Quote from: robhainer on November 23, 2014, 07:44

Quote from: PixelBytes on November 22, 2014, 16:12

For us who did not get lazy and slack off, but have been uploading our max ability week after week for years and keep at it, but still see sales and income dropping, any suggestions?   A bit simple to say just produce more and watch the money roll in at this late stage in the game.

I don't know your port. I would suggest trying some new things outside your comfort zone. I went back and reprocessed some images to give them the Instagram look, and they started selling better than the ones with normal processing.

Thank you.  Good suggestion.  I have tried doing some things like this and they do sell, but this takes time and I can still only produce so many good hcv images per week without help.  With reducing income I don't even consider taking on help.

It is nice when people like Rinder and Rob share suggestions.  Most do not anymore.  They are worth trying.

  For me, I planned to try doubling output for six months to see if I could increase income average near past levels.  So far I haven't been able to double the output. I hope maybe after Xmas I can try it and keep quality and originality.   If it succeeds it will be a lot of work. At least if it fails I can take a nap and spend more time with my kids!

Try using the Catalogue Manager at SS to monitor how much your new work is actually making. Create a new Set for each month's work (i.e. containing all the images uploaded during that month) and it will continually update the sales and revenue generated by those images.

From that you will be able to derive the revenue per image/month. I reckon a microstock image to have a 'working life' of about 5 years so if you multiply the revenue per month by 60x then you will have roughly projected how much your month's work is likely to be worth over its full term.

I recently created a Set for each month worked over the last couple of years. I found the results both surprising and highly motivating. I discovered that newer images were much more important to maintaining or increasing revenue on SS than I was previously aware. Most importantly I've determined that creating new images is most definitely still worthwhile __ even if you only uploaded them to SS. The revenue from other agencies is just an additional bonus!

Posted by Lobo at http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=364161&page=1
"the majority of the feedback we have received has been positive."

HAH!
HAHA!
HAHAHA!
HAHAHAHA!
HAHAHAHAHA!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!

It was utterly crazy that Istock didn't provide the option of a cheaper small/medium resolution image purchase for such buyers. They seem to be trying to copy SS yet have clearly excluded a good number of existing buyers by not doing so __ because SS do provide such an option.

You're uploading to Istock!!!?

That's the real shocker in this story. How badly do you need that 15%?

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on November 12, 2014, 11:03

I use Backblaze + offline disks for archiving. Even if I could use the Prime storage for photos, I'd still need Backblaze for everything else. Given that Backblaze is one price per computer for unlimited storage, I don't really have an incentive to switch.

Another photographer who looked at this said that the no commercial use limitation did apply, so I don't know what to make of conflicting answers on that aspect of the storage deal.

Where did they get that information?  Also the 'commercial use' limitation could have different meanings.  I was told by Amazon, after they asked someone who could answer the question, that it was ok.  I asked twice making sure they understood that I was a professional photographer and they said they understood and it was ok.

This is what it says on amazon.co.uk;

Prime Photos is for your personal, non-commercial use only. You may not use it in connection with a professional photography business or other commercial service.

Quote from: gostwyck on November 10, 2014, 19:45

Iran has a democratically elected government as far as I'm aware. The present government and their policies are the product of the settled will of the population of Iran are they not?

If those policies happen to be so against those of Western countries (also democratically elected) that said Western countries choose to not trade, and/or impose sanctions against them ... then that is essentially the choice the population of Iran made when they elected their government.

If you deliberately pursue policies against the interests of your trading partners then don't be surprised if later they choose not to trade with you.

I have no idea what the political leanings of the OP are but, for example, if he had enthusiastically voted for and cheered for the government that caused this crisis with the West ... then  it would be difficult to find sympathy for his plight.

You can't on one hand declare your hated for the West whilst on the other seek to benefit from their institutions and the opportunities they provide.

You must be  incredibly ignorant judging by this comment

That's easy for you to say __ probably beyond your capabilities to justify it however. I think it is far more 'ignorant' to call someone's comment ignorant without explaining why. Please do enlighten us with your wisdom regarding the relationship between Iran and the West.

Iran has a democratically elected government as far as I'm aware. The present government and their policies are the product of the settled will of the population of Iran are they not?

If those policies happen to be so against those of Western countries (also democratically elected) that said Western countries choose to not trade, and/or impose sanctions against them ... then that is essentially the choice the population of Iran made when they elected their government.

If you deliberately pursue policies against the interests of your trading partners then don't be surprised if later they choose not to trade with you.

I have no idea what the political leanings of the OP are but, for example, if he had enthusiastically voted for and cheered for the government that caused this crisis with the West ... then  it would be difficult to find sympathy for his plight.

You can't on one hand declare your hated for the West whilst on the other seek to benefit from their institutions and the opportunities they provide.

Here Pooh pooh on you some more!

Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 09, 2014, 18:48

Thank You! I've been trying to point out the same information and get pooh poohed with "algorithm change", capping, blackouts and who knows what else. Personally the IS exclusives coming over are a drop in the bucket, but part of the problem.

June 2012 20 million images. Aug 2014 40 million images.

Exactly what you have been saying. We can't keep up with that doubling of competition, and even an uploading machine, won't keep up with 10 million new images by March or April 2015.

We are bound to lose our share of the sales. This is not any great or mysterious discovery. Just that people don't want to admit that we are getting buried by the numbers.

Quote from: stockmarketer on November 09, 2014, 07:27

Here's the thing that scares the crap out of me...

Look at the chart for "Historical Operating Metrics"...

The rate of growth in the image collection has been accelerating at a frightening pace.

From Q3 to Q4 2012, the collection grew by 7.4%.  That rate of increase steady rises from quarter to quarter, and in the most recent period, from Q2 to Q3 2014, the collection grew by 10.0%. 

THIS is why we're making less and less while we upload more and more.  Unless you're an uploading machine, you cannot keep your port growing at the accelerating rate of the overall collection. 

If this trend continues, most of us will watch our SS earnings continue to dive no matter how hard we work. 

Very discouraging stuff, and it's making me question how much blood, sweat and tears I will continue pouring into microstock.

You really should stick to the SS forum. Maybe folk over there would find your posts interesting and amusing. Probably not __ but at least it's worth a chance.

No, I had not two accounts. My first member name was "RaminKhojasteh" and then I sent an email to iStock team for changing my member name to "Ramin-3D".
Before that I became an exclusive contributor on the iStock, I had a few accounts in other royalty sites: Shutterstock, fotolia, dreamstime, and ... and shutterstock & fotolia & dreamstime closed my account at the same time and no reply to my emails.

It's not because you're from Iran is it? It sounds like you were caught claiming personal copyright of imagery you didn't create. Why otherwise would all the main agencies close your accounts?

Here's the thing that scares the crap out of me...

Look at the chart for "Historical Operating Metrics"...

The rate of growth in the image collection has been accelerating at a frightening pace.

From Q3 to Q4 2012, the collection grew by 7.4%.  That rate of increase steady rises from quarter to quarter, and in the most recent period, from Q2 to Q3 2014, the collection grew by 10.0%. 

THIS is why we're making less and less while we upload more and more.  Unless you're an uploading machine, you cannot keep your port growing at the accelerating rate of the overall collection. 

If this trend continues, most of us will watch our SS earnings continue to dive no matter how hard we work. 

Very discouraging stuff, and it's making me question how much blood, sweat and tears I will continue pouring into microstock.

But the revenue pie is not being shared out between images but between contributors. I very much doubt that the number of contributors (who actually know what they are doing) is growing at anything like the same rate.

A huge number of the new images being accepted are multiple similars of LCV subjects. There are contributors out there that are working incredibly hard to generate massive portfolios of images ... most of which will never sell. Even if the images themselves are ok then some folk are uploading 10 or 20 nearly identical images when 1 or 2 would have been enough. Microstock has always been more about working smart than working hard.

As I wrote in an earlier post the libraries actually grew much faster as a percentage of the total at the start of microstock. For example SS's library grew in size by more than 100x between 2005 and 2008.

Quote from: gostwyck on November 08, 2014, 11:10

As you probably know Shutterstock are now a publicly quoted company and as such contributors have been requested to not divulge too many details on their earnings.

What does "as such" actually mean in this context ?

Quote

This could be considered 'inside information' and as such might not be available to the entire market.

This is clearly not privileged information since, as one example, the stock factories and big portfolios talking privately already have far more pertinent information than is going to come from a thread like this.

@Jim - presumably an anonymous poll here would make it simple for people to respond openly.

Bit nosey for an Istock exclusive aren't we? Just Google the words you don't understand.

Of course it's privileged information. If you were considering buying SSTK stock then you would not have access to it and that puts you at a disadvantage. SS contributors, through their own sales, may have knowledge of whether revenues are increasing or decreasing up to 3 months before they are reported to the market. It also protects the contributors themselves. If you bought or sold SSTK stock on the basis of the 'inside information' you gained from a contributor but ended up losing money instead then you might attempt to sue the contributor for misleading you.

What about PayPal or a cheque as alternative methods of payment?

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on November 07, 2014, 07:35

I hope all of you people who rely on SS for income have a Plan B in place. Because they are running over the competition like a steam roller. When they have dominant market share, and stock price growth stalls, they will have no choice but to start changing contributor terms to improve their financials. And at that point they know they will be able to do whatever they want to contributors.

I don't know if you have to wait that long, from what I remember every earnings report investor call has had a question about royalty rates and the company is beating expectations every quarter.  It might just take one quarter of meeting expectations?

That would be a very dangerous game for SS to play. Istock already tried 'management by quarterly target review' when H&F were their masters ... and look where it got them.

If SS were to destroy itself through greed, as IS did, then another agency or two would simply step up to take their place.

I'd definitely have concerns if Oringer were to walk away but I don't think he will. It's now a game to him. He wants to make SS as big as possible and he knows that he won't achieve that by messing with either his customers or his contributors. If short-term greed were in his nature then we'd already have witnessed it. Instead the opposite is true.

Quote from: gostwyck on November 07, 2014, 07:24

The price is set by the market and that's what they value it at.

they've good reasons to market SS so high but it won't last forever, SS is not a tech/media company that is launching new product every year or that is doing M&As, all they're doing now is preparing the company for a sell out and yes the most obvious candidates for this are companies like apple/MS/google/adobe.

As BT has already pointed out 'they' can't be "preparing the company for a sell-out" ... because 'they' already sold it in an IPO two years ago.

For all we know Apple or Google (or any other potential purchaser) could already have been buying SS, share by share, for a couple of years.