Сообщения

151

General discussion / Re: What's your average monthly sales on Shutterstock?

« : Декабря 26, 2007, 05:21:02 pm »

Here it is: http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery.mhtml?id=135580

p.s.: Small, not various, simple, very starter-set-ish, but I'm satisfied;)

152

General discussion / What's your average monthly sales on Shutterstock?

« : Декабря 26, 2007, 05:05:55 pm »

This is probably top secret info for many of you here, but I'm asking anyways;)

Mine seems to be closing on around 700 this month. Been there for four weeks and the first 10 days of December were newbie-ish with only 44 downloads. Than something happened, don't ask me what 'cause I honestly don't know, but the sales boosted.

Oh, yeah, an accompanying portfolio size + join date would be welcome too;)

So for me:
- 700 this month, December
- join date: late November 2007
- portfolio size: 281

153

General discussion / Re: fotolia 7 days rank seems to be back

« : Декабря 26, 2007, 05:00:11 pm »

) You guys are Satans, literally (with all his little names). What are these ranks? I feel mortal;))

My stats;)
Overall rank   14795
7 days rank   1578

p.s.: And I've sold a woohoooohoo number of eight pictures. Fotolia's my worst performer along with LO and BSP;)

154

General discussion / Re: iStock continued rejections getting ridiculous

« : Декабря 26, 2007, 02:55:19 pm »

Thanks for the answers, Frenk/Danielle (btw, good luck with the sales, guys, I saw the thread with your stats and I was blown off - judging by the quality of your work I'd say that you are the top (and I mean TOP) portrait sellers there is) and Elnur.

I too was wondering if there was a certain rationale under the rejections I get on iStock. Well, this sounded like a book fantasia, but I even opted in the conspiracy option (because of some of my really, really unlucky posts in their forums: once I even attacked the whole site and its submitters and mainly inspectors/admins/staff for being part of an image-dumping industry). A few months have passed and I'm thinking this is not the case (even if it could well be it - my first submissions at iStock were all accepted (when I didn't even know was stock was, I admit), then the forum issue came and "bam", the rejections started coming. But I'm dropping this excuse and trying to focus ahead. I still will never believe "overfiltered" has anything to do with my works (judging by the approval ratios on other sites), but that's just how it is.

Someday the "virtual grudge" might wear off;)

p.s.: I'm totally realistic about my potentials. They're not extraordinary whatsoever, but I can critically say there's so much "bad" work left through (at least worse than mine) that gets sold that I'm at least frustrated and annoyed. Ehh...

155

General discussion / Re: What does Stockxpert want?

« : Декабря 25, 2007, 08:35:00 pm »

I have an awesome acceptance rate on Stockxpert and the sales are getting better and better. I'm actually falling in love with the site. The inspection seems to be fast and steady again, the uploading process is very, very easy and the sales are, well, at least for me pretty good (I do have a ratio of about 5:1 earnings compared to Shutterstock, for example, but it still is the second best performing site out there for me - and this is NOT bad at all).

Congrats to Steve and his team on SX.

156

General discussion / iStock continued rejections getting ridiculous

« : Декабря 25, 2007, 08:29:00 pm »

Hi to everybody (first of all)...

I thought of opening up a thread regarding the submission criteria on iStock. It could be me (I don't disqualify that option at all), but am I the only one that has a catastrophic acceptance ratio on that site?

I usually float around the 90% acceptance ratio on every other microstock site (SS, DT, LO, F, BSP, SX...), on some of them even more (and they get to 100% after I get rid of stupid minor faults of mine), but iStock is steadily on 35 to 40%. I usually get the overfiltered reasons (and some "too feathered/rough edges") and NONE of my PSed images get through at all. I mean it: NONE. On Shutterstock, for example, I started 4 weeks ago and I already constantly get from 40 to 50 DLs per day, on iStock almost three months have yielded a whopping 11 downloads. The portfolio on SS is reaching 300 pieces, on iStock around 60 (and they are probably my worst images - they seem to accept only those, don't know why).

Why am I writing this? I know for a fact that Shutterstock and iStock are the microstock market leaders out there and they seem to have (from what I've read) the most strict submission rules there are. But I find that they're not comparable at all: again - my 90% on SS and 40% on iS speaks for itself. And it does tell one exact thing: they don't accept my type of imagery.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing iStock for their choice of criteria. I'm just asking if this acceptance scheme has been detected from someone else. Or am I the only one with such differences between iStock and other sites?

p.s.: My SS portfolio: http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery.mhtml?id=135580
p.p.s.: My best selling image up there on Shutterstock that was on number 27 of the weekly Top 50, but rejected with a "no resubmit" sticker all over it on iStock:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-7703776-simple-beautiful-nature-background-with-green-grass-and-blue-vivid-sky-with-clouds.html

I'm posting the link and the image just to give you a "material" insight in the type of imagery I make (it does have a retouched feeling to it, I honestly admit it) and to hear from you if the same is happening to you when you submit creations like these to iStock.

p.s.: Ok, I am a bit personally hurt from all those rejections on iStock, that's true. It's a big letdown and I'm seriously thinking of dropping my account there. The uploading is way too slow compared to other sites (the new keywording system, oh my God, not to mention no model releases compository, no FTP, bad category selection, strange behaviour with Opera, etc, etc, etc) and I might be getting to emotional about the bad experience, but that's just how things are for me. And since I know that there are a lot of people out there that reckon iStock is the best microstock site out there, this feels even more depressing;)

Thanks for the replies, guys! And btw: happy holidays! (especially to you, Sybille - thanks for the invite and the wishes!;))