When I started, I applied and uploaded to every site that let me in.  I didn't (and still don't) see the logic of just starting with one, gathering data, and doing all your homework before you decide where to sign up next... why not be selling everywhere you can during that time? 

Sure, your particular port might sell 1X at site A, 2X at site B, and 3X at site C, but where's the logic in leaving out site A, unless your numbers are so low that it doesn't justify the effort in uploading (I recently made that decision on CRE and VEER). 

So my advice: send to every agency (at least the 7 that matter, and to me those are SS, IS, DT, FT, BigStock, CAN, 123) and if you determine some aren't worth the effort, axe them.

It's been BME after BME for me at Dreamstime, but then, I still have a fairly young port (started about 15 months ago).  The new pricing and levels seems to have helped me a great deal.  Looking at the revenue and sales stats on DT's own chart, my sales are steadily going up slightly each month, but the revenue growth is increasing by a greater amount, suggesting my pics are increasing in levels and earning more RPI each month.

Quote from: Elenathewise on March 23, 2010, 16:45
But then how come this wasn't a problem before?

Could it be that FT's (and other agencies for that matter) needs have changed over time?  When you originally submitted shots in the same subjects, they were accepted because they were needed.  Now your skills have advanced and your shots may be better, but FT might have decided that they are oversaturated in those topics and they (rightly or wrongly) feel they have more supply than their customers will ever demand.

My own experience with FT has been unchanged for the past 15 months or so... they've consistently accepted about 90-95% of my uploads... but then, they might just feel that they're not quite saturated in my core subjects just yet... but I imagine that day is certainly coming.

I've only been on GL since last Friday, and I'm a fan already.

Submitting is the easiest of ANY site out there.

I got a sale immediately on Friday, and though I was afraid it might be a fluke, I got another on Sunday.  A total of $5.20 for a Friday afternoon thru Sunday afternoon... beats many of the middle and bottom tier sites as far as I'm concerned.

High hopes for this one!

Definitely a spike in sales for March.  I've done $58 this month, mostly thanks to an extended license sale on March 8.

Total port size is 479, though I haven't uploaded there in about 6 months.  If the current sales continue, I may start up again, but I still have a bad taste in my month from the inconsistent bulk rejections... one group of pics passes with no problems, but a similar batch gets thrown out entirely for not being what they're looking for. 

Interesting point from sharply_done.  I've always known that new images get a boost, but figured that was mainly due to appearing at the top of searches when the default is Show Newest First.  I wasn't aware that the microstocks are actually engineering a boost for new images at the expense of old ones.  Is this conjecture or confirmed fact?

Anyway, this is exactly the kind of info that keeps a rookie like me frequenting these forums.  Thanks, sharply -- and other veterans who have figured out how this stuff works -- for sharing your knowledge.

Quote from: stockastic on March 19, 2010, 16:16
Are you saying you got 500 through that web interface? Or did they give you FTP access?

I emailed them to ask for FTP access, just as they suggest on their site, and got it within a few hours.

I went back this morning expecting I'd have to do something to formally submit them, but I saw they were (almost) all approved.

Couldn't be easier!

I uploaded about 500 images yesterday, they got approved sometime yesterday or last night (only a few rejected for being duplicates -- whoops!), and this morning I have my first sale -- $2.60.  Very promising!

Quote from: gostwyck on March 19, 2010, 15:46
it is the age of the images that cause the decline.

I know what you're saying... but unless an image looks dated, why should its age cause its decline?   I know, you mean that competition for a given image will increase over time, and that will drive down its sales.  But if you have the best image (for a given search) today, and it somehow manages to still be the best image in three years, I can't see a buyer saying "that's three years old, I can't buy that."   (We can probably agree that the age effect likely has less impact on illustrations, where you don't have to worry about things like a model's clothes or computer equipment looking dated.)

I know I'm still a rookie at this, and can't dispute the experience of those who have been at this a long time.  I'm sure I'll eventually see the effects that gostwyck is describing.  They just haven't happened yet.  (My top sellers today are two of my oldest pics -- 14 months old, and I'm in my 15 month at this.)

Quote from: loop on March 19, 2010, 15:13
The more variatons of the theme you have, the more you would (potentially) sell.

Sure, a designer might be looking for a handshake shot at a specific angle or with a certain color background.  But once you cover the bases... say with a dozen or so great handshake shots with different angles and colors... it's best to move on to an in-demand topic not covered by your port.  It doesn't help you if a designer has narrowed his options down to 5 great handshake pics and 3 of them are yours.  You'll only get 1 potential sale.  You might think you'd eventually run out of subjects, but you'd be wrong.  By the time you think you've covered it all and are tempted to upload more handshake shots, there should be emerging topics to cover... just read the headlines and follow business websites for new ideas.

I'm in month 15 and have not hit the wall.  It's been slow and steady growth, outpacing the goals I set for myself when I began.  I see no signs of growth slowing down yet... in fact my RPI today is higher than it was in month 5 or month 10.  That's the key factor to watch... if your RPI is consistent, you can expect every additional image to earn a certain amount and can forecast growth, but if RPI decreases, you're simply replacing old images that no longer sell with new images that hopefully will.   My strategy for avoiding "the wall" is to constantly find new subjects and don't duplicate what I've already done.  If you oversaturate a subject, you'll simply steal sales from yourself.  But if you upload quality images to many different in-demand subjects, I think you can put off the flattening of growth for some time.  It's worked for me so far, anyway.

BME, beating last month's BME by about 10%. 

Slow but steady growth on the Big 4, while the others are treading water (but who really cares... they're becoming less and less important to me every day). 

(I'm not on DepositPhotos, so I have no upload bonus skewing my numbers... I still see that as a lot of work for just $100.)

Quote from: lisafx on March 17, 2010, 22:43
@ Tom, I am on 7 sites, down from 9 after dropping Crestock and Veer.  But the only ones that produce any kind of steady returns are the top 4.   

+1.  Exact same answer.

I joined last month as well.  My intention is to do Kiva loans once a month, using the microstock revenues of my highest day of the past 30 days. 

I hated it at first, but now I don't see it as much worse than the previous system.

But I'm finding a glitch... about 5 to 10% of the time, when I select an image to edit, the screen goes darker while it loads the data, and I get the spinning wheel forever.  I'll reload the page and try the same image again with the same results.  Not sure if it's something in my meta data that is triggering the glitch, but it seems to only happen on certain images.  Anyone else seeing this?

As another relative newbie (microstocking just under 1.5 years) my experience matches joingate's.   About 8 to 10 hours a week, due to family and the full time job, and microstock is now about 1/3 of my income.  Having the same difficulty building up a decent iStock port due to the upload limits and their strictness.  But in answer to the question in the title of this thread, count me in the YES column.

Why is this a new vs. old contributor argument?  Looks like it's simply based on acceptance ratio.  Mine has been around 90% since I started contributing at DT just over a year ago, so it applies to me.  Of course, I only submit 2 or 3 a day, so it won't affect me.  I see this as a good thing.

Quote from: Dook on March 12, 2010, 20:06
Sunday is better than Saturday.

When my port was small, I generally saw higher Sundays than Saturdays, but my numbers were all over the map and thus less reliable to deliver meaningful insights.  As time went on and my numbers became more predictable, I saw a pattern emerge that Saturdays are better than Sundays as a rule.  But that's just me.

My OD downloads for Mar 1 - 12 are a bit higher than I had Feb 1 -12.

Quote from: melastmohican on March 12, 2010, 19:02
My only questions is how much sales are coming from rest of the world?

That's another interesting point... about how much of your daily sales have happened by the time you wake up?  Of course, if you're in the US, this reflects sales in Europe, Africa and Asia.  For me, when I check my numbers at 7 am ET, about 30% of my daily sales have already happened.

Also, something I've seen as a general rule... whatever sales I have at 1:00 pm ET, I can double it and that's a good guess for where the day will end up.

Thought it would be interesting to have a thread in which we share trends we have noticed as we track our ports.

It's hard to see trends if you have a small port.  But as my port has grown, I've seen consistent trends emerge and thought I'd share them to see if you spot the same trends in your port.  Some if it is common sense stuff... others, chalk them up to "interesting observations."

(Of course, there are anomalies like EL sales that can throw everything off, but the bigger your port and overall sales, the less wildly an EL or two will throw off your numbers.)

- Sunday is worst day of week for sales   -   I know, DUH!   I used to think it was a toss-up between Sat and Sun, but as my port has grown and overall sales reached a certain level, I now see it as a rule... Sun is typically about 20% lower than Sat... at least, for me.)

- Friday is worst weekday  -  For a while I thought Mondays were also slow, but with the previous two Mondays each reaching BDE levels, I now see Mon - Thurs as about equal in sales, and Fri about 25% lower than the weekday average.

- The weekend begins around noon ET on Friday  -  I've seen this each Friday for the last few months... Friday mornings are a bit weaker than other weekdays, then there's a pronounced falloff in activity after about noon (ET time in the eastern US).

- "Siesta time" each weekday from about 1 to 3 pm ET  -  I guess I'm really showing how worn down my F5 key is!  I think there's a definite fall-off in buying activity during the early afternoon hours.  North American workers don't really take siestas, so maybe it's just extended lunches?  But I routinely see things pick up in late afternoon and slowly taper off.

- Buying slows/stops around 8 pm ET.  I'll still see some sales at night, but I definitely see the faucet shutting off right around 8 pm.  This could be the west coast of the US calling it a day at 5 pm their time.

Do you see the same trends?  What else do you see?

Quote from: disorderly on March 12, 2010, 18:04
Interestingly, I'm seeing 123 outperform both DT and Ftl by a significant margin this month; be curious to see if it holds up.  

Really?  I don't think I'll ever see a day when 123 will outperform DT and FT, at least for my port.  My March totals so far for DT and FT are each 6 to 8x my 123 total.  My BDE on 123 was $25 some time ago, and that would be a below average day on DT and FT.

For me, CanStockPhoto is 3x my 123 total this month.

BigStock has been stagnant but seems to be picking up a bit of steam since the redesign.

Very interesting... I'll definitely be looking into this.  Benchmarking my success with other microstockers is the main reason I visit this forum, so I see real value in this concept.  Currently I use Google spreadsheets to enter and track all my stats, and it has its pluses and minuses.  So when I dig deeper into Microstock Charts, I'll be doing a comparison to see which method works best for me.

Lee, thanks for your efforts!

Maybe this is an isolated case.  Just checked my last several months of uploads and I've had 1 rejection out of about 150 submissions.  Slightly better success rate than I'm having at most the other sites...  I've always had the impression that 123's standards are a bit looser than the others.