|
MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - kayann
26
« on: September 26, 2014, 06:07 »
Has anyone had any luck reporting copyright infringement to Google for stolen works that come up in the Google search results? I have reported to Google before and only get "there is no proof".
27
« on: September 25, 2014, 15:31 »
I got a notice from Canstockphoto saying they have barred the contributor.
28
« on: September 25, 2014, 09:37 »
Other avenues are starting to look much more attractive to make a buck or two 
What avenues are you considering?
29
« on: September 25, 2014, 09:33 »
Hard to believe I am the only person whose work they are stealing.
30
« on: September 25, 2014, 09:18 »
32
« on: August 26, 2014, 08:14 »
Are you saying there will be no more istock.com, everyone will be sent to getty?
33
« on: May 27, 2014, 12:06 »
Well that is really unbelievable that they would make you go through the process a second time. We so need an international body to regulate these people. Their business practices are so unfair.
34
« on: May 26, 2014, 20:00 »
Same thing happened here. I went through the link to end exclusivity, for a few days it was counting down the days until my exclusive status ended. Then all of a sudden the just acted like I had never requested. I emailed support immediately but of course I never heard from them.
35
« on: May 10, 2014, 08:45 »
OMG istock's various pricing schemes of the last few years will make your eyes go blank. So true Michael
36
« on: April 30, 2014, 06:45 »
I think that you need to speak for yourself, as a contributor, or speak for Fotolia - and you need to get one of Leaf's badges that identifies agency representatives if you're going to do that.
quick off topic question - is there a key for the badges so we know what they mean? I see them under peoples names on posts.
37
« on: April 30, 2014, 06:40 »
Thank you so much for the vector sites. When I decided to go non-exclusive, I did not realize how overwhelming it would be. I literally did not realize some of these sites existed. My hesitancy with toonvectors is that most of my pieces are not cartoons. I don't know if I fit?
kayann
38
« on: April 29, 2014, 10:27 »
Illustrators absolutely must upload to Toonvectors! Sales are slowish (but regular and consistent monthly) but at a commission of $14 per sale and 70% you should support this site simply on principle. Upload is a bit unorthodox but once you get it is extremely easy. Toonvectors commissions for me are about 2 times DP and Fotolia and blow the other smaller sites out of the water. This site and Symbio are the two most promising prospects for illustrators in years.
Are there other vector sites you would recommend?
I've learned that my results and recommendations are so far from the norm that most people will violently disagree with me. Ill just say this... SS is only 12% of my earnings and IS is less than 2%. There are other options but you need to test them all, track your results and upload accordingly. May not work for you but I personally am not to worried about 1 single agency doing something to dramatically affect my earnings.
you can't text what you don't know about
39
« on: April 27, 2014, 07:43 »
Illustrators absolutely must upload to Toonvectors! Sales are slowish (but regular and consistent monthly) but at a commission of $14 per sale and 70% you should support this site simply on principle. Upload is a bit unorthodox but once you get it is extremely easy. Toonvectors commissions for me are about 2 times DP and Fotolia and blow the other smaller sites out of the water. This site and Symbio are the two most promising prospects for illustrators in years.
Are there other vector sites you would recommend?
40
« on: April 27, 2014, 06:36 »
the minute I put in for non-exclusivity my very consistent up to that point istock tanked.
41
« on: April 27, 2014, 06:32 »
I am just trying to make sure I understand, shutterstock removes pieces that have not sold after a certain length of time? For instance, if I upload an illustration of a wheelchair race if one only gets sold twice a year say, it will be remove for lack of sales?
42
« on: April 27, 2014, 04:53 »
two weeks ago I clicked on the istock link to cancel exclusivity. For 10 days it was counting down. I checked it every day or two. Suddenly at the beginning of this week it is gone and there is no indication that I put in for exclusivity at all.
I had a similar experience. With 7 days to go I received an email saying 'congrats on becoming an istock exclusive!' I sent out some messages and received confirmation that I was still scheduled but then my exclusivity disappeared, a week early. Maybe there's a bug.
how could you tell that your exclusivity disappeared? Or are you saying your exclusivity countdown dissappeared?
43
« on: April 26, 2014, 06:26 »
I wouldn't however give much credit to IS/Getty for increasing prices. They weren't doing it for us __ it was all for themselves.
I agree with most of your statement but at least with this part I don't. There was a period in time when raising prices and especially the introduction of a higher-priced collection (Vetta) was good for all parties involved: Contributors making more money, agency making more money, clients getting more choice especially from a creative point of view.
It was mainly when the price raises for mediocre content (I'm including mine in that "mediocre" part) and the incompetence in getting their technology working drove customers away when there was the "logical" solution: When we can't raise revenues, there is only one way left to raise profits - by cutting costs.
(and for the record: When I started with microstock in 2007, I already had a higher RPD on iStock as an exclusive than I do have now. So Shutterstock still has quite some way to go if they want to match that eventually)
As a buyer for years Michael, to me, has hit on the exact problem. istock's site got impossible to use. It just slowed to a crawl and became in-usable. At the same time they have a site that is just infuriating to use they raise prices not just a little but a lot. I am sure I am not the only buyer that went looking for other options. As a contributor, I loved the higher prices. I may not have had many views but I got paid more per piece so the lower views did not matter. It you have 2 views and get one download for $7.50 it is way better than 50 views and 7 downloads at .30 cents.
44
« on: April 26, 2014, 06:17 »
By reputable I mean: established, selling licenses, communicating with contributors, working with contributors openly and honestly, in a supportive manner.
Yes, I would support that definition of reputable. And I am not convinced that I know a microstock agency that would fit that description. 
microstock isn't the be-all and end-all either. important to branch out, get into mid and macro....and other avenues of photography. I love ImageBrief as a sales opportunity, it is one of the models out there that I think is clever and apropos for the market today.
but giving credit where it's due, Shutterstock impress the heck out of me in terms of treating serious contributors well. if only the amount per download wasn't such pittance, but the volume is nice. would love to combine my iStock sales best years with Shutterstock the company. I hope they'll develop more of the non-sub license sales, and I like Offset.
pre-Getty this was istock. They did everything to attract good contributors. Going forward I think it will be agencies trying to cull out contributors. I see both sides of this issue, but I am not a photographer. I started at istock as a buyer. I created business presentations for a corporation and it was so annoying to page through image after image of the same thing. That is where the friend system was great. I would friend Yuri and Sean, etc. just because I could rely on them. If I needed to create a quick presentation I went to my friend list first. When I started illustrating for istock my approach was to upload illustrations they did not have many of. As all of you know this means less sales. I thought it would be good to fill out their catalogue and bring in a new type of customers. It was a nice second income for me, but what I have learned about business today is this thinking is to nuanced for them. They want big money numbers and you don't really need to think any deeper than that.
45
« on: April 26, 2014, 05:50 »
Lisa and Dirk,
But in the cases of Dreamstime and Shutterstock. Can you place links to these lightboxes as part of an image caption?
No - no HTML or UBB allowed in captions.
This was one of my favorite things about istock. Since I create for such a niche audience, I think it really helped to be able to have the image link to a lightbox. Example - If you are looking at an illustration of a woman softball player and the one you found is not quite what you wanted here is a link to my other similiar vectors. Now of course istock is forcing these links so far down the page and they put such a large gap of white space above them, I doubt that most customers even seen them. It may be as Michael has said here that istock did not have a good mechanism of their own so they gave contributor's more control. That is okay by me. When I first began with istock in 2005, I thought they did so much to allow contributors to market themselves. Now they seem to be working hard to bury contributors or get them to leave.
46
« on: April 26, 2014, 05:38 »
I hope you will keep us updated as to your experience. I think there would be quite a few people interested.
Well my first update about my going non-exclusive experience is that two weeks ago I clicked on the istock link to cancel exclusivity. For 10 days it was counting down. I checked it every day or two. Suddenly at the beginning of this week it is gone and there is no indication that I put in for exclusivity at all. I sent in the contributor form to tell them about the problem but of course I have not heard from them. If my past experiences are any indication I will get an email back in two or three weeks.
47
« on: April 19, 2014, 05:26 »
I've dropped exclusivity too, and have two weeks to go on the ticker. I'm hoping it'll at least help me get some motivation back. The RC system was just a huge wet blanket on my ambition. I've been partially non-exclusive (raster illustrations only) for a couple of years, so I'm not making a huge, sudden transition.
Blamb I would never have guessed you would do non-exclusive. I have been surprised by the long time contributors who went non-exclusive. It was not a decision I made lightly, istock started out as a great experience for me. The RC system change was hard at that time though I was dealing with breast cancer so I did not think to much about istock and therefore it probably had less of an impact on me. My wife says they want people to leave. She is probably right. I think they are trying to maximize profit like all business and we contributors need to do the same for us. Motivation is important, but mostly I think I was exclusive at istock because it was truely different than the other agencies. The simple fact is they no longer are different. They are just another microstock agency, so now us contributors have to work on how to maximize profits for us.
48
« on: April 16, 2014, 11:24 »
Illustrators absolutely must upload to Toonvectors! Sales are slowish (but regular and consistent monthly) but at a commission of $14 per sale and 70% you should support this site simply on principle. Upload is a bit unorthodox but once you get it is extremely easy. Toonvectors commissions for me are about 2 times DP and Fotolia and blow the other smaller sites out of the water. This site and Symbio are the two most promising prospects for illustrators in years.
thanks chromaco. I will look at it.
49
« on: April 16, 2014, 10:31 »
the good news is I am probably not competition for most of the people on this forum. I only do illustrations, no photography. Jo Ann - I looked at Fine Art America but it seems more for photographers. I won't be going to Bigstock because of their print deals for sure. I have looked at Zazzle and cafepress but zazzle's interface seems so time consuming, although from a buyer's perspective they seem cooler than cafepress. Did I mention daunting  ) Shutterstock is why I finally decided to go non-exclusive.
50
« on: April 16, 2014, 10:14 »
trying to decide which site to put my illustrations on is one of the most daunting thoughts I face. It does seem unwise to scatter your work everywhere. It us one of the reasons I stayed exclusive, but of course Getty started scatter my illustrations for me so that reason to stay exclusive is gone. The advantage of a bit of scattering is one site might accept illustrations others reject. My wife's number one seller overall was rejected by istock as not quality enough for stock illustration.
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
