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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: aluxum on April 13, 2015, 14:06

Title: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: aluxum on April 13, 2015, 14:06
Hello:

I have a question to the contributors that have more than 1000 images online on Shutterstock.
I was the last 6 years exclusive with Istock......after their continous decline I have decided to abandon exclusivity and started to upload files to the other agencies. I have first focused on Shutterstock as everybody says it has the most earning power of all micro agencies once you are no more exclusive.

The weird thing is that despite uploading 2500 images in 3 weeks my earnings are the same
when I had 200 images online. Earning the same now with 2500 than with 10 times less files give or take. The probability of this happening without any intervention is not low but I would think that probabilistically impossible.

Have any other contributors have experienced the same? It might be possible that some equation makes that uploading a large portfolio in a short time puts some kind of cap in earnings.

It would be great to know because maybe it is wiser to upload to all the agencies at the same time and not in a row so the uploads are more spread out in time.

Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: tickstock on April 13, 2015, 14:11
It could just be that in the time you uploaded 2,500 images Shutterstock accepted 1,200,000 images.
Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: aluxum on April 13, 2015, 14:14
In that case that would not change the fact that Shutterstock would had added 1/50 of new images to the library and I would have increased it by 1150% so that reason does not fly
Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: tickstock on April 13, 2015, 14:15
Well did you upload your best images first and then your second best later?  Or it could be the holidays that are just finishing up.
Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: No Free Lunch on April 13, 2015, 14:22
Well did you upload your best images first and then your second best later?  Or it could be the holidays that are just finishing up.

Good point! If you uploaded your 'Gems' first they will outperform hundreds of the average images.

No, Shutter will not cap your earnings. Why? That would bad business from them as well. They want to make as much $$ as possible so if you are better than most folks they will give you the sales...
Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: dpimborough on April 13, 2015, 14:55
I found in the past that uploading large batches in one hit meant that all those images soon got swamped very quickly by other new material.

So they all died round the same time.

I find that uploading smaller batches means I dilute the risk of them all being buried.

It also depends on what you submit.

If it's 2500 images of the same or similar popular subjects then they stand a good to excellent chance of being buried.

Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: aluxum on April 13, 2015, 15:06
Thank you for your answers. No doubt that competing with the beat to death subjects is thougher than ever. The air is getting thinner everywhere I guess. I hope that I can match Istock performance in the last year. I know that the good old days (for me 2012) will be impossible to match. 1 year time is what I give myself to see where I am standing and if it is worth the time.
Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: Shelma1 on April 13, 2015, 15:42
Definitely not a good approach to upload everything at once. As other have pointed out, most will get buried in the search. Unfortunately you have to upload things gradually, which is the way your income will grow as well.
Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: Mrblues101 on April 13, 2015, 15:45
This is a good question (and issue), beacuse i recently upload large batches hoping a big increase in earnings but earnings are now almost the same, i can see new images being selled but not significant change in earnings, so earning cap when you upload large batches is a solid theory for me.

I would like to know better how the system works because I spent my holidays and all my recent free time trying to upload between 30 and 45 vector illustration per day and after 3 weeks (as i told before) no significant changes at earnings  :-\  :-\  :(  :(
Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: jatrax on April 13, 2015, 17:56
There is no need for earning cap conspiracy theories.   Answer is simple new images cover up old ones unless they sell.

So add in small batches regularly and spread your shots out.  I have noticed a few from a batch sell quickly and continue to sell.  Others from the same batch do not sell until weeks later then start to sell.
The search algorithm is complex and not easy to say simply this or that happens.
Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: Mrblues101 on April 13, 2015, 18:08
Jatrax, we also have another partially unknown issue related with search engine; the "popularity".

As you know in SS images can be sorted by populariy, i recently ask in the forum what popularity exactly means, but most of people dont know; it is something like downloads per image and its relation with the time that image was online... but as some people can see... some images that was never downloaded sometimes are more "popular" (under this popularity concept) that other with several downloads... so popularity is a relation between time online and sells and one or more secret factors

With this thread and my recent experience i have a new little theory that this third factor can be the number of images in the batch that was sended.

Maybe they assume that large batches means quicky image development, and sorter ones means more work per image; and therefore they estimate an inverse relationship between the quality of the images and the number of images sent in a batch.
Title: Re: Shutterstock earning cap ?
Post by: Me on April 13, 2015, 23:58
If they are good images they will sell, just takes a bit of time to gain traction and spreading out your uploads keeps you at the forefront of new images for longer. Buyers will see your images popping up regularly instead of all at once and then your name and style seems to disappear.


When something new gets marketed you don't just see adverts for one day, they are spread out over a period of time before launch so it gets the maximum exposure to the widest range of people, same theory applies here as you are putting new products up regularly.