I totally agree Jo Ann, January usually is my 2nd worst month, with an average of -20% compared to December.   This year seems to be -25% (all agencies together), but Canva is -55%.  If your January sales are good, that means it's "just me" which is good news.

Most of my models sign without reading the MR, saying "I trust you".  That's not very clever of course, because I am not in control of who buys the images and what is done with them.  But I do explain what can happen, with a few examples.  They always love the story of me appearing on a Trade Union wall poster as a witch, in my own country, and people recognizing me.  Until today, all image uses found by me, my models or their friends were happily welcomed.  I live in a country were people rarely sue, but I do wonder what would happen in case of real misuse.

Done!  I really enjoy completing the annual survey.  It makes me think about the agency ranking, RPI, how much I spent on shoots and studio stuff, etc. etc. 

Got kicked of Fotolia the same day as Ron (in May).  FT was my number 2 earner, so I expected a financial disaster.  To my big surprise, May was the exact turning point for all other agencies to start growing again.  Between January 2012 and May 2014 there had been a steady decline.  I have no idea if being kicked of FT had anything to do with it, but fact is that since May 2014, EVERY month has shown growth.

Beside stock, I have started a successful "Belly&Baby" portrait business which will eventually outgrow my stock income.  I have applied (with success) for my SWPP recognition of the British "Photography Societies" and the "EP" title (European Photographer).  My wish for 2015 is to become one of the best baby photographers in Belgium, and also to learn to work smarter :  spend less time on retouching and still deliver a top product.  If I succeed, I'll have more free time for fun stock shoots. 

Happy holidays to all of you!

Ron, so glad you're back!  Now let's see if we can convince Lisa to join again?

Nothing here, though I do have 1 uncleared sale of May 2013.
Did you receive an e-mail, or did you notice it on your "account balance" ?

1000x thanks for that!  I did notice the strange language, but was not sure it was "poor grammar" or "very official law talk".   If English is not your mother language, it's difficult to see the difference! 

Fortunately I did not open the attachment (though my fingers were itching to do so), and I have not replied, so I think I'm OK.

Thanks again!

Some of the collapsible screens are translucent so they can be lit from behind.  I hadn't thought of that, and it seems like it could be a big advantage in terms of space.  If the strobe is in front, it has to be off to the side so as not to be in the frame.  And the subject has to be a sufficient distance in front of the strobe, which means the backdrop has to be extremely large.  But if I can put the strobe directly behind the screen, the subject can be up close to it in front and the screen can be small.   That would be very helpful.   I'm not sure, though, about getting a pure white background in this way.  Is it as simple as it sounds?

Aim the strobe at a white wall, or a white umbrella, or white foam core, or a silver reflector screen, and bounce it back towards the translucent collapsible screen.  This way it spreads equally and you'll have a pure white background (with the right camera settings).  If you work this way, your subject can be a lot closer to the backdrop.  I sometimes even put my subject against it.  I use the Lastolite Megalite, which works the same way.

I have been using (from time to time) a table like that to find out how my old files are doing.
I open the Shutterstock report of a good selling day, and I count how many images were sold of 2006, 2007, 2008 ...

This way I found out that (on Shutterstock), only 15% of my sales is represented by the 3500 files I uploaded from 2006 till end 2010.
The following 3 years average around 15% each, and 2014 is good for 40%.
It's always a nice warm feeling to see one of those really old files being sold ;-)

Well, I do not expect any payment :  there was only 1 of my images in his port, an image of a frog.  But as the main keyword "frog" was removed (why did he do that??), I'm sure it was never sold.  If he did the same with the other images, his business will not have been very lucrative.

Just a curious question ... 
Who came up with the idea of Canvas?  I don't mean the name, but the idea itself to offer this new service, as it's something really new (as far as I know).

I can't help wondering if Fotolia's beggar-my-neighbour industry-destroying strategy is working.

I thought so too, but in my stats, DST decline started in January 2014 or earlier (average -20% compared to 2013), but the latest trend is even -50% compared to 2013. 
Must say this is certainly NOT the general trend for stock photography, because almost every other site is status quo or going up (for me).

The ones marked Unsubmitted are really unsubmittable (which probably isn't a word), at least not by the contributor.

I had a few like that and even after some were manually fixed up, a few on the next batch ended up in that state too. I contacted support and Lee manually did whatever he had to do because there was still a bug causing this problem. As I understood it, there was nothing about the files themselves, but something about their upload process. It didn't mean they were rejected.

Thanks Jo Ann!  That's bad news, because I've got a LOT of "unsubmittable" files.  No idea how many :  I have about 2000 files that are "to be cut out" OR "unsubmitted".  But as there is no way (yet) to sort images, I am not going to count them manually ... 

Hi,
One thing that I find very annoying from a customer's point of view :  if I type "newborn puppy" (or anything else with 2 words), then I get a mixture of puppies and ... everyting else newborn :  kittens, babies, pigs ...  Even worse, if I type "isolated puppy", I get EVERYTING ISOLATED, including puppies.
Am I doing something wrong?  How can a customer avoid getting search results he/she does NOT want?  Would save a LOT of scrolling ...