I know it's been a holiday week in US, but it should have similar effect on all US based agencies. And here we are - my  Istock earnings for the first week of July are lower than earnings on DT. For the first time ever. Wow.
I still need to see totals for the month, but right now it looks like I've been robbed of some 25% of my monthly income.

Congrats Steve - nice portfolio! Might take a while to get to 10K  though 
And thanks for sharing your stats!

I am curious - since Yuri's port is not available on SS anymore, did anyone who works in the same style see any increase in sales? Or the effect is negligible? My search for "business people" there turned up 900,356 results... hmm I guess I have my answer then:) 

I bet if you just took a gray eye-dropper in Camera Raw and sample the white on the ferry (that would adjust the overall color balance) they would accept the image. Right now it has a definite blue cast, even if the orange in the sky is confusing things a bit. If you want to brighten up the ferry and tone down the sky, it all can be done easily with PS (adjust levels and do some simple masking). I wouldn't crop it since in my experience ad agencies and publishers prefer more copy space than less - they can always crop it themselves. I've been asked many times if there is a version of some of my images with more copy space.
That would be my advice to get the image accepted. In reality though, things do look blue in the evening:)
You can PM me directly if you need more help with this.

I think you are wrong.  I think he's saying that some of his images go to different places not that every image goes to every place.

I am not wrong - I do know how this collections work, I have some of my images with one of them. It's always been like that. What's new here is that they are submitting their content to microstock now, and it looks like, at least in case of SS, at micro prices.

and i wonder who's still buying at Masterfile and Superstock by the way, suprised they're still in business.

Me too! I have some images with both and, if one to judge by the royalties, they are barely surviving.

I just read John Lund's newest blog post here: http://blog.johnlund.com/2013/04/choosing-stock-photo-agency.html
Apart from other things, he is saying:
"With Blend my images not only get a wider audience with both RF and RM content on Getty, Corbis, Masterfile, Superstock and God knows how many other distributors, but I also get my images up on Microstock sites at macro prices. How cool is that? The eyeballs appear to be migrating to places like Shutterstock, Fotolia and others. With Blend Images, without any additional work, I get representation on Shutterstock, Fotolia, iStockphoto and others."

I didn't know Blend was selling through micros - anybody knows how to find their files on Shutter or Fotolia? I would presume they would be in some kind of "special" collections?

Would you pay more for a Ferrari if you knew it was made in the exact same manner as a low end high volume production car?

I would never pay for a Ferrari. Period. Paying that much for a car is insane:) And... in many ways, it is actually made in a worse manner than low end high volume production car... 

Quote from: Elenathewise on April 09, 2013, 18:10

Forgive me if this will sound a bit negative. I do appreciate Scott posting info and clarifications here, however, the description of "Offset" images implicitly suggests that images I submit to Shutterstock are of "lower quality", "don't tell a story", not "authentic" enough and so on. I shoot with Nikon D3X and painstakingly process all my images to the highest quality standards. I work from raw and produce 70 MB tiffs. And, while I do have some isolated objects and other simple images in my portfolio, many of my images do tell a story and look natural and authentic. I am sure many other professional photographers who submit their best work to Shutterstock must feel the same way.
Scott, you implicitly suggest that "RM" work and "assignment" work is for some reason superior to what is selling currently on micro agencies.  It was true 5-7 years ago; but now your content is completely different. You are already selling former RM and assignment work and equivalents of. I am puzzled why you would consider creating this collection now - why take a step backwards?? I really don't understand your statements about "higher quality"  - but I do agree with your implications that people don't quite understand what this collection is about - I don't. Why some photographers are "more equal than others"? National Geographic content is superb, but so is content from some of your better contributors. Shutterstock should know better than anyone that it was new technology that brought images prices down, not "inferiority" of the micro content. Taking a bunch of images that haven't been sold on micros before and calling them "superior" will not fool anyone, including your buyers, but it is creating negative feelings among your contributors.

To be honest Elena, I think you're slightly missing the point of 'Offset'.

We're talking art Darling and who can possibly put a price on true and unique art?

With offset SS are just trying to get themselves a share of the lucrative 'art' market. That's why they have to use the latest poncy words like 'curated' to describe their suddenly valuable new 'collection'. It might be meaningless nonsense to you and me and to most others __ but there is a market for it and high profits to be made.

I agree of course. It's just the whole thing doesn't feel (smell?) right... (see my post above about lying:)) People don't like being tricked, eventually they catch up with that. Common sense will prevail, right?... right?... :-)

Forgive me if this will sound a bit negative. I do appreciate Scott posting info and clarifications here, however, the description of "Offset" images implicitly suggests that images I submit to Shutterstock are of "lower quality", "don't tell a story", not "authentic" enough and so on. I shoot with Nikon D3X and painstakingly process all my images to the highest quality standards. I work from raw and produce 70 MB tiffs. And, while I do have some isolated objects and other simple images in my portfolio, many of my images do tell a story and look natural and authentic. I am sure many other professional photographers who submit their best work to Shutterstock must feel the same way.
Scott, you implicitly suggest that "RM" work and "assignment" work is for some reason superior to what is selling currently on micro agencies.  It was true 5-7 years ago; but now your content is completely different. You are already selling former RM and assignment work and equivalents of. I am puzzled why you would consider creating this collection now - why take a step backwards?? I really don't understand your statements about "higher quality"  - but I do agree with your implications that people don't quite understand what this collection is about - I don't. Why some photographers are "more equal than others"? National Geographic content is superb, but so is content from some of your better contributors. Shutterstock should know better than anyone that it was new technology that brought images prices down, not "inferiority" of the micro content. Taking a bunch of images that haven't been sold on micros before and calling them "superior" will not fool anyone, including your buyers, but it is creating negative feelings among your contributors.

The huge problem with non-exclusivity models is that people only have pricing to compete with, and once that happens, you will see you're earnings fall. Never compete on price.

Totally not true. There are so many other things agencies can compete with (and are competing with), for example:
1. Speed and relevance of their search engine - very important
2. Site usability for customers
3. Site usability for content providers - for example, ease of uploads/categorization
4. Marketing strategies
5. Royalty percentage for content providers - the better percentage the more good content
6. Review times and review quality
7. Simplicity of pricing
8. Customer support quality, for both content providers and customers
9. ... I am sure there is more, but it's dinner time

So really... price is only one variable, you can have an agency that aces all of the above and charges more and it will win hands down every time against cheaper but crappier competitors.

I guess SS wants to cover the remaining part of the market - buyers that still snub the micros... which I don't see a problem with, however my opinion is that there is so much absolutely amazing work on micros these days that this "high-end" agencies would work purely on psychological basis. It's kinda like people who pay thousands for designer clothes and bags, but there is nothing really special about them except for the brand name, and they are often inferior to other things you can find for 1/100 of the price, but I guess these people feel good spending money on "names". The reality is that with Shutterstock very fast and highly relevant search you can find your amazing magazine cover or spread in minutes, of the highest quality and artistic value, and they'll give you the license you want (I've had those lovely sales and many magazine covers). So really, this would be to sell to people with not enough common sense... 

Quote from: Elenathewise on February 28, 2013, 12:17

I am actually impressed they balanced the change with a 25% increase of short-term referral payments.

sorry but there isn't anything to be surprised about, they pull that out to trick really tiny brains, they are saving 2 Million per year so a 1 cent more its irrelevant, far from a surprise but a cheap move

I would be surprised if they raised us (that I would), its not a cent in referrals for 2 years that will make us go crazy

p.s: I have no referrals

Luis, I agree they will save a lot of money this way; however, they could have changed the referral program and NOT offer an increase. And someone who continuously and actively providing referrals for them will make some money out of it, just not people who done some referral work five years ago and stopped since.
Plus, if they direct the saved money into more advertising, everyone could win.