iStock "Exclusive prestige - No more keyword rejections‏" - Page 3

jimiking · #21 (**permalink**) 06-21-2008, 10:32 AM

Yeah I'd go along with that. Shutterstock represent about 40% of my income. Istock about 25%.

Mind you, I don't know if you've noticed but if you search on IS for an image on any subject and then view the best selling results, most of them will be IS exclusives and usually with sales of many hundreds.

Pretty clear that search results (and ultimately sales) are probably biased towards exclusive contributors and of course that's what you'd expect. If it weren't the case you'd have plenty of people bleating on about how they regretted going exclusive and so far I've never seen one post on here or any other forum from anyone saying they wished they'd never done it.

ReeF · #22 (**permalink**) 06-21-2008, 09:40 PM

I wouldn't mind going exclusive with iStock but my acceptance rate is quite low and I'm not sure how to improve it! The rejection reasons are often ridiculous such as artefacts in 3D rendered scenes - go figure LOL

I'm all ears if any exclusive istockers can point me in the right direction for gaining better acceptance otherwise I'm also left with the conclusion that there is a bias towards exclusive contributors.

Its possible my work isn't good enough for Istock but the difference in acceptance is so wide - SS acceptance is 95%, DT is 96% and IS is 35% - my SS portfolio can be viewed here

louoates · #23 (**permalink**) 06-22-2008, 08:14 PM

It wouldn't surprise me if iStock has plans to go to an exclusives only policy. That would explain a lot of slow squeezing of non-exclusives and provide a strong exclusive-image marketing benefit. I can forsee the non-exclusive images in a non-default search parameter only.

For whatever reason my sales there have been dwindling over the last 18 months with the "slack" being taken up by the other sites, particularly Shutterstock and Dreamstime.

I still see no possible reason to go exclusive with any site. Especially one that can and does change their business model with little or no outside input. Too much sink or swim risk. But that's just me and my experiences in this business since 2005.

thesupe87 · #24 (**permalink**) 06-23-2008, 04:23 AM

Reef- your port looks amazing. Keep up the good work! Istock seems to be strict on non-vector illustrations, but at least the ones that do get approved usually become decent sellers. I struggle with getting approvals at istock - then again, I let images pile up in their cue, as well. I hate the upload process, and always seem to have at least 100 sitting there that I can categorize and submit at any given time. Little by little, I've been more choosy with which images I give them. Since I am only allowed 25 uploads a week there, I have to be selective. I don't bother submitting types of images I know they have denied in the past. It's not worth wasting my time anymore.

ReeF · #25 (**permalink**) 06-23-2008, 07:21 AM

Hey Supe,

yeah, when you get them accepted they can sell well but my success rate is so low I can't help but feel something fishy is going on and think Louoates makes a good point about squeezing us. Oh well, nothing one can do about it so no point griping I guess

How's it going doing this fulltime? Are u winning?

Steve.

PS. I just got another rejection for yet another 3D Illustration (this one ) but it gave me a detailed reason why, which I have never received before. I wonder if someone at IS read this thread

here's what they said (and its the point about 3D graphics which I have never seen before)

We're sorry, but we did not find this file suitable as stock. With the rapid growth of the iStock collection, we give valuable consideration to each file but unfortunately cannot accept all submissions.

Related Articles:

Composition and Impact
http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=13

+ 3D graphics must be rendered at the highest quality : It needs to be realistic and without visible polygons or jagged lines.

thesupe87 · #26 (**permalink**) 06-23-2008, 10:01 PM

Steve - that image is incredible. Make a support ticket and send it to Scout for a second opinion. It's on the support ticket page.

Full time has been going great so far, I still would like to double my earnings a few more times (but wouldn't we all). I've made some incredible gains in the last month, gains that I would have never made without working at this full time. I'm waiting to see if I can get the increases to continue in the months to follow. For the month of June I've uploaded about 300 new images so far.

ReeF · #27 (**permalink**) 06-23-2008, 11:33 PM

I have a few dozen images like that, Supe. They reject them all. I have contacted Scout before but they always agree with the reviewer. I know there isn't a quality issue and someone like Karen who use to review my work on LO could confirm that. Nope, I think there is something fishy going on and they are protecting the exclusive contrubuters from non-exclusives like me. Its very frustrating.

orchidpoet · #28 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 12:12 AM

IF (I say IF), iStock is really serious about implementing the policy which accepts average images from the exclusives, and only accepts the best of the best images from non-exclusives, the buyers will eventually figure out that the non-exclusive contributors may just have the better images.

Will it hurt iStock and its exclusives in a long run? Kind of ironic, isn't it?

thecarlinco · #29 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 02:45 AM

Reef,
I've been getting that rejection a lot from them lately on my 3D also, but oddly enough no other stock agency is able to see these 'jaggies'. IStock reviewers must have special glasses to see these things. I also do videos and lately the acceptance ratio for that has been getting lower and lower. They now give me detailed messages about what they would like me to do with the video because they would like it better that way. As if I'm going to spend days re-rendering the video the way they want me to just so they can re-review it, possibly reject it again or accept it and get that whole 20% commission. I dont think so. They also reject videos for using plug-ins (or you can get this rejection if they think you may have used a plug-in even if you didn't) - and for not basically putting enough blood and sweat into the animation. I only upload about 1/2 of my video's there, because I can guess which ones they will reject and only about 1/4 of my 3D pictures.
I would never go exclusive there because I would loose too much income from other sites, especially video sites.

thesupe87 · #30 (**permalink**) 06-24-2008, 08:10 PM

I get a lot of rejections for "not suitable as stock" those are the worst. They couldn't find anything technically wrong with it, so they just hit the "reject" button