Quote from: jremick on July 04, 2012, 00:55

Hi stockastic,

Part of the reason for this policy is due to withdraw fees. However, if you would like to re-enable your account so you can spend your account credit on the marketplaces, you can contact our support department and they would be happy to take care of this for you. (You can simply respond to the same ticket created when you requested to have your account closed.)

Thanks! :-)

Rather than all this hoop-jumping over a few dollars, I suggest just deducting an "account closing fee" and paying out the balance at closing.

+1.  And wouldn't the withdrawal fees be the same now as compared to a year from now anyway?  I can understand waiting a year with an active account, but not with a closed account.

Depends on the image for me. 

RF goes to all the micros I'm still willing to upload to, as well as Alamy.  I also use them for POD products at Zazzle, Art of Business Cards, and RedBubble.

Most editorial goes to Alamy, but occasionally I will send SS and DT images if I think the subject is hot enough.

I also send my rejects and sub-par images to Alamy as RM, which has resulted in some of my highest paying sales.  Just because an image isn't good enough for print as is, doesn't mean it isn't good for something.  Buyers of these images typically cut out portions they want to add to an overall composition and they don't need a perfect shot for their purposes.  One of these ugly shots has actually earned me more money than all the other shots from that day's shoot combined.     

Okay...now that I've had a chance to wake up n' join the living, here's my breakdown:

#1 SS: No ELs for the 2nd month in a row, which hasn't happened since they first initiated the program.  Beginning to wonder if there is a problem with reporting, so if I don't have one by the 9th (marking 3 months since my last EL), I'm going to contact them to find out.  April was my worst month in a long time due to a sudden drop in ODs, which improved enough in May to increase my earnings by 10%.  However, compared to my BME of the year, SS was still down by 33%.

#2 IS: Up 35% from May.  Down 26% from BME 2012.  Down 64% from BME overall.  0 ELs.  April Thinkstock earnings were down 20% from March, down 23% from BME 2012, and down 58% from overall BME.  Looks like they are expanding the database faster then they are getting customers, because earnings have steadily been going downhill since my BME in May 2011.  If trends continue, more than likely I earned less in May than in April.

#3 BigStock: BME.  Up 29% from May.  Up 6% from BME 2012 (which was also overall BME). 1 EL.

#4 DT:  Down 49% from May.  Down 66% from BME 2012 (which was also overall BME). 0 ELs.

#5 123RF: Up 21% from May.  Down 13% from BME 2012.  Down 39% from overall BME.  0 ELs.

#6 Fotolia: See previous post for comments.  Down 55% w/o EL from April; with EL down 25% (no EL in April).  Down 81% w/o EL from BME of 2012; with EL down 52% (no EL in 2012 BME)  Down 90% w/o EL from BME overall; with EL down 80% (no EL in BME overall).  Worst month since September 2007.

#7 StockXpert/Thinkstock: Down 13% from May.  Down 37% from BME 2012 (which was also my overall TS BME).  Down 83% from StockXpert's heyday before Getty destroyed them.  Worst month since September 2006.  

#8 All the rest.  I only add payments received from my remaining sites to my spreadsheet, instead of tracking them every month.  Payment received from Mostphotos.

Alamy was down 76%, but that's only because May was a BME with all sales over $100.  June had the same number of sales, but with much lower royalties.  Overall trend continues seeing an increase in the number of sales.

POD sites remain steady.  RedBubble has officially picked up speed, and I've had multiple sales every month since July 2011 with a portfolio around 250.  Sales used to be practically non-existent.  Art of Business Cards is also steady and earned more than Fotolia.  On pace to double my yearly earnings despite not adding any new cards this year.  Zazzle has remained steady, but I expect to start seeing increases soon as I've quadrupled my available products.  Takes a few months for new stuff to start selling regularly.        

I'll write a complete report later after I get up for the day (still the middle of the night here), but in the meantime I wanted to share my disasterous Fotolia numbers.

Even with an EL sale, this was my worst month since Fotolia made its first major search engine tweek back in September 2007, which had more than doubled my earnings.  And thanks to the EL, I did reach payout level in May, but I would not have reached it without the EL.  That hasn't happened since August 2007.  Ugh.

Down 55% w/o EL from April; with EL down 25% (no EL in April)
Down 81% w/o EL from BME of 2012; with EL down 52% (no EL in 2012 BME)
Down 90% w/o EL from BME overall; with EL down 80% (no EL in BME overall)

Part of the decrease can be explained by losing referral income.  All of my referrals hit their five-year limit this year, so those earnings no longer exist.  One of those referrals brought in a decent chunk of my monthly income, so his loss really hurts.  But...losing my referrals doesn't explain everything.  I also haven't uploaded in two years, which we now know affects our search placement.    

IS removes questionable images all the time.  My latest was an image with a guy holding a vintage microphone extended out towards the viewer.  IS claimed I used a certain type of microphone with a copyrighted design, which I didn't.  I purposely bought a cheap, generic, no-name Chinese knock-off microphone for that very reason.  I contested the removal, but IS didn't budge.  It didn't matter to them what I used.  All that mattered was it looked similar to the microphone they referenced.

2. This common sense approach to uploading doesn't explain the sudden cliff we all fell off a few months ago at FT, unless FT just rolled out this "constant uploading" algo recently.  I suspect there's something else that would account for many of us (especially Emeralds) getting knocked down all at once.

Agreed.  I can't imagine what's at work to explain why my earnings have dropped 80%...yes, 80%...since March.   

Quote from: luissantos84 on June 24, 2012, 20:04

Quote from: Allsa on June 24, 2012, 19:49

Quote from: heywoody on June 24, 2012, 18:05

You can see a summary of PP sales for each image by clicking on "partner program" under "my uploads" on the left of your profile page

I checked and I could see my Partner program download numbers for each image, but I still can't find out any info on how much money I've earned in the PP. Are PP earnings paid out separately, or are they included in the total of my IS earnings?

they are in the total of your IS earnings, on the usual charts with green color

The charts show blue (IS) and yellow (EL), but I've never seen any green (PP) on the earnings bar graph. Maybe it's some sort of error I need to contact IS about.

Did you go back one month and look at May?  PP sales are current as of May 31.  June's PP sales haven't been reported yet, and won't start being reported until mid-July.  May's reporting just finished up this past weekend.

overall I am earning about the same, but it has been made up from others. FT this year is 50% per month of any month pre december last year.
I had hit overall rank 403, now it is 477 with seven day at 2130 (it has been over 2000 most of this year). Seems like some people are still making money but...

No fair...those used to be my normal rankings!!!     Now I'm 823 and 4,420.

Then again...I quit uploading to Fotolia two years ago, so I'm probably being punished. 

Quote from: Karimala on June 20, 2012, 15:44

Go to your Inbox.  There's a button where you can send Fotolia an email.

read his topic

Oops.  LOL     

No problems here.  But I do notice that in the US, Fotolia tends to go down at night.

Another great book is Photo Idea Index by Jim Krause.  The title says it all.  It's a book filled with photo ideas!

Quote from: Karimala on June 17, 2012, 14:53

Wow.  I just noticed that Art of Business Cards, Mostphotos and Red Bubble are each earning more than Fotolia for me this month!  Even the t-shirt printing company I only started submitting to in mid-April has earned more!    That's seriously pathetic.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that.

While DT doesn't perform good for me either it doesn't say much when you compare POD sites to microstock agencies.

Even AOB doesn't say much about your photography skills as long as you are a great designer. I wish I had more time for the AOB but I already figured I'm not that much of a designer - given the sales I have there. So I focus on other (easier to handle) PODs like Zazzle and Cafepress.

These do take a lot of my time but it's still worth it.

Okay then...BigStock and 123RF, which over the years have always battled for 5th place and have never come close to earning as much as my top 4, have each earned more than Fotolia.  At BigStock, my earnings are triple this month what they are at Fotolia.  Mostphotos, which has never broken into my top 6, is about equal to Fotolia this month.  That's how bad Fotolia is doing.  For the first time in six years, it's not even looking like I'm going to reach payout this month!     I'm used to earning at least a payout per week!

My POD stuff is the same as what's on the micros and Alamy...I'm not a designer or fine artist by any stretch of the imagination...so that's why I included them.  The point is I've never earned more than $20 dollars at Red Bubble or ABC in any given month, so for them to be earning more than Fotolia this month with significantly smaller portfolios is important info to me.  It shows Red Bubble and ABC continuing to pick up some steam while Fotolia simultaneously implodes, and that products are becoming a viable option at a time when microstock is weakening.