MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Dreamstime.com => Topic started by: Kone on March 26, 2010, 08:45
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I remember the same thing happened with another agency (StockXpert). The sales decreased slowly and then they sold the agency at the end.
Last year, especially the last three months, had very slow earnings. I used to make three to four times more with a port of 3000 images, than what I'm making now with a port of 5000 images.
My RPD droped from $1.28 (in 2008) to $0.91 (and I see significant drop last three months)
I was wondering what is your experience like with Dreamstime?
Kone
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Not for me. March was BME for me as far as RPD in the past year.
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Not for me. March was BME for me as far as RPD in the past year.
Maybe it's just me?
Kone
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remember these three words: ebb and flow
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It's been BME after BME for me at Dreamstime, but then, I still have a fairly young port (started about 15 months ago). The new pricing and levels seems to have helped me a great deal. Looking at the revenue and sales stats on DT's own chart, my sales are steadily going up slightly each month, but the revenue growth is increasing by a greater amount, suggesting my pics are increasing in levels and earning more RPI each month.
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DT's going up for me although not at the same rate as the top 3
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Static for me both in terms of revenue and RPD whilst everywhere else is booming.
DT have been slowly slipping backwards in comparison to IS, SS and FT for some years now and that trend is continuing. They are projected to be just 10.2% of my earnings this month compared to 12.4% in March 2009, 13.5% in 2008 and 15.1% in 2007.
I'm especially disappointed that the reduction of our commissions does not appear to have resulted in increased marketing/sales. Just more money for them. Maybe they are gearing up their exit strategy?
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DT is growing slower than other major sites for me as well
but I do attribute this to their higher rejection rate lately (expecially for similarity); I wound't say they're dying
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DT should be doing much better this year, with all the extra cash they have taken from us by lowering commissions and with one of their rival sites, StockXpert closing. I am seeing strong sales with SS and istock but DT are behind my 2009 earnings. I think their rejections policy is partly to blame. It stops me uploading everything there, because search placement is influenced by the number of rejections. So DT end up with less images, they earn less, I earn less and the buyers have less images to chose from.
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DT this month should end up about 30% more than previous BME.
They are usually trailing well behind in 4th place but this month are in 2nd place at the moment ahead of SS and IS.
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remember these three words: ebb and flow
I'm glad (almost) everybody else seems to be doing well - for me it's not ebb and flow at DT, but ebb and ebb - and some more ebb :P
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Static for me both in terms of revenue and RPD whilst everywhere else is booming.
But this makes total sense to me that some are showing ups and some are showing downs. We all know that our ports do well in some markets at certain times of the year and don't do well on other sites. That's the whole point of remaining independent and spreading ports across different markets. It's kind of like watching your 401k on a daily basis or getting on the scales every day to weigh yourself. Don't do it, you'll make yourself crazy. You have to look at the overall, quarterly or yearly view, not a weekly view. IMHO.
But with all the changes, I am sure some folks will see declines where previously they did well and vice versa. I am seeing declines on IS, when really, I was expecting jumps since the cost of exclusive files went up.
Some people like roller coasters, others get sick and hurl.
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DT this month should end up about 30% more than previous BME.
They are usually trailing well behind in 4th place but this month are in 2nd place at the moment ahead of SS and IS.
yeah this month they are heading for a new BME
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remember these three words: ebb and flow
I'm glad (almost) everybody else seems to be doing well - for me it's not ebb and flow at DT, but ebb and ebb - and some more ebb :P
Yea, me too. :(
Thanks all to reply
Kone
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DT this month should end up about 30% more than previous BME.
They are usually trailing well behind in 4th place but this month are in 2nd place at the moment ahead of SS and IS.
yeah this month they are heading for a new BME
For me WME
Kone
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kinda slow for me
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DT was slow and lackassed last year for me, but this year it's really doing well for me.
no, not enough to make me jump for joy to run naked in the streets, (no micro does that for me, lol)..
but it performs best of all. even IS and FT is slow compared to DT .
the only one site that was better than DT was StockXpert before Getty killed it.
for IS, i assume it 's because i cannot upload fast enough to get my portfolio size to be as large as DT to make it as good performing as DT today. esp. for now , the review time is back to slow and lackassed, after having one miraculous week of super fast review at IS earlier this month.
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Static for me both in terms of revenue and RPD whilst everywhere else is booming.
DT have been slowly slipping backwards in comparison to IS, SS and FT for some years now and that trend is continuing. They are projected to be just 10.2% of my earnings this month compared to 12.4% in March 2009, 13.5% in 2008 and 15.1% in 2007.
I'm especially disappointed that the reduction of our commissions does not appear to have resulted in increased marketing/sales. Just more money for them. Maybe they are gearing up their exit strategy?
Yup I am seeing the same trend. Not big drop, but slowly declining. It's not a good trend, hopefully they can pick up momentum with economy improving. I see noticeable increase in sales on Fotolia and IS (well on IS maybe because I finally managed to get a sizable portfolio online with their upload limits), SS is not quite "booming" but at least pretty consistent.
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it's been a downward trajectory for me, even though they were very good to me in the beginning and my approval rate has always been very good. so, i wonder if they're just for beginners?
in comparison, IS is highly consistent, reflecting the growth of my portfolio to the t. ss is a rocket, leaping by over 100% each month. ft is just weird. i'm sure this can all change within the wink of the eye.
**even as we speak, just got an extra large dl on dt. maybe whining helps. ;D
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Also much slower than usual...
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I had seen the same slight decline, but this month my sales seem to be turning around. Nothing dramatic, but better than any since November. Certainly from my experience it doesn't appear they are struggling in any way.
Frankly, with my sales having stagnated pretty much across the board, it's more likely to be the law of diminishing returns than anything specific to DT.
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Hi everyone,
First, I apologize that I was away for some time.
Thanks to everyone for their time.
I will not respond to everyone individually, but I'll do it like this.
As I see most of you are pleased with DT, so that makes me a little happy. On the other hand, there are several of us who are not thrilled with the DT sales at the moment. So we must do something to fix it.
Most of you say that the March is BME so far, which is really surprising me, but my earnings in March (so far) are showing just one-third of the income I had before at the same time for the same period. And as I said before, the whole last year was bad.
@ PowerDroit
Yes it has happened to me before, each new month was the BME until I came to 4-5 K images in my portfolio, and then it started to slow down last year, but at acceptable level. But now sales have gone down more to a level of concern. My acceptance rate is over 90% what is making me more puzzled than before.
@ RT
Thank you and I am glad that you can say that.
@ Gostwyck
Very nice, all the best. There are not many people that can say that.
As far as I can see, the last year was better in all agencies for about 20-25%.
I don't see why agencies need more money for advertising, I guess they cut our commissions for their personal needs. I also think that is the wrong way of doing it and they should increase prices instead. Reducing prices is a not long-term solution.
@ microstockphoto.co.uk
No, not dying of course, I used the word just to attract attention.
I did not notice an increase in rejection, but this is why I am worried. Maybe they are losing customers? But looking at the answers that others have given me, they are telling me that I made a mistake somewhere and nothing else.
@ sharpshot
Yes, and I think the same but it doesn't go that way.
I also see a significant jump in earnings on SS and IS in the past few months, but it is too early for any forecast, at the same time, DT and BigStock are going down. But it seems that in the microstock industry, while one stock moves up, second goes down (as someone already said).
I'm not sure if the reason for this is a increase in rejections, but something definitely smells.
@ fotografer
Very good.
How many images do you have with them, if it's not secret?
@ cclapper
Thanks for answering.
I know that the microstock business sometimes goes down and up again and I have experienced this too many times but the numbers are telling me that DT sales are only going down. I am not panicking, only trying to find an answer to my slowdown. I have been doing this for five years and it has never before happened that one agency's sales have drastically reduced while others' sales are increasing, without something serious happening. If so then it is as I said, the situation StockXpert, but it seems that I have somehow done this all to myself.
@ PERSEUS
Yes, Dreamstime never actually earned a lot per month, they were always somewhere in the middle and they were stable.
Kone
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ups
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it's been a downward trajectory for me, even though they were very good to me in the beginning and my approval rate has always been very good. so, i wonder if they're just for beginners?
in comparison, IS is highly consistent, reflecting the growth of my portfolio to the t. ss is a rocket, leaping by over 100% each month. ft is just weird. i'm sure this can all change within the wink of the eye.
**even as we speak, just got an extra large dl on dt. maybe whining helps. ;D
Have you noticed that there are more and more $0.35 and even $0.27 lately? I used to have a few subs but lately there are more subs than regular sales and don't remember last time I had an ES.
Kone
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I had seen the same slight decline, but this month my sales seem to be turning around. Nothing dramatic, but better than any since November. Certainly from my experience it doesn't appear they are struggling in any way.
Frankly, with my sales having stagnated pretty much across the board, it's more likely to be the law of diminishing returns than anything specific to DT.
I hope that you are right Lisa and that I will soon see an increase in my sales too.
Kone
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Yup I am seeing the same trend. Not big drop, but slowly declining. It's not a good trend, hopefully they can pick up momentum with economy improving. I see noticeable increase in sales on Fotolia and IS (well on IS maybe because I finally managed to get a sizable portfolio online with their upload limits), SS is not quite "booming" but at least pretty consistent.
As I said before, I see a good increase in SS (moneywise) but not as many EL-s as before.
Kone
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slow decline since sept 08 for me
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out of the last 20 sales I had 11 .27 -.35 SUBS
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I haven't uploaded anything since December, preparing for exclusivity. Sales are still strong at dreamstime even after deleting a small portion of my port. Average royalty per download has been above $2.00 since dec.
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My sales at DT is dying!!!
I joined DT at 2005, with regularly uploading photos and big Portfolio, my sales increase every month and very stable.
I mean it, very stable! Sales at DT is same as SS and FL.
But from April 2009 to March 2010, my sales dropped more than 50%, at sametime, my sales at SS IS and FL are keeping growing.
Now my sales at DT is way behind SS IS and FL !!
Very disappointed !!!
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I haven't uploaded anything since December, preparing for exclusivity. Sales are still strong at dreamstime even after deleting a small portion of my port. Average royalty per download has been above $2.00 since dec.
Wow, this is surprising. I have never had a RPD over $2 there, even before the royalty cut.
I hadn't uploaded there in several months too and sales were slowly dropping. This month I started uploading again and sales have picked up. I assumed there might be a connection. Maybe not?
Kone, you and I have the same number of years uploading, same acceptance rate, and roughly the same number of images in portfolio. :) Weird that we are experiencing such different results. Must be down to subject matter or dumb luck...
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slow decline since sept 08 for me
Yes, that is exactly what I am talking about.
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out of the last 20 sales I had 11 .27 -.35 SUBS
I looked at this closely and I saw that I was making the wrong statement to ap. This is correct about subs $0.26 - $0.35 - $0.70:
In my last 20 sales, 8 of them were subs,
Of the last 40 sales, 21 were subs,
Last 60 sales I got 34 subs.
So more than 50% subs out of 60 sales is what I think is a little too many.
Kone
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I haven't uploaded anything since December, preparing for exclusivity. Sales are still strong at dreamstime even after deleting a small portion of my port. Average royalty per download has been above $2.00 since dec.
Wow, you are a lucky one.
Is it IS, if I can ask?
I just looked your web site and your IS portfolio, and all I can say is that you have beautiful images.
Great portfolio, now I see why you want to go exclusive.
Thanks for your comment and good luck.
Kone
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My sales at DT is dying!!!
I joined DT at 2005, with regularly uploading photos and big Portfolio, my sales increase every month and very stable.
I mean it, very stable! Sales at DT is same as SS and FL.
But from April 2009 to March 2010, my sales dropped more than 50%, at sametime, my sales at SS IS and FL are keeping growing.
Now my sales at DT is way behind SS IS and FL !!
Very disappointed !!!
Yep, me too.
Let's hope better times are coming.
Kone
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Kone, you and I have the same number of years uploading, same acceptance rate, and roughly the same number of images in portfolio. :) Weird that we are experiencing such different results. Must be down to subject matter or dumb luck...
Hi Lisa,
Everything you said is correct, but I do more food photography than models and maybe I should change that and start doing more and more modeling shots.
I appreciate all of your comments and the time that you spent on them, not just for me, but for all of us.
Kone
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My RPD last month was also well over $2 but still I was over $100 away from my BME.
8 months now of decline. Not pretty to look at.
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My RPD last month was also well over $2 but still I was over $100 away from my BME.
8 months now of decline. Not pretty to look at.
That is fantastic! I can just dream about $2 RPD.
What types of photos do you shoot?
Kone
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I haven't uploaded anything since December, preparing for exclusivity. Sales are still strong at dreamstime even after deleting a small portion of my port. Average royalty per download has been above $2.00 since dec.
Wow, this is surprising. I have never had a RPD over $2 there, even before the royalty cut.
I hadn't uploaded there in several months too and sales were slowly dropping. This month I started uploading again and sales have picked up. I assumed there might be a connection. Maybe not?
Kone, you and I have the same number of years uploading, same acceptance rate, and roughly the same number of images in portfolio. :) Weird that we are experiencing such different results. Must be down to subject matter or dumb luck...
Thanks, Kone :) Yep, Istock, I wasn't aware there was another site worth going exclusive with ;)
Lisa, I was surprised also, prior to December it was closer to 1.5 RPD.Commissions have been higher than normal, also been seeing lots of random Tiff sales for $10.00+ royalty. I had no idea they were even selling these until I saw one. Doesn't really make sense since the file is converted from JPG, does it? Actually sales #'s are a little down but money is stable. I thought things would be much worse while waiting for the hold to expire. Another thing worth mentioning is, this is generally when my sales start to pick up, peaking in June.
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That is fantastic! I can just dream about $2 RPD.
What types of photos do you shoot?
Kone
I'm more into illustrations - not vector though.
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Have you noticed that there are more and more $0.35 and even $0.27 lately? I used to have a few subs but lately there are more subs than regular sales and don't remember last time I had an ES.
Kone
only .35 subs and they account for 28% of all sales. my rpd is $.91, which is on the decrease.
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uploading since june 2008
port size at dt at present: 635 pics
march 2010 already bme and still 4 days to go :)
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Have you noticed that there are more and more $0.35 and even $0.27 lately?
Sudden shift to subscriptions (http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_21255) (Thread on DT forum)
Answer from Achilles:
Paul, as mentioned in my previous post there may be other factors that contributed to your decline in revenue. Lower resolution could be an explanation or dillution via similars, change of the search engine or many others. While we monitor accounts in various ways, it's impossible to keep earnings growing at BME levels in every month for everyone. It's our goal, but various factors may contribute in ups and downs.
I suggest to check your quarterly earnings and see how revenue and downloads fluctuate. That graph is way more relevant for everyone's experience and should clear your worry about sudden shifts.
PS: a green curve above the blue curve represents a mature portfolio with a good RPD. The bigger the gap, the better the quality factors of that portfolio. Blue curve above green curve usually means new portfolio (or growing very fast), high number of similars or lower quality factors compared to your competition. I'm referring to long term trends, so check the quarterly page instead of the monthly one.
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Answer from Achilles:
... PS: a green curve above the blue curve represents a mature portfolio with a good RPD. The bigger the gap, the better the quality factors of that portfolio. ...
I have that scenario since the beginning of January 2008 and I'm still on a decline. It means nothing.
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My stats show me:
DT Best month ever (May 2009): $293 with 1190 images -> RPI $0.25
Last month (february 2010): $193 with 1600 images -> RPI $0.12
The first time I hit $193 (March 2008, $201) with 746 images -> RPI $0.27
Change from July 2007 to february 2010 (jul 07 is the first month when I started keeping statistics over the amount of images I have):
Revenue $140 (Jul 2007) -> $193 (Feb 2010) Equals to +38%
Images 561 (Jul 2007) -> 1600 (Feb 2010) Equals to +186%
These numbers are very harsh. And it looks definitely like DT is dying. I hope they fix it soon, they were my favorite agency before they changed their royalty rates. (Now I don't have a favorite, I hate them all!)
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uploading since june 2008
port size at dt at present: 635 pics
march 2010 already bme and still 4 days to go :)
Excellent,
Good luck.
Kone
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uploading since june 2008
port size at dt at present: 635 pics
march 2010 already bme and still 4 days to go :)
Excellent
He has no portfolio link, hence incredible.
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Have you noticed that there are more and more $0.35 and even $0.27 lately?
Sudden shift to subscriptions ([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_21255[/url]) (Thread on DT forum)
Answer from Achilles:
Paul, as mentioned in my previous post there may be other factors that contributed to your decline in revenue. Lower resolution could be an explanation or dillution via similars, change of the search engine or many others. While we monitor accounts in various ways, it's impossible to keep earnings growing at BME levels in every month for everyone. It's our goal, but various factors may contribute in ups and downs.
I suggest to check your quarterly earnings and see how revenue and downloads fluctuate. That graph is way more relevant for everyone's experience and should clear your worry about sudden shifts.
PS: a green curve above the blue curve represents a mature portfolio with a good RPD. The bigger the gap, the better the quality factors of that portfolio. Blue curve above green curve usually means new portfolio (or growing very fast), high number of similars or lower quality factors compared to your competition. I'm referring to long term trends, so check the quarterly page instead of the monthly one.
If they are talking about the camera resolution (or I mixed something up) I have a 12 MP Nikon D700 camera and pro lenses. So that is not a factor.
Right now and the entire 2009 year, I was producing more files than before but the yellow curve is going down for some reason, even with the above 90% acceptance rate.
Blue green curve scenario:
My green and blue curves are mixed up all the time if I look from the year 2008 to the current period the blue is above green, this means that the RPD (portfolio) by Achilles is not good. There is almost no gap between them. From 2006 until 2008 the blue was well above the green curve. However, as click_click said, I don't think either is telling us the truth. I am making more now than in 2007 where the green was well above blue. Does that means my portfolio was better in 2007? No!
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My stats show me:
DT Best month ever (May 2009): $293 with 1190 images -> RPI $0.25
Last month (february 2010): $193 with 1600 images -> RPI $0.12
The first time I hit $193 (March 2008, $201) with 746 images -> RPI $0.27
Change from July 2007 to february 2010 (jul 07 is the first month when I started keeping statistics over the amount of images I have):
Revenue $140 (Jul 2007) -> $193 (Feb 2010) Equals to +38%
Images 561 (Jul 2007) -> 1600 (Feb 2010) Equals to +186%
These numbers are very harsh. And it looks definitely like DT is dying. I hope they fix it soon, they were my favorite agency before they changed their royalty rates. (Now I don't have a favorite, I hate them all!)
Hi Perry,
Thanks for the detailed information honestly I did not calculate the RPI I calculated the RPD.
I don't hate anybody I am just doing my job. Photography is my only income source and microstock is taking bigger part.
The economic situation at the moment is where it is so that maybe a big factor as well.
Kone
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My RPI this month is already over a $1.10 (RPD over $2.70) so your stats definitely don't mean that DT are dying.
Last month (february 2010): $193 with 1600 images -> RPI $0.12
These numbers are very harsh. And it looks definitely like DT is dying.
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My sales have been on the rise lately, and I have a small oddball portfolio on DT. I requested a payout last week, and they did it promptly. They're still my favorite agency.
Pat
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Oct 09 $1.24
Nov 09 $1.26
Dec 09 $1.27
Jan 10 $1.00
Feb 10 $1.84
Mar 10 $1.53
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My sales have been on the rise lately, and I have a small oddball portfolio on DT. I requested a payout last week, and they did it promptly. They're still my favorite agency.
Pat
Very good.
By the way Dreamstime link doesn't work.
Kone
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Oct 09 $1.24
Nov 09 $1.26
Dec 09 $1.27
Jan 10 $1.00
Feb 10 $1.84
Mar 10 $1.53
Thanks.
Are you having more and more $0.26, $0.35 and $0.70 lately? (probably not, your RPD is OK)
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About 30% of my sales are subs this month, one at 70c, but then there were some good credit sales, such as one earning me US$6.
But I still wished I could opt out from subs. :-\
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About 30% of my sales are subs this month, one at 70c, but then there were some good credit sales, such as one earning me US$6.
But I still wished I could opt out from subs. :-\
Yea, they don't have that option
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The subs on DT don't bother me so much, especially since they implemented the graduated scale for subs of different levels. I have had sub sales as high as $1.25 there. I wish all the sites would do something similar rather than the all-you-can eat buffet.
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The subs on DT don't bother me so much, especially since they implemented the graduated scale for subs of different levels. I have had sub sales as high as $1.25 there. I wish all the sites would do something similar rather than the all-you-can eat buffet.
Yes. Subs or non-subs, it doesn't bother me at all. My RPD has been going up but if it were not I would not care, as long as my monthly revenues increase. That's what matters to me. And I think it is good of Achilles to periodically explain his position on and strategy for subs. So far, I think, he has been correct in his predictions.
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The subs on DT don't bother me so much, especially since they implemented the graduated scale for subs of different levels. I have had sub sales as high as $1.25 there. I wish all the sites would do something similar rather than the all-you-can eat buffet.
I wish there would be a size limit on subs. At the moment, large sizes of level 5 images are far too expensive, and I noticed a trend towards XS downloads for level 4-5 images (9 credits for xsmall).
I have the suspicion that former credit buyers switched to subscription (even for 1-2 months) since they can grab the maximum size of the higher level images for peanuts.
For instance, a custom credits pack of 129$ gives 139 credits, or 15 xsmall level 5 images.
For the same sum as a subs package 1 month 10 downloads per day, a buyer has 300 downloads or 100 downloads (level 5 count as 3 subs downloads) at maximum size.
This seems to be a pervert side effect of the level system that can be exploited easily by clever buyers: limiting themselves to level 5 images (which are exceptional or unique), they can have 6 times more of those images at maximum size than at xsmall size credit sales. ???
Refs: http://www.dreamstime.com/credits (http://www.dreamstime.com/credits) and http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_18104 (http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_18104)
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I wish there would be a size limit on subs.
100% agree.
I posted a message on DT's forum quite a while back, asking if DT couldn't consider limiting the size of sub sales.
The thread was removed within an hour, with no warning or notice. I said nothing at all negative or derogatory, it was simply a suggestion.
That was the last post I made (or shall ever make) on their forum. ;D
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The subs on DT don't bother me so much, especially since they implemented the graduated scale for subs of different levels. I have had sub sales as high as $1.25 there. I wish all the sites would do something similar rather than the all-you-can eat buffet.
I wish there would be a size limit on subs. At the moment, large sizes of level 5 images are far too expensive, and I noticed a trend towards XS downloads for level 4-5 images (9 credits for xsmall).
I have the suspicion that former credit buyers switched to subscription (even for 1-2 months) since they can grab the maximum size of the higher level images for peanuts.
For instance, a custom credits pack of 129$ gives 139 credits, or 15 xsmall level 5 images.
For the same sum as a subs package 1 month 10 downloads per day, a buyer has 300 downloads or 100 downloads (level 5 count as 3 subs downloads) at maximum size.
This seems to be a pervert side effect of the level system that can be exploited easily by clever buyers: limiting themselves to level 5 images (which are exceptional or unique), they can have 6 times more of those images at maximum size than at xsmall size credit sales. ???
Refs: [url]http://www.dreamstime.com/credits[/url] ([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/credits[/url]) and [url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_18104[/url] ([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_18104[/url])
I am surprised that some people go to such detail! Well done.
I am a bit confused now.
Does it mean that if a customer purchases a monthly package (let's assume they download 300 images), they would pay $129, but Dreamstime gets $0.43 per image for maximum-size level five. So this explains my subscription-maximum-level two $0.30. But how do you explain subscription-maximum-level four $0.70 (in my case) or how Lisa got $1.25 for her image sold, is it level five? Are you saying that the agency limits customers to download a maximum of 3 images max-size?
Did I just confuse you?
Kone
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I wish there would be a size limit on subs.
100% agree.
I posted a message on DT's forum quite a while back, asking if DT couldn't consider limiting the size of sub sales.
The thread was removed within an hour, with no warning or notice. I said nothing at all negative or derogatory, it was simply a suggestion.
That was the last post I made (or shall ever make) on their forum. ;D
I don't start threads or post very often but what you are saying is the partly reason that I almost never visit agency forums
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...I posted a message on DT's forum quite a while back, asking if DT couldn't consider limiting the size of sub sales.
The thread was removed within an hour, with no warning or notice. I said nothing at all negative or derogatory, it was simply a suggestion.
That was the last post I made (or shall ever make) on their forum. ;D
This agency behavior (in general) will keep on going in the future - sadly.
Competition leaves less and less room for generous commission cuts for the photographers and the running costs for the agencies are just going up (more staff/reviewers/offices and disk space/servers etc. - cost probably increasing faster than their sales - if sales even grow!!!). So for them it's a necessary move to grind down any amounts they can save (moving those costs onto the contributors) to stay in the game.
While it's easier for them now to predict future costs and prepare (by adjusting prices) they can maintain their own salaries but naturally the individual contributor will make less and less. There is no way around it.
In 5 years, each of the top 3 agencies will have maybe 200.000 or 300.000 contributors pumping content to their libraries. By that time Yuri is long gone somewhere on his own yacht, only shooting custom projects and that's it. The full-time Micro-shooter will be an extinct species then.
It used to be a real good money maker but now it's going to destroy itself (for the contributors).
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I am surprised that some people go to such detail! Well done.
Some buyers can count.
Does it mean that if a customer purchases a monthly package (let's assume they download 300 images), they would pay $129, but Dreamstime gets $0.43 per image for maximum-size level five. So this explains my subscription-maximum-level two $0.30. But how do you explain subscription-maximum-level four $0.70 (in my case) or how Lisa got $1.25 for her image sold, is it level five? Are you saying that the agency limits customers to download a maximum of 3 images max-size?
First of all, this simulation is done from a buyers' viewpoint. A buyer doesn't care who gets what commission and whether the scheme is viable or not for the agency in the long run. He wants value for money and he just has to look at http://www.dreamstime.com/credits (http://www.dreamstime.com/credits) and use his brain.
A sub sale of a level 5 image counts for 3 downloads (any size) an a sub sale of a level 4 image counts for 2 downloads (any size). See here: http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_18104. (http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_18104.) With the 129$ subs package (10 downloads per day), a buyer can download 2 max size level 5s per day, and 2 max size level 4s (3+3+2+2=10). In a credit package, a small size level 4 is 9 credits, and a small size level 5 image is 11 credits.
A custom credit package of 129.27$ (http://www.dreamstime.com/credits, (http://www.dreamstime.com/credits,) fill in 129$, click "calculate") gives 139 credits. Those 139$ give you 14 images, half of it level 4, half level 5, at small size.
(7x9) + (7x11) = 63 + 77 = 140 credits.
This means that after 4 days only, a subs buyer breaks even, compared with a custom credit buyer.
Subs: 4days x 4dl = 16 images (maximum).
Credits: 14 images (small).
Now a months has 30 days, which is more than 4. Imagine the subs buyer only buys 4 days per week, there are still 17 days left he buys. His profit is huge. Not to mention he has access to the max sizes and in the credits hypothesis, he would only have small. Of course, this scheme has a few assumptions: the buyer needs high-impact images on a regular basis. His needs may vary, so he can buy by credits 2/3 of the year, and switch to subs (even for 1 month) when the need is there.
It's all just simple math and correct me if I'm wrong. It is not site defamation, since DT must be aware too of this perverse effect of the level system combined with subs.
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About subs threads being blocked on DT, this is a perfect commercial decision. The DT forum is accessible to buyers too, and they do read it. Disgruntled threads about subs might scare them off or make them worried about the future of that program, especially when they are subs buyers or considering becoming it. It would be counterproductive to the marketing efforts of DT.
On a site forum, we have to present a uniform professional positive face to (potential) customers. I would never post a message like this on the DT forum since it might awaken sleeping dogs (customers). We have a common goal with the agency, and that is sales.
Customers don't read these independent forums, unless they are contributors themselves, so we can digress a bit...
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I am surprised that some people go to such detail! Well done.
Some buyers can count.
Does it mean that if a customer purchases a monthly package (let's assume they download 300 images), they would pay $129, but Dreamstime gets $0.43 per image for maximum-size level five. So this explains my subscription-maximum-level two $0.30. But how do you explain subscription-maximum-level four $0.70 (in my case) or how Lisa got $1.25 for her image sold, is it level five? Are you saying that the agency limits customers to download a maximum of 3 images max-size?
First of all, this simulation is done from a buyers' viewpoint. A buyer doesn't care who gets what commission and whether the scheme is viable or not for the agency in the long run. He wants value for money and he just has to look at [url]http://www.dreamstime.com/credits[/url] ([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/credits[/url]) and use his brain.
A sub sale of a level 5 image counts for 3 downloads (any size) an a sub sale of a level 4 image counts for 2 downloads (any size). See here: [url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_18104.[/url] ([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_18104.[/url]) With the 129$ subs package (10 downloads per day), a buyer can download 2 max size level 5s per day, and 2 max size level 4s (3+3+2+2=10). In a credit package, a small size level 4 is 9 credits, and a small size level 5 image is 11 credits.
A custom credit package of 129.27$ ([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/credits,[/url] ([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/credits,[/url]) fill in 129$, click "calculate") gives 139 credits. Those 139$ give you 14 images, half of it level 4, half level 5, at small size.
(7x9) + (7x11) = 63 + 77 = 140 credits.
This means that after 4 days only, a subs buyer breaks even, compared with a custom credit buyer.
Subs: 4days x 4dl = 16 images (maximum).
Credits: 14 images (small).
Now a months has 30 days, which is more than 4. Imagine the subs buyer only buys 4 days per week, there are still 17 days left he buys. His profit is huge. Not to mention he has access to the max sizes and in the credits hypothesis, he would only have small. Of course, this scheme has a few assumptions: the buyer needs high-impact images on a regular basis. His needs may vary, so he can buy by credits 2/3 of the year, and switch to subs (even for 1 month) when the need is there.
It's all just simple math and correct me if I'm wrong. It is not site defamation, since DT must be aware too of this perverse effect of the level system combined with subs.
----------------
About subs threads being blocked on DT, this is a perfect commercial decision. The DT forum is accessible to buyers too, and they do read it. Disgruntled threads about subs might scare them off or make them worried about the future of that program, especially when they are subs buyers or considering becoming it. It would be counterproductive to the marketing efforts of DT.
On a site forum, we have to present a uniform professional positive face to (potential) customers. I would never post a message like this on the DT forum since it might awaken sleeping dogs (customers). We have a common goal with the agency, and that is sales.
Customers don't read these independent forums, unless they are contributors themselves, so we can digress a bit...
I have no idea what you are talking about.
No, just kidding, thanks for details on this. LOL
Maybe you should modify this post (delete).
Kone
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Maybe you should modify this post (delete).
Sure, after you quoted it entirely. ;D
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I still don't see the point in all the "details" ??? We get paid like authors; if Tom Clancy gets paid $million from writing a book, does he care how much came from the sales of hardbacks and how much from paperbacks?
As long as my sales at DT continue to rise as they have since subs changes, I think I would be foolish to worry about exactly how each sales was made. I would be better off spending my time trying to make better images :D
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I still don't see the point in all the "details" ??? We get paid like authors; if Tom Clancy gets paid $million from writing a book, does he care how much came from the sales of hardbacks and how much from paperbacks?
As long as my sales at DT continue to rise as they have since subs changes, I think I would be foolish to worry about exactly how each sales was made. I would be better off spending my time trying to make better images :D
Here's someone doing something right. Hard to question the logic of someone whose numbers are this good... by that I mean ratio of uploads to sales... check out his rank info. Clearly he gets it that time is better spent giving customers more of what they want vs. wasting time trying to figure out how they bought it.
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I still don't see the point in all the "details" ??? We get paid like authors; if Tom Clancy gets paid $million from writing a book, does he care how much came from the sales of hardbacks and how much from paperbacks?
As long as my sales at DT continue to rise as they have since subs changes, I think I would be foolish to worry about exactly how each sales was made. I would be better off spending my time trying to make better images :D
That is true also, however, as I said earlier I would like to find the reason why my sales have gone down. If I find out that Dreamstime is the reason for my decline, I will put them down in my priority list and make another agency as my favorite, for example FT. They were way behind DT, but now they are in third place as my favorite instead of DT. The better one is the one that sells more. I look through their photos and I try to take photos of those images that I think would sell well though that agency. It is still good to know a little bit of everything, it can only help you it can't hurt you.
Kone
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I look through their photos and I try to take photos of those images that I think would sell well though that agency. It is still good to know a little bit of everything, it can only help you it can't hurt you.
I've found that while certain styles or subject matter sell slightly better on one site over another, by and large a good seller one one site will at worst be a decent seller on another. (One thing I keep in mind is that many FT buyers tend to be European, so subject matter that is uniquely American may not be big sellers on FT.)
However, overanalysis of this stuff CAN be counterproductive if it's hurting your productivity of new images. Just generate what you feel are marketable images, upload them to all the sites, and accept that results may vary slightly from site to site. I'm all for researching the market and against "feed the beast" mentality... but too much overthinking and too little actual creation of new pics won't help you meet your goals.
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I've found that while certain styles or subject matter sell slightly better on one site over another, by and large a good seller one one site will at worst be a decent seller on another. (One thing I keep in mind is that many FT buyers tend to be European, so subject matter that is uniquely American may not be big sellers on FT.)
However, overanalysis of this stuff CAN be counterproductive if it's hurting your productivity of new images. Just generate what you feel are marketable images, upload them to all the sites, and accept that results may vary slightly from site to site. I'm all for researching the market and against "feed the beast" mentality... but too much overthinking and too little actual creation of new pics won't help you meet your goals.
Thanks for reply.
That is absolutely true, I found that out too, as many others have. But if I knew that before I upload my images, it could help generate money quicker.
Don't worry, I won't go overboard, I am working right now and periodically checking forum.
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I've found that while certain styles or subject matter sell slightly better on one site over another, by and large a good seller one one site will at worst be a decent seller on another. (One thing I keep in mind is that many FT buyers tend to be European, so subject matter that is uniquely American may not be big sellers on FT.)
However, overanalysis of this stuff CAN be counterproductive if it's hurting your productivity of new images. Just generate what you feel are marketable images, upload them to all the sites, and accept that results may vary slightly from site to site. I'm all for researching the market and against "feed the beast" mentality... but too much overthinking and too little actual creation of new pics won't help you meet your goals.
Well spoken PowerDroid.
Yes, I too noticed that images that DT reviewers (or at least a certain one) reject over "poor composition" or "no stock potential" (lol, like that reviewer actually foresees the latter...excuse while I laugh my a off..)
those same images sold well with FT and even IS.
Also, yes, FT is in fact more Euro, and certain images that are dead with DT sell well with FT, and vice versa.
Yet a third thing I noticed at DT is that the oldest and older images tend to be selling, while the newest seem to be not located ( the mind boggles),
whereas at FT, you get a dl almost instantly within days of the image being approved.
For that, I think FT is more "fair" about what images are being "found" by the search .
or at least, I am guessing this must explain why newest images sell fastest on FT, while DT seems to take
weeks.. months.. whatever.
any speculations from experts here why this may be so?
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I still don't see the point in all the "details" ???
I was talking from the viewpoint of a buyer (doing the math), offering some possible explanation as why there seemed to be an increase in subs. Probably, DT is very aware of this high-level images trap. As a contributor, total revenue is indeed the most important as the SS case shows. Subs are a can of worms, but DT didn't open it. Others did.
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March was 50% of February for me.
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Really sad for me ... RPD=$.50. Tangie has posted a blog article about "how the search engine works." It pretty much spells out why I get such a low rating. :'(
PS: 123rf sales were four times better than DT. I have really pissed somebody off. :P
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could it also be that DT is outsourcing their reviewers?
i noticed during the holidays, (eg. now the Holy Week to Lent, Passover... or during Christmas,etc..)
there is an unusually increase in stupid rejections. something I don't notice throughout the rest of the non-festive seasons.
Could this be due to DT,etc... hiring reincarnations of Atilla, lol?
Also, how are reviewers paid? if I mass reject , am I paid the same money as if I conscientiously approve/reject works?
Just curious.
Finally, I know that with IS, IS exclusives review non exclusives images. Most of the rejections (except for one reviewer) are reasonable . Does DT also have exclusives reviewing non-exclusive contributors?
With IS I can see some prevention of COI with Scout. But with DT you cannot do this.
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Too many subscriptions constantly are killing RPD... :(
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could it also be that DT is outsourcing their reviewers?
i noticed during the holidays, (eg. now the Holy Week to Lent, Passover... or during Christmas,etc..)
there is an unusually increase in stupid rejections. something I don't notice throughout the rest of the non-festive seasons.
Could this be due to DT,etc... hiring reincarnations of Atilla, lol?
Also, how are reviewers paid? if I mass reject , am I paid the same money as if I conscientiously approve/reject works?
Just curious.
Finally, I know that with IS, IS exclusives review non exclusives images. Most of the rejections (except for one reviewer) are reasonable . Does DT also have exclusives reviewing non-exclusive contributors?
With IS I can see some prevention of COI with Scout. But with DT you cannot do this.
All reviewers/admins at DT are exclusive to DT.
Patrick.
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Too many subscriptions constantly are killing RPD... :(
Hi Borg,
Also, DT doesn't allow you to opt out from subs.
Kone
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I must be enjoying the "old port" effect. I continue to be impressed by DT. I have not uploaded since hockey season began, but can definitely confirm that my most recent photos (last summer) do not enjoy the same sales of my old photos. My RPD was $1.86 last month.
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Too many subscriptions constantly are killing RPD... :(
I'm curious to see what happens with this in the future. DT seems to have been caught in limbo by having too few subs to be like SS and too many subs to be like IS. Hopefully, they can move in one direction or the other. That being said, subs were way up for me in March at DT and it was basically tied with my BME.
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I have this feeling, a subliminal message, that the answer you're really looking for Kone is 'Yes, Dreamstime is dying'.
But I don't know it to be true.
I don't know the answer to that question.
One thing for sure; I certainly don't want them to be.
There are many things that make Dreamstime special. As an all-rounder, in my books, Dreamstime is the best agency I contribute to.
Not perfect, but the best.
I hope they're alive and kicking, and I hope they stay that way for as long as possible.
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Really sad for me ... RPD=$.50. Tangie has posted a blog article about "how the search engine works." It pretty much spells out why I get such a low rating. :'(
Have you all looked at this blog post? I was astounded at some of the goofy, irrellevant things that supposedly affect your search ranking. For example, you get points for positive forum postings and lose points for negative postings. Unbelieveable. So what's next? Higher search placement for being someone's Facebook follower?
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Did you notice which date the blog post was written?
"Disclaimer: This article was published on April 1st and we kindly ask you to read it accordingly. While it may convey some true data, it also contains false info that was meant only as a pun, joke, trick. We have decided to write it in a more believable manner but truly hope we have not hurt anyone's feelings. Some of the points above are real facts and others are pure invention. "
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Did you notice which date the blog post was written?
"Disclaimer: This article was published on April 1st and we kindly ask you to read it accordingly. While it may convey some true data, it also contains false info that was meant only as a pun, joke, trick. We have decided to write it in a more believable manner but truly hope we have not hurt anyone's feelings. Some of the points above are real facts and others are pure invention. "
haha, i thought that explained everything about dt's tanking performance in the past few months. too be quite honest, even if it is true, i'm not about to waste precious time making positive remarks on their forum in order to get a better search placement. total messages posted: 1.
however, i'm happy to report that dt has come back alive for me in march, making it bme (which is not saying much). however, it was bme at quite a few other sites as well. april is looking to be slow...
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Did you notice which date the blog post was written?
"Disclaimer: This article was published on April 1st and we kindly ask you to read it accordingly. While it may convey some true data, it also contains false info that was meant only as a pun, joke, trick. We have decided to write it in a more believable manner but truly hope we have not hurt anyone's feelings. Some of the points above are real facts and others are pure invention. "
It might be a 'joke' but it sure could go a long way to explain the absurd results their system produces. The default sort order results at DT are the worst anywhere, especially after the first page. I really don't understand why they are so smug and self-satisfied about it. Judging by how far they've fallen behind SS and FT it would seem that the buyers aren't that impressed either.
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Did you notice which date the blog post was written?
Ouch, looks like someone nailed me with this one. If I'd read it on the 1st I might have guessed it was a gag.
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I have this feeling, a subliminal message, that the answer you're really looking for Kone is 'Yes, Dreamstime is dying'.
But I don't know it to be true.
I don't know the answer to that question.
One thing for sure; I certainly don't want them to be.
There are many things that make Dreamstime special. As an all-rounder, in my books, Dreamstime is the best agency I contribute to.
Not perfect, but the best.
I hope they're alive and kicking, and I hope they stay that way for as long as possible.
Hi Eireann,
I don't wish them to die either. All I want is to find the reasons for my failure. I would like to bring them back to place on my list.
They were profitable for me, and are currently profitable, and I only wish that this continues into the future!
Kone
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Is Dreamstime dying?
interesting thread... my sales at dreamstime also dropped down since the last 2-3 months?!
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Just to be transparent. 3 posts were removed from this thread to try and keep the discussion about DT and not eachother.
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Did you notice which date the blog post was written?
"Disclaimer: This article was published on April 1st and we kindly ask you to read it accordingly. While it may convey some true data, it also contains false info that was meant only as a pun, joke, trick. We have decided to write it in a more believable manner but truly hope we have not hurt anyone's feelings. Some of the points above are real facts and others are pure invention. "
Isn't this a place for "professionals?"
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Subs are the worst thing for RPD...
All my growth projections for a future.... failed.... :'(
What could compel the agency to go to the subscription model? Competition??
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What could compel the agency to go to the subscription model? Competition??
^^Exactly. If everyone else has subs, then any agency without them feels at a competitive disadvantage...
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Subs are the worst thing for RPD...
All my growth projections for a future.... failed.... :'(
What could compel the agency to go to the subscription model? Competition??
Nothing forces them to, but as lisafx said they probably feel less competitive and I guess it brings the agency lots of money.
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An update:
These are my DT earnings for April till now. RPD 0.4$ (never been so low in a 6-days period). Even 123RF made me more this month, not to mention IS and SS of course. No comment...
(http://cjoint.com/data/egjXgr6dPP_dtearnapri6.jpg)
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Last 2 months have seen a great improvement for me. Nearly double normal sales with a portfolio of 1500 images (same for shutterstock)
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I hope they will live long and prosper :)
RPD from 2007 to 2010 for me was $1.63.
First quarter in 2010 was $2.35.
Last month also was my BME.
I'm a vector artist with a small portfolio.
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ROFL this thread is funny to me because now last 2 days are 2 of my 3 best days ever - best had an EL and a big day so that's harder to beat. But on strictly just DLs I have made about $32 in 2 days and only had 2 sub DLs out of about 16. Avg RPD is like $2 for this week. It's been CRAZY there the last few days.
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Are we still talking about Dreamstime dying? NO WAY!
Mar 1-20, I averaged $20.60/day on DT... about $.024 per image per day.
Apr 1-20, I've averaged $19.60/day on DT... about $.021 per image per day.
That looks like a dip, but April started with Easter and many people have had spring break for some part of the month.
If this is dying, keep on dying, Dreamstime!
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Are we still talking about Dreamstime dying? NO WAY!
Mar 1-20, I averaged $20.60/day on DT... about $.024 per image per day.
Apr 1-20, I've averaged $19.60/day on DT... about $.021 per image per day.
That looks like a dip, but April started with Easter and many people have had spring break for some part of the month.
If this is dying, keep on dying, Dreamstime!
Good for you PowerDroid, I remember the days that I earned as much as you do now.
How big is your port?
@mantonio
I see a slight increase as well but nothing major
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I want to succeed at Dreamstime. I want to succeed at all the agencies to which I contribute. I want them to succeed so that I can succeed.
BUT ... for the life of me I can't understand why Achilles continues to be so obstinate about the latest pricing structure. Sure, it makes sense that subscriptions drive the images to higher levels. BUT ... are the higher level images being downloaded? If so ... what sizes are being downloaded?
I'm selling lots (for me) of subscription images at "Maximum" size for 35 cents. Any credit sales are small or xsmall. And, I have not sold one single Level 3 image since the new structures began. What good is Level Three when no one downloads them? Am I the only one with a 53 cent RPD?
Sorry, Achilles, I tried to keep my mouth shut. Do whatever you must. I have to call 'em as I see 'em. >:(
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Yes they are. I would say that about 30 -40% of my sales are from level 4 and 5 images. My RPD has been over 2$ for 7 months now and for the last 3 months have been close to 3$.
BUT ... are the higher level images being downloaded?
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Yes they are. I would say that about 30 -40% of my sales are from level 4 and 5 images. My RPD has been over 2$ for 7 months now and for the last 3 months have been close to 3$.
BUT ... are the higher level images being downloaded?
Ahhhhh...there's the problem. I don't have level 4 & 5 images. If these Leve 3 images don't sell, how will I ever get one? ::) ;D
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I have one level 5, seven level 4, 25 level 3. They do sell for credits, but more commonly in the smaller sizes. It's basically the subs that get the larger sizes. But then, this is what the credit prices vs subs prices tend to do: it just gets more attractive to buy a subs package.
If DT and FT did not offer subs, most buyers would probably stay buying credits, more selectively. See IS subs model and how credits still prevail by large there.
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I just looked at the figures on a random level 5 image and found some surprising results.
Of the last 50 sales at DT only 11 were sub sales (the first 25 sales were still at level 4)
The credit sales were
3 x maximum
1 x extra large
3 x large
11 x medium
8 x small
14 x extra small
total earnings on the 50 sales - 204$
I looked at the same image at Istock and found
xxl x 4
xl x 1
L x 10
med x 11
small x 7
xs x 17
total earnings on the 50 sales - 73.74$
At IS I only made more than 5$ on one of the sales and at DT I made more than 5$ on 18 of the sales.
This month so far the image has been sold only 5 times at DT but has sold 25 times at IS. (although last month in general sales I had 2x more sales at IS than DT but made more earnings at DT.
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For that, I think FT is more "fair" about what images are being "found" by the search .
or at least, I am guessing this must explain why newest images sell fastest on FT, while DT seems to take
weeks.. months.. whatever.
any speculations from experts here why this may be so?
Always depends where your image shows in the search engine. I have one image which sold like 7 times at DT and which I uploaded 2 weeks ago or so. No sales on the other agencies. Then I have an image which you expect to be a real bestseller and is has just one sub download and others where you really wonder why don't they get downloaded. So basically a lot of luck is involved. However focus on quality helps to get sales once you have a lucky position in the search.
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No Dreamtimes is not dying with stats like this
Photographers: 90,470
Users online: 2,763
Guests online: 5,661
;D
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I just looked at the figures on a random level 5 image and found some surprising results.
Interesting indeed, and as suprising as mine with IS as the highest RPD. DT would have been higher excluding subs. I looked back at my sales this year, to see the high numbers. I had a L4 XL earning me 6.06, a L4 M earning me 5.0, a L4 M earning me 5.19 and a L4 M earning me 3.75. Nothing else above US$3.
In my latest 60 sales, 38 were credits. In the 22 subs, most were obviously XL-max-add - I would do that too if I were a buyer. On a side note, I was curious about the additional format - a vector - as I don't have a record of having uploaded a vector to DT.
Anyway, of the 38 credit sales, the concentration is on L1-L2 and on smaller sizes (see below, that's credits only). L3+L4 were 8 in credits and 7 in subs - not a real difference.
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No Dreamtimes is not dying with stats like this
Photographers: 90,470
Users online: 2,763
Guests online: 5,661
;D
what do those numbers mean, Jack? Are you comparing them to last year? To iStock? or shutterstock? 123rf doesn't have a forum. can they be compared?
Is it about growth from last year or are those totals intended to show market share?
I'm all for DT being successful, as I stated in the previous post. I simply chose this thread as a place to post my rant. I've watched my RPD steadily decline from $1.24 a year ago to 89 cents today. I'm selling fewer images for less money.
Time between payouts has increased; not decreased. Shutterstock is making twice as much money for me in half the time. 123rf is making more money for me than DT with about the same size port. I have far fewer images at SS and three times the sales.
I just wish there was some way for DT to relate the size of an image to the price. It is not working for me. For those with the level 5 images. Congratulations. I do hope your success continues. I think it would, even if Achilles decided to do something about the size of subscription images.
I know someone will throw in some more numbers; RPI for instance. That's fine. I real read and try to understand. The only number that really matters, however, is how much is going into my bank account.
And, as you old timers like to point out, I don't do this for a living. I do use the money, however. :P
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for me it's dying. last 20 sales 18 subs 2 credit. I've notice a gradual decline
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For me DT is slightly improving in the last month.
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Already the best month since August for me. My RPD is $1.26 at the moment, that is a best ever for me.
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My RPD at DT has been between $1.40-1.60 for over a year. I still find that credit sales (for me) outnumber subscription sales, and I sell several level 4-5 images every weekday.
So basically no complaints. I would be even happier if my sales volume was increasing instead of remaining static, but all in all it's not bad.
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Since I started this thread, DT is slightly improving so I should start another one. ;) ;D
Here we go, my numbers are:
In my last 100 sales, 57 were credits and 43 subs (mix of them) (same period last year 64 credits and 36 subs)
Credits:
1 credit - 15
2 credits - 0
3 credits - 9
4 credits - 11
5 credits - 6
6 credits - 0
7 credits - 7
8 credits - 2
9 credits - 1
10 credits - 2
11 credits - 3
16 credits - 1
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Since I started this thread, DT is slightly improving so I should start another one. ;) ;D
Here we go, my numbers are:
In my last 100 sales, 57 were credits and 43 subs (mix of them) (same period last year 64 credits and 36 subs)
Credits:
1 credit - 15
2 credits - 0
3 credits - 9
4 credits - 11
5 credits - 6
6 credits - 0
7 credits - 7
8 credits - 2
9 credits - 1
10 credits - 2
11 credits - 3
16 credits - 1
Very interesting exercise.... I just looked at my last 100 sales at DT, and here's how they break down...
In my last 100 sales, 75 were credits and 25 subs (mix of them) but haven't looked into same period in 2009 yet to compare...
Credits:
1 credit - 21
2 credits - 2
3 credits - 15
4 credits - 4
5 credits - 9
6 credits - 1
7 credits - 7
8 credits - 1
9 credits - 5
10 credits - 5
11 credits - 4
12 credits - 1
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For me April has been absolutely dreadful. I get plenty of views but no downloads this month at all. I wish the review times were better 150+ hours is obnoxious and eps files should be reviewed at the same time the jpgs are like everywhere else I'm at. I wish things would turn around there really. I hate being like this but that's how I feel.
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My RPD has really plummeted these last 2 months, the number of sales is about the same, but mostly sub and 1 credit sales now. Out of the last 20, I have 3 multi credit sales (4, 7, 7), 6 - 1 credit sales, and 11 subs, one of which was level 4. I don't know if DT is pushing level 1 images now because they get a greater % or what, but it is a little frustrating to have my sales be about the same # but the return for me to be so much lower. Maybe DT is getting just as much or more so they don't care.
Still, it is frustrating and I'd like to see it turn around.
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For my small port for past 12 months: RPD 1.46
2010 credits/levels, including for higher level images, working well
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Sales have slowed right down, as have the sales amounts...been questioning whether to bother uploading more work. reminds me of that good old Aussie saying if this car were a horse I'd shoot it.
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I haven't tried to run the numbers but just flipping back through the pages of my sales it does seem like the cheap subscrption sales are steadily increasing as a percentage of downloads. Just like the other sites.
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It's good to hear that some people are achieving satisfying sales on Dreamstime, however, I in my case, sites such as 123RF and CanStockPhoto have well and truly overtaken it. In the first couple of years on the site, it was up there amongst the top three for me. Now, in order of sales, the sites run this way for me: Shutterstock, iStock, 123RF, CanStockPhoto, DT, FT etc. etc. etc.
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Last month I made 18 times more at DT than at 123rf. It amazes me to hear somebody say that they are doing better at 123rf. Wow and just noticed that you aslso do better at 123 than at FT where I made 25x more.
In my case, sites such as 123RF have well and truly overtaken it.
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I just searched "engineer" up comes 995 PAGES!! first 2 and 3 pages are full of shots with ZERO downloads, almostn ZERO views and with all respect lousy material.
See, this is what its all about.
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I have the solution to make everyone happy. If you're not selling well at Dreamstime, and filled with so much anger about it that you have to keep badmouthing DT here, stop uploading. You'll save yourself a lot of hassle and frustration. And you'll be providing less clutter for those of us who are doing extremely well at DT these days. Plus, buyers won't have to sift through so many images they don't want, and the DT reviewers will have less work to do. It's win-win-win-win!
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I have the solution to make everyone happy. If you're not selling well at Dreamstime, and filled with so much anger about it that you have to keep badmouthing DT here, stop uploading. You'll save yourself a lot of hassle and frustration. And you'll be providing less clutter for those of us who are doing extremely well at DT these days. Plus, buyers won't have to sift through so many images they don't want, and the DT reviewers will have less work to do. It's win-win-win-win!
Sorry ... we have no where else to badmouth. the DT forum is restricted to cheerleaders. :P
I noticed the recent explanation of the pricing structures has disappeared from DT forum? Or, maybe I browsed to fast and missed it?
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It's still there -
http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_19813 (http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_19813)
You must have had a bad experience with someone there, you seem angry. Let it go, and move on.
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I have the solution to make everyone happy. If you're not selling well at Dreamstime, and filled with so much anger about it that you have to keep badmouthing DT here, stop uploading. You'll save yourself a lot of hassle and frustration. And you'll be providing less clutter for those of us who are doing extremely well at DT these days. Plus, buyers won't have to sift through so many images they don't want, and the DT reviewers will have less work to do. It's win-win-win-win!
Is that the best you can come up with? if it is, leave it unsaid. you make more friends that way.
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DT isn't dying for me, BME with $1.18 RPD this month. :)
A lot of my best sales were from high level seasonal graphics I created 2 years ago.
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I agree with Warren, if you want nothing but positive vibes, the microstocks have their own forums for that purpose.
One thing that continues to surprise me about microstock is how much the results vary for different photographers on different sites. For me, DT and SS make more than IS (in part because IS rejects so much). FT is a distant 4th and I will probably drop it soon. 123RF was a complete waste of time for me - it sold almost nothing. For other photographers, results are entirely different. Obviously, different material is part of the story, but is it just that simple?
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I would not say dying but stagnant. I got lots of rejections for description recently so I stopped to upload there but sales are as usual.
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I agree with Warren, if you want nothing but positive vibes, the microstocks have their own forums for that purpose.
One thing that continues to surprise me about microstock is how much the results vary for different photographers on different sites. For me, DT and SS make more than IS (in part because IS rejects so much). FT is a distant 4th and I will probably drop it soon. 123RF was a complete waste of time for me - it sold almost nothing. For other photographers, results are entirely different. Obviously, different material is part of the story, but is it just that simple?
Similar oberservation here on portfolio of circa 3,000 pics.
SS and DT make more than IS - considerably more...
IS - Doesn't like my work very much, it rejects much more than it passes. Those it passes sell well, but my style is not theirs.
FT - Was a distant fourth, but now on par with DT
123 - I've always been different here - it's consistently around $70-$80 per month, which if fine for me.
It's funny really, if I sent the same 20 pics to all the above 4 sites, IS will take 1, SS - 20, FT - 10 , 123 - 20, DT - 5.
Hence I have to differentiate what goes where. My biggest earner is SS, and that's my marker who I produce images for.
Of the rest, if I sent in the same batch of 20:-
Can - 20, BS - 20, Veer - 5
Funny old game - oh, and back to the thread, measuring DT over quarters rather than by monthly sales, it's still in the ascendency.
Oldhand
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I agree with Warren, if you want nothing but positive vibes, the microstocks have their own forums for that purpose.
One thing that continues to surprise me about microstock is how much the results vary for different photographers on different sites. For me, DT and SS make more than IS (in part because IS rejects so much). FT is a distant 4th and I will probably drop it soon. 123RF was a complete waste of time for me - it sold almost nothing. For other photographers, results are entirely different. Obviously, different material is part of the story, but is it just that simple?
Similar oberservation here on portfolio of circa 3,000 pics.
SS and DT make more than IS - considerably more...
IS - Doesn't like my work very much, it rejects much more than it passes. Those it passes sell well, but my style is not theirs.
FT - Was a distant fourth, but now on par with DT
123 - I've always been different here - it's consistently around $70-$80 per month, which if fine for me.
It's funny really, if I sent the same 20 pics to all the above 4 sites, IS will take 1, SS - 20, FT - 10 , 123 - 20, DT - 5.
Hence I have to differentiate what goes where. My biggest earner is SS, and that's my marker who I produce images for.
Of the rest, if I sent in the same batch of 20:-
Can - 20, BS - 20, Veer - 5
Funny old game - oh, and back to the thread, measuring DT over quarters rather than by monthly sales, it's still in the ascendency.
Oldhand
I would say IS is most consistent in rejecting most of my stuff. The stuff they accept mostly start selling after a while. Soon I might start getting more money from their partner programs than from main site.
SS is my major source of sales. I am very close to having 3000 images there. Recently their reviews are very inconsistent. I am sending 10 images in batch and I have all accepted or rejected. I do not think ones they accepted are any different from the ones they rejected. I must be just a different reviewer.
FT was always rejecting most of my stuff. Now they accepted more than SS and sales are taking off recently.
DT they change their standards recently. It used to be almost as SS but now lots of rejections for description and keywords. I haven't change my workflow for at least a year.
123RF huge change from accepting almost everything, I got twice more images there than on SS, to rejecting everything. Reviews takes ages now, maybe these guys have some troubles with their reviewers. Still returns are higher than from DT or FT which is a puzzle for me since for most people this site is not even in top 5.
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I just searched "engineer" up comes 995 PAGES!! first 2 and 3 pages are full of shots with ZERO downloads, almostn ZERO views and with all respect lousy material.
This issue has been covered before. There is the choice between several search algorithms on DT. Clever buyers use "downloads" instead of the default "relevancy" (metadata-based). By coincidence, I did the same engineer search a few days ago. Many images were about engineering, with no engineer present. This was solved easily by checking "with people" in the advanced search. You have to assume a minimum of intelligence on the buyer's side.
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I have the solution to make everyone happy. If you're not selling well at Dreamstime, and filled with so much anger about it that you have to keep badmouthing DT here, stop uploading. You'll save yourself a lot of hassle and frustration. And you'll be providing less clutter for those of us who are doing extremely well at DT these days. Plus, buyers won't have to sift through so many images they don't want, and the DT reviewers will have less work to do. It's win-win-win-win!
You are missing something here
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Funny old game - oh, and back to the thread, measuring DT over quarters rather than by monthly sales, it's still in the ascendency.
Isn't this just a mere reflection of increase in portfolio smoothed out? The benchmark should really be RPI.
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It's still there -
[url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_19813[/url] ([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_19813[/url])
You must have had a bad experience with someone there, you seem angry. Let it go, and move on.
It was this thread:
http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_21976 (http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_21976)
discussing the ambiguous amounts attached to certain credits. It is encouraging to see that DT has let the thread continue.
I'm not really angry ... just frustrated that so many of us seem to place more trust in DT than in other equally trustworthy (or not) agencies. :P
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Funny old game - oh, and back to the thread, measuring DT over quarters rather than by monthly sales, it's still in the ascendency.
Isn't this just a mere reflection of increase in portfolio smoothed out? The benchmark should really be RPI.
Hi there -RPI is most people's benchmark, but I count the bottom line, always have done. As long as it is increasing I am on the right path for the amount of time spent on micro. If I worked out the RPI for my own macro agency I'd have a nasty shock, again I judge it purely no results. Not a very analytical method, but each to their own.
Rgds
Oldhand
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Finally squeaked out 1 download this month and probably the only one I'll get. They accept most of the vectors/photos that I upload so that's not too much different than before. It's just taking me forever to reach 100 images on that site because of the few rejects per batch. Not sure if it all boils down to keywording and what people are actually after at any given time or possibly both.
I'll still continue to upload there just wish it were easier and review times weren't so long and pretty well much everything I said in my last post.
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Finally squeaked out 1 download this month and probably the only one I'll get. They accept most of the vectors/photos that I upload so that's not too much different than before. It's just taking me forever to reach 100 images on that site because of the few rejects per batch. Not sure if it all boils down to keywording and what people are actually after at any given time or possibly both.
I'll still continue to upload there just wish it were easier and review times weren't so long and pretty well much everything I said in my last post.
Keywording will probably not be the problem, if you're unsure anyway, just sumbit with a dozen keywords, and add any more relevant ones when the images are accepted.
The sell-ability factor rates highly, and a major cause for rejections apart from quality is smilar submissions of graphical elements sumbitted in parts rather than sets.
Good luck
Oldhand
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Income is stagnant or very-very slowly increasing year to year while I doubled my portfolio every year. I'll see what happens this year without new uploads - I stopped uploading there.
By the way, in same parts of his comment I agree with PowerDroid: I dropped DT from my upload list and it instantly made me more happy and less frustrated.
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II dropped DT from my upload list and it instantly made me more happy and less frustrated.
I'm probably going to drop FT for reasons that have been well discussed: their apparently shady business practices. I'd like to drop IS because of their absurdly long review times and weird rejections. And I'd like to drop SS because it's nothing but 25 cent sub sales. Actually, DT currently frustrates me the least of the "big 4".
I'm looking ahead to new sites in the future.
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If everyone drops out I can vacation at Captiva Island Florida every year 8)
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Is DT dying?
No, in fact they seem to be growing (according to Alexa.com):
(http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=2y&u=dreamstime.com&)
Are you receiving a smaller share?
Probably!
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Income is stagnant or very-very slowly increasing year to year while I doubled my portfolio every year. I'll see what happens this year without new uploads - I stopped uploading there.
By the way, in same parts of his comment I agree with PowerDroid: I dropped DT from my upload list and it instantly made me more happy and less frustrated.
I'm also pretty disappointed with DT. My earnings in April 2010 are 30% lower than in April 2009, even thought my portfolio is 40% larger (now up to about 800). Even before the latest dip, it has been pretty stagnant for the whole year, while other sites have been doing better. Not only are there a larger proportion of sub sales at low prices, but the total number of pics sold is getting weaker.
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My earnings in April 2010 are 30% lower than in April 2009, even thought my portfolio is 40% larger (now up to about 800). ... Not only are there a larger proportion of sub sales at low prices, but the total number of pics sold is getting weaker.
+1
Income down 63% April 2010 vs April 2009. Removed EL sale (adds statistical noise by infrequency) down 54%.
RPD down from 1.67$ to 0.94$.
DT has been many years my nr.2, well in front of IS. This month DT will be at the same income level as IS (with 2x the RPI), also due to growth on IS and a higher RPD (1.14$).
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Is DT dying?
No, in fact they seem to be growing (according to Alexa.com):
([url]http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=2y&u=dreamstime.com&[/url])
Are you receiving a smaller share?
Probably!
Free images hunters traffic. That's the reason why DT says that giving free images is "good" for contributors. BS.
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No dying, it is just stable for me... which is great.
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I saw the increase in the last 10 days in april.
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Never have made my sales fly in DT, maybe wrong kind of portfolio or just too little uploads. Will continue trying.
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I'm definitely missing something.
I can't fathom any valid reason to stop uploading to Dreamstime.
In my experience Dreamstime is a good, solid, reliable site, with many unique features.
Plain and simple.
There is nothing Dreamstime does that other sites don't (in most cases even worse).
Frustration levels - bare minimum.
@Rene,
any traffic is good traffic.
Free photos are offered by all the other sites. Nothing special here.
You'll be wearing a golden crown soon. It's time to let Dreamstime go.
Even as an IStock Exclusive it is in your best interest to have them on the market.
Don't wish for their demise. It's short-sighted.
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Topic: Is Dreamstime dying?
Simple question.
Simple answer. NO!
-Larry
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I can't fathom any valid reason to stop uploading to Dreamstime.
In my experience Dreamstime is a good, solid, reliable site, with many unique features.
Plain and simple.
There is nothing Dreamstime does that other sites don't (in most cases even worse).
Frustration levels - bare minimum.
(Snip)
You'll be wearing a golden crown soon. It's time to let Dreamstime go.
I completely agree. Unless contemplating exclusivity somewhere else I can't imagine a reason not to upload to DT.
For most people they are solidly in the top 4, and they are definitely among the least aggravating sites I submit to.
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Is DT dying?
No, in fact they seem to be growing (according to Alexa.com):
([url]http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=2y&u=dreamstime.com&[/url])
Are you receiving a smaller share?
Probably!
Free images hunters traffic. That's the reason why DT says that giving free images is "good" for contributors. BS.
I gues you are right
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I saw the increase in the last 10 days in april.
I am experiencing the same, I have increase of 10% from last month
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My earnings in April 2010 are 30% lower than in April 2009, even thought my portfolio is 40% larger (now up to about 800).
This is it in a nutshell, and for me is true of all the big 3.
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Check out the arrows to the right... at this moment, Dreamstime is the only green UP arrow in the bunch. Dying? Hardly.
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is the site down today, I'm getting an error when I go to DT the URL?
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is the site down today, I'm getting an error when I go to DT the URL?
Not for me
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My sales are what it used to be, but DT are rejecting everything I upload. April 0% accepted, May 0% accepted. With an acceptance ratio of more than 87% it doesn't make sense to be. In the last couple of months my acceptance ratio dropped from 93% to where it is now. Is it just me, or are others experiencing the same? I'm not going to waste time and upload photos if everything is rejected, and without new images a microstock site will die.
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DT is not dying for me, although the subs percentage is quite high, with a strong effect in RPD and total $. This week I sold a L4 as TIFF (crazy buyer! ;D ), so I can not complain.
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My sales are what it used to be, but DT are rejecting everything I upload. April 0% accepted, May 0% accepted. With an acceptance ratio of more than 87% it doesn't make sense to be. In the last couple of months my acceptance ratio dropped from 93% to where it is now. Is it just me, or are others experiencing the same? I'm not going to waste time and upload photos if everything is rejected, and without new images a microstock site will die.
What reasons are they giving for rejections? They're accepting everything I send, aside from the occasional "too many similar images" rejections (a few a month out of about 60 uploads).
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Check out the arrows to the right... at this moment, Dreamstime is the only green UP arrow in the bunch. Dying? Hardly.
... which basically goes to prove how misleading and statistically meaningless those arrows are. I certainly don't bother to 'vote' (whatever that means in that context).
I've been on DT over 5 years. Last month both sales and revenue were about 40% down on April 09. In the same timescale they've slipped from 14.5% of my stock revenue down to 10.3%. So far this month they are floundering at 8.4%.
Two years ago DT were battling against FT for 3rd place in my earnings rankings. Today they are generating less than half of my earnings at FT and that looks well on its way to become just one third. Throughout that time my portfolio at DT has been significantly larger than that at FT.
I can no longer be arsed to upload because of the 6-month lock-in and some silly, churlish rejections for the 'too many of same subject' reason. In some cases the series was of just 2 images __ i.e. vertical and horizontal formats, or full subject isolated on white and then macro close-up. What's the point?
I don't think DT are in any immediate danger of dying, I'm sure they are an extremely profitable company. However I do think that they are becoming ever less relevant to those to do microstock for a living. I can see them ending up as a depository for hobbyists who can't get into IS (where the real money is) but being largely ignored by the pro stockers.
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See! I reason like this: most of us regular suppliers to this industry, supply to say between 3-5 sites or something like that, we spend a lot of time shooting and even more with computers, PP and what nots.
For me a site does not have to be a bad earner for me to consider leaving the site, just not cost-effective or time-effective in comparison to my other sites is enough.
I could spend double the time uploading, etc, to the sites really producing, amalgamate twice as many files and so on and in the long run earn twice as much.
Messing around with 7 or 8 sites renders in nothing you become jack of all but master of nothing.
After 20 years in the Stock business Ive learnt to read the signs theyre not bad but certainly not encouraging either. Remember, apart from bad shots and lack of contributors, there are only two major things that can cripple a major site: what happend to Stockxpert or inferior management. i.e. lousy search-engine where buyers have difficulties in finding relevant material, believe me it spreads like wildfire.
This year, 2010, Im sure will see a lot of changes and I predict many will bite the dust, sold or bought.
DT, should at the moment and in order to keep commercial contributors try to perfect their search-mechanism, split-up all their series of 20 or more shots almost identical, make sure that on the premiere 4 or 5 pages are files according to the buyers keywords, i.e. keyword " jet-engine", then the first pages should show nothing but close-ups of jet-engine, not a distant aircraft with four jets, etc.
From a personal point of fact I can say that Im not going to continue working with agencies that cant get their search together, thats the only link to the buyers that we have and if that isnt working, nothing will. For me, monies is far from everything, there are other and far more important values which ultimately will render more revenue.
best.
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I have had a steady increase in sales over the past year, and last month Dreamstime did better than iStock for me. I do continually contribute images daily and grow my portfolio so I think that always helps.
I would put sites like Big Stock and 123 RF as poor earners who might not make it, but for me Dreamstime stays on my good list.
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I have had a steady increase in sales over the past year, and last month Dreamstime did better than iStock for me. I do continually contribute images daily and grow my portfolio so I think that always helps.
I would put sites like Big Stock and 123 RF as poor earners who might not make it, but for me Dreamstime stays on my good list.
Incredibly intelligent remark! one does better then the other??????? didnt know that.
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DT, should at the moment and in order to keep commercial contributors try to perfect their search-mechanism, split-up all their series of 20 or more shots almost identical, make sure that on the premiere 4 or 5 pages are files according to the buyers keywords, i.e. keyword " jet-engine", then the first pages should show nothing but close-ups of jet-engine, not a distant aircraft with four jets, etc.
that would frustrate a buyer who needed a medium or full sized plane with a jet -- gotta remember searchers are not perfect. so my search engine would show some of each type of picture, and allow the buyer to drill down; instead we get neither of these 2 - just page after page after page to sort thru.
steve
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DT, should at the moment and in order to keep commercial contributors try to perfect their search-mechanism, split-up all their series of 20 or more shots almost identical, make sure that on the premiere 4 or 5 pages are files according to the buyers keywords, i.e. keyword " jet-engine", then the first pages should show nothing but close-ups of jet-engine, not a distant aircraft with four jets, etc.
that would frustrate a buyer who needed a medium or full sized plane with a jet -- gotta remember searchers are not perfect. so my search engine would show some of each type of picture, and allow the buyer to drill down; instead we get neither of these 2 - just page after page after page to sort thru.
steve
Steve! is was an example of generic keywording, for all I care it could be an apple returning oranges. get it?
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in your example, you want to ONLY show the most literal images found - but you're ASSUMING that the buyer wants just a closeup of the word -- showing a range of images that all contain the keyword gives a better chance of presenting what the buyer was actually looking for.
similarly for the keyword 'apple' - the result should show not not only a closeup of fruit, but an orchard, a box of them on a truck, or a store display.
the search engine should expand the buyers options, not limit them - give them more than what they were asking for, to present ideas they hadn't thought of
s
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If a buyer types in "jet-engine" ( which Ive actually have had buyers do) they need the engine itself or the turbine, power or whatever NOT just another airplane shot. So this is what will happen, the average buyer will give 2-3 minutes of search, if he cant find it he will move on, simple as that. In todays stock-files he will then have to wade through tons of irrelevant material, so much so that he move on anyway.
Wetting appetite?? your way is exactly whats been clogging up all files with spamming and what nots and as it happens since I belong to the Getty-RM, Im hearing rumors that they are working on their search-engine, trying to gear it more or less in the direction Ive just explained.
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If a buyer types in "jet-engine" ( which Ive actually have had buyers do) they need the engine itself or the turbine, power or whatever NOT just another airplane shot. So this is what will happen, the average buyer will give 2-3 minutes of search, if he cant find it he will move on, simple as that. In todays stock-files he will then have to wade through tons of irrelevant material, so much so that he move on anyway.
Wetting appetite?? your way is exactly whats been clogging up all files with spamming and what nots and as it happens since I belong to the Getty-RM, Im hearing rumors that they are working on their search-engine, trying to gear it more or less in the direction Ive just explained.
Agree 100%.
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Only DT has green arrow for now...
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My earnings in April 2010 are 30% lower than in April 2009, even thought my portfolio is 40% larger (now up to about 800). ... Not only are there a larger proportion of sub sales at low prices, but the total number of pics sold is getting weaker.
+1
Income down 63% April 2010 vs April 2009. Removed EL sale (adds statistical noise by infrequency) down 54%.
RPD down from 1.67$ to 0.94$.
DT has been many years my nr.2, well in front of IS. This month DT will be at the same income level as IS (with 2x the RPI), also due to growth on IS and a higher RPD (1.14$).
My stats are almost identical...the last 2 months have been back-to-back WME's... :(
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If a buyer types in "jet-engine" ( which Ive actually have had buyers do) they need the engine itself or the turbine, power or whatever NOT just another airplane shot. So this is what will happen, the average buyer will give 2-3 minutes of search, if he cant find it he will move on, simple as that. In todays stock-files he will then have to wade through tons of irrelevant material, so much so that he move on anyway.
Wetting appetite?? your way is exactly whats been clogging up all files with spamming and what nots and as it happens since I belong to the Getty-RM, Im hearing rumors that they are working on their search-engine, trying to gear it more or less in the direction Ive just explained.
i think this is an important difference between us, so i'm trying not to be repetitive. but just HOW do you know the buyer ONLY will want a "jet-engine"? i n the anecdotal case you cite, perhaps, but i'm approaching this from the buyer's perspective. i look at the keywords people use before they buy my images, and some of them are rather a stretch. i think a good search system should assist, not prematurely eject many results.
i agree completely with you about spam and over producing search engine results, but that's a problem with the search engine and it isn't solved by cutting out significant results.
steve
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What youre doing is allowing a lot of side-tracking, sort of hope-for-the-best search. A buyer who wants a SUV, surely wouldnt type tractor or car, would he? if he typed "car" he would have to sit six months in front of the computer waiting for a SUV to emerge. No he type SUV ( providing his brain is intact) and voila! up comes say 2-3 pages with SUVs.
Youre idea to "wet the appetite" is for the buyer to type SUV and up comes 50 pages with all sorts of motors, veichels, etc, etc, when the poor guy just wanted a SUV.
Look! this is a pretty pointless debate anyway because everyone, every agency is in fact striving for just this, problem is that after years of allowing spamming into the files it will equally take years to clean up the mess.
IS. BM2 and the Getty search when they finally start working properly is well on the way.
best.
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Look! this is a pretty pointless debate anyway because everyone, every agency is in fact striving for just this, problem is that after years of allowing spamming into the files it will equally take years to clean up the mess.
IS. BM2 and the Getty search when they finally start working properly is well on the way.
best.
i haven't seen any stock agency that's moving in the direction of more contextual searches for what the user wants / needs -- there's a really interesting article in a recent Wired that discusses googles evolving search routines which are getting amazingly sophisticated
steve
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Here's the article (I found it interesting, too) -
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/ (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/)
In part it says... "The holy grail of search is to understand what the user wants. Then you are not matching words; you are actually trying to match meaning.”
I guess if one of the sites could come up with a search that would read the buyer's minds we'd all be rich.
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DT is my second biggest earner after SS, IS is third with big thud. So for me, no; they seem to be waking up!
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For me yes and it was wasting time. Deleted my account.
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Here's the article (I found it interesting, too) -
[url]http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/[/url] ([url]http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/[/url])
In part it says... "The holy grail of search is to understand what the user wants. Then you are not matching words; you are actually trying to match meaning.”
I guess if one of the sites could come up with a search that would read the buyer's minds we'd all be rich.
Sounds like a load of total, utter, concentrated, ultimate, freekin BS to me.
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For me yes and it was wasting time. Deleted my account.
Agree, although Im doing OK at DT, it should be 5 times more, so Im thinking of closing account as well. Pity but there you go.
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Sounds like a load of total, utter, concentrated, ultimate, freekin BS to me.
Perhaps, but I'd take Google's millions any day.
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Sounds like a load of total, utter, concentrated, ultimate, freekin BS to me.
Perhaps, but I'd take Google's millions any day.
So do I but Im afraid in this case it doesnt apply, fact is some years back this was actually tested by both RM and RF agencies and it was a flop. Nothing and absoloutely nothing will improve a search unless you spend money on it. Get a few Gurus, hacking-experts or whatever, pay them the money and I bet we have a search beyond belief.
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Sounds like a load of total, utter, concentrated, ultimate, freekin BS to me.
Perhaps, but I'd take Google's millions any day.
So do I but Im afraid in this case it doesnt apply, fact is some years back this was actually tested by both RM and RF agencies and it was a flop. Nothing and absoloutely nothing will improve a search unless you spend money on it. Get a few Gurus, hacking-experts or whatever, pay them the money and I bet we have a search beyond belief.
read the article - the quoted line is the author's summary, not google's method. what they actually do to hone the search is pretty amazing - and they're doing JUST what you said was needed - spending $, and hiring creative experts. they also do a LOT of testing actual results against what the user requested. i doubt any ms agency does similar diligence - they jsut declare their search engne better and never bother to test whether it actually improves searches.
this is where a new agency has a chance to blast past the existing ones -- merely offering higher % or other stuff we've heard from al the wannabes isn't going to makke any headway. but if google, eg, were to open their own stock agency using their technology it would make an immediate impression.
steve
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I started disabling newer images from Dreamstime with a view to going exclusive on IS - basically what I wanted to test was whether the 30% was in fact only newer images or would be in accordance with their signup page which omits any reference to the newer images. Unfortunately in DTs dream-land 8/2133 is greater than 30%, so hit their limit of files that I can disable.
What I did however notice though, after disabling about 4 of my newest images is a *massive* drop in downloads. By massive I mean the week following I had about 40% of the previous weeks downloads, less last week, and this week is starting even worse. For the record the last time I had such low sales in a week that wasn't Christmas was in June 2008 with about 1/3 the number of files online.
It seems clear to me that DT's policy is that if you want to leave, we're going to punish you on the way out, and create as much additional work as possible for you.
I'd be curious to know whether anyone else has had this experience (ie. a large drop in sales) after disabling images? This is obviously also relevant in terms of whether files are disabled instead of going into the free collection.
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Yep. and the more vocal you are the worse it gets.
I've watched my RPD drop from over $1.50 to 87 cents. And for the current month ... 33 cents!!!
I'm still uploading and really should not complain. My mouth got me into this mess. ::)
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...I'd be curious to know whether anyone else has had this experience (ie. a large drop in sales) after disabling images? This is obviously also relevant in terms of whether files are disabled instead of going into the free collection.
I too noticed a large drop in sales when I started disabling for going exclusive. I don't have an exact timeline, but when I had about 400 out of my previous 800 disabled, I guess I wasn't too surprised by that drop. Doesn't the number of images you have online figure into your overall visibility on the site?
I would also expect the reverse to be true...now that I am not going exclusive and I am enabling those images again, can I expect my sales to increase? I have yet to see that happen. :)
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I'd be curious to know whether anyone else has had this experience (ie. a large drop in sales) after disabling images? This is obviously also relevant in terms of whether files are disabled instead of going into the free collection.
I haven't disabled any images recently (other than by not agreeing to the free collection) but my sales there have plummetted too. It's happened very suddenly for no obvious reason and this month my earnings are projected to be barely more than half those of March. I have to go back to 2007 to see the sort of numbers I'm getting now. I've only uploaded there for one month in the last 6 though. I've no idea whether it is due to DT losing market share or whether some contributors are more or less favoured than others for whatever reason.
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Welll I am really small stuff there (217 images) but may is already a BME due to two EL's but sales had been picking up for me recently. What kills me is their review process. It took me over a year to battle my acceptance rate up to over 60% and now they just rejected 6 in a row that have been accepted and selling well at 4 other sites. Really am confused over what they want.
c h e e r s
fred
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I've commented in this thread a few times about DT being strong for me lately.... BUT... I must not have knocked wood. In the past few weeks, my earnings at DT have been about half what they were a month ago. This comes after many months of good, solid growth every month. Other sites are doing OK this month... why DT has taken a sudden nosedive is beyond me.
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for me, DT came out of a coma two months ago, and is actually uttering a few words this month. long term prognosis, doctor?
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Yep. and the more vocal you are the worse it gets.
I've watched my RPD drop from over $1.50 to 87 cents. And for the current month ... 33 cents!!!
I'm still uploading and really should not complain. My mouth got me into this mess. ::)
Lately, they have have been returning every single image that I have submitted. Maybe you're right, I thought maybe this thread would make them do that (as a punishment, perhaps). I can't complain about sales, I don't see much of a drop, but lately most of the sales are subscriptions.
EDIT: forget this
I disabled between 800-1000 old images, but i don't see a drop in sales
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I'd be curious to know whether anyone else has had this experience (ie. a large drop in sales) after disabling images? This is obviously also relevant in terms of whether files are disabled instead of going into the free collection.
I haven't disabled any images recently (other than by not agreeing to the free collection) but my sales there have plummetted too. It's happened very suddenly for no obvious reason and this month my earnings are projected to be barely more than half those of March. I have to go back to 2007 to see the sort of numbers I'm getting now. I've only uploaded there for one month in the last 6 though. I've no idea whether it is due to DT losing market share or whether some contributors are more or less favoured than others for whatever reason.
Ok so maybe its not just me then - RPD is at the lowest level since I joined the site, and sales are on track to be at Jan 08 levels. Something's happened - maybe its affecting those who have stopped uploading?
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Well, they seem to have time for just about everything else, exept trying to perfect their search-engine. Im getting a few oldies back here with comments on the searc words, so Im disabling these files. Re-adjusting keywords at this late stage has got nothing at all to do with getting a better search, irrelevant files will still be clogging up the entire system.
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I had very good sales ir april, but may is very terible, the worst month ever ??? :o
but I deleted about 60 old images, which are 4 years old and I didn't wanted to donate them for free. after that sales droped :( or is it jus a coincidence...
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i'm having my bme at dt...but that's starting from a fairly low benchmark. may is going to be double of april though.
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DT was going down since 5 months to me. May is the first who's better than the last month. I think in the long run...5 months going down is on the edge to have a better look on what happens there.
To my surprise, i sold less images in may than in march (so this means furthermore a "down"), but i sold at much higher prices than the months ago - means, more or most pictures at a high ranking and at higher resolution.
No idea what's the meaning of this, i will wait some month more to find out. My gut instinct say: there's something in disorder.
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I have slowly had a big decline in the number of sales, but I attribute that to other factors, such as a changing market, and the GFC.
You only really appreciate the benefits of DT after a few years when your photos increase their image level. My sales numbers are down, but my return on the images that sell is right up there.
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i don't know why but dt has really bounced back for me. it's almost 3x of april and only a few $ short of is performance this month. it seems dt and ft are picking up the slack for ss and is. this is when you really appreciate the freedom of not being exclusive.
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Sales at Dreamstime, with over 10000 photos.
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Sales at Dreamstime, with over 10000 photos.
Hey Devon,
Thanks for posting this
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My graph tells a different story. The only reason it seems to go down towards the end was because I had an amazing 3 months in 2009 and then it returned to nearer to normal figures and it goes down at the very end because there is another month to go in this quarter. As you can see by my Dreamstime counter this graph isn't based on low figures. Something seemed to happen at the beginning of 2009 that pushed my image to the front of the searches :)
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My stats aren't bad, I think, considering I don't upload much.
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Sales at Dreamstime, with over 10000 photos.
What I see when I look at your graph is the last row of dots in Q2 2010.
Your amount of refused images is almost the same like your amount of accepted images. Considering your past approval rate it shows that DT massively changed their acceptance criteria.
It appears that DT wants to start acting like Crestock by accepting "only the best" without the 10 other photos from the same shoot, despite different poses/concepts etc.
Did Yuri, who stopped uploading there, ever elaborate what he meant by saying that DT lacks professionalism?
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Sales at Dreamstime, with over 10000 photos.
seeing this graph I would say the problem is the grey line - exposure - going down, because they are rejecting more pictures; it happened to me as well
but I wouldn't say they are dying: while some of us are experiencing lower returns lately - there may be other people which are earning more
since in my case the main reason for rejection is too many pictures of the same kind, there's only one think I can do: add more variety in my portfolio; that's what I'm trying to do, and first results are positive, earnings are starting to grow again
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Have only been at DT a couple of years and don't upload a lot of photos, only around 12 a week. My uploads are highly variable and my acceptance rate has been going up for the last 8 months. April was a BME and this month is also close to another BME. The big spike in Q2 2009 was caused by a series of fraudulent sales.
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My sales are going up actually.
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Still no complaints here either.
I hate to keep bumping this thread because I feel the title is so misleading, but my graph is pretty steady, with only slight fluctuations. March was very good, as always and sales have returned to their normal levels, but not fallen below.
Would I like to see more sales growth rather than steady-as-she-goes? Sure! But I certainly think DT's performance is good.
(http://www.pbase.com/image/125005224/medium.jpg)
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I am enjoying DT performance, quite new and not a lot of sales but I see a positive action...!
(http://c10.quickcachr.fotos.sapo.pt/i/b81047e26/6468286_iZTKP.png)
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Still no complaints here either.
I hate to keep bumping this thread because I feel the title is so misleading, but my graph is pretty steady, with only slight fluctuations. March was very good, as always and sales have returned to their normal levels, but not fallen below.
Would I like to see more sales growth rather than steady-as-she-goes? Sure! But I certainly think DT's performance is good.
([url]http://www.pbase.com/image/125005224/medium.jpg[/url])
On your graph i see that your sales in May 2010 are lower as in May 2009, but how much images did you upload last year? With bigger PF you have lower earnings and you say - all is OK! And from beginning subscription on DT part of sales are more, more lower price.
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My sales are definitely on the rise year over year... This May is more than double May 2009 for me, with only half as many images online. I have some ups and downs on a monthly basis, but quarter to quarter things are trending upwards :)
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My sales are definitely on the rise year over year... This May is more than double May 2009 for me, with only half as many images online.
Yes but you are an exclusive, and the darling of DT ;)
Welcome here Brad. I thought you had a full-time job on the DT-forum. :P
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On your graph i see that your sales in May 2010 are lower as in May 2009, but how much images did you upload last year? With bigger PF you have lower earnings and you say - all is OK! And from beginning subscription on DT part of sales are more, more lower price.
Well, Grandpa, all is okay relatively speaking. This year seems a bit down from last year across the board for me. Dreamstime isn't faring any worse than most other sites, and much better than some (Istock for example). Don't know if it is the recession dragging on or the dreaded "point of diminishing returns".
If you check out the end-of-month threads you will see that lots of folks who have been at this for years are not seeing much growth or slight backsliding of sales. Only the comparably new portfolios seem to be reporting huge growth, but that is relative to a much lower starting point.
Hope that clears it up for you :)
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Well, Grandpa, all is okay relatively speaking. This year seems a bit down from last year across the board for me. Dreamstime isn't faring any worse than most other sites, and much better than some (Istock for example). Don't know if it is the recession dragging on or the dreaded "point of diminishing returns".
If you check out the end-of-month threads you will see that lots of folks who have been at this for years are not seeing much growth or slight backsliding of sales. Only the comparably new portfolios seem to be reporting huge growth, but that is relative to a much lower starting point.
Hope that clears it up for you :)
Granpa is right, I too expect more return with more files in my portfolio and if that doesn't happen then I count it as a negative growth.
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For me, I thought Dreamstime was going to challenge IS and SS for top spots, but last summer Dreamstime sales took a big hit. They basically went from being a consistent 20% of my stock income to a consistent 10% in a month. They seem to have stabilized at 10% and seem to be growing with new images. So for me, it really isn't about them dying. It is more about them not growing as fast as I expected and losing ground to other agencies. I know they have made a lot of changes in the last year to royalties, image tiers and price, so I guess that is part of what happened.
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Granpa is right, I too expect more return with more files in my portfolio and if that doesn't happen then I count it as a negative growth.
Of course it's negative growth. The question wasn't whether there was negative growth, but whether DT is dying. In April 09 Dreamstime was 8% of my total earnings. In April '10 they are still 8% of my earnings.
So is there negative growth of my portfolio? Yes. Is that evidence of DT dying? No. Not in my case. According to my stats they are occupying exactly the same position relative to the other microstock companies that they did a year ago.
Cthoman is right - perhaps the issue with DT is that they haven't lived up to expectations.
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Granpa is right, I too expect more return with more files in my portfolio and if that doesn't happen then I count it as a negative growth.
Of course it's negative growth. The question wasn't whether their was negative growth, but whether DT is dying. I don't see any evidence from my graph that it's true.
Hmmm, negative growth still sucks though.
Lisa, while your sales graph appears to be going down (as does mine, being with DT for over 5 years now), I wonder how, when or if that graph can ever be pointing upwards again in the foreseeable future. I don't see that (being a realist), so for me, yes DT is dying (sooner or later).
I hope by that time to be a sole RM shooter and don't have to worry about microstock anymore ;D
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Lisa, while your sales graph appears to be going down (as does mine, being with DT for over 5 years now), I wonder how, when or if that graph can ever be pointing upwards again in the foreseeable future. I don't see that (being a realist), so for me, yes DT is dying (sooner or later).
Click, are you seeing the same trend across all sites, as I am, or is it just on DT?
I wonder if this isn't an indication that microstock in general is bottoming out, rather than just DT specifically. I keep an eye on my "exposure" numbers, and my exposure is steadily shrinking as the collections grow. My measly 100 or so uploads a month are lost in a sea of a hundred thousand or so competing images uploaded every month. Surely that is happening to most of us who are not factory producers...?
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So is there negative growth of my portfolio? Yes. Is that evidence of DT dying? No. Not in my case.
And yes, I know the word "dying" is maybe a little bit too hard but I just used it to attract people to this thread.
I need to do something to attract buyers to buy my images too. LOL
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Click, are you seeing the same trend across all sites, as I am, or is it just on DT?
I wonder if part of this is that nobody has really given us a huge raise or bump in a while that wasn't offset by some kind of royalty reduction. IS exclusives got their nice little bump, and I was hoping to see SS react to it. But so far, they haven't blinked.
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OK let's hijack this :D
I've seen this trend basically on all sites.
almost 3 years ago it didn't matter how much or little I upload to SS to maintain my sales - it just plateaued.
Same thing on DT, FT, StockXpert (back then), IS while no additional agency showed significant growth as well.
Think about it: With the rate of new contributors signing up and the upload rate of some of these new photographers it is physically impossible to keep up unless you happen to live in a country with very low cost of living and where you can easily afford to outsource many of the daily chores such as post processing, keywording and uploading.
Yuri took off like a rocket in the early days because he understood that his talent is most efficient behind the camera and not sitting endless hours at the computer uploading and editing images as most of us do. I dare to assume that he made very good money in the very early days that allowed him to pay people without taking on a tremendous financial risk.
Since I don't have a crew of 2 to 4 people squeezing the most commercial value out of every single image, I produce very low volume but I have to make sure that every single image sells well to break even. For shooters like Lisa with 100+ uploads a month I feel the pain doing it all by yourself - I don't even know how I could cope with that editing workload.
That makes it even worse for me, producing fewer images, but I have to nail those to stay competitive. On the other hand my monthly upload volume is like a water drop in the bush fire - I feel like my exposure is just not there at all. I try to stay positive by keywording as best as possible and watching/analyzing my sales to redirect myself for future projects.
All in all, the Microstock model simply cannot be financially wise for a single photographer (as in having Microstock as your sole income) in the long run. The early birds of us, were having a blast once this industry was born. Now it's "just" work. It creates a lot of pressure now, to produce, produce, produce. The joy of expressing creativity is going downhill.
Anywho, the internet offers many other ventures to sell our stuff so it's not just the micros we have.
Thanks for that. But to enjoy the fun of creating pictures I'd love to work in the RM field some time just to see that buyers do appreciate the value of our work.
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All in all, the Microstock model simply cannot be financially wise for a single photographer (as in having Microstock as your sole income) in the long run. The early birds of us, were having a blast once this industry was born. Now it's "just" work. It creates a lot of pressure now, to produce, produce, produce. The joy of expressing creativity is going downhill.
All very well stated Click_click. You have given this a lot of thought and, I think, hit the nail on the head. The part I bolded expresses my feelings about microstock exactly.
In my first few years (2006-2007 for example) microstock felt like a license to print money! Seemed like nearly every new series would take off like wildfire. It was very encouraging and made selling on micros lots of fun.
Now watching sales come in on new series is like watching paint dry. If the images sell at all it is in little dribs and drabs. Nothing to give the thrill of accomplishment. It really has become just a job, and a fairly stressful one at that.
Thanks for sharing - it's nice to know I am not the only "old-timer" experiencing this.
I wonder if part of this is that nobody has really given us a huge raise or bump in a while that wasn't offset by some kind of royalty reduction. IS exclusives got their nice little bump, and I was hoping to see SS react to it. But so far, they haven't blinked.
^^ This is an excellent point too. No royalty raises in two years at pretty much every site, and royalty drops at some of them. In fairness to SS, I don't see how they can give us a raise when Thinkstock is gunning for them and only pays .25/DL.
Maybe SS should consider just giving a raise to those of us who support them by NOT contributing to TS.
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I was thinking along the same lines Lisa :-X
Actually, I was pushing things a step further. I was meaner.
'Wanna enjoy any kind of SS raises (and that's including the ones you have already earned), then close your account at TStock! Otherwise your payment will be, from now on, a fixed 0.25 cent, just like Getty's.'
I know, I know, it's not going to happen, but who's to stop me from plotting murderous thoughts against ThinkStock?
Anything to help it die already ...
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It's SUPER DEAD
(http://www.dreamstime.com/stats_4_update.php?timeframe=last12&d_ol=n&d_rf=n&d_dl=n&d_rv=y&d_rr=n&d_ex=n&d_ms=n&d_display=curves&d_sl=y)
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I think that rather new DT is born. DT is an old site which has never been very successful for professional photographers - just compare numbers of 20 best exclusives (and non-exclusives) at DT vs IS. Very difficult to live only with DT earnings.
Achilles probably understood that he cannot compete on purely professional basis. So new DT is hobbyists-community-cheerleader site where positive attitude makes everybody feel good. Everybody can feel like an artist and it's well known that usually artist are poor. ;D
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I think that rather new DT is born. DT is an old site which has never been very successful for professional photographers - just compare numbers of 20 best exclusives (and non-exclusives) at DT vs IS. Very difficult to live only with DT earnings.
Achilles probably understood that he cannot compete on purely professional basis. So new DT is hobbyists-community-cheerleader site where positive attitude makes everybody feel good. Everybody can feel like an artist and it's well known that usually artist are poor. ;D
Interesting point of view. And it's rather adjacent to the fact that many top contributors ceased uploading to them. It's their answer to Dreamstime's "we don't want your 2000 images / month upload rate, we can't market them properly anyway" attitude. And to "Any two shots with the same person displayed are similars. There can be only one." attitude as well.
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I don't think falling sales is reflected on all sites. I haven't exactly uploaded much in the last year, but despite that my overall trend has been upwards - Dreamstime is the only site in the top 4 which is showing a significant and consistent downward trend.
That trend started in about March last year and has continued since. The pace accelerated this month which will be the lowest revenue since July 08.
I don't think the site is "dying" as such, but its certainly performing worse for long-term contributors.
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Am I the only one to have the exact same Sales/Revenue curves as Vonkara ?
Not only similar curves. The EXACT same numbers, month after month.
How is that possible ???
[EDIT] False alarm. See how it is possible in Skvoor's post below ;)
It's SUPER DEAD
([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/stats_4_update.php?timeframe=last12&d_ol=n&d_rf=n&d_dl=n&d_rv=y&d_rr=n&d_ex=n&d_ms=n&d_display=curves&d_sl=y[/url])
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Am I the only one to have the exact same Sales/Revenue curves as Vonkara ?
Not only similar curves. The EXACT same numbers, month after month.
How is that possible ???
It's SUPER DEAD
([url]http://www.dreamstime.com/stats_4_update.php?timeframe=last12&d_ol=n&d_rf=n&d_dl=n&d_rv=y&d_rr=n&d_ex=n&d_ms=n&d_display=curves&d_sl=y[/url])
Wow __ no you're not. My graph and numbers are EXACTLY the same too!!!!!!
I'm not sure I even want to think about what this must mean. I really can't think of a rational explanation for 3 contributors (possibly far more?) all apparently having identical sales and revenue figures for 13 months consecutively.
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I'm not sure I even want to think about what this must mean.
I'm not sure I want either... :o
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Very weird.
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Vonkara links graph image directly from Dreamstime web.
So everybody who is logged in Dreamstime see his graph..
Try to logout from Dreamstime and you cannot see Vonkara's graph..
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Vonkara links graph image directly from Dreamstime web.
So everybody who is logged in Dreamstime see his graph..
Try to logout from Dreamstime and you cannot see Vonkara's graph..
Ok I get it now ! What we see is not Vonkara's graph, it's our own graph.
Thanks skvoor for the clarification !
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Am I the only one to have the exact same Sales/Revenue curves as Vonkara ?
Not only similar curves. The EXACT same numbers, month after month.
How is that possible ???
Especially since Vonkara is exclusive on iStock. :P
Update: you've got it. I always liked Vonkara's sense of humor. ;)
Now let's have a look what your numbers look (http://submit.shutterstock.com/stats.mhtml) like on SS. Nothing is secret here...
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Phew! Thanks for the explanation. I really wondered what was going on there!
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... In my first few years (2006-2007 for example) microstock felt like a license to print money! Seemed like nearly every new series would take off like wildfire. It was very encouraging and made selling on micros lots of fun.
Yep, that's how I felt. Well it was clear that these good times couldn't last forever but such a dramatic development was beyond my imagination
Now watching sales come in on new series is like watching paint dry. If the images sell at all it is in little dribs and drabs. Nothing to give the thrill of accomplishment. It really has become just a job, and a fairly stressful one at that.
Not just that. Remember how our images looked like in 2005 or 2006? Don't you agree that our skills have improved (somewhat :) )? I would say so.
These days there are a number of Microstockers that produce high quality images that could be found on Macro agencies.
Additionally, why even keep shooting lifestyle with 3 to 6 models in one frame if there are now 50+ photographers doing the same thing. Like Yuri or Sean who early realized that "the more, the merrier" (and "the more in my pocket" :D ) were having a blast being pioneers in shooting many models at the same time.
Most of the Microstockers simply where overwhelmed with that (now, it was even more important to have a good location, MUAs, assistants, find 3-6 actually good looking and professional models). Now I'm not too sure if these shots are still taking off as they used to 3 years ago. Maybe that concept was like printing money for a while but of course the competition will jump on to the train and steal your share.
I feel like I became a guerrilla contributor, trying to bypass high-in-demand concepts simply because they were out of my budget or capabilities (which also reduces the fun factor).
Well anywho, the market is not dead (yet) so we still got a little time left.
I wonder if part of this is that nobody has really given us a huge raise or bump in a while that wasn't offset by some kind of royalty reduction. IS exclusives got their nice little bump, and I was hoping to see SS react to it. But so far, they haven't blinked.
Hmm, I don't totally agree. Although I don't turn away more money, but I wonder how the agencies could afford to increase royalties for their contributors if their sales are moving sideways. What I mean: Only because of raises in the past I could maintain my income from 3 years ago. If the agencies wouldn't have raised commissions I would be working some 9 to 5 job somewhere by now.
However, I don't believe most agencies grow at a rate like IS. Maybe SS has achieved to get more customers but to me it appears that most other agencies still sell about the same amount of images and the sales are distributed over a bigger archive so every contributor inevitably ends up with fewer sales as the selection is much bigger.
If there is a raise though I'll take it.
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I think that rather new DT is born. DT is an old site which has never been very successful for professional photographers - just compare numbers of 20 best exclusives (and non-exclusives) at DT vs IS. Very difficult to live only with DT earnings.
Achilles probably understood that he cannot compete on purely professional basis. So new DT is hobbyists-community-cheerleader site where positive attitude makes everybody feel good. Everybody can feel like an artist and it's well known that usually artist are poor. ;D
Interesting point of view. And it's rather adjacent to the fact that many top contributors ceased uploading to them. It's their answer to Dreamstime's "we don't want your 2000 images / month upload rate, we can't market them properly anyway" attitude. And to "Any two shots with the same person displayed are similars. There can be only one." attitude as well.
Very interesting points. And lately they don't seem to be such a professional site at all.
@ click_click
Very good posts.
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Maybe SS should consider just giving a raise to those of us who support them by NOT contributing to TS.
I'm on board with that idea, too!
I have an interesting chart. I disabled files in anticipation of exclusivity at IS but now am enabling them again. But I see sales and revenue are down from March. It looks like the files I started enabling may have given my sales a jump.
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Wow __ no you're not. My graph and numbers are EXACTLY the same too!!!!!!
I'm not sure I even want to think about what this must mean. I really can't think of a rational explanation for 3 contributors (possibly far more?) all apparently having identical sales and revenue figures for 13 months consecutively.
edit: I have seen the explanation
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It's DT's prerogative to accept or refuse any file for any reason.
They, we and the buyers may all have different opinions about that.
DT as the middle man SHOULD know best what's good for contributors AND buyers (and therefore for themselves) by accepting and refusing certain images.
Now if we analyze DT's behaviour in terms of acceptance criteria lately (as far as I know of them) it appears that they will not allow series (for whatever reasons) or they are running out of storage space.
To me it makes no sense whatsoever to refuse series (I'm not talking about a model in the same pose looking to the right in one image and looking to the left in another image...). They act like Crestock or a Macro agency who pick the top of the top and everything else goes. This may be a short term success for DT filling their archive with only superior (cough) shots but in the long run they will upset contributors because of the high rejection rates.
On a side note: Assuming that Yuri and Co. stopped uploading because DT doesn't accept series anymore, in the long run it also leads to a flood of mediocre images (that are not series).
So yeah, you can say image factories (who also submit series) are intentionally driven away from the site while the thousands of hobby-photographers get all their stuff accepted because they don't even produce series (in most cases).
I really believe they are making a big mistake.
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To me it makes no sense whatsoever to refuse series (I'm not talking about a model in the same pose looking to the right in one image and looking to the left in another image...). They act like Crestock or a Macro agency who pick the top of the top and everything else goes. This may be a short term success for DT filling their archive with only superior (cough) shots but in the long run they will upset contributors because of the high rejection rates.
On a side note: Assuming that Yuri and Co. stopped uploading because DT doesn't accept series anymore, in the long run it also leads to a flood of mediocre images (that are not series).
So yeah, you can say image factories (who also submit series) are intentionally driven away from the site while the thousands of hobby-photographers get all their stuff accepted because they don't even produce series (in most cases).
I really believe they are making a big mistake.
Once again, Click, I think you have stated the issue perfectly. Or at least I agree 100% :)
Just to add that there is an extra disincentive for folks to upload there if they are getting a lot of series rejections - the search engine ranks you by acceptance rate, so uploading a series and having much of it rejected will lead to a drop in sales.
I am certainly confused about how to proceed when uploading to DT. I have been getting series rejections lately like everybody else. I try to not upload images that are "too similar" to others from the series, but in order to make photography pay at the microstock level you have to try and get as many usable different images from each model and setup as you can. Otherwise it is not cost effective to bother with expensive and time-consuming shoots involving props, models, locations, etc.
It does seem like continuing in this direction will ultimately yield a collection full of grab shots (flowers, ducks, buildings, landscapes) from hobbyists and fewer high-production-value lifestyle shots from the pros.
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To me it makes no sense whatsoever to refuse series (I'm not talking about a model in the same pose looking to the right in one image and looking to the left in another image...). They act like Crestock or a Macro agency who pick the top of the top and everything else goes. This may be a short term success for DT filling their archive with only superior (cough) shots but in the long run they will upset contributors because of the high rejection rates.
On a side note: Assuming that Yuri and Co. stopped uploading because DT doesn't accept series anymore, in the long run it also leads to a flood of mediocre images (that are not series).
So yeah, you can say image factories (who also submit series) are intentionally driven away from the site while the thousands of hobby-photographers get all their stuff accepted because they don't even produce series (in most cases).
I really believe they are making a big mistake.
Once again, Click, I think you have stated the issue perfectly. Or at least I agree 100% :)
Just to add that there is an extra disincentive for folks to upload there if they are getting a lot of series rejections - the search engine ranks you by acceptance rate, so uploading a series and having much of it rejected will lead to a drop in sales.
I am certainly confused about how to proceed when uploading to DT. I have been getting series rejections lately like everybody else. I try to not upload images that are "too similar" to others from the series, but in order to make photography pay at the microstock level you have to try and get as many usable different images from each model and setup as you can. Otherwise it is not cost effective to bother with expensive and time-consuming shoots involving props, models, locations, etc.
It does seem like continuing in this direction will ultimately yield a collection full of grab shots (flowers, ducks, buildings, landscapes) from hobbyists and fewer high-production-value lifestyle shots from the pros.
You are 100% right. Both of you.
Look at this:
In May, I submitted 153 files to DT. They accept 13 and reject 140, all for similarity.
Okay, there is some similarity between some of the files and they got accepted just a month ago. So this will lead to a drop in sales for sure.
But now just this:
Reason: - Too many photos/illustrations on the same subject or from the same series. Your submission should not duplicate content already in your portfolio or content which you plan to upload separately in the future (ie. collages based on your images). Please be more selective and choose only the best shots or illustrations. Avoid submitting simple variations on the same subject or duplicating content already in your portfolio (including from collages). You can create sets of similars (several shots included within the same image). That will help the file sell better and generate higher royalties via our level-based system.
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......Your submission should not duplicate content already in your portfolio or content which you plan to upload separately in the future (ie. collages based on your images). Please be more selective and choose only the best shots or illustrations. Avoid submitting simple variations on the same subject or duplicating content already in your portfolio (including from collages). You can create sets of similars (several shots included within the same image). That will help the file sell better and generate higher royalties via our level-based system.[/i]
So if I understand correctly, they are saying that they WILL accept collages, and according to the next-to-last sentence, they are encouraging you to include several shots IN ONE FILE, thereby giving the buyer SEVERAL SHOTS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE. Am I interpreting that correctly? Because if I am, it seems like a bad business idea.
This has been discussed in another thread, but bears repeating. Collages and several shots in the same image are great value for buyers...but it is totally BAD for the contributors and agencies! I can't believe an agency is encouraging this! They must really be desperate for buyers.
But I am going to say this...I will not be participating in this whole collage thing. My skills and image quality have gone up in the past 5 years and I expect my sales and commissions to do the same. I won't participate in Thinkstock and I am NOT going to offer more than one shot per image!
If that is the only way they are going to accept series, then I think they are going to find themselves out of a lot of sellable images. I understand why they are doing what they are doing, but I think they have misinterpreted the problem. They had a huge problem early on with multiples, people were submitting images whereby in one image it was black and white, then the exact same image was submitted and accepted in color. In the case of illustrations, one illustration would be submitted with a blue background, then 10 more of the exact same illustration was submitted only changing the background to 10 different colors. Like that. I totally agree they need to clean those up. But series are a whole different subject.
It's getting crazy out here in microstock land.
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If this is their strategy, I will also stop uploading. They have cut commissions and new images take a long time to reach the higher levels, there is no way I would upload a series in one file when other sites sell them separately.
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With so many images on all the sites I can't understand why some of the older images are not deleted. I think this would refresh all the collections. Why are more images better when better images would differentiate agencies? I know that the eternal question, "what makes a good stock image," is hard to answer but I believe that there are tons of non-sellers on all the sites. Why is this a numbers game - whoever has the most images wins?
Yes, no one likes to have their images deleted but many have remarked upon "so many images," and "quality has improved over 5 years" and "too many similars already exist." It might be a bold move but culling images based on previous sales would be a good way to proceed.
Some sites, including DT, have said they were going to do this but I haven't seen any major changes. IMHO this would be much better than trying to recruit many new contributors who upload a few good shots then give up. The sites keep their money as they never reach a payout. I suspect this is one strategy for making money based on some of the images accepted from new members that seem to get accepted under the radar of the standards applied to long time members.
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Any images not sold for four years on DT are deleted
"This is an automated notification. Your portfolio includes images that have been online for more than 4 years with no downloads up to the present. In order to keep up with the current standards we believe they should be removed from our commercial database, allowing fresh content to be more visible.
The following action options are available for you to decide:
- donate the image to the free section (default action) which can provide significant portfolio exposure and increase your sales; images can be disabled at any time later.
- re-keyword the image via keymasters ($0.40/image); choose this option only if you strongly believe your image has sale potential.
- disable the image; this is permanent deletion of your image and should be used as a last resort.
In order to review the images and take the desired action, please access the link below.
If no action is taken, the default one is automatically selected."
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Yes, I'm aware of this but why doesn't the count of how many images DT has online ever decrease? I suspect they still count deleted or disabled images.
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Good question. And I don't know why they all emphasize the quantity so much instead of the quality.
And I self-culled my images when I was going to go exclusive. I disabled all the images with 0 sales first (the older ones). And I refuse to let them go to the free section, so they are going to stay disabled.
Why others don't do the same, well, I can't really answer that.
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I will of been there 4 years in a few months, so haven't had the zero sales problem yet. They should let us opt all images out of the free section. Some that don't sell with DT have sold quite well on other sites, I just don't agree with giving them away for free. It is time consuming disabling files, I am not looking forward to having to do that every month. Perhaps I will find the time by not uploading new images ::)
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I guess you guys see your own graph... That's hilarious
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I leave my old images up to the last minute. Who knows if a sale happens? If not, I disable them.
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So if I understand correctly, they are saying that they WILL accept collages, and according to the next-to-last sentence, they are encouraging you to include several shots IN ONE FILE, thereby giving the buyer SEVERAL SHOTS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE. Am I interpreting that correctly? Because if I am, it seems like a bad business idea.
Wow, good catch! Although I have gotten that notice I never bothered to read it to the end.
I am not completely opposed to collages in principle. I will sometimes take a group of OLDER images which are no longer selling and put two or three together into a collage to squeeze some more sales out of them. But I certainly would not do that with NEW images, much less an entire new series.
How could I ever recover the costs of a shoot that cost me several hundreds of dollars in props, models, and location fees by selling the whole thing as a collage for .35 subscriptions? Even the old "make it up on volume" argument holds less water as competition continues to grow and download numbers slip. The collage thing sounds like career suicide to me.
Edited to keep beating this horse... ;)
Another disadvantage to the collage idea is that our images sell based on their impact in thumbnails. Stitch 15-20 images together and it is practically impossible to see what's there at thumbnail size.
http://www.dreamstime.com/search.php?s_ph=y&s_il=y&s_rf=y&s_ed=y&srh_field=food+collage&firstvalue=food+collage&lastsearchvalue=null&s_sm=all&s_st=new&memso=y&s_cf=1&s_catid=&s_cliid=&s_colid=&memorize_search=1&s_exc=&s_excp=&s_sp=&s_sl1=y&s_sl2=y&s_sl3=y&s_sl4=y&s_sl5=y&s_color1=FFFFFF&s_percent1=10&s_color2=FFFFFF&s_percent2=10&s_rsf=0&s_rst=7&s_clc=y&s_clm=y&s_orp=y&s_ors=y&s_orl=y&s_orw=y (http://www.dreamstime.com/search.php?s_ph=y&s_il=y&s_rf=y&s_ed=y&srh_field=food+collage&firstvalue=food+collage&lastsearchvalue=null&s_sm=all&s_st=new&memso=y&s_cf=1&s_catid=&s_cliid=&s_colid=&memorize_search=1&s_exc=&s_excp=&s_sp=&s_sl1=y&s_sl2=y&s_sl3=y&s_sl4=y&s_sl5=y&s_color1=FFFFFF&s_percent1=10&s_color2=FFFFFF&s_percent2=10&s_rsf=0&s_rst=7&s_clc=y&s_clm=y&s_orp=y&s_ors=y&s_orl=y&s_orw=y)
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It's starting to look like all of those foreign sites that are stealing our images. :-\
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DT is steady enough - but I will be putting that Carribbean cruise on hold for another while!
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Just thought I would update this thread. Before doing my end of the month stats it looked like things were steady at DT relative to the other agencies, but my May 2010 stats compared with May last year show my royalties there have declined by 11% over the past year. That is more of a decline than at other sites.
My gain or loss from May 09 - May 10 on the various sites:
IS -7%
SS -5%
DT -11%
FT +4%
BigStock +20%
123 +5%
CanStockPhoto +62%
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Nice illustration of the situation Lisa. Mine is similar but even more extreme than yours;
IS -13%
DT -38%
SS +11%
FT +23%
BigStock +44%
When you consider that StockXpert were contributing about 6% to my revenue last year, and presumably their customers must have gone somewhere, then DT doesn't appear to have benefited at all.
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Wow! That is extreme! Hopefully dollarwise your big gains at FT and SS have offset the losses at DT and IS?
I agree though, the 7% I am down overall directly corresponds to the amount StockXpert brought in last year. That loss does not appear to have been made up for in my case.
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I had been an eternal optimist cheering for DT in this thread, but a terrible April and May have changed my tune. It's like someone flipped a switch... DT was doing outstanding for me until early April, and the bottom fell out. My April sales at DT were LESS THAN HALF my March sales. May was a repeat of April almost to the dollar. What the heck happened in April to bring such a steep, sudden drop? And you can't just say "it's the market, increased competition, blah blah blah" because my sales at all the other sites have been either steady (SS, BigStock, 123) or growing rapidly (IS, FT).
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Sales have been down in general the last few months across the board. But what I find interesting is that among the top 6, only Dreamstime is down year over year (June 09 - May 10 vs. June 08 - May 09). Shutterstock's up 11%, iStock's up 21%, Fotolia & BigStock 15%, and 123RF a whopping 153%. But DT's down 5% over the same period. That's cause for concern, especially given their attitude toward image series. As others have said, if you shoot with models and have expenses, getting a large series is the only way to make it pay.
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I had been an eternal optimist cheering for DT in this thread, but a terrible April and May have changed my tune. It's like someone flipped a switch... DT was doing outstanding for me until early April, and the bottom fell out. My April sales at DT were LESS THAN HALF my March sales. May was a repeat of April almost to the dollar. What the heck happened in April to bring such a steep, sudden drop? And you can't just say "it's the market, increased competition, blah blah blah" because my sales at all the other sites have been either steady (SS, BigStock, 123) or growing rapidly (IS, FT).
That's my experience too. Someone apparently 'flipping a switch' to turn on/off my sales seems to happen all the time at DT __ a couple of good weeks here and there followed by a month of virtually nothing. It's happening more often and getting more extreme in the effect it has too.
The last month I had fewer sales than May was back in ... wait for it ... October 2005. I kid you not. Back then I only had about 20% of the portfolio I have now.
Dreamstime is most definitely dying on it's arse for me.
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Well, here are my stats:
IS about the same
SS +36%
DT –23%
BigStock –33%
Sales have been down in general the last few months across the board. But what I find interesting is that among the top 6, only Dreamstime is down year over year (June 09 - May 10 vs. June 08 - May 09). Shutterstock's up 11%, iStock's up 21%, Fotolia & BigStock 15%, and 123RF a whopping 153%. But DT's down 5% over the same period. That's cause for concern, especially given their attitude toward image series. As others have said, if you shoot with models and have expenses, getting a large series is the only way to make it pay.
I have not found that to be true for me at DT. Since May of 2006, my sales have been increasing in May, except from May 2009 to May 2010.
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When this was posted in March my sales were normal, if not a little down but nothing out of the ordinary, April same thing, but May my sales just dropped. Down 50% from my average, didn't even make enough to cash out this month, first time that has happened since early 2006. ouch. All the other site about average.
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Well here's the kicker for me... I had a BME at dreamstime this month in terms of amount of files sold. BUT actual sales revenue was down 30%! Grrrrr!
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this is very strange, but not only did i have the bme in may, but sales are triple april's and 70% of is. this is after dt went into a coma five months ago, only starting to pull out in march. i have to say the patient is very much alive and kicking.
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I'll post on the positive side, too. The numbers are crazy in % change over last year, despite the fact that my total income (sum of all sites) was very steady.
FT -35%
BigStock -43%
IS + 3%
SS +21%
DT +75%
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Yes, way down with DT and this is the first month in years that I did not make enough to cash out. I am short $4 this month.
All the other sites are about 15% down.
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I had my best month in the past nine months at DT, and my worst in IS in the same period.
Comparing to May 09, IS is about the same, DT about 10%less, FT almost 40% less.