Anyone else see weird numbers this month in your daily estimate?

Anyone still contributing to Storyblocks?

For those who are, did you see a big change in your estimated August earnings around Aug 16?

Something has to change.  Or I'm out.

I used to wear rose-colored glasses.  I'd insist that people who knew what they were doing could continue to grow their microstock income into the foreseeable future.

People who've done this longer than me called me naive.  But I said I'd never hit the wall because I had a unique niche, style and workflow.

Ha.

Over the past year, the wall has come down on me.  Hard.  Overall, I'm down from last year by 25%. 

I still try to improve.  Explore new topics.  Come up with new styles.  The result?  Still down by 25%.

Increased my port size by about 20% in the past year.  Earnings down 25%.

I'm now thinking that if I'm still in microstock five years from now, I'll be earning around one third of what I earn today.
<<< NEWSFLASH from five years in the future -- 2020 -- see my answer to the 2015 me on page 5 of this thread! >>>

Your results aren't the same as mine?  You're probably either still new(ish) to micrsotock and have yet to hit the Wall (when your rate of portfolio growth is lower than the rate of total agency portfolio growth).  Almost every single veteran who has been in the top seller ranks for several years is singing the same tune today... earnings are down and by BIG numbers.

My family and I have become addicted to this income.  I've been desperately trying to hold on to as much as I can, thinking things will get better.  But reality is finally sinking into my thick skull.  I know I may have to give it up and move on, and the sooner the better.

I'm been trying alternatives.  Selling on my own doesn't work.  (OK, I get some sales, but a tiny fraction of what I earn from agencies.  It could never replace that income.)   Video looks to be in a similar state as photos and illustrations.  There's a price war, far smaller number of buyers, and video veterans seem to have it even worse than photogs and illustrators.

So what's the point of all this whining? 

1. Trying to talk some sense into the heads of people who think this is a place to make decent money.  Don't get fooled by your first few months of a few dollars here and there.  The glory days of microstock are long gone.  The competition is too fierce.  The laws of supply and demand will crush you.

2. A wake-up call to agencies.  Your experienced contributors are going to drop like flies if you keep playing the "my collection is bigger than yours" game with your competition.  Why would any artists with talent want to waste their time at this if there's no return?  I'm one of your top-selling contributors.  You've told me so yourself, reaching out to me for feedback on your processes and latest offerings.  And I'm thinking of throwing in the towel.  If many more of your top-sellers feel the same way, and this forum suggests that they do, that's experience that can't easily be replaced.  Yes, new contributors will continue to pour in to replace us, but it will take years for them to develop the market knowledge it takes to supply images that your customers demand.

Microstock is broken.  It's unprofitable and unsustainable for contributors.  If the agencies think they can survive with content from hobbyists, they're mistaken, but will soon have to learn that the hard way.

Not sure if I'm the first to declare this... and the poll results at the right don't quite reflect this yet... but that might change when we vote based on our May results, so here I am to say it "real-time."

As I'm concerned, 123RF is now in the top tier.  (I know it's not a popular thing to say, given the reaction to their recent changes, but you might as well start getting used to the idea.  They're officially big time.)

For me, and I'm suspecting many others given the rise in the poll, 123 has been on a strong rise lately.  This month, they're neck and neck with FT (my #2 and falling fast), and quite a bit ahead of DT and IS. 

If we still think of the Top Tier as the Big 4, I could easily push DT down... at least that's what my numbers say.

What say you?

And I thought July was bad.

August 1 thru 4 have been TERRIBLE.

Today, Saturday the 4th, may end up being the worst day of the year. 

Looking back at my data, it does appear that the first half of August is typically pretty low, and things start picking up in the second half.

But for the first time ever, I'm tracking behind year-ago levels.  My July numbers ended up about 40% better than year-ago.  But for the first four days of August, I'm trailing year-ago.

Is your August terrible, too?  I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who had good sales in July (compared to 2011).

The biggest and most disturbing trend when I look at my numbers right now is that things are going along just great everywhere -- except at DT and FT, where sales are dramatically plunging.  My sales at both are about half what they were in June 2011.  Incredibly frustrating since these are my #2 and #4 agencies, and my plunging sales are NOT the result of me no longer knowing what sells or producing bad work.  No, I'm being punished because my work sells too well.

It's pretty clear that both sites are punishing top sellers because they make too much money when their best selling images sell.  DT and FT must figure they profit more when a brand new image by a newbie is bought by someone who may have otherwise bought a best seller from a top contributor.

But does this provide a better experience for the customer?  By default, any given search will bring up a dearth of brand new images, mainly from newer, unproven contributors.  No offense... some of the work will be good, some OK, and some garbage.  A real grab-bag of quality.  Before the changes, customers would have seen images that have proven to be popular... images that have served customers well in the past and would likely continue to do well if they weren't buried. 

What is better for the customer?  I am very curious to know how DT's and FT's overall revenue is these days.  I have to think that their strategy is backfiring, and customers now think the overall quality of their stuff is very scattershot, and are leaving in droves for SS and maybe some smaller players (I'm guessing BigStock or 123RF, since both those sites have posted solid gains for me in recent months.)

Anyone else see a sudden drop Wed night / Thurs morning in their FT downloads?

I'm thinking a best match shift happened around midnight in Europe.

For me, yesterday (Wednesday) was a great day for downloads, normal for a weekday lately.

Then at around midnight in Europe, it's like a switch was flipped.   I'm looking at around 25% of the downloads I would normally see at this time of the day.

Maybe this hit certain types of contributors more than others.  If you're an Emerald, and/or in the top few hundred in the FT rankings, did you see a drastic change overnight?

I may be crazy, but does this sound right?

I requested payment of over $1,000 in early December.  I just got an email that the money has arrived via PayPal.

You typically can't request a payment until your most recently requested one has cleared, so I went in to request a new payment.  My current balance was well over $1,000 again.  I clicked Convert Credits to begin the process and my balance fell to just over $100.  A conversion request had not yet happened.  It asked the amount I'd like to convert, so I guess it will only allow me to convert the amount showing at the top, just over $100.  Seems like I just witnessed $1,000 disappearing. 

I suppose the answer could be that the "disappeared" amount was included in the payment I just received, but that's not how it works, right?  My payment received today was the amount I requested in early December, right?  The amount I am able to request today should be everything earned since the request I put through in early December, correct?

Either I'm losing it or there's a bug.  Anyone else notice anything strange?

I was pleased today to see that GL is finally ready to start taking uploads again.  What has it been, a few weeks of uploads being suspended.

Then I checked my downloads at GL and was amazed to see that I've had seven already this morning.  At $3.12 each, those are some wonderful sales, a great way to start a Monday morning!

Not sure what those wonderful folks at GL are up to today (it's widely known that their revamped and renamed site is coming soon... but did they do something special in the last 24 hours?)  Whatever it is, keep it up, gang!

I've made a conscious effort all year to not request payments too frequently to try to keep my total payouts under 200 for the year and avoid triggering the PayPal W9.  I have to admit I wasn't tracking the number of my requests, and it appears to have burned me... I just downloaded a report of my PayPal activity for the year and I'm almost at 200 payments from the agencies already.  Even if I don't request any more payments this year, the agencies that automatically send payments will push me over 200.

Theoretically, I shouldn't worry since I'm paying taxes on all the money I make at the agencies and the PayPal tax reporting is just duplicating those records, not calling for additional tax payments.  But I worry about the flags it could set off within the IRS and maybe trigger an audit. 

Assuming you're making over $20,000 this year, what are YOU doing about this?  Requesting fewer payouts?  Do you care?

Wow... rarely do you see such a high profile case of someone placing a watermarked image on the front page of a highly viewed website...

I hate Matt Drudge, but I must admit I check out his right-wing diatribe of a website to see how he's spinning the daily news. 

This morning, he has a pretty clearly watermarked image he lifted from Dreamstime.com... 

The site will change in a moment, but check it out right now... http://drudgereport.com/

Here's the image he has lifted... http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-image-dollar-flow-in-black-hole-image6797566

Hey, mike_kiev, if you're on this forum, I'd be pretty miffed about this.

I've known about PantherMedia for a while, but until now I figured they would be such a low earner that I wouldn't spend the time to upload there.  In my mind, they lingered in the basement with Yay, Crestock, etc.

I don't know if it's me being asleep at the wheel, but it seems that they are now considered middle-tier.  The poll results on the right say so (ok, maybe the numbers are being spammed).  But I'm also seeing the earning breakdowns of a number of people who say Panther earns them as much as BigStock and 123RF, if not more.  If that's the case, then I definitely need to get on the ball and get my whole port over there pronto.  

Is PantherMedia bringing you the same amount of money every month as BigStock and 123, or are they still a bottom dweller?  I need more info before I dedicate a significant amount of time to upload/keyword/categorize my pics there (wish they were like other sites where additional work wasn't needed... it would be a no-brainer).

Anyone else seeing a sudden, noticeable string of good sales on BigStock this week?  Since Sunday, my daily sales are at least double what they've been lately, and February was a good month to start with.  As a point of reference, most weekdays I do about $10 at BigStock but for the past three days I've seen more than $20 a day.  Something going on there?  Whatever it is, let's keep it up!