Quote from: studioportosabbia on June 09, 2010, 18:20
Last february I decided to have all my StockXpert files tranferred to Thinkstock. In the meantime I contacted StockXpert several times but was told that they are still in the migration process and it can last till the summer before all files are actually on Thinkstock.

Four months later: no files on Thinkstock so no earnings from those images.

Does anyone have the same experience?

Not any more. After 3 months I asked for payout and deleted all pics from StockXpert.

I think with $200 a day you can give it a go - but this depends on a lot of "if"s.
If you do not have debts to pay, if you do not have mortgage, if you do not have big family, etc. etc.
Microstock seems to be working for you - but it does not work for everyone, and in truth this is a slave's work (considering the cut the microstock sites take). Of course you will hear different from couple of people who like it and who are sufficiently talented and working hard enough to place themselves among those couple of % who can support themselves from microstock.

It is not a business or a job - it is a competition. I am sure that someone will point out immediately that business IS competition - but I am afraid that we would be talking about different things. There are tens of thousands of athletes - but very few of them make living out of sport. Simply - there are many competitors, but winners are few. If you are happy with this - go for it.

My point is that if 100% of people currently submitting to microstock work hard, shoot a lot and produce sellable images - still only a small percentage will succeed. In my books this is not business - but a cross between competition and lottery.

A plumber runs a business - he does a job, he charges you, he collects his money, and moves to another job. He does not perform work at any place which may be in need of his services - in the hope that someone maybe will pay him.

The cost of a PC is NOT the same everywhere. Same applies to photo equipment, power tools, PC games, CDs etc. etc.
It is called "price discrimination" or "yield management".

Very nice euphemisms for profit gouging.
While manufacturers are allowed to produce their stuff "somewhere in the world" at a very low cost - more and more barriers are being raised for the consumers to access the world wide market in order to buy at a best price.  Try to buy a power tool (reputable brand, but made in China, of course) on Amazon: you will find very quickly that it can not be sent to your address (if outside US).

Very quickly growing practice - where the producers (and sellers) feel entitled to a proportional (and sometimes very disproportional) part of your income - no matter where in the world you are and w/o any regard to the profit margin. Mind it - it is being done by segmenting the market, limiting the supply and selling the same products at wildly differing prices.

Supply and demand, someone said ? Sure - let's regulate the supply, the demand (and the price) will take care of itself.
Isn't it what is happening with microstock too ?

The entry barrier for the new players is already too high - so now market is being "consolidated" (read: big dogs devour the smaller ones). When it is all over - two things will happen:
1) the price (for the buyer) will go up
2) the price (for the seller) will go down

Time will tell how this will work out.
My guess is - like some other of my guesses. First people tell me that I am being "pessimistic", and after some time that "I couldn' have known at the time".

"While a drone in Burkina Faso may be able to photograph some apples on white, I'm pretty sure some subjects are far from their ability."

You may be right - and then, you may not.
The example I am most familiar with is aircraft industry. Over the last decade or so there is increasing trend to move the production to the "developing" countries. As a result - manufacturing facilities here are getting closed. The quality seems to be taking (far) second place - and I know this for a fact.

Furthermore - the recent (or not so recent, depends how you look at it) trend is to farm out the design and analysis to outfits in Malaysia, Indonesia, India - and couple of other places. The economics is simple: it can be done properly, quickly and with required quality, taking - say - 6 months at a rate of $100/hour - by subcontracting to engineering company in the "West". If it goes somewhere else - it also may take 6 months, but with 3x more people employed and a rate of $15/hour. The job gets botched - and it comes back to the "West", but as a "correction" - at $60/hour and 30% of the original hours. So - let's do the math the way accountants do it:

-Option 1 (doing it properly)
Cost = 100*T = 100T

-Option 2 (farming out)
Cost = 15*3*T + 60*0.3*T = 63T

This is a whopping 37% saving - which means large bonuses for the selected few. And the next job goes where ? No cigar for guessing.

In the meantime, you can't survive doing "corrections" at a cut rate with insufficient hours given for the job - which means a lot of unpaid overtime, frustration, people leaving the industry, businesses getting closed. And - as a side effect - educating the competition while going out of business. This, unfortunately, is the prevailing economic/business model (at least in civil aviation, the military branch fares quite a bit better), which results in loss of skils (frequently this is irreversible), loss of manufacturing facilities (mostly irreversible), transfer of know-how - and increasing unemployed rate.

Sounds familiar ? So, what makes you think that microstock is exempt ?

PowerDroid said: "...will the agencies be able to afford to cut commissions across the board?  The law of supply and demand would suggest not."

Well, the law of supply and demand is one of attributes of a homeostatic system, and economic systems could be classified as such. But - every homeostatic system has its limits: if the external influences exceed the capacity of the system to adjust - it inevitably ends with the destruction of the system.

If, say, US economy was a closed system - then yes, the law of supply and demand would apply (in a sense that an equilibrium would be achieved). However - the US economy (and every other developed economy, for that matter) does not exist in vacuum - there are new external forces at work. What I mean is a cheap supply of images (and not only) from economies where the cost of production (and a cost of living) are incomparably lower.

Of course - the equilibrium will be eventually reached, but in the process the original system will be destroyed (or transformed to a degree which will render the difference immaterial). This, however, will be no consolation for you and for everyone who believes that "competition is OK, one needs to change and adjust, blah blah blah...".

If one rat in a cage needs to produce 200 revs/minute in order to survive, and the other rat needs only 20 - then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict the outcome.


What is happening in microstock - is only an aspect of far deeper processes in economy, which has been globalized. And - due to the fact that there are large inequalities in production costs/living costs, the field is far from being level.

Mind it, I am not blaming the developing countries for all the woes of Western economies - I am just observing what is happening (and there are many more factors buried in our economies - like fractional reserve banking, credit based development, short-term profit, built-in inflation etc. etc.) which make our world what it is now.

So - have no doubt, commisions CAN be cut across the board, and most likely WILL be. I guess - if you are good and dedicated - you will be able to increase the revs of your cage and stay in the competition for some time. But - you can't do this indefinitely - and someone somewhere will produce images for $0.10 a pop (or less). Examples are many - from various industries which are disappearing/going broke because of that.

You may say - this is OK, this is normal - and in a sense it is. Except - the adjustments to the new (economic, but not only) reality may be a little bit more than most of the public in the West can imagine in their worst dreams.

All things are driven by the lowest common denominator - and the bottom line is defined by the accountants. They do not care if their images (and profit) come from you or from someone in Burkina Faso (no offense intended).

It is really funny reading all the responses 
A lot of people, it appears, haven't figured out yet that microstock is NOT a job/business (for the microstocker) - it is a competition. Considering how big is the buyer's market for images and how many people upload pics to the microstock sites - there is no way in the world for EVERYONE to succeed, no matter how talented they are and how hard they work. It is a simple fact.

It is also a fact, that an average microstocker does not pull out all stops in order to succeed. Those who do (and have a modicum of talent) - gain a competitive edge over the rest of the crowd. And for them - it becomes a business or a job.

However, if ALL microstockers all of a sudden display a sudden burst of talent, and if ALL of them upload heaps of images, and if ALL these images are good - then I am not sure that Gostwyck and Sharply_Done would be repeating their mantras (their advice is perfectly good - but will not work if EVERYONE succeeds).

This is just a competition - pure and simple. And, as in any competition. the rewards are few, and the competitors are many. No wonder most have to do without.

Define "normal". But, if abnormal is normal - then this is normal.

Same here. Just to be 110% sure - I retrieved the password via E-mail, entered it again - and, of course - wrong password ?!

And - in addition - my iStock account got cleared out somehow. It says $0.0 - anyone noticed anything similiar ?

Well - I am being regularly encouraged to:

a) get a fake rolex watch
b) get my penis enlarged
c) buy shares in a gold mine
d) send my bank account number somewhere because someone wishes to send me money blah blah blah...
e) some other stuff I can't remember

All goes to the bin right away (well, I am kind of pondering over b) and d) )

Yes - this is what I am getting now too...
123RF is undergoing site maintenance at this moment - maybe they are part of 123RF ? Wait and see.

One of my friends sent me the link - with some of my pics being sold on this website.
Maybe this is a legit site (subsidiary of one of the "biggies") - but I never heard about them.
Since they claim to have over 6 million pics - chances are (if they are a rip-off artists, that is, which is yet to be confirmed/denied)that some of you may have "contributed" your pics there.

Have a look and - what do you think ?
http://www.samphotostock.cz/

Well, this is all pretty funny.
I am not a professional, far from it, I have on average about 200+ pics at SS,DT,FT,IS,BigStock,123RF, StockXpert (oops - this is dead...) for the last 2 years, and I have not submitted a new image in over a year (in hospital most of the time). I am not complaining about sales - I make about $150/month.

But maybe I can put my $0.02 here.
The whole microstock business is a business - for the agencies. For most contributors - it is a dream about being a photographer (I haste to explain that I never had any illusions about what I can achieve there, with full-time job which gets me a decent 6-figure income).

For me the whole microstock adventure is just that - a bit of fun and a couple of bucks on the side.
It has been this way from day one - after I did initial analysis of potential prospects.

So - the equipment is couple of $K. A sellable image is on average about 1-2 hours of work (shooting, processing, etc. - YMMV, of course).
I may be able to put about 25 hours into photography a month - say 20 new pics/month, 250 new pics a year.

With current rates on most sites - these pics may earn (very optimistic here - I know) $5K, at the expense of 300 hours of work + initial investment.
This is about $17 per hour of work invested - before tax (which in my country is 43%).

In other words - a waste of time (again, YMMV, but I think that a similiar situation is applicable to most contributors).
Who is getting rich then ? The agencies who collect 50 to 80% of sales income. And some good, talented, hard working photographers who are prepared to work full-time on increasing their portfolios to get ahead of the competition.

And here it is - it is really a competition, not a business. It is like this in sport: the winner takes all, the second one is just the first of the losers.

Well - I have received an E-mail:

"Hello,

Thank you for choosing to transfer your StockXpert credits into your iStockphoto account.

You now have 0 iStockphoto credits. Start searching now. If you have any questions regarding iStock please visit our Support Page.

The StockXpert.com website will remain accessible to members and active for certain functions such as account history and purchase receipts. For more information on StockXpert please visit the StockXpert forums.

Sincerely,
The iStockphoto team "

Alternatively - why not work for free ? Employers would love to have a pick at an army of volunteers who would do the job in exchange for...what ? A pat on the back ? Prices on microstock are already nothing short of being ridiculous. You get 30% of the selling price, then pay the tax, then subtract your costs...how much per image do you earn, as a percentage of the sale price ?  5% ? 10% ?

OMG, now I will have to get me the iPhone !
But seriously - I couldn't care less.

Could someone please contact 123RF and describe the following problem:

"I have opened the Site Mail since it indicated 3 new messages. There were none in the Inbox, but in the Sent folder there is more than 1500 almost identical messages entitled "123RF Matters " or similiar. Could you please have a look at this, since I am sure I haven't been spamming any of the 123RF members. Maybe this is a bug, or maybe I do not understand something, but I would appreciate someone having a quick look."

I tried to contact 123RF, but the website insists that the security code is incorrect - which is BS. At any case, I can't contact them directly.

My member name at 123RF is "leszek".

Regards
Les Scholz


Correction: this was not over 1500 messages, but over 1500 pages with messages. The problem seems to be rectified now, after logging in again, although I could see some changes in the contents of the Sent folder after every click on the "Sent" tab. Looks like a bug.

2.5 hours EACH way, after my company decided to move the offices to (admittedly) nicer and (accidentally) cheaper location. I am considering working from home or quitting...

It helped me to produce images which are better technically, and learn how to avoid pretty mundane (and now obvious) errors. It made me look critically at technical aspects of an image, which I didn't even think about before. So - yes, in that sense it helped.

But did it make me a better photographer ? Define "better photographer" first. If we assume that photography is (still) an art for the large part - then not. But, as with everything else, one needs to be proficient with technical aspects of the job before attempting to excel. Overall, no regrets.

Fotolia is different than the other sites. Have a look at the categories on FT site - this should give you some idea regarding what they want. And their rejections - yes, sometimes rejections at FT are a bit weird, but I wouldn't say that they are particularly harsh or demanding. They just want good quality pics which fit well within their category structure. And their category structure does not cover all possible photographic subject.

Recently I shoot quite a lot of images on white background. I usually check the quality of lighting the way RT did - reduce brightness and then all non-white areas pop up. A very useful tool in situation like this is the masking method described here:
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/AdvancedMasking.mov

It works for me (and I do not attempt to do pure isolation - although the method is good for that too, unless one prefers the us of Pen tool in PS to create clipping paths).

I don't know how it looks like for everyone, but in my case the last 3 months looked like this:

Jupiter/Photos  vs StockXpert

November 2008:  35% vs 65%
December 2008:  60% vs 40%
January 2009:     90% vs 10%

In other words: all of a sudden, vast majority of images sells through Jupiter/Photos as a $0.30 subsription, with overall volume (number of sold images) remaining pretty much the same. Of course, the total income goes down.

The maps should not be created anyway - God owns the copyright for Earth. Therefore, reproducing Earth's unique design on any media is illegal.

Oops...you think that the above is idiotic ? Well, in that case reproducing a map (or at least a portion of it) should be legal.

Oh - but it isn't ? Copyright still applies ?

Well, didn't I just say that the whole thing is idiotic ?

Not my best earner - but I voted for DT...
SS and StockXpert are close next ones.

Fotolia and IS are both competing for the last place (out of 8 sites). This must have something to do with search alghoritm - the number of views is pathetic (and almost no sales). If this continues in the New Year - then I will just collect the payout and forget about both of them.