Just for Adobe - to reach 3k a month/36k a year, I would need around 52k downloads at around 70 cents, my current rpd.

So 52k files that each sell at least once a year, or 52 files that each sell 1000 times a year...or something inbetween.

Now usually many files don't sell at all and very, very few will sell reliable 1000 times a year.

At the moment I a trying to create content for very specific and small niches so they hopefully get 1-5 times sales a year. And offer combinations that are hopefully attractive to get a full series download.

If I knew how to create 52 files with 1000 sales each a year...I would do that.

The files will still need two years to really get noticed, lightboxed and eventually used.

Slow process.

But of course I don't want to rely only on Adobe. If I can get a reliable 1500 a month from Adobe, that would be great.

"And from 3 billion only 1000/1500 contributors manage to make a full-time salary?"

No there is a lot more, just from Adobe itself the number with a reliable 3k a month is smaller than expected for images only.

Over all agencies combined, including all the people with high end exclusive material it is much, much more.

But, you rarely see full timers posting earnings on the internet, they are keenly aware of the copy cat problem.

However, the reality is, the people making full time incomes in stock often also make full time income from work for hire or consulting work in marketing.

The vast majority of content uploaded is very mediocre, amateur quality. And duplicates of duplicates of duplicates.

So the "real" and interesting content for customers is a tiny fraction of the content available in the libraries.

If you "filter out" the boring duplicate amateur junk, the libraries are maybe just 20% of what their numbers say.

And then the returns per port and sales numbers make sense.

Only a small part of the content is truly useful, fresh, original high quality.

And these are the ports that make the money.

If you start as an amateur and spend a few years improving your quality AND doing market and customer research you can grow into a higher reliable income.

But the "real stock environment" - real content, real producers and also paying customers is much smaller than people expect.

And the top level producers are taking in much more.

But the amateurs cannot rise to these levels because they don't have enough interesting files. And the majority often refuse to learn and improve.

They didn't just shaft the producers and suppliers, they kicked out all the original team that worked so hard to make SS a great place.

They also pissed off customers, just look at their ratings.

Surprised it took wallstreet so long to get it. They kept buying companies to hide they really have no organic plan how to grow their business.

And the ai buzzword won't last forever.

I do understand Getty, taking over SS gives them full control of the editorial market and a combined larger customer group.

They also don't have to compete against each other with lower prices, I am confident prices will rise after the merger.

The people with good video sales make more with lower rank.

But stock has always been selling into a tiny group of customers.

Not like having stores on amazon, etsy or ebay and ports don�t go viral liike a youtube channel.

Congrats on the video sales! Makes a real difference.

Only 11 downloads at 5 pm. Sad.

Exactly this. My current rank is too high for this weeks sales. But last week was good, so I am still higher up.

51 dollars, there was one sale for a very simple image via getty where i got 22 dollars.

@superphoto

"So... anyways - bigger portfolios (including significantly bigger ones) does not seem to necessarily equate to more sales/downloads/etc.

Whatever you are doing seems to be working, so I'd suggest just keeping it up."

There is also the factor of portfolio effectiveness, i.e. a port with a good ratio of sales to size.

Although personally I am trying to follow a long tail strategy in my second stock journey, trying to identify niches and then creating content in the hope it sell 1-5 a year.

These images do not show up in a top level search with one keyword, but they will show easily on a very specific search.

Having a large port, but not of similars, but very, very diverse content would however increase the chances of having real bestsellers, files that sell every week or even several times a day.

 It also should give more balance.

We will see. If we keep sharing stats we can keep learning from each other.

@justanimage

That's why I'm now dumping images into the account with the �big bucket� and trying to keep the quality as high as possible (the rejection rate suddenly went up from 10% to 30% a good week ago) and then I'll see what happens if I only upload camera images for a while (like 2-3 years ago).
In any case, the hourly wage remains low ;-)


Really curios about when you start to add camera content.

Suggestion: recreate well selling ai designs as camera content.

uploading 350 images a day? incredible!!

if that does not work - then how about 10 a day??

but at least your ai are selling.

I really had an unusually good valentines day with 103 dl. It pushed my weekly rank to pos 1000.

Now...the strange thing is....over 80% of sales were camera content, not ai. Last year the majority of my valentine sales were ai. And I was also selling fresh ai valentine cards up until a few days ago.

From reading around ai places I don't see other people reporting this.

But it has me worried for easter, because most of my easter cards are ai. I should do a few shootings with camera content just to be sure. Can anyway use that for other agencies.

You never know what happens in stock. I certainly enjoyed this.

It will be fun for 24h and then next week I will drop to 20-30 sales a day. well...I hope it is not less than that...

You are very welcome.

Glad to meet someone here who is still interested in making money with stock!

Yesterday I sold a simple clip with flowers for 8 dollars that I uploaded to adobe in 2013

I think as I add more videos, my sales will grow.

And you keep reading how people with around 8k clips make 800-1200 dollars a month just on adobe with video.

Now with istock and ss merging clips will probably also sell better with them, if they merge their customer groups.

So all the best with your video journey.


eta

Yesterday was the best day of the year for me on adobe

71 dl, 19 ai, 52 camera

Valentine is over, so it will drop. But it was a fun day.

pos 1260. 7830files

for video, just use the camera you have or even just your mobile phone.

keep it steady on a tripod until you learn to have VERY steady hands. If you do want to invest, try an electric slider, even one for mobile phone is useful.

you don't need fancy gear and lenses, also not really complex software.

Just take 30-60 seconds per scene, ater choose around 20-30 seconds, remember to leave 2-5 seconds for entry or exit, or in case the customers wants to blend several clips together and needs some starting seconds.

remove audio, export in your favorite codec, I use h264, works for me.

The main thing is not to become the total video pro, but to understand what customers buy, once you have that down, maybe invest in better gear.

watch youtube content that is made from stock footage to see how they blend stock clips with their own recordings.

Then gradually you will learn what works.

I also did too little editorial and overall too little video, but I am enjoying it a lot.

If you look at the p5 sales thread, lots of editorial there.

Of course it is biased, because if you have a well selling commercial clip, people will not show that.

https://www.pond5.com/community?thread=8135844&page=1421

The sales reports are depressing but I think this is mostly because of SS mismanaging p5 and perhaps not really marketing it anymore.

I still have to understand the adobe illustrative rules for photo and video but I do see a good longterm opportunity with editorial.

Do you know Romolo Tavani's work?

He produces images of different categories than mine (holidays, fantasy, concepts ...). He has very few images (I think about 3000), but of incredible quality. And his sales are stellar! Much more than mine.

He is amazing, so are probably your landscape shots.

Doesn't change the fact that there is a very big market for content that blends in seamlessly on social media.

And just because in your case it did not work for your content, does not mean other people are not making very good money.

It is simply not your genre.

Social media files might look deceptively simple but they have their own visual cues that make them useful.

I think for many classically trained artist it is too hard to let go of their beautification and perfectionism.

Not every mobile phone photo works. But if you get it right you can have amazing sales with very simple daily life stuff. No big investments needed, no long processing time.

Not suggesting you should try it, anyway you say you have tried and for you it didn't work.

For me it is a great genre. Which does not mean I don't like beautiful "perfect" files. However I found it liberating to add content that looks very authentic from real life. And without the "I will win any photo contest" prize look attached to them.

Nobody has to cover all genres available in stock.

I am just pointing out there is a very valid reason agencies, including macrostock agencies, take mobile phone "snapshots".

--

Had a little valentine push, yesterday 54 dl on adobe, 24 ai, 30 camera. pos 1340, 7800 files

eta2

romolo�s port is being brutally copied by the ai crowd. He has always had copy cats , but now this is a completely different level of �followers�.

Will be interesting to see how he holds up.

He does have the superior algo advantage and a long successful history, but there is a flood coming for his style.

One of the reasons why in my second stock journey I am looking for lots of little niche things that might sell reliably 1-5 times a year instead of hundreds.

Not recommending anyone else to do that, but just a very personal strategy decision.

It will be a very long tail port this time but hopefully very reliable.