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Messages - pancaketom
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251
« on: October 20, 2021, 11:38 »
So, yes I know 10 vs 20 is a 100% increase, but that was not the point I was making. I have a merely max of 200 photo's in each portfolio I have with the three big ones. To busy with other work to let it grow for now. About 15% of each individual photo has been sold and some are bestsellers in the way they have sold a lot more times than others.
So one of my bestsellers is a decent photo taken of the moon (pretty pin sharp, good post-processing, not many pixels though due to the necesarry cropping when taken at 960 mm). It's one a first page with one of the big agencies and for all the time.
This agency has about a couple of million of users. Now with Halloween upcoming I see a small rise in sales. From 2-3 a week to 4-5 a week. So hey, sort of a 100% increase, yeah!
But every week it's 2 or 3 and now 4-5. Never, with the millions of users they have, it's 20,60,200 or 0. And that's what I would have expected it to do with the one photo versus millions of customers. That's what I mean with stable and that is what surprises me.
It's not a photo of a rare item that is a niche and only some clients could be interested in I would say.
Nice you won the search lottery - enjoy it while it lasts
252
« on: October 15, 2021, 23:48 »
"the wall" is when the number of new images you can produce does not keep up with the falloff of sales of old images as well as the total number of new images overall.
If you have a few hundred pics you can double your port in a relatively short time and keep the sales volume rising. As your port gets bigger at some point you can't keep up. If you can produce a higher percentage of good selling pics you can stave this off for longer, but it is a numbers game and they will catch up to you eventually. Hopefully at that point your return is enough to offset the amount of work you are putting in.
253
« on: October 14, 2021, 12:41 »
In general, your income will fall over time. This is if you are uploading or not unless you are good or lucky or are still on the right side of "the cliff".
I think the drop has more to do with what your portfolio contains - does it have dated things or images that are very well covered or more down the long tail or timeless images.
I think the big changes the sites have made make a much bigger difference than uploads over a 3-4 month time period. So dropping percentage paid and changing the search makes a much bigger difference. What you do or don't do makes a difference, but it can all be wiped out (or boosted if you are lucky) by a search change or implementation of a location based search or cutting your take 30% or whatever they do.
Also after a few years it seems my sales have dropped to some pretty low steady state on the sites I stopped uploading to.
254
« on: October 01, 2021, 12:48 »
The bump in price was to help contributors through Covid, I guess Covid is officially over?
no, but it was nice while it lasted (the .38, not Covid). I don't see SS going back to .38 any time soon though.
255
« on: September 30, 2021, 21:38 »
No, I don't think so - although I think I have had a few decent sales at Alamy refunded because they were bought at a much cheaper micro site.
That said, if everyone left the dime agencies, then they would either stop being dime agencies or else they would just cease to exist. Sadly everyone didn't / doesn't.
At some point I couldn't stomach getting paid so little and such a small percentage, so I left. This cost me $. Fortunately I already have a table and have other ways to put food on it.
At least I am not overly pained now each time SS and Getty do something to screw the artists more.
256
« on: September 27, 2021, 11:11 »
Every time there's an announcement like this, there's always skepticism from contributors. But the most important part that everyone seems to miss, is that they said they're confident it will result in more revenue... they didn't say who is going to be the recipient of this additional revenue. I have no doubt that this will result in more revenue. For iStock. They wouldn't have implemented it otherwise... they just never mentioned that it would result in more revenue for us lot. Keep that in mind when you're all posting "they promised us more revenue" a month, six months, a year down the line. They didn't.
The skepticism is well warranted. sites like 123RF said "your income will double". Nope, not even close. Contributors are right to be very leery of these "exciting announcements". At 1.5 to 2x still prices, I would be getting somewhere in the 20 cent to 4$ range for video - most at the lower end. I am presuming the <.01 "sales" are for some other scheme, otherwise I'd be getting 1.5 to 2X that for video (if I ever sent video to Getty, which isn't going to happen unless they really change - and not in this direction). It is nice they are guaranteeing at least equal income from before for some contributors- it is probably more of a grab for market share than anything else. Which just means Getty gets to take their 85% out of a small sale instead of some other site taking probably a smaller cut of a larger sale.
257
« on: September 25, 2021, 14:32 »
Every time I have looked at a cell phone photo in detail - it sucks. Maybe if you downsize to the minimum it would be good enough (and lets face it, most web uses are tiny, and for that they are fine).
For web use and microstock prices - sure, cell phone photos should be good enough. As far as better than an APS-c of full frame sensor at full resolution, not even close.
video might be another story, I don't know about that.
258
« on: September 23, 2021, 20:39 »
the sad part is that we are severely censored on the forum. Say anything they don't like any your banished!
SS is a private company and they have the right to control what's being shouted in their home. I am sure that you too would not tolerate being insulted in your own home.
They invited us in and we helped build that house.
Nah.
That's no different than any other contract in the business world between independent entities.
When you freely sign that contract, you didn't sign it to build their house, but to build yours. You never thought about helping SS build some house, you only thought of your own interest.
Or, if you want, you helped build their house as much as they helped build yours. 
Because when it's not convenient to you anymore, you can simply walk away. As long as you stay, it means SS is helping you build your own house. 
but only one side keeps changing the contract
And each time you had the option to walk away.
If you didn't, it means that you are still OK with the contract.
In @Noedelhap words, SS is still helping you build your house. 😉
they made one too many changes and I walked.
259
« on: September 23, 2021, 17:08 »
the sad part is that we are severely censored on the forum. Say anything they don't like any your banished!
SS is a private company and they have the right to control what's being shouted in their home. I am sure that you too would not tolerate being insulted in your own home.
They invited us in and we helped build that house.
Nah.
That's no different than any other contract in the business world between independent entities.
When you freely sign that contract, you didn't sign it to build their house, but to build yours. You never thought about helping SS build some house, you only thought of your own interest.
Or, if you want, you helped build their house as much as they helped build yours.
Because when it's not convenient to you anymore, you can simply walk away. As long as you stay, it means SS is helping you build your own house.
but only one side keeps changing the contract
260
« on: September 16, 2021, 21:52 »
Alamy's opaque bookkeeping drives me nuts.
Alamy is the only agency that I deal with that refers to the total sales value in my "Revenue" chart, prior to deducting their commission. The other agencies at least are honest enough to report what we actually got paid after they deducted their large cut.
It used to be that seeing what the other companies took out of the full sale would have been super painful. eg - Istock - congrats on your $100 sale, we took $85. - not nearly as nice as you got a $15 sale. sadly Alamy now takes a pretty huge cut out of some sales, and a big cut out of the rest. I used to be more forgiving of waiting months for sales to clear etc. When they take over 75% of some sales though, it makes me much less forgiving and patient of their "quirks".
261
« on: September 11, 2021, 10:43 »
...
I wonder how hard it would be to make a virus that downloaded stuff from SS on these unlimited plans. Sprinkle just enough more of your own sales into the mix and don't get too greedy and you could probably have a pretty good run.
of course, releasing a virus like that (or running an app) is a clear violation of TOS, and likely also illegal
Of course, so is uploading other people's work - doesn't seem to stop people though. No, I am not suggesting someone do it, just wondering if it would work.
262
« on: September 10, 2021, 16:32 »
yep, all 10 cent all the time - until that becomes unsustainable and it drops down to 5 cents or 2 cents or whatever they think enough of the remaining contributors will swallow.
I wonder how hard it would be to make a virus that downloaded stuff from SS on these unlimited plans. Sprinkle just enough more of your own sales into the mix and don't get too greedy and you could probably have a pretty good run.
263
« on: September 01, 2021, 00:41 »
I guess I'll go GIMP when my current setup stops working.
264
« on: August 24, 2021, 00:33 »
I think your latitude makes less difference than the direction you point the camera - if you are pointing at the N or S sky there is a lot less movement than pointing straight out - along an E-W line and in between is in between as far as the motion. Fortunately with digital you can take a long (ish) exposure and decide if the stars are points enough for you. If not - go with a shorter exposure.
My Pentax camera has an astrotracer mode where it moves the sensor to minimize star trails - it works pretty well with medium lenses. Things get weird at the edges of wide angle lenses. I haven't really tried for meteors, although I have gotten some in pics by serendipity. I have access to some pretty dark clear skies, so it can be fun trying things - and usually dry air so I haven't messed with the lens heater - although I have had problems with condensation from time to time.
265
« on: July 30, 2021, 13:13 »
I wonder if hidden in one of the changes to the TOS was something saying they could profit off our keywording (intellectual property) without paying us.
266
« on: July 21, 2021, 18:52 »
I'm not on DP, but I can't help but be skeptical of all of these trust us accounting programs with unlimited downloads and you might get some percentage of the revenue eventually.
40% of net means they can massage the books to make net lower and lower or not, but you would never know. Before you got x$ per sale or x% of sale, and hopefully you knew when and what sold. We still had to trust that they correctly reported what sold at what size, but now we have no information other than what they tell us a month later.
I have no idea what they mean that higher tier contributors make more - does that mean 100 dls from a high tier contributor will get a bigger chunk of the 40% than 100 dls from a low tier contributor? I guess once again untransparent but they can reward some people more without touching their own 60% (or more - remember it is net and they can deduct whatever they feel they need to from gross to get to that net).
exciting indeed.
267
« on: July 18, 2021, 16:03 »
I would gladly have my mediocre (read, good enough) shots land on the first page of searches. This would be very lucrative, especially for subjects where the buyers just want a good enough image. stuff like background clouds, wood textures, isolated simple objects and food.
Personally I had a fireworks image that was a good image (but there are thousands just as good) on the first page of search at SS for about 3 or 4 years with daily sales. Then the search got changed and now it gets a few sales a year. Placement isn't everything, but it is very very important and probably more so where the buyer doesn't really care about the exact image, they just want one that fits the simple criteria.
268
« on: July 01, 2021, 14:57 »
Funny how only 10-30 pages of search results are considered low demand, especially since buyers rarely search beyond the first few pages. For almost all of these searches there is more than one image per search. Now if this is daily searches, that isn't bad, if it is over a month, you can see why sales are so low.
also is "1999 2000 2021 calendar" really the #1 search term? over what time frame, a few days before new years? I would expect something one word like "nature" or "diversity" or "environment" or "woman"? Back when SS published the top search terms (from everyone I presume, not just buyers) it seemed like more than 1/2 the top 100 were one word searches, with the usual Christmas, background, and business you would expect but also a lot of porny searches too.
I do miss the tool SS had for a bit that showed searches over a calendar year, that was pretty interesting - especially comparing similar terms.
If I was still selling on SS I would consider adding colors to all my background keywords and also "big" to my question marks.
269
« on: July 01, 2021, 14:27 »
I'm surprised that companies haven't made a play for more wholly owned content. They know what is searched for and bought and they can monkey with the search results to put their stuff in front. If they just did that with subjects that are popular enough and easily replicated they could save a bundle - then again they are paying such small peanuts it probably doesn't matter to them anymore.
Things will get more interesting when the supply of good new images from the high cost of living countries slows to a trickle and the old stuff artists are letting ride starts to look outdated.
270
« on: June 28, 2021, 14:09 »
The month is not yet ended, and I have over 100 sales of footage at price 0.25 USD. What have I done wrong  ?
You accepted SS's new scheme to pay only a percentage with maybe a tiny minimum (is there even a minimum for footage, or is it ten cents too?).
271
« on: June 25, 2021, 16:30 »
It certainly makes sense for the sites to pay up front for a few hundred of all of the high search term high volume images and then tweak the search to put their images on the first page of search results. It is probably fine for the people that make the sales, but after a few years a significant percent of sales will be wholly owned content - and it will become less and less worthwhile to try to fill out the long tail for the rare low $ sale that they will earn.
I think this is just another step along the path to the end of it being worthwhile to produce microstock for profit for anyone but the big houses and even them will have to be very strategic.
272
« on: June 08, 2021, 18:48 »
I am guessing that anyone that manages to get a better deal will also have some sort of non disclosure clause so it will be like fight club - the first rule is you don't talk about it. I also agree with most of what has been said before - you need something special to get a special deal.
273
« on: June 02, 2021, 16:56 »
The excitement is certainly over for me - unless you mean the excitement of "exciting news". I haven't bothered adding up my sales for May yet, although I guess I'll do that this afternoon - it is hard to muster much enthusiasm to see if it was a bad month or an awful month. I haven't added much in a while - partly because I've been busy - training and doing a few adventure races and supporting my partner who had knee surgery (ACL / MCL). A few years ago I'd have taken heaps of photos of that process and the PT, now I doubt it is worth my time.
If you have a big inventory and can produce images with minimal time and cost it is probably still worth it to keep at it, but it is getting harder and harder. Still, boring is ok if it means you are making enough $ with a reasonable amount of work.
274
« on: May 21, 2021, 17:39 »
replace SS with IS/Getty, and I would agree (and IS always took a huge portion of every sale).
I also think that if the agencies could have differentiated hard to get / superior images for a higher price point we all would be in a better place now.
275
« on: May 21, 2021, 14:46 »
how does the search algorithm come up with "fresh, on trend vibe" content?
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