My sales have always been steady at Fotolia.  Average a few a day with a portfolio size now of 380.

i'd have to say it has been pretty constant me.  Pretty regular, and pretty good.

4th place. Pretty normal

I JUST JUMPED OVER TO FOTOLIA TO GET A REAL NUMBER FOR POSTING HERE......... AND...............
ONCE AGAIN...   3RD TIME...  I FIND I'M BEING CHARGED WITH PURCHASING PHOTOS THAT I DIDN'T BUY!!!!!!!!!!

THAT'S IT!!   THIS IS THE 3RD STINKEN TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED TO ME, FIRST TIME 3 PICTURES, LAST TIME 4 PICTURSS AND NOW, AGAIN...

Wow, that is almost unbelievable.     They must really have it out for you   

Hey, no problem Adelaide, I'm a jokester and I can sure take one too.         
      I really don't know why this is happening, but it's the 3rd time.  And I never got a straight answer as to what they ever found.
     Mr. Chad Bridwell of FT USA sent a mail saying something like he was aware of the problem... engineers would fix it. That is not intended to be a quote, was something to that effect, I should have saved the email. I did eventually get the sales removed.  And I appreciated it.
     Some here suggested that I was accidentally clicking on a buy button.  Yeah, that would be possible except for one thing. When my wife and I got into stock back in June,  we determined that we should NEVER surf the site while under our account,   to avoid that very thing. So when we do look around at the competition, it's from the outside off the web.   So that COULDN'T have happened, we couldn't 'accidentally' buy.
     Some one from FT tech suggested that I compromised my passname and code somewhere.  Well, that doesn't fly either. The site is only accessed by me or my wife from this computer sitting in my house. Neither of us surfs the internet on the job or outside the home.  Not likely that was the case.
     I think it was more what Mr. Bridwell alluded to. There's a glitch somewhere that related to my little chunk of bytes in whatever server handled my account.  But I'm not a programmer... 
      All I know is when I wait forever to sell 3 or 4 pix for 33 cents, and then suddenly I'm charged with buying 3 or 4 pix, or a $1 pic, what's the point?  It is a royal pain in the butt getting the problem fixed and it always came out like it was something I was doing wrong.
    Okay, I'm not perfect. I make mistakes.  However, I'm on 8 other sites and have NEVER had a problem on any of them. So, I kind of don't think it's me acting goofy.
       Yeah, I can take a joke, but the same joke over and over starts to wear thin. 
       I'm not going to go ballistic about it. I'm calm & cool. No Problemo.
    I'm simply bailing out.  I've already deleted all my picture and when I'm finished here, I'll be emailing FT to close my account. They can keep the 5 bucks or whatever.
      Truth be told, it won't be any great loss to me and I know I'll not be a loss to Fotolia.  I joined them back in August. I only had 54 pix there ( I would have had a few hundred, but everytime I had a problem, I'd stop uploading there, not trusting them)... and since August, I've only had 15 sales on 5 pictures.  Pretty lousy.. 
  Fact is, I have way more than 15 sales DAILY on SS.  Those exact same pix are selling well everywhere else, why not on FT? I don't know. Maybe it was because in all that time I'd only have 3 or 4 views on pix that have been there a couple/few months. ??
     The only other site I'm on with fewer sales than FT is USPS, a whopping $4.80.   Only pennies less than FT.
  [ And they're next.  The ONLY reason I haven't closed USPS yet is that I have way over a hundred pix there and I haven't had the time to waste deleting them one at a time. ]

    I'm doing just fine on all the others, except LO, but I'm hanging in there as I think they will do very well once they start rolling.
     I won't miss FT,  they won't miss me.  So everyone's happy.  At the rate it was going, my huge 15 sales would have been eaten up by bogus buys in a matter of weeks.  I don't know why it happened, but it did and it only did there.  Was it them, was it me? Doesn't matter now.
      Now it'll be someone elses problem with FT.

  Thanks for letting me vent.       peace-tom
     

Edit: I found that email

Hello Tom,
 I am aware of this problem and our engineers are fixing it. We will add the credits back to your account as needed.
                                   Chad Bridwell

FT is my best selling site for last few months, having overtaken IS - my sales dropped there with the whole DA fiasco. I have more EL sales at FT than anywhere else and just yesterday I had two EL sales for $41 each!!

However, it seems to take newer contributors longer to get a good rate of sales from FT so all I can say is stick with it, it will definitely be worth it in the long run.

You can't really compare sales on SS with FT (or any other site), new photos always do well with SS newest first search option.

I find that FT has a higher sales/view ratio I guess because of their floating thumbnails I had one image at DT over 600 views but no DLs 

I have almost made as much on FT this month as I did last month and its only the 18th. 

I seem to have been discovered at iStock (only took a year!) more downloads and higher payouts. Failed the iStock illustration test again I think they want you to spend an entire day on your illustrations.

Unless that is an unmitigated disaster this should be the best month overall so far (my 12th month in Microstock) 

Strange to see how sites that work for some just don�t work out for some individuals.  I have the same experience with dreamstime (with exception of the buying part) as TGT.  I have 2 or 3 sales immediately after uploading new stuff... then nothing for weeks.  But Istock is picking up a bit, I get higher acceptance rate there (around 80 percent with resubmits).  I keep putting photos on dreamstime in hopes that one day it will pick up for me there.  But I always had a positive experience with fotolia... actually until recently it was my best site in terms of sales.

I do not want to belabor this problem I experienced. I only come to it once more here,  so that there is no misunderstanding. It appears that there might be.
      I had a reoccuring  problem with FT. I want all to understand that Fotolia and Chad Bridwell personally DID respond,  and the credits were restored to my account. I do not have an issue with that. In fact, I appreciated the efforts of Mr. Bridwell. A man in his position, I'm sure,  has better things to do than deal with penny credits.
      I have no complaint in the response I received and the corrective action taken to restore the account.  For some reason, I had the problem 3 times in a relatively short period of time.  Since no others here seem to have experienced a similar problem, it can only appear that somehow, I caused it. How? I have no idea, I do nothing different on FT than I do on the other 8 sites I belong to.

      I appreciate Chad's offer very much, but considering my dissmal sales, and the aggravation of this reoccuring problem, it just didn't seem worth the hassle for me.... and I'm sure for FT. If I were to stay and the problems continue, it could only result in my own reputation and integrity being brought into question. I do not lie, I am not a scammer. Taking a chance on besmirching my name is certainly not worth 33 cents.  How would it appear if every few weeks, 3 or 4 pictures show as purchased by me and I continually denied purchasing them? It's only my word they have to go on. They show as purchased by me. How would it make me look?  Would any of you want to be in that position? Of course not. 
      Perhaps in the future I will attempt a relationship with FT.  Perhaps at some future time, the true "why of it" will be uncovered.  By all your comments, FT obviously has a good reputation and is a successful venture.  I bear them no ill will and I will not bad-mouth them on this or any other forum.  Clean break, shake hands, peace.

'Nuff said on that.  Let's move on to enjoying our work.


A point in general about microstock sites. I do not buy photos. If the whole 'credit to buy' system could be taken out of the equation, that'd be fine for me. I have no use for it. I don't need it. I wish I could click and turn off the option.
I understand that a great majority of other photographers are also designers and buyers. I understand the need to have it available, it's business. But I'm also sure I'm not the only guy on the planet that doesn't buy photos. I would suggest that it be made an optional feature in the future design of these sites. It can't be that hard to do.
      If Fotolia could somehow set it up that it were impossible for me to buy, I'd be delighted and  I'd go back today!!