MicrostockGroup

Shoot more calculate less

Maths is like ancient Chines to me... I just take pictures and I do not fry my brain with formulae... too many problems already to take care of.

woh woh..
hey take it easy man!

Yes, the fact is that I have photos that sat for a year, no downloads. I didn't upload for maybe six months and just watched lower and lower numbers from what was there. A couple of months ago I started uploading just five photos a week to keep my account active and see what happened.

Every month since then I get more downloads, and for the first time, Jan 2010 will pass my second month as a contributor for number of downloads. (not sales, just counting downloads) Many are files that were never downloaded before. Did someone just discover they wanted my photos? 

What people have said since the first day here is true. You should have a good size collection if you are starting with SS and upload all you can in the first two months. You get a new member boost. Also if you upload something new every month it seems to enhance your sales for some reason. I don't know how or why, but "feeding the beast" does work.

I'll guess that somewhere in the SS ranking your number of new uploads helps. And since I've been adding new files and getting more downloads each month, that probably also helps the SS member rank.

My most downloaded file is number one but after that, the second most sold image, which also has an EL is way down the page. Recently sold files, some with only one download, are ahead of it. With that I can guess that recently sold files are more popular than files which have sold more times in the last year. "Most Popular" is not most downloaded and not most money. So what is it? 

I don't see any way to tell how many times a file has been viewed on SS?

I wouldn't worry about it too much. I tried to find some type of correlation between views and sales several years ago and came up bone dry. One image with 1000 views and 0 downloads and another very similar image with 500 views and 200 downloads. Often people just like to stop and take a peek so maybe that is what throws the whole thing out of wack.

I totally agree with continuous uploading at SS. I got too busy with seniors at the studio this summer and didn't have time to spend on microstock .. sales dropped by the thousands over it. Now that winter is here I can start uploading again and see what happens.

I think the amount of money potentially lost by holding off uploading is probably more than you can make by having your images appear in the search on a Monday.  Sometimes reviews take longer, so uploading on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday would be good.  An image will either sell or not, I haven't seen any difference with images uploaded on different days.  People have tried to prove it makes a difference in the past but I just don't see it.  Some images that appear in the search on a Saturday will sell before Monday and be ahead in the search.  If that buyer then puts your portfolio in their favorites and returns to buy more, the earnings could be good.  There is also the possibility of getting an image selected for a lightbox or to be featured on the front page of the site.  Missing out on that because the image is waiting to be uploaded could be very costly.

even better do both. There's no reason why somebody who wanted to couldn't sit down and streamline their workflow to accommodate both quality and quantity. Lots of work but the best of both worlds. 

How it possible that one of my photos approved last week, has second position in my portfolio without any sales...
Is it only because  views or...?

yeah but any search engine is only as good as the people constructing it, you understand?  ofcourse mistakes are made, happens with all. Check your default setting, it couldn be set to age, or new?
BTW,  the more generic, run of the mill stuff an agency house, the more room for errors. Why?  because all of a sudden people can find 100 keywords for just a sunset.