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The paranoia question

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SVH:
So I have a relative small portfolio and I don't do Microstock for a living. I earn way much better doing other things but I do enjoy the reward for getting my pictures sold (and mostly I really put effort in them).

But there is one thing I notice. And that is that these agencies have millions of clients (together) around the world. My sales are very stable though between 10 to 20 a week (I know it's peanuts but enough to bring me the little joy).

But statistically this is kind of odd. With all these buyers and my small portfolio I would have expected bigger swings in the sales like some weeks none and other weeks much more. It's kind of strange to be that stable.

So are we getting thrown peanuts by the agencies that fit within our sales history to keep us happy or are the sales really accidentally this stable? I don't shoot niche photo's but pretty broad.

Just asking, no accusations to any agency whatsoever.

Anyone else noticing this in their sales or do you have big swings from one week to another?

For Real:
truly depends on what you submit. For example, backgrounds can sell all year long. Food and health sell all year long.  Seems like you have some good commercial images to get regular sales.  Good start...

Roscoe:
It's a topic that has been discussed in the past, without really clear answers or proven statements.
Nobody can really prove that their portfolio is being throttled or boosted, or like you say, that agencies are trying to force stable volumes on single portfolio's.

Looking at my own stats: yes sales and volumes can fluctuate quite heavily depending on the month or season.
To give you an example, my worst month this year earned me only 20% of my best month this year.
I don't keep track of sales volume, or weekly earning stats, but I do see strong fluctuations there too.
Figures vary across contributors, and what turns out to be a good month for me can be a bad month for others and vice versa.

Questions similar to "what's going on at agency A" or "anyone else experiencing sudden low sales at agency B" are popping up very regularly.
So it's quite funny to see someone complaining about stable sales volumes, while most of us are complaining about strong fluctuations ;-)

Now to answer your question: until now I've seen nobody really proving any other impact on the algorithm than individual image ranking.
This probably means views x clickthrough ratio x actual sales. Simple as that.

It's my uneducated guess based on own experiences:
- Every now and then I upload an image that takes off and gets significant better sales than others. So no throttling at all. (and I hear the same experiences from fellow contributors)
- I do see significant fluctuations in sales volume and earnings. So no compensation effects of the algorithms, a bad month is a bad month drama all over the place. (and I hear the same experiences from fellow contributors)

My uneducated guess is further strengthened by the fact that I see fellow contributors with significant smaller portfolio's hitting way better volumes than I do.
In all honesty: they have better quality content and/or content with better sales potential.
And I also see it the other way around.

So I guess your content fits within a stable market demand.

Firn:
I can't really see any stable volume with my port. If I look at my sales for 2021 in my "worst" month I only had 60% of downloads compared to my best month. It really depends on what content your port has. If most of your images are of very universal things that sell through the whole year you can expect more stable download numbers. My port performs much better in months where I sell a lot of seasonal images - The time before Halloween, Easter, Christmas, etc. usually brings me higher volumes of downloads, because, naturally, my seasonal photos will not sell very often out of season.

 I also think that the difference will be more noticable the more sales you have.
You say you sell between 10 and 20 photos a week - If you think about it that's actually quite a high fluctation of 50%, so not really stable at all. It just seems so similar to you, because the number 10 is rather close to 20. But if you upscale the numbers to 100 compared to 200 sales or even 1000 compared to 2000, which is the same ratio, you will see much clearer that your sales aren't as stable as you think.

Suspect:
I'm too scared to answer this question.

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