Shutterstock came after istock, where I think (I'm not sure) he was a contributor. But Jon's real success has been convincing thousand of artists to sell their works for just some cents. He has been brilliant doing that. Selling is easy if you can offer a mini-price and earn money in the process. 

But they have some photos uploaded in 2010.

Sales down a cliff, revenue down. It doesn't seem a good thing to be exclusive at istock right now.

Well, I'd rather be opted out, or at least just have my choice of old, non-sellers opted in, as each sub sale is like a kick in the stomach; but for sure the volume isn't making up for the sharp dive in regular sales since they started in April. So far (and as you say, it's probably all but over) I have 25% of the subs I sold in July.

Yes, I've also have had about one forth of previous months. Very strange: subs had been on the rise month after month from thebeginning.

Divide the amount of money earned by the number of sales for the entire period you sell in Shutterstock, Fotolia, iStock...no matter and You'll see that You work for $1 average with all of them!!!


Let's go do some new shots...

Absolutely false. My RPD is almost 13$ (IS exclusive), and with volume, and I'm a photographer.  There's a difference, from 1 to 13.

On the other hand, even is your general RPD is 1, the 0.29, 0.40 or whatever handout you get at DPC, that's not even half 1, even if the images sell at 1 $. Photographer's comission and price of sale is not the same.

I think you have a lot to learn about the microstock business.

Quote from: loop on July 20, 2014, 17:02

Quote from: disorderly on July 17, 2014, 10:41

Quote from: stvagna on July 17, 2014, 06:40

Every single image on this SS portfolio looks like "inspired" from the same IS exclusive portfolio.

So what?  You can only copyright the execution of a concept, not the concept itself.  And exclusivity constrains the creator of the content, not anyone else who might find inspiration from it.  These concepts are so generic and the executions different enough that I don't see a problem.

It can be as legal as you want (if it really is), but morally is dirty and low.

You have a weird sense of morality, and one I give no weight at all.  Being first doesn't give you any special rights to an idea, any more than shouting FIRST gives your opinion primacy on a comment thread.  But enjoy your moral high ground, while I ignore you in favor of less self-important proclamations.

What you say, tells a lot about you. As a person, and as a stock photographer (for  you doesn't seem able to tell that is something more --much more-- than the naked idea).

Quote from: OM on July 13, 2014, 19:01

The thing that i don't understand about some major image factories (with up to 500,000 images) at all the big agencies, is that they stay opted into DPC. For an ODD at SS they get paid ~$3.00 whereas at DPC that same image only brings around 10% of that. Surely, at some point, once buyers see how cheaply they can buy the same image at DPC, they would flock there and the income of the factories would decrease substantially. Lets be fair, without paid DL's at FT and ODD' and SOD's at SS, this game would no longer be worth playing. So, why do the big factories stay at DPC?

I can only assume that buyers are ignorant of the fact that the credit purchase for $10/image they pay at SS can become a $1 purchase at DPC when the same image is offered on both sites. But I really don't understand it at all.

You don't think the big guys get a better deal?

If DPC gets a dollar (less expenses) for every dowload, factories can have a better deal, but not much better.

(Added after thinking a little bit): Except if what tehy offer them is a better place in search results, of course.

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on June 27, 2014, 19:34

How do you know these pay out like that?

I sent an email asking for confirmation. I asked:

Quote

I would like clarification on contributor royalties paid out in your monthly subscription plans. It is my understanding that the lowest-priced monthly subscription offer of 5 images per month for $49 pays out subscription royalties to contributors. So in a typical scenario, out of that $9.80 paid per image by the customer, the contributor would get their subscription royalty of $0.30-$0.35. Is that correct?

And the reply I got was:

Quote

Yes, you are correct that you receive your fixed royalties of each subscription sale. We have daily subscription plans with $0,15 per image, but your royalty rate remains the same $0.31. Please take a look at our daily plans and you will notice that the most expensive image is $0.46 if customers purchase daily plans.

That doesn't take in account the non-used quotas. After all, this is the main source of benefit por subs sites. You can be sure they are not losing money, these "%&*

Ended up with a good first week. Best ever in earnings at nearly $450. Total sales not looking all that good.

You have to give some credit to Shutterstock. It's the only one of these microstock sites that will pay you $150 for an image. Anyone else doing that? Alamy?

I've got as much as 250 $ for some extended licenses at IS. Rare ocassions, yes, but several times through these years.

Quote from: ShadySue on June 04, 2014, 05:22

Mind you, I bet Yuri gets more than 40% - he almost certainly (I say with no empirical evidence) managed to negotiate a higher percentage along with his faux-exclusive deal.

Very, very unlikely. That's not how it works with Getty.

Instead they suck you in with fawning platitudes like "Professionals deal with professionals" __ and boy, did Yuri fall for that one or what!? Can't quite believe how naive he was. Bless!

Yuri (and Lise) probably get 45%. They got the level, and RC's have been granfathered the last years.

Yesterday was good. Today is almost like a holiday. I don't know what is going on.

Sooner or later, IS subs will have an impact on SS. And also DPC, of course, and more regarding OnDemand sales.

On October 12 I wrote:
Interesting factoid: "Yuri" is showing "greater than 25,000 sales" on 78,000 images since the new identity was created in April. I'm rather surprised to see that one of his top business images is selling in the 10cr-55cr price bracket.

Today that identity has "greater than 54,000 sales", which means that portfolio, which still has 78,000 images has achieved 19,000 sales in 37 weeks. Which is 513 sales per week = 26,704 sales per year, = approx. one sale for every three images over the course of a year.

So if you have 1,000 Yuri-quality images on iStock, you could expect to get about 350 sales a year, or a sale a day. Presumably a lot of them are priced at Vetta levels (I can't be bothered to try to estimate how many are and how many are not) but even so, the return on effort for a top exclusive doesn't look all that amazingly exciting to me.  Perhaps that is why they have to allow him to sell on loads of other agencies as well as being "exclusive" with them.

It suggests to me that all the exclusive's sales are struggling. It looks as if I will sell about one file in two from my non-exclusive portfolio on iStock this year - obviously at a much lower price point than Yuri's.

Sorry, but something is amiss in this calculation. Not being a great stock shooter, not working with great production expenses, best models etc, and so, not having "great quality images", I sell way more than 350 sales a year for every 1.000 photos. And when I say way more, I mean way more.

In the UK, there is such a thing as unfair contracts, and unfair waivers etc, so the mere fact that you signed a paper doesn't always mean you're held to it or that the other party can ride roughshod over you.

But maybe that doesn't apply in the US, where having a signature seems to count for much more. ([?] I don't know.)

Do you mean that in USA someone signs a contract allowing another one to be his master and to have him as a slave is legal? (it's an example)