MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Adobe Stock => Topic started by: Dodie on August 14, 2018, 02:22
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Not a single sale in 5 days. I have the same images I had at the time when FT outsold SS but more in numbers.
They are very picky with approval, two images from the same session, like the same food in totally different setup is rejected for "similar image already submitted".
I really don't understand why did AS buy FT just to destroy it.
Anyone else having this bad experience or is it just me?
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Extremely bad month on our side too... one pic and one video clip sold in 14 days. Is Adobe stock dead?
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One of the better months so far for me on AS, it's SS that has tanked like never before. Worst month in 8 years, will be a miracle if I make payout.
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BME for me. I can only assume they've tweaked the search engine, so some people are benefitting from the change and some are missing out. Swings and roundabouts... I'm sure they'll tweak it again before long!
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I'm finding sales more inconsistent than they used to be but they seem to even up in the end...too much tweaking of the search engine maybe?
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It could be search tweaking but it is not my first bad month lately, so it is not summer vacations the reason either.
I have no world wide sale at all, just US and there are too many of these small $0.26 sale, big sales are very rare compared to the past.
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It could be search tweaking but it is not my first bad month lately, so it is not summer vacations the reason either.
I have no world wide sale at all, just US and there are too many of these small $0.26 sale, big sales are very rare compared to the past.
If you don't sell like before and your weekly rank is stable, then FT is "dead, dead, dead", indeed.
If don't sell like before and your weekly rank has dropped, then you are "dead, dead, dead", unfortunately.
So, which one is it?
Fyi, my rank has improved significantly the last couple of weeks (within the 3 digits domain)
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It could be search tweaking but it is not my first bad month lately, so it is not summer vacations the reason either.
I have no world wide sale at all, just US and there are too many of these small $0.26 sale, big sales are very rare compared to the past.
If you don't sell like before and your weekly rank is stable, then FT is "dead, dead, dead", indeed.
If don't sell like before and your weekly rank has dropped, then you are "dead, dead, dead", unfortunately.
So, which one is it?
Fyi, my rank has improved significantly the last couple of weeks (within the 3 digits domain)
If your rank has improved significantly and your sales have dropped then FT is "dead, dead, dead", indeed.
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Obvioulsy I know where this rank is that you speak of, as I've been on Fotolia/Adobe Stock for a few years and I know everything... obviously. But say I was trying to explain to a friend where one would find this rank, that I know all about... what do you think would be the best way to explain it to them?
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A friend of mine once told me that the best way to explain it to another was to tell them to log in to their Fotolia front page, click the "my account" button in the top right hand corner, and then scroll down to the bottom where it displays your colour ranking, weekly position and overall position.
Hope this helps your buddy!
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It could be search tweaking but it is not my first bad month lately, so it is not summer vacations the reason either.
I have no world wide sale at all, just US and there are too many of these small $0.26 sale, big sales are very rare compared to the past.
If you don't sell like before and your weekly rank is stable, then FT is "dead, dead, dead", indeed.
If don't sell like before and your weekly rank has dropped, then you are "dead, dead, dead", unfortunately.
So, which one is it?
Fyi, my rank has improved significantly the last couple of weeks (within the 3 digits domain)
If your rank has improved significantly and your sales have dropped then FT is "dead, dead, dead", indeed.
Correct.
Fyi, my sales and my rank are both significantly better for the past two weeks.
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It could be search tweaking but it is not my first bad month lately, so it is not summer vacations the reason either.
I have no world wide sale at all, just US and there are too many of these small $0.26 sale, big sales are very rare compared to the past.
If you don't sell like before and your weekly rank is stable, then FT is "dead, dead, dead", indeed.
If don't sell like before and your weekly rank has dropped, then you are "dead, dead, dead", unfortunately.
So, which one is it?
Fyi, my rank has improved significantly the last couple of weeks (within the 3 digits domain)
It must be this one, if by "your weekly rank has dropped" you mean the number is bigger.
Thank you all for the explains, I know this is the logical method to see how thing are hanging, unfortunately, I haven't checked my overall rank after I started falling in earnings, a long time. However it is not much lower than ~5-6 month ago (4 digit). My weekly instead is double of my overall, does that tell something?
I don't know about that color ranking, is it the color of the badge in front of the rank number?
This morning my weekly sales were 6, I got 2 sales today and lost two, so weekly sales are still 6. Before this I had 5 days without a sale.
I will get more sales when my weekly goes under 6 again, this is how much I deserve, apparently.
Worst of all agencies, almost.
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Remember a good portion of Europe takes the entire month of August off thus killing our sales...
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Remember a good portion of Europe takes the entire month of August off thus killing our sales...
I don't quite understand, what do you mean?
I have no EU sale lately, though my stuff is more EU specific.
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Remember a good portion of Europe takes the entire month of August off thus killing our sales...
I don't quite understand, what do you mean?
I have no EU sale lately, though my stuff is more EU specific.
FYI
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/08/25/why-europeans-slack-off-in-august (https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/08/25/why-europeans-slack-off-in-august)
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Remember a good portion of Europe takes the entire month of August off thus killing our sales...
I don't quite understand, what do you mean?
I have no EU sale lately, though my stuff is more EU specific.
FYI
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/08/25/why-europeans-slack-off-in-august (https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/08/25/why-europeans-slack-off-in-august)
Well, newspapers have to write something. Not only Europeans go to vacation in August or in summer month.
Students, children are in summer break, it's understandable families make their vacation before school starts.
That you can't find an ice cream in August can be happening in a small village with one ice cream vendor.
Strangely, in the past summer months were my best earners, not this August though.
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Remember a good portion of Europe takes the entire month of August off thus killing our sales...
I don't quite understand, what do you mean?
I have no EU sale lately, though my stuff is more EU specific.
FYI
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/08/25/why-europeans-slack-off-in-august (https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/08/25/why-europeans-slack-off-in-august)
Strangely, in the past summer months were my best earners, not this August though.
It seems that 'Strange' has become the norm is this business :(
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A friend of mine once told me that the best way to explain it to another was to tell them to log in to their Fotolia front page, click the "my account" button in the top right hand corner, and then scroll down to the bottom where it displays your colour ranking, weekly position and overall position.
Hope this helps your buddy!
A wonderful description of how to find it... I couldn't have explained it better myself! I have passed on the details, thanks!
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AS/FT is the one of the best agencies out there. Comparatively, it's easier to make money on FT than any other agency. If you can't make it here, you won't make it anywhere.
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That's not been my experience. I only make about 3% of my monthly stock earnings from FT/AS.
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That's not been my experience. I only make about 3% of my monthly stock earnings from FT/AS.
Videos probably sells better in other agencies. For photos and vectors, FT/AS is the best from what I've experienced.
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That's not been my experience. I only make about 3% of my monthly stock earnings from FT/AS.
Videos probably sells better in other agencies. For photos and vectors, FT/AS is the best from what I've experienced.
For most people I think SS still leads despite the gloom, capping, manipulation, near bankruptcy, incompetence and downright dastardliness.
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That's not been my experience. I only make about 3% of my monthly stock earnings from FT/AS.
Videos probably sells better in other agencies. For photos and vectors, FT/AS is the best from what I've experienced.
For most people I think SS still leads despite the gloom, capping, manipulation, near bankruptcy, incompetence and downright dastardliness.
Odd but they seem to go hand in hand when its good theyre both good when bad both bad. Adobe really dont give a sheit about FT they treat it as a sort of hobby thing, they dont care about the algorithm or anything.
Adobe was going to make it so good asking people including myself questions about the market etc, etc before taking over and what happened? nothing! nothing at all!
Give me back the old FT anytime far, far better.
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That's not been my experience. I only make about 3% of my monthly stock earnings from FT/AS.
Videos probably sells better in other agencies. For photos and vectors, FT/AS is the best from what I've experienced.
For most people I think SS still leads despite the gloom, capping, manipulation, near bankruptcy, incompetence and downright dastardliness.
There's definitely more potential on SS. My estimate is very rough, but I think SS gets at least 8-12x the total number of downloads across its entire portfolio compared to FT/AS on any given day. For bigger contributors, the ceiling is higher, but the competition is tougher. Older contributors also have an advantage over newer ones.
I think smaller and/or newer contributors can really make some noise on FT/AS. There's less competition and if you have the right type of portfolio, it can really thrive there.
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That's not been my experience. I only make about 3% of my monthly stock earnings from FT/AS.
Videos probably sells better in other agencies. For photos and vectors, FT/AS is the best from what I've experienced.
For most people I think SS still leads despite the gloom, capping, manipulation, near bankruptcy, incompetence and downright dastardliness.
There's definitely more potential on SS. My estimate is very rough, but I think SS gets at least 8-12x the total number of downloads across its entire portfolio compared to FT/AS on any given day. For bigger contributors, the ceiling is higher, but the competition is tougher. Older contributors also have an advantage over newer ones.
I think smaller and/or newer contributors can really make some noise on FT/AS. There's less competition and if you have the right type of portfolio, it can really thrive there.
I also have/had a theory that Fotolia did better in the European market...not sure if thats so true anymore.
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That's not been my experience. I only make about 3% of my monthly stock earnings from FT/AS.
Videos probably sells better in other agencies. For photos and vectors, FT/AS is the best from what I've experienced.
For most people I think SS still leads despite the gloom, capping, manipulation, near bankruptcy, incompetence and downright dastardliness.
There's definitely more potential on SS. My estimate is very rough, but I think SS gets at least 8-12x the total number of downloads across its entire portfolio compared to FT/AS on any given day. For bigger contributors, the ceiling is higher, but the competition is tougher. Older contributors also have an advantage over newer ones.
I think smaller and/or newer contributors can really make some noise on FT/AS. There's less competition and if you have the right type of portfolio, it can really thrive there.
I also have/had a theory that Fotolia did better in the European market...not sure if thats so true anymore.
It isn't. EU sales went into oblivion. Credit sales completely gone.
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About 60% of my sales are non-us
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About 60% of my sales are non-us
One of the tech bods told me that the US/Other income split is based on which portal that is used. AS = US and FT = Other. Whether this is correct I wouldn't like to say for sure. Maybe Mat could say?
As far as income. Been a couple of quiet weeks lately but also some really busy ones. Two of my busiest weeks at AS/FT have been in the last month. Last month was my best Jul for 2 years or more. This month is looking good (for August) and hopefully will also be well up on last year.
The thing is, around the UK and Europe, a lot of work holidays always have to be taken in July /Aug and in the UK, all the Schools are off at this time. Most business know they will have lower staff levels and therefore ease back on starting new projects until Sept. While this does not apply across the entire globe, it will have an impact on earnings so I just accept Jul & Aug have potential to be car crash income months....normally with a Boom before and after. It's just the way it is.
My weekly rank hasn't really changes that much (slight fluctuation), overall rank is still getting better.... probably improved more over the last 1-2 months that the previous 2.
All you can do is forget about it, focus on completing new projects and creating plenty of work to upload now and in the coming months!
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About 60% of my sales are non-us
I just checked mine for previous month. almost 90% from US. 2 years ago, when I was doing much better it was vice-versa.
For June it was 83% from US. May 63%. So I'd say, on the average at leas 70% sales are coming from US. Totally opossite than 2 years ago. That's why credit sales sinked. I was selling a lot of my animal stuff for X and XL credits to EU buyers. In fact I was doing so much better than on SS, at one point I was thinking going exclusive with Fotolia. Thank god I didn't make that mistake.
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About 60% of my sales are non-us
One of the tech bods told me that the US/Other income split is based on which portal that is used. AS = US and FT = Other. Whether this is correct I wouldn't like to say for sure. Maybe Mat could say?
As far as income. Been a couple of quiet weeks lately but also some really busy ones. Two of my busiest weeks at AS/FT have been in the last month. Last month was my best Jul for 2 years or more. This month is looking good (for August) and hopefully will also be well up on last year.
The thing is, around the UK and Europe, a lot of work holidays always have to be taken in July /Aug and in the UK, all the Schools are off at this time. Most business know they will have lower staff levels and therefore ease back on starting new projects until Sept. While this does not apply across the entire globe, it will have an impact on earnings so I just accept Jul & Aug have potential to be car crash income months....normally with a Boom before and after. It's just the way it is.
My weekly rank hasn't really changes that much (slight fluctuation), overall rank is still getting better.... probably improved more over the last 1-2 months that the previous 2.
All you can do is forget about it, focus on completing new projects and creating plenty of work to upload now and in the coming months!
I've heard this theory with summer month each year, it maybe true for some but I never experienced it, at least on SS.
June, July this year were my BME in 6+ years and last year I only had lower sales in December.
Even with all the hiccups at SS, this August is normal, with just subs though and we still have half a month to go.
At AS however, my weekly dropped today from 6 to 4 and not a single new download.
FT was my favorite, well earner but I don't think AS will ever come back for me so, it's time to move on.
Right now even DP is better.
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About 60% of my sales are non-us
I just checked mine for previous month. almost 90% from US. 2 years ago, when I was doing much better it was vice-versa.
For June it was 83% from US. May 63%. So I'd say, on the average at leas 70% sales are coming from US. Totally opossite than 2 years ago. That's why credit sales sinked. I was selling a lot of my animal stuff for X and XL credits to EU buyers. In fact I was doing so much better than on SS, at one point I was thinking going exclusive with Fotolia. Thank god I didn't make that mistake.
This is my case too, except my US sales were decreasing from ~75% in January to almost 100% now.
Not to mention that taxes for all US sales are decreasing my earnings even more.
Another strange thing is that on AS I am selling the same 4-5 images over and over, like the rest wouldn't exist.
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About 60% of my sales are non-us
One of the tech bods told me that the US/Other income split is based on which portal that is used. AS = US and FT = Other. Whether this is correct I wouldn't like to say for sure. Maybe Mat could say?
As far as income. Been a couple of quiet weeks lately but also some really busy ones. Two of my busiest weeks at AS/FT have been in the last month. Last month was my best Jul for 2 years or more. This month is looking good (for August) and hopefully will also be well up on last year.
The thing is, around the UK and Europe, a lot of work holidays always have to be taken in July /Aug and in the UK, all the Schools are off at this time. Most business know they will have lower staff levels and therefore ease back on starting new projects until Sept. While this does not apply across the entire globe, it will have an impact on earnings so I just accept Jul & Aug have potential to be car crash income months....normally with a Boom before and after. It's just the way it is.
My weekly rank hasn't really changes that much (slight fluctuation), overall rank is still getting better.... probably improved more over the last 1-2 months that the previous 2.
All you can do is forget about it, focus on completing new projects and creating plenty of work to upload now and in the coming months!
I've heard this theory with summer month each year, it maybe true for some but I never experienced it, at least on SS.
June, July this year were my BME in 6+ years and last year I only had lower sales in December.
Even with all the hiccups at SS, this August is normal, with just subs though and we still have half a month to go.
At AS however, my weekly dropped today from 6 to 4 and not a single new download.
FT was my favorite, well earner but I don't think AS will ever come back for me so, it's time to move on.
Right now even DP is better.
July at SS was good for me, best it has been (for that month) for sometime, not far off $1k compared to a low of $600 last year. When looking at the Alexa rankings, it does show an increase in web traffic in July and continuing into August. That is after a low in June.
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/shutterstock.com (https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/shutterstock.com)
AS/FT has performed way better than SS for me, has done for the last 4-5 years. You say your weekly dropped by 6-4? Your weekly rank? :o
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July at SS was good for me, best it has been (for that month) for sometime, not far off $1k compared to a low of $600 last year. When looking at the Alexa rankings, it does show an increase in web traffic in July and continuing into August. That is after a low in June.
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/shutterstock.com (https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/shutterstock.com)
AS/FT has performed way better than SS for me, has done for the last 4-5 years. You say your weekly dropped by 6-4? Your weekly rank? :o
Sorry, I was not clear, 6 downloads/week , "Sold this week: 6", now just 4. Not the rank, I wish...
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July at SS was good for me, best it has been (for that month) for sometime, not far off $1k compared to a low of $600 last year. When looking at the Alexa rankings, it does show an increase in web traffic in July and continuing into August. That is after a low in June.
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/shutterstock.com (https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/shutterstock.com)
AS/FT has performed way better than SS for me, has done for the last 4-5 years. You say your weekly dropped by 6-4? Your weekly rank? :o
Sorry, I was not clear, 6 downloads/week , "Sold this week: 6", now just 4. Not the rank, I wish...
I'm sorry to be blunt, Dodie, but when you only manage 6 sales a week, you can't extrapolate and declare a site dead, dead, dead.
6 downloads a week is just noise.
You should do at least 20 times better than this, to lift yourself above noise level and get some understanding of ranks, trends and site performance.
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I'm sorry to be blunt, Dodie, but when you only manage 6 sales a week, you can't extrapolate and declare a site dead, dead, dead.
6 downloads a week is just noise.
You should do at least 20 times better than this, to lift yourself above noise level and get some understanding of ranks, trends and site performance.
I don't mind you being blunt but you don't listen. Of course it is noise, not even that.
I never was such a big player like you but I am not talking about how much but about the direction things turned for me.
It has nothing to do with my "understanding of ranks, trends and site performance", AS simply doesn't perform as FT did and I am not alone in this situation. If it were my fault, other agencies would have tanked too.
I am not talking about event photos which normaly die, I am talking about evergreen subjects like food, which will never die. Photos that reached over 150 dls in a short time in 2015, now they don't exist.
The main reason for this is the lack of Eu market because food photos and not only are region specific (more or less). On SS almost all my sale are in EU and all around the world, just a few US sales.
Despite new uploads the trend is descending:
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I'm sorry to be blunt, Dodie, but when you only manage 6 sales a week, you can't extrapolate and declare a site dead, dead, dead.
6 downloads a week is just noise.
You should do at least 20 times better than this, to lift yourself above noise level and get some understanding of ranks, trends and site performance.
I don't mind you being blunt but you don't listen. Of course it is noise, not even that.
I never was such a big player like you but I am not talking about how much but about the direction things turned for me.
It has nothing to do with my "understanding of ranks, trends and site performance", AS simply doesn't perform as FT did and I am not alone in this situation. If it were my fault, other agencies would have tanked too.
I am not talking about event photos which normaly die, I am talking about evergreen subjects like food, which will never die. Photos that reached over 150 dls in a short time in 2015, now they don't exist.
The main reason for this is the lack of Eu market because food photos and not only are region specific (more or less). On SS almost all my sale are in EU and all around the world, just a few US sales.
Despite new uploads the trend is descending:
I can tell you now what triggered the decline for you. The closure of DPC.
This happened in April 2016 and that is when your sales dropped. I remember it well, I dropped about $300-$400 a month after they shut that down and took a while to stabilise and increase again after that. Despite all the negative comments it got, it did return good $'s each month for the couple of years or so it was there. I'd sign up again if it came back.
Edit. The bouncing around from months to month in the 2nd half of 2016 was also due to DPC members having their remainder of credits/subscription transferred to an Adobe account. There was a lot of unhappy DPC customers who left after their credits etc ran out with AS/FT. In 2017, you're seeing the new reality and since then, you have been relatively stable with moderate swings.
I'd wager that your current month will be pants and then Sept will lift again once the summer recess is over, parents back to work and kids at school.
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I can tell you now what triggered the decline for you. The closure of DPC.
This happened in April 2016 and that is when your sales dropped. I remember it well, I dropped about $300-$400 a month after they shut that down and took a while to stabilise and increase again after that. Despite all the negative comments it got, it did return good $'s each month for the couple of years or so it was there. I'd sign up again if it came back.
I totally agree with you, DPC brought good money with many big sales but I didn't want to start another polemic with this.
The only people who complained about DPC were those who opted out, without knowing what it was.
Edit. In 2017, you're seeing the new reality and since then, you have been relatively stable with moderate swings.
I'd wager that your current month will be pants and then Sept will lift again once the summer recess is over, parents back to work and kids at school.
I don't like this new reality and for now I stopped uploading here. I am not doing this for the money but some satisfaction still must be.
Yes, my last two months are pants but thanks for the kind words and encouragement for the future.
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Adobe Stock has been doing fine for me - given summer is always a bit slow, but that's across the board.
What I took a look at was the US/non-US split in earnings for Adobe Stock versus SS, and, in a very limited way, versus what Fotolia used to be in 2007 (my last full year there before I went exclusive at iStock).
The percentage of non-US earnings has fallen significantly at Adobe Stock but is much higher and roughly unchanged at SS.
In 2017, my Adobe Stock non-US earnings averaged just under 28%, with a high of 43% and a low of 15%. For SS, that was average 51.5% with a high of 62% and a low of 39%
For August - only half a month so far, the Adobe Stock non-US earnings is 8.7% and the year so far averages 12%. That's quite a big change. Shutterstock is so far averaging 49.5% for Jan through July (they have been around 50% for as long as they've been reporting US/non-US earnings).
For amusement, for 2007, Fotolia had two months were there were only non-US earnings! That year's average was 87% non US earnings.
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The ranking algorithm between FT and AS is slightly different. If you do a search on both sites, the results are different. I can see where FT can perform better than AS and vise versa.
I haven’t done enough research to how big the differences are, but I do know that some of my images rank higher on AS than FT. All that means is that for other contributors, their images ranker lower on AS compared to FT for the same search terms.
I can admit that some contributors may not perform as well on AS compared to FT.
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I find it really hard to build a decent sized portfolio on Adobe Stock. For one thing, they don't accept editorial and I shoot a heck of a lot of editorial. So there are a lot of photos I have that I cannot submit. And when I do submit photos, about half of them cannot go through due to some weird technical issue that nobody has a solution for. If I try and resubmit, they will still not go through. And with the images that do make it through, there is a very tough review process which rejects a fair few of my images. Though a fair few of my images are also accepted as well.
I don't get heaps of regular sales on AS but considering the tiny size of my portfolio on there, I'm actually surprised by the number of sales I do get. My portfolio on Dreamstime is over 3x larger than my port on AS and yet my sales on AS are a lot more 'regular' compared to DT. If ya had a large portfolio on AS, I think there'd be pretty good potential.
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I find it really hard to build a decent sized portfolio on Adobe Stock. For one thing, they don't accept editorial and I shoot a heck of a lot of editorial. So there are a lot of photos I have that I cannot submit. And when I do submit photos, about half of them cannot go through due to some weird technical issue that nobody has a solution for. If I try and resubmit, they will still not go through. And with the images that do make it through, there is a very tough review process which rejects a fair few of my images. Though a fair few of my images are also accepted as well.
I don't get heaps of regular sales on AS but considering the tiny size of my portfolio on there, I'm actually surprised by the number of sales I do get.
My experience as well.
In addition Fotolia is the only site I get rejections for "lack of aesthetical or commercial value". At least they are very consistent with. Now I can foresee with 90% efficiency which files will be rejected. All images with dark-ugly-negative-disgusting subjects don't pass. Fotolia is "old microstock school" site loving happy jumping white teeth smiling women on exotic beach. It is their politics and I respect this. But there is a market they are missing as these images sell.
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I find it really hard to build a decent sized portfolio on Adobe Stock. For one thing, they don't accept editorial and I shoot a heck of a lot of editorial. So there are a lot of photos I have that I cannot submit. And when I do submit photos, about half of them cannot go through due to some weird technical issue that nobody has a solution for. If I try and resubmit, they will still not go through. And with the images that do make it through, there is a very tough review process which rejects a fair few of my images. Though a fair few of my images are also accepted as well.
I don't get heaps of regular sales on AS but considering the tiny size of my portfolio on there, I'm actually surprised by the number of sales I do get.
My experience as well.
In addition Fotolia is the only site I get rejections for "lack of aesthetical or commercial value". At least they are very consistent with. Now I can foresee with 90% efficiency which files will be rejected. All images with dark-ugly-negative-disgusting subjects don't pass. Fotolia is "old microstock school" site loving happy jumping white teeth smiling women on exotic beach. It is their politics and I respect this. But there is a market they are missing as these images sell.
Yeah, I'm sure dark ugly disgusting images sell like hot cakes.
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Remember a good portion of Europe takes the entire month of August off thus killing our sales...
It is true.
But if it is true, why my Shutterstock European sales continue to be (enough) regular?