I synced my account yesterday and all went smoothly.

However, I notice that today I'm getting 20c commission on some sales? What happened? I thought there was a minimum guarantee applicable 'to make sure contributors are always fairly compensated, whatever the price is' (she quotes with tongue firmly planted in cheek).

Did something change with the Adobe sign up?

EDIT:

Oh, I just checked on my Fotolia page, and it appears I was paid the correct amount. You may wish to get your Adobe email amended, as that is showing a lower amount.

It only shows the contributors with over 1000 images.

The headings on the top are clickable, so you can search by other options rather than just quantity.

The % is the percentage of your portfolio that has sold at least once. I'm not sure how much longer this info will be available now that Shutterstock have removed the 'undiscovered' tab, which I guess is what has been used to calculate this figure?

Quote from: KuriousKat on July 16, 2016, 02:01

Quote from: Minsc on July 15, 2016, 21:49

I think the one subject that people are afraid to talk about... because it may hurt the feeling of some contributors is that not all portfolios are created equal and to further extend that, not all photographers and not all designers are equal. Some people use duration of time spend on something as a measure of skill and ability. It isn't.

................ Telling someone to "up their game" may sound harsh, but it's also a brutally honest suggestion.

I think you are totally missing the crux of the matter here.

No one is denying that there are some outstanding small portfolios that will outstrip many of the larger ones every day of the week, or that there are young and inexperienced 18 year olds oozing talent that some of us will only ever dream of - that's a given.

However, what you are failing to address here is that many of us are seeing sudden sales anomalies.

I measure the success of my portfolio by number of downloads achieved, and that has suddenly shifted, while my portfolio has remained 'equal'. Coming to this forum is to see if anyone has any tangible reasons that may explain this shift, is a sensible way to try and find either a solution or a method to address the problem, it is not about having a moan for the sake of it.

Telling people to 'up their game', whilst it may be 'harsh and brutally honest', is inappropriate in this set of circumstances.

Then I'll also suggest a solution. If your old images are not selling, consider updating the keywords. Nobody does it right the first time. If the algorithm changed and no longer favor your old images, then make some changes to the metadata. The system may see it as an updated image and re-sort its ranking. I've done it before and I've seen results.

While it may be boring, it's a lot cheaper and less time consuming than creating new content. If you have total confidence in your work, then it will rise up the rankings. I believe that the best will always rise to the top on SS. It's only a matter of time.

Good suggestion. I will take a look at a selection and monitor the results.

I think the one subject that people are afraid to talk about... because it may hurt the feeling of some contributors is that not all portfolios are created equal and to further extend that, not all photographers and not all designers are equal. Some people use duration of time spend on something as a measure of skill and ability. It isn't.

................ Telling someone to "up their game" may sound harsh, but it's also a brutally honest suggestion.

I think you are totally missing the crux of the matter here.

No one is denying that there are some outstanding small portfolios that will outstrip many of the larger ones every day of the week, or that there are young and inexperienced 18 year olds oozing talent that some of us will only ever dream of - that's a given.

However, what you are failing to address here is that many of us are seeing sudden sales anomalies.

I measure the success of my portfolio by number of downloads achieved, and that has suddenly shifted, while my portfolio has remained 'equal'. Coming to this forum is to see if anyone has any tangible reasons that may explain this shift, is a sensible way to try and find either a solution or a method to address the problem, it is not about having a moan for the sake of it.

Telling people to 'up their game', whilst it may be 'harsh and brutally honest', is inappropriate in this set of circumstances.

Quote from: KuriousKat on July 14, 2016, 14:28

Quote from: Minsc on July 14, 2016, 13:32

There are solutions to competition. Work hard, come up with new ideas, learn new skills, keep up with market trends, or enter new markets. And yes, I subscribe to my own advice.

As previously stated, I too subscribe to this advice. How are you finding it? I find that I am working harder, learning more skill, striving to develop new ideas, uploading better and more diverse work, but I'm still buried in the search.

This isn't about complaining, although sometimes it does help to get it off your chest, it's about trying to gauge what others are experiencing and trying to establish a sense of whether everyone is reporting the same issues, similar issues or if this is unique to me.

My work ethic hasn't changed, and my last photoshoot cost me $2400. I'm worker harder than ever and investing more time and money into my business but, from 1st July 2016, my sales fell off a cliff. Not a gradual decline due to increased competition - I could accept it if my Shutterstock sales dropped from a daily average of 100 downloads to 90 to 80, etc. - that has been the pattern for the last couple of years.

From 1st July 2016, my daily sales have dropped to 40%of my daily average of June 2016 - literally overnight. Can someone please explain that without telling me I should work harder? If the issue was just about the quality of my work, I would be seeing similar declines across all the sites I contribute to, but this sudden change, at least for me, is unique to Shutterstock.

I find that it works for me. I can't say it'll work for everyone since everyone has a different portfolio, but I know it works for me. I know that a lot of people work hard, but are not producing results. My guess is that one part is not coming together and it's usually commercial value or keywording.

Someone posted a SS tracking website before he took it down not too long ago. When you look at the top 100 selling images, the most popular images on that list were related to business, marketing, family, technology and concepts that are currently trending, like feminism and empowerment. Those are the type of images that sell well.

If you have quality work and you believe it will sell, then maybe keywording needs improvement. That's one of the most critical mistakes that many contributors make. They don't think it through and see it as a chore, so they don't put their best effort forward. I don't believe my work is amazing, but I know that my keywording is top notch because of my knowledge in SEO and marketing.

I'm always thinking about new concepts and there are new emerging concepts everyday. Some are temporary, some are permanent. A fellow contributor here recently made a killing on Brexit, because he was first and had quality work. Even saw his work on a news site I regularly visit. If you're first to market and you have quality work, not even copy cats can displace you.

I think you are missing my point here, and I fully understand and agree with exactly what you are saying about commercial value, the importance of keyboarding, etc.

I know I am producing consistently good work, because up until 30th June, it was selling very well on all sites. From 1st July it continues to sell well on all other sites, it just nosed-dived on Shutterstock. Why? The quality of my 6000+ images didn't change overnight, so something else did.

My prediction is microstock will always be a money maker for the agencies themselves, but will slowly but surely become less and less profitable for the contributor, and the contributors who have their game on will migrate to the midstock and macro stock sites.

In order for the agencies to stay profitable they will need suppliers. If they don't nurture the suppliers, they will eventually be left with a library of dated, sub-standard images. If they want to remain in the game, they need to start taking a longer view to protect their position.

I think it's an interesting phenomenon that some veterans seem to think the work of a veteran is automatically of higher quality than the work of a newbie could ever be.

I don't think that anyone is trying to imply that. There are fabulous and poor contributors, be they newbies or veterans.

I would consider myself a veteran, as I've been a submitter for over 10 years. The only advantage I have over a newbie is meaningful statistics over time with which to back up my arguments.

We all know the heady days of uploading the contents of your hard drive for instant gratification are long since over. But time in this industry gives me an insight into past and new trends, sales patterns, seasonal uploading, etc. that a newbie has yet to experience. Upping my game has been something I've striven to do every step of the way, both in terms of content quality and business strategy.

When my income halves overnight, and I now longer earn sufficient to cover my outgoings, I am most certainly going to attempt to up my game. However, as many will attest to, the new stuff isn't selling - it is getting buried in searches under a slew of mediocrity.  It doesn't really matter how much you 'up your game' if your work never sees the light of day.

Quote from: Stickystock on July 14, 2016, 03:40

And yes. There are many newbies, graphic designers and young creative talents that are doing much, much better commercial work. THAT is why some people are loosing sales.

That's true and that is the real threat for oldies and also the hidden reason of their complaint.
I'm old too, I don't complain, just envy them. It's a new world!.

I agree with this, but only to a certain extent. Whilst it is obviously true that work submitted several years back is often inferior in quality, and there are a lot of new talented artists joining, I don't believe that this is the main reason people are losing sales. It will certainly account for a gradual decline, as more contributors are taking a slice of the same pie, but it won't account for sales halving overnight, which is what has happened to me since the 1st July.

We all know that in this industry it is important to keep producing and uploading new, quality work, but I am noticing that hardly anything new is selling - sales are generally coming from older work, which must therefore be more visible and favoured in the search.

Also, there may be a lot of real talent joining but there are also plenty of new contributors who think they will get rich quick from this industry. I came across a new contributor this morning who has  uploaded a portfolio of 18000 icons images this year, of very average quality. I actually looked up the contributor's portfolio on the Top 100 Shutterstock Authors site, and calculated that they have sold just 1.6% of their portfolio. At 25c a sale, (assuming that like the rest of us the ODs, ELs & SODs are a bit thin on the ground), so this means their 18000+ portfolio has earned them a grand total of $72. I doubt that would even pay the cost to employ a reviewer to process 18000 images!

IMO, Shutterstock has opened the flood gates and lowered the standards, and this is clearly working for their bottom line profits in the short term. Longterm, the question is will they manage to keep contributors engaged if the contributor only earns $72 for 18000 images? Eventually, they will only manage to keep the contributors producing mediocre content, as the rest of us will have sought out alternative opportunities for revenue. I sincerely hope they realise the path they are on is not sustainable before it's too late.

Email text: 
We have some exciting announcements to share.

We're pleased to announce we have added 4K and 4K+ download sizes for our footage contributors. We already have over 35,000 clips in our library available for purchase at 4K resolution, with commissions 2x that of our standard HD sizes.

We are also updating our Payout Schedule and Membership Agreement and are including a new revenue stream for image contributors. We're partnering with FreeArt, Inc. a company that will be marketing your content for print and product sales. You will continue to receive 20% of paper print sales as you always have, and will now also make sales on other physical products (e.g. acrylic, metal, canvas, etc.). These are higher-priced retail items with a 10% royalty, which will result in higher commissions (up to $49.90) than most digital image sales.

Additionally, FreeArt will be launching an innovative industry-first "free print" level in which people can receive a smaller-sized art print (e.g. 8x10") for free. To enable this we have created a new minimum $0.25 print commission level to ensure you continue to be compensated for your work, even if it is part of a free print offer. We expect these free prints to generate more attention and sales for larger paid prints and products, ultimately generating more commissions for you.

The site is currently invitation-only, but our contributors have exclusive access. You can use this invitation code: "3hpgvr".

To see the updated Payout Schedule, please click here. To see the updated Membership Agreement, please click here.

Regards,

Can Stock Photo

Type first 4 letters and voila,
You are the winner of the day
 

Jokes are part of our funny life, agree?

Typing the first 4 assumes you can decipher them!

Sad to see Canva is doing that.

Yeah, another way to prevent the photog from earning. Why pay for it when you can get it free, right?

75 different sites should help cut our earnings once again

Well my month improved slightly in earnings, due to a few late Els and a rather large SOD, so I ended about $100 down on last January, which was not so harsh as I thought it was going to be.

However, my downloads were down 25% on January 2014, despite increasing my portfolio by approx 15% over the last year.

Maybe this could have something to do with it?

'408,315 new stock images added this week'

That's an insane number