Quote from: ShadySue on March 13, 2014, 08:28

But check out this month's GI sales thread - more than the usual number of people reporting large blocks of the month with no sales in Feb, when they'd have expected a lot more based on 'usual' performance, and more than the usual number of people reporting very small value sales.

Interestingly, admin have chosen not to comment on either of these issues, not even just to say, "tough, that's how it is".

February GI sales haven't been done yet.

Sorry, and for avoidance of doubt, the 'GI January Royalties' thread in the iS exclusive forum.
The issues, however, can't be swept away with that semantic correction.
Disclosure: I had exactly 2 GI sales in Jan: $3 and $0.91.

...I am making educated guesses about what's going on based on my own experience and that of others I have either spoken to or read. 

Isn't that all any of us can do?  When your sales tank, or soar for that matter, you try to figure out why and collect as much information as you can from what sources are available...

Sure, that makes sense. But I think we can fall into the trap of reading too much into these small patterns. Obviously it can get to the point where some really out-there theories start to sound plausible, even though better judgement should prevail when we're talking about theories like the idea of Shutterstock tanking most of their best images just to save a few cents per DL.

I think we can all agree that the implication of a company doing that is pretty huge. Personally, I'd need to see a lot more evidence to even begin to give any consideration to that kind of theory. And very little opposing evidence as well, which doesn't seem to be the case here. Count me among the $0.38 crowd that is seeing no drop in sales or search placement lately.

Gbalex, if you and the others saw this drop a year ago then it coincided with the dropping of crowns over the gdrive affair. Could it be that the resulting influx of ex-exclusives hit some key areas of your portfolio and you lost out because of the extra competition?
I can guarantee you there was no policy decision made to hide the portfolios of long-established, high-paid contributors, because if there was I would have been buried, too (I joined in October 2004 and have always been in the top pay group, ever since they started introducing different levels).  I haven't heard Gostwyck complaining, either, and I think he joined in 2005.
So if there is no malice it follows that your problem lies somewhere else, and the only thing I can think of is that some files that had had not previously been visible, either because they were buried or because they had only just arrived,  went into competition with your best-sellers and you lost out.
That would be most likely to happen if your sales relied heavily on a small niche that others had trouble getting into, or if you were heavily reliant on a very small group of files for a large percentage of your income, so the loss of pole-position for a handful could hit you hard.
Or you could believe that Oringer picked on your portfolio specifically for demotion while leaving Gostwyck and me alone. But I don't think that is a conspiracy theory that will fly.
I can't see your portfolio so I can't be more specific about why it might have been vulnerable to competition.

Think what you will, it happened in one day. Unfortunately I am not alone and it is not a conspiracy theory.

Quote from: gbalex on March 12, 2014, 18:02

Quote from: cobalt on March 12, 2014, 17:29

gbalex,

have you tried talking to someone from SS directly? They have admins for "contributor success", would�t it be worth contacting them?

I am new to SS, so I don�t know how accessible the staff is,but since they even send people here, would�t it be worth a try?

Thanks for the concern cobalt.  Yes I contacted them multiple times and got no where. I know of at least 6 other contributors who have also contacted them and they received the same non response we did.

Was it a non response or was it a response just not confirming your theory?

 I think Baldrick hit the nail.

Ron you and Louis are starting to remind me of yippy little poodles following me around while nipping at my heels.

Instead of playing hall room monitors and planing what other people should be doing and saying. Focus on forming some of your own contributions to the larger community.

You can attempt to negate and suppress the experience of long time contributors if you wish, however that will certainly not change the facts or even suppress them, because the community at large talks to each other in private.  The tact you have taken will leave you out of those conversations.

"so assuming an average royalty in the range of 25% - 30% a total contributor revenue of $20 per month for a 100 images portfolio seems to be roughly fitting."

This is a  low amount compared with my IS earnings. Not very encouraging and pretty disappointing. I appreciate it's an average but still.

"so assuming an average royalty in the range of 25% - 30% a total contributor revenue of $20 per month for a 100 images portfolio seems to be roughly fitting."

This is a  low amount compared with my IS earnings. Not very encouraging and pretty disappointing. I appreciate it's an average but still.

As an ex exclusive vector artist i can tell you this. My best selling vector file sells on SS anywhere from 4-8 times a day. it comes up on the 1st position of that search. It really depends on individual portfolios but if your portfolio is bringing you on average over $150 a day on istock, I would still stay exclusive.

Even having said that, I am really glad i dropped my crown last year. I don't need the extra stress caused by GETTY.

Quote from: VB inc on March 13, 2014, 12:18

As an ex exclusive vector artist i can tell you this. My best selling vector file sells on SS anywhere from 4-8 times a day. it comes up on the 1st position of that search. It really depends on individual portfolios but if your portfolio is bringing you on average over $150 a day on istock, I would still stay exclusive.

Even having said that, I am really glad i dropped my crown last year. I don't need the extra stress caused by GETTY.

I'm sorry, but I have to tell you, it cracks me up seeing you talk about being with SS. It was just a few years ago you were going on about not believing in the subscription model, subscriptions harm the business, etc.

Can I ask what changed your mind?

Who says my mind has been changed? I still dont believe in the subscription model. It trains the buyers into thinking they can get great images at pretty cheap prices. I feel it cheapens creativity in the long run. My kids wont want to get into any type of artistic career because they probably couldn't live off it due to all these little problems created by technology. Does it mean that i have to stay with istock and get abused left and right?

I probably uploaded 1/2 my istock content into SS because i do different type of vectors. I upload vectors i think will sell to the mass market and not the ones i created on which some took over 10 hours to complete. I still do feel like a cheap whore when i do see the .33 cents i get per download. Its not a good feeling, but the other downloads make up for that bad taste in my mouth.

I barely have any files on fotolia and dreamstime. I only submitted my vectors i created between 2008-2010 to SS and don't really create new content for micro. For me, going independent just meant getting out of istock. How are sales at vectorstock for you?

I think the subscription model works for content creators that can create things fast and efficient. But there are so many different ways people work to produce their images and some of them take a long time to make and i feel that those type of imagery shouldnt be offered in the subscription deals because they are only hurting the industry.

My guess of what happened is that SS made a change that pushed down files that were 3 or more years old. This could be pretty devastating to older established ports.

"so assuming an average royalty in the range of 25% - 30% a total contributor revenue of $20 per month for a 100 images portfolio seems to be roughly fitting."

This is a  low amount compared with my IS earnings. Not very encouraging and pretty disappointing. I appreciate it's an average but still.

Yes, it is, not even a fourth of what I get at istock. I really hope that the new istock subs program doesn't end in this kind of little change earnings.

Quote from: gbalex on March 13, 2014, 10:39

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on March 13, 2014, 01:01

Gbalex, if you and the others saw this drop a year ago then it coincided with the dropping of crowns over the gdrive affair. Could it be that the resulting influx of ex-exclusives hit some key areas of your portfolio and you lost out because of the extra competition?
I can guarantee you there was no policy decision made to hide the portfolios of long-established, high-paid contributors, because if there was I would have been buried, too (I joined in October 2004 and have always been in the top pay group, ever since they started introducing different levels).  I haven't heard Gostwyck complaining, either, and I think he joined in 2005.
So if there is no malice it follows that your problem lies somewhere else, and the only thing I can think of is that some files that had had not previously been visible, either because they were buried or because they had only just arrived,  went into competition with your best-sellers and you lost out.
That would be most likely to happen if your sales relied heavily on a small niche that others had trouble getting into, or if you were heavily reliant on a very small group of files for a large percentage of your income, so the loss of pole-position for a handful could hit you hard.
Or you could believe that Oringer picked on your portfolio specifically for demotion while leaving Gostwyck and me alone. But I don't think that is a conspiracy theory that will fly.
I can't see your portfolio so I can't be more specific about why it might have been vulnerable to competition.

Think what you will, it happened in one day. Unfortunately I am not alone and it is not a conspiracy theory.

I never said you were alone or it was a conspiracy theory, I said that there must be a rational reason for it other than the demotion of all top-level contributors.

It seems to me that the most likely explanation is that a rival portfolio from an ex-exclusive got dropped into the best match one day, was given its moment in the sun and promptly started picking up sales that were previously going to you, and the combination of new files and quick sales cemented those files above yours.

Of course, I don't know anything at all about your portfolio so it's just the best hypothesis I can offer for a sudden collapse in sales for a limited number of high-ranking old-timers on SS.

Or maybe there was a search shift for certain categories of files, causing older stuff to sink and more recent stuff to rise. Istock did that back in 06 or 07 and a lot of people saw their sales slump 40% or so overnight, I was lucky that time and only suffered a minor hit - so these algorithm changes affect different kinds of portfolious differently.  If the target was the "38c crew" we would all get hit the same at the same time.

So people approaching the 38c level don't need to expect it will lead to a demotion in search ranking, it almost certainly is not something they target.

PS: Which day did it happen on? I'd be interested to see if there was any sign of a shift affecting my sales at that moment.

If that were the case our new images would sell.  In fact they do not.  I do agree that different types of ports have been affected differently. By chance do you shoot in an area not well covered. It happened at the beginning of March 2013

Baldrick, you make a good point about the recent influx of high quality competing portfolios.  Since I shoot lifestyle, that may account for some of the drop.  Whatever the cause, it is extremely distressing and I hope this is not the "new normal" we can expect as Getty continues to hemorrhage talented exclusives.

Quote from: loop on March 13, 2014, 14:54

Quote from: BoBoBolinski on March 13, 2014, 11:36

"so assuming an average royalty in the range of 25% - 30% a total contributor revenue of $20 per month for a 100 images portfolio seems to be roughly fitting."

This is a  low amount compared with my IS earnings. Not very encouraging and pretty disappointing. I appreciate it's an average but still.

Yes, it is, not even a fourth of what I get at istock. I really hope that the new istock subs program doesn't end in this kind of little change earnings.

Yep, I'm hoping subs don't bring that level of earnings to iStock either.

I'd love to see the same kind of numbers (total revenue, total sales numbers) from any other agency - then we could compare.

Remember, I calculated averages for the total Shutterstock library.
I don't think you can draw any direct conclusion from that for any distinct portfolio - only if you are on Shutterstock, you may see if your portfolio performs above or below average.

If anybody is really interested in some more numbers, start a poll asking for individuals monthly RPI on Shutterstock, that may show how the distribution is to arrive at an average of (very roughly calculated) $0,20.

Quote from: spike on March 12, 2014, 11:08

Let us know how it goes.

I'm around 7 days from crossing it and am feeling happy and axious at the same time.

Crossed it, I missed by one day! So happy!

However, my sales are still at the 0.36$ level. How long does it take for SS to update?

From a few hours to a day. When you get the email, you will get the 38 cent. But after one day, you might want to contact SS.

Congratulations.