Watching carefully to see if the effect of the promotion is over.  Seems to have stopped around midnight ET (Thu/Fri).  But by then, my Friday had already crushed Thursday to become my new BDE on FT before Friday had even started in my time zone. 

When I awoke on Friday, I saw no evidence that the wave had continued while I slept, suggesting the effects of the promotion were almost entirely from the US -- at least for my port.  This means either the promotion was Thurs only, or a huge wave will start again once the US wakes up and gets back to work.

Mat, if you're reading this, I'm sure we're all curious to know how long this promotion may last.  Is it just running a day or two, or is it lasting longer?  (My vote: forever)

Heading toward a BDE at FT for me!  That's not something I get to say about ANY agency these days!

Sure seems to be in full force today.

Terrible month for me.  Approx 30% down vs Oct 15 across all the big agencies. 

Some folks here are reporting a good October.  Is anyone who has been doing this for several years seeing positive results?  Of course new microstockers are seeing growth... but I'd like to know how veterans are feeling about the performance of SS, FT, DT, 123 and other top sites.  Seems like nothing but falling earnings for everyone with a large port.

Everyone is jumping to the conclusion that SS is incompetent.  To me, it looks like they are doing some smart testing, at a time when it should be done -- in the dog days of summer.  If you have a theory on a new search algorithm that might boost sales, you test it out in a period that is traditionally low selling, so you can perfect it and be ready to maximize sales for the high selling days coming later in the year.

Does anyone really think they're trying to suppress sales overall?  Whose interest would that serve?  We complain when they boost newer submissions and seemingly punish the veterans, and now we complain when older images place higher in search?

To me, these changes look OK.  My sales have been a bit higher the last few days, and my new stuff is still selling, though not as quickly as before.  I'm looking at my new stuff that is selling now as my diamonds in the rough -- images that are extremely unique and serving a real demand.  It doesn't matter how low they place in search results because they're in a specific niche and will be near the top no matter how SS tweaks the search.  This is like shining a spotlight on exactly what I need to do moving forward.    If it's something that's been done a million times over, don't even bother.  Find something new -- that people actually want -- and you'll be rewarded.  Yes, it's tough to do these days, but still possible.

Quote from: w7lwi on July 12, 2016, 02:55
Also beating SS this month has been 123RF.  However, this is an outlier, most likely due to a PEL sale and I expect total earnings to fall below SS by month's end.

Yes, 123RF is the other major player on the rise.  Not too long ago I said they had crossed into Top Tier.  They will be the #3 agency before long. 

I've got a big port on all the agencies.  I've been doing this for quite some time.  Despite sales being down across the board due to a huge increase in collection sizes everywhere, I have enough data to see clear trend lines.

Just giving you background for what I'm about to say.

FT/AS will overtake SS at some point.  I said it here late last year after I met with some Adobe Stock people.  They are extremely bright people, tying their stock business to their software in ways that make a lot of sense.  They are in microstock to win, and to me it's clear that in the end they will.  It may not be this year, but they will end up the #1 agency. 

You're probably not doing anything wrong.  You just hit the wall.  You clearly know what to create... if you hit the top earning tier after one year in microstock, you have an eye for high commercial value images.  The problem is, you simply can't increase your port at the rate SS and the other micros are expanding their collections.  They're rising exponentially and there's no way to keep up.  Your situation sounds the exact same as mine.  Very, very discouraging.

Quote from: AlexAndor on June 28, 2016, 20:48
And to think that those 1000 images are not similars....very encouraging.
Still, DT feels like a guilty pleasure - low sales, time consuming uploading (circa 1993 categories list), slow reviews - but we're all still contributing. Things might still come around though...

I'm sure you meant this sarcastically. But still, there must be some who still believe this, otherwise, who the heck is still uploading?  "My sales are dropping like stones, but once I get this latest batch of handshakes, tomatoes and pot leaves approved, my income will rise from the ashes.  I just know it!"

For this to be meaningful at all, you'd have to divide the newbies from the veterans.  My guess is that close to 100% of newbies (in microstock less than 3 years) are doing better than a year ago.  Especially since many of these folks will have increased their ports by 50 to 100% in the past year.   The vast majority of people at this longer than 3 years are probably making less.  Not to sound like a broken record, but it's called THE WALL... the point at which your rate of growth is far outpaced by the exploding collections of the big micros.  I'm working my rear end off to increase my port by about 20% this year, but SS is going to go up by 50%?  100%?  The wall crushes us all.

This poll should be set up differently.

It should be limited to those with "mature" ports in 2012.  I think that would mean ports of at least 3,000 images in 2012.  As it stands, there are probably a lot of people who were just starting microstock in 2012 and had maybe a few dozen images then and now have a few thousand.  Of course they will be up by a huge percent.  That tells us nothing about the state of microstock.

My gut tells me that if the question were rephrased to focus only on people who were microstock veterans in 2012, the answer would be "2016 = 2012" no matter how much we grew our ports.  That's what happened to me, anyway.  My port size is 3 or 4 times larger now, but I'm just spinning my wheels.  The volume of competition today is just too overwhelming.

What strikes me when I see these old threads is the fact that ALMOST NO ONE on them is around here anymore.  They've given up on microstock, realizing it is unsustainable.

One of the guys is the NiltoMil guy who ran a blog that would detail his rise to earning a million dollars in microstock.  Long gone.

Quote from: Minscer on February 29, 2016, 22:20

Quote from: stockmarketer on February 29, 2016, 17:00

Quote from: Minscer on February 29, 2016, 01:59
40K is quite achievable, even in 2016. 2015 was my first year in Microstock and I see that number as being very achievable in a year or 2.

Here's the problem... it may look achievable today based on your RPI, RPD or however you're measuring and projecting your output and expected revenue.

But tomorrow will be vastly different.  In a year or two, there may be two or three times as many competing images at the agencies as there are today.  Unless you're doubling or tripling your own port size every year, there's no hope at maintaining growth in revenue at the rate you're growing it today.

It's known as "the Wall" and it used to hit microstockers after several years, but at the current pace of growth of supply at the agencies, even rookies are seeing "the Wall" come down very quickly after starting their own ports. 

It's all a numbers game, and it's one we simply can't win.

I'm not too concerned about it. I know my own numbers and my projections are fairly conservative.

I don't see a wall in front of me...just an open field. The only thing I see is the increasing difficulty to climb the ranks on FT as you get higher and higher in the rankings.

I'm also not too concerned about competition. It's a numbers game to some people, but I see it as a Game of Thrones. Let people upload their images. Without the right skillset and proper knowledge of the realm, it's as good as throwing images into the shivering sea and getting lost in it. In the end, only those who understand how to rise from the chaos will be the ones left standing.

Ah, memories. I remember saying nearly your exact words several years ago here.  I wasn't concerned about the wall. I was going to beat it, too.  I had figured out niches.  I figured I was better than most of the people coming in to microstock. 

And I probably was for a while.  But a perfect storm hit me: an influx of high-quality microstockers doing work on similar themes and styles to my own, as well as uninspired copycats who figured out how well my stuff sold and blatantly started ripping me off, plus the exponential growth of the agency collections that I had no hope of keeping up with.  Suddenly the smug "what wall?" grin was wiped from my face.

You can tell yourself it won't happen to you, just like I did.  But eventually reality catches up with us all.

Quote from: Minscer on February 29, 2016, 01:59
40K is quite achievable, even in 2016. 2015 was my first year in Microstock and I see that number as being very achievable in a year or 2.

Here's the problem... it may look achievable today based on your RPI, RPD or however you're measuring and projecting your output and expected revenue.

But tomorrow will be vastly different.  In a year or two, there may be two or three times as many competing images at the agencies as there are today.  Unless you're doubling or tripling your own port size every year, there's no hope at maintaining growth in revenue at the rate you're growing it today.

It's known as "the Wall" and it used to hit microstockers after several years, but at the current pace of growth of supply at the agencies, even rookies are seeing "the Wall" come down very quickly after starting their own ports. 

It's all a numbers game, and it's one we simply can't win.

To answer the original question...

No, it can no longer be done.

Unless you have a time machine and can take your port from today and go back to upload it in 2005. 

Look at the numbers today.  SS increased its overall portfolio by more than 50% in the past year.  And at this rate of growth, they might soon be doubling every year.  Even Yuri and the like must be struggling to hold on to a fraction of what they once earned.

Someone starting today is a microscopic drop in an ocean that widens every day.

Quote from: luissantos84 on February 01, 2016, 21:06

Quote from: stockmarketer on February 01, 2016, 21:04
There was once a frequent poster here who had a blog called Nil to Mil, which was going to detail his rise from $0 in microstock sales to a million bucks.  After a few years he realized it wasn't doable and threw in the towel... on the blog, and it seems, on microstock in general.

I believe Matt has a SEO company now

Smart man.  That's a field where one could actually earn some money.  He may have realized that he did a good job at promoting his site and driving traffic, and when the primary goal of the site looked unattainable, he took what he learned and ran in a different direction.  A 'pivot' I believe is the current buzzword for it.

There was once a frequent poster here who had a blog called Nil to Mil, which was going to detail his rise from $0 in microstock sales to a million bucks.  After a few years he realized it wasn't doable and threw in the towel... on the blog, and it seems, on microstock in general.

Quote from: Minscer on January 14, 2016, 07:07

Quote from: stockmarketer on January 14, 2016, 03:38
It would be interesting to hear how long people have been doing microstock when they claim best months ever.  This type of talk is usually a dead giveaway for someone who hasn't been doing this very long.  I don't hear many veterans saying things are great.  But if you doubled your port size in the past year, you will of course have higher earnings.  For those of us with a lot of years under our belts, we're only increasing our port sizes by, say 10 or 20% each year, and since the agencies are growing overall by more like 30 to 40% a year, on average we are falling behind.  It's a numbers game, and if you're in it long enough, you lose.

Veterans started when the market was young. You hear the same about veteran app developers who started when the App Store just opened. They were making tons of money and now they're making peanuts. The market has changed, but that doesn't mean there aren't opportunities. Veterans just have to play the game like everyone else now.

I started microstock a little less year ago and I was optimistic at the start and I still am. In a way, it is a numbers game, but there are a lot of intangibles and you can take advantage of to make a portfolio more successful. You can look at things another way...if you play the game enough, you'll have more experience and that gives you an edge.

I remember being a teenager and spouting off to my dad on my views of the world.  He would smile and tell me that I would learn the realities of the world soon enough.  It didn't take many years to show me he was right.  And a few decades later I find myself listening to my teenage son about how he sees the world, and I smile and tell him he will learn the realities of the world soon enough. 

I remember being new to microstock 8 years ago and coming to this forum saying how I had figured everything out, and the veterans tried telling me the reality of the market.  I laughed and said I had things figured out.  Today, I'm the veteran trying to talk reality to microstock newcomers, and the veterans of yesterday are nowhere to be seen.  It appears they've given up on microstock altogether.  Perhaps that's the future for us all.

It would be interesting to hear how long people have been doing microstock when they claim best months ever.  This type of talk is usually a dead giveaway for someone who hasn't been doing this very long.  I don't hear many veterans saying things are great.  But if you doubled your port size in the past year, you will of course have higher earnings.  For those of us with a lot of years under our belts, we're only increasing our port sizes by, say 10 or 20% each year, and since the agencies are growing overall by more like 30 to 40% a year, on average we are falling behind.  It's a numbers game, and if you're in it long enough, you lose.

Quote from: lopolo on January 12, 2016, 15:45
fotolia is on fire

Is it?  Is it on fire for people who have been contributing there for 8+ years?  If you ask me, it was on fire in 2011.  From where I sit, with a pretty large port that has traditionally sold well there, it's roughly where it was a year ago.  Meaning that everything Adobe is doing to push FT is countering the general downward trends of MS.  Everyone else is down and FT is pretty flat.  I guess we have to take our victories where we can get them.

Same here.  Down by a BIG percentage despite port size much larger by a BIG percentage.

I think 2016 will be the year many of us stop doing microstock.

What's the point anymore?  Very depressing.

(To anyone saying "my sales are up" or "things are great", I ask, how long have you been at this?   Sounds like newbies -- those at this less than 3 years -- are the ones seeing good numbers, and of course they are.  It's the ms veterans who are all down and ready to quit.  The newbies will be there soon!)

I've been having similar thoughts recently.

I've devoted most of my precious spare time to microstock for nearly eight years now.  In the first seven I enjoyed predictable growth.  I had nothing but positive feelings and outlook on microstock.  I had a plan and it was working. 

2015 turned everything on its head.  I'm not sure what happened.  It feels like there was a massive increase in either new contributors or a higher output per contributor, possibly combined with a lowering of standards as the agencies tried to beat each other for bragging rights of biggest portfolio size.  I worked like mad to double my port size in the past few years, but the agencies tripled their total image counts, so there was no way I could grow my income no matter how hard I tried.

Combine this with some of the big agencies changing their search results to favor new contributors (I suppose to get them all starry eyed like I was eight years ago) and I'm feeling extremely negative.  2015 was brutal, not just to my income but to my hopes for the future. 

Most of my uploads of the past few months now feel like a total waste of time.  No sales anywhere.  Poor quality?  Low commercial value?  No, I'm more proud of my newest work than anything I've done. I KNOW these are in-demand topics and styles.  If I had uploaded these three years ago, they would be selling like gangbusters.  But today it's like I dropped them into a black hole.  So what do I do today?  For the first time, I'm at a total loss.  Directionless.  My plan is out the window.

Many of the big contributors I followed on these forums several years ago have given up.  They must have seen this coming.  As the new year looms, I'm wondering if I should join them and find something else that might replace my microstock income, or at least make me feel more fulfilled creatively instead of punishing me.  The next few weeks may be a turning point for me.  It could be my resolution: find a way to get my microstock income growing again, or find a new project more worthy of my blood, sweat and tears.

OK, so these are the Google deal downloads.

What I don't get... why are they still held for a week "under investigation" so we can't request our earnings?

The default at DT is to be suspicious of ELs, to make sure there's no fraud.

But why the suspicion for the Google deal downloads?  Would be nice to access that money now for the holidays and not have to wait for DT to "investigate" these.

Quote from: Hongover on November 05, 2015, 19:49
I don't think microstock is broken. I mean broken for who? It's thriving like crazy right now.

Here's what's broken.  A contributor used to see a payoff for creating and uploading images.  Today due to oversaturation, falling prices and lower commissions, the payoff is gone.  There's no reason to do it. 

No payoff for veterans to keep submitting new images if it doesn't slow the falling of their earnings.  I increase my port size by 20%.  My earnings fall by 25%.  That's broken.

And certainly no reason for a newcomer to even start.

The dream of microstock is broken.  The hope many of us had of funding trips, a child's college tuition, or even just equipment is broken.

Customers are happy (for now).  Agencies are happy (for now).  But when top suppliers are by and large unhappy and stop supplying, the market is broken.