I understand you make money with direct, ok but i wonder How is ratio according your shutterstock etc. sellings. Can anybody make same ratio by direct sellings according to shutterstock, istock etc. 5-10 downloads are nothing in a month as you can appreciate.

Actually, I think 5-10 downloads per month is a pretty good start for a new site. If you are making $10-$20 per download, those can add up fast. You could quickly cover your start-up costs and start earning money.

It would be hard to expect the same quantity of downloads you get on a larger site to start out. Unless you are Yuri, most of us don't have a set of existing customers. You have to get them the old fashioned (or is it new fashioned way), Google and other search engines.

It takes time to build traffic, and traffic equals customers. I'm definitely not an SEO or site building expert though, so I'm sure other people can build traffic a lot quicker than me.

I'm concerned that SS are going to become too dominant and they will be concentrating so much on increasing profits that we will end up getting the same treatment we've had from several other sites.  But there's nothing I can do about it and anyone that thinks we have any power is fooling themselves.  After seeing how the vast majority carried on uploading to istock after they cut commissions below 20%, I just hope that SS don't eventually end up doing the same.

I have to say that I have similar concerns. There is the thought in the back of my head that they will eventually become this massive crowdsourced juggernaut where nobody gets a big enough slice to earn anything except SS.

As far as not being able to do anything about it, I disagree. While you will never shut down a site just by leaving (someone will always upload there), I do notice that buyers do seem to follow content. Not because of some loyalty to the artist, but they just find it. That's been my experience with leaving sites anyway. When you eliminate a site, another one tends to rise up.

Doesn't look like there is any reason it isn't real. SS seems like they are interested in reaching out to their contributors for their opinions and to get to know them, so this looks like an extension of that. Nice gesture. I say go and grab a free meal. 

Revenue per download = $    2.26

So assuming everyone gets 38 cents per download we're officially at 16% commission?

 

It's more like 30% or $.67 a download. That's about what I average. Still not great though.

$204-208 millions projection for 2013... that means one thing: increased sales and revenue ( even at the same commissions ).

Or just smaller slices of a larger pie. 

Sooooo....where is our raise?

I doubt there will be a raise anytime soon.

Quote from: nicku on November 13, 2012, 15:58

SS - slow at the beginning of nov. but the last two days were fantastic with consistant EL's and big SOD's.....biggest disappointment is FT  this month( my 2nd earner ).

Same here __ sales at SS have been going ballistic for the last couple of days, particularly those chunky SOD's. I think I am currently having my BDE there and there's still quite a few hours to go too!

Me three. Lots of Single sales and OD. It does make me wonder what would happen if you just turned off sub sales. And before anyone yells at me... It's just a random musing or curiosity and not a suggestion.

Quote from: cthoman on November 12, 2012, 21:26

I'm just happy I can finally put a link to my website. I'm sure that has cost me some money over the years in lost freelance work. It's shocking that it took them this long to implement that.

Not really. Their job as your agent was to sell your work via their own portal rather than promote your own which excludes them.

Their job is to make money for themselves. I'm just a not-so-necessary evil. 

Maybe you should only submit to the ones you haven't hit to wall with and then you can change your answer to no. 

That's actually exactly what I've been doing, and I did check no. Overall, things have been growing, but I still share the pessimism many long time contributors have about the microstock industry (especially the major players).

For me, assembly line working means to do things in batches.  Do a shoot, pick the 50 or so shots then keyword all shots at 'once', then spend a day editing everything - instead of picking one image then keywording and editing that one image and THEN moving onto the next one.

The other option is to outsource which I do a lot.  You can get people to edit your images or keywordword them or both.. if you are comfortable letting go of some part of the process it is an easy way to up your production.

That's basically what I meant. Doing things in batches to save time. Some of that goes hand in hand with planning things out in advance. Also, creating action scripts and other automated processes that you are going to use over and over again.

Better late than never. It only took them a few years to implement my suggestion. 

Regardless, a good feature that was much needed. It will be interesting to see what they came up with.

Ktools is a good solution for opening a site. As others said, CMS will work too (I haven't used it though). Neither are perfect, but they are probably the best solutions out there. You could also look into the hosting ones like Photoshelter, Avid Images or Photodeck. I think all those are still around. There are a lot of options out there. There is a thread somewhere with all of them.

I have to agree with Sean though, Ktools isn't that expensive if you are planning to make some money with your personal site. Running a site can be some work and requires some dedication, so, while I think everyone should have their own site, if you aren't planning on putting in that time, effort and money to have success... I would say don't bother doing it. That's not a knock on anyone. I just understand it's not for everyone.

Interesting question. I bailed on learning more Flash when iStock announced their redeemed credits, but animated gifs might be a nice side venture.