how does the search algorithm come up with "fresh, on trend vibe" content?

Nice to finally get a good sale at Alamy - those really do make a difference. Sadly they do not come along every month for me.

I usually think of RPI as Return Per Image as opposed to RPD which is Return Per Download. So if I had 1000 images at a site and 10 of them sold netting me 10$ per sale the RPI would be $100/1000 or $0.10 and the RPD would be $100/10 or $10

I am sure Adobe has estimated the cost and expected volume - what is the average expected cost per download. Also highest and lowest?

If the first year is free, what number are you going to calculate 33% of?

When will we start to see these "sales"?

The subject pretty much covers it - 2 sales for the month, both distributor, both for 0.46 of which I get 0.14 - in the details they say RF and "China"

Maybe it is time to finally kill distributor sales - in the past they have mostly been low (< $20), but I don't think I have ever had one under $1 net before. I guess now that we only get 40% of regular sales the distributor sales aren't so much lower, but they have moved from good microstock levels to poor microstock levels.

Overall for the year they are doing about as well as any other site, but that isn't saying much anymore.

Microstock photography would be a complete waste of time for me if I didn't already have a lot of images up. As it is, I haven't seen much return on my investment (of time) in the few times in the last years where I specifically shot stuff for stock as opposed to photos I would be taking anyway. I was never particularly good at predicting what would sell well, but I used to get a few hits every few months. It seems that has dried up lately and certainly doesn't motivate me to put a lot of work into trying some new ideas (unlike years ago where there was a decent chance some of the pasta would stick to the wall). Some of the old stuff still sells, but others have stopped. RPD, number of downloads, and RPI are all down pretty much across the board. I can understand and accept the dilution of my sales as the total number of assets for sale climbs faster than the total number of sales and the drop in sales from the pandemic. What pisses me off more is the agencies taking a bigger chunk of each sale for as best I can see just propping up their bottom line and cutting prices in the hopes that they can steal market share from other sites that might pay better. The only time an agency took a bigger cut and I actually made more was when Alamy opened the N America office, but that also coincided with me getting a better camera and submitting a lot more to them - which probably accounts for at least some of my better sales there. Their latest 20% more for them change certainly didn't seem to help me at all. Sadly I don't have any reason to believe that next time a site has problems with their income they will try to prop it up the same way - cut our take again. Sadly enough contributors will put up with it.

It doesn't help me at all that 2 of the biggest earners have gotten to the point that they take more than I am willing to give from every sale.

I still think if you are good and clever and hard working you can make $ at this, but you could also probably make more doing something else. It certainly would be hard to go full time somewhere with a higher cost of living.

I think RF came before microstock. 

It doesn't look like there is much left for SS to "innovate" to keep the investors happy, but maybe screwing the little contributors more and just barely keeping the bigger production places happy. Also, I think people still get non - .10 downloads, especially for video - so that is an area that can be "innovated". Then they can just lower that .10 to .05 or .01 or whatever.  At some point one would hope the contributors would all bail - but most of us have shown them that that is not the case at .10

keep in mind that the percent that you get is based on the image level (the lower it is, the less you get).

Other than November all the subs have been updated to bring things up to double March. After November they are in the ballpark of what sales were before March in 2020 - except I am guessing that actual sales numbers of subs are now way way more and we get a very small amount out of the pool per sale. I think one month they briefly had the number of subs and the $ amount before they removed it. Sadly I didn't write it down.

$ were pretty good there in 2018, for some reason they were rather lousy in 2019 for me.

December 2020 was only about $800 less than December 2019.  Overall, my 2020 year ended up about 11% less than 2019.

January 2021, however, won't come close to January 2020.  Although we still have 10 more days, I predict January 2021 will be about $4,500 less than January 2020.

SS really is tanking.  While my number of downloads are not too far off the usual, the income per download really is lacking.  It seems as of January 1, 2021, I've had a bunch of low-earning sales.  I don't think it's all due to the new commission structure.  I feel like some deal SS implemented with buyers went into effect this year.  A deal we're not privy to.

I think part of the new earnings was just to take more per sale, the other part was to enable them to make sales for much much less but still make money. Before they had to average over at least  .25 per image sold and really more likely closer to .38 to make any money for themselves (it was probably closer to over $1 per sale before) , now if they just need to be above .10 - so they can cut their prices over 50% and still make money - now they probably need to make the sale for over about .30 on average. Remember they also get to keep all the unused portion of the subs packs too. Wait until they do the same for video - get ready for your ultra sub .10 video sales.

my November subs went up a lot - I think I wrote down what they originally reported, but the current report is definitely more than the 2x that the previous months have been.

I get the login page too, but just use the back arrow on the browser and it usually loads fine (microsoft edge on windohs machine)... eventually.

It is a pita, but not critical.

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on December 08, 2020, 02:35

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 07, 2020, 10:37

Their own forum is full of posts from people, reporting earnings.

While the first rule of Fight Club may be that you don't talk about Fight Club... I'm assuming you can talk about Fight Club when you're at Fight Club.

Yeah, that's a good one. 

No one has come up with any answer to, why only him, why did Adobe close his account, which isn't closed? And if he's banned at SS why is his account actually active. Just a bit many convoluted contradictions in what he's saying and what's actually current.

And then, I don't post videos to YouTube with my earnings and don't post them on forums, even SS forum  , so actually this warning is kind of wasted on me or anyone else who doesn't do this kind of thing?

Going with your fight club analogy, people still post on blogs, other people on FB and YT and MSG and their own sites, and only this one poor soul has been targeted, for his simple and innocent violation of the rules.

I'll drop this, but one more note, it's in the TOS that we can't post earnings, so who's at fault here? SS for enforcing the contract and TOS that we all agreed with, or the person violating the contract? Why of course it's SS because they are the evil corporation. How dare they enforce the TOS that we all agreed with, when we started as a contributor.

One tiny edit, is that this wasn't in the TOS when I signed up. I don't remember when they added it, but it was one of their "take it or leave" changes to the TOS as they went from somewhat contributor friendly and an ok place to sell images to what they are now.

I suggest a 50/50 split with SS - so calculate that out based on what tier you are. Probably about twice what they are offering you.