Watching carefully to see if the effect of the promotion is over.  Seems to have stopped around midnight ET (Thu/Fri).  But by then, my Friday had already crushed Thursday to become my new BDE on FT before Friday had even started in my time zone. 

When I awoke on Friday, I saw no evidence that the wave had continued while I slept, suggesting the effects of the promotion were almost entirely from the US -- at least for my port.  This means either the promotion was Thurs only, or a huge wave will start again once the US wakes up and gets back to work.

Heading toward a BDE at FT for me!  That's not something I get to say about ANY agency these days!

Terrible month for me.  Approx 30% down vs Oct 15 across all the big agencies. 

Some folks here are reporting a good October.  Is anyone who has been doing this for several years seeing positive results?  Of course new microstockers are seeing growth... but I'd like to know how veterans are feeling about the performance of SS, FT, DT, 123 and other top sites.  Seems like nothing but falling earnings for everyone with a large port.

Also beating SS this month has been 123RF.  However, this is an outlier, most likely due to a PEL sale and I expect total earnings to fall below SS by month's end.

Yes, 123RF is the other major player on the rise.  Not too long ago I said they had crossed into Top Tier.  They will be the #3 agency before long. 

You're probably not doing anything wrong.  You just hit the wall.  You clearly know what to create... if you hit the top earning tier after one year in microstock, you have an eye for high commercial value images.  The problem is, you simply can't increase your port at the rate SS and the other micros are expanding their collections.  They're rising exponentially and there's no way to keep up.  Your situation sounds the exact same as mine.  Very, very discouraging.

For this to be meaningful at all, you'd have to divide the newbies from the veterans.  My guess is that close to 100% of newbies (in microstock less than 3 years) are doing better than a year ago.  Especially since many of these folks will have increased their ports by 50 to 100% in the past year.   The vast majority of people at this longer than 3 years are probably making less.  Not to sound like a broken record, but it's called THE WALL... the point at which your rate of growth is far outpaced by the exploding collections of the big micros.  I'm working my rear end off to increase my port by about 20% this year, but SS is going to go up by 50%?  100%?  The wall crushes us all.

What strikes me when I see these old threads is the fact that ALMOST NO ONE on them is around here anymore.  They've given up on microstock, realizing it is unsustainable.

One of the guys is the NiltoMil guy who ran a blog that would detail his rise to earning a million dollars in microstock.  Long gone.

40K is quite achievable, even in 2016. 2015 was my first year in Microstock and I see that number as being very achievable in a year or 2.

Here's the problem... it may look achievable today based on your RPI, RPD or however you're measuring and projecting your output and expected revenue.

But tomorrow will be vastly different.  In a year or two, there may be two or three times as many competing images at the agencies as there are today.  Unless you're doubling or tripling your own port size every year, there's no hope at maintaining growth in revenue at the rate you're growing it today.

It's known as "the Wall" and it used to hit microstockers after several years, but at the current pace of growth of supply at the agencies, even rookies are seeing "the Wall" come down very quickly after starting their own ports. 

It's all a numbers game, and it's one we simply can't win.

Quote from: stockmarketer on February 01, 2016, 16:04

There was once a frequent poster here who had a blog called Nil to Mil, which was going to detail his rise from $0 in microstock sales to a million bucks.  After a few years he realized it wasn't doable and threw in the towel... on the blog, and it seems, on microstock in general.

I believe Matt has a SEO company now

Smart man.  That's a field where one could actually earn some money.  He may have realized that he did a good job at promoting his site and driving traffic, and when the primary goal of the site looked unattainable, he took what he learned and ran in a different direction.  A 'pivot' I believe is the current buzzword for it.

Quote from: stockmarketer on January 13, 2016, 22:38

It would be interesting to hear how long people have been doing microstock when they claim best months ever.  This type of talk is usually a dead giveaway for someone who hasn't been doing this very long.  I don't hear many veterans saying things are great.  But if you doubled your port size in the past year, you will of course have higher earnings.  For those of us with a lot of years under our belts, we're only increasing our port sizes by, say 10 or 20% each year, and since the agencies are growing overall by more like 30 to 40% a year, on average we are falling behind.  It's a numbers game, and if you're in it long enough, you lose.

Veterans started when the market was young. You hear the same about veteran app developers who started when the App Store just opened. They were making tons of money and now they're making peanuts. The market has changed, but that doesn't mean there aren't opportunities. Veterans just have to play the game like everyone else now.

I started microstock a little less year ago and I was optimistic at the start and I still am. In a way, it is a numbers game, but there are a lot of intangibles and you can take advantage of to make a portfolio more successful. You can look at things another way...if you play the game enough, you'll have more experience and that gives you an edge.

I remember being a teenager and spouting off to my dad on my views of the world.  He would smile and tell me that I would learn the realities of the world soon enough.  It didn't take many years to show me he was right.  And a few decades later I find myself listening to my teenage son about how he sees the world, and I smile and tell him he will learn the realities of the world soon enough. 

I remember being new to microstock 8 years ago and coming to this forum saying how I had figured everything out, and the veterans tried telling me the reality of the market.  I laughed and said I had things figured out.  Today, I'm the veteran trying to talk reality to microstock newcomers, and the veterans of yesterday are nowhere to be seen.  It appears they've given up on microstock altogether.  Perhaps that's the future for us all.

fotolia is on fire

Is it?  Is it on fire for people who have been contributing there for 8+ years?  If you ask me, it was on fire in 2011.  From where I sit, with a pretty large port that has traditionally sold well there, it's roughly where it was a year ago.  Meaning that everything Adobe is doing to push FT is countering the general downward trends of MS.  Everyone else is down and FT is pretty flat.  I guess we have to take our victories where we can get them.

I've been having similar thoughts recently.

I've devoted most of my precious spare time to microstock for nearly eight years now.  In the first seven I enjoyed predictable growth.  I had nothing but positive feelings and outlook on microstock.  I had a plan and it was working. 

2015 turned everything on its head.  I'm not sure what happened.  It feels like there was a massive increase in either new contributors or a higher output per contributor, possibly combined with a lowering of standards as the agencies tried to beat each other for bragging rights of biggest portfolio size.  I worked like mad to double my port size in the past few years, but the agencies tripled their total image counts, so there was no way I could grow my income no matter how hard I tried.

Combine this with some of the big agencies changing their search results to favor new contributors (I suppose to get them all starry eyed like I was eight years ago) and I'm feeling extremely negative.  2015 was brutal, not just to my income but to my hopes for the future. 

Most of my uploads of the past few months now feel like a total waste of time.  No sales anywhere.  Poor quality?  Low commercial value?  No, I'm more proud of my newest work than anything I've done. I KNOW these are in-demand topics and styles.  If I had uploaded these three years ago, they would be selling like gangbusters.  But today it's like I dropped them into a black hole.  So what do I do today?  For the first time, I'm at a total loss.  Directionless.  My plan is out the window.

Many of the big contributors I followed on these forums several years ago have given up.  They must have seen this coming.  As the new year looms, I'm wondering if I should join them and find something else that might replace my microstock income, or at least make me feel more fulfilled creatively instead of punishing me.  The next few weeks may be a turning point for me.  It could be my resolution: find a way to get my microstock income growing again, or find a new project more worthy of my blood, sweat and tears.

I don't think microstock is broken. I mean broken for who? It's thriving like crazy right now.

Here's what's broken.  A contributor used to see a payoff for creating and uploading images.  Today due to oversaturation, falling prices and lower commissions, the payoff is gone.  There's no reason to do it. 

No payoff for veterans to keep submitting new images if it doesn't slow the falling of their earnings.  I increase my port size by 20%.  My earnings fall by 25%.  That's broken.

And certainly no reason for a newcomer to even start.

The dream of microstock is broken.  The hope many of us had of funding trips, a child's college tuition, or even just equipment is broken.

Customers are happy (for now).  Agencies are happy (for now).  But when top suppliers are by and large unhappy and stop supplying, the market is broken.