To be honest, I've got more important things to worry about....and I find it bewildering that some of the posters here who moan about declining sales in numerous threads have the time to research and post reams of this stuff that they cannot influence or change. What a waste of precious time.

Quote from: Hobostocker on March 20, 2014, 05:38

moral of the story, he's definitely the living proof that ideas are worthless and execution is king.

I would second this! Now hard feelings though.

3rd'd    And as for Jon being a photographer....who cares. The manager of my favorite football team was rubbish at football. My milkman can't make milk. Jon built it and they came. The trick he developed was how to keep them there and also to bring their mates along.

Norman, their IT manager, is probably still munching through the boiled egg sandwiches his mum made for him.

Norman? Hop to it lad. Come on. Chop. Chop.

Shutterstock Rocks!
I love it
They are the Greatest site on earth!
Jon has single handedly created an amazing opportunity for Anyone with the wherewithal make and sell photos and get into the stock photo industry easily.
I for one Appreciate All that Jon has done!

Thank You Jon
You Rock!

Crikey Mikey. We actually agree on something - almost. Although being British I'll settle for this....Well played Jon. Nice Work.

My recent experience is the same as my past experience....No Sales.

To be fair, I haven't uploaded much and stopped altogether back in 2012 - but I would have thought those 350+ files would have generated enough cash for a good dinner and a bottle or two of vino in that time. Alas no.

I would like to see once in my life : 48-hour rise of royalties % for contributor !

Best post I've seen all year.

It hurts all of us....and reinforces the impression of some buyers that microstock providers are makeshift cloud setups put together with rubber bands and gaffer tape, maintained by someone called Norman who still lives with his mum.

Competition is fierce and a lot of tog's are probably bored with buying new stuff because these days the new stuff is only incrementally different from the old stuff and the old stuff still takes a solid pic.

Personally, reading about cameras and their capabilities bores me rigid. I prefer reading about photography and looking at photographs. I have no interest in the kit being used unless it is something quirky, like reading about Giacomo Brunelli* and finding out his unique and compelling work is captured with his Dad's old Miranda Sensomat. How much more interesting is that than discovering someone's latest crappy and derivative work was captured by the latest bells and whistles piece of kit that cost more than your car.

*http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/giacomo-brunelli-3

^^ Sorry but that is an overblown piece of snobbery and seems to have missed out the last thirty years of the business. It's like saying anyone who doesn't make Gucci or Prada and knocks out tee shirts in a crappy basement has no value. Well value is relative. I'm no great shakes as a photographer but I haven't just picked up a camera and suddenly made a chunk of change out of stock photography. It has cost me my most valuable asset - time.

I'm not anticipating ever seeing my work at MoMa - but it does have a value over and above zero whether it hangs on a wall in New York or appears in a brochure for a cleaning company in downtown Nairobi.

A lot of back and forth here over what is essentially Semantics. Whereas the "s" word that comes to mind whenever I contemplate this affair is Shafted*


* Ripped off, cheated, treated with contempt or unfairly, made a mug of, sold a rotten kipper etc

My sales and earnings continue to grow despite reaching the .38 threshold a while ago. In fact, my earnings per DL continue to rise as more people buy larger licenses. It's now more than double the 25� I started out with...and higher than my earnings per DL at iS, which continue to drop.

I'm sure their search algorithms are much more sophisticated and complex than simply turning off or pushing back higher-priced files. They're looking for the ROI sweet spot, which means ups and downs in everyone's portfolio, IMO.

I agree. In truth, I expect to see continued growth - simply because there are no indicators (for me personally) to the contrary.

There are bound to be other factors besides algorithm changes and age of ports to be factored in to the decline of some earnings and continual growth in others. What they are is a mystery since, as I am always fond of saying, we do not have a spectrum of data that reinforces any single or group theory beyond our individual port experiences.

Most things are overvalued because people are stupid enough to believe the nonsense, right up to the point the real value becomes apparent and the stock market goes into another tailspin.

A friend of mine on the UK coast tells me the proposed sea "wall" to prevent tidal flooding is going to cost 2.5 million quid just to dump some rocks in a hole - but apparently the rocks have to be imported from Azerbaijan or some such because the English rocks that have held firm for something like two hundred quillion years won't do for this particular project. Also, I've noticed the socks I usually buy from M&S are now more expensive yet decidedly thinner. Also.....

G'day folks,

I've been with BigStock for a couple of months, and I got accepted at iStock at the weekend, so I've made my first submission to them today. I've found two major differences so far:

1) iStock has a controlled vocabulary where various words and phrases all resolve to the same thing, therefore similar tags are unnecessary and in fact it takes more time to go through the submission process, as you have to confirm what each word means. BigStock doesn't have CV, therefore the more words you enter, the better.

2) iStock and BigStock do not agree on editorial caption format. One example would be that BS want the city and country in capital letters, while IS will reject an image if it contains words in the caption that are all uppercase.

For those of you who submit to multiple agencies with conflicting standards, how on earth do you go about it?!

TIA
Nick

I'm not sure about BS requiring city/country in caps? This hasn't been the case with my recent submits.

Everything else is spadework that comes with the business unfortunately - but the advice above is sound re deepmeta for IS and basing all other submissions on your SS keywords for convenience.

As for submitting to IS - economically speaking I look at this way; despite being toerags and stinkers of the first order, most months they pay my car insurance, water rates and council tax as well as keeping Flash Harry the cat filled with tuna.