I have no numbers on which to base my suspicions as I have never been exclusive on DT. But I see that exclusive people (on their blogs and such) seem to be doing way WAY better than me with far fewer photos. DT really seems to promote the content of its exclusive sellers. I feel (again, no numbers, just a feeling) that I am making 10% of what I would be making on DT if I were exclusive. Maybe the fact that your content has already sold will help you (keep you at a higher level, etc). And I do think selling on other sites will get you more overall profit than staying exclusive on DT. But I would expect a dramatic drop in profit from DT proper.

The video sales are pretty small, yes. And they are rare. Right now, our video collections is very, very, basic. No real production cost to speak of, limited equipment. So we are submitting our current content there. But content that we produce in the future may not go there. I think we've had 5-6 DT video sales, all with profit less than $10. The smallest profits have come from web-only usage.

Quote from: Stock Wife on July 25, 2015, 19:31

. . .  And that's where this forum could have been helpful instead of jumping on the 'lecturing the newbie' bandwagon.

Rather than mentioning anything about getting rich or doing so quickly, s/he merely expressed curiosity about trying it out to see what the experience would be like.

Good words, thanks. I'm a newby here and wanting to learn. You post is right on target IMHO.

Good luck to you!

Quote from: Stock Wife on July 25, 2015, 19:31

The OP said nothing about wanting to get rich or to make money quickly. S/he simply wanted to know about whether a pattern of sales was normal or abnormal. To me, it's not normal, perhaps indicating a keywording or other problem. Rather than mentioning anything about getting rich or doing so quickly, s/he merely expressed curiosity about trying it out to see what the experience would be like.

That's precisely what I'm looking forward to clarify, thanks for being caring

Indeed, I'm not thinking of getting rich with this business, and I'm not even considering microstocks as a part-time job. I'm shooting anyways as it's my hobby. The only reason I decided to put some of my photos online is to reach two objectives:

1) put online those pictures which otherwise will stay lost and hidden somewhere on my HDD (i'm not printing a lot of photos, and not making photo books out of them), and

2) to earn something which I could invest in a new equipment, be it a new filter or, if I'm more successful, a new lens.

The second reason is more out of psychological principle, since my current full-time job allows me basically to buy a new lens each and every month, without significant impact on my family budget.

Now, turning to the possible reasons of low sales, I must say that I have been following the basic keywording rules. i.e. prioritizing where necessary (i.e. Fotolia), adding only the relevant ones (i.e. no spamming) and as many as allowed (normally within 50 keywords). Unless other microstocks also rely on prioritization of keywords (which I'm not aware of, at least based on their published rules), I don't expect to see a problem here. I might though review randomly some of the keywords to see if anything is still missing (following a note by Jo Ann Snover in this thread).

So, I guess the only and real problem is non-uniqueness of my mostly landscape photos, and oversaturation of the subject, correct?

Best,
Sergiy (male

I think so. The feedback so far has been that the photos are pretty generic. We have pretty good luck with generic photos, too, but have cautious expectations and hopes for them. I have been thinking more on your question, and I'm realizing that our landscapes don't sell as well on Fotolia, either. We actually have decent luck with landscapes proper on iStock. IS doesn't generate many sales, of course, but the landscapes perform relatively well there compared to other sites. I think that it will take more time for you to figure out if iStock will be worth your time investment (including letting PP and subs catch up since they come in a month late).

The only one that looks strange to me is the low sales on Fotolia. We have a lot of sales on FT, almost as many as on SS per month. One thing about Fotolia is that the keywords are prioritized by order (or at least, I thought I read that it used to be that way before Adobe) so make sure your most relevant and best keywords are near the top of the list. Once your photos are up at FT, you can't change or add any keywords but you can change the order.

It took us forever to get 'decent' sales at DT, and even now with about 900 images, it's only about 10 downloads a month. Deposit is super variable and with iStock, we make most of our money off of PP and subs.

Quote from: Stock Wife on June 21, 2015, 09:18

Very poor photo sales on Pond5. We sell mostly video there but I add our photos because their uploading process is pretty easy (no categories, etc). We've sold 4 photos this year with a port of over 600 images. Not even enough for a payout (which is actually $25) but since the photos are extra on top of our video sales, it works. I would not submit there with only photos (or I would not have high expectations).

Raise your prices.

Raise your own. I'm happy with my prices.

 

I wouldn't consider contributing to a site that I didn't expect to make a payout every month.  RM or sites that pay $100's per sale would be different but none of the microstock sites.  There is no way the effort is worth it to get a payout once a year.

If we only submitted to places we would definitely get monthly payouts, we'd submit nowhere.

I think it matters how much you intend to submit over the next year and several years. Of course you can't predict how the industry or your interests in it will change but why invest time and energy submitting to only a few places and then realize you've been leaving money on the table all this time?  If uploading is low cost (in money and time away from something else you need to do), cut back; if not, take the risk.

FWIW, we are on all sites with numbers on the survey. In 13 months, we've had (or have now earned) payouts from 7 of them. Of course, SS payouts are frequent but still not definitely every month. Pond5 payouts are nearly monthly but they have a low threshold. Otherwise, we haven't yet qualified for more than one payout from anywhere else on the list. Once we hit payment from Deposit, I am likely to pull images. I am not sending new uploads there at the moment.

Crap week here, too. Month will be BME due to a giant sale on Alamy but everything else has been slow since last Friday. I figure it's a combination of the holidays, summer, and the SS switch to no daily limits (people may have used subs up earlier in the month).

For what it's worth, we are relatively new to micro stock (my husband and I). He was a designer for years and never thought he could pull off stock until he got some more confidence. About a year ago, we plunged into the market with him doing the shooting and me doing most of the management of photos (I do his keywording, isn't he lucky!?!?!). He manages the video side of what we do and will also manage vectors once he gets those started.

We've been at this a year and are pleased with the results. A lot of our early images were from his hard drive, as is your situation. Many of his hard drive images have been duds and many of his older stuff is good but too small to sell. But some have been great sellers for us. We got about 600 images out of his hard drive of 20,000 files (he was picky about what he selected).

 Our goal is to make 10K a year doing this and we are a long, A LONG, way off. Our profits are growing steadily and the target seems feasible if we keep uploading. Short term (within three years) goals for us are 1,000 videos and 5,000 photos (we are at 150 videos and 850 photos).

The biggest thing keeping us going is that we feel like we have to try this out or will regret having not tried. We often talk about how much better off we might be if we had started the stock stuff back in its heyday, which according to everyone here, we have missed. But life is what it is. We didn't do it then and we are trying it now. Between this and side gigs with graphic design, my husband has never been happier making just the amount of money we need him to make.

Good luck to you as you learn and keep plugging away!

PS. At some point I know I should share ports with everyone. It's just that this is me talking here and it's my husband's work and I feel odd opening up his work to likely criticism (even helpful criticism). Someday, hopefully!

I haven't been able to log in to Fotolia for weeks. My husband now also can't. Anyone else still having trouble with Fotolia?

I'm so far away from those upper levels that it makes me feel relieved to know people can even reach them! But I wholeheartedly agree, a little extra bonus here or there should be available for everyone. Even if not on subs but on percent payout from other sales.

My views AND sales at Fotolia are both climbing dramatically. The increase in views is certainly steeper than the sales.

Month to date RPI is double what it was in January/February.

I have noticed a bigger change (increase) in credit sales than in subscription sales (which seem to be holding constant).

I'm not sure what is happening or why, but it seems to be working my favor for now and I like.

Quote from: Stock Wife on April 14, 2015, 11:23

April looks a tad slower for me than March but MUCH better than April. In fact, halfway through April I have already passed Feb sales.

Fotolia is slightly down from an unexpectedly high month in March but is slated to be 2-3 times better than February. SS is better than both March & Feb due to a nice SOD. 123 has had a small boost after a bad March. And everything else (BigStock, PhotoDune, DT, IS, CS) are slow as molasses as usual.

I believe you are quite new to stock. How big is your port?

Yes, quite new! Just passed a year but the husband had a backlog of photos so the port is respectable. Maybe? Port size is 800 photos/150 videos (though considerably less photos on SS).

But still growing a lot so it's hard to tell based on my port whether growth is due to growing port or changing trends.