Quote from: Noedelhap on February 04, 2017, 10:16

Quote from: RetroColoring.com on February 01, 2017, 05:29
Ok, I updated the original vote and made it more specific.

You should change the poll question to: who's your third biggest earner?

yeah, that make sense - I changed the poll question, thanks!

Ok, I updated the original vote and made it more specific.

Thanks everyone! I was thinking that it would be interesting to find out what stock brings more money to photographers recently (not videographers) along with Shutterstock and Fotolia. Microstock Poll Results in the right column are not much relevant because of "iStock exclusive" on the second place - I don't want to consider exclusive contributors at all.

Dear fellow vector artists! If we consider that Shutterstock keeps 1st place, Fotolia - 2nd, who's your 3rd top earner among Big 4 or probably among middle tier too? I mean recently: during 2016 and in the beginning of this new year, not during your whole life-long stock career. And we are not talking about exclusive authors - only for non-exclusives vectors.

Thank you!

If we consider that Shutterstock keeps 1st place, Fotolia - 2nd, who's your 3rd top earner among Big 4 or probably among middle tier too? I mean recently: during 2016 and in the beginning of this new year, not during your whole life-long stock career. And we are not talking about exclusive authors - only for non-exclusives.

Thank you!

Update: I found out how to make it much faster:

if you go to My account > My Uploads and select the whole table which is displaying 1 to 20 of xxxx matches - you can paste it in some smart HTML-editor like Adobe Dreamweaver - it has that very nice function "Find and Replace">"Replace All". So I just made bulk replacement of

https://secure.istockphoto.com/file_closeup_edit.php?id=
with this
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_status_change.php?id=

and I got ready-to-use HTML-file filled with files deactivation links. Then I just saved it and open it in my browser and clicked on all those links (it's easier to to that in new tabs in the same browser window): I can perform bulk images deactivation - 20 files in one window! 

With today's "positive" news from iStock I think it make sense to start deleting our portfolios at iStock as soon as we can BEFORE they make any further changes to contributor's agreement. They want us to wait 30 days to close our accounts - it requires a 30 day notice. I just cannot allow them fooling me another month, sorry. "Deactivate" function in "manage file" is still available and I start to deactivate file after file right now. I noticed that when you clicked on "Deactivate File" you get basically the same URL in your browser:

www.istockphoto.com/file_status_change.php?id=xxxxxxxx

- where xxxxxxxx is a ID of your image, so if we just copy/paste image ID at the end of this URL - we can make the whole process a little bit faster. If only there was a way how to get a list of all your files IDs. Any ideas?

Uploading images at iStock is just complete waste of time with their stone age submitting/keywording process - I mean I better spend this time making new stuff and quickly uploading it at Shutter and getting paid. And, yes - it is a volume game. But how can anyone get that volume in iStock where you have to spend more uploading than doing? In 10 years? 15 years? Thank you, iStock but you better roll over.

iStock is literally dead. It isn't worth our efforts. I have 2000+ vectors in my portfolio and all I saw in September were 2 downloads! iStock is a total marketing disaster and worst contributors relationship management EVER.

Finally, I finished my website: http://www.toonstyle.com/ - it was complete renovation: new custom Wordpress theme, Woocommerce plugin, re-uploading of all content. Critique and comments are truly appreciated!

Thank you for your answers, guys! I didn't submit any help requests on Symbiostock forum - I guess I have to wait some decent amount of time for proper answers and no one knows if it were right or wrong solutions of the problem. It might be kind of investigation/conversation for a week or so. I just tested PayPal setup - it works fine on another wordpress website with Sell Media plugin. Downside of Sell Media plugin is that it doesn't work with vectors directly - you have to pack them in zip archives to sell. It means - no automatic keywording, but just copy/paste nightmare...

Symbiostock has its pros and cons. On of the biggest negative of Symbiostock is that you have to spend lot of time to reach your goals: create custom contemporary-looking website that can works without crashes. Symbiostock does not compatible with other wordpress themes which means as I said that it is extremely hard to make Symbiostock-based website modern-looking.

Pros: as far as I know - Symbiostock is the one and only solution if you deal with tons of vector images with IPTC metadata. Automatic attributing/keywording from IPTC if you uploading both jpeg and eps - is the brightest side of Symbiostock - truly time-saver.

disabling 'WP Super Cache' plugin didn't help... 
I loose time, money - I bought Premium Symbiostock... holy crap... 
Now I have to rebuild the whole site again...

yes, I agree: I am seriously thinking about switching to something else 

I just read about compatibility issue with 'WP Super Cache' plugin here:http://www.microstockgroup.com/symbiostock-technical-support/symbiostock-plugin-compatability-issues-and-reports/ - so I disabled it, I hope it helps. Any other suggestions?

I have the same issue - I lost one good customer due to a broken link in email notification after purchasing files. Huge disappointment in Symbiostock platform. I have no idea how it can be fixed...

I found the reason: it happened because of one corrupted image - when I deleted it and all worked smoothly.

Hi,

Every time when I'm trying to change prices at "Author Options" it works only up to 700 images (I receive email notifications on every hundred) and then I've got this:

Fatal error: Cannot use string offset as an array in .../wp-content/themes/symbiostock/functions.php on line 2922

I tried that several times before and after upgrading to Premium Plugin. I thought that it might be resolved with my upgrading to Premium but the issue is still there.

Can anyone have any ideas how to resolve it?
Thanks!

Hi all,

I am wondering if there is an option for customer to buy images WITHOUT registration on a website? I mean I'd like to make a process of purchasing as easy as can be - without bothering a buyer with registration.

Thanks!
________________________________________________________
Toonstyle.com - Unusual Cartoon Style Vector Stock Images

That is awesome Cascoly! Thank you so much!

I added Symbiostock network widget on single image page and added several linked sites similar to mine. Shelma1 - I added link to your website too.

I also edited the prices: now only eps and extra large jpeg are available for download.

Yes, I already have FB page, Twitter, Instagram and I have  about 10 years  of experience in commission works:)  And I even used to have a huge rotating slider of my images on the homepage of my website - there were several designs I went through. Maybe I return it to the homepage - that's not the case.

If we talk about artist's own image selling website as a passive income - is anybody know examples of that website that successfully compete with Shutterstock or iStock. Why customers should buy images at your website when they can easily find the same images at major stock sites for much lower prices or on subscription basis? that's the point.

ARTPUPPY, thanks a lot for your detailed suggestions!
Do you have only your own vector selling website without selling your images at Shutterstock, iStockphoto etc? My big concern is how to drive decent traffic to my website to make sales.

Quote from: Ariene on January 09, 2015, 09:18
Btw, haven't you ever sell your work on shutterstock for 60-100$? I did, many of us did and looks like it's possible...

Ariene, you mean single sale like extended license or enhanced license for one image? Or monthly income?

I think Shutterstock is doing great and it is certainly worth to upload there but iStock looks like they trying to catch a yesterday's train...

I have mixed feeling about editorial cartoon industry. On one hand as a profession it is almost completely died in United States - I heard like last staff editorial cartoonist laid off recently and that is truly sad.

On the other hand Shutterstock not so long ago announced that they are now open to editorial illustration and editorial vectors and that is a really great news in the world of stock images. I already have some growing set of editorial vectors on Shutterstock (though they rejected couple of my too aggressive images - for example they rejected this one on Obama: http://toonstyle.com/image/december-9-2014-vector-illustration-of-president-barack-obama-as-a-lame-duck-politician/?r=toonstyle.com):

http://www.shutterstock.com/sets/3747336-editorial.html?rid=321775

Maybe we'll see some changes soon in this industry, who knows.

I raised the prices though we can't beat shutterstock (or any other major stock site) subscription prices...

Thank you guys! I'll think about it.