I got $0.16 in average per photo in January. I never had so few sales apart from 5 years ago when I had a lot less images. I have never gotten so little money apart from in the first 5 months.

And they didn't get rejected for being similar.

Quote from: HappyBunny on December 22, 2021, 09:45

The estimated Net Worth of Stan Pavlovsky is at least $13.8 Million dollars as of 10 March 2021.

Nice and we don't earn enough to buy props, backgrounds pay for travel etc. And we should sit hours on the computer editing, keyboarding uploading all without getting paid. They must really laugh at us stupid slaves.

We do have the ability to remove our images but millions are standing in line to replace us.
[/quote]

I am already thinking about removing images that cost me a lot of money. Millions are standing in line? Do they have nothing better to do with their spare time than working for free or ending up paying more into it than they get from the agencies? I had bought 3 backgrounds shortly before SS dropped us down to 10 cents. Now I am furious with myself that I did that. My new images with the new backgrounds are not even selling. None of my new images are.

Quote from: Level6 on December 21, 2021, 10:31

You are correct, some of the free sites are clearly linked to the agencies and they don't hide it but there are a others that "appear" to be stand alone free sites like Pexels. 

I just think "free" is bad, stores have had sales since the beginning of time but not free, there is some really good free stuff out there and I can't sell my video clips if there's a reasonably good free clip out there that will do and especially in this economy?, people are loading up on the free stuff.

Pexels pays nothing, but there is a donate button, every time someone downloads an image. I don't think I'd rely on donations or trust people to use my images properly. But there's your answer.

Top Ten List - maybe ask one of them? How much does someone make from 2 million views?

1 10.3M Views
Kasia Palitava (56 photos?)

2 3.59M Views
Цвета Тишины
3 3.08M Views
Yaroslava Borz
4 3.05M Views
Alexey Demidov
5 2.24M Views
Alex Kozlov
6 2.18M Views
Veronika Bykovich
7 1.98M Views
Daria Kruchkova
8 1.98M Views
Rizky Sabriansyah
9 1.92M Views
Svetlana🎞
10 1.91M Views
Nikita Igonkin

Unsplash the book and their story:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mikaelcho/the-unsplash-book

I got in contact with a few and they have so many downloads that they do earn money. They do get donations and since it is a donation, a gift they don't even pay tax on that income. One lady does a lot of composites and her images are really magical. She earns more than I do. I wouldn't be able to do what she does. It's truly awesome. She is a microstock photographer but all her bestseller on the free websites are composites. She has 3 times as many images on that website than I have on microstock. It's families, normal people who donate a lot not companies. She really deserves it for all her hard work and composites but I do not support this at all. I will not give my images away for free. Apart from that they have their images stolen and other people downright use her images and pretend that they took them or made them. Think about it, you put your images up for free and other people put them under their own name on microstock. Maybe they do it because the money is tax free and they earn more money that way. She shared with me how much she had earned in the last week and it left me really speechless. No, I am not jealous. Her composites are really hard work and awesome. What really frustrates me is that she doesn't have to pay tax while we get nothing compared to what she makes and from that nothing we pay tax. I can't understand how that whole business model is legal. Someone should take that to court and get it shut down.

Quote from: HappyBunny on December 21, 2021, 08:39

Quote from: Brasilnut on December 21, 2021, 06:23

Quote from: Level6 on December 20, 2021, 11:09

The new compensation model allows contributors to receive a true percentage share from each download, rewarding content creators for producing quality work that is fresh, relevant and currently in demand by our customers.

This sums up SS...by the way, the port is full of stolen images.....

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Rockkss

Have you reported it to SS or don't they care?

I did...3 years ago.....and they don't care.

Would it help if we all write to SS reporting them?

Quote from: Level6 on December 20, 2021, 11:09

The new compensation model allows contributors to receive a true percentage share from each download, rewarding content creators for producing quality work that is fresh, relevant and currently in demand by our customers.

This sums up SS...by the way, the port is full of stolen images.....

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Rockkss

Have you reported it to SS or don't they care?

Quote from: HappyBunny on December 17, 2021, 13:22

Quote from: H2O on December 06, 2021, 09:52

I don't have a problem with having any photo's accepted at SS, as I haven't uploaded to this site since they cut the commission rates last year.

So no rejection at all in over a year.

I would like to delete all my images on SS until they come to their senses but when/if they do how to upload hundreds of images again? That's far too much work. Something needs to be done so that they get the drift that paying 10 cents is just not acceptable.

deleting your images won't make any difference to SS policies, so your choice is to delete for your personal satisfaction or leave your images and make some passive income.

And but don't get hung up on the 10c sales - my SS port this year has had RPD of $.60-.80 each month - just a bit less than AS; actual income from SS is still double that from AS.  AS sales haven't changed much over the last 2 years, while SS are down about 30%

I had some really good sales on AS but my average SS sale is down to 0.27 cents per image. I have earned more money with AS this month than with SS. I have not got more than 19 cents for an image this month on SS. Mainly just 10 cents. Occasionally 17 cents and 19 cents.

Quote from: HappyBunny on December 18, 2021, 03:58

I have been living here for more than 12 years. I don't know what to take photos of here. If a photo wasn't taken by me it was taken by someone else. I have here an excellent photographer as competition who has been at all the places at the right time. Always in perfect sunny weather which is so rare here and always with the sun shining at a castle etc. It's impossible to be better than this guy even if I do use an app to find out when to be where on a sunny day. My question is, do you move around every 10 years, or even more often, to a different location, far away, to be able to shoot something new? I don't know what to take photos of here. I have been to all the landmarks and places around here that sell on SS. Food photography is also totally pointless. I recently saw a portfolio of a lady who made over 1000 Christmas backgrounds. All were very, very beautiful and perfectly done. I must have clicked on 100 of them and every time it said "Not bought yet". I didn't just go threw the first 3 pages. I gave up feeling very sad and sorry for her. Think about all the work and money and time she put into the photos and so many were not bought. They are excellent Christmas backgrounds. There is nothing wrong with them. Do you guys move after you have taken photos all around you or is it in your opinion just a waste of money because there will be another stock photographer living everywhere? I could start taking photos of every flower I see but photos of flowers I took never sold very well.

With macro photography there are still some subjects. But the amount of competing photos is indeed huge.
I haven't been on holiday for two years because of covid, so I have to have it from the environment too. The weather along the coast in the Netherlands was also very often gloomy this year. With us you have the touristic flower fields (tulips, hyacinths), windmills, beach, dunes, but there are also many photos of that. So I know the feeling.
When the weather is good I often take the bike. Until now, to my surprise, I always come across something new (renovation, working farmers, boat in the canal, open bridge,.....) but no bestsellers.
I like to be outside, to take pictures and to earn some money. If you expect to shoot to earn a lot of money, then it's less fun.

Oh yes, your flower fields. So beautiful. I had the idea to travel to Keukenhof garden to take photos but far too many of them already and far too many tourists. I did take images of renovation work, with people and without but they never sold. I haven't been on holiday for 5 years. I just wanted to go but then the virus came. I have seen images of our really lousy weather from my place but they don't sell. Maybe the weather isn't lousy enough. :-)

Quote from: HappyBunny on December 17, 2021, 13:03

... However, I can't just fly to Morocco again. :-) I have 2 images from Morocco which could do with a sky replacement. Just not sure if I want to give them to microstock after spending hours on re-editing them just to get 10 cents.... They can have a cookie on white but not travel photos.

Couple of thoughts

-With contributors nearly worldwide, it's no longer relevant that you had to travel to get somewhere in terms of the value a stock photo has. For many locations, they're local to someone (unless there's special access and you have an opportunity others don't)

-Shutterstock has over 340k photos of Morocco; Adobe stock has over 240k. Take a look at what's there, and unless you can really add something that isn't already well represented after you replace a sky, it's just not worth submitting. It could absolutely happen that you have something unusual, but be brutally honest with your image's chances.

-Don't think of the return on time edited on the basis of the royalty for one sale; look at the potential for income overall, over time. For many years, I've read comments along the lines of "SS can't expect top quality for only 25 (38/10/...) cents". If an image sells well and keeps going over time it can earn a lot (especially with the higher value SOD royalties, although obviously since June 2020 trends have been down). Microstock isn't about the royalty per license but the income overall given volume. High royalties x low volume can work, but so can low royalties x high volume (as long as the buyer pool is being expanded; if it's just to line Stan Pavlovsky's and shareholder's pockets, not so much )

Both images have been bought a few times but I recently checked and now there are identical photos from someone else with a much better sky. I have never done sky replacements on my images. I never thought of doing it for microstock. I thought that they customer want to do with the image what they want. Once I uploaded an image of Casablanca and it didn't sell. I re-edited after I had bought another software. Thanks God it was accepted despite them having a similar one. That re-edited version is selling very well. However Adobe rejected that re-edited version. Not because it's similar but they wrote that it is over edited. That I need to let the buyer edit the image as they want. Their loss and my loss because the re-edited version is my bestselling travel image on all other agencies. All others including SS accepted the newly edited version. The old version is still on the websites but doesn't sell at all. So much to the customer doing what they want. I didn't replace the sky on that photo. SS once said that we should take photos locally. Well, nobody seems to care about small towns.

I am so delighted when I get an email from Adobe and see that they at least appreciate the value of our images. Every time I open the SS app and see 10 cents I get worked up and angry. I don't want to waste money on buying backgrounds, props or food for food photography. It's just a waste of money. Paying more in than I am getting paid. I am always excited to open an email from Adobe. It's like a Christmas present every time. Thank you Adobe.

May I get some advise please. When I started 5 years ago my editing skills were not very good and I used a different editing software. I just re-edited an image rather a lot. It was a wildflower meadow image with visible dark holes at the base in between the flowers what I didn't like. I filled the gaps, made it more vibrant etc. First it was rejected today for noise which I found strange because it was accepted like that 5 years ago. So I removed more noise and now it is looking even sharper but it got rejected for similar. That similar was uploaded 5 years ago and is first of all not that sharp and the new one is visibly much more beautiful. I am astonished that underneath my old photo is written that it was often bought. As far as I remember it was never bought on SS. Where is the money for it? Why don't they take the obviously much better image and delete the old one or have both? I tried to delete the old version but that's not possible. Is there any point re-editing some old important travel photos that have a very boring sky? I thought about sky replacement. One image doesn't sell. It has competition and the competition has exactly the same image and stood at the same spot but her sky is much better. Will it also just get rejected for similar? I only started uploading to SS after DT accepted each and every image of mine 5 years ago. I hardly ever had rejections. Not for technical reasons. This month I get nothing but rejections. Noise? Every agency has accepted that image. Paying 10 cents but making such a drama as if we are uploading to Offset. They are not selling the images for 300 dollars. How do I delete images if I want to take them away from them. I am thinking of taking the important travel images away from all microstock agencies and uploading them to macrostock. I have written years ago to SS that they can't expect me to make food photos like the ones in Offset when they pay nothing that covers to buy all the necessary props. My husband recently joked and said that they don't even pay what it costs to charge my camera's batteries when he saw me with the charger in my hands. When I checked to see how many strawberry ice cream images they have I decided not to bother taking one at all.

I don't like the new look at all. Just awful.