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.
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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/