I find that sales on SS nowadays are more concentrated on a few images that sell really well and the others that disappear down the sort-order before they get noticed.

Mine have always been like that. It's about breaking through on an image here and there that get regular downloads while others sorta disappear or get a hit every now and then. New images do sell, just not all of them. I don't expect them to all sell.

On the other hand, it looks like they've finally worked through the new istock contributors. Review times are back down to normal, so maybe there's a better chance of new images selling because there aren't so many. Either that, or they hired a bunch of new reviewers.

Looking at the SS earnings chart, if I'm reading it right, over the last 6 months, only 7.6% of our earnings have come from content uploaded during that 6 months.
When you think that we've only been uploading to SS for about 15 months, it doesn't look good for new uploads.

Going back further, over the last 12 months, only 19% of our earnings have come from content uploaded during that 12 months.
That means that 81% of our earnings has come from what we uploaded in June and July 2012, plus the old stuff we had on line from the old days, and I can tell you that doesn't sell much.

I've been submitting to Shutterstock since 2005 and have been adding to my port pretty consistently over that time.  Here are my ratios by comparison:

     3 months:   5.1% of earnings from new images (  4.0% of my portfolio).
     6 months:   6.8% of earnings from new images (  7.4% of my portfolio).
   12 months: 13.2% of earnings from new images (17.9% of my portfolio).
   24 months: 29.7% of earnings from new images (41.0% of my portfolio).

Allowing for the fact that newer images are in my portfolio about half of each time period on average (for a three month period, some are there the entire time, some no time at all, the rest distributed across the range), the percentages of revenue from new images tracks pretty well for me.  Of course, your mileage may vary.

Quote from: disorderly on August 19, 2013, 13:46

Quote from: Travelling-light on August 19, 2013, 13:20

Looking at the SS earnings chart, if I'm reading it right, over the last 6 months, only 7.6% of our earnings have come from content uploaded during that 6 months.
When you think that we've only been uploading to SS for about 15 months, it doesn't look good for new uploads.

Going back further, over the last 12 months, only 19% of our earnings have come from content uploaded during that 12 months.
That means that 81% of our earnings has come from what we uploaded in June and July 2012, plus the old stuff we had on line from the old days, and I can tell you that doesn't sell much.

I've been submitting to Shutterstock since 2005 and have been adding to my port pretty consistently over that time.  Here are my ratios by comparison:

     3 months:   5.1% of earnings from new images (  4.0% of my portfolio).
     6 months:   6.8% of earnings from new images (  7.4% of my portfolio).
   12 months: 13.2% of earnings from new images (17.9% of my portfolio).
   24 months: 29.7% of earnings from new images (41.0% of my portfolio).

Allowing for the fact that newer images are in my portfolio about half of each time period on average (for a three month period, some are there the entire time, some no time at all, the rest distributed across the range), the percentages of revenue from new images tracks pretty well for me.  Of course, your mileage may vary.

Hmm. Earnings from my new content over the last 6 months is just 3.8%. Earnings from new content over the last 24 months is 23.7% of my total. I'm quite surprised that over 75% of my earnings at SS are from content uploaded more than 2 years ago. Mind you, I'd imagine that over 80% of my portfolio is more than 2 years old too.

That's good news in a way, it means you aren't having to feed the beast the way we used to.

Who cares?  I stopped submitting to them as sales from across the sea and other places in the US are far better for me and more equitable without question.   

What kind of places are they? Do they have name?

As we all can agree old files keep selling and new ones don't. I uploaded a batch of an event and the images got accepted yesterday. Someone else also uploaded images of the same event which appeared online about 5 days ago. Now I did a search on this event and got 3 pages of results, his and my images. My images start to appear on the second page in Popular and on the last in Relevant. When I select Newest first my images appear first.
Now I narrow the (Newest first) results down and add "blue"`(example). Even at Newest first my image appears last. Now I add "Red", some appear first others appear last. Even though they all got accepted yesterday. Seems there we got one of the problems why new images aren't selling at SS.

Edit: It appears SS sort Newest on image # instead of acceptance. So that explains that.

Quote from: j-flown on September 18, 2013, 05:06

As we all can agree old files keep selling and new ones don't.

Huh? I wouldn't agree with that at all. New images, if they're good ones, are selling very well indeed as far as I'm concerned.

"It's not the arrows, it's the Indian" as they say.

Most people report new images don't sell as much as they used to while older ones keep selling. My experience is that if the image is good it will eventually take-off but not in the first days (week) like before.

There was a change about 2 years ago. Before that it was all about feeding the beast. That seems to be over. They had about 15 million images back then. Now it looks like they've changed something in the search again. For example they seem to have switched the results in Popular and Relevant.

I did not upload any single file to SS for 3 years (2010-2011-2012). Then I started to upload again this year and added 200 new to my old 500 files. When I check my stats now, I can clearly see that the new files do sell.

But OTOH this year I have more zero download files as I used to have in the past. In the good old days almost every new file used to sell at least couple of times before going down.

I am going towards a BME in downloads and maybe even a 3rd BME In a row. Whatever they changed, its like nitro in my port.

Also the downfall people reporting are not from the same months

You talk about 2 years ago, some say last year, some say this year May

I thought I had hit the wall up until 2.5 months ago when my port started to take off again. I am with SS for 18 months.

I'm not saying there is a downfall at SS at all. My BME last July and I'm with them since 2009. The only thing I noticed lately (and saw others report too) is that new files sell less while older files (even same subjects) continue selling. Maybe this is not a problem at all but it used to be important with SS that new files sell in order not to get buried.
Perhaps I oversee something that makes it look like new files don't sell (like port growth compared to new files).

Anyway, I increased my port in August with 6,3% to 1600 files.
Since then 5,2% of my SS-income are from those files.

I had a poor September and October is off to a very slow start.  Very low on demand sales and not one EL or SOD yet.  Hope this slump ends soon but I'm starting to think this is going the same way it did for me with FT and istock.  Frightening to think that I've made more in one day in the past than I have in the first 8 days of October.

I had a poor September and October is off to a very slow start.  Very low on demand sales and not one EL or SOD yet.  Hope this slump ends soon but I'm starting to think this is going the same way it did for me with FT and istock.  Frightening to think that I've made more in one day in the past than I have in the first 8 days of October.

I am having such a weird thing happening for the last three months.  Mondays and Fridays are like weekends now and I only have three days a week that are good (T,W,TH). My monthly income has been impacted mostly by SS and DT.  IS PP is making up for IS PooPoo.

Quote from: fritz on October 08, 2013, 19:14

I can't complain. September was very good at SS but the real deal last month was with an agency when I sold  files(7000) for 15k. You guess which agency is it! It isn't on the list.

really? have you accepted the offer? where are you going to spend it?

Yes, I did and am not going anywhere, maybe Portugal been there couple of years ago but still love to go there again.

Quote from: fritz on October 08, 2013, 19:20

Quote from: luissantos84 on October 08, 2013, 19:17

Quote from: fritz on October 08, 2013, 19:14

I can't complain. September was very good at SS but the real deal last month was with an agency when I sold  files(7000) for 15k. You guess which agency is it! It isn't on the list.

really? have you accepted the offer? where are you going to spend it?

Yes, I did and am not going anywhere, maybe Portugal been there couple years ago but still love to go there again.

interesting and quite brave as well, I wonder if you aren't afraid of potential issues from agencies due to that, regarding Portugal it is indeed a beautiful country with stunning weather, food and people

No, I'm not afraid but will see how the things are going. By the way Portugal is really beautiful weather, food, people but the ocean is not for swimming windy wild cold .....  .