My plan is to just work more hours, try and keep up with the percentage increase of content on the agencies for as long as possible. Should work for a few years, and hopefully it will give me time to come up with some kind of super-duper After Effects template (or two) that I can live off for a while.

That seems to be the only way out i guess. Moving to greener pastures like after effect templates or better production value vidoes like drone shots in smaller markets

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Quote from: cascoly on March 23, 2021, 12:07

Quote from: Teraphim on March 23, 2021, 04:20

...

Aggregators do not increase your income, but decrease (taking their % cut for nothing)

hoist on your own petard!   if they take 15% then YOUR income is increasing by 85% of their sales!

And a small second note. Through aggregators, I get a higher level for pay, that might make up the 15% compensation? Might, I won't say it does for sure.

But one thing for sure, for me, I now contribute to four agencies that I don't have any account and wouldn't. I get paid whenever the total from all the places I check off, adds up to $35, not when it reaches $100. There are some benefits beyond what someone short sighted says "but they take 15%" because they also give back in many ways as well.

Quote from: Clair Voyant on March 23, 2021, 10:24

In today's world stock/micro stock is really nothing more than a Ponzi scheme.

1. cut out low paying agencies completely <<< name one high paying agency as there are none around anymore.

Always was a kind of like a Ponzi scheme... with impossible unsustainable increases and growth.  Promises of making easy money and people suggesting how they made such good money, to lure new victims.

Can't name one. You're right. If someone can, I want to join.

Someone left out POD sites, which can be interesting for some sales. And I didn't see mention of that cesspool Etsy.

What is a POD site?

Would Adobe not be part of the decent paying site (definitely not high). But thats per sale, definitely not yet at a total level

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With 2021 mostly being dismal in stock earnings so far what positive steps have you taken to maintain or grow earnings? Some options I've seen people take

1. cut out low paying agencies completely
2. This is the new normal, make more stuff, put it on all agencies
3. Started something new like book covers - brutallyhonestmicrostock.com style
4. Focussed more on inperson shooting gigs
5. Left this side of the business entirely
6. Go to aggregators like blackbox, wirestock etc

Hopefully some postive way forward stuff

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Just saw that the microstockr app has also mostly stopped development and updates. So apparently its not only the contributors who are suffering our lack on money also means these devs are getting squeezed

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Yup, have heard a bit about that and microstockr. I'm guessing the pro there is a bit more expensive

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Hey, to answer some of your questions.

Photerloo uploads to 13 different sites: Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Bigstock Photo, Deposit Photos, 123RF, Alamy, Dreamstime and Freepik (FYI: Freepik a free section and a paid Microstock section, we upload to the paid section).

We also support social sites like: Instagram, Facebook Pages, Twitter, Smugmug and Flickr, these sites are good for people who also sell through their own website because social sites can send traffic back to your own website where you can keep 100% of the sale.

The site is free for 5 photos a week then paid version is $8 a month or $60 a year. Wirestock is 15% so for photographers who make more than $35 a month will pay less for Photerloo yearly than than Wirestock.  Also, Photerloo uploads to your own stock sites where Wirestock I believe you are forced to upload to their account, so Wirestock is 15% forever, where Photerloo is only needed for when you are actively uploading.

If there are any other questions just let me know.

It uploads and submits the pics across stock sites right?

https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/5-reasons-to-go-unlimited-with-shutterstock-api

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I just reached Tier 2 and on my way to riches!

First 100 images earned me a whopping $24.25.

Compared to my first 100 images in 2020, 52.7% drop ($51.64)

Compared to my first 100 images in 2019,  46.9% drop ($45.55)

Can't wait to report on my first 250 downloads (beginning of Tier 3)!

On my way to have a steak-lunch courtesy of SS

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Hopefully a $1 vid download will speed that up. Its a whopping 10X of photo royalties. Maybe a steak with a coke

Have stopped uploading to SS, but its not evident that Pond5 or Arobe have been doing really well with this new stuff content that only gone to them

But it's definitely a relief to not have videos selling at under a dollar at shutterstock. The one two sales at Adobe make it well worth losing 20-30 vid sales at SS

Stopping uploads to SS seems to have benefited sales on other platforms. But its a long road and even for me SS continues to be in the top 3 earners.

The 15% will add insult to injury though, hope to get the others going well by then

Seems this is how they've solved their problems

Need more customers, offer lower prices for video, one month free, and rock bottom subscription

Need more profits - lets cut the contributors share, offer 10c even at the so called 40% tier, reset them every year and let them claw their way back in the name of fairness to new folks

More profits - remove reviewers, use half baked AI

Guess its gone into the zone where the idea ia just to grow share value short term

Quote from: Rage on October 28, 2020, 14:37

With Adobe now making illustrative editorial open to even bronze tier submitters it would be great if stock submitter can start up loading and submitting editorial to Adobe stock

StockSubmitter does support it.
If you clearly understand the difference between the illustrative editorial and normal editorial and your content falls under their illustrative editorial requirements - just enable the corresponding option in StockSubmitter settings for Adobe.

Will give this a shot, thanks a ton