shutterstock 39% with 0,56 USD
dreamstime 16% with 3,58 USD
fotolia 13% with 1,18 USD
canstock 9% with 2,81 USD
istock 8% with 2,39 USD
stockfresh 5% with 9,07 USD
bigstock 4% with 1,66 USD
123rf 3% with 0,98 USD
deposit 1% with 0,36 USD
veer 1% with 1,02 USD

Quote from: wut on July 01, 2012, 19:06

Quote from: freeimagecollection on July 01, 2012, 18:43

Has been a BME on SS, DT, FT, CS and DP. Others didnt fare too badly. I am a few dollars shy of hitting my increment at SS and hope to see a bigger BME for July.

I just joined microstock a year and a half ago and seeing a growth of 15% increase in revenue every month. I have an average of 400 files in most of the sites(increasing at the rate of 50-70 files a month). Infact my revenue growth for last 6 months is 21%.  Is this growth sustainable?

To be honest, this is very bad for someone just starting out and adding 50-70 files/month. Probably should have been over 100%. What are you going to do when you get over 1000 files? Now you're growing your port by 15-20%/month. How do you plan to shoot 150-200 files /month after another 10 months (when you'll hit 1k files)?

Thanks for the reply.. I am uploading around 80-100 images of which 75% are accepted.. And actually I am happy with that.. My goal is to make a $1000/month income by next march and this is very much feasible if the 15% per month revenue increase sustains. My only concern is will my 15% growth month on month sustainable in long term? Even 10% per month increase over next 2-3 years is fantastic for me(as it would be a compounding increase)!

Meanwhile I am researching on what kind of images make a candidate for an EL sale.. If I come to know the trick, that would be it!

That's what I was talking about.

If it's feasible for you to make 1k after a year with just 15% growth of earnings every month, than you must have had an incredible first month in MS (around 200$ with 50-70 files). But that really doesn't make sense, since if you'd make 200$ with 50-70 files, you'd have growth over 100% month, unless you suddenly started to UL crap (but that doesn't make sense either, if the first 50-70 were great, why would newer be worse).

I am trying no look at these month to month variation in microstock earnings, but I calculated a payout structure from different agencies in the first half of 2012:

http://microstock.pixelsaway.com/payout-structure-from-microstock-agencies-in-2012/

Quote

- 45$ left to the 10k $ milestone at SS (3 years there)

Luis

Should only be a matter of days now! I have the champagne on ice...

Steve

cheers! $9986.92

Here's my pretty graph.  Overall earnings were down 10% from last month but still up lots from last year. 

Fotolia up
iStock down
Shutterstock down
Dreamstime down

Not a great month for me.  Better when I totaled it up than I hand thought, though.  Istock and FT, which were way down, seem to have rallied a bit.  Still a long way to go to make up lost income. 

Overall down 5% from May (which is pretty typical for summer), but what is worrying is that I am down 9% from last June. 

My 7 month break from uploading really hurt me.   Been uploading again since April, so hopefully after the summer that will pay off more substantially.

Agreed about the summer work pay-off in the fall.  It's pretty hard to really gauge how things are improving (or not) until August / Sept.

pie graph made based on iStock exclusives reports at "their" forum

From the exclusivity page:
As an Exclusive iStock contributor, you get plenty of special perks and benefits.
Increased sales potential
iStockphoto is the world's most popular stock media website. Exclusivity brings more attention to your portfolio and makes the most out of all that traffic.

So, with 74.68% of whose exclusives who chose to, or were allowed to, report on iStock's sales thread reporting falls, that has to be an admission that traffic is falling.

Those doing well are far less likely to report their stats.

Then again, a recent study found that my stock images are better than the rest" (my mother said so).   

Luis make that graph for indies as well. I'm interested to see what story it tells, the comparison

there were only 8 indies reporting there (2 +, 1 ok, 5 -)

so far (and perhaps always) the universe here at MSG is quite small

more stats for istock exclusives, from the 79 entries:

- 32 have less than 10k downloads
- 10 from 10k to 17k downloads
- 16 from 20k to 36k downloads
- 14 from 57k to 96k downloads
- 4 from 120k to 190k downloads
- 3 have more than 260k downloads

Those doing well are far less likely to report their stats.

Then again, a recent study found that my stock images are better than the rest" (my mother said so).   

The problem is, people use that same argument when people are doing too well to believe.  A problem with the yearly microstock poll (at least one that's always mentioned) is that the people who are doing well are the ones that are going to happily report how they're doing.

Perhaps what is actually true, is that the people who are involved and interested in the industry are going to report how they are doing, regardless of the information they are reporting.

I am really worried that exclusives might be leaving or simply deciding to focus on other business and stop uploading (without officially giving up exclusivity).

They don't seem to want people to become exclusive. The incentives to become exclusive have been getting fewer and fewer and it's difficult to see them in practice.
One of my best-selling pics is  in position 203 in best match for its main keyword - it used to sell a few times a week (I'm not a big-hitter!) and now it's gone right down.
 I reported one of my pics, plus three others, being used with watermarks on a website on 22nd June, and have only had the auto-receipt email back so far. They asked us to chase up infractors through them, but I do better when I chase them up myself. (When I say 'do better', neither of us have converted a misuse into a sale, but everyone I've contacted has taken the pics down immediately; it seems to take them a lot longer to contact them, then they don't always take down. I've got an editorial photo in a commerical web use which I reported at the end of last year and it was still up yesterday when I checked. To be fair, they did assure me that if it came to it, I would not personally be held liable for the misuse.
There's still incredible inconsistency among inspectors re looking at keywords. I've had perfectly good keywords taken out of files recently, whereas just have a look at "commercial kitchen" by age to see what other inspectors are letting through. I still regularly see files just popped in with over eight completely irrelevant keywords (nouns which aren't there, not subjective adjectives like 'beautiful' or 'adorable'). It's usually pretty easy to work out which were added after acceptance and which were there all the time. And it takes over a year for wikied files to be looked at, if they are even doing that now. Maybe team keywords was reduced in the staff cull (?) - I'm sure they're always overworked at any staffing level.

I'm sticking as an exclusive for now at least as it makes some sort of sense for me, but I'm not sure I'd rush to become exclusive if I weren't already. There's only one person who's posted above on this thread for whom I think, "They might consider iStock exclusivity".

What are istock going to do about it? Do they even care?

Good month.
%0,5 down from May. %1 UP from last June.

Quote from: Reef on July 02, 2012, 16:41

Those doing well are far less likely to report their stats.

Believe me, I would happily report an increase in sales. Nothing would please me more than to report iStock is finally giving exclusives the support they need to survive. Unfortunately my sales figures show otherwise:

Compared to June 2011:

$ -20.5% DL -45%

Compared to June 2010:

$ -23.3% DL - 65%

At least it's not that bad for you as it was in the past months