Author Topic: 3 months for an image to hit it's stride? (Read 3868 times)

Portia_Remnant · « **on:** March 12, 2008, 18:39 »

This is what I saw recently on the iStock forums as a response to the question why are my sales slow. I asked in their forum what may be the reason the vector images I have on iStock are not selling. I started selling there 5 weeks ago. The same images are on Shutterstock and I've made 250% more money in half the time. I've asked for an explanation for this 3 month time period, but so far no one has replied. Can anybody share their insights?

vonkara · « **Reply #1 on:** March 12, 2008, 18:58 »

Well I don't know really much vectors, but at SS the newer files are up in search while IS best match is set whit downl/month mostly. So if there is no sale in the first month you have to wait that the best match change a bit like it happen lately. I have 4 or 5 of my first old files who have sold lately.

The ones that I won't expect to sold for long are now sorted better in my folio. You can have a look on how your folio is sorted at IS whit the "view portfolio" in your account page. Be sure to have the best match in your search

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #2 on:** March 12, 2008, 19:39 »

There is no magical 3 month period. If your stuff is good, it will be found.

vphoto · « **Reply #3 on:** March 12, 2008, 19:59 »

I have a dozen of backgrounds at iStock and only one began selling immediately. Almost all others did not sell at all. I could not predict that this one will do well. One can predict quality
of images from a particular photographer, but hits are a non predictable thing.

this is a surprise hit for me with 5 dls in less than a month:

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=5431193

Phil · « **Reply #4 on:** March 12, 2008, 21:09 »

personally, there is a lot of luck involved (as well good quality / high demand etc) but I have never heard of 3 months (I also dont do vectors though). I have heard a number of times though that if it dont sell in the first month or two it is pretty much a dead image.

check your keywords, istock allows (and uses phrases) ie "easter eggs" is different from "easter" and "eggs" also have a look at which options are the default disambiguation for what you think would be common search. ie. clicking 'easter eggs' from the frontpage easter advert searches for easter AND eggs but it is using 'eggs' as "eggs human stage" from the disambiguation textboxes rather than "eggs basic food" so the search brings up 194 results rather than a few thousand. IMO this sort of thing is common especially when looking at three options for 'background' etc etc.

Phil

DanP68 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 12, 2008, 22:26 »

Quote from: sjlocke on March 12, 2008, 19:39

There is no magical 3 month period. If your stuff is good, it will be found.

This is true. If anyone wants to get a good idea of how best match really works, sort your portfolio by best match, and then compute the Views/DL ratio for each. The fewer views it takes to get a DL, the higher your position generally in best match. This allows an image to suddenly be found and explode in sales.

This happened for one of my football pictures. It languished for a month with very few views and 0 dl's, then got 2 downloads and shot up the best match search. Within a month it should be getting a flame.

zorki · « **Reply #6 on:** March 12, 2008, 22:30 »

Same here... an image either takes off or languishes and hardly gets downloads. Rarely does something sit for a while then all of a sudden take off.

Portia_Remnant · « **Reply #7 on:** March 13, 2008, 10:38 »

Thanks everyone! I'll keep my eye on the Best Matches.

zorki · « **Reply #8 on:** March 13, 2008, 11:08 »

I've been at this for over three years and SS is definitely geared to new uploads and IS does seem to take weeks before the downloads start to roll in, especially when you are a new uploader. It seems to take months before all the pieces fall into place before you start to see steady downloads.

ludesal · « **Reply #9 on:** March 13, 2008, 11:29 »

In my expirience, IS is slower than SS when you have a small port, but when your port grows IS sales are much better than SS's. But of course... this happened to me, doesn't have to happen to you.