Quote from: heywoody on July 19, 2013, 18:21

Well ahead of FT (in $ if not DLS), more than double 123 but well behind SS (obviously).  It doesn't make sense to moan when a file with 25 dls sells for a 35c sub when we are happy to to take similar or less on other sites for files with hundreds of downloads.  The higher levels are still the ones that sell most often and I'm much happier with pricing based on performance instead of volumes derived simply from massive numbers of images.

What bothers me is that I made more money in November 2006 than I did in November 2012 at DT - their pricing model is working against them instead of for them.

And it's not about the price per sale alone (which is where DT ends up in the weeds) but the monthly total from your portfolio. It's OK to do 38 cent subs at SS (I don't like it but it's OK) because the volume is there. The sites that tried to ape SS forgot about the relationship between price and volume which left us with a few cheapo subs sales in place of the higher return credit sales. When roughly the same portfolio earns me 4 times more at SS than it does at DT, I have to think that DT's pricing is sufficiently annoying that it drives buyers away.

If I recall correctly we were making 50% of each sale back then, now we are making less, so maybe DT is making more, but we are making less. In fact every one of DTs moves that dropped our % that were supposed to help us ended up dropping my income there - it usually recovered in a year of uploading, but it is still frustrating.

I am actually doing ok there this month, on track to be only a little below average (which has been slipping lately too).  People mentioned other sites that aren't performing this month. My last Canstock sale was Jul 3rd and 123RF has been a total dog this month - on track to be less than 1/3 of my average month last year... Weren't they supposed to be doubling our sales or something?

I sold my one image I sold last month again - for less than the sale last month which they returned. So my sale lost me almost 3$. oh well. They certainly were doing better for me around the beginning of the year. Hopefully this is just ebb and flow and not a systemic change.

I am definitely interested, but I would have to do a bunch of up front work plus the image uploading and I definitely can't do that until I have a consistent reasonably fast internet connection and a few weeks to use it. Maybe this fall when a bunch of other things wind down? I also wonder if my portfolio is big and good enough to compensate the up front and recurring costs.

There must have been a search engine change then.  My sales are noticeably slow at SS this month.  I was assuming it was summer slump, but if others are having a good month then it's more likely a search change.

My best seller went from the first page "above the fold" on my laptop screen to page 2 (and sales have plummeted accordingly).

The last 3 weeks have been pretty sad on the "overall earnings" graph.

Wow, they never cease to surprise me.  I expected them to force all the exclusive content into the PP. Although the cynic in me thinks they are going to move it there in some way that they can pay less for a sub sale - maybe move it to Getty and then move Getty stuff to PP.

If they do get all the indy stuff out of IS then they are going to have to squeeze the exclusives harder to get down to their optimal 20% average.

I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop, it always seems to somehow.

this month was pretty sad there. Any increase in sales are not making up for the decrease in percentage.

Mine got reviewed faster than expected and rejected faster than expected. Sure, maybe some deserved it, but isolated objects with almost no blank space around them rejected for composition? Silhouettes rejected for lighting? I wonder if this is courtesy of some new software?

It is a shame because it almost seemed like new images might be selling again.

Quote from: sharpshot on June 21, 2013, 11:42

Quote from: Ron on June 21, 2013, 11:33

Who decides when the pricing is right? I would like to believe thats the buyers who determine when the price is right. In this case the price they think is right is far too low. Thus breaking the business. I agree its about finding the sweet spot.

The buyer mentioned in the OP was complaining about images costing from $70 to $155.  Do you think that's far too low?  I think that's too high for microstock.

That's only for exclusive content, nonexclusive images cost similar amounts on Istock and Shutterstock.  Around $15 at Shutterstock for the largest size, Dreamstime is $8-21 and $17-30 at Istock.  I don't know how most nonexclusives feel now, should Istock lower the prices for their content?  Some people seem angry that they lost their more expensive P+ content and others say they are priced too high, either way it goes someone will say this is the reason Istock is failing.  They are priced too high and too low.  I'm glad the buyer sees some value in exclusive content and if the clients need those images what else can they do but pay, some people will opt to use less perfect images and some will pay.  It depends how badly they want/need the image, remember most people are licensing these images in order to make a profit from them.

As an indy I am not too concerned about the price IS sells my images for as long as they are within or above the range of other sites, what I am concerned with is the amount I get for a sale - the commission %, and IS pays the lowest of the low there. Now with dropping prices I can look forward to even lower $ and lower RC which will lead to even lower %.

I'd much rather sell an image for 5$ and get $2.50 than sell it for $10 and get $1.60 let alone sell it for $1 and get .16

Quote from: gostwyck on June 28, 2013, 17:30

...This evening I am raising a glass (of an excellent Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey) in honour of Jon and his extraordinary success. I hope he goes on to make $10B and also wipe the floor with Getty in the process.

I'll drink to that.

I'm not much of a drinker, so I'll just agree with the sentiment. If a little more falls through the cracks to the artists I won't complain either.

Since IS is now primarily a subs site (at least in my experience the last few months), I'd like to see the subs reported in a timely manner and then be able to get at the $.

Luckily sales are so thin there it is more of a moot point for me anyway.

For me it also doesn�t work. Today, after long, long time (years) I uploaded new files to 123RF using FTP, it was uploaded OK, but I realized that there is no way how to process them so they will appear on 123RF. Or is there?!

On My Upload History page when I click:
FTP Upload: If you have uploaded photos via FTP, click here to process uploaded files.

It leads to 404 not found page.
http://submit.123rf.com/ftpresults.php

When I login to FTP I see all 383 files I uploaded today there.

But is there some way how to process them (copy my files from FTP to "unfinished line" on 123RF website)?

Yes, there is, but off the top of my head I can't remember how I did it. Check the 123RF threads here for a post from someone from the agency explaining it, then try it a bunch of times and if you are lucky like I was you will find the right combination of steps to get them processed. I think I had to do the captcha at least twice in the process. Also what browser you are using might be a problem.

That "chart" doesn't include PP sales or IS sales as far as I can see. In fact I can't see any chart at all.