Quote from: Injustice for all on March 23, 2025, 07:52

I just can't take it anymore,I feel like I'm living in a nightmare.

l hope things get better soon,because I really can't stand this crap anymore.

Man that does look like you're living a nightmare. Are you doing any video? If not, do video and get out there and shoot your local places of interest, landmarks, landscapes, major construction projects, towns, cities and everything in your area. Use a drone for much better results. Reduce your competition by filming subjects that you (and few others... not the rest of the world) have access to. Come back in 6 to 12 months and thank me for it.     

I also have videos in my portfolio,and before I used to sell one every now and then,lately I don't even sell one anymore,I sold my last video on February 17th.

and thanks for your interest! 

I think I'll wait until April 4-5 then I'll do a cleanup in my portfolio,eliminating 1000 contents,I'll cut the dry branches so the tree grows more lush! 

it will probably be useless,but at this point it's worth a try,better to eliminate old useless content,increase the percentage of content that has sold at least once and improve the overall look of the portfolio.

Is deleting a lot of files not something agencies punish?

Because it means customers that have lightboxed the files for projects see them suddenly disappear.

It is up to you, but I would just focus on uploading lots of videos as recommended.

Quote from: Injustice for all on March 24, 2025, 05:56

I think I'll wait until April 4-5 then I'll do a cleanup in my portfolio,eliminating 1000 contents,I'll cut the dry branches so the tree grows more lush! 

it will probably be useless,but at this point it's worth a try,better to eliminate old useless content,increase the percentage of content that has sold at least once and improve the overall look of the portfolio.

I get the idea of cleaning up a portfolio, but I honestly think it's a waste of time. From what I've read, buyers rarely browse an entire portfolio�they just search for specific clips. Instead of spending time deleting content, why not focus on producing more high-quality clips? That will likely have a much bigger impact on your sales than trying to �prune� the old ones.

Sure,it's definitely better to upload more quality videos or any quality content.

however my percentage of content sold at least once is only 13.9% i still want to increase this percentage,maybe it doesn't make any difference,but as i said,i think it's worth a try.

@Cobalt,as as far as I know,you can delete any content at any time,I don't think there is any problem with that,and then at this point,since I now make 5-10 sales a week since 12 weeks I don't see that I could have any more serious problems than this!

and I almost forgot,in the week between February 24th and March 2nd only 3 sales!

Quote from: HalfFull on March 24, 2025, 03:57

It's been a while since I reported in. It's a fresh start of another week... sort of creeping up steadily. A little down on previous march but only just and there is still another 7 days left. Very similar pattern to previous years.

Very nice rank half full!! Congrats.

I am currently very frustrated with the similars rejections.

If you follow the discord you will see some examples of two wedding cakes, where I had one file declined.

I had 8 wedding cakes before, mostly for wedding venue, with people and tables in the background, these were the first "cards".

I also checked for similars with adobe tools and felt confident it was a fresh little niche in design and colors.

I have hundreds of generated cake images, but really made the effort to check what is already available to upload something new to my port and not with similars in the collection.

I chose 2 files.

Now I keep reading this affects everything, ai, photos, videos, png, people are getting a crazy and unpredictable amount of rejections.

It feels like uploading is a lottery ticket at the moment.

Image rejections can be an issue unfortunately. I've had to contact them once or twice but mostly, I've been ok. Sometimes I've received declined images for quality issues. They're normally correct but one or two have been overturned (Adobe that is). When I've gone in and looked at the .psb file I've found that I missed something on a mask etc. Now, I've set up a system for quality checking masks beforehand. Sometimes a decline can be useful to change the way you approach something.... sometimes not. Adobe I've found responsive and helpful with queries but Shutterstock.... their contributor support is like a black hole. If you're lucky, they'll respond in a few weeks but a month or more isn't unusual either.

I would prefer a more detailed explanation to the decline so you can correct it without taking up their time. One day maybe!

One question

Have you been uploading steadily?

Or have you stopped uploading for months?

Is part of the decline from a lack of regular uploads?

Well, if you do delete so many files, please let us know if it has any effect.
...

whatever happens there'll be no reason to correlate with any previous action much to show it as a cause.  what will they use as a baseline ?  last week, month? 6 months ago? - the system is volatile & changing. one person's action isn't going to be able to explain anything as there are many independent sources of variation over time.

@Cobalt I have always uploaded regularly,in December uploaded 617 contents and from January to today I have uploaded 138 contents,I stopped between January 20th and February 20th.

I don't think it's because I haven't uploaded much lately,I've only stopped for a month,and January has already been bad,after I uploaded 617 contents in December.

the cause cannot be attributed to the fact that I did not upload.

@Cascoly sure,I'm the first one to say that most likely deleting 1000 contents from the portfolio is useless.
However,if this 5-10 sales per week thing continues for another 2 weeks,I'd still rather delete 1000 content from my portfolio,increasing the percentage of content already sold and improving the overall look of the portfolio.

It probably won't do any good but at least I'll improve the quality of my portfolio,since I'll be carefully selecting the content I want to delete.

the point is to understand whether or not I can increase sales over time.

Up until now I thought so,because for six years I have always sold more every year,not much more but more,but since the beginning of this year the music has changed.

now I'll see if it was just a moment (which lasted 3 months) or if the melody has changed permanently.

the point is that I already don't earn much,if even that little bit starts to decrease,instead of increasing,that's no good.

if instead I was already earning 1000 usd a month and suddenly I start making 800 usd a month it's different,yes I earn less but I still earn,I can allow a change during the year,it's normal.

if I already earn little and suddenly I start earning nothing for 3 months that's different.

here the discussion becomes broader,and there would probably be a lot to say.

The short answer is yes,I have found some of my best ideas have been widely copied,or simply someone else thought the same thing and then it was copied.

a particular content concept comes to mind,which was my idea.There wasn't this type of content on Adobe before,and now it's full of similar content.

one of the biggest problems is certainly linked to the fact that thanks to AI it is very easy to take a content that sells and create many similar ones by copying the idea.

Often copied content is not as good as the original,but other times it can be even better.

This is why I think it is important to create AI content that is difficult to copy,at least not today with current technology.

anyway,if we put things on this path,at this point not even videos are a guarantee,you know that today it is already possible to produce AI videos of acceptable quality,right?so imagine 2 years from now.

of course the fact remains that a real video in a real location or of a real thing is always real,and is different.

but many other generic videos will soon be replaced by better looking AI videos.

the point,what I still haven't been able to understand is that if I have guarantees that by increasing my portfolio over time, I can have an increase in profits over time,obviously a maximum threshold is acceptable for me,of course probably(or not)it can't increase forever,but at least get to earn something reasonable over time,even if it's only similar to a part-time salary.

in short,if sales continue to increase over time,even if slowly,that's fine,but if start to decrease,or are always the same,clearly I don't see the point.

sure,I agree,there is still a lot of time and space for videos.

ouch!the forum is very slow,just writing this simple answer took me about 10 minutes! 

for editorial video it is mostly pond5 and shutterstock. dreamstime and deposit take it as well, but i have no idea how the sales are.

if anyone knows a great place for editorial video i would love to hear it.

@halffull

There is a drastic algo change at adobe that makes file acceptance a weird lottery with no logic at all.

Look into various groups or the adobe discord.

I have removed all people images from the queue and I am not uploading what I hope become bestsellers.

I am uploading single images from different series always like 10-20 min apart.

Nothing experimental, nothing with high sales potential. bland boring but useful enough to remain visible in the sea of new uploads.

For 20 years I have been doing stock, never had an experience as weird and drastic as this change.

Tuesday was the best day this year with 4 sales,and the last approved content was sold within 12 hours of approval,but still too low numbers,for the size and age of my portfolio.

Slow week here as well.