MicrostockGroup

Hey,

Are successful pictures successful from the start? Is there a some kind of statistical sign, that tells you when the picture will or will not sell? Like if it doesn`t get a download in 50 viewings, it will be a failure. Or there are no such rules.

If a picture is going to be successfull, it usually starts with a bang:)

it will also gain a lot of traction across all sites, not just one. it may also be the image you never expected to be successful.
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Amen. For a long time my best seller was an image that I uploaded on a whim about five years ago. It started selling immediately, within a few days. And it still sells well on most sites.

Another was a slightly different version from a decent-selling image I had uploaded a few months earlier. Within a week it was selling 5x faster than the original version and is now my #1 seller.

With my images if an image has 50+ views without a sale it will never amount to much.

My top ten images are averaging about 1 sale per 10 views.  So if a new image is getting 10% sales after 20 views I know I have a winner over time.

yes, although I am unsure about the reason: whether early downloads are a sign of success, or success is a result of -random- early downloads due to resulting advantage in search engine mechanisms

I guess you'll get different answers from everyone, so the answer is probably no link. My BS (totally unexpected!) didn't sell for three weeks after upload; my very few images which have sold off the acceptance queue haven't gone on to do well.
I've got one file which is making me really curious. Taken a long time ago as a 35mm slide with a film compact camera (!!!) it sat for ten months without a download, then eleven months before its next, then it's had 18 dls in relatively quick succession, pushing it into my 'most popular files'. (Yeah, I know that some people would delete a file which had so few dls: it's all relative- as gaja says - I'm nowhere near these figures!). I have no idea why. Maybe there was a rival better photo which was deactivated?

Only I can say by my own instance, Yes, successful pictures successful from start.
It is good stock picture, it pick up sales with big bamg like cidepix say.
And bang bang again and again...
Sometimes, yes, also an exception. No sales than one big EL. But after that, the picture fall down dead for no sales back again.
But the best pictures sell everytime. Maybe not every month, but come back to see sales continuation.