Incredible accomplishment, but too bad the guy doesn't even get a royalty increase for it. All the Black Diamonds get is a canister graphics. Nothing more.

My thoughts exactly! I hoped for a raise but I am still at 20%.....what? did I hear right�.20%...Yes.

With my current rate I will hit a million DL before Lise, that�s my dream, but with the tweaking and constant changing of IS policy you can never know. I could be selling close to nothing in a few months from now. Microstock is a risky business.

Last week i did a search for �business seminar� and the results out of the first 100 images where like this:

Yuri Arcurs: 7 images.
Lise Gagne: 38 Images�.

Make your own conclusion on this. Just facts.

I will be opting out and in over the next few days to see if there is a difference in income. So fare none. Andreas will be doing this too

Very interesting!  I know people on iStock have been asking for this, although I don't really see the use.

Well, is dreamstime the only place to offer this?  Since it is there for the taking, maybe that's where this information has come from.

No. It's not from Dreamstime and it's not publicly available anywhere. Are you by any change very sceptical natured? 
We did not leech this info from some websites front-end. Think about how long time that would take, getting 600000 clusters of keywords� and then you would still be missing the search patterns!

Quote from: GeoPappas on January 08, 2008, 09:59

Yuri:

May I ask how many searches were in the research data that you based your findings from?

This will give us a better idea of how good the results are.

I'm not doubting your research, just wondering what sort of data you are basing the result on.

My point exactly.

Quote

The �adult� and �adults� are useless, and almost never lead to sales.

I find it hard to believe a leading agency released all their searches and and cross referenced those to tracked sales for you just because you asked nicely.  Forgive me for questioning a little bit.

Are you suggesting that I made this up! Seriously.....
I got the information because:
1.   I�m using it for data in a real research project I am doing on search patterns. (I study psychology)
2.   We could not have built the relevancy data-base in our keywording software without it.
3.   We are providing the agency with the results.

The data is based on about 2�000�000 searches

I am sharing this information with you out of kindness...Hmmm...

Since we don't know what site you've managed to secure this mysterious back end information from, it may be more site specific than you think.

I sense a slight scepticism and irony in this reply. If you don�t like the research feel free to not use it.

My Data is from an agency and are based on searched performed by real buyers over the last year. Please respect that I cannot say any more.

It was not easy to find an agency that would share these information and we had to guarantee that the program was done in such a way, that there would be plenty of room for custom and original keywording and that people would not just start keyword spamming again. I would love to publicly thank the agency at hand but I can�t because this would make it very complicated for us to get other agencies to sell the program.

I can't wait to try it. Key wording is ssssoooooooooo important.
It can make or break a portfolio

The MIZ

Thanks! It will be everything we have waited for� If not, we will simply keep improving it until it is perfect.   

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on January 07, 2008, 05:34

The thing is that being down with about 20% in the Christmas months (the total of 5% is over 4 months), January and February has to be up with about 20% to make it even out, and to make a progress they have to be up with a lot more. If January and February are �only� up with about 20%, that means I just lost a 40000USD investment and the time put into it.

If an increase of "only" 20% is a bad thing, I doubt anyone here can offer you advice.

You may be misunderstanding my point. Increase has to match decrease.

Just a curious question from an amateur: why do you pros and semi-pros sell your images with margins of 0,25$ instead of selling through macrostock companies?

It�s not like you just walk into a macro agency and say �hi, wanna sell my pictures� Macrostock is very conservative and highly concerned about image, so being a microstocker you are at the very bottom. People spend up to four years of work and get big loans paying for the production fees building a portfolio to present to macrostock agencies so they maybe can be accepted...

For the purpose of making a good keywording program which I and heavily involved in these days. I have had to do a lot of research on keywording and search patterns in our buyers. I have done this based on some back-end material that I cannot share in the public, but I CAN share my findings�:)
Use these results wisely.

General observations:

-   People are inconsistent and non-decisive about using plural and do so randomly. The highly ranked keyword �groups� illustrate this very well. People may often search for �girls, fun, lifestyle� and end up buying a picture with only one girl.

-   Search patterns are heavily dependent on stereotypical behaviour to a much more serious extend then first concluded. From a logical point of view it would have been good keywording to include the following keywords together: �multi-ethnic, multiethnic, mixed races, diversity, diverse, international, multi-national, multinational, multi, ethnic� but my research indicate that all these keywords combine to only one forth of the search rank of one single keyword: �interracial�. This means that leaving out essential keywords can damage the sales at a much higher level then I thought.

-   Search patterns are much more direct then common sense would dictate. People looking for a picture of three or more business people discussing can be found searching for �three, suits, business, table� and not �business people talking� or �businessmen interacting�. This means that concrete keywords like �faces, hands, table, sitting/standing� are much more important then secondary keywords. For example people will search for �face� when they are looking for a close-up and not search for �close-up�. 

-   People never use the �-� when searching. No search pattern occurrences of �close-up� or �multi-ethnic�.

-   Keywords longer then 8 characters account for less then 10% of the total search rank from all keywords.

-   The keywords: �splat, splatter, award, happy hour� are highly searched for but no one uses them.

-   The �adult� and �adults� are useless, and almost never lead to sales.
-   There is a 80% overlap between highly searched for keywords and highly used keywords by a photographer. This means that one can use the public resources available on istock, fotolia, ss and Dreamstime and do not need back-end material on search behaviour.

In other words. All the keywording I have done on my 8000 picture portfolio is wrong�

The keywording program I am trying to design will warn a user when a stereotypical keyword is left out and suggest other highly ranked keywords based on the keywords the user types in.
We have been into some really serious mathematics and some really crazy algorithms to get the program to work.

To all the beta-testers: Sorry for the delay. My programmers are working night and day -  I am waiting myself for a functional beta. The first beta will be an XP version and should be ready for beta feedback late this week.

Thanks Josh and Brian for bringing in the agencys perspective.

The thing is that being down with about 20% in the Christmas months (the total of 5% is over 4 months), January and February has to be up with about 20% to make it even out, and to make a progress they have to be up with a lot more. If January and February are �only� up with about 20%, that means I just lost a 40000USD investment and the time put into it.

I�m planning to do this:
Downsize my SS uploads to minimum res, so the people that want to buy them in full res, does so for real money. This way people also don�t get irritated with too big file sizes when downloading.
Obt out of StockXpert subscription, because I feel I have lost money ever since they introduced it and maybe some of my regular buyers are now buying my pictures over a subscription instead and that�s why I�m losing money.
No casino, concert, big business shoots or pro-model shoots, because it does not pay. Stick to secure and easily produced pictures.
Do an effort at pushing subscription agencies toward regular commission of the net-income from commission downloads. No fixed rates (0.30, 0.35 cents etc.) because they hide away the actual commission. 

That would be an extreme endeavour and I would lose all my income in the transaction, because I would en an competitor and would be banned from a lot of agencies. I also know how much advertising costs and what I would cost in online marketing to get my portfolio actually visible in Google. The thing is. That microstock is changing and the photographers are getting pros, but the agencies are still armatures in their mindset. Both photographers and agencies lose from having too low prices.

Yuri may have a point as to how many DL SS customers make, but his arithmetic is wrong.
A subscription costs $199 for one month.
For that, you can DL up to 750 images.
Let's say you take Yuri's lowest guess, 15%.
That means you DL 112 images in a month.
$199 /112 = $1.78 per image, NOT $5/$6.

If you take more than 15%, you pay less per image.
If you take a subscription for more than one month, you pay less.
So if Yuri is correct, the least subscribers pay for an image is $1.78.
We get 30 cents, which is 17%.
Obviously, the more a subscriber DL's, the higher is our per centage.

It's that time of year for stats, so I took a look at ours, and was surprised at my results.

I separated SS from all the other sites, and calculated the average amount per DL for the other sites, against SS payout:-

2005  All sites except SS, average per DL   39 cents
          Shutterstock                                       20 cents - just over half 

2006  All sites except SS, average per DL    54 cents
          Shutterstock                                        26 cents - just under half

2007 All sites except SS, average per DL      83 cents
         Shutterstock                                          31 cents - a lot less than half 


So, Shutterstock is definitely falling behind on returns per DL.  I was very surprised to get these results. Has anyone else got similar?

Linda
 

Your numbers are true! I would hate to think that Jon is just trying to pull out as much profit out of SS as possible. My income on shutterstock is at a stand-still, and that�s even when uploading more then 400 images per month. The �falling behind on returns per DL� really shows these days.

Last year SS put up prices with almost 100 percent and put up commission with 25 percent, which was probably enough to maintaing a status qou in income but not progress.  Since then I have not really had any progress that is comparable to that of the other agencies I am with.

From being my number one earner, SS is now my third and soon to be forth�