It seems that September might be much slower than previous months despite that I actually uploaded more pictures than in August. So what is more important size or frequency of uploads?

Agreed!
As competition grows for all of us each day with more and more photographers getting into Microstock, we must strive to produce quality.
Numbers are not a lot of good unless they are of really saleable images.

Quality - so less qusetions, more shooting of quality photographs 

I am not sure what's more important quality (if it passes quality control from SS it must be good enough) or originality (I saw sometimes that pictures even worse but sell better if they are unique).

i hit a bme about 8 days ago, so i can't complain.  find a niche, and do it well

quality is more important.


I already have over 4000 images online, so I have stady sales. Some 20 days ago I added about 200 new (mid-quality) images, my sales increased by 80% in the next day, and then day after dropped to regular sales. 10 days ago, I added 40 new (hi quality) images, and had about 150% higher sales in next 5 days, and then dropped to standard level...

quality is more important.


I already have over 4000 images online, so I have stady sales. Some 20 days ago I added about 200 new (mid-quality) images, my sales increased by 80% in the next day, and then day after dropped to regular sales. 10 days ago, I added 40 new (hi quality) images, and had about 150% higher sales in next 5 days, and then dropped to standard level...

Peter,

Do you notice that ALL your images spike in sales during that period not only the new ones?

Discussion about quality is like discussion about size. In theory for most buyers minimum acceptable size should be enough so why bother uploading more. Same with quality if it passes site verification it means it's good enough. According to Peter 2x better quality give you 10x better sales :-)

Something is strange there for me , I upload about 50 - 70 images weakly for years now. Few best ones in that weekly batch of  50 get over 20 or 30 downloads daily in few first days online ( lets say that the best one gets 30 downloads first day , 20 second day , than 10 , and than it stays at 5-6 downloads till the end of the week). Maybe 5 or so images of those 50 don't get a single download in a day in those first days.  Those numbers have been about the same level for more than 2 years.

Last week was bad , those numbers went down for good , so I thought this week will get me back but..

This week for the first time not a single image from this weeks batch went over 3 or 4 downloads in a day , most of them have not been downloaded a single time and that cannot be coincidence , matter of quality  , economical crisis... etc, cause those things don't change in a week.

Truth is that I haven't upload nothing for some time , but I did the same quite a few times till now and the first batch after some time without uploads always pushed me up to exact same numbers I wrote above, and last 2 batches didnt even come close to that.

Not to speak about the fact that new images also pull up sales of older ones. 

Well I will see what time will bring in few weeks but Im not too optimistic.       

It is hard to make new BME's with SS compared to some of the other sites.  They are still my highest earning site, so I settle for that.  It doesn't help that when they put their prices up we get a comparatively low raise.

They should do more to keep our older images selling.  I would like us to be able to place a few images on the front page of the search, like some of the other sites let us do.

High quality images that sell is definitely the way to go.  When people mention their earnings, I have seen some with a fraction of my uploads earning more than me.  Perhaps one day I will delete 70% of my portfolio to test the theory.

SS is in a way that beckons us as almost slaves to constantly upload work.

However, as we all have seen , there seems to have been some shift in new uploads producing a sales surge.

Personally, I dont pressureize myself - "What I can, When I can" and just let the sales take their own course.

Quality is a double edged sword at SS. While the standards are lower, and it is easier to get higher quantities of images accepted than at say istock, long-term I worry that dropping quality standards in favor of quantity will only hurt the artist. We're already seeing the beginnings of this, with some people at SS boasting over 5,000 images of what they believe to be high-quality, yet they can't break $1,000 a month. As more and more people enter the microstock market, those artists are going to get pushed further and further back in favor of higher quality images. 5,000 mediocre images at SS might cover your car payment this month, but that won't last long.

I wonder if the SS standard is so low that it even risks the company's future existence. Will buyers get fed up with digging through piles of crap to find good images, when they can go to sites with higher quality standards and a higher percentage of top-quality images? I believe they will.

Yes I agree low quality can hurt SS on the long term. Also the definition of quality from the photographer perspective can be very different.... When  taking  10 pictures on the same subject on all its possible angle it is easy the get 5000 pictures on line but as like u say their lifetime  will be very short.... hence a low RPI and low earnings....
at the same time some people are making more than $ 100 a month on SS with only 200 pictures.....

Quote from: helix7 on September 26, 2008, 09:30

... Will buyers get fed up with digging through piles of crap to find good images, when they can go to sites with higher quality standards and a higher percentage of top-quality images? I believe they will.

I dunno ... if that was true then an agency with a reputation for being quite selective about their images (i.e. Crestock) would be very successful, which is clearly not the case.

It might not work both ways. A big company like SS can be too liberal with acceptances, diluting the collection. Likewise, a big company like istock being more selective refines the collection. On the other hand, a smaller company like Crestock being too selective can stifle growth. Being more liberal could benefit Crestock, while it hurts SS. Maybe it's more a matter of timing. Becoming more selective once the company grows beyond a certain size can work to their benefit, but becoming more selective too soon can be damaging to growth.

One of the reasons that we don't see much of a bump after adding new images is this: 76,037 new photos added in the past week. Check this thread also:
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47243&start=0

Personally I haven't found that sales fall if I don't constantly upload. I've gone for months with just a few (2-4) new images per month uploaded and seen a consistent growth in sales there.

Like most here I've noticed a quick spike in new image sales within hours or days of uploading, but the main sales trend has been up regardless of new work.

The most frustrating thing about SS is the lack of good tools to track my images. It is impossible to see my portfolio there with meaningful numbers by each image. Why they can't give us tools similar to IS's "downloads per month" by image is beyond me. I've emailed support with their meaningless answers referring to their "Stats" button with its nearly worthless information.

totally agree with the latter points - SS is one of the worst to get meaningful dl stats, and they account for such a large % of total dl that it doesnt make much sense to track the other sites closely if it cant be done on SS

i' in same poisition as you - i was in peru all of aug, with no contact , and my ss sales have been steady over jul - aug - sep.  i suspect one reason is that my portfolio is heavily weighted with images with long halflives - few of the top 20 sellers i have on SS were uploaded this year -- so i sell at perhaps 10% of the RPI of others, but my portfolio will stay fresh longer

Quote from: helix7 on September 26, 2008, 09:30

... Will buyers get fed up with digging through piles of crap to find good images, when they can go to sites with higher quality standards and a higher percentage of top-quality images? I believe they will.

I dunno ... if that was true then an agency with a reputation for being quite selective about their images (i.e. Crestock) would be very successful, which is clearly not the case.

Crestock is selective to the point of damaging their collection - that's not good for anyone.

Having said that I think one of the problems with SS at the moment is that they aren't being selective enough - I don't mean on the technical quality aspects, more on the subject matter. In a sense that doesn't matter if they have the servers to cope with the number of files, but I suspect that more and more contributors are falling into the trap of pumping out volume that isn't going to sell.

I'm finding that my sales aren't skyrocketing, but I'm getting gradually increasing BME's on SS. I don't have many high volume images, but I get a trickle of downloads from plenty of older files. If I stop uploading for a while, sales don't plummet, but they definitely drop off. 

I also can't understand how macrostock agencies haven't picked up on these ideas - it's not like they're new, difficult to implement, or they haven't been told a million times.

Can you say Alamy? 

Photos are only checked for image quality, not content.

The 48M files are only so the buyer knows that there are no hidden artifacts in the images.

Looks pretty straight forward to me.

Quote from: RacePhoto on October 05, 2008, 17:02

Can you say Alamy? 

And they have a search algorithm which pushes the consistently good contributors to the top, the rest get buried.  No use just having a few lucky files, your rank is measured across the board, so crap shots will bring you down.

So far my images are showing on the first page with the minimal keywords that are precise. Could be that I have some specialized subjects, or maybe stuff that no one buys, so no one else shoots it.  Point was that a macrostock agency has picked up on the point that Lee Torrens was making. They only accept or reject on image quality, not content.

Yes, they do have an interesting ranking system. I watched three hours of video, much of it about Alamy Rank and it's still somewhat of a mystery. Views, click through, zooms, sales... I checked my CTR and know what it is, but I don't know what the heck it means.

Oh I think I'm going OT on this, sorry.

No uploads for 2 weeks causes big drop in sales but it seems to be even more devastating on 123RF and StockXpert where my sales when 10x lower than on SS.

If you go to discount store do not complain that it is overcrowded and messy :-) You would never get Mercedes quality at Fiat price :-)

Just had my first EL on SS. *jumping happily around*

What is going on with them??? I upload regularly and I had ZERO sales yesterday! Anyone else has ever had zero sales? It is ridiculous. I usually have a few dozens DLs every day. But the stupid weekends are growing worse and worse.

Oh no!!!

My last 0 DL day at SS was on Christmas Day 2005...almost three years ago.   

My Beast on SS is dying,every day more and more...
But I have new on IS... 
Today SS isn't first any more in my portfolio...

For me, from undisputed No 1 with 60% share, SS slipped to No 5 after 4 months of going downhill. And, while I don't upload much, I do it on a pretty regular basis. But, the more I upload, the slower SS becomes...Go figure.

Actually, a pretty dramatic slowdown on SS happened about 2 months ago, it was like hitting the wall, and it is only getting worse. Well, at least the other sites perform better and better all the time.

i think that for most people once they get to Emerald Fotolia will  become the earnings leader. This month Ft is almost neck and neck with SS so once I get to Emerald and increase prices it should overtake SS by a lot.
Even 123rf and BigStock that used to make about 1 or 2% of IS are now making over 30% of IS.

After my "weeping song" here, I had first OD sale and unusual 25A sales...
Now SS is again at first place, but how long...

I think that SS "king of subscriptions" will abandon that model of sales one day, they know that...
They will leave their "masterpiece" of sales, OD model is a first step forward...
But, that is only my opinion...