How big is your port ? how many sales do you have per month ?
For us it was a great month. BME actually...

How big is your port, Aeonf?
It's been a lousy month for me, too, and not just because of the pay cut.
But what can I expect from an agency with a broken site?

Not only a broken site, which remained broken over the New Year and Christmas, but a poor management team. I feel they have peaked as a site and for the first time in 6 years I'm starting to put together an exit strategy.
I like to keep my anonymity so don't want to discuss my canister level, sorry.

I'd like to answer that but it might narrow down who I might be! I like the freedom to express an opinion now and then.

It's been a bad month with istock but I stopped uploading when they announced the commission cuts months ago.  I don't mind seeing lower sales there. if it means people are buying more of my images on the other sites.

I really don't miss their time consuming upload procedure and I still don't like the new site layout, so I visit the site a lot less often than I used to.  It's a real shame, I put up with 20% commission and quite enjoyed working with istock but that all changed and now I don't see me being with them at all in the future, unless there's a big change.

 

Quote from: aeonf on January 29, 2011, 05:46

I didn't imply a thing, just asking a question that has much relevance.... if you drop from 50$ to 25$ your data doesnt really mean anything. if you are in the top 200 then your data has has very much validity to it!

Our port (we are a team of 2) consists of over 1,700 images, we had 262 downloads to date in January (and counting), and expect to reach ~800$ this month, partially because of 2 EL's and 2 refferals.

Vlad: did you drop a canister ?

NOTE: forgive me for any spelling mistakes.

I'm not sure what you mean by "your data doesn't really mean anything." For that contributor, using your example, his sales would have dropped 50%. No?

In order for any of you to be able to discuss your stats, you need to step out from behind the great wizard curtain and show your ports and size. You don't want to do that, you don't have much right to put somebody else down for being anonymous. I say that with all the love in my heart. 

What i mean is simple, it is a very basic rule in statistics, the lower the number of samples the lower the data has any statistical meaning, thats it. I have no intention of putting anyone down, but in real life who you are and what's your track record does have a great significance.

With all due respect to the speedometer, it also is quite biased for a few reassons:

1. In our case for example we started our MS business on march 2010. even if we are very very efficient and proffesional it will take us time to built a port and sales to add up. I publish our numbers so everyone can see what our data is worth or not (unless anybody thinks we are lying...).

2. Some people here are old timers. the fact you sold 10,000 photos 5+ years ago doesnt mean much today. it is CURRENT DATA and figures which count, not pre-historic ones. In this example someones speedometer might be maxed out but with much much less current sales then us (with our speedometer being very low).

3. some people with very high figures (vlad_the_imp for example) don't even use it. I value their opinion much more then others simply because they are "high-rollers" .

2. Some people here are old timers. the fact you sold 10,000 photos 5+ years ago doesnt mean much today. it is CURRENT DATA and figures which count, not pre-historic ones. In this example someones speedometer might be maxed out but with much much less current sales then us (with our speedometer being very low).

Frankly, mate, your sales tally for the month is pathetic given the number of images you have online ant that you are exclusive. I'm way ahead of you despite being independent. I'm probably ahead of you on iStock this month on a sales-per-image basis, too, even though this month sucks and a lot of my stuff is old. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

My extrapolated jan 2011 revenues are down 8% from jan 2010. In five years, It's the first time that my revenues for the first month is down.

I supposed part of it is due to the big royalty change, which may have sent some contributor-buyers away, and part due to the basically inexistant january price increase, which we had in the last 5 years.

Like the OP said, depressing January...  I guess it gonna be a depressing year too for Istock contributors.

PS: My royalty level there didn't changed..

It was depressing at the beginning of January but now it's ok. It's not my BME but Jan usually is my worst month of the year.

I have increased my port by 50% in 2010. My income of Jan 2011 has increased by 200% comparing to Jan 2010. It seems that E+ sales helped.

Quote from: aeonf on January 29, 2011, 09:27

2. Some people here are old timers. the fact you sold 10,000 photos 5+ years ago doesnt mean much today. it is CURRENT DATA and figures which count, not pre-historic ones. In this example someones speedometer might be maxed out but with much much less current sales then us (with our speedometer being very low).

Frankly, mate, your sales tally for the month is pathetic given the number of images you have online ant that you are exclusive. I'm way ahead of you despite being independent. I'm probably ahead of you on iStock this month on a sales-per-image basis, too, even though this month sucks and a lot of my stuff is old. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

I am satisfied with my sales, we have a double digit growth (in %) from month to month and that is what counts for me.
in contrary to what you think, I am not in any contest with you or anyone else here (pissing or otherwise).
I wish you the best of luck, big earnings and may you be the next Yuri for all I cares, despite your foul language.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on January 29, 2011, 13:39

Frankly, mate, your sales tally for the month is pathetic given the number of images you have online ant that you are exclusive. I'm way ahead of you despite being independent. I'm probably ahead of you on iStock this month on a sales-per-image basis, too, even though this month sucks and a lot of my stuff is old. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

I am satisfied with my sales, we have a double digit growth (in %) from month to month and that is what counts for me.
in contrary to what you think, I am not in any contest with you or anyone else here (pissing or otherwise).
I wish you the best of luck, big earnings and may you be the next Yuri for all I cares, despite your foul language.

I must have missed something.  Personally I don't object to foul language, but I don't see any in Balderick's post...