Hi Guys,

I have noticed a trend with my portfolio at istockphoto, the more I upload the more I earn each month, this used to be the case at shutterstock but is no longer. I also find that at dreamstime that sometimes in spite of the heavy upload of images there isnt that much of a progressive change in downloads and earnings.

Those anyone know why this? Is it down to the efficient search engine system that istockphoto has and restrictions on monthly uploads, that contributes to this progress?

imabase, my experience is similar, and I started back in February. SS has been a big letdown - sales go down as my portfolio increases. Even worse, OD sales have dried up, I get nothing but subs.

I think popularity-base ranking, plus loose keyword matching, is the problem. You may have a photo that precisely matches the search keywords but it gets buried behind photos that don't match very well but have established popularity.  This is killing new photos.

IS is frustrating because their 'controlled' vocabulary is too limiting. I just submitted a photo of some colorful balls of yarn - but 'yarn' isn't one of their keywords - ok, so forget that photo, and a lot of other 'object' photos too - apparently IS doesn't want them.  A controlled vocabularity that can't be extended is pretty dumb. But for the photos that do get in, I get sales more or less in proportion to the number of images I have -  which is small.

With all of these sites, the problem is that if your photos don't make enough sales while they're new, they sink into an abyss due to popularity-based ranking.  This kills the whole "long tail" concept for photos that aren't generic blockbusters but might be expected to make niche sales. 

SS and IS have made similar amounts for me, too because the steady trickle of 25 cent sales adds up to the occasionaly $2-$3 sale on IS.  What I see though is that slowly increasing the portfolio size on SS doesn't increase sales.

SS is becoming a subscription-only site and they need to realize that their one-size-fits-all pricing is leaving money on the table.  There's no point in me continuing to submit unusual 'object' shots that selll 4 times at 25 cents.  But if I could choose to price them at $1 or $2, it might make sense.  When someone needs that perfect picture of a pipe wrench, or a turnip, they'll pay a dollar or two. But that won't be very often.

Their system also continues to reward keyword spamming. If I have a photo of a pipe wrench, and someone searches for "pipe wrench", they don't want a popular photo of a good-looking young Asian plumber, or a popular photo of a socket wrench,  they want a pipe wrench and they should be able to specify that somehow.

I think that  exactly the opposite is happening there.

Hope you're right. In August, for the first time, I had nothing but sub sales.

Overall, though, my sales stats across the board have been stagnant since April.  March was a BME for me, but despite adding almost 400 images since then sales are flat.

One could speculate that had you not added those images to your portfolio your income may have declined.

"Exactly. It seems to me that most people's income flattens out after 3-5 years. There simply comes a point when the deterioration of your existing portfolio is matched by the increase provided by new images. At that point the only way to increase income will be to significantly increase either output or quality __ and most folk are probably already at full capacity in that regard."

Hi there - I quite agree with this. I posted some comments on the forum a couple of months ago about needing to upload 100 images a week to make progress. Now depending on wether you do this full time, or are able to devote enough time to it, this is possible.

Anyway, I put my money where my mouth was. For the last two months my aim was simple, increase my SS portfolio by 100 pics per week - I uploaded to all of the other sites as well, but my measure was an increase in my SS pictures.

The result, across the board my earnings are up by 25% over two months. My portfolio sizes are between 1500 - 2000 currently, so I think it's a decent measure.

Quality wise I was more selective (only a bit!), but it was output I was concerned with.

Based on my experience so far, that is what I have to continue doing. I am foremost a macro photographer, and it has been my only was to increase sales substantially.

I appreciate ideally everyone would like a portfolio of 1000 great pics, but I am no great photographer, neither am I particularly creative. For me, success means building portfolio size rapidly, and letting the cream work to the top.

So far it's working.

When I can stop relying on macro income to survive, I'll post my micro figures online - hopefully six more months.

Rgds

Oldhand

^^^ Interesting Oldhand __ take a Heart for your efforts!

I have to say that in my experience although volume is important quality will trump it everytime. And by a substantial margin too.

Of course 'quality' is a very difficult thing to either define or indeed increase for an individual photographer. There's no guarantee that if you spend 3x longer setting up the shoots, and therefore produced correspondingly fewer images, that the results would sell at least 3x better. On the other hand we all know that one good shot of a given subject can easily outsell a marginally poorer shot by 100x or more.

I think as time goes on and ever more images come on-line then 'quality' will become even more important. It'll surely get to the point, if we're not there already, where only the very best images will make money and the rest will quietly fade into obscurity.

It's interesting having you here reporting from both sides of the fence, so to speak.

I quite agree quality beats quantity, however...

It's my belief as long as the quantity is of a good level, then with the various search algorithms, it all helps push the top seller pics. The better micro sites are more selective on submissions, so as long as they passed inspection, then they sell as well.

Into this equation I will add my experience with keywording pics, again vital for a good selling portfolio.

It's early days, but the competition don't have huge portfolios relative to macro agents.  The top micro earners all have less than 20,000 pictures. That means I have 10% of Yuri's portfolio - although not 10% of his earnings. To get my slice of the rewards the key is to keep uploading.

It may reach a critical mass, or may just sustain a good level of income.

I'll keep you posted

Oldhand

Quote from: gostwyck on September 04, 2009, 05:15

Exactly. It seems to me that most people's income flattens out after 3-5 years.

This is what I've been fearing. That this may only be a path to supplmental income.

I'm in this two years and am getting nice predictable growth. If this plateau hits after 3-5 years this would rule out stock being primary income for me. And probably for most other people too.

To play devils advocate - why should it plateau? You will probably have improved your photography in that time, so your quality will be up, you will be able to caption better and upload faster.

Granted, nothing increase indefinitely, so branch out. Take up supplying Alamy - it should give you the income of a top tier micro site fairly quickly.

It maybe Veer is outperforming SS in two years, Istock may be exclusives only, who knows!

Approach other traditional outlets,  take up graphic design - don't just assume things will stagnate.

With my agency I had a good run for five years, then things got very tough. very quickly. I chanced upon micro, which has kept me in the game. I'll try and make as much as possible while there is still money here.

My traditional outlets may have picked up by then, or I may I got a celebrity exclusive of a lifetime.

Diversify your portfolio as much as you can - the stock market as a whole is robust, it's finding the good outlets which will always remain key.

To keep on target with uploading 100 pics per week, I taught myself basic graphic design (very basic). They sold for me on micro, as a trial I sent them over to Alamy and some overseas agents. I didn't expect them to be accepted, now they have sold there as well.

You sound a nice chap - be positive, aim high.

Right, that's my last post for today, I've got stock for the Sunday newspapers to worry about, I've only sorted 10 pics for uploading to Micro today, and worse, it's my turn to cook the tea.

Could be a late night, but in the words of the great Bruce Springsteen, "That's the price you pay"

Rgds

Oldhand

I'd like to make the case that a "quality vs. quantity" argument loses sight of a third, equally important element that will determine the staying power of your port: variety.

Whether your upload strategy focuses on quality or quantity -- or both -- you're certain to plateau quickly if your subject matter is not varied.

I've only been at this for about ten months, so I don't have the experience that many of you have, but it seems to me that you can put off stagnation for much longer -- perhaps indefinitely -- if you are constantly providing images that cover new ground. 

For those who have reached their plateaus, isn't it logical that if you started providing images that are nothing like anything you've done before, that your sales will increase?  Of course, this assumes that your current top sellers remain popular moving forward... certainly an argument that quality is essential for an image to have a long life.

Anyway, that's the strategy I currently follow -- one that gives equal importance to quality, quantity and variety -- and so far I've had ten straight months of growth (including a pretty explosive start to September... let's hope it lasts!    )

Certainly usefulness is key.  To me it's a built-in assumption... I wouldn't even consider doing the image if I didn't think it would sell.   As I brainstorm, I try to come up with useful image ideas, then employ a strategy focusing on quality, quantity and variety to manage a successful port.  If you're creating images that aren't useful, no strategy focusing on quality, quantity or variety -- or anything else for that matter -- will help you.

I do think that more than pure numbers it is the quality of the pics we submit and the quality of the concepts we capture the most important thing to work for in the future.  I remember the days that I uploaded a ton of textures and my dl's soared for days... Now it wouldn�t make sense.  We have to produce good to great quality pics with strong concepts to compete in the current environment.

Are you including SS sales in this analysis.  I ask because SS usually has so many more sales than all of the other ones combined.  And it might be that your SS sales have slowed down, but your other sales have increased.

Yep, it includes SS, IS and DT.

My sales numbers at SS for the month of August were roughly as follows;

2006 - 1200
2007 - 1400
2008 - 1700
2009 - 1500

I actually peaked on SS in Feb 2008 with 3000 sales (after two months of 'uploading like f**k'). Happy days but I doubt if I'll see such numbers again unless I increase my output by about 5x. With 4-5M new images coming on-line every year at SS it is getting increasingly difficult just to tread water!