Hi Scott,

Unfortunately none of this or the links you provided explain the sudden and sustained drop in sales, and I mean a significant drop. You have a lot of players here stating the same thing, like a light switch went on, and sales tanked. That's what we are referring to not key wording, or timing, etc. to be honest, I think there was a business decision made, SS knew some key contributors would be hit, and that's it......all for the betterment of "something"

Just asking.

I'll leave your wife's work out of this. And thanks for the compliment, yes I do enjoy what I shoot, even if it isn't as profitable as other things. Especially not a high profit Microstock subject.

But here's the point, and I'll try to explain.

Individual sales and income have dropped = true
Search rankings changed and dropped = many old timers with proven images re-ranked down
Good staff people have left SS = some were very favorable and positive towards contributors
Personal touch, I think communications is the weakest part of SS. Unchanged
I don't know how my "history" relates to what's going on now? Member since 2007 (This isn't about me, is it?)
Nope, we can't bring it back, the past is gone, things have changed
Yes we are now producing a commodity, not as much artists or creative as before. (for another day)
Competition is 100 times more than what it was not long ago
A well known, big name photographer, can drop SS and they don't blink or lose a sale.

Here's the points I disagree with, which people seem to be convinced are facts and I don't feel there is any logical evidence to support them.

1) SS caps earnings
2) SS turns off individual ports by location or time zone or

If 1000 people write on a forum that Elvis is not dead, does that make him alive? If people write on a forum that they see UFOs and conclude it must be alien visitors, does it become a fact? If people say, they think their earnings are capped, without documented proof (or say individuals are being turned off) because, they see it... does that make it true? But it does lead others to start following to the same conclusion.



1) Individual sales are down. 2) The search has been tweaked to favor different images than it used to = Conclusion Fallacy, they must have capped my earnings and are turn off my port. Really? Not a logical argument at all.

And just because someone writes something on a forum or many people write it, that opinion or common sense doesn't become true and a fact. Evidence Please?

The challenge is for someone to document that they are capping or shutting off individual artists.

It's not about individuals, or you or me, it's not personal. It's the whole system that changed, for all of us. That and 41,559,077 royalty-free stock images 10,000 new images a day! What was it in the old days? I have a list somewhere, can't find it) Even the good old days of 2008 

Quote from: Rinderart on September 05, 2014, 23:43

Individual drops in sales for groups of people have  been  extremely documented like never before, More threads have been started than I've ever seen in My 10 years. It ain't gonna happen guys, This is all were gonna get. Like it or leave it. your replacement is already submitting. Maybe thats why Moderators and content division employees/supervisors is a transient Job. I've seen More folks...Some really Good folks have come and gone than I can remember,  The days When you could feel a personal touch...Thats all gone and ya can't bring that back. Pete is correct on many accounts but...so wrong on many more because he doesn't have the history that some have had with huge commercial ports that used to make huge money.

And until you have the history of what came before, you have little credibility going forward. And my friend pete has a specific Niche and he enjoys it more than the money he makes..

Like I said in another thread. These issues are a virus.....A virus that is separating us. It's to late to think we have the power anymore. We lost it around 2008 when we could and should have done something But the Lure of 38 cents or whatever killed it.

I Blame us and no one else.

Okay, it's time to put this post out to the pasture folks.

Quote from: Sheriff on September 06, 2014, 16:38

Okay, it's time to put this post out to the pasture folks.

ah, OK ! anything u say...

     coming from someone with just
    4 postings joined a couple of days ago.

considering the rest of the posters' "age",
that would be someone wet behind the ears telling senior gentries they should listen 

Selling what once commanded good money for peanuts has always been a numbers game and when your 10,000 files are competing against 40 million others, rather than 8 million others, it's just simple math.

I think the post from the iS exclusives mentioning the overall market and the huge influx of iS exclusives, as well as Scott's myriad explanations in this topic & the other one he linked to make a lot more sense than some conspiracy theory. To me, the fact that I frequently have multiple daily sales and rarely have a day without at least one download at SS despite the fact that I only have 212 images, a tiny fraction of the 40 million files in their database, that I put most of my best images on traditional sites yet still make SS payouts bi-monthly tells me that SS itself is going strong, that their search engine works, but it doesn't matter because we're all getting an ever smaller piece of the pie. I've been with SS since 2008, have a tiny port, heavily weighted toward travel and not the big selling lifestyle stuff, but my stuff seems to compete on a level playing field with everyone else's - the problem is, the field is just too big.

I'm not optimistic about the future. My biggest regret is that I didn't upload a few thousand files back when they'd have gotten more exposure, because despite SS's strength, I think the size of their database means that the opportunity to grow is diminishing for all of us.

I've seen my new files account for smaller and smaller portions of my sales in the past year. A year ago it was a distressing 10% and now it's down to 1%. (I increased my portfolio by 25+% in the last year - even if I doubled it, the return wouldn't be worth it). In late 2012 and early 2013, I saw a lot of growth but that growth slowed down as the SS database outpaced all expectations.

Unless you're a factory, I don't see how you can sustain growth there, which is why I'm looking toward smaller niche markets that control the number of contributors. I think Stocky's dedication to slow growth of their contributor base makes good economic sense, because if even the top earners can't keep pace with inflation, how can a stock photo site attract and keep top talent?

To me, the uncontrolled growth of the database and the contributor base which is diluting the earnings of even the top contributors, is the real problem here, since an individual contributors sales need to grow constantly, especially when royalties stay the same for 8 years (the bump of a few pennies at each milestone notwithstanding).  It's not some conspiracy. If those who can actually make a living from their microstock earnings suddenly can't, then, IMHO, the field will be left to those who do this for fun, for experimentation, etc -and if SS keeps their prices and payouts low, they may just survive. But, let's face it, part of the reason microstock has done so well is because along with the experimenters and newbies, pros got into the game and many made good money while the boom lasted, but it hurt the industry in the long run. Then again, they were changing with the times, and now, things are changing again.

It's easy to spot the problems, harder to find a solution. And I appreciate Scott trying to put things into perspective, though IMHO there's more lottery than art to a winning image these days.

Will we ever get a raise? Not a question Scott can answer, I know, but that's the only way earnings for individual contributors will grow.

Hey guys, I'm an Istockphoto exclusive and I just happened to see this thread.  Did you guys have a similar experience like me?    Everything was relatively ok and then June was disappointing, July was good, and then all of a sudden August plunged (worse than June) and it got worse till the end, with the past 2 weeks being some of my worst in years.    August is usually up there with March as my best month of the year, and it was shocking for me to see my worst August since 2011.  If you guys got a similar experience, I'm wondering if its a market issue rather than an agency or individual contributor issue.