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Messages - Elenathewise
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326
« on: September 29, 2012, 15:31 »
Hmm, just read Yuri's blog, and it practically boils down to this - anything that's sellable and easy to do is done and overdone and saturated to the point of being unprofitable; what's left to do is either images with much less sales potential or something that's not easy to do, which also means it is unprofitable; the bottom line is: microstock has become and will be getting increasingly more unprofitable.
I don't think food concepts or fringe business concepts will change the game - there're plenty of amazing photogs who specialized exclusively in food and worked prolifically for the last several years, that market is pretty much saturated too (it falls under the easy-to-do category); and non-mainstream business stuff is just not going to sell that much just for the reason of being not mainstream.
So looks like we're done here fellas... time to move on;-) Yuri might try to explore different subjects matters, but with his expensive production habits I doubt he'll see reasonable returns.
327
« on: August 17, 2012, 18:37 »
328
« on: August 17, 2012, 14:45 »
There is a difference between being "rich" and "middle class"  Middle class works their butts off to maintain relatively comfortable lifestyle. I you have a family and live in expensive place like Toronto, middle class income is barely enough. My daughter is going to university in a year. I also paying her private school tuition since public education is not satisfactory. Real estate prices in Toronto are insane and getting worse, so are property and other taxes. Not to mention very high Canadian income tax. So after all with all the micro and macro income I am doing "ok", but it's a very long way to "rich"
329
« on: August 17, 2012, 14:00 »
I agree. Diversification last year managed to hold to 2010 levels, but that isn't helping this year. Sales down from prior year nearly every month. Summer sales shockingly bad. I am quite surprised that there are people with mature portfolios who aren't feeling this. Maybe it is that the lifestyle areas I shoot in are more overcrowded than the good niches?
Lifestyle for sure is way overcrowded - every time I submit new lifestyle images, the returns are way worse than expected. They just get buried in thousands and thousands of similars. It used to be that having models in your images would give you immediate advantage, but now it's the opposite. I also noticed that when I come up with some original spin on a lifestyle theme and get it on online, a bit later I see surprisingly similar - almost identical images in Yuri Arcurs's and other portfolios that specialize in people. The concept gets copied down to the model's hair color and style and exact face expressions. Not going to give examples here, this is unfortunately business as usual. The only consolation is that production factories are burying themselves too with this overcrowding, even though they are taking us down with them. I am back to shooting what I like and when I like - just they way I started, at least I enjoy what I do and get some money from it... but looks like I am not getting rich off microstock after all...
330
« on: August 13, 2012, 13:31 »
Hi Elena, this will be interesting to watch, and I hope you are willing to share results with us.
I refuse to participate in the huge free-image-database sites, but I have had freebies on Shutterstock a couple times and it was definitely to my benefit, but I fail to be persuaded that long-term donations are very helpful to anyone but the website itself.
How did you come up with the image gallery? I kind of like the "free image of the week" idea where the freebie moves to 2nd place next week and then 3rd place and then falls off the freebie page. It is also smart that you require registration as Luis said. When you add a new freebie you can feature it in your blog so it gets people clicking through from your RSS feeds.
I have a few scrapbooking blogs bookmarked in RSS and I often download the freebies. I rarely use them though, and almost never buy anything - I'm the worst kind of subscriber. But the quality that goes into the freebies offered dictactes which site I will pay at though! Some of them toss up their discards, and the others offer some amazing stuff that gives you confidence to spend money on their site.
Good luck!
Thanks Lorraine! I tend to shoot constantly, even when I am not actively working on any stock project. This helps me to stay in good "photographic shape" Some images come out nice but if I don't think they are worth the effort of submitting to agencies (for example, if the subject is over-represented) I will be offering these photos for free. Sometimes I'd have a nice image but it's quality is acceptable only when downsized from original 24 MPs my D3X produces, so those would be good candidates, too. Thanks for suggesting to feature new freebies in the blog - that's a lovely idea!
331
« on: August 13, 2012, 13:13 »
i dont agree on the free pictures but i understand why you are doing it, i would at least make them register
I agree, if they are getting a free image, the least the could give you is their email address.
Interesting thought, Luis and Tyler, but what would be the benefit of having the users register? Apart from slightly better click-through rate maybe.
332
« on: August 13, 2012, 10:04 »
Hi everyone, I have added some free images to my site: http://www.elenaphoto.com/gallery_free.phpThey are "exclusive" to my site and have the same license as my regular stuff (you can't re-sell them), but are free of charge. I will be adding more, this is just a start. Feel free to visit and enjoy:)
333
« on: August 01, 2012, 22:35 »
My secret is I do whatever I please... and still manage to make a living out of it. Actually, I should call it a wonder!
334
« on: July 15, 2012, 12:37 »
I uploaded very few new images this year, and my income is the same. Drops in earnings at places like Fotolia are compensated by increase at other agencies; it's nice to see you can take time off and still get paid nicely - that's the beauty of this business. Taking time off feels really good too:)
335
« on: June 22, 2012, 11:20 »
I think they're just running out of customers because it seems that the whole breadth of contributors (from high-enders to mid to low tier producers) are reporting the same thing...significant drops in sales...., accept for a few who claim to be still doing well.
Well if they were just running out of customers then everyone's relative rank would remain the same, just fewer sales. My weekly rank has been consistently and significantly lower over the last few months than the one I earned on FT initially (it has been at 9 at some point). So the theory of FT pushing higher ranking contributors down their searches seems valid to me. I don't see any major players coming in at this point with large and well-selling portfolios, well at least not a 100 of them:) So looks like FT is just screwing with the search trying to maximize their profits... it looks like its a general consensus here, too.
336
« on: June 20, 2012, 12:47 »
Oh good it's not just me... well actually nothing is good about it, my sales on Fotolia are really low right now. Yes a few new files sell but since I have a large portfolio (almost 13,000 images on Fotolia) those sales are just noise. All the hard work I put into building my portfolio over last few years seem to be getting flushed down the toilet by FT. Good thing I am not exclusive! These are my stats for this week: Ranking Overall rank: 15 7 day rank: 101 Nice, eh?
337
« on: June 06, 2012, 11:12 »
Everything in Russian on the website?
The submit area is also available in English. And via Chrome, pressfoto.ru makes a lot more sense. But yes, it is an inconvenience.
Not to the Russians 
338
« on: June 01, 2012, 12:07 »
Ok I'll play this time too... These numbers are just for my micro income (and actually I am not counting euros and other currencies, just USD): SS: 28% IS: 26% FT: 17% DT: 10% 123rf: 6% Depositphotos: 3.5% Bigstock: 3% Canstock:3% And some other small fry for remaining 3.5%... I have different ratio between SS and IS and FT than most people, I suspect it's because I am not selling as much on SS as everyone else, not sure why. FT was disappointing in May, usually it does much better for me. Looking at what Lisa said, could be that us emeralds are getting pushed down in searches 
339
« on: May 31, 2012, 14:53 »
We will be working with Alamy to halt loading, and remove all content loaded to Alamy from Veer.
We apologize for the frustration this has caused our community, and the undue delays and lack of clarity in communication while we untangle this. More details to come.
Thanks for posting an update Brian. However, what puzzles me here is this: why do you have to "work with Alamy to halt loading"? How come it's so complicated - isn't it enough to give them a call and say - stop loading for now, at least while we sort out some problems? Seems very straightforward to me, and very common sense, in any business environment. It is surprising in the least than such simple task - just halting uploads for God's sake! - can not be worked out between the two companies....
340
« on: May 31, 2012, 10:07 »
This is absolutely unacceptable. After emails to Brian requesting removing my Veer portfolio from Alamy, the number of my files in "alamy creativity" keeps increasing! It seems that their "we are looking into it" is just a simple delay tactics. There is no explanation both in public or in private on why files are still being transferred to Alamy, and I am not taking this bullsh*t anymore. I am going to request cancelling my account on Veer today, immediately.
341
« on: May 25, 2012, 08:48 »
yup there is less ELs in May than in April. I think it's just seasonal, sales are somewhat slowing down across all agencies.
342
« on: May 23, 2012, 15:04 »
um, maybe he is shooting for macros?... or taking some time off... (I am doing both:)) how much microstock you can take really...
343
« on: May 16, 2012, 14:39 »
Ah - thank you guys. That works.
344
« on: May 15, 2012, 22:30 »
Umm... I too see that my Istock total jumped up a few days ago - is there a place to see the Partner Program total for the month? When I go to PP link on my Istock account it just shows me my files with total downloads (both PP and Istock).
345
« on: May 08, 2012, 22:19 »
This can't be real. Why are they talking to customers like they are five year olds? I guess their idea of fixing things is to insult people's intelligence...
346
« on: May 08, 2012, 10:26 »
By "new files" I mean images accepted within last couple of months. I had some small sales right away, but then the images just disappeared from my sales stats. I guess I am used to gauging the sellability of the image by it's Shutterstock sales, since they used to get picked up so quickly. So I am looking at the stats and thinking - well maybe these images just won't do well, but then they sell and sell on other places like Fotolia. I just looked at my history of accepted images on SS and I think it's fair to say that anything submitted this year still didn't find it's way to the regular sales.
Well... agencies go through search algorithm changes, ups and downs in sales, mass rejections and so on... what can I say - it's good to be non-exclusive:)
347
« on: May 07, 2012, 16:32 »
Well I did have a few sales from the new batches on SS, but it's weird to see that I have more sales on FT than on SS from that set. Usually it was the other way around - new files picked up sales much faster on SS.
And yeah I agree - the fast sales used to be a great motivator to upload new content... Not anymore.
348
« on: May 07, 2012, 11:50 »
Thanks - I guess I'll have to wait another month and see. I haven't been uploading much recently, was concentrating on other work, maybe that's why this seems unusual to me. Hopefully these images will get picked up in time.
349
« on: May 07, 2012, 10:12 »
My recent batches accepted during last month are not selling at all on SS. They do sell well on all my other agencies. What's your experience - do new files have a chance of making it on SS these days? I still have very nice overall sales there, but it's all my old portfolio...
350
« on: May 04, 2012, 09:03 »
My point which has not been addressed is a logically question. If Getty is evil because they take more of your money and do not treat you "fair". And their downfall is actively cheered, then conversely someone who taking market share (your money) you do not know, should not be cheered using the same measurement. Second, if Yuri really wants to take on the agencies then he should pull his work of their low paying sites. If there are 40000 $2 dollar photos on SS covering all the things he shoots, then I would skip the new work at $550 and buy 250 photos that are good enough and what bargain on the price. Would you say monkeybussinessimgaes is almost a good as Yuri. I would ask why she closed her site. Her prices were comparable to IS at a flat rate. She even recruited other non-exclusives to sell. She did not have a confusing tiered pricing system. Or an exclusive model that has a ton of previous work out there that is a near copy. It's fine to say my arguments are invalid. I would like to be proved wrong. I just don't get the well wishing for A and the contempt for B when A it lowering your income and B is taking it all.
And my point was that Yuri's site will not take any of our money. He may take a tiny fraction of the money from the sites he is selling on. So wishing him well is not an opposite reaction to complaining about Getty - it's just plain good will:) About Monkey Business Images - I am a part of that, and the reason they closed their site is because they recruited other photographers to sell with them. See, if you just selling your images from your own site, it's fine, agencies don't consider you as competition. If you involve other photographers, you become an agency = competition. If you have your and your contributors portfolios sold on other agencies, some of them won't like it - they'd say, you can't sell with us now, you're competition. In this case the agency that wasn't ok with that was (guess who) Istock. Monkeys are still a distribution agency, but they are not running their own site, since taking their files down from Istock was not an option. That's the reason Yuri's site will also stay just Yuri's site, unless he is prepared to take down his portfolio from other selling sites, and, umm, why would he do that. If he builds up his customer base, good for him, but it won't be even comparable to big agencies... so really, it's a drop in the ocean. But having your own site and doing direct sales just makes you feel good, I have my own site and I do sell directly from it. Money is not comparable to the big agencies, but anything I make is 100% mine and it makes my day now and them. Good for morale:)
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