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Messages - visceralimage

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1
Selling Stock Direct / Group uploads
« on: September 15, 2016, 22:31 »
Hello Seasoned Stock sellers;

I was very active back in 2011 but took a few years off to complete a PhD studying moose ecology. I am now back to the world of stock photography. My field is wildlife photography and I have images scattered across approx. 20 microstock agencies.

Backin 2010, there was a program that would upload to multiple agencies at the same time; we could FTP the files to this program and it would do the uploading to multiple agencies. However, that is a long time ago and I forget the program, maybe something like lightscribe or similar. Is there a program others use now to upload to multiple agencies?

Thanks in advance for all your help. Microstock kept me in spending money during my PhD.

2
Dreamstime.com / Re: Are DT sales stats updating
« on: July 05, 2011, 19:02 »
Mine are not updating, there were about 10 downloads but they are not shown on my cum. total

3
I have the picworkflow bar on my browser, it shows about five more dollars in my IS account that IS shows, this just started about 48 hrs ago, IS has never shown the new sales.  Not worth all the headaches to try to track down the missing $5 in sales.

4
Site Related / Re: Confusing Poll Sales Stats
« on: May 16, 2011, 11:37 »
On many of the smaller sites; I get sales but less than $5.00 a month so the statistics records it as zero, because the poll choices are zero, over $5, over $10, etc.  If 4.99 then it is zero

5
General Stock Discussion / Re: Another Way to Cash In
« on: May 14, 2011, 19:53 »
I don't see a huge rush of incoming agencies, but perhaps there are enough to sell a few at $700?

Many want-a-bees never get off the ground but invest tons of money in start-up costs; if they purchase a product for $700 but never go online, you still made a sale.

6
General Stock Discussion / Re: RF: self-killing?
« on: May 14, 2011, 10:20 »
I can certainly see an organization with a subscription buying extras to meet quotas, then using them as needed; but I do not see them using older images multiple times

7
Actually, what you are speaking of Elena is what we termed Rights Managed.  Clients, usually editors for a magazine, would request an image, certain size and certain resolution, sometimes raw with no tweaks and other times with curves, adjustments, saturation, minor sharpening, etc.

This made the price of $325 and up worth a bit of effort; no way is it worth the effort for a couple dollars.

The beauty of a stock agency, either your own or a commercial agency, is the client chooses a set criteria that is available; there should be no custom work; custom adjustments should cost money.

8
Dreamstime.com / Re: Drastic drop down on sales
« on: May 11, 2011, 06:40 »
I tend to find my sales at Dreamstime appear in bizarre cycles of say 10 days of 'feast' followed by 2 weeks of 'famine'. I get the impression from the search results that different contributors are 'favoured' (or not) over time according to some unknown algorithm.

Agreed, when I was exclusive, this never happened, always steady.  Now, get good sales for many days followed by complete dry spells.

9
Lisa, I am not really upset as much as I am disappointed; I expected this to be operated more like a family business; major changes upstairs equals options for the guys at the bottom.  I consider this a major change; ownership by another is a pretty big deal and has not ended well for any stock agency.  I guess I should have given more thought to agreeing to a 5 year contract that offered nothing more than a promise for a bit more income; I did not read the fine print well enough to see that you could sell out and still hold us to a 5 yr deal; my bad.

10
If anyone has questions about their account please contact us via our site so a support ticket will be opened.

I did contact support, got the answer I expected. No way to disable MLP even though ownership has changed; I even offered to forfeit earned royalties.  I feel this is unfair.  I signed up with a family but have now been sold to a larger group.  Who knows what this group may do; it could even be acquired by a large organization (IS, etc); I agree your "contract" (yes, I read it before I signed it) gives you the right to do as you please but I expected better from this family operation.

11
Lisa

With the change in ownership; will you allow your contributors that have signed up as MLP member to change that status.  I am not interested in continuing my MLP status with the new ownership.

12
iStockPhoto.com / Re: How has your May started out at IS?
« on: May 06, 2011, 10:31 »
"IS has fallen and can't get up"

Sucks last month, still * this month.

13
Veer / Re: Strange Sales
« on: May 04, 2011, 11:19 »
My first sale was 3.50, then three 0.35 cent sales than another sale for approx $5

14
iStockPhoto.com / Re: What's the average review time?
« on: May 04, 2011, 08:18 »
Actually, I just received one an hour ago.  8)

All I have to say WTH? Fast review supposed to be a big perk of exclusivity.
I am surprised that they are not doing more to keep their exclusives happy.


Perks are what they offer you to sign up for exclusive status; reality is different.  What they offer and what you get are usually much different.

15
iStockPhoto.com / Re: What's the average review time?
« on: May 03, 2011, 15:55 »
Actually, I just received one an hour ago.  8)

Don't be surprised if the review 6 images today, another 8 tomorrow then wait a couple day to review the rest; seems to be standard procedure.

16
iStockPhoto.com / Re: What's the average review time?
« on: May 03, 2011, 14:53 »
My IS files are usually reviewed in 10 days; sometimes as fast as 7 days.  Not to worry, you will be getting your rejections soon enough ;D

17
Cutcaster / Re: New Blog Post
« on: May 03, 2011, 14:51 »
I think the point I was making was more about the actual kind of common ducks, etc.  So that particular duck vs. this common type: http://cutcaster.com/photo/100222200-Mallard-Duck/#S3122274


I understand; I agree that Mandarin ducks are more colorful and not so common; unlike the Mallards.

18
During my 9 months in Russia, my account was frozen 17 times; sometimes more than one time per day.  I am an American, I was working near the China border but in Russia.  My ISP was in China.  This raised a red flag by their automated program and no amount of notes by paypal supervisors would stop the account from freezing.

They would request reams of documents, proving my identity and my home, wanting electric bills to prove my address, etc.  If you live in a tent in the tundra, you can imagine the trouble; you don't have an electric bill-God doesn't issue one for sunlight (using solar panel to charge batteries).

The only real solution was to get a skype account so I could call in each time and speak to a representative.  Exchanging emails was useless.  I never lost any money in my paypal account but spent plenty trying to get them the documents and proof of my identity.  Nevertheless, it was impossible to open a bank account in Russia (Americans are not allowed by Russian law to open accounts; unless opened in coop with Russian citizen); paypal was the best option for getting paid and holding my funds.

I think you'll probably find that PayPal was never designed around your particular and unique circumstances. That's what cash, travellers cheques and credit cards were meant for.

I understand.  That is why I stuck with them even with the problems, it was the only real solution short of carrying all my cash.  Travelers checks are not accepted in Russia, except maybe Moscow; concerning credit cards-useless except for major stores, credit and debit cards are only good for the ATM's.

Russia now has ebay and paypal is now functional in Russia but you must have a local bank account to get a paypal account in Russia; an international account will not work for a Russian paypal account.

19
Cutcaster / Re: New Blog Post
« on: May 03, 2011, 12:10 »
http://blog.cutcaster.com/2011/05/02/camera-shoot-ideas-for-the-spring-and-summer-months-from-cora-reed/

Check it out and let me know what you think.


:-)


Usually, Corareed, I agree with you but this time, not so much.  I am surprised you would accept the posted image of the duck; typically, wildlife images should be taken at or near eye-level; this image is looking down at the duck such as at a zoo, not good

20
During my 9 months in Russia, my account was frozen 17 times; sometimes more than one time per day.  I am an American, I was working near the China border but in Russia.  My ISP was in China.  This raised a red flag by their automated program and no amount of notes by paypal supervisors would stop the account from freezing.

They would request reams of documents, proving my identity and my home, wanting electric bills to prove my address, etc.  If you live in a tent in the tundra, you can imagine the trouble; you don't have an electric bill-God doesn't issue one for sunlight (using solar panel to charge batteries).

The only real solution was to get a skype account so I could call in each time and speak to a representative.  Exchanging emails was useless.  I never lost any money in my paypal account but spent plenty trying to get them the documents and proof of my identity.  Nevertheless, it was impossible to open a bank account in Russia (Americans are not allowed by Russian law to open accounts; unless opened in coop with Russian citizen); paypal was the best option for getting paid and holding my funds.

21

slightly off topic, but still about releases.  Dreamstime also happens to be the only site (I've found) that won't accept the standard Getty release.

Also, if the release is not in English, it must be their version (Russian, Italian, French, etc); not a generic release.

22
Thanks for posting the link. I do see that the price pressures on RM from RF and in particular microstock RF have changed things significantly for those who were part of the closed shop stock world pre-microstock.

However, what's been giong on in the microstock world of late has nothing to do with buyers pressuring agencies for better prices. Once microstock became successful it became a target for greedy agencies to squeeze contributors (if one reads reports from contributors to the agencies that Getty acquired earlier in its career, it was just repeating what it had done before).

I honestly don't see anything unsustainable in having RM with high price, high control, low volume at one end of the stock market and microstock RF with moderate to low prices, low control and high volume at the other. Custom shoots for those who need to have complete control and exclusivity.

The only thing that completely sustainable model doesn't allow for is H&F leeching out profits on top of contributor profits and agency profits.

I shoot wildlife animals (in the wild); I used to sell on RM but now sell RF; my costs have not changed (except for inflation).  The world is evolving; what worked in the old days is gone and buyers are now looking for a different model than RM.  For many, RF fits their needs.

23
IMHO, part of the problem is leaders in America are so worried about upsetting special interest groups or non-special interest groups that things such as this are done (killed, no photos, buried in accordance with his religion, etc).

I was Special Forces in the Army; that was a long long time ago but these men do their job.  The shame of it is they are wrapped up in this mess because of orders from superiors.  I am * proud of the job they did and their ability to obey orders; regardless whether they agree with them or not.

Even if we had the photos of his bullet ridden body; we would still have the nuts claiming other problems.  "There is a bullet in the back of his head, must have been killed while running away.  Bullet hole in the back, we shot an unarmed man.  Two hundred bullet wounds, did we need that level of overkill."

24
I love Shutterstock, and certainly agree they are doing things right.  No drama over there.   However I can say the same about Dreamstime too.  Everything just works at both sites. 

My big compliant with DT currently is their stupid upload limits; 36 a week is to constraining, 18 if you are below 80% approval.

25
General Stock Discussion / Re: April 2011 Stats
« on: May 02, 2011, 13:55 »
Just a horrible month. There were a few good days here and there, but some were so awful that the hole was too deep for the good days to fill.


I really don't don't know why, but I always look for your analysis of the month on IS; I guess you are one of my fav. excl. IS contributors and I value your opinion; but also feel your pain for all the loss.

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