Yes, the rpd going dow is a real problem, especially when combined with inflation.

Even if you have a good increase in sales, the combo can kill your success in volume.

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Dear friends, do you worry about your rank, every day, all day. Do you find yourself concerned that the "algo" has changed and your best sellers aren't best anymore. You go check, to see what page you are on, at a minimum of daily? Do you see new images getting no traction and old images declining in sales numbers. Do you go to the best sellers page, every day, at least once, so you can see what other people are doing? And you check your earnings, morning, noon and night, then last thing, before you go to sleep, just in case something changed in the last few hours.

Is that what's got you down Bunky? Well let me tell you, there's an asteroid coming, that's going to hit the Earth and blow us all into cosmic dust. Making pennies from Nanostock, isn't so important after all? We have global warning, climate change, people in power that half the population, generally doesn't like. Dictators and wars, someone could push the big "end of the world" doom button and nuke the planet.

While you're more concerned about how the algorithm runs and obsessed with your image rank?

One can observe their rank without being obsessed. It's a useful piece of information. For example I also observe my Google rank (not for microstock obviously), which gives me a data point about what works and what to change.

And about the asteroid, you can relax. It's a small asteroid about Tunguska size (google Tunguska if you don't know what I mean). Also I think you're from the US and US is not even in the possible impact path. Also it's not so difficult to deflect with current technology.

Dear friends, do you worry about your rank, every day, all day. Do you find yourself concerned that the "algo" has changed and your best sellers aren't best anymore. You go check, to see what page you are on, at a minimum of daily? Do you see new images getting no traction and old images declining in sales numbers. Do you go to the best sellers page, every day, at least once, so you can see what other people are doing? And you check your earnings, morning, noon and night, then last thing, before you go to sleep, just in case something changed in the last few hours.

While you're more concerned about how the algorithm runs and obsessed with your image rank?

This is not very respectful.

I am a professional photographer and I have been doing stock (and then microstock) for almost 20 years.

To pay my bills, along with microstock, I also sell art prints on POD and some in premium and limited edition versions (these images are not sold on microstock, but only through my website and some art galleries).

I made this choice because I want to have complete freedom to do photography (my job, but above all my passion) the way I want. I want to shoot my favorite subjects in the way I want.

I could do workshops, photo trips, sell tutorials, open a YouTube channel on photography, or work on commission, but that's not what I like to do.

And to stay competitive in microstock, one of the most important things is to understand the market and compare yourself with other photographers.

It's called "Market Analysis" and it's the most important thing to do before opening any business and to avoid failure.

That's why it's important to exchange opinions on sales, on RPD, and on how the agencies' algorithms work.

Things don't always work the same way for everyone, but information is often useful to direct our work in a difficult business that changes every day.

I'm here to not lose the freedom to do what I like. 

But stock is not dead, I expect the media industry to keep growing at a rapid pace over the next 10 years.

Yes, I agree with what you say.

The only big problem is that the stock industry is not respecting our work as contributors.

I don't think that if I sell 15,000$ of photographs per month it is fair to only receive 3,000$ (20% I think is the average between SS, IS, and AS)

I think it is very unfair.

From which I have to subtract the taxes of my country and the costs of production (I do travel and landscape, I need good equipment and I have about 4/5,000 euros per year of travel costs).

Well Adobe is 33/35%, so there we make a little more.

Selling images is very hard work, I don�t think it is as easy as many here imagine. Agencies compete with each other and all the free content.

They run large reviewer teams, have a legal team to stay updated on the ever changing legal stuff. They have to deal with criminals fraud. Plus all the sales people, marketing costs, keeping the site running software hadrdware�

And all the regular complaints and clients.

Everybody is free to sell directly from their website, maybe in addition to doing stock.

Plus�photography is a popular hobby so there is no lack of people uploading.

We need the agencies more than they need us.

One of teh reasons why I am slowly shifting to more video. Less content, less competition and much easier to carve out a longterm niche.

What I mean is that business is always a supply demand balance.

And there is a total oversupply of images, camera or ai.

The lever that we do have is not the images but the fact that we recommend agencies to clients.

If an agency treats you badly, why should we recommend it to our clients?

We don't.

That is something agencies need to contemplate, because very people have a stock subscription.

getty and ss together just 1.4 million. That is a small base of customers.

I don�t think it is about �lowering quality�

Customers simply need content that blends in with harmony into social media feeds and looks like the kind of content people create themselves.

A super high quality lifestyle photo will break the flow.

I often sell simply daily life mobile phone shots of food. A food photographer will cry over my pictures, but I understand the customer. It is content that they need and that was missing on more �traditional� agencies.

Eyeem made a killing with that,  then other places started creating social media friendly collections.

It is a huge market that needs this type of content.

Customers simply need content that blends in with harmony into social media feeds and looks like the kind of content people create themselves.

Maybe in food or lifestyle it works like this, I've never shot these genres.

In travel or landscape it never worked for me to send snapshots.

My photos sent from 2010 to 2015 have an average earnings of over $100 (400 images = earnings >40,000$). I sell 98% of my images at least once.

Do you know Romolo Tavani's work?

He produces images of different categories than mine (holidays, fantasy, concepts ...). He has very few images (I think about 3000), but of incredible quality. And his sales are stellar! Much more than mine.

And without a doubt I would choose one of his images for one of my projects.

Simple shots may also be needed (it's a niche), but for me the saleability remains lower.

Eyeem made a killing with that, 

EyeEm never even made a profit! They went bankrupt, remember?

Do you know Romolo Tavani's work?

He produces images of different categories than mine (holidays, fantasy, concepts ...). He has very few images (I think about 3000), but of incredible quality. And his sales are stellar! Much more than mine.

He is amazing, so are probably your landscape shots.

Doesn't change the fact that there is a very big market for content that blends in seamlessly on social media.

And just because in your case it did not work for your content, does not mean other people are not making very good money.

It is simply not your genre.

Social media files might look deceptively simple but they have their own visual cues that make them useful.

I think for many classically trained artist it is too hard to let go of their beautification and perfectionism.

Not every mobile phone photo works. But if you get it right you can have amazing sales with very simple daily life stuff. No big investments needed, no long processing time.

Not suggesting you should try it, anyway you say you have tried and for you it didn't work.

For me it is a great genre. Which does not mean I don't like beautiful "perfect" files. However I found it liberating to add content that looks very authentic from real life. And without the "I will win any photo contest" prize look attached to them.

Nobody has to cover all genres available in stock.

I am just pointing out there is a very valid reason agencies, including macrostock agencies, take mobile phone "snapshots".

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Had a little valentine push, yesterday 54 dl on adobe, 24 ai, 30 camera. pos 1340, 7800 files

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romolo�s port is being brutally copied by the ai crowd. He has always had copy cats , but now this is a completely different level of �followers�.

Will be interesting to see how he holds up.

He does have the superior algo advantage and a long successful history, but there is a flood coming for his style.

One of the reasons why in my second stock journey I am looking for lots of little niche things that might sell reliably 1-5 times a year instead of hundreds.

Not recommending anyone else to do that, but just a very personal strategy decision.

It will be a very long tail port this time but hopefully very reliable.

Quote from: alan b traehern on February 08, 2025, 09:11

Quote from: alan b traehern on February 06, 2025, 10:20

Quote from: alan b traehern on February 05, 2025, 12:12

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I agree with you it is wrong. I'd suggest though one method is to figure out how to do marketing, and then create your own site to sell the photography/videography.

Thanks, I've been doing it for 4 years with my website.

The results are encouraging, but unfortunately, everything is increasingly difficult. 

To have good visibility with your website you need to be in the top search positions on Google in an organic way. The only way is to write interesting blog articles for your customers. And it's not easy.

I think it's the only thing that works, but it's complicated for two reasons:

1) Google is increasingly pushing its searches towards paid content. Organic search is increasingly penalized. 

2) With blog articles you risk intercepting other photographers who are not interested in your prints or in purchasing a license of your image. If I sold a workshop it would be fine, but I don't do it.

I said organic Google search is the only thing that works because for me, the experience with social media, both organic and paid with ads, has been terrible. Never sold anything. I tried Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram (organic and ads), lots of likes, and lots of views, no clients, only copycats and spammers.

Maybe I got the strategy wrong, but for me, social media is a huge disappointment. (I've never tried YouTube, my English is bad and I don't feel comfortable in front of a camera  )

I hope Romolo stays on top.

I think agencies should protect the best authors. It's in their interest ... But I don't know if they will. The world is now in the hands of algorithms. The human touch is disappearing everywhere and it's a shame.

For landscapes, in fact, I stopped taking generic shots.

Now I only deal with specific locations.

For editorials and videos, you're right. I've always believed little in editorial sales. I have very few editorial images. Maybe I should try again.

As for video, I should learn to do conversion and other things (I should find an updated guide on how to prepare footage for stock) ... but, the thing that holds me back is the dust spots on the mirrorless ... a nightmare. 

Maybe I should have a specific camera with a single lens just for videos ...