Slowing down with IStockPhoto
As many of you know, I spend some time submitting my pictures to various microstock sites. I currently submit to five agencies - Shutterstock, IStockPhoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia, and StockXPert.
Lately I have been extremely busy and have little time to submit pictures. As I slowly started submitting a few, I noticed something very interesting.
What I noticed is that IStockPhoto sales have slowed considerably in recent months. In the past, IStockPhoto vied with Shutterstock as my top site and a few times took the lead. However, that has changed now.
Today, IStockPhoto is fourth for me in terms of sales. Only StockXPert brings less. Another problem is that submissions take a long time on IStockPhoto due to their archaic upload system and their own keyword vocabulary. As a result, it takes me longer to submit to IStockPhoto than to the other sites combined. It is even more annoying that after submitting the photo my shot is rejected for a keyword that is pertinent. For instance I had a picture of Jerusalem rejected for using the keyword “Israel”.
Another interesting thing occurred when I was searching for some photos for a friend a few weeks ago. I was rather stunned that, despite their claim to having an advanced keyword system, I was unable to find the pictures I was looking for. I had much better success on Dreamstime and Shutterstock.
Therefore, I have ceased submitting regularly to IStockPhoto. It simply isn’t worth my time. I will not close my account there though and I will submit pictures that sell well on other sites.
However, the future of IStockPhoto right now does not look bright.
Related posts:
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- Microstock results for April Well, to be honest, this month sucked! My sales fell considerably with approximately a 24% decrease. Right now, I’m not currently sure what the reason for the falloff is, but I suspect that it is seasonal. Last year between March and April at Shutterstock I had a 24% drop in...
- Microstock report for January Last year I started selling pictures on different microstock agencies. When I started, I didn’t really figure that the money would amount to much, but over time it has grown rather significant and now is the primary source of funds for new lenses. For those interested in also selling pictures...
- Microstock results for March This month was quiet on the submissions side - most of the month was spent with either myself or one of my kids sick. Also the weather at the end of the month reduced the amount of time I was able to shoot. Nevertheless, I still had a record month...
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Tags: IStockphoto, microstock, photography, stock, strategy
I feel ur pain. I’m really put off by their uploading process. Maybe they are intentionally trying to put people off, as they have so many images and photographers. I wrote a blog on the uploading process on Istock, maybe you can check it out.
http://microstockposts.com/2009/01/09/what-keywording-i-thought-i-was-a-photographer/