, eyeidea!

deleted.

Being paid in Euros makes a massive difference!

@grp_photo:

"reduce" is clearly better! "cushion" is for the verb "blow", I think.

My budget isn't really that tight. No car, no kids, no mortgage or other debt, and a cheep rent... Right now, I'm on the official average net income of where I live.

Also, I may be silver, but comparing myself to other silver members and the numbers they publish, I actually seem to sell quite a bit more than they do.

LSD72, you're quite right, that really is a fun thing! It rotates much quicker than it used to (they've speeded up since the wall came down). There might be a bit of a wait to get in though. If anyone's interested: from the conference where the hotel is you can get the tram, it takes about fifteen minutes to Alexanderplatz where the TV-Tower is.

Actually, I am exclusive to fotolia, and my stock income is about 80 percent of my total income. That it doesn't make financial sense to most other microstock contributors but does to me and a few other Europeans is due to the fact that fotolia is the market leader in Europe, and I get evidence for that every single day. I haven't seen much growth this year, I must admit, although my port is growing constantly, but I have always had steady sales from them, even when everyone is suffering the summer slow down. And of course, being in Europe, I get paid in Euros.
There was a best match shake at the beginning of the year that no longer gave new images a push in the search as it used to, but since august, new images do pick up.
Not that I trust them at all, but my leaving istock as my second best agency, more or less forced me into exclusivity, and I do have a significant plus in income. To cushion the risk (can you say that in English? ) I'm planning to shoot quite a bit of RM next year.
Being independent doesn't make sense without contributing to istock, which for me would have meant to watch them helping themselves to 84 percent, - somehow, I simply cannot bring myself to do that.

Aaaaah! The heart button! Something I had completely missed! Thanks.

Quote from: cclapper on November 01, 2011, 12:59
I am of German descent, don't speak German, but used Google Translator to read the thread. 

And again, as always when not on facebook, I'm missing the like-button! 

Quote from: sjlocke on October 07, 2011, 14:41
Saw this funny post today:

QuoteMarie LePage , Oct 06, 2011; 05:38 p.m.

My fiance are running our side business without it being business. We aren't charging anything. Now we're moving into a phase where either we charge $ and the client donates that $ to a charity OR the client and we do a service exchange. This keeps us away from the whole accounting, actually having a business thing.
However, is there a way to make a little money on this? Like is there a website where we could post all the pictures from, say, a birthday party, and then we can give out this site to all the attendees and they can order the prints from there, resulting in us getting some kind of cut? This also fixes the problem of everyone wanting a disc of all the photos from us.
We are very new to this. So feel free to state the obvious and redirect my efforts if I am doing this backwards or something.

http://photo.net/business-photography-forum/00ZQyh

What a great "business" where you don't charge anything!  I wish I had a business like that, lol.  And what a revolutionary thought - a website you could post pictures on where people can order prints.  I wonder why no one has ever thought of that one before.

Gosh, how depressingly stupid!  I run a business without running a business, because I can't be bothered with all the really businessy business stuff, but can I somehow make it a business anyway? Preferably, without it being a business...

Quote from: SNP on September 20, 2011, 01:43
I think it is totally fair to discuss something unsubstantiated as long as I state clearly that it is only surmising.

In general, ok. But bent rules and special treatment for a single contributor, don't you think that's a bit too sensitive to play with like that? And fueling a rumour like that, well that just has a bad taste to me.

Quote from: SNP on September 20, 2011, 01:30

Quote from: Pheby on September 20, 2011, 01:15

Quote from: SNP on September 19, 2011, 23:29
years ago I probably would have argued that iStock doesn't do special deals with hand-picked contributors. but then I saw the speed with which contributor Elena Vizerskaya was brought in, downloaded, made exclusive and boom--all in a very orchestrated fashion.....I love her work, that is beside the point. and theoretically I don't have any problem with superstar contributors being brought in to boost traffic etc.

So you didn't believe istock had special deals with contributors until Elena Vizerskaya turned up and rose quickly? Yeah, right.

This is the first time I've ever heard anyone referring to "questions and concerns within the community" about her and her career at istock. But there seems to have been loads of "rumbling" about her where you've been since she became an outstandingly successful contributor within a very short time (or rather "brought in" and "made exclusive" in a "very orchestrated fashion").

You've suggested multiple times in this thread that she is getting some kind of special treatment, of course without forgetting to mention often enough that her work is excellent. This is exactly how nasty rumours about people start to spread, and I'm sure you're aware of how inappropriate it is to act like that against a fellow contributor. Yeah: "kindness is a wonderful thing".

I don't want to get caught up sniping at one another, so let me request that you go back and read my comments. within every comment I clearly state how good I find her work to be. and since I don't know who you are, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you weren't in the forums on istock when this came about. there was indeed a lot of commenting on this. you may also note in my first post that I stated I don't theoretically have a problem with bringing in superstars and promoting them as part of our collection. what I do have a problem with is preferential treatment and selective bending on rules. and FWIW, I don't blame those who benefit from the rules being bent. I blame the agency for operating using double standards.

@Sean: your post surprised me. do you really feel iStock's rules are the rules? I don't anymore. the rules are less than consistent these days.

Of course I have read your posts - you might have noticed that I summarized the first one concerning this. And of course I was in the istock forums at the time.
You have no grounds to suggest that rules are being bent in favour of E. V. and that she is profiting from double standards, regardless of how often you highlight the point that you love her work and have nothing against her. Except from "It felt by design at the time". And that's how rumours start.

Quote from: SNP on September 19, 2011, 23:29
years ago I probably would have argued that iStock doesn't do special deals with hand-picked contributors. but then I saw the speed with which contributor Elena Vizerskaya was brought in, downloaded, made exclusive and boom--all in a very orchestrated fashion.....I love her work, that is beside the point. and theoretically I don't have any problem with superstar contributors being brought in to boost traffic etc.

So you didn't believe istock had special deals with contributors until Elena Vizerskaya turned up and rose quickly? Yeah, right.

This is the first time I've ever heard anyone referring to "questions and concerns within the community" about her and her career at istock. But there seems to have been loads of "rumbling" about her where you've been since she became an outstandingly successful contributor within a very short time (or rather "brought in" and "made exclusive" in a "very orchestrated fashion").

You've suggested multiple times in this thread that she is getting some kind of special treatment, of course without forgetting to mention often enough that her work is excellent. This is exactly how nasty rumours about people start to spread, and I'm sure you're aware of how inappropriate it is to act like that against a fellow contributor. Yeah: "kindness is a wonderful thing".

Quote from: MatHayward on September 16, 2011, 17:51
I believe that the number of sales in relation to the number of views increases the "popularity" and probably the relevance ranking and boosts the image location in the search. 

In other words, a photo that has been viewed 100 times and purchased 50 times would show better than an image viewed 1,000 times and purchased 50 times. 

I agree. And I strongly assume that the "popularity" factor has gained weight in the new best match.

Quote from: OM on September 16, 2011, 17:47
How otherwise can one explain a perfectly good food shot being viewed 250+ times and downloaded 12 times within a couple of days of its acceptance.

Simply like this:
Since the relaunch of the site, there are 28 images featured in the newest uploads section. Three of those are visible on the front page for a couple of hours, sometimes all day long. Those are the images that get lots of views and sometimes more than 20 downloads on their first day on the site. It happens to a lucky few every day now...

It's at the top of the page, in green, left from your account balance.

Wow! I must say, I would have liked to be in the same club as you for longer. Good luck out there!
Love your avatar, BTW!

Quote from: cobalt on August 07, 2011, 03:19
Michael wasn't "sent". When he became an admin he suggested to become an official liason/representaion whatever you want to call it. It was his idea and a good one.

Being an admin doesn't mean giving up your identity.

Thanks for that bit of information (I mean the first part of your post, the second I am aware of  ).

Quote from: cobalt on August 07, 2011, 00:25
"That's the one thing I'm missing here - an appointed istock official!  "

LOL! I can see what you mean, but I believe a friendly and patient contributor relations admin (who respectfully stays out of the istock bashing threads) could be useful. Someone service oriented.

To me MichaelJay never had that role on the German site you mentioned, he was one of us, he was active there before he became an admin at istock. And I have a lot of respect for him for not staying out of the heated istock thread last automn. It would somewhat disappoint me to learn he was "sent" there by istock to do contributor relations, I must admit. But it's a different story over there - istock doesn't play much of a part in the discussions, I can't even think of an active member that is istock exclusive, and a lot of independents seem to have pulled their ports. Most of the German contributors concentrate on Fotolia and Shutterstock as their strongest agencies.