Their crime is not just limited to the offensive missuse of the apostrophe in "FAQ's" either.

The full topic is actually described as "Buyers FAQ's". The FAQ are possessive to multiple buyers ... so it should be "Buyers' FAQ"

.... after all he makes a seven figure amount (in US$) from microstock annually.

Really? How do you know this? Everywhere that you can actually see his sales suggests he's making mid-five figure amounts at most. He'd have to be at Yuri's level to be doing 7 figures.

Also it looks like a hotel room and it might be a recognisable branded colour scheme for the decor too.

It's been hinted at once or twice here that exclusives get significantly better placement in best match. Worth a bit more than Moo cards, I think.

That certainly used to be the case in previous versions of the best match although any advantage is much less obvious now. Even so in my view it actually made very little difference to overall sales. One of the many evidences of that being Yuri's sales. If your images are good enough then the buyers will find them.

IMHO you get a significantly higher and much more stable income from being independent. I'd be absolutely gutted if my entire stock income was suddenly slashed by 30% or more by a best match change (as it has been in the past) but it makes it much easier to bear if the overall effect is less than 5%.

Also I never fail to be surprised how sales vary on image series between sites. It always seems to me that if I upload a series of say 6 images, the best-selling image of the series on IS will often be the worst performer on SS __ and vice versa. Weird how it always seem to happen and it suggests that pure luck does play a part.

Most importantly I don't see IS being anything like as dominant in the future as it has been in the past. Four years ago IS peaked at nearly 60% of my stock income but last month it had slipped to an all-time low of 27.7%. This month (so far) it has recovered to 32% but the trend is invariably downward in marked contrast to SS, FT and StockXpert all of whom are exhibiting steady growth in my experience.

I believe that IS some time ago set out to appeal primarily to the less price-concious, high-spending corporate segment of the market. It is more concerned about profitability per sale than sheer volume or maintaining market share. In many ways I'm glad they did as they have been the leader in increasing image prices rather than ending up in a price war with all the others. The downside is that in doing so they've possibly abandoned a sizable chunk of the overall market which is being greedily snapped up by their competitors.

All the time that you remain independent you always have the option of exclusivity __ but it is almost impossible to reverse the decision later if you have a sizable portfolio. Rewards steadily increase with rank/sales at SS, DT and FT and personally I'd hate to be starting again at the lowest level with each agency.

It's also more fun watching the market develop and observing how each agency performs each month.

Peter, istockphoto pays out over one million dollars to its contributors a day.I think you can safely presume that is a good reason why any photographer should try and become a contributor on the site.

I think you'll find it is 'over one million dollars' per week. It's not $1M to each contributor either __ it is actually split between them.

Hm , I would first search for some landscapes on IS sorted by downloads before stating that unnatural skies are reducing image potential cause the results will
show just the opposite.

Obviously it is dependent on the subject matter and the images in question aren't landscapes. From my own experience near-black skies appear to have a negative impact on sales of architectural images.

The OP asked a question and I've taken the time to advise on the issue from my experience. If you've made it your job here to nit-pick and argue about irrelevant detail then I won't bother in future.

Can't you tell from looking at the images? It should be obvious enough what the issue is if rejects are as common as you suggest.

There's no problem in using a polarizer for stock provided it is used correctly.

I think Mantonino is closet to the right answer on this.

If someone offered me 1.5x annual earnings for my port I'd think about it. At 2x annual earnings I'd almost certainly sell __ if only because it would give me a couple of years off 'work' and monitoring sales and anyway I could probably generate a bigger and better port in the same timescale.

Microstock is still much too young to be able to predict future values with any certainty but in my experience (4 years) the good images actually do continue to sell and sell __ except of course when they are killed off by IS best match changes.

Hmm. I've always found StockXpert's default search order a bit weird and it seems to produce equally weird results too.

Does anyone else find that most of their sales on StockXpert come from a tiny proportion of their portfolio and almost invariably from fairly mediocre images that don't do particularly well elsewhere? It seems to me that most of my best stuff is ignored there in favour of a few ordinary images that just keep selling.

Relax Ironarrow __ recent history demonstrates that we've been doing very well indeed when an agency has attempted something against our interests.

The wind doth blow fast and fierce upon them __ and they very quickly pull their knickers up, take cover and then surrender.

Any site, eh? How about Dreamstime?

How much of your portfolio there has been uploaded in the past 6 months?

"You make me mad and I'll delete my portfolio... in about 6 months."

Even with that restriction the significant players could probably delete 80%+ of their ports (all images over 6 months old and 30% of the rest)

Even IS listens to its contributors when they have issues.  And well they should as without their contributors they are nothing.  Particularly their high level exclusives who justifiably seem to have some influence.

Recently they took in a lot of contributor feedback and incorporated it into their new subscription plan.  And just a few months before that they changed the way they charged international buyers because of contributors taking a stand against it.

Any site that considers itself above contributors interests should tread very carefully, and that includes the industry leaders.  They wouldn't be industry leaders for long without any decent images to sell and fortunately they seem to know it. 

And if they forget they will be reminded . 

Well said Lisa (as usual).

Don't forget also just how much money these agencies can be making for themselves on the back of our portfolios. On a decent month I hope my port will generate at least $1k for me on IS __ but IS will make $4K from it.

With figures like those I feel less like a 'supplier' and more like a 'donor'

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In response, for contributor convenience and customer benefit we made these options opt-out. Very few contributors opt-out which tells us that these revenue opportunities are viewed positively by virtually the entire Stockxpert community.

In other words, people didn't want to do it, so we made them do it by default.

This whole thing still sounds shady.  I'm glad you guys are going over it with a fine toothed comb.  Still sounds like they want to take advantage of you.

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Our customers want the fresh, stylized images that you're producing and selling on Stockxpert.

So, why don't they move their asses over to StockXpert?

I see nothing about changing the EULA.  If you still offer your images on photos.com, you get to give away your rights without compensation.  I think I'm going to take the Paul C. route and start selling calendars.

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We've definitely learned an important and valuable lesson in how we need to engage with you in the future.

ie,. we're going to sugar coat everything, so you have no idea how we're screwing you over.

Sean,

With that insight you should be presenting the news on TV __ worldwide. The ratings would go off the scale.