Hey guys,

We updated the homepage over the weekend and the link to the contributor area is now at the bottom of the page.

Apologies for any confusion, please let me know if you are still having problems.

Thanks,

Johnnie

Quote from: mtkang on May 04, 2012, 15:53
if it is around $0.5 and 1.2, why not showing it? how about extended license? to me the extended license is the 'real commercial sale', the subscriptions i will treat it like some guys just use it for limited usage..and they are not willing to pay more. That's why extended license is a balance for whole sale.

Where extended licenses are sold these are of course reported and paid out. I hope that as the sales from your partial portfolio continue to grow it will encourage you to contribute more.

Quote from: somethingpretentious on May 03, 2012, 06:44
For 330$ pr year you can download 50 full resolution images pr week on iSignstock. Thats 2600 images for 330$ or 12.69 cent pr image which woukd leave the contributor with 3.8 cent after iSignstock has taken their 70% share...Well, we know that almost no buyers use the entire download quota, but this sure smells like a rotten deal for photographers.

Anyone care to share their RPD on iSignStock?

As you mention calculating the RPD based on the maximum download limits is a very misleading approach as literally none of our customers use their full quota. This service is marketed to sign makers. It is an important market for images but their requirement is less than say graphic designers. The vast majority purchase full subscriptions ($395) but use a fraction of their download limit. Currently the average revenue per download ranges from $0.50-$1.20 and don't forget this figure will include images they download for mock ups and samples which will never be used commercially. We have many contributors making good royalties with us and in last month's polls we were just below Panther Media and Photodune.

Quote from: Suljo on February 09, 2012, 23:10
@ Johnnie

How long it take for images to be approved?

Hi Suljo. We aim to keep review times to under a week however sometimes it can take a bit longer. As I mentioned in another thread please always feel to drop me (johnnie[at]ingrampublishing.com) or my colleague Lotti (lotti[at]ingrampublishing.com) an email and we will prioritise your files for review.

Quote from: archibald1221 on February 08, 2012, 13:31
www.isignstock.com - a lot of complains from contributors about very long files review time and other disadvantages but there also are many positive responses about quite good earnings there.

Hello!

We try our best to process submissions as quickly as possible although I'm afraid there have been a few instances where contributors have waited longer than we would like. Please always feel free to drop me (johnnie[at]ingrampublishing.com) or my colleague Lotti (lotti[at]ingrampublishing.com) an email and we will prioritise your work for review.

Quote from: jsnover on February 09, 2012, 06:54

Quote from: Johnnie on August 10, 2011, 16:22
...
Another development is that we have started handpicking certain images to distribute on our premium royalty free subscription site www.ingimage.com. Contributors involved in this premium isignstock collection can expect to see substantial royalty improvements.
...

My attention was drawn to ingImage today, and I was taken aback to read the following on the front page:

"Outstanding quality
Unlike other subscriptions our content is NOT 'crowd sourced' - which means you're always assured technically usable images created by skilled and experienced artists."

Really?

This remark is dripping with condescension towards microstock contributors, and seems to reflect a somewhat outdated view of what it takes to get images approved at the major microstock sites today.

I note that you describe the collection as "tightly edited" but you have work from the big micro stock factories - Yuri Arcurs, Monkey Business Images - just less of it. About one tenth the selection you'd find at Shutterstock, but not noticeably different when looking at a few sample searches.

When you look at popular images at your site and Shutterstock and see many of the same images, it rather gives the lie to this "we're better than microstock" advertising pitch.

I'm sorry that you find this sentence condescending towards microstock contributors this was by no means our intention.

Unlike most microstock sites ingimage does not have a direct upload system for contributors – I suppose you could say we are invite only. Also, we have a minimum size requirement which is significantly larger than (as far as I know) all other microstock sites. Finally all images are carefully edited, catalogued and ranked on an individual basis before upload.

Please also understand that this is part of our marketing approach towards customers in a very competitive market. It is not directed at contributors - we have no desire to insult you or anyone else.

Thanks for the positive feedback Kjorgen!

We are really keen to get more of you guys on board with us and are confident that we will compare favourably to the so called middle (if not higher) tier agencies.

We are more than happy to support large submissions via hard drive or FTP and assist with all the releases and data management.

As always please feel free to drop me an e-mail (johnnieatingrampublishing.com) if you have any questions.

Just to add:

If you are unsure about who is supplying your work to Reflex Stock then please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thanks!

Hello,

My colleague has just made me aware of this post. Indeed Reflex Stock was taken over by Ingram Publishing a few months ago. As some of you have already mentioned we have a number of partners including 123RF, Panther Media and Canstock.

We are currently working on a number of site improvements including the way we display our partner's images. We are very excited about the future of Reflex Stock and hope many of you will benefit from existing and futures partnerships.

Best regards,

Johnnie

Quote from: CD123 on August 11, 2011, 23:55

Quote from: mtkang on August 10, 2011, 16:49
it is the only agency who doesn't give a sales report... are contributors kind of labour that doesn't need attentions? shouldn't we know which files had been downloaded and how much we had been paid?

it is really strange..and it is strange that most of the contributors have to accept this kind of conditions. I had stopped uploaded till i see the sales report.

Agreed that it is absolutely necessary to get such a report, but I think you are cutting your nose to spite your face. These guys are super friendly and the site has brought in much more for me than most of the so called "middle tier" ripoffs. Will keep on supporting a site with good sales, friendly staff, a sound history and the will to improve.

Best of luck to Johnnie and the team - make us proud!  

Thanks for the kind words CD123.

I completely understand the desire for detailed sales reports and our techincal guys have been looking at this for a while now. I will do my best to keep you all updated on progress with this.

Quote from: jm73 on August 10, 2011, 16:32
Hello Johnnie,

I would like to ask if there is any way how to get IPTC data from vector files. You don't want JPG previews and IPTC data from EPS files are ignored by your system. I don't want to copy keywords for the rest of my life. 

Thanks.

Hi there,

Yes you can get IPTC data from JPG for EPS through our FTP upload. I will send you an e-mail with the server details shortly!

Thanks,

Johnnie

Dear All,

Please accept my apologies for the recent lack of correspondence. We have been super busy at isignstock over the last few months developing technical and commercial aspects of the site. Hopefully those of you already working with us will have had a chance to use the new features. I'm particularly pleased with the release manager which should make organising images and assigning releases a much easier experience. The request payment button also seems to be proving popular!

Another development is that we have started handpicking certain images to distribute on our premium royalty free subscription site www.ingimage.com. Contributors involved in this premium isignstock collection can expect to see substantial royalty improvements.

The time spent on these developments has resulted in slow review times for certain contributors and I'm very sorry if you have been affected by this.  We are endeavouring to have all images reviewed within a week of upload.

Thanks again for all your feedback. I appreciate that download reporting and sales specifics are high on some people's list and we are still looking at ways to incorporate this. Naturally we will continue to look at other areas for potential improvement  As always any suggestions or questions are more than welcomed.

With best regards,

Johnnie

Quote from: sharpshot on April 03, 2011, 15:01
Isn't is easier for them to add a payment request on the site than for all of us to have to request payment via email?  It's going to be more admin for them as well, I really think they should sort that out or just pay us automatically when we reach their payout level..

Completely agree and as stated above a 'request payment' button is high on our agenda along with a number of other improvements to the contributor area. As always please feel free to drop me an e-mail if you have any questions, suggestions or concerns.

Quote from: microstockphoto.co.uk on April 03, 2011, 13:20
My files were eventually reviewed. Near 100% acceptance.

Quote from: mtkang on April 03, 2011, 12:03
there is still no info of which images had been downloaded and how much had been paid?

all i got is a sum number of royalties every month. I want to know what had been sold and how much it had been sold.

All I see is: "March 2011  £ 32,89 + $ 50 bonus"

It's a bit suspicious that the amount in pounds and dollars is roughly the same, so I don't even know if it's $50 bonus plus £32,89 sales or just the 50 dollars bonus expressed in pounds. If £32.89 is sales, it's pretty good since I've been there for one month only.

And I can't find the payment request button. Johnnie said in a previous post: "You will need to request a payout - to do this please send us an invoice which includes PayPal or Moneybookers details", but I'm not sure how it works: should I send an from PayPal or Moneybookers? To which email account?

Hi there,

These are separate figures. The £32.89 is your royalty for March and the $50 is your upload bonus. A payout request button is at the top of our improvement list and the technical team are currently work on this. In the meantime please drop me an e-mail (johnnieatingrampublishing.com) with your PayPal or Moneybookers address and I will forward this on to our finance department.

Thanks,

Johnnie

Quote from: visceralimage on February 15, 2011, 21:40

Quote from: penywise on February 15, 2011, 19:13
I submitted a bunch of photos on the 2nd as a new user, and they still have not been reviewed.  Won't get a bonus if they don't review them.

If I understood the offering, the images must be uploaded by the 14th; but could be accepted after that date and still receive the bonus.  I missed the bonus as my ftp info did not come till the 15th.

Hello,

You are indeed correct, if the images are uploaded before the closing date but accepted afterwards they will still count. Please note we have extended the bonus scheme to the 23rd February to give everyone a chance to use the FTP. Just to be clear this is our second bonus scheme and it is only available to new contributors who have not uploaded images before.

Best regards,

Johnnie

Hello everyone,

Thanks very much for all the replies. I'm thinking it may be best to discuss individual royalty payments by email so I don't clog up the thread.
[mtkang if you go to your royalties and then back to 2010 you should see your upload bonus. I have already spoken directly to kjorgen.]

We now have an FTP set up for contributors. If you wish to use this then please drop us an email and we will set you up with an account. The automated payout feature is a great idea and we will definitely look to implement this. I'm afraid we don't have download reporting in the contributor area due to the way our system is set up however this is something we hope to have in place in the future.

Please feel free to email me directly (johnnie[at]ingrampublishing.com) if you have any questions or concerns.

Once again thank you for all your feedback it's much appreciated. I will do my best to keep you all updated on progress.

Have a great weekend,

Johnnie

Quote from: fxegs on February 01, 2011, 16:09
I have sales from november to january, each month more than the precedent one... What I don't know is if the total in the last month is the addition of all the months or only the volume of that one. Beacuse I can't find otherwise the total. I don't know either when we get paid...
In December it appears a quantity for my uploaded images in the promo period.

Hi there,

The amounts are not accumulative so this is what you made in each month. Our minimum payout with Paypal or Moneybookers is USD60/GBP40. You will need to request a payout - to do this please send us an invoice which includes PayPal or Moneybookers details. Our accounts department will process contributor payments in the second week of each month.

I hope this is helpful,

Johnnie

Dear all,

Please accept my apologies for the lack of correspondence over the last month. I'm afraid we have had a few technical issues with royalty reporting and image views however everything has now been corrected. Royalties, bonus payments and image views are now all live and accurate in the contributor area. All the zero figures showing were almost certainly incorrect – I'm very sorry for any confusion or concern this has caused.

Moving forward we are currently working on a number of improvements for the contributor area which will hopefully make it a more user friendly experience. This includes batch release attaching and a scrolling feature between pages in the portfolio.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the contributor area - any suggestions for improvement or general feedback would be greatly welcomed.

We are also working on a variety of initiatives in order to further extend the reach of isignstock including our imminent alignment with a leading global  supplier within the sign industry.  Full implementation will take a few months but the beginning stages of this co-operation are already in motion.  The consequent promotion through this partner's international dealer network will put your content in front of a whole new market.

With best regards,

Johnnie

Quote from: leaf on October 27, 2010, 14:21
I just tried to upload some images with releases and couldn't find a way to batch attach releases to images, and didn't see a way to attach several releases to a single image.  Am I missing something?

Hello. The best way to attach releases in batch is through the excel processor.

Firstly upload the relevant images and releases to your account. Then using our excel template list all filenames with the corresponding releases you wish to attach. Once processed, the releases will be linked to the images in your account. Please note a batch release application is also currently being worked on.

Quote from: mtkang on October 27, 2010, 07:30
bring up this question again, so there is no way to read IPTC for an eps vector?

Quote from: mtkang on October 25, 2010, 07:29
anyway to upload eps vector to get IPTC read from preview jpg? filling every IPTC data for eps vector is taking too much time.

Hi there sorry for the slow reply.

Our current upload system does not support IPTC data extraction from JPG previews for EPS files. However there are a couple of ways around this. Firstly you could use our excel processor to upload a sheet of metadata. If you do not have the means to extract IPTC data into an excel sheet then we are happy to do this ourselves - all we require is that you send us your JPG previews via FTP or DVD.

We are currently developing full FTP support for the contributor area which will include JPG IPTC extraction for EPS files. I will keep you updated on this.

Thanks,

Johnnie

Quote from: mtkang on October 21, 2010, 06:50
do u lock the file for certain period? do contributors have control over the files? to remove or disable?

Hi there. For removal requests we require 2 months for non exclusive and 6 months for exclusive. You can change metadata once images are live however you can't delete from your portfolio without prior contact.

Quote from: leaf on October 20, 2010, 12:35
Do you have FTP Johnnie?  I was going to try uploading a few images to test things out and I could only find the browser uploader?

Our new contributor area is currently using a browser upload and we encourage photographers to use this as it automatically extracts title and keyword information. However for larger submissions we can offer FTP support and will also accept external hard drives / DVDs.

Quote from: Randomway on October 20, 2010, 11:54
Could you describe the requirements for 'vinyl ready' vectors. I'm unfamiliar with this type of format.

Hello. A vinyl ready file will have no overcuts or overlapping shapes - thus optimised for a vinyl cutting machine.

Quote from: RT on October 20, 2010, 11:33
@ Johnnie,

I notice you avoided answering my post in your most recent replies, from which I can only draw one conclusion!

Sorry but for me there's already enough sites that are paying us next to nothing, the advantage being they have the sales quantities to justify uploading there, as gostwyck has stated in his post above even at your quoted "average download of 2 images a week" it means we'd receive very little in return for our work and I'd be supporting a site that in my mind is taking a step backwards in the amount we're being paid in commissions by agencies.

Given the latest outcry over the iStockphoto commission cut I find it hard to believe any contributors that take this business seriously will support a commission structure such as yours.

Sorry to miss your post: Like many other libraries we have a high maximum download figure for marketing purposes. Some customers will feel uncomfortable with a smaller limit - even if they are very unlikely to reach it.

Quote from: gostwyck on October 20, 2010, 10:48

Quote from: Johnnie on October 20, 2010, 10:03
Yes and yes, please remember most isignstock buyers only download on average 2 images per week!

Thanks

That suggests to me that sales for most contributors are going to be few and far between and won't pay much anyway.

According to the UK site an annual 'Complete Subscription' costs £295. If a customer downloads 2 images per week (104 per year) then at 30% commission the contributor will receive just 85p (about $1.36) per sale __ and that's apparently for an 'extended license'.

Please can you explain what the 'extended license' means in this instance. Does it mean that the image can be replicated for an entire fleet of vehicles?

If a customer bought the 'Images only' subscription and downloaded the average of 2 images per week then the contributor would receive just 63p ($1.02) per sale. Of course in either case if the customer downloads more images than the average then there is no benefit to the contributor as they will simply be paid less per sale. As you have all the sales data I think you should be taking the risk and pay a fixed amount per sale.

Sorry Johnnie but I don't see that this is likely to generate any significant income for contributors __ maybe enough to buy an occasional frothy coffee by the sound of it.

We expect to be selling tens of thousands of subscriptions and our average payment per image download is around one dollar. We have a direct sales team covering Europe and we have many existing customers who are in the process of subscribing or already have. May I add that our existing contributors on ingimage are generally very happy with their royalty payments.

The 'Vehicle Outlines – Extended' license is a subscription option for customers who just want access to this file type. With this they can download 1000 vehicle outlines over a year instead of the normal 200. They can't download images with this subscription option.