I've had multiple sales on redbubble where I have a very small portfolio, one large sale on Crated, and have some UK friends who sell a lot on P4  - I make the most on FAA - I'm not on zazzle - that's it for my experience.

Interested to know other's experience.

Has anyone heard of eagalart? They look to be a new Canadian site.

What's P4?

Quote from: Elenathewise on October 07, 2015, 14:18

Would you mind telling how many images you have in your portfolio on DT and how many sales you've had over the years? Just to see a clearer picture of what's going on there. I have, as of this moment, 13,324 files on DT (all shot and processed by me) and 97,455 total sales. And my earnings were cut to 30% of my previous earnings there - I guess, as a "reward" for all my hard work...

I meant to ask, have you been able to maintain your database exposure? I have just about so far. Maybe if that is in line with your drop it could just be that the database is growing faster than your portfolio.

I was not following that number (database exposure) since I am not sure what that means. My current number is 0.04%. Someone who's currently a featured photographer on DT with about 2,800 files has a database exposure of 0.09% - so this can't be just number of files relative to the whole database. Do you know how this number is calculated? or is it just arbitrary set?

I agree fellow Old Timer.DT at one time was a major Player for me. with half the Images I have.The boys got fairly wealthy on us. Maybe they just don't wanna play anymore?

Not sure. Could be they are losing market share or could be their search results manipulation - didn't they say they "rotate" contributors, so everyone's getting an equal "opportunity" in search results... which could result in everyone's getting equally sad returns...

As an ex-analyst (13 years as a Credit Scoring Analyst), I would say there is an element of control over the amount a contributor can earn in any one 7 day period. I believe this is part of their ranking system. Sad as it may be I still enjoy building SAS programmes that import and integrate data to find patterns and there is plenty of evidence to be found. It does't mean they are being underhand, i't just THEIR way of ranking contributors. Whether it's the right way is open to individual opinion.

Why do it? Keeping as many contributors happy as possible (earning money) means more varied work to present to clients. If the same people stayed at the top all the time while the rest sank below they would stop submitting and variety in images would decline. They have already stated they want to keep changing images for clients. Shifting images up and down the search means clients see a greater variety of images. However, it can also P1ss some off.... it's a balancing act. Time will tell if SS have got the balance right

One of the more interesting stats to watch is the 7 day rolling average. For me, I often see medium - large variation in daily sales. This is not unusual on it's own but when I see the 7 day average stay within a couple of $'s from the previous day after such a large variation in actual daily income, then it's either a massive coincidence or, there is a a cut off that slows sales down once a threshold is met. It would be very easy to manage / operate (anyone who's been involved in building scorecards would know). I'd imaging each contributor will have a score (rank) for each client type (subs, ODDs,SODs etc etc) and depending on who searches and for what, will alter what lands at the top of their search. From time to time they will alter the way the algorithm makes use of the contributor scores etc to see if the mix of images results in greater or reduced sales compared to what it was (champion / challenger analysis).

Here's an example of what I mean in terms of daily inc and the average over the previous 7 days.

Daily Inc        7day avg
$75.89   $ 177.34
$14.4   $ 179.34
$38.26   $ 177.05
$13.1   $ 176.29
$11.72   $ 176.61
$2.88   $ 175.08
$20.94   $ 177.19

This is just a 7 day average but there are ways to monitor similar patterns over 30days, 3 & 6 months etc. Very revealing.

Excellent post HalfFull - I think this is exactly what's happening.   "...there is a a cut off that slows sales down once a threshold is met" - that's what I see. Which brings me back to my original question - does SS decide how much to pay each of us and we're just getting a salary? It sure feels like that to me. What's the point of improving then and growing your portfolio? Motivation - down the toilet...
Time to move out of this business.

Possible answers to some questions (theoretically - I have no solid proof of anything, so this is a speculation):
 - An agency can easily limit a contributor's exposure in search results. It's fairly easy to do, just some not too complicated code.
 - Why would they do that? They are interested in getting fresh content daily. For someone starting now, it would be nearly impossible to sell anything, unless their new content is pushed up in searches. If someone's content is being pushed up, someone else's has to be pushed down. How much down? - now here is a big question. Some time ago I had an interview with SS's contributor's department, and first thing I was asked if I was happy with my earnings. I wish I said no (which was the truth - I feel I should be earning more with my portfolio), but I misunderstood the purpose and the context of the question and said yes. My earnings have been on that level ever since. It could be that they would pay you whatever they think you'd be happy with to keep uploading.
- Why wouldn't they display they "best" results to customers? Well, is there even such a thing with over 60 million images? It's A LOT of images, and even if most of them are mediocre, there is still A LOT of good ones to choose from even if they do cap people's earnings. Customers won't lose anything, and the agency would still get their sales.
Again, in the absence of any proof or statements from agencies this is all speculation. However, something's definitely going on, I wish agencies kept us informed about thing like that, at least we'd know what to expect. Most likely they won't of course, but I am fairly convinced that we're not dealing with the "let the best man win" environment like it was in the early days of microstock.

The markup is material. If you go to a photo and choose a print and then click pricing details its all broken down for you. It is quite transparent to be honest.

I am not talking about material markup and framing commissions, and I am well aware of the "pricing details". What I am looking at is the "Print" price which is supposed to be what I set, and it isn't. 

Here is an example:

AFAICR, they only say you get 100% of the price you set.
I can't see where they say that they don't add their own cut as well as the other charges.

Wouldn't be more transparent and honest to say that my cut of the print price is 80%?

ImageBrief is closing their "founding premium program" on Aug 14... I have a basic account there and never managed to earn anything, although been "shortlisted" a number of times. To upgrade to "premium" is $500 a year. Anyone here holds their "premium" account? And if yes did it help at all with getting sales?
Thanks in advance.

panicAttack, it could be just a simple case of a reviewer himself having a similar shot in his/her portfolio and not wanting the competition. It's a huge conflict of interest but everyone knows reviewers can and do have their own portfolios with agencies. Some of the rejections I had recently made as much sense as yours - they give completely absurd reason, you try to resubmit, they just bounce it back. I tried to get some help from my old contacts there, the result was the same - it looks like resubmitted image goes to the same reviewer who rejected it in the first place, and no matter how ridiculous the reason is the file stays rejected. It's either not letting in competition or could be that they have some new system that tracks reviewer's statistics and if the rejection/acceptance is invalid it affects their ratings or something like that.
You're not the only one dealing with this, take comfort in this:) Plus, your image will sell on other agencies, no real loss.

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on July 20, 2015, 15:10

I know it's frustrating dealing with the idiotic review system at SS, (and I'm not trying to invalidate your complaint in any way) but you could just change the color of the shoes in Photoshop and resubmit. If it's anything other than red, you'll be fine.

If the shot is more important than the shoes, just work around the challenged reviews if you want to get it for sale there.

I can do it but I really would like to have some things cleared. Why so many contributors can have images of red shoes (some of them have even red soles) but me or someone else cant have red shoes even without red soles and not only that, but shoes are not main subject in photo (full body portraits). and there are images selling at shutterstock where only legs and shoes can be seen so we can say that those are main subject in the image.

I'm not asking too much... I hope.

If we contributors need to make progress in quality, we need to expect same with reviewers and support, or at least constant quality not declining in quality over time.

hammarby007, I wouldn't advise being exclusive with any agency. If you're exclusive, it's less work to upload and track submissions, but at the same time it's way more risky - I've been 11 years in this business and seen agencies go up and down, earning like crazy and then dwindling to nothing. If you submit to many, your income can remain stable regardless of what this or that agency is going through.

Apparently it's ok to take any instagram photo and sell it as your own "artwork"! I guess we've been missing out ... <sarcasm>

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2015/06/01/richard-princes-use-of-her-instagram-image-angers-toronto-woman.html

From the article: "... these works are posted on the Internet and therefore they�re not a purely private image" - WHAAAAT???

b) Another clue pointing to automated reviews could be the recent change in submission comments from a free-form text field to a drop-down menu with just a few standard (and useless) options.

Yup means no human is expected to read it... agreed. It's like automated "customer service" for most companies these days - they don't even give you an option for "operator" anymore (although stubbornly pressing "0" about 25 times sometimes still works:))