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Messages - StockCube
101
« on: January 17, 2012, 09:14 »
Hi David, just to let you know that I can still only get four channels to distribute: SS, DT, CS and BS,
Cheers,
Bridget
103
« on: January 15, 2012, 18:18 »
Hey Lucato, good to hear from you - I hope you find something of interest on my blog (thanks for the plug again Lisa) - it is worth mentioning before you look at my income stats that I have not been able to concentrate on stock much since going independent and have only just picked it up again in the past couple of months. I did note with interest the other day though that my current indie income with only a limited amount of images available is beating what I was earning at iStock in 2009 with a similar number of images. Obviously this does not take price increases and quality of portfolio into account though. Another former exclusive and I were chatting on Facebook the other day and we agreed that we had both experienced an enormous sense of relief when giving up the crown that we could finally put the drama behind us and stop stressing over what and increasingly remote iStock management were going to do next. I hope you find the same peace if you do decide to join us  All the best whatever you decide, Bridget
104
« on: January 15, 2012, 15:53 »
Something I wrote to my Facebook friends recently (many of whom are iS exclusives) was that I think that to be a happy indie it is necessary to be able to truly consider yourself a microstocker. I think that the introduction of Vetta, E+ etc on iStock have encouraged exclusives to think of themselves as a bit more macro or midstock. I don't know for sure as Doxadigital didn't ever come back and explain his reasons, but I wonder if part of the problem was that he found it difficult to accept selling his cityscapes in particular for microstock prices. It can be initially painful to realise that your once-best-selling image has gathered only a couple of bucks in 8 sales at SS, but in time and across all agencies it will start to look a bit healthier.
105
« on: January 15, 2012, 15:40 »
Yeah, I believe that is the case, though he didn't ever tell me why. He always said he was just going to try independence for a year to see how it went. There is no doubt that dropping exclusivity is going to be a tough road initially, it all depends on your driving factors as to how well you will do at it. Bloody-mindedness and determination also help.
106
« on: January 15, 2012, 15:14 »
Hi Herg,
Sorry to hear about your difficulties, but glad to hear that you have joined us in indie-land. Doxadigital went through a lot of these same issues when he first started - he wrote quite extensively about it in a thread in a wee forum I had set up for ex iS exclusives. You can find the link on my blog page (link in my sig below).
Best of luck
Bridget
107
« on: January 12, 2012, 17:21 »
Ebay UK has a lot of Shutterstock ads all over it at the moment, which is interesting as I have noticed more of my sales coming from Europe than the US this month.
That's probably because they're targeted at you as someone who regularly visits stock image sites. I get them too ... and then cycling gear ads if I've just been looking at cycling gear ... bathroom ads if I've been looking at those ... etc, etc.
exactly, same thing on my top bar in gmail account
Yes, and while these may reflect my browsing habits, the relevant fact is that last year these banner ads were for iStock, not Shutterstock.
108
« on: January 11, 2012, 16:30 »
Great start to the month here too.
Ebay UK has a lot of Shutterstock ads all over it at the moment, which is interesting as I have noticed more of my sales coming from Europe than the US this month.
109
« on: January 11, 2012, 15:08 »
Thanks David, I hope you can fix it, it has been a real lifesaver for me.
110
« on: January 10, 2012, 17:10 »
Aw, thanks Lisa, that reminds me, I must update it....
111
« on: January 09, 2012, 16:09 »
Actually, the only channels I now have working are SS, DT, Canstock and Bigstock. I saved up a bunch of submissions over Christmas which I would really like to get uploaded now so if you could fix this I would be very grateful!
112
« on: January 09, 2012, 10:41 »
Yep - I have the same problem. Channels that previously distributed without any problem are now no longer working. On my channels (StockCube) these are 'New Fotolia', Deposit photos, Stockfresh and Photodune. They haven't worked since the start of the year.
113
« on: January 09, 2012, 07:42 »
It is really very simple. iStock is being fattened up for sale. Whether that is being done successfully or not, we are not privvy to as we don't see their income figures. Everyone who works there knows it is being sold and has an appropriately short term mentality and approach. iStock was screwed from the moment Bruce Livingstone decided to sell it. No good ever comes from making decisions based on purely how much money you will make and the great shame is that those sort of values have been imposed upon a company that once strived for fairness, inclusion, employee and contributor reward and having fun over a drive for pure profit alone. Someone in here recently posted a copy of a current iStock staff recruitment ad, telling of an in-house masseur for those stiff shoulders, subsidised courses and time off to take them, a groovy canteen full of cool arcade games etc. It sounded like the sort of place we would all like to work at and many of us once thought that in some small way, we did.
It is a shame, but it has happened and it cannot be reversed. Time to move on - my energies are far better focussed on agencies that are going to be around and will be big players in five years time.
114
« on: January 06, 2012, 18:03 »
Hi Lisa, as you may remember I went indie in October of 2010. I left all my portfolio there until a few weeks ago, when I deleted my nine best sellers. I feel very unhappy to be getting only 16% of revenue for these files and so deleted the ones that I felt had fared well on other sites and had found a worthwhile 'new home'. Some of my other images that have done well at iStock have not been accepted on other sites (DT and SS in particular) and so I just left them there. In time I would like to delete all of the images that I have on iStock that have found a good home elsewhere. While I agree with Lagereek that I don't for a second think buyers will search all over the net to find my images for sale, I also can't stomach supporting the bunch of greedy *insult removed* that iStock have become to the tune of 84% of revenue.
When I went indie I remember posting on a forum site on iS that I expected my iStock income to drop from about $350 a month to around $50. I wasn't far off - I was earning around $70 a month for most of last year. I also said that in that case it would not be a huge deal for me to drop iStock altogether and delete my images there. I hope to soon have my other agencies built up to the level where that will be financially possible. I have learnt a lot in my first year+ as an indie - knowledge and skill which I will be putting into creating images for the likes of SS, DT, Veer etc in the future. I haven't uploaded to iS since I left exclusivity as to do so feels like cutting my own throat - if I allow them to profit from my new work at vastly reduced commission then they will have won, and if they win then others will follow suit. I don't think it is an overly dramatic statement to make that I feel that iStock must now fail in order for the rest of the industry to survive.
If you want to check out my income figures then the link is in my sig line below,
Cheers,
Bridget
115
« on: January 05, 2012, 08:13 »
I have just received an email from 123RF entitled '5 Benefits From Your 123RF Registration In 2012'. It does not mention the cut in commissions at all. This shows that emails from 123RF do get through to me in the normal way (this was not in my spam folder or anything, just in my regular mail inbox).
I repeat what others have said - I did not receive the commission cut email from 123RF and yes I have checked my spam and deleted folders.
Now please own up to the fact that this email did not get sent to everyone and you made a mistake. We are not all making it up!
116
« on: December 30, 2011, 09:57 »
I only just found the announcement too. I read the thread on the iStock forum and it was a nauseating read. I find it astonishing that people I know to be intelligent individuals are actually thanking iStock for allowing them to earn the same commission rates as they were on before RCs came about, ie the commission rates that they rightfully earned, often over several years. iStockholm syndrome indeed, that is an excellent name for it.
117
« on: December 21, 2011, 08:03 »
ps - welcome to indieland 
118
« on: December 21, 2011, 07:58 »
I emailed them and they kept mine back until I had dropped my crown. This went a bit wrong though and my images ended up stuck in the queue for a couple of weeks, so keep on top of it, ie email them back to confirm that your crown has gone, even if you have previously told them the date that this will happen as they won't have retained this information and will just hold your images in limbo until they hear from you.
119
« on: December 18, 2011, 07:03 »
Thanks Brian and welcome back.
120
« on: December 17, 2011, 06:05 »
Thanks for the heads up. Just as a small aside, is there any possibility you could use GMT on these sort of announcements in future? We are a global community and I would have thought that everyone has some idea of how their own timezone relates to GMT, whereas it is only US contributors who are likely to know what PT is or how their own time relates to it.
Many thanks
121
« on: December 16, 2011, 15:28 »
Yep, I agree. I remember them saying they wanted a million images before they started marketing properly, but that was achieved a while ago now and I haven't seen any sign that a big ad campaign is coming. With 123RF sticking it to us and cutting commissions lately I would love to see the likes of StockFresh and Veer doing well, but my sales and views don't give me much hope. I am sitting on $5 at StockFresh and it is starting to feel like one of those sites I won't ever be able to claim a payment from.
122
« on: December 16, 2011, 09:56 »
Thanks Chelsey and good luck. Just don't go and work for iStock ok? 
123
« on: December 15, 2011, 17:01 »
The name sounds like some sort of photo scandal.
124
« on: December 15, 2011, 16:00 »
Nah, I'm special
125
« on: December 15, 2011, 08:49 »
Half shag is a kind of hand rolling tobacco.
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