MicrostockGroup

I think when in September this year I will be one year at my first site that is FT I will go and delete non sellers. One year is a long time ...

I never delete old photos I have been with Dreamstime for 4 years and just now I am selling some of the old 5 megapixel  photos that never sold.

I've written about this on my blog in the past and the core piece of evidence in the 'against' case was one of the top-selling microstock contributors once deleted 600 of his poor performing images from iStock and noticed an instant and significant drop in revenue.

Of course that only demonstrates it's a bad idea at iStock, so it could still be helpful at other agencies.

Also, since I started monitoring my sell-through rate I've been noticing many sales in the recent sales pages at iStock, Fotolia and Dreamstime where the download count is 1 - indicating it's the first sale of that image. Some are new and many are old. It's the long tail at work. The image might only sell once in it's lifetime, but if your portfolio is large enough this can add up.