It is down a ton, but I expect a few more sales in the rest of the year that should make it a little less dire.

well, no way to change that wrong response that I can see... 2012 was nowhere near the peak, but I am down to 2.7% compared to 2010 and before. Of course deleting most of my images might have something to do with it.  I am down about 27% overall since 2012. I think my motivation has dropped a lot more though.

I wonder if some of the Alamy people are reporting the sale price instead of their take. Still, based on my experience #2 for Alamy is reasonable.

I have a problem with their stupid captcha I'm not a robot but we'd like to make you do some work for us thing. pisses me off every time. (and it is hell with a slow or spotty internet connection).

I got over 1K from their dash for cash and had decent (for me) sales in 2011 and 2012. They have slipped a lot since then. RIP.

How about they are the .08 cents owed to you for the .30 SODs earlier in the month?

Could be - they are the same images. 

if so, A for fixing it, F for communication

I don't like large previews with weak watermarks because they are pretty easy to steal but if I were into stealing images I am guessing that many can be found in similar or larger resolutions without the watermark in other ways and people set against buying images are unlikely to buy much. The serious thieves have sub accounts or fake credit cards or just get images from other sources.

I wonder if the real issue and reason that sites are going this way is because now users can just grab the watermarked previews and no longer need to even get subs for their previews. Especially with the push towards pseudo sub plans where every use costs this could be a way to attract buyers with our content without having to pay us for their use (at least at first). Once the project gets the go ahead we get a few sales but perhaps in the past we would have more sales with multiple previews. I suppose it also serves as site advertising (without paying us) if the comp images are seen widely.

Not a particularly good sign for people counting on them. Their debt is holding them back almost as much as their repeated boneheaded moves. Or maybe it is the other way around.

IS certainly could have owned micro and midstock with a few more clever and less greedy moves.

I am not jumping ship because it is still nicer to be on the somewhat dry deck rather than in the water. Do I expect my earnings to increase forever - no. In fact they have gone down since 2012 and unless I up my game or find new outlets that will probably continue. The number of images I have submitted has dropped as my motivation has decreased. Also I am less likely to set up and take pics specifically for micro. Instead I mostly just submit pics I am taking already that might have sales potential. I am way down on the long tail for the most part. Most of my few images that had good search placement lost them overnight in a search shakeup. If I had lots of best sellers that would have been a bloodbath for me.

I think in some ways micro is going to return to what it should have been - low cost images sold for low prices. The anomaly was the relatively brief time when it was worth it to put high production images there. The question is will the buyers still be able to find what they need there or will enough of them decide to head to higher cost sources and can we take advantage of that?

As always, search is king, so if you can get your images onto the first page or the first few pages you will do fine. The problem is that with all the competition that will be harder and harder and for established contributors every big search shakeup will probably dislodge more of your well placed images than it will lift up hidden ones.

.30 sale here too. what?

Sept wasn't that bad for me there, Oct was dire. I made more when I had under 100 images there (I have over 2,000 now).

I wonder if they are gradually replacing best sellers with wholly owned content.