Author Topic: Winter of our discontent (Read 4760 times)

sdeva · « **on:** September 11, 2013, 02:16 »

Winter is still some months away, but stock sales are falling like snowflakes, with falling RPDs or sales across multiple sites.

What does one do?

a. Keep griping and keep uploading - business as usual !

b. Go exclusive to one agency of choice
c. Be non-exclusive and upload to as many agencies as physically possible to spread income effect
d. Say hasta la vista to microstock and commit effort elsewhere to substitute the income
e. Go independent such as own site or Symbiostock

The best option from the above .. or smthg else...?

Ron · « **Reply #1 on:** September 11, 2013, 02:28 »

My sales are better then ever. Shutterstock has put some nitro in my port. 123 is performing well. Symbiostock is picking up. FAA keeps earning for me.

sdeva · « **Reply #2 on:** September 11, 2013, 02:42 »

Quote from: Ron on September 11, 2013, 02:28

My sales are better then ever. Shutterstock has put some nitro in my port. 123 is performing well. Symbiostock is picking up. FAA keeps earning for me.

Great, happy for you! I dont finding a justifiable increase in line with uploads made since last year. That suggests a declining trend, good part of which comes from reducing RPDs. Its like running hard but going nowhere ... or maybe I'm on the 'wall' (as I read on another post).

Pilens · « **Reply #3 on:** September 11, 2013, 02:47 »

There's no winter on the micros for me either. BUT as RPD is sliding winter might settle in sooner rather than later.

A small dose of d. and definitely e. are my options of choice.

Long live Symbiostock!

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #4 on:** September 11, 2013, 03:54 »

For Ron, it's clear, the winter of his discontent is made glorious summer by SS of New York.

Ron · « **Reply #5 on:** September 11, 2013, 04:01 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on September 11, 2013, 03:54

For Ron, it's clear, the winter of his discontent is made glorious summer by SS of New York.

Classic !!

Beppe Grillo · « **Reply #6 on:** September 11, 2013, 04:06 »

If I understand well microstocks:
(But as I am new I surely don't understand well…)

- Summer is bad because customers are in vacation
- Fall is bad because customers are tired of the vacation and they need to take time to take back some energy.
- Winter is not so good because it is cold and customers are frozen
- Spring… aaah spring is fantastic… but some have allergies… Achoo!

•••
Seriously: I don't think that seasons have a lot of effect on sales.
But I am sure that the general trend on microstock is worse every day.

Ron · « **Reply #7 on:** September 11, 2013, 04:45 »

Beppe, I have been reading your comments, and you truly have good humor. You make me laugh a lot with your funny comments.

topol · « **Reply #8 on:** September 11, 2013, 04:51 »

Quote from: Beppe Grillo on September 11, 2013, 04:06

If I understand well microstocks:
(But as I am new I surely don't understand well…)

- Summer is bad because customers are in vacation
- Fall is bad because customers are tired of the vacation and they need to take time to take back some energy.
- Winter is not so good because it is cold and customers are frozen
- Spring… aaah spring is fantastic… but some have allergies… Achoo!

•••
Seriously: I don't think that seasons have a lot of effect on sales.
But I am sure that the general trend on microstock is worse every day.

Summer is supposed to be the worst, and that's perfectly logical because it's vacation time all over the world. Then it picks up again at autumn... but I was getting BME after BME in the summer months this year without uploading, and now with fall coming, my sales are actually lower, despite uploading lots of good stuff. The answer is in all kinds of search shuffles I guess. SS definitely has some kind of cycles / balancing act for old/newer stuff, and contributors.

Beppe Grillo · « **Reply #9 on:** September 11, 2013, 05:10 »

^^^

Yes, my summer has been (very) better that what I was expecting too
And as for you September has started very very slowly, even with Shutterstock.
At this point I think that the customers have decided to profit of the low-season prices to go in vacation…

I think that we all have seen the summer changes on iStock, Fotolia and Dreamstime.
Now most of us are just seeing the repercussions of these changes…

Red Dove · « **Reply #10 on:** September 11, 2013, 09:40 »

I haven't bumped into any soothsayers recently but since the ides of march my sales have hit BME more than once on three of the top four sites. Which is, coincidently, when I started uploading again after a ten month break. It could be I got swept up in the algorithm changes allegedly rigged to favour all those refugees from IS or is it merely the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?

Who knows? All I can say is Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt

Firewall · « **Reply #11 on:** September 11, 2013, 10:13 »

Quote from: topol on September 11, 2013, 04:51

Quote from: Beppe Grillo on September 11, 2013, 04:06
If I understand well microstocks:
(But as I am new I surely don't understand well…)

- Summer is bad because customers are in vacation
- Fall is bad because customers are tired of the vacation and they need to take time to take back some energy.
- Winter is not so good because it is cold and customers are frozen
- Spring… aaah spring is fantastic… but some have allergies… Achoo!

•••
Seriously: I don't think that seasons have a lot of effect on sales.
But I am sure that the general trend on microstock is worse every day.

Summer is supposed to be the worst, and that's perfectly logical because it's vacation time all over the world. Then it picks up again at autumn... but I was getting BME after BME in the summer months this year without uploading, and now with fall coming, my sales are actually lower, despite uploading lots of good stuff. The answer is in all kinds of search shuffles I guess. SS definitely has some kind of cycles / balancing act for old/newer stuff, and contributors.

Same here, July BME and August 2nd BME across the board. But September seems to be very disappointing so far, plus I only seem to sell old stuff at Shutterstock lately.

lisafx · « **Reply #12 on:** September 11, 2013, 10:46 »

Quote from: sdeva on September 11, 2013, 02:16

Winter is still some months away, but stock sales are falling like snowflakes, with falling RPDs or sales across multiple sites.

What does one do?

a. Keep griping and keep uploading - business as usual !
b. Go exclusive to one agency of choice
c. Be non-exclusive and upload to as many agencies as physically possible to spread income effect
d. Say hasta la vista to microstock and commit effort elsewhere to substitute the income
e. Go independent such as own site or Symbiostock

The best option from the above .. or smthg else...?

I find that I can do A, C, and E all together, with the emphasis still on the "griping".

lisafx · « **Reply #13 on:** September 11, 2013, 10:51 »

Quote from: Firewall on September 11, 2013, 10:13

Same here, July BME and August 2nd BME across the board. But September seems to be very disappointing so far, plus I only seem to sell old stuff at Shutterstock lately.

Interesting. My sales seem to be following the usual pattern of slow summer (slowest on record for me) and starting to improve in September.

Of course $ are still down on previous years, but that's mostly due to pricing and royalty changes. Actual downloads are up for me on most sites.

cthoman · « **Reply #14 on:** September 11, 2013, 11:14 »

Quote from: sdeva on September 11, 2013, 02:16

Winter is still some months away, but stock sales are falling like snowflakes, with falling RPDs or sales across multiple sites.

What does one do?

a. Keep griping and keep uploading - business as usual !
b. Go exclusive to one agency of choice
c. Be non-exclusive and upload to as many agencies as physically possible to spread income effect
d. Say hasta la vista to microstock and commit effort elsewhere to substitute the income
e. Go independent such as own site or Symbiostock

The best option from the above .. or smthg else...?

I'm going to say a little bit from each column.

stockastic · « **Reply #15 on:** September 11, 2013, 11:35 »

The answer is 'D'. I've made a couple of sales on FAA so far.

The real issue with microstock is our certainty that the future will be worse than the past. We know that our payments are only going to be cut, and cut again, and that our work will be increasingly pushed through fake storefronts like TS and BS (really just lower priced brands, avoiding the appearance of royalty cuts). For the stuff I do, it might take years for images to pay off. So to really justify doing microstock I need to have some faith in the future. And I don't.

Looking 2 or 3 years in the future, I see nothing but bargain basement outlets, free image downloads from sites that think they're going to make it on ads, and of course Google, giving it all away to everyone on the planet.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #16 on:** September 11, 2013, 11:37 »

Nice clean, functional, good looking site design and the section for FAA is good too. Nice collection there.

How's your Symbiostock going? Any sales? Still like the "Free Trade" label on artist operated sites. I'll be forced to steal that one.

Quote from: Ron on September 11, 2013, 02:28

My sales are better then ever. Shutterstock has put some nitro in my port. 123 is performing well. Symbiostock is picking up. FAA keeps earning for me.

Ron · « **Reply #17 on:** September 11, 2013, 11:44 »

kentannenbaum · « **Reply #18 on:** September 12, 2013, 05:49 »

I'm sure this is covered but can't find it.

Is there any value or purpose whatsoever in deleting once decent selling images that are now buried and re-uploading them after awhile?

Thanks.

Perry · « **Reply #19 on:** September 12, 2013, 05:59 »

Quote from: sdeva on September 11, 2013, 02:16

a. Keep griping and keep uploading - business as usual !
b. Go exclusive to one agency of choice
c. Be non-exclusive and upload to as many agencies as physically possible to spread income effect
d. Say hasta la vista to microstock and commit effort elsewhere to substitute the income
e. Go independent such as own site or Symbiostock

My sales are also falling (Now I understand why this season is called "Fall"

)
I will do all the above except d.

a. This is my main storyline, uploading and griping
b. I would like to make some exclusive shoots. My favorite choice would be Stocksy, but I haven't heard from them yet... Going totally exclusive makes no sense in this turbulent industry.
c. I have been doing this for years, and will continue. If I find out a new site with easy upload and at least some sales I will upload there...
d. Not quitting yet, the trend is down, but maybe there will be a end-of-year boost... and some sites are doing well.
e. Very interested in creating a Symbiostock site for some of my more special images (and also the regular ones). I just don't know where to get the time to do that...

lightphoto · « **Reply #20 on:** September 13, 2013, 12:21 »

Visit the tropics! I get steady sales from my Puerto Rico and Costa Rica images all year long, but especially heading into winter. I have another spot that sells well as the weather gets colder, but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag on that one just yet!

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Author Topic: Winter of our discontent (Read 4760 times)

sdeva

Ron

sdeva

Pilens

BaldricksTrousers

Ron

Beppe Grillo

Ron

topol

Beppe Grillo

Red Dove

Firewall

lisafx

lisafx

cthoman

stockastic

Uncle Pete

Ron

kentannenbaum

Perry

lightphoto

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