These guys currently occupy a good portion of the most popular images on SS:

http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-2117717p1.html

If your image sales are down, these guys probably have something to do with it. IMO, they have one of the best overall mircostock portfolio on SS and they're targeting some of the most popular categories. Studios like these are one of the reasons why sales are down for many people.

There is no conspiracy. There is escalating competition. I've seen some of my popular images stopped getting downloads because someone has a better image than me. At that point, the only option I have was create something better. My downloads continue increase month over month (Hit a new BME today), so don't see any artificial cap on downloads/earnings per day.

Interesting thing about that factory (and I've seen others that do it too) if you click on their 'about' on that contributor page, their website is not so much a web site as their own stock agency using their SS page as a link. I didn't look further but I'll bet that their prices for ODDs' packages are better than those of SS. Maybe these guys and others are taking the business in ODDs, SODs and ELs away from SS which could also be a reason for declining earnings for other contributors.

Quote from: OM on April 23, 2016, 15:24

Quote from: gbalex on April 11, 2015, 14:40

Quote from: objowl on April 11, 2015, 08:55

Or maybe the lack of SOD sales is due to a successful Premier Select Trial and many of the SODs are going to the selected high lifetime earners?

That was my thought, they have directed sales to select contributors.

Drop in dls and SODs does correlate with their announcement time frame....few SODs worth a sod after that. I guess I'm not in their select club. 

As a high lifetime earner, I can promise you jack-all has been directed to high lifetime earners.  This month looks to be my lowest on SS since my first year, when I had less than 1k images.

Interesting and sorry to hear that. Poof goes that theory too....must be in algorithms...only they know.

I would NEVER pay a fee to sell my images - esp the agency is already getting the lions share of royaltys. Thats our generous fee they pocket every time they sell our image.

Besides , how would you ever be able to moniter the 'fairness' of the system in display/promoting YOUR images? You have no say, no control, and no way to know how that is taking place. Fogettaboutit.

As was mentioned, they already have Offset. They should curate images from regular contributers into offset, that fit the criteria. Im sure many contributers would have at least a few images that could make it into the premium collection - and how would they be if that happened? They would probably be spurred on to submitiing more and better content.

Absolutely agree on 'should' and the beneficial effect it would have on chosen contributors, but they haven't yet and probably never will.

Say, you take page #1 popular of any major search category at SS and select 10 possibles for 'Select/Offset'. Those images are already earning good money for SS and the customers keep coming back for more. Place them with Offset and you have to remove them from the SS site because they become exclusive to Offset...but you've already allowed usage in perpetuity on those popular images that have already sold. Can't be done IMHO.

The only way you can provide an option for a SS contributor to place some work in Offset is by making a selection of new work before it gets into the SS regular archive/approach the contributor and ask if they would be prepared to submit only a certain type of work to Offset. That would require a curator looking at all the new work coming into SS of which a percentage is 800K/week that gets accepted. That's also tough to do.

Here's a suggestion for SS to improve things both for the better contributor and for its customers.

Set up a part of the Shutterstock site that's called 'Premium New/ Member Select' or something.
All Shutterstock contributors are invited to contribute a
 of 10 images (passed by Shutterstock review in their normal review procedure) which the contributor considers their best images or their best new images. Images may be replaced at any time for other images but a contributor can never have more than 10 images in the selection ever. To encourage contributors to put some thought into the selection, each image costs them a payment of $10/year..max $100/year!
Really, it's a sort of pimp your pics site within Shutterstock.
Shutterstock runs that part of the site like it's a part of the whole and good-selling pics there are also counted in their algorithms for the normal site whereby best-selling HCV images rise to the first page of the normal popular search.
For buyers, they have to sort through a fraction of the 'new' images admitted to the full SS site and for this time-saving privilege, they 'pay' with 2 subs instead of one (if the image is downloaded from that part of the site). The contributor receives 2 subs payments (at their level) for any downloaded subs from that site. ODDs, SODs and ELs remain the same.

If/when an image is successful on the 'Select' site and rises to the first page of the search on the full SS site, it may be time to replace that image on the 'select' site with another but you're free to do that at any time. If, after say a month, an image is not sold on 'select', you can choose to replace it with another...entirely free choice and up to you!

If the general contributor choice for 'select' is poor, then the site will fail because the customer will see no point in using it but if the better contributors place their better work in the selection, there's a good chance that it will enhance SS's reputation and be the go to site especially for customers looking for new and maybe innovative images that would otherwise get buried at the full site.

OK guys and gals, now tear it apart!

I doubt that 'Option 2' is a real option for SS and I'm dubious about whether SS is still regarded as 'middle market+' compared to FT/Adobe. SS has relaxed its standards to entry by contributors and is now adding around 800K images per week. Much of that new content, whilst sharp with correct white balance, is not HCV and will probably never sell. That huge volume buries the better producers' new work and makes a search for the good stuff a most frustrating experience for potential buyers, causing them to look elsewhere. This also frustrates the better contributors whose feeling is that it's pointless to create good new work because it's never seen, never sells and why should I keep adding to the collection. But this is all JMHO.

I wonder where most of the 28% of the higher-priced enterprise market share is coming from. Is that SS + Offset or is it mostly SS alone? In that marketplace they also have competition from Stocksy (with lower prices compared to Offset).

My first EL under the new rules...$29.85 which is $1.85 better than under the old EL flat rate regime.

Quote from: OM on February 01, 2016, 12:58

I won't be opting out of EL's for the simple reason that in the 3 years I've been at SS, I've had 31 EL's @$28 and in the 7 years I've been at FT (with 15% more images), I've had 5 EL's. Even pricing my EL's at 70 credits (instead of my max 100 credits) of which I get 25% doesn't get them sold at FT. I'll take 'em when I can get 'em at SS.

Just curious, at what point do you think will be too low of a payout for you not to opt out? It was easy for me to opt out of this deal as I thought $28 was a bit lower than what i should be getting compensated for someone else to reproduce/print my content for their own financial benefit. It should be at minimum 50% but then thats never gonna happen. I probably average  2 EL a month here and opting out will save me the grief of thinking about SS bigger take.

On another note, this move by shutterstock is making it more easier not to submit to this agency as i see the clear direction it is going forward with this move.

Ill take em when i can get em sounds a lot like thank you may i have another to me.

Either I quit microstock altogether or I take what's on offer. I have no power as an invidual to divert corporations from their corporate interests....and that's always been, more for them and less for me. If, at some point, the revenue stream from ms falls below a level that I consider not worth the effort, then I'll just stop providing them with content...in the full knowledge that there's thousands of other suckers prepared to do what I wasn't.

At present, the ms revenue stream is just one of a few others but I'm content with the present income when balanced with the effort invested. When the balance  becomes inverted, I'll just have to find some other way to restore it to positive.

Clearly quick to produce in order to spend more time on SS forums. 

Yep. It's been that way for a couple of years now. I had a shot of a Canadian Maple Leaf gold coin on SS 3 years ago. Shortly after it was accepted, I was notified that it was being removed from the collection because Bank of Canada had decided that all their coins/notes were copyright. No queen's head showing on the coin BTW. 

Maybe it is not a big deal, but today I reach 0,38 rank at SS.
My first upload there, was in end of December 2012.
I'm pretty happy this morning,

Congrats and really excellent work. I just got there ($0.38) myself but started 6 months before you with ~100 more images. Just goes to show that with your quality work, you don't need a massive port to make $300-$400/month at SS.

If you check your total sales numbers for the day, you'll see that these low-value 'compensation' SODs are not added to your number total but only to your money total (which is logical as the sale was already made some days ago).

Quote from: noodle on October 21, 2015, 17:49

Over priced stock coming back to earth

Growth will be slower going forward noone will pay a premium for that

And Amazon isn't overpriced @17 cents/share last quarter.....second profit ever? Stock price $625!
Whole stock thing is a big joke!