Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on December 01, 2011, 11:48

Quote from: lagereek on December 01, 2011, 11:31

Well dont!  today is a typical day for me. Dozens of subs, 12-SODs and yesterday even ELs and its only half day gone. This agency, let me tell you all, is like Tony-Stone and Image-Bank, were in the film days,  just delivering all the time, no nonsense, hassles or anything, just pure business knowledge and know-how, followed by a friendly atmosphere.

Wonder if you will feel the same when you have managed to entice more and more contributors to join you over there....

Youre wrong there, ( sincerely) I mean, not trying to recruit anybody or anything, not my religion actually. Its in my interest as a contributor that as few as possible joins up, competition you know. However, credit where credit is due, its a fantastic agency. Its a breath of fresh air to find that today.

PS. Im a bit surprised over your post. Not like you.

best.

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on December 03, 2011, 02:06

Quote from: lagereek on December 01, 2011, 13:00

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on December 01, 2011, 11:48

Quote from: lagereek on December 01, 2011, 11:31

Well dont!  today is a typical day for me. Dozens of subs, 12-SODs and yesterday even ELs and its only half day gone. This agency, let me tell you all, is like Tony-Stone and Image-Bank, were in the film days,  just delivering all the time, no nonsense, hassles or anything, just pure business knowledge and know-how, followed by a friendly atmosphere.

Wonder if you will feel the same when you have managed to entice more and more contributors to join you over there....

Youre wrong there, ( sincerely) I mean, not trying to recruit anybody or anything, not my religion actually. Its in my interest as a contributor that as few as possible joins up, competition you know. However, credit where credit is due, its a fantastic agency. Its a breath of fresh air to find that today.

PS. Im a bit surprised over your post. Not like you.

best.

Christian, you sound like I offended/insulted you in some way - not my intention at all, but if I did I apologize. My point was merely that recently I feel that you (and many others) have been quite, if not very active in criticising iStock and bigging up SS. That is absolutely fine, just pointing out potential hazards with being so vocal about it.

You should keep in mind that many newer contributors, contributors with fewer downloads etc. look for "guidance" and are probably quick to jump on the bandwagon i.e. heading for SS as you make it out to be the new gold-rush over there - more contributors will have to share the pie, less for everyone.

You said it yourself the other day that this is a tough cut-throat industry etc. I feel that perhaps some things are better left unsaid? Photographers are notoriously neurotic, paranoid and prone to mass hysteria...dangerous to feed those feelings.

Anyway, the industry has been through many storms before, as has iStock (and the rest of the libraries) not the time to do anything rash. I don't believe iStock is crashing, going away or anything like that. Things go up and down, constant change is the norm.

Martin

Hi Martin!

No, no offence at all, your post was OK and yes!  we certainly are a paranoid bunch, thats for sure we tend to see enemies just about everywhere, dont we? Im very much aware of up and coming people are reading this, jumping on the band-wagon, etc and I always say, they will have to make their own choice, same as all the rest of us.

You have to admit though, under present circumbstances, all things considered, its pretty hard to recommend IS, as a photo-agency, I mean the chances are you would get flamed instead of thanked.
This time around, I cant figure Getty, can you?  I came from Stones in 93 and throughout the years I have seen them take-over just about everything, some things good others bad. This thing with IS though is an enigma because they are really in the process of slaughtering it?  just take "fotovoyager" as an example, thats the kind of heavy contributors that are bailing out. Scary stuff!

Anyway Martin, have a nice weekend, speak to you soon.  Christian

Also, they don't accept "non-newsworthy" editorial photos anymore. IMHO their editorial program is seriously flawed, they want only the type of images that have a very short life cycle which doesn't justify the low prices. You have very good editorial images, but you will have difficulties getting that accepted on SS.

Quote from: CarlssonInc. Stock Imagery Production on December 03, 2011, 02:06

 ...Photographers are notoriously neurotic, paranoid and prone to mass hysteria...dangerous to feed those feelings...

Nice blanket statement... directly after saying some things should be left unsaid. : )

I'm not having serial nervous breakdowns from being involved in photography. Maybe I'm not doing it right : )

Quote from: Snufkin on December 01, 2011, 15:34

Quote from: fotoVoyager on December 01, 2011, 12:32

Hmmpfh. Went to sign up with Shutterstock only to find someone else has already grabbed my brand identity of 'fotoVoyager'.

I'm rather surprised that you decided to drop the crown since you have quite many succesful Vettas.
Bear in mind, Shutterstock doesn't accept modern architecture anymore (you have a very nice series from Valencia).
Also, they don't accept "non-newsworthy" editorial photos anymore. IMHO their editorial program is seriously flawed, they want only the type of images that have a very short life cycle which doesn't justify the low prices. You have very good editorial images, but you will have difficulties getting that accepted on SS. DT does accept modern architecture and "non-newsworthy" editorials but they don't sell so much.

wow !! what a pity !...in the medium term is impossible for to recover in SS or FT or DT what you can earn only in IS...what can i say ? it's an hard choice...Good luck !
iStock's not leaving me much choice in the medium term. I used to sell 150+ images a day, now I'm lucky to sell a third of that. It's a real pity because I like the people at iStock but either the library has become so diluted that it's not possible to be seen in my subject area or they really are losing customers. Either way I have to consider my business first.

Yep, I doubt SS! I have 35,000+ downloads on iStock and have generated more than $250,000 in revenue. Thought I would try SS in January so I submitted 10 accepted and very sell-able images from my iStock portfolio. They were all rejected. I have no further interest in SS. To be successful with a new agency you need to upload 1,000+ images as fast as possible. SS has become so selective that it doesn't seem like an achievable goal therefore I give up.

Yep, I doubt SS! I have 35,000+ downloads on iStock and have generated more than $250,000 in revenue. Thought I would try SS in January so I submitted 10 accepted and very sell-able images from my iStock portfolio. They were all rejected. I have no further interest in SS. To be successful with a new agency you need to upload 1,000+ images as fast as possible. SS has become so selective that it doesn't seem like an achievable goal therefore I give up.

Quote from: click_click on December 10, 2011, 20:31

Quote from: SK on December 10, 2011, 19:00

Yep, I doubt SS! I have 35,000+ downloads on iStock and have generated more than $250,000 in revenue. Thought I would try SS in January so I submitted 10 accepted and very sell-able images from my iStock portfolio. They were all rejected. I have no further interest in SS. To be successful with a new agency you need to upload 1,000+ images as fast as possible. SS has become so selective that it doesn't seem like an achievable goal therefore I give up.

Were you exclusive?

Of course he is, how would he be able to average over 7$/DL otherwise? That's a lot, if you take into account the prices in the pre 2007/2008 era (non-exclusives were averaging 20-30c/DL in 2005/06 - so I've heard, haven't been around back then)

Quote from: SK on December 10, 2011, 19:00

Yep, I doubt SS! I have 35,000+ downloads on iStock and have generated more than $250,000 in revenue. Thought I would try SS in January so I submitted 10 accepted and very sell-able images from my iStock portfolio. They were all rejected. I have no further interest in SS. To be successful with a new agency you need to upload 1,000+ images as fast as possible. SS has become so selective that it doesn't seem like an achievable goal therefore I give up.

Are you serious? That's an average sale of $7.14. I know a Diamond exclusive who has sold over 75K images and also has a huge number of Vetta files. Fairly recently she told me her average sale price was about $3.50 without Vetta and $4 with Vetta included. She gets the 40% commission rate too. I suppose your rate might be possible for a successful vector artist but if that were the case why on earth would you even be contemplating giving up exclusivity? SS are a very successful business, obviously know the commercial worth of stock imagery and I would assume that new applicants are reviewed by the most experienced staff. I have never heard of a highly successful stock contributor who has failed to be accepted into SS let alone with all 10 initial submissions rejected. Your story doesn't add up for me.