Video is a very stable income

But you said you went 4 days without a sale. That doesn't sound too stable.

edit: gostwyck beat me to it.

The other thing that's noticeable (and might relate to jjneff's predicament) is that sales drop sharply whenever an additional process has to be run.  This happens to me and many others (and has also been reported in the relevant threads).  Many people have commented on the volatility of sales, things chugging along for two or three days, then Wham a sudden down day of 30% or more.  These 'bad days' seem to coincide with the index runs or other additional activities.  For instance my own sales are always noticeably lower whenever they are running the PP payments.

This suggests that either the servers are configured incorrectly, or there simply isn't enough power in the system for it to cope with an additional process.  So some of the servers or other functions have to be cut.  Hence the drop in sales reported by many people.  Reminds me of my old desktop computer which would occasionally pop up a message 'your system is running low on memory, please close some programs'.

My own sales drop whenever they run the index.  And sales have been slow these last three days while the PP payments have been credited.

No surprise to find that jjneff's sales have dropped off a cliff exactly when they've been running the PP payments for the same three or four day period.

So: either the back end systems are inefficient, configured incorrectly, or the systems department has been so starved of cash that there isn't enough capacity to run everything at the same time.

While I am not happy about the sales in November, keep in mind that a significant portion of E+ files have been moved to Getty. We may see some higher priced Getty sales either the end of November or later. Who knows.

Stable as in the year which I am happy about! It's just I am seeing strange trends and have concern with iStock staying viable in the future. They pay the highest for video than all the others so staying is great if buyers keep coming! I am up about 25% over last year which is good.

I'm seeing a big drop also. Sept, Oct and Nov are way down. This month I am on track to make 1/2 of what I did last November (!)

I've seen ups and downs over the last 5 years, but not like this. Luckily I've socked away money knowing this might happen. I'm not going to stress with the holidays coming up, but will wait to see if there's the usual rebound early next year. If not, I will consider dropping exclusivity.

I am also feeling the hurt this week with sales at istock. What gets me is their attitude with 'well, our financials are in line with our expectations'. But I always think to myself that if exclusives are complaining then there is definitely something terribly wrong at istock.

Good morning .... 

Since the OP was about video sales, I thought I'd add my iStock experience this month.

I've had a total of ZERO video sales so far this month on iStock.

The longest I had to wait anytime this year for a sale before this month was in September, when I didn't get my first sale until the 4th of the month.

My port is nowhere near the size or quality of the OP's, but this seems highly unusual.

Do other libraries tend to have a 50 keyword limit as well?

50 is a pretty good rule of thumb as an upper limit.  Note that a number of sites limit the length  of titles so I try not to go over 40 characters. 

Quote from: stocker2011 on November 14, 2012, 07:15

My advice would be if you are going to drop exclusivity next year now is the time to start planning. eg. which sites you plan on submitting to, upload processes, is it possible to start uploading now, what prices will you set your files at etc. If i were you i would also have a bit of buffer money in the bank to help ease the change over.

Most importantly, start (re)keywording your images in the IPTC with an eye toward how keywording works on other sites.  For example you will need synonyms and plurals added, which isn't necessary with the Istock CV.

Good suggestions. Luckily I only have 400 files, so it shouldn't be too painful. I'll probably poke around other sites, but I'm going to give it some time. For the last 5 years, this one included, iStock has been surprisingly consistent for me. My yearly totals don't fluctuate more than 10% or so. It's what happens in-between that's maddening! And I know that happens, but like I said, this one is bigger than usual. Fingers crossed it rebounds shortly.