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Quote from: sjlocke on June 24, 2010, 07:21And if they don't, they don't, and if they do, they do, and one number divided by another isn't going to change that. You just do the best you can do and gauge the result on how successful you are per month (or whatever time length you enjoy).Abso-blimmin-lutely! Life's too short for all the stress involved in meeting or not meeting suppositions. I much prefer to deal with what is.
And if they don't, they don't, and if they do, they do, and one number divided by another isn't going to change that. You just do the best you can do and gauge the result on how successful you are per month (or whatever time length you enjoy).
When I submit more images to the ms sites, it's because I have an expectation that they will earn me money. I know they will earn money because I know my RPI.
It gives you some confidence that unless significant factors change, you can increase your output and your revenue will increase at a constant rate. This has been true for me after nearly two years in microstock, so it is encouraging and helpful for me to track it.
On the flip side, wouldn't it be extremely interesting to know that after a significant amount of time, your RPI held steady at a constant number? That's a valuable piece of information! It gives you some confidence that unless significant factors change, you can increase your output and your revenue will increase at a constant rate. This has been true for me after nearly two years in microstock, so it is encouraging and helpful for me to track it.
Quote from: PowerDroid on June 28, 2010, 07:10On the flip side, wouldn't it be extremely interesting to know that after a significant amount of time, your RPI held steady at a constant number? That's a valuable piece of information! It gives you some confidence that unless significant factors change, you can increase your output and your revenue will increase at a constant rate. This has been true for me after nearly two years in microstock, so it is encouraging and helpful for me to track it. Nope. I imagine that most of us who don't bother with RPI can simply see that dividing one number into another doesn't actually tell you anything. When you've been doing this for a while longer you will probably come to the same conclusion. Monthly earnings is all that really matters and you will soon find that the most significant factor in earnings is the season. When you have a mature portfolio, say 4 years +, you'll almost certainly find your RPI will shoot up and down according to the season. If you are struggling to pay your mortgage one month what do you think your bank manager is going to be interested in? A nice spreadsheet showing the seasonal variation of earnings over each year ... or your RPI?
Monthly earnings is all that really matters and you will soon find that the most significant factor in earnings is the season. When you have a mature portfolio, say 4 years +, you'll almost certainly find your RPI will shoot up and down according to the season. If you are struggling to pay your mortgage one month what do you think your bank manager is going to be interested in? A nice spreadsheet showing the seasonal variation of earnings over each year ... or your RPI?
So focusing on RPI to the exclusion of other factors could actually have a negative affect on overall income.
Another analogy... you own a business and hire employees. Don't you want to know how productive each employee is, or do you just care about the bottom line and not how you got to it. "Well, I got to my revenue goal last month, but I don't care if 10 employees were super productive and the other 90 were dead weight." Or "I hired another 20 employees and still hit the same monthly revenue as last year, but I'm happy with that number, so I don't care." You should want to know that as you hire more employees your bottom line increases by a significant number, or you wouldn't devote the resources to bringing on more workers.
Back to the microstock world... if you put in 20 hour days for a solid month, and the end result was that you made $100 more than the same month last year, are you thrilled simply because you made more? I suspect you'd only be happy if the revenue increase was proportional to the amount of extra effort you put into it. That's when RPI is helpful.
QuoteBack to the microstock world... if you put in 20 hour days for a solid month, and the end result was that you made $100 more than the same month last year, are you thrilled simply because you made more? I suspect you'd only be happy if the revenue increase was proportional to the amount of extra effort you put into it. That's when RPI is helpful.And again, it wouldn't really matter, because you put in the best work you could, and what happened happened.
To me, saying I don't want to see RPI is like saying I want less information. The people who succeed in ms, as well as any other part of life, are those who collect as much useful information as they can, but more importantly, know how to use it to their advantage.
Quote from: PowerDroid on June 28, 2010, 10:48To me, saying I don't want to see RPI is like saying I want less information. The people who succeed in ms, as well as any other part of life, are those who collect as much useful information as they can, but more importantly, know how to use it to their advantage.This argument looks very familiar, but your wasting your breath. For me it was like they were trying to tell me that math doesn't exist. I had a sad look and thought, "but the numbers... they're numbers. Don't you see."I guess everyone is entitled to run their business in their own way. No matter how much it hurts my robot brain.
So look at my example, I had over 5000 images on DT and I deleted more than 2500, so my RPI went through the roof. That happened because I deleted the images that had no sales. But that doesn't mean anything to my income, I did not collect any more money than before and I am not going to. Actually, this may even hurt my income in the long run. But as I said, my RPI is now very high.
Lisa, gostwyck and sjlocke are right.
So it is good to know your RPI to compare past earnings to current ones. However, my monthly income is the only thing I look at. If you track your hours and monthly income, that will tell you how much you are making per hour. But again, the next month will be totally different and you can't use this to predict your future income.
You mentioned that RPI tells you to stop uploading to some agencies, I don't need the RPI to tell me that, if I see no income, I will quit that agency on my own. So this is very simple, without spending days, or even months, to calculate your RPI accurately.
For the last few months, I've been averaging sales of around $120.00 on iStock each month. So far, this month, I've only had sales of $38.00.Is it just me, or are there others who are experiencing a downturn in sales?