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Messages - Karimala
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 8 ... 61
51
« on: December 18, 2012, 14:09 »
As the OP, I just wanted to add a couple additional details about my situation, because they aren't consistent with the speculation as to the reasons for the sharp earnings drop.
I'm not an emerald. I got stuck at silver when they increased the number of sales needed for the next level.
I also don't contribute to DP.
And yet my earnings started dropping significantly after not uploading for only 8 months and are now down by 90%.
It took 3 1/2 freakin' months to reach my last payout (used to regularly receiving weekly payouts). After I'm finished with this post, I'm writing to Fotolia to ask that my portfolio be removed and account terminated. I refuse to support their destructive company and greedy shareholders anymore.
52
« on: December 18, 2012, 13:26 »
OMG. We became long distance friends early in our microstock careers over at another forum. I'm really gonna miss him. RIP dear Stephen. :'-(
53
« on: November 21, 2012, 16:58 »
I heard things have changed and active contributors get pushed.
This is true. If you don't contribute regularly, you get severely punished in the search results. In my experience, not contributing enough to clear their threshold costs you about 25-30% in earnings.
It's cost me 90% of my earnings. I haven't contributed much to the other micros either, but they are either still growing or remaining steady (with IS being the exception). No biggie for me though...I've been wanting to leave Fotolia for a few years now. They just made it very easy to do.
54
« on: November 21, 2012, 13:27 »
I haven't uploaded since a house fire upended my life in late August 2010. The earnings drop started 8 months later.
55
« on: November 21, 2012, 13:22 »
I haven't been paid yet either.
56
« on: November 21, 2012, 13:16 »
Six years and over 2000 uploads later, my monthly earnings at Fotolia have dropped so significantly since May 2011 that I'm now earning the same as when I started in Jan. 2006. Take a look at my earnings chart! It's shocking!
57
« on: October 12, 2012, 23:16 »
I remember watching an episode of "Undercover Boss." One of the guys who trained the undercover CEO of a waste management company cleaned out portable toilets for a living. He spoke from the heart and said he absolutely loved his job, because having a clean toilet makes people happy, and making people happy is what he's all about, no matter how disgusting the job. Just an awesome guy...singing on the job, smiling all day long, out there making people happy while cleaning toilets.
58
« on: October 12, 2012, 00:20 »
Hmm...my email hasn't arrived yet. 
59
« on: October 09, 2012, 18:34 »
TMZ reports celebrity news, so yes...the usage as a composite and parody are both appropriate. TMZ also purposely makes anything they Photoshop look bad to make the point clear it's not an actual photo.
60
« on: October 08, 2012, 14:15 »
Of course it should. Just saying I knew in advance which contributors have a problem submitting quality images and which ones don't, and it helped a lot in reviewing.
61
« on: October 08, 2012, 09:29 »
Wouldn't it be easy to keep the contributors rejection rate stats and if a batch is almost entirely rejected, send them to another reviewer? If its a glaring error, warn or get rid of the reviewer. The problem seems to be that they have so many images now, they aren't too concerned if they have a few dodgy reviewers.
LuckyOliver showed a contributor's acceptance rate with every batch, so I know it's possible. It was really helpful as a reviewer, because I knew when to be tough and when to be lenient.
62
« on: September 28, 2012, 11:58 »
I'm back to normal after a stellar spring...four months in a row earning triple my regular earnings. It was a great ride while it lasted!
63
« on: September 28, 2012, 11:54 »
I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone taking 3 years off from uploading, but it is comforting to know that contributors can take time off without seeing their income fall off a cliff. The only drops I've experienced involve agencies that have tweaked my images out of their search engines and/or dropped royalty rates. As long as the agency itself is stable, my income has remained stable.
I'm sure glad more agencies don't punish inactive contributors! Fotolia's actions have really hurt my income, and it's coming at a time when I'm finally recovering from a 3-year-long series of unexpected, major life-altering events that severely hampered my ability to work. A 90% drop in income from one of my main agencies just makes recovery that much harder.
64
« on: September 28, 2012, 07:51 »
I stopped regularly uploading about three years ago, so whenever I have a BME these days, it tells me that agency is doing something very right since I haven't worked at growing my portfolio. I can also see clearly which agencies are stagnant and which ones are killing my business. SS: March 2010 (came very close to breaking it March 2012) IS: June 2009 (nowadays consistently earning 2/3 less than my BME!  ) DT: March 2012 (while everyone around here was reporting a massive slump, I was having a surge in sales) FT: May 2009 (nowadays consistently earning 90% less than my BME! ) BigStock: June 2012 (previously April 2012...good things were happening this spring at BigStock!) 123RF: March 2010 FT is the big shocker. My earnings are proof FT did something to its search engine that is punishing contributors who stopped submitting images. What else can explain the two sudden drops...one late last year and one earlier this year...that wiped out 90% of my sales? Out of the blue, my once steady income dropped by a 1/3 in November. My new, lesser income remained steady until that number dropped another 75% in June, which has remained steady just like its predecessors.
65
« on: August 10, 2012, 22:51 »
I've seen artists setting up stores in Second Life where they sell their virtual art as virtual home decorations. Some make some pretty decent money doing that. Not quite the same thing, but thought I'd throw it in anyway.
66
« on: August 09, 2012, 22:08 »
As a niche photographer, it would kill my business.
67
« on: August 09, 2012, 09:52 »
Yep...I was thinking of you, Ed. 
68
« on: August 06, 2012, 10:39 »
A friend in Colorado I met through the micros was awakened in the middle of the night by one of his agencies in the UK after the mass shooting in Aurora. He's not staff, but is available to shoot breaking news in his area on an as needed basis. I don't know the name of the agency.
69
« on: August 05, 2012, 17:14 »
I like them both equally for different reasons. Why not submit both of them at different times so they don't get rejected for "too many similiars" and to give buyers a choice?
70
« on: August 05, 2012, 15:45 »
I see, interesting anyway... The idea was something like that: if I have today two hours, should I make an illustrations and upload to all stock agencies, including low-earners or should I rather make 3 illustrations and upload them only to the first top agencies? To be or not to be?
I like to take a wait-and-see approach. I have the rest of my life to upload my portfolio to new places, so I don't bother with the smaller sites anymore, unless they offer something the others don't (like Mostphotos, which allows contributors to download their own images and acts almost like a backup service). I'd much rather spend my time creating new work and uploading it to choice agencies and POD sites with proven results than spending it uploading to unproven sites. Once in a while I'll take a chance on a site like Skreened and Spoonflower, but that's very rare.
71
« on: August 05, 2012, 12:57 »
While "fine art" and "stock" are two different things, regular ol' stock can make great artwork for a variety of businesses. I see it used all the time in restaurants and offices, and have actually gathered ideas for my own shoots from them. Some of my favorite stock ideas came from prints hanging in my insurance agent's office and my bank.
If IS is going to resurrect prints from the graveyard, they should develop a separate website specifically focused on selling artwork to businesses instead of home consumers.
I also wish DT would implement a prints program, since their exclusivity TOS doesn't allow us to license our images for POD.
72
« on: August 05, 2012, 05:30 »
A few days means nothing. A few months? Now that's a trend worth noting! "The sky is falling" is what's happening to me at Fotolia, where my income has dropped an unprecedented 78% since the first of the year. For almost 7 straight years, I'd been earning multiple payouts per month. The last two months, I've made one. When stuff like that starts happening, that's when you start worrying about negative trends.
73
« on: August 05, 2012, 05:11 »
I can still find everything using my real name.
My Thinkstock portfolio is smaller than my IS portfolio, too...and I don't remember it being that way before. It looks like mine shrunk as well. So weird, because a year and a half after deleting several hundred images from StockXpert, those images are STILL on Thinkstock.
74
« on: August 03, 2012, 22:46 »
Isn't Google developing something similar? Thought I read that somewhere, but I could be wrong.
75
« on: August 01, 2012, 10:16 »
Business as usual. Nothing exciting to report, except I had a best-sale-ever at Zazzle when someone purchased 104 post cards at 50% royalties.
The only site that's notable is Fotolia. Down 78% over July 2011 (no ELs), down 74% from my best month of the year (no ELs), down 46% from my worst month of the year (which had an EL). Worst month since February 2007.
Whatever Fotolia did to its search back in March regarding long-time contributors, it's obviously having a very serious negative impact on my income. Fotolia has gone from being a consistent #3 or #4 and worth continuing to upload to (despite its unsavory history), to being dead last and the least significant of all the sites within a span of just a few months. Gone are the days of weekly payouts. The past two months, my monthly earnings didn't even reach payout level.
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