Sales in DT have been more or less stable for me in the past 6 months, varying +-20% around the average.  Making a projection with these first days of November in fact look better than that, but it's early.  $/dld however has decreased.

Regards,
Adelaide

My sales are raising constantly since one week at DT, more than 300%...at last a good news!

My sales are steady. But what gets me is that mine are the only ones that seem to get rejected for "similar submissions"

Search for "newborn" and you see a lot from one contributor - Moshi (or something like that), most of which look the same. Then do a search for "blocks" and there are a whole load from Beatricekill that look very similar.

Nothing like doing a search and the first 4-5 pages are all from the same contributors - likely to make a designer go elsewhere where they will see more variety.

Actually I've been wondering what is going on at DT lately because suddenly my sales have been going up   

If it sucks, it sucks well. I don't know what DT did, but they did it right, at least for me. Suddenly sales are rising, and I even got 3 extended sales in a row 3 days ago. Whoever told that sunsets and waterfalls don't sell was wrong. I even started to sell old photos with no downloads.

There has been some grumbles around about the subscription model on DT, but as far as I'm concerned, my sales went up since DT introduced it. Some people talk inspiringly about good marketing (like LO's Chief Instigator), DT just does it.

Quote from: FlemishDreams on November 07, 2007, 03:12
If it sucks, it sucks well. I don't know what DT did, but they did it right, at least for me. Suddenly sales are rising, and I even got 3 extended sales in a row 3 days ago. Whoever told that sunsets and waterfalls don't sell was wrong. I even started to sell old photos with no downloads.

There has been some grumbles around about the subscription model on DT, but as far as I'm concerned, my sales went up since DT introduced it. Some people talk inspiringly about good marketing (like LO's Chief Instigator), DT just does it.

Glad to hear somone's making money....  I'm on the opposite end of the swing....   just finally sold one pic today after a 12 day dry spell with no sales at DT...   My portfolio is loaded with waterfalls and sunsets and i'm moving zero...    Thank the photo gods for SS & IS  or  I'd have to bail out of this business right now... LOL.....  I'm actually up with the both of them....   but  DT, 123  and StockXpert.... things have been bleak to ... worse than bleak..        all my others  slow but breathing steadily...    =tom


p.s.  to one other point by FlemishDreams...  that one pic I sold.... I've never sold before  and I uploaded it  in October of 2006!   Interesting...

Tom, could it be that now that they've increased levels you have so darn many level 3 4 and 5 that the designers can't afford you anymore??

Seriously now, at DT I have 2 weeks of awesome sales followed by 2 weeks wondering if my collection has vanished.  But at the end of the month, totals are pretty consistent.  Slightly higher if I upload a few more.

LOL    yeah, that must be it Pixart!!   ha ha ha 

i wish....  LOL   =tom

Quote from: Pixart on November 07, 2007, 23:07
Tom, could it be that now that they've increased levels you have so darn many level 3 4 and 5 that the designers can't afford you anymore??

Seriously now, at DT I have 2 weeks of awesome sales followed by 2 weeks wondering if my collection has vanished.  But at the end of the month, totals are pretty consistent.  Slightly higher if I upload a few more.

Same thing with me. Was building momentum nicely and just stopped dead about a week ago.

Quote from: a.k.a.-tom on November 07, 2007, 22:35Thank the photo gods for SS & IS  or  I'd have to bail out of this business right now... LOL.....  I'm actually up with the both of them....   but  DT, 123  and StockXpert.... things have been bleak to ... worse than bleak..        all my others  slow but breathing steadily.

Oh well, every 2-3 months or so, I have my period  and get quite depressive about stock. Then I swear I only do editorial, snapshots, artsy things for Flickr and Deviantart, and never again worry about distorted pixels, noise, tags and stop beging a Photoshop slave.
And then, when crying like Job on his heap, there is a sudden EL sale somewhere,  and I guess I wait a bit longer to stock-kill myself 

Quote from: FlemishDreams on November 09, 2007, 05:16
Oh well, every 2-3 months or so, I have my period  and get quite depressive about stock. Then I swear I only do editorial, snapshots, artsy things for Flickr and Deviantart, and never again worry about distorted pixels, noise, tags and stop beging a Photoshop slave.
And then, when crying like Job on his heap, there is a sudden EL sale somewhere,  and I guess I wait a bit longer to stock-kill myself 

You aren't alone - and it has nothing to do with DT.  There's a reason my macro portfolio is much bigger than my micro portfolio.  It does get frustrating after a few months - but the income on the micros is still more regular (albeit smaller) with a smaller portfolio...why the macro portfolio keeps growing 

I know this is a search engine thread, but I find these numbers quite revealing. 

In the past couple weeks I reached 500 lifetime sales at both DT and Istock. 

DT - started uploading in about Jan 06 - 217 photos
IS - started uploading Mar 07 - 23 photos

That's quite a difference in size - I was at DT for a long time before I turned onto the other sites (dumb!) and to be fair, at least 100 of the early photos at DT are really not stock in the end,  so they should be disqualified when comparing sizes. 

I've only sent a few to IS knowing darn well they don't want to see anything else.   Still, my reject rate is around 50%.

I find it mind boggling that IS could sell that many photos in so little time.  But I have a huge mental block sending stuff to them.   They are like an abusive spouse that I love and hate at the same time.  Since individual sales are at the same level - I can see the overall earnings are at least 40% higher at DT with the same number of sales. 

DT has always been consistant for me.  It seems I have bursts of sales, and then doldrums.  When the month is over, the actual number of sales is quite predictable.

Quote from: Pixart on November 09, 2007, 15:00

Similar thoughts, Pixart... I've been with IS half the time I've been with IS. And I've made more than double the money with IS.  IS will soon be outpacing SS for me.  I feel by early 08,  IS will be my top seller.  My rejection rate with IS is much lower than I expected it would be. I shy'd away from them thinking my work wasn't good enough for them. One day in a moment of false bravado,  I sent in my application pix. They took them. Interestingly, they take a lot of stuff that DT rejects and then SELLS it.  And of the pix they reject,  I can repair them, and resubmit. As a result,  my reject rate with IS is lower than many of the others.
    All the more why I wonder why my sales at DT are flat to nonexistent.

   -tom

Many of you are wondering why your sales aren't doing so well at DT.

Well, it seems that it has a lot to do with your acceptance rate.  If you have a high rate of acceptance, then your images will be nicely displayed at the top of search results.  If your acceptance rate is lower, then your images will be farther back in the search results.  The lower your acceptance rate, the farther back your images will be in the search results.

IMO, this is a poor way to create a sort order that is labeled "Relevancy".

Quote from: StockManiac on November 09, 2007, 22:21


Well, it seems that it has a lot to do with your acceptance rate.  If you have a high rate of acceptance, then your images will be nicely displayed at the top of search results. 

Where do you get this information?

Quote from: StockManiac on November 09, 2007, 22:21
Many of you are wondering why your sales aren't doing so well at DT.

Well, it seems that it has a lot to do with your acceptance rate.  If you have a high rate of acceptance, then your images will be nicely displayed at the top of search results.  If your acceptance rate is lower, then your images will be farther back in the search results.  The lower your acceptance rate, the farther back your images will be in the search results.

IMO, this is a poor way to create a sort order that is labeled "Relevancy".

This has been known for some time, and has been openly confirmed by Achilles on the forums at DT.

It does make some sense - those contributors who submit consistently good images and don't 'waste DT's time' with lots of rejections, get preferential treatment in searches.  Naturally all agencies want to attract and keep those photographers who produce good quality with few rejections.

We can expect to see more of this.

In a way a similar thing happened at SS when they divided the commission payment at $500 - that's just a way of giving extra reward to those contributors who 'produce the goods' whilst keeping payments to 'less appropriate contributors' at lower levels.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to see SS expand on this idea next year by introducing a 35c commission above $1,000 for instance.

...long comment removed...        not   'relevant'.

That's just one of the things figured into the popular search  I read on the forums that they also take into consideration the overall Dls/ image number.

Quote from: StockManiac on November 09, 2007, 22:21
Many of you are wondering why your sales aren't doing so well at DT.

Well, it seems that it has a lot to do with your acceptance rate.  If you have a high rate of acceptance, then your images will be nicely displayed at the top of search results.  If your acceptance rate is lower, then your images will be farther back in the search results.  The lower your acceptance rate, the farther back your images will be in the search results.

IMO, this is a poor way to create a sort order that is labeled "Relevancy".