fotolia? theres only so many buyers to go around... look at the thread that says fotolia downloads are rising

I stopped submitting over a year ago and my portfolio is very small.  The earnings have gradually declined, which is no surprise.  But last month they really went over a cliff.   I no longer care, fortunately. 

Well, octuber 2015 was a good month for me... anyway... this is the oldest discution here, each time earning is going down... becuase larger number of contributors... larger number of images... bla bla bla...

Hmmm... I am a long time contributor to SS and have a quite a big portfolio with pretty good sales. I usually can see the trends and seasonal fluctuations. What happens now is sudden drastic and was unexpected and it seems it is not general to all of us. Maybe I am the victim of a search engine reshuffle. I am still very worried. SS is the last ship I could have a trust in. The rest of the agencies are not more than just floating little lifeboats.

I've had 4 BME this year, and all months have been better than last year equivalent

also, my sales from recent additions have been significantly different from previous years.  my subjects continue to be travel and nature, with more editorials being accepted.  I have the same problems most everyone reports w silly reviews, but PS autotone often fixes the 'lighting' problems

During the years all big agencies gone down except SS. In the last few month SS is also falling badly. October was my worst month of the last 5 years while october is usually the strongest month of the year. Last week sales were down to 50% of the usual. WHAT THE ..... IS HAPPENING? I am getting worried.

Better cca 13% compare to October 2014

Hmmm... I am a long time contributor to SS and have a quite a big portfolio with pretty good sales. I usually can see the trends and seasonal fluctuations. What happens now is sudden drastic and was unexpected and it seems it is not general to all of us. Maybe I am the victim of a search engine reshuffle. I am still very worried. SS is the last ship I could have a trust in. The rest of the agencies are not more than just floating little lifeboats.

Nitor - what I see is lower sales in October (vs. September) across (almost) all agencies I submit to. Looks like sales just slowed down in October in general, which I agree is quite unusual. For SS, I saw 20% less compared to October 2014. Let's hope the sales will pick up this month:)
With big portfolio it doesn't matter if you submitted new images or not, since percentage-wise it doesn't make much difference, so what we see is actual fluctuations of sales. Someone able to add a significant chunk to his portfolio will see growth. If I add 100 images a month to my 15000 it would be 0.6%. Someone adding 100 images to his portfolio of 200 will see an increase of  50% and will report a BME. Comparing changes in income for a month is meaningless unless you know everyone's portfolio size and how many (and what kind of) images they added recently.
So yes, sales were down, but I don't think there is anything to really worry about (yet:))

I had a decent month. Not BME, but decent. Maybe top three.

Probably because there is a large preview (1500x1100 pixels) of all pictures with a non-existent watermark? 

Probably it's too early to see any effect of that. We will see it in this month and coming months, if there is any.

nothing too strange apart from rise in fotolia and a istock down trend (partly slowed with new uploads)