Several months ago I set up a shop on Etsy (inspired by someone selling in the same niche / different country and how he gets his sales - primarily from a Facebook group as he showed on his Youtube channel), complete with mockups, pricing and print paper options, but have not published it. I still need to test out prints on various paper to see how they look and then adjust options accordingly. Thing is, I actually lost interest before I even got started and with all these fees people talking about, makes my interest wane even further. Figure if these platforms are losing revenue from customers and are beginning to hit sellers to make up for it, with fees in the 'hope' of making sales, then unlikely this shop will ever see the light of day.   

ETA just went back to Etsy to look at that shop I mentioned above and it is no longer selling on Etsy! Maybe (just maybe I don't have any proof) he joined the boycott or whatever is happening there with sellers. No mention on anything on his Facebook group other than he was still selling on Etsy in March. If this is the case, hope they get some better results with their protest than what MS did.

Kinda like looking for a new captain of the Titanic after its hit the iceberg and the incumbent captain bails outta ship on the most luxurious of lifeboats.   

Thanks Alex for posting your report. 

For mine, the award for the biggest steaming pile of turds goes equally to Shutterstock and Adobe Stock for the month of April.

     

My video ports at both agencies have increased significantly (over 50% each) in the past 5 months only to still have falling earnings.

Quote from: EmberMike on April 25, 2022, 08:45

and does contributing to that site devalue my work elsewhere.

The problem is it's devaluing the value of photography across the whole market.

Is earning an extra 20 bucks a month worth it? If you were earning $2,000 a month from microstock agencies, would you still be doing this?

But it's not your fault. The whole perception of the value of photography started a while ago. It started with Getty, then free sites started with Unsplash, and so forth. And the latest assets to be hit are now videos.

This whole perception that cheap = more, is not working. It just means cheap = cheap.  Agencies are just trying to grab existing buyers from other agencies.

(And btw, if you are getting a kickback for promoting these sites, can you please state so?)

Yes very well said Annie and great to read your thoughts on this.

For all the talk about Alamy, that was the only agency so far I requested my account be closed. Pathetic with not a single sale for over a year.

Anyway, besides that, I am reminded of the time contributors were falling over themselves to sign up for the $5 payment from Adobe (I didn't) for use of selected images for 12 months in whatever capacity it was (I think free offers). I said it then that this exercise was more than just acquiring images for more liberal use by the agency... imo it was a good bit of research and testing contributors' willingness to surrender, and lookie now ┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ the cut to commissions for videos.   

Quote from: stockman11 on April 20, 2022, 15:39

"Laughing in the purple rain" is in the same league as "Money won't make you happy".

Money won't make you happy but it can buy you a better quality of misery.

I think it was Gene Simmons who said: 'Sure, money can't buy you happiness. But it can buy you everything else.'

I'm sure he speaks from experience. 

Ah something weird just happened. Though the submitted video didnt show in the pending approval, it must of been accepted and has now appeared in my port. So there you go, video hasn't been lost to the ether after all, just temporarily lost visibility.     

Looks like something is happening with videos today.

All the ones i've submitted this morning have vanished from the "to submit" list but the pending shows 0.

Same thing happened to me today. That's the beauty of Subberstock. You just never know what you gonna wake up to: Disappearing images, disappearing videos, submitted content vanishes, downward 'adjustments' to earnings, rejections one day, acceptances the next.   

Sales are a shocker so far this month and when I compare to the same time period in 2021 and 2020, it's actually worse than what I thought.

So looking at Shutterstock for the same period in April (to date) comparing current earnings in 2022:

2021 : 5% 

2020 : 4.5% 

I would have to multiply current earnings x 20+ times to be at levels in 2021 and 2020 when I had smaller ports (much smaller in 2020). 

I have been at this for over 12 years full-time I have plenty of files on a lot of sites (non-exclusive)  so yes P5 Exclusive is earning me the best now for my time!

Hey jjneff so you find Pond5 Exclusive worth it by the looks of it. How many videos do you have on Pond5 Exclusive compared to the other sites? No need to mention numbers but just comparatively? Off Topic: Really miss your updates on YouTube.

Iiiitttttttt's baaaaaccccckkk...

We're now into the 4th day of the new month and it's about this time I like to conduct an early microstock performance review.

For this task, I needed to deploy high-powered performance computing systems to calculate the total gross contributor earnings on my Shutterstock portfolio.

This allows for fast and accurate calculations where large voluminous sets of diverse and complex data are involved.

I'm sure my stock contributor colleagues will agree the results of these calculations are extraordinary:

By the 4th day of April 2022, my Shutterstock port had generated an eye-watering earnings amount of:



0.10 cents !! 



I just can't explain this incredible result.

In terms of total earnings across the four agencies I contribute to (Sstock, Adobe Stock, iStock, Pond5) I just had my BME - exceeding my previous BME (which incidentally was back in June 2020) by 26 percent. So pretty happy with this result and feel my recent content upload activities are beginning to produce results. I am also seeing much better results on Adobe Stock and Pond5. Already starting well for April with a couple of sales on Pond5.