Why all the nastiness?

Is the OP clickbaiting us?  Absolutely.  Is he actually offering something of value to us?  Absolutely, if you keep an open mind about it.  Sure, some of it may be obvious, but the list is a good summary about trends and styles that are in high demand right now.  Nobody was harmed by looking at it, and in fact it may even influence what you shoot and upload in the near future, whether you want to admit it or not.

The OP is a smart business person, out to boost his business just like all of us are.  I look at this forum to keep tabs on what's happening in the industry, so I'm thankful he put the list together and offered it here.  I didn't sign up for his newsletter, but maybe now I will, just to counter the hate some of the others here are sending his way.

Thanks for posting, Amos.

So far this year, 123RF is my #2 earner (well DT would be, but when I subtract the big Google purchases which were a one-time occurrence for the year, it falls to #3)

Quote from: Cesar on March 03, 2015, 05:21

I think most active  big contributors  surpass BME at least 10-15%, everybody is quiet. 

Most active older big contributors have hit the wall and are seeing diminishing returns. Most active talented newer contributors are seeing increases month on month as their uploads outpace agency growth and the fall in sales of older images, until they also hit the wall a few years down the line.

Exactly.  It's virtually impossible for any veterans with large portfolios that have traditionally sold well to grow their ports at the rate the agencies are growing their collections, so the WALL comes down on us all at some point.  I'm counting my blessings I'm only down a few percentage points vs year ago, even though my portfolio is a good deal larger.

Does the fact that the $2 royalties are being paid out mean that Google (or DST) has finished selecting the images?
If yes, is it "safe" to opt in again?   (the "old" opt-in I mean)

Seems to me that there have been two distinct waves of the sales showing up... mid day on Friday and very early on Saturday... Nothing for the past 12 hours or so. 

So it may be safe to say by now you've missed the boat/narrowly averted catastrophe, depending on your level of paranoia over this.

Its great making 168$ today, but people seem to forget thats the only time they get paid. Once Google is done shopping, you wont see any more $$$ but your images are being used over and over and etc by anyone and everyone for a whole year and you wont get another cent.

Wrong.  In a year W-EL licenses will be purchased for the images.  It will make yesterday's and today's windfalls look tiny.  (And for the record, I've made considerably more than $168 from this deal so far.)

I look at it this way... Google paid $2 per photo to put them in a gallery where its advertisers MIGHT choose them to run in their ads.  I bet a majority of them will never be used.  Maybe some will be used multiple times.  It will probably balance out to maybe a few uses per image.  And then I get W-EL revenue on them a year from now.  (You might scoff and say "We'll see," but so far this deal has played out exactly the way DT told us it would, so we have NO reason to call them liars.)

In the end, people can accuse me of prostituting my images all they want.  Guess what... they're right!  I'm selling rights to my images here, there, everywhere that looks like a good deal to me.  Isn't everyone contributing to microstock a prostitute?  Are you selling your precious images for pennies on several ms sites?   You've accepted subs.  But you've drawn a line here.  Which is fine... microstock is a big gray area, and we all decide when we're being taken advantage of.  All I can say is when I do the math on this deal, and look at how often my images are actually likely to be used, and the fact that these buyers would not have otherwise purchased my images anywhere else, it's clear to me that the rewards FAR outweigh the risks.

Dreamstime.... THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!


Everyone who didn't opt into this should be kicking themselves right now.

PLUS... and this is a Big plus... this is only phase one of the Google deal.  Remember that Google will be buying W-ELs on these (some? all?) about a year from now.  That windfall has the potential to make this one look like peanuts.

Did I say it yet?  Thank you Dreamstime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My definition of the Wall is a bit different.  Elena did a good job of describing most of it, but I'd add that the most important part is the rate of YOUR growth vs the rate of the AGENCIES' growth.  In the beginning, as Elena described, you see fantastic increases in earnings.  Early on you'll be growing your port size by 100% a month, then 95%, then 90% and so forth.  All the while, the agencies may be increasing by just 5% per month.  But at a certain point, your port will be so large that you'll struggle to increase by 5% per month, and when you dip below the agencies' growth, you'll start seeing lower earnings because your overall visibility and exposure to customers will get lower and lower.  That's the mathematical truth.

Artists will work two times harder and make even less money- wondering why they are in this business in the first place ... 

My prediction: the Wall will come down on more people than ever in 2015, making them so depressed about microstock that they will give up.  This will include many hobbyists who earn just a few thousand a year, as well as some of the big contributors who earn (or once earned) six figures. 

People will do the math and realize that they can no longer increase their own ports as quickly (by percentage) as the agencies can, making microstock a losing game once your port hits a certain size.  There's just no way around this math.  In my first few years, I was certain I could beat the Wall.  I was going to work harder, achieve better quality, find better niches than anyone else.  Oh, how deluded I was. 

I'm predicting my own income will fall 20% or so, and my resolution is to find another income stream.  For me, 2014 was the big wake-up call that microstock is not the reliable source of secondary income I hoped might carry me into retirement.  That dream is long gone.  2015 will be the year I resolve to find another income source to get passionate about and reduce the time I waste on this unsustainable numbers game.

Doubled income but I'm a fairly new contributor with just over 5000 photos/clips with 5 agencies. 2014 reached my goals but certainly didn't exceed them. I'm going to spend far more time grooming each image with less emphasis on volume for 2015 and see if I can continue to double my earnings.

It's a nice thought to want to focus on quality over quantity, but microstock is very much a numbers game.  You can create the most gorgeous pics the world has ever seen, but the few you produce will quickly be buried by tens of thousands that are half as good but still "good enough." 

If your goal is to feel artistically fulfilled, by all means make sure every pixel is perfect.  But if you want to earn as much as possible remember that "the perfect is the enemy of the good."

...

Wow, DT rocks!

Hope everyone else is having a "similar" day!

FT had once been my #2 agency, and now they're more like #6.

If I don't like how this plays out, it will cause me little pain to drop FT.

On the other hand, FT sees me as valuable (some of their top people have personally called and emailed me on more than one occasion) so they need me and others at my level to be with them through this transition.

FT's top contributors have a good hand in this game.  If we walk away from the table it will cause them some pain.

Of course, I'm talking like I expect this arrangement to be bad for contributors, and I think it has just as much potential to go the other way.  I'm going to remain optimistic that there's a good upside for me/us in this, but if not, FT/Adobe is hereby on notice that I won't stand by and watch my images given away free to its CC subscribers without adequate compensation to me, and I won't accept a reduction in commissions.  They should play this out very carefully.