I don't think my sales are enough to have a crash anymore   Perhaps they've persuaded more buyers to use Thinkstock?

Funny how best match shifts never, ever go in my favour.

You'd think that with a big body of work covering the last seven years it wouldn't matter whether the best match favours older files but it doesn't seem to work that way.

Brings the time when I have to stop doing iStock full time depressingly closer.

iStock without Thinkstock has become a speck of dust in my earnings this month.  I'm finally at the point where I have more non-selling days than days with sales.  Used to be I'd average about 20 per day. 

My ISP sales for July 1 - 10 are almost exactly what they were for same period in 2011.  Last few days nothing unusual... pretty decent actually.

One sale so far this month. This from a port that used to generate from one to three payouts a month. Not huge I know, but seriously this is just a tremendous falloff.
Also the summer months used to be my best ones with August always the top producing month.
I have dropped exclusivity, so that I can try to make a bit more on my existing images elsewhere.

I just cannot any longer muster any sort of enthusiasm to shoot for stock.   

My iStock sales have crashed catastrophically in the last few days, down to a third of usual levels.

Yes, same for me only its been since the last week of June. Now I am routinely getting single digit download days on most weekdays, and that takes me back to 2008 since it was that bad, even though I have 2000 more files now.

Also, this may sound like paranoia, but I think Getty has found a way to turn off or completely depress the portfolios of segments of the contributor base in order to promote their chosen elite. For example, yesterday my last sale was around 2 in the afternoon and I didnt get another one till about noon today. Then I had about 8 in a three hour period. I am experiencing this type of activity quite often where its like my portfolio is turned off for big chunks of time and then the flood gate will open for a few hours and then get turned off again. I used to get downloads spread over the weekdays from about 10 in the morning till 10 at night. No more. I will get most of my downloads over a two or three hour chunk of time with big gaps in between.

Another thing, ever since they started experimenting with the so called "regional searches" about a year ago, I used to get a nice percentage of my sales overnight. Now those are almost non existent.

why blaming algo and ranking changes ?

to me it's obvious that buyers are simply buying elsewhere and istock losing marketshare.

maybe it's also the last straw for some buyers who still had some credits left to spend, now they finished the credits and bye bye istock.

IS has now moved into third position, behind DT, for me. That's a first.

Hoping its summer slow down to blame, we'll see what happens in Sept.

There does seem to be a slight slowdown elsewhere but that should not cause iStock to lose its position in the rankings. It's probably the fault of the search.

also, not that this may mean much, but the last 5 reviews on alexa for IS (since sept 12 2010) are all 1 star, angry and wouldn't recommend to their friends.

You really hope IS takes some notice of these things, otherwise I can only see them dropping more positions like has happened for BaldricksTrousers.

It has been a terrible month for me until yesterday when I got one of my best days for ages.

Quote from: click_click on July 11, 2012, 21:38

Quote from: wut on July 11, 2012, 18:09

My sales are great

As usual, wut's portfolio is exempt from any seasonal or any other fluctuations.

I'm pissing against the wind, without getting piss on myself

Thats because your pissing WITH the wind, not against it. Try the port side of the ship and see what happens.

Quote from: wut on July 12, 2012, 05:06

Quote from: click_click on July 11, 2012, 21:38

Quote from: wut on July 11, 2012, 18:09

My sales are great

As usual, wut's portfolio is exempt from any seasonal or any other fluctuations.

I'm pissing against the wind, without getting piss on myself

Thats because your pissing WITH the wind, not against it. Try the port side of the ship and see what happens.

I thought I was going against the odds (and somehow made it through), it certainly looks that way by reading this and many other threads in this forum

It's all a joke of course, with my tiny port and numbers it really ain't that hard

In fact, the entire , IS, best match, their CV, etc, etc,  is the worst and most naive search among all the agencies. A computer kid, in grammer school could have constructed something better.

Your evidence for calling that a 'fact' is ... ?
It's not perfect, but I still maintain that the worst problem for searches at any site  is poor/spammny keywording by contributors.
At least at iStock, you're very unlikely to find a photo of the head 'office' of a political 'party' in a search for 'office party' (where 'head office' and 'political party' are legitimate keyword phrases) as happens elsewhere.
Of course, if the phrase you want isn't in the CV, you can sometimes be 'forced' to spam, which is the downside.
I so wish there was a CV at Alamy. Keywording at iStock is so much easier. There's no way of avoiding the 'office party' scenario at Alamy - and of course, I, like everyone else, have dozens of similar examples. It must drive the buyers nuts.

Misery loves company.

Add me to the list of having a big downwards turn on IS this week. Yesterday was down over 50% compared to the rest of this years weekday average, only July 4th was worse.

Quote from: wut on July 12, 2012, 06:02

Quote from: aeonf on July 12, 2012, 05:54

The whole month is a complete catastrophe.

You saying that, as the biggest IS cheerleader MSG has ever had (besides SNP, but she's gone now anyway), it really makes me think even more about exclusivity, I mean in terms is it really worth it since sales and earnings easily get so volatile

I do have some wishfull thinking that this is the known "summer slowdown" in effect, but yes, earnings are down 38% (adjusted to portfolio size) this month from my previous BME (03/12).

But it wasn't your first terrible month either, it was 2nd or 3rd in a row, if I remember correctly...That being said, June seemed like a bad month for most IS contributors, especially exclusives (looking at the monthly earnings thread over there)

Spring was good with a few of my better months ever. June was about 5-10% worse than last year. July started terribly and may be my worst month ever since I became exclusive (2010) unless sales go up for the rest of the month. Really hope it's just a summer slowdown.

So far at Istock for July I feel like I am running the Kentucky derby on the back of a mule.

Quote from: heywoody on July 12, 2012, 15:41

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 12, 2012, 01:51

IS has now moved into third position, behind DT, for me. That's a first.

Completely different order of magnitude from you but DT with 420 images is in 5th place so far this month, IS with 28 images is 2nd behind SS

Sorry, I'm not trying to be offensive, but if you only have 28 images on Istock, your stats are pretty much meaningless in any discussion of sales trends on that site. However, they do say a lot about your portfolio on DT, if DT is your 5th place earner with 420 images and IStock still comes in second with only 28.
Like I said, not trying to be offensive, when I had only 28 images on Istock, I don't think I even had any monthly earnings. Of course, I was way past 28 by my second month there. You really can't see any trends until you have at least 300-500 images, IMO. 

When someone says �I�m not trying to be offensive� it usually means �look, I can be offensive without even trying� :-D
I�m sure that my humble efforts are totally insignificant compared to your (invisible) but, undoubtedly, huge port, replete with wonderfully creative and highly commercial images.  Having said that, your conclusion is utter nonsense logically.  Comparing MY performance at IS against MY performance at DT says nothing good, bad or indifferent about MY work � only about relative performance on the sites.

Comparing MY performance at IS against MY performance at DT says nothing good, bad or indifferent about MY work � only about relative performance on the sites.

Not if you've got 420 files on DT and 28 images on iStock.

There's a micro-hater on the Alamy forum who is constantly on about his poor sales on iStock compared to Alamy. Hmmm, unless he has two accounts at iStock, he has less than 20 files on iStock and thousands on Alamy, so it's hard to take his 'relative performance on sites' seriously, and yours is just a less extreme case. NB, I'm making NO judgement on your photos, just your arithmetical conclusion.

It's also why it's difficult to make any statistical sense out of the monthly comparison thread figures, if we don't know:
1. If the number of files across the sites are broadly comparable (they'll never be the same given the vagaries of inspection across the sites, and it's far more difficult to build up your portfolio at iStock because of the tight upload limit for indies and newbies).
2. If the files have been up for comparable lengths of time, to get into lightboxes etc.

Glad to at least see I'm not the only one, July has been pathetic. I wont even make half of what I made in March.

7 month in a row where IS is my lowest earner of the 7 sites I submit to. And for the 4th time this year, heading for a new 6 year low.

IS has now moved into third position, behind DT, for me. That's a first.

Same here! SS and DT,  way above IS, first time as well.