|
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 - Monkeyman
126
« on: June 27, 2013, 04:33 »
And a while ago when people started reporting how bad multiple-word searches work, I remember iStock saying something like "well, most buyers only do one word searches anyway"... not a very uplifting thing to hear. And it can't be true either.
127
« on: June 26, 2013, 17:32 »
My sales are going down quite a lot... June will be really bad. Probably my worst month ever as exclusive.
It's not fun to be a full time microstocker right now... I don't have any other income. I guess I will have to start dancing in the streets for money this fall.
128
« on: June 25, 2013, 12:53 »
I'm iStock exclusive and somehwhere in the middler tier when it comes to sales, and I'm not happy with the past months. This is the first month since I became exclusive (about three years ago) that my income will be about the same as it was when I was independent... if this decline continues it will be pointless for me to stay in this business (I'm a full time microstocker at the moment) in a year or so... 
129
« on: June 22, 2013, 17:01 »
June will probably be my worst month since I became exclusive three years ago. Can't really say if there's any difference after the restructure though.
130
« on: June 13, 2013, 10:58 »
If I remember correctly they said that files uploaded after September 2012 will not yet be affected by this new "find the sweet spot for each file" pricing system. And most of my files affected by this price increase are from 2013.
I was hoping for big price cuts after the exclusive survey, and after the vector sale, but I guess I'll have to keep dreaming.
131
« on: June 13, 2013, 03:58 »
I've looked around a bit and they seem to have raised prices for most of the best selling vectors. I think they've done this before, I just can't believe they keep doing it when sales keep going down... Like davidgoh, I'll also keep an eye on how the sales change because of this... if they go down I'll ask them to lower prices again. The problem is that the people working with contributor relations are probably not the same people that are adjusting the prices, so priced would probably go up again after a while.
132
« on: June 12, 2013, 08:45 »
Yeah, not much of what they do seems to make any sense... I guess it's the managers at Getty who are just staring at numbers all day and don't really care much about the development of the site, or any long term plans.
They've taken a few steps in the right direction lately but I don't think it's enough. Why did they just lower the number of collections from seven to four? Four collections is still confusing. They should have been removed completely...
And the system with flexible pricing to find the "sweet spot" for each file is good I guess... but the difference between the different price levels is probably too big to make it work effectively.
133
« on: June 12, 2013, 07:22 »
I just noticed that all my best sellers have been raised to 20 credits from 15. Don't know how it will affect sales yet, but it doesn't seem like a very smart move to me... Some of the files have only had one or none sales in June, compared to around 10 downloads in May (altough I can't tell for sure when they raised the prices).
This desperate hunt for short term profits is stressing me out... there is NO doubt any longer that iStock is on its way down, and yet they're pushing prices up to get whatever profit they can before the ship has sunk completely.
Any other vectorians who have noticed price increases? And can you see any difference in sales after the increase?
134
« on: June 02, 2013, 07:25 »
Opacity masks are fine at iStockphoto. I don't know if they're accepted at the other sites since I'm exclusive, but my guess is that they'll be accepted. It seems to be mostly effects (drop shadow, blur, etc.) that some sites don't like.
135
« on: May 22, 2013, 04:51 »
I agree that it's a small step in the right direction.
Unfortunately I think vector prices would also have to be lowered quite a lot to get the buyer's back... my sales have gone down every month this year and I don't think I'm the only one with poor sales. But since I'm exclusive I don't know how the situation is at other sites... maybe there's a downward trend everywhere because of the hysterical competition.
136
« on: May 21, 2013, 06:06 »
If they were really aiming for domination on the market by getting as many exclusives as possible, they would offer more perks for exclusives but instead they've done the opposite for the past years. This time with the royalty changes and the changes in the search algorithm which will give non-exclusive files a better placement in the search results, which will result in less sales for exclusives.
I think they would make more money if they had no exclusives. A few thousand exclusive members at iStock doesn't really give them any advantage since there are tens of thousands of non-exclusives that are just as talented and are selling the same types of photos/illustrations elsewhere.
137
« on: May 16, 2013, 02:58 »
Not very exciting news for the exclusives who sell the most. So this is another change that makes you suspect that they're planning to get rid of the exxlusive program completely and push everybody down to 20%. By slowly making the exclusive program less and less attractive people will leave exclusivity by themselves... and when there aren't many exclusives left they can just shut down the program without many complaints...
138
« on: April 08, 2013, 16:28 »
I don't understand why they just don't start using Verified by Visa and Mastercard Securecode. That would fix the problem with stolen credit cards being used.
139
« on: April 03, 2013, 11:47 »
My sales are slowly going down too (I'm exclusive as well) and if it continues this will probably be the year when I'll have to leave exclusivity.
The conspiratorial side of me thinks that they're pushing exclusives down because they want us to leave exclusivity, and eventually remove the exclusive program completely. They'd probably make more money by lowering peoples royalties to 15-20%, even if it means more competition from other sites when former exclusives start selling everywhere.
140
« on: March 25, 2013, 14:43 »
The site is a bit slow for me... and no mouseover previews? Having to click each image to see a larger preview feels a bit old fashioned.
And the style they're looking for seems to mean that they're not really competing with the other agencies. And no vectors... no video, no audio.
141
« on: March 19, 2013, 18:47 »
Well, it depends on what kind of life you're planning to live here I guess, hehe. You won't be able to buy a central apartment in the largest cities and drive a Ferrari but getting 17500 crowns a month when the taxes are paid are not too bad. Most workers (no higher education) probably make a couple of thousand crowns less and the average academics probably make a few thousand more.
And most swedes speak english well so it shouldn't be a problem making yourself understood. Could be trouble finding a job though, but I guess that's not your plan anyway.
142
« on: March 19, 2013, 15:12 »
There's a calculator at Verksamt.se (a site created by the authorities about starting/running a company). They have an english version of their site but I didn't find the calculator in english. But here it is in swedish: http://www.verksamt.se/portal/web/guest/starta/anvandbara-verktyg/rakna-ut/rakneverktyg?p_p_id=tvv_webcalc_WAR_tvv_webcalc&p_p_lifecycle=1&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&_tvv_webcalc_WAR_tvv_webcalc_calcNav=1The taxes differs depending on your age and how much money you make. I'm 33 and made a profit of about 370000 crowns last year and paid about 160000 in taxes, so about 43% for me. Guess I could translate the most important parts of the calculator. You can skip most of the fields if you just sum up the profit yourself. Under "Fretagsform" (type of business entity) choose "Enskild firma". Select your age group under "Ange din lder". Enter your yearly profit in "Frsljning och utfrt arbete". Tick the checkbox "Jag ska inte ha ngra anstllda" (I will not have any employees). That's it. The total sum you'll have to pay in taxes is at the bottom of the page next to "Summa". If you work more than 800 hours from home every year you can deduct 4000 crowns a year (not much but it's something).
143
« on: March 07, 2013, 10:43 »
I'm very new to stock, in that I've only been a contributor for a couple of months and I've never even bought a single image/vector before that. (Any stock that I worked with in the past as a designer were always already provided) I'm also a hobbyist. My first reaction to the state of the industry when I first entered, though, was that everything was too darn cheap. As much as iStock's been the center of controversy, I do think that their pricing is fair. (except for the fact that they give 15% - 20% to non-ex)
I remember being flabbergasted at Vectorstock's pricing at first, at how certain vectors that would easily be priced at 12 to 15 credits at iStock are easily bought at 1 credit there. I was initially very apprehensive about uploading there as I thought it could hurt sales on iStock, but I found this to be largely irrelevant since many stick with whatever agencies their employers chose. Since then, I've put stuff up on Vectorstock and it's been giving me decent returns, covering for its low pricing with relatively high volume. (If I had the same number of average sales on Vectorstock imposed onto iStock and its pricing, I could pretty much drop one of my two jobs.)
I don't like that it's cheap. But the way I see it, that's the way the industry is moving towards, and it's very quickly becoming the norm. I think it's all about dealing and adapting.
But it COULD work differently. If everybody just left VectorStock (for instance) the site would die and buyers would have to go elsewhere and pay more. But I guess the whole discussion is pointless because it will never happen anyway...  Tens of thousands of contributors would have to boycott the same sites at the same time. I don't like that it's cheap. But the way I see it, that's the way the industry is moving towards, and it's very quickly becoming the norm. I think it's all about dealing and adapting.
No, actually that's where we were. We should be moving away from that.
Amen to that.
144
« on: March 07, 2013, 09:14 »
If I were exclusive, I would share your worries about these price rises chasing customers away. However, to suggest other sites follow Istock's lead seems pointless. Other sites are not looking for ways to drive their buyers away, but to attract and retain them.
Yeah... the problem is that the contributors get screwed at the same time. This could easily be avoided by not selling at the cheap sites and thus forcing buyers to sites that pay us what we deserve. An on demand license sold at VectorStock for a lousy dollar is a lost sale at iStock for 25 dollars. It annoys me that even the really professional artists and photographers are uploading their stuff to the cheap sites... it's suicide in the long run. I don't really understand why Shutterstock is so popular amongst contributors either... what's so great about getting 25 cents for a sale? It doesn't matter if the subcription model means more sales... it's still a very bad deal for the contributor. The subscription sites are killing us. Well, well. Just a little afternoon whining from me.
145
« on: March 06, 2013, 18:44 »
Noticed that the USD price has been increased slightly for illustrations today. 25 USD files are now 27 and 35 USD files are now 36. Guess they most have lost another bunch of buyers...  I'm getting more and more stressed out by the price raises. They can't compensate less sales with price raises forever... zero buyers, zero dollars. Just wish the other agencies would follow and start raising their prices soon. iStock's prices are actually quite reasonable except for all the weird collections, and most of the other agencies' prices are too low.
146
« on: January 09, 2013, 16:36 »
I tried putting them on top of each other and the outline of the neck, shoulder and chin is pretty much a perfect match. Guess it should be reported... but I'll leave that to some red tapist.
147
« on: December 22, 2012, 05:53 »
I've been doing alright at iStock as well the past months, thanks to a bunch of new files that have sold well. But I'm still worried about the future of iStock.
I wish they would just accept the fact that they have to lose some money (by lowering all file prices and credit prices, and removing all those pricey nonsens collections) for a few years to save the company. What are they going to do when they have 50 downloads a day from all contributors together? Charge a million bucks for one credit?
148
« on: December 20, 2012, 08:29 »
Sales at iStock have probably been pretty bad this year so RC stays the same. If the sales would have gone up, they would have raised the RC limits to push contributors back. That is of course the whole idea of the RC system.
And obviously they're not expecting any growth next year which means that they can set the levels for next year as well, and make it look like a good thing.
149
« on: December 09, 2012, 19:25 »
I can't imagine they plan to close the site like many people seem to fear. Why get rid of such a strong brand? And why start adding different payments methods etc. if they plan to close it. I'm trying to stay positive. Whatever they plan for the future it can only get better.  I like that they're offering new ways to pay, and I'm hoping for an improved zoom function. And I've noticed iStock ads every here and there on Graphic Design sites.
150
« on: December 08, 2012, 12:51 »
Since I've gotten used to the situation at iStock I don't even remember how many times during 2012 the royalties have been wrong, and I don't remember if I have gotten paid either. How about you? Have you been paid?
And I still haven't recieved any login information to that Getty Research site (or whatever it's called). Have you?
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
