Given the numbers you have shared about your income % between agencies I believe it is pretty straightforward to see you would probably be making more as an exclusive than as independent.

Being exclusive you have said you would reach 30%. That means you would already be doing 76,5 % more just for that.

Higher commissions. Based on my experience for a standard port, low V&A files, some E+ but non of them best sellers, you can expect a RPD between 4$ and 5$. The more V&A and the more E+ successful files you have you can higher that number dramatically. There is people making money in the range of RPD 10$-20$. It depends on the quality of your port. You can judge yourself comparing with your numbers how much that makes. 3X wouldn´t be that difficult just because of this concept.

It is said your files improve their best match position when going exclusive. I really don´t know about this, I became exclusive at 250DLs and they did, but I guess there are other contributors with extensive experience being independent and then exclusive that have better insight about this.

Getty royalties. They aren´t great for the moment, at least for me, but you can expect some extra every month. We will see how E+ contributes to our royalties but as long as they don´t cut our commissions at istock it can´t hurt. Say you make 5% more. If you are already making 4X just for being exclusive that 5% means a 20% more compared to your original istock income.

It is true that many people are seeing drops in DL and $$, but it is also true that some are seeing growth. Also bear in mind that many people making progress do not bother to post in the monthly threads. Trends vary over time and it is not difficult to loose your touch on what is selling. I guess most of the people doing good numbers just don´t want their ports to attract attention  . I am a gold member  (@35%) and I still see growth after 4 years. DLs have been more or less steady over the last year but $$ have had a more than reasonable increase. I am not a big fish, 1,9 k files, upload an average of 1 file a day and my V&A port is small and does not sell well.

But that is not all that counts. It depends on your profile, risk you can bear, etc. Putting all your eggs in one basket is not a decision for everyone. Lowering your risk by spreading your port over multiple sites has also its value. The risks you face have been very well explained in this thread and similar ones over time. How much it is worth just depends on oneself. I don't rely on micro income for anything. I am making decent money but I could live without it so if the moment comes when I have to go independent I can get the hit of lowering my income in the short term by leaving exclusivity and start working with other agencies. It is difficult I could do the same numbers as independent just with the same port. I am making about 6.5-7$/DL so just imagine the hit I would suffer going down to 1.5-2$/DL. But not everyone can do that. Can you? That is a question you should make yourself. Some need this money and take the safe and probably sound decision of being independent. Some are exclusives that would have serious problems during months if they went independent, when they see their income drop one month after another they do nothing but remain exclusives because they are afraid of the big drop. How long can they remain like that? how knows, but they are effectively bound to their exclusivity by a golden leash.

So make your numbers, take you decision and then tell us how it is going ;-)

Good luck.

Quote from: holgs on August 11, 2011, 08:57

Quote from: gioadventures on August 11, 2011, 08:46
Just to give you some screenshots.

I searched the keyword "Morocco" with the iPhone and with the iMac. Same username and same moment, of course. The results are totally different.

iPhone:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Photo%20ago%2011%2C%209%2037%2051.png

iMac:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3399038/Schermata%202011-08-11%20a%2009.38.03.png

This new best match shake has some problems with the cookies and the localization.

The results I get for the same search are also completely different currently in Spain) - maybe it would be interesting to line up a time to do some searches and compare the results in different places?

What part of Spain are you? I live in Madrid

Quote from: gostwyck on August 10, 2011, 16:13

Quote from: Atwim on August 10, 2011, 15:34
... And yes, the predominancy of V/A is over since the last big best match shake.

Could this be one of Rebecca's first decisions to bring back customers?

By recent standards August has got off to a flyer for me at Istock. They are actually back in first place in my earnings. Hope it continues.

I don´t know, what kind of decissions can someone working as a part time CEO can make? Not having a full time CEO is something that gives a hint about what getty thinks about istock. Maybe they think the business is easy and can be managed like this. For me it is an incredible decision.
Back on topic. I am not a V/A player so the less weight on V/A and the price filter are good decissions imo. It is also true that may be things have gone a bit too far lately as I find hard to find certain recently approved V/A files.
Like i said, I believe things wil settle down and I find July-August as good months to rotate a bit the stuff in the show window and see if some lost files perform can perform well.

ETA: WOW, now there IS a big best match shift. Must have happened in the last two hours!

There has been a continuous shake for some time now. I do follow some searches and searches are changing everyday. Not the first page but the first 10 are having great movement. I used to have a couple of files in each of the first pages of some searches. They were mainly 3-4 months old files with more than 10 DLs and performing well. Thay are now all gone. Some days one shows up and the next day it anothers turn. I think last year they did something similar. Seems like a programmed move to give exposure to different upload time frames regardless of the success of files to give opportunity to, probably unlucky, older files. Things will settle down for sure.
And yes, the predominancy of V/A is over since the last big best match shake.

Broke my 8 month streak of consecutive BMEs but still a pretty decent month. July has always been my weakest month of the year and this year shows the same performance compared to june as last year´s. It is still third best month ever.

Compared to june 2011: DLs -17% $$ -19%

Compared to june 2011 DLS +99% $$ + 135%

Lets see what August brings.

Quote from: cthoman on July 07, 2011, 17:46
Interesting spreadsheet. I suppose portfolio degradation and royalty increases/decreases are unknown factors. Does that mean in the end it is a best guess?  

My theory for valuing my own portfolio was taking yearly revenue and multiplying it by the number of years you thought it would take to rebuild it. Not as statistically savvy, but it sounded fair to me.

Yep, its a guess or it is based on your historical data, or data you or the buyer have access to. The more data you have the easier you can convince someone future will behave like past , those would be key factors to negotiate. But hey, its only an example, nothing else.

Ok, I´ve done a very quick example of a port valuation. Please take into account I have tried to make it really simple, it is not perfect but gives an idea.

I would advise to copy it to your own spreadsheet and not to edit this one. This way more people can use it. If people start messing around with it, delete formulas, etc, it will be useless.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=tnsligbHBOIcRGoE0b7Uhcg#gid=0

I have included the following inputs and made the following assumptions.

There is no cost to maintain the port in the sites.

No tax calculations involved.

No financed (leveraged ) buying.

Valuation for 5 years. After that all the port can produce is an upside for the buyer.

Royalty increase. you can use the one (+ or - ) you think is more likely to happen across the sites where you have your port.

Discount rate for NPV: this is an internal value of the buyer. It can be used a risk free rate or the rate at which a company on average puts its money or average cost of capital or other. NPV is a way of comparing investments and of knowing if the investment will add value to the company, positive value, or substract it, negative value.

Portfolio degradation: yearly decrease of performance of a port if we stop uploading.

First year revenue: doesn´t need explanation

Port value: use this cell to guess the value of your port that makes the IRR reach a certain level. If you think someone would be inteersted of buying your port with this assumptions and targeting a 10% IRR, put values in this cell untill you get the desired 10% IRR.

IRR and NPV: don´t touch this cells unless you want to increase or decrease the years of analysis. For a good description go wiki them

Quote from: ichiro17 on May 26, 2010, 14:03
You can't look at it with random specs like 50% drop per year.  Especially with evidence to the contrary with other portfolios.

Bottom line is that you have to treat this as if you were securitising it as you would with any other revenue stream.  You would essentially take a forecast, lets say you make 1000 this year, and lets assume that you lose 10% each year.  So your cash flows would be:

1000
900
810
736 + 2230 (this is (736 / 1.1) /0.30 assuming that the drop in revenue is 30 percent after 4 years

Then, you take each year and take the present value to today's date.  The rate you use will be the rate that the party wishes to earn on the investment they are making by buying your portfolio.  I wouldn't discount that by more than 15% personally, given a good portfolio can really produce stable returns for a decent period of time

so

1000/1.15
900/1.15^2
810/1.15^3
(736+2230)/1.15^4

This is really just basic finance and could be interpreted other ways and the numbers change based on your assumptions, but discounting at 50% is really shorting yourself badly and well, if you are going to get ripped off, let someone else do it, don't help them

All that said, you need to find a buyer and negotiate the terms

This is basically how a private equity would undertake a business like this. Certain types of investors have a set IRR at which they invest (others) money. They would discount the cashflows at a rate and see what they can pay you above their internal IRR target. Agreeing port life, decrease of performance, royalty in(de)creases in the future, etc. would be the key issues here, once you have found the buyer of course.

Once agreed the inputs for the model they´ll stick to what the financial model says. Sometimes they buy bargains, sometimes they make terrible mistakes....

Investing at 15% IRR is difficult, there aren´t many business giving that money, if it wasn´t that difficult everyone would have wonderful retirements, no? I think only one person in the world has been able to invest money at those rates in the long term and that is W. Buffet. Madoff tried, but he didn´t quite make it . Looking for a 15% IRR for this kind of business is way too high. Where we find risk others find something pretty stable. 15% IRR usually relates to business with development risk, that means you still have to make the thing start moving. For a business with already "steady" cashflows a 10% IRR would be more likely the target. 

Quote from: sharpshot on July 01, 2011, 11:48

Quote from: Atwim on July 01, 2011, 11:25

Quote from: sharpshot on July 01, 2011, 07:08
$1000 from 1844 images makes me happy to be independent

What would be a fair sum in your opinion for that amount of images being independent? I am asking this seriously, although I see it in the low range of what that port should do being exclusive, between 1,5 or 2 times more would be what I'd expect, I don't see it that bad. Could just be a bad month  

I had a BME for $$ due to 6 ELs and second BME for DLs behind last month, -10%. Pretty solid.

I would want at least $1 per image per month for the risk of using only one site.  I can accept less than that being independent because other sites accept and sell images that istock reject. They are more picky now but each site still accepts things that istock wont.  So if you have 1800 images with istock, it should of been possible to get more on the other sites and make at least $1,500 to $2,000 a month without having to risk having all your eggs in one basket.

I don't think exclusives should switch now though. The other sites reject much more than they used to and they generally seem to sell older images better than new ones.

OK, thanks, that's more or less what I had in mind, those 1,5 or 2 times more that I wrote, and also what I see happenning in ports with little or no V&A.

Well, I think other sites rejecting stuff is normal, the collections are already very big, although it would make more sense to me to start deactivating old stuff that doesn't sell. And for ex-exclusives uploading their ports to other sites I see it also pretty normal, I think istock itself would reject most of my old files if uploaded right now. At least i wouldn't even try to upload them 

Quote from: sharpshot on July 01, 2011, 07:08
$1000 from 1844 images makes me happy to be independent

What would be a fair sum in your opinion for that amount of images being independent? I am asking this seriously, although I see it in the low range of what that port should do being exclusive, between 1,5 or 2 times more would be what I´d expect, I don´t see it that bad. Could just be a bad month 

I had a BME for $$ due to 6 ELs and second BME for DLs behind last month, -10%. Pretty solid.

Great month here. Although sizes are going down sales increased enough to get a new BME for DLs and $$.
No EL though. None since February which is strange. I´m istock exclusive.

DL up 20%
$$ up 5%

Up 69%. My projections put me on the verge of reaching the old 35% target.

So who knows, I might reach it, I might not, they might move the bar higher or lower....I live in a complete uncertainty in this matter. But I sleep well, thanks God I don´t rely on this for anything, otherwise i would be a bit nervous.

Istock exclusive.

Seems I have been lucky with the last best match shake at the end. BME again with 13% increase in DLs and 22% increase in $$. No ELs for 2 months which is strange.

Despite my numbers I can´t be happy. Reading this thread here and the april earnings thread from istock forum seems something is really wrong with istock. Seeing so many strong sellers report poor numbers is worrying and gives an idea of the situation. If revenues are going down I think we all know how the new RC targets are going to be. Bad news are always delayed in time. Here I am mentally prepared to go independent whenever numbers make sense to me.

366 DLs 

Quote from: aeonf on April 03, 2011, 18:27

Quote from: djpadavona on April 03, 2011, 14:28

Quote from: aeonf on April 03, 2011, 06:28
Well I guess if you KNOW the people it helps, but if you don't know how much they are making (at least a ball park) I would at least assume you know their portfolio size breakdown in each si5e, because without this piece of information any data isn't really worth much.

If you don't want the information, then stop looking at it and commenting about it.

I would LOVE information, just having trouble sorting out from the NOISE.

But even the data you are sharing without knowing how  many pictures you have, how consistently you are uploading or even what type of content you are producing doesn´t give too much information to the rest.
My earning figures could be similar to yours but my port could be 10X bigger or smaller and the implications in both cases would be totally different so your data doesn´t give me much info either :-)
I think the info well stablished ports are sharing give a good idea of how things are, when can you expect to reach plateau and what quality and effort you need to reach where they are. Data like mine can help you see, as you can see my port, that even without being a great photographer or a great uploader, you can still see steady growth during the first years. I reckon that improving in my case is getting harder so I might hit the wall this year.
Hope it helps someone :-)

Good business images are really strong, even with such a biased best match towards V&A is difficult to kill them all. Try a different search where there is not that much demannd and you will have difficulty in finding files from the regular collection.

Quote from: caspixel on April 03, 2011, 18:19

Quote from: nruboc on April 03, 2011, 18:07

Quote from: caspixel on April 03, 2011, 17:51
I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised. The search is back to where it was just a month or so ago, with all the high priced stuff at the top.

Exactly, they did their little test and I'm sure their profit went way down so they reverted back.

What they don't realize, though, is that is WHY their profit went down. They are driving people away having the high priced stuff at the top, so even if they change it back, the customers are already gone.

Exactly, and most likely they won´t  come back ever.

Hope it was like one month ago, but sadly my port doesnt look the same nor the searches where I could find my files do it either.
If this is intentional human stupidity definitely has no limits.

Not only independents will be killed if this best match is definitive, also a huge number of exclusives are going to suffer. If you don´t have a big number of V&A you are dead. But even if you do have them that doesnt guaratee success in the medium term, this is what remaining buyers needed to make their minds and leave the place.

Massive change today. All vettas and agencys first. Hope it is only a test made on a sunday and things are back to normal tomorrow. Otherwise things are far worse than expected if they have to push expensive content so hard in fron of buyers eyes.

Hi, I am fairly new to the forum so this is my first post in the earnings breakdown.

I am happy to still see growth in my port in istock.

Compared to february that was my BME: DLs +15% $$ +8%

Compared to march 2010 DLs + 87% $$ +116% Portfolio growth + 66%

No ELs this month. First time in the last 6 months that this happens and 3rd over the last year.

My royalty per DL has gone up 15% since last year, but I turned silver last August and that meant a 20% increase since then, so here I have a clear loss. Too many discounts I guess.

Somedays, not only this week, I seem to get DLs concentrated on very short periods of time, especially during US working hours. I can have two or three hours of nothing and suddenly a bunch of DLs during one hour. But I can´t really see a pattern as it doesn´t happen every day and there are also days where I get a steady flow of DLs during the whole day. It might seem though that certain days something goes off somewhere and then the DLs collected during that off period are cleared all together.

How can someone prove that you used the tutorial to create your files? It is somehow scary, there must be tons of images in tutorials over the internet that are similar to stock images and it is impossible for an artist to know every single tutorial out there.

Or this is a case of a tutorial were you had to signup and there is no doubt that at least you had notice of the tutorial and that your file was made after you had access to it. Even then, are ideas protected? Where is the line? What if you refine the technique learnt, get better results and use them?

0% from PP, I am not participating 
0% from Getty, very low number of vetta files 

I don´t like the PP program nor the misleading way it has been advertised. Trying to make buyers leave istock with incredible statements from representatives visiting well stablished istock customers is not the way to go. This behaviour has been reported by some in the istock forums.

Not to mention the price and the way they are forcing people attending lypses to participate 

I would rather go independent that participating in the PP with the current conditions.

Too early to tell. Yesterday was average and today is a very bad day, but can´t tell if it is for the new best match.
I was getting used to great 2011 fridays though so today is disappointing