is PP worth it?

I am curious, what is the overall view of adding images to PP from and exclusive contributor's perspective. Is it worth it or not?

To me it is worth it... but only old files ( 2-3 years and older)  that have not done well.

I still believe it's worth it.Our portfolios are here to sell and the PP is another avenue to do just that.Sales are getting harder though because the two partner sites have such a big choice for it's subscription buyers.


 

good answer. which leads me to believe that PP may not be such a good idea as it could cannibalize future royalties on IS in a similar fashion that microstock has done to the traditional pricing system. i've seen prices spiral on the value of photography thanks no less to microstock, wouldn't contributing to PP be similar?

Opting in or out was our choice when the PP came about.That is still the case for exclusives.I hope that option remains for the foreseeable future.....

The Partner Program serves a different market with a different type of client, who seems to buy a different type of image so I have not seen sales suffer. Some of my images that have not done at all well on the main IS collection have done well in the PP. In one case 25 to nil in favour of the PP - It all adds to the month total.

Given that, out of the 1,066 files I have opted in, only 675 have actually made it across - and it's been that way for at least 6 months - the question is rather academic.


Results from those that are in aren't great - less than 5% of my monthy royalties come from the PP - however, I do take the same approach as wwing above, only poor performers are opted in, so perhaps that's not surprising.  But I don't like getting $0.40 for anything that might sell even just a few times a year on the main site.


As sonny2962 says though, there are a couple which have managed impressive sales on the PP after being near complete washouts on iStock, so perhaps if they can ever actually make the transfer process work it may do better!

I tried it as an experiment for 6 months with about 100 files that were 2007 or older and had fewer than 10 sales on iStock. Maybe the files I chose were not the best subject matter for a subscription site, I don't know, but after 6 months I didn't feel the pay off was worth the potential risk of cannibalization, so I removed them all. I guess, like with so many things, you have to see if it works for you and what you shoot.

You would think.

If my images that I selected for partner program could be MOVED (instead of COPIED) to partner sites, I would opt in partner program. But the current system is a kind of suicide. That is why I'm opt out partner program...

You can decide to deactivate files from istock and onbly have them active in the partner program, if that is what you are asking. I did that with a lot of old files that were embarrissing my portfolio but could maybe generate money elsewhere.


I opted in most of my files right from the beginning of the program and thus had nearly 3000 files online in PP. But in the last few months the returns have been consistenly much, much less than I thought it would return.


I wanted to start opting out selective files, but somehow the opt out didn´t seem to work, probably another bug. So today I used the "all off" button. Now let us see how long it takes for the files to be removed.


I never had the feeling that PP was cannibalizing my sales on istock, the bestsellers there were not the same. And many old files did get downloads there.


But I was expecting a portfolio of 3000 files, which is being offered over multiple sites, to at least generate 300 Dollars as a baseline. With returns of around 170 Dollars on average/month in 2012 it really didn´t come close. 


I will keep watching this forum and if I see people reporting a significant upswing in sales then maybe I will try it again. But for now my involvement with PP will take a solid rest.


Obviously if I see a massive upswing in sales, I will report it here, but I really don´t expect to see a connection between leaving PP and my sales on istock. 

I don't think you'll notice a difference because your files won't ever be transferred over there.  I selected about 600 to go over about 8 months ago and I think maybe 3 of them made it over so far.

(Edited on 2012-10-03 13:31:48 by traveler1116)

I might have something on that later this week.

I just saw that thinkstock does not show the name of the artist together for the files and on photos.com you have the name but cannot click on it to go to the artists portfolio. 


I don´t remember it like that, but I haven´t really been on the sites for a while. But if the buyer cannot jump into our portolios to look at other files, they can never remember us as a source for a certain file type and return to our portfolios in regular intervals for new content. 


So we cannot build up a following of customers and the customers cannot sort the artists as a resource. 


Strange. Maybe that is why my returns are not growing over time, the customers have no way to look at the complete portfolio if there isn´t even a name.


 

 


Would be nice to have something FINALLY moved..

I'm exclusive and I have a question: for files older than 18 months, can I choose which ones can go also on partner program ?
I was reading the FAQ section, but It doesn't explain this point. It seems to me that I can't do that, so I am not convinced to opt in.

YES, you can select which images can be added to the PP.


18 months or older can be in both, newer than 18 months can only be in one or the other.

Jasmin, I don't know what's going on on the PP sites. I've only really taken an interest over the last 2 weeks, since iStock sent a second lot of images to the Value collection - and my Value files are the ones I pass on to the PP sites.

There seem to be two ways of locating your portfolio images on the PP sites. One is your screen name in single quotes - e.g. 'cobalt'. The second way is your full copyright name in double quotes - e.g. "Roger Whiteway". I was finding just ONE of my images with these searches, instead of over 200. I also used an unusual search term (119) to see if that particular image of mine popped up in a PP search, and it did not.

After some discussion with Contributor Relations, and help from Brenda (oldladybird), my user name now brings up a correct total of images (though my new lot of Value images has yet to make it across); and my 'magic' search - 119 - brings up one of my images, as it should.

The point is, Jasmin, that a search using your user name - 'cobalt' - brings up 87 results on photos.com, and 139 on thinkstock. That's the kind of thing that can cause a decrease in income, if you are expecting 3000...

(By the way, when I was checking my own PP portfolios, I always found the same number of images on both sites, even if the number was wrong.)

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Anything new on this, Lobo?

Looking for my full name in quotes I get my portfolio at Thinkstock: 24 photos. I had about 700. No idea about what has happened but... I'm able to find some of the 600+ missing photos through keywords search. So... are my "missing" photos attributed to someone else? Or, in another words, is someone else getting my royalties? I would like an answer.