I was thinking the same thing. This month was OK (but not great) but the last week has been very slow:



Downloads are perhaps down a bit compared to last week, but earnings are quite a bit down. Not a very large sample size, but the loss of the Photo+ collection seems to have hit me.

Steve

I used to use Lightburner, but the new pricing is too complex (and too much) for me, so I moved to one upload using Filezilla and going site by site uploading files. Works OK for me, as I have a very fast internet and I get two files uploaded in parallel at about 2Mbit/s each. Then I read these posts and decided to try StockUploader. Installed fine, I put my 18 sites into the config pages and tested - all good. However, when I use it, it uploads one image at a time, and only gets 100 - 200Kbit/s upload speed. A file that takes 4-6 seconds on Filezilla takes 1-2 minutes on Stockuploader.

Anyone know why that should be? I left a post on their forum, but no responses so far. Is there a speed restriction setting in Stockuploader?

Steve

I would have said the same a month ago, but suddenly I have sold 3 clips between May and June, for a total of 46,69 dollars... Finger crossed and let's hope it continues... 

Just to make sure i'm following - is this $46 on 123RF for video? Not this new site that only the OP seems to have had success with?

Steve

This may or may not be related - but this post made me go and check my google webmaster stats. I found that I had gone from a handful of page not found to 1000 on 5/8/2013 and it has stayed at that level ever since. The top problem pages are listed below. I've no idea what I did back on 5/8 - a new release perhaps? Anyone know what the cause of all these errors is, and would that cause Google to downgrade my site?

Steve

   Priority   URL   Response Code   Detected

1
feed/
404
5/24/13

2
comments/feed/
404
5/24/13

3
search-images/landmark/simplexmlelement.--construct
404
5/19/13

4
search-images/red/page/3/
404
5/24/13

5
image/interior-of-antique-hand-wown-watch/
404
6/1/13

6
hello-world/
404
5/20/13

7
search-images/yellow/page/3/
404
5/5/13

8
search-images/white/page/16/
404
5/5/13

9
search-images/building/page/3/simplexmlelement.--construct
404
5/1/13

10
search-images/pylon/simplexmlelement.--construct
404
4/30/13

11
search-images/sparks/simplexmlelement.--construct
404
4/30/13

12
search-images/freshness/simplexmlelement.--construct
404
4/30/13

13
search-images/canoe/function.stripos
404
5/11/13

14
search-images/tourists/function.simplexml-load-string
404
5/4/13

15
search-images/washington-monument/page/2/
404
5/5/13

16
search-images/beach/function.stripos
404
5/12/13

17
search-images/job/function.stripos
404
5/12/13

18
search-images/washington-dc/page/4/
404
5/9/13

19
search-images/transport/simplexmlelement.--construct

Again, sorry if I have missed the discussion on this in the various threads....

What did we decide to do about the in-site search? The issue that if I add the phrase "new york" in my keywords, it isn't found by searching the words "new york", or "york". The only way I think it can be found from within the site search is by including the separate keywords "new" and "york" but that they throws up incorrect search results because the images aren't of "York"!!

Google searches these things OK, so external searches will find the right images, but it makes the site seem very unresponsive once you are actually there.

Steve

This whole discussion brings me back to something I tried to explain a while back. We all know that we can't sell a file on Alamy as RM if that file is RF on another site. RM is just a different sort of licence (yes, with different prices for usage, but that is up to the seller/agency to set up those terms). If we have the Symbio sites selling fair trade licenses that have some sort of expiry, then they are no longer RF and so we could logically (and legally?) sell the same image as RM on Alamy and as FT on our own sites.

Yes?

Steve

Great - thats all I need to know. I'll set to work to reprocess mine before I go any further with new ones.

Steve

Thanks Cathy for the link to the other thread.

A question for those with large numbers of files on your sites - when Imagemagic was introduced, did you go back and reprocess all existing files?

I saw a mention of white lines in an isolated image - was that resolved? I don't want to spoil a working site for some potential benefits.

Steve

I'm still trying to get myself up to date, but there is one area I'm confused about - Imagemagick.

I remember the earlier discussions around version 1.3 or so that Imagemagick was a much better solution for image processing. There was this comment from Bluehost support:

Hi,

To enable imagick you would just need to add the following line of code anywhere in your php.ini file(s):

extension=imagick.so

Good luck.

I then see references to issues with the processing, timeouts etc. and that we should wait until version 2 to fully resolve the issues.

So, my question: Now that we have a stable version 2 release, is Imagemagick used by default, or do I still need to add the line into my php.ini to make it work? Then, should I be reprocessing all the images I have already uploaded and are live on my site, or are most of you just taking those as they are and simply processing the ones that are uploaded from now onwards?

Anything else I should know about Imagemagick?

Steve

Gillian

Keep at it - that is the only secret I know.

I just produced a graph that I will post a bit later today that plots the number of online files on SS against the earnings per online file. The number has grown over the past 2 years (more than doubled the number of files for sale), and the great news is that the earnings per online file has stayed static - maybe even gone up a bit. It was $0.25 in May, but is normally around $0.22.

What all that means (for my sort of portfolio at least) is that my income is almost directly proportional to the number of images I have available for sale - take more pictures (of the same quality) and you get more money.

Steve

3900 images and video clips (maybe 100 video clips). You can see the popular images here: http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=138433

I try to take a variety of styles - and try to re-use images if I can. I remember that post some time ago about someone who added a wooden deck in front of other people's landscapes - sometimes with a cup of coffee on it. I've done some of those (although only using my own images!). The surfboards that appear 3 times on the popular page are another example - one shot turned into 5 saleable variations.

SS is normally 45% - 50% of monthly income - I'll calculate that tonight for May.

Steve

Yes, I know this is really only interesting to me, but today I passed the $1000 mark for monthly sales on Shutterstock - my first month earning over $1000 with them. What is also interesting (I think) is that I'm within one month now of achieving lifetime earnings of $20,000 with them. It took me 4.5 years, from early 2008 to June 2012, to earn the first $10,000 and just 12 months to earn the next $10,000. Soon I will be getting $10K a month!

Steve