Author Topic: Sales on Shutter (Read 36452 times)

Phadrea · « **Reply #100 on:** June 27, 2014, 03:30 »

Well something is happening because my sales are dire now.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #101 on:** June 27, 2014, 03:33 »

Quote from: Herg on June 27, 2014, 03:30

Well something is happening because my sales are dire now.

same here, for the 1st time I have a month making less than last year

anyway maybe the heavy submissions aren't helping us... I believe I have never seen it so high!

SHUTTERSTOCK STATS: 38,689,531 royalty-free stock images / 285,933 new stock images added this week

Metsafile · « **Reply #102 on:** June 27, 2014, 03:40 »

June is turning out to be my best month of year on SS with some larger than average ODs.

Mantis · « **Reply #103 on:** June 27, 2014, 06:20 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on June 27, 2014, 03:33

Quote from: Herg on June 27, 2014, 03:30
Well something is happening because my sales are dire now.

same here, for the 1st time I have a month making less than last year

anyway maybe the heavy submissions aren't helping us... I believe I have never seen it so high!

SHUTTERSTOCK STATS: 38,689,531 royalty-free stock images / 285,933 new stock images added this week

As of today, June 27, I am 50% down on SS ($hundreds down) compared to last month. That is more than summer slump.

gnirtS · « **Reply #104 on:** June 27, 2014, 07:28 »

Same, terrible month.

The total NUMBER of downloads for me is going to be only slightly below average.
Due to the near complete lack of EL/SODs and even many ODDs though im going to be roughly $300 down on the monthly average for the year and its one of the worst months ive had since i started getting payouts (now with 10x the number of images as then).

So looking for me, its the *type* of download thats changed suddenly more than anything else. Pretty much everything is subscription.

roidi · « **Reply #105 on:** June 27, 2014, 08:37 »

BIG PROBLEM " 294,298 new stock images added this week "

photostockad · « **Reply #106 on:** June 27, 2014, 08:46 »

1300 images, working on SS from 2010, June 2014 is BME for me (i have 4 EL, and even without this ELs is up compared with May or April).
95% travel portfolio.

Goofy · « **Reply #107 on:** June 27, 2014, 08:51 »

Love the replies- 'Worse month ever!'- 'Best month ever' Like watching a tennis match and the ball keeps going over the net (Good Month- Bad Month)

gbalex · « **Reply #108 on:** June 27, 2014, 09:06 »

Quote from: Goofy on June 27, 2014, 08:51

Love the replies- 'Worse month ever!'- 'Best month ever' Like watching a tennis match and the ball keeps going over the net (Good Month- Bad Month)

And the folks responsible for pulling the switch must be amazed that most of us do not see the reality of the situation.

gnirtS · « **Reply #109 on:** June 27, 2014, 09:07 »

Quote from: gbalex on June 27, 2014, 09:06

Quote from: Goofy on June 27, 2014, 08:51
Love the replies- 'Worse month ever!'- 'Best month ever' Like watching a tennis match and the ball keeps going over the net (Good Month- Bad Month)

And the folks responsible for pulling the switch must be amazed that most of us do not see the reality of the situation.

Which might lend some credence to the portfolio rotation speculation going round.

Mantis · « **Reply #110 on:** June 27, 2014, 09:07 »

Quote from: Goofy on June 27, 2014, 08:51

Love the replies- 'Worse month ever!'- 'Best month ever' Like watching a tennis match and the ball keeps going over the net (Good Month- Bad Month)

While that may seem humerous the fluctuation is what is worrysome. When they tweak the dials, and I suspect that's what happened, income that you rely on dries up. I'm not talking $50 here and there but half a grand in a month variance. That isn't normal, and it is commonly said by the agencies that when they tweak searches there are winners and there are losers. So I am really talking about search tweak affects I suppose, as opposed to normal, seasonal fluctuations. Many of us rely on this income and while I am happy for those who are on the winning side of this, those that are opposite are affected in a far treated magnitude than normal highs and lows.

Mantis · « **Reply #111 on:** June 27, 2014, 09:08 »

Quote from: gnirtS on June 27, 2014, 09:07

Quote from: gbalex on June 27, 2014, 09:06
Quote from: Goofy on June 27, 2014, 08:51
Love the replies- 'Worse month ever!'- 'Best month ever' Like watching a tennis match and the ball keeps going over the net (Good Month- Bad Month)

And the folks responsible for pulling the switch must be amazed that most of us do not see the reality of the situation.

Which might lend some credence to the portfolio rotation speculation going round.

That would make more sense, kinda like dt does.

stockmarketer · « **Reply #112 on:** June 27, 2014, 09:21 »

Best Month Ever = newbie response
Worst Month Ever = veteran response

I've finally come to accept that it's virtually impossible for an ms vet to get past the dreaded wall, and here's why...

If a newbie has a port of 50 images one month, and 100 the next, his/her port size went up 100%.
In that same month, the total images on any given site went up from, say, 25 to 26 million images, an increase of 4%. As long as the rookie's percentage rate of port increase beats the total image percentage of increase, he/she can see fantastic growth.

But if a veteran has a port of 5000 images one month and 5,100 the next, his/her port size went up just 2%. Compared to the 4% monthly growth in total images available on the agencies, the ms vet is going backward, and will see less money each month.

Of course, there are other factors such as monthly variations (March is always a better month than April, December is always much worse than January). So run the same calculation on an annual basis. Depressing, depressing results.

It's a numbers game, and once your port is a certain size, and as the agencies keep growing at an incredible rate, you WILL start going backward. I denied this reality for a long time, insisting that I could overcome the wall by finding niches and meeting an aggressive daily quota, and I may have held back the wall for a year or two by doing this, but it ended up crushing me.

I've got nearly double the port size I had two years ago, and I'm averaging a few dollars less every day. And I expect two years from now to be making even less. For the first time in nearly 8 years of doing this, I feel very negative about microstock.

stockmarketer · « **Reply #113 on:** June 27, 2014, 09:34 »

Quote from: Mantis on June 27, 2014, 09:07

While that may seem humerous the fluctuation is what is worrysome. When they tweak the dials, and I suspect that's what happened, income that you rely on dries up. I'm not talking $50 here and there but half a grand in a month variance. That isn't normal, and it is commonly said by the agencies that when they tweak searches there are winners and there are losers. So I am really talking about search tweak affects I suppose, as opposed to normal, seasonal fluctuations. Many of us rely on this income and while I am happy for those who are on the winning side of this, those that are opposite are affected in a far treated magnitude than normal highs and lows.

I don't think the search tweaks are what we really have to worry about. Yes, it can amount to a loss of a few hundred bucks a month here and there. But even if the agencies left their searches alone, you'll still be crushed by the rising tide of new images flooding their collections. Unless you can increase your port size by 4 or 5 % every month (the amount the agencies are increasing their collection sizes), your returns WILL shrink.

How many people with ports of 6000 images can produce 10 more every single day? Doable, you say? OK, that's a ton of work just to tread water and not see income go down. You'll soon reach 12,000 images and then have to produce 20 more every day to not see an income decrease (assuming the agencies are still growing by only 5% a month at that point... and by then their growth could be 10% a month, meaning you'd have to produce 40 new images a day just to tread water.)

I have to stop thinking about this. Makes me want to go crawl under a rock.

gnirtS · « **Reply #114 on:** June 27, 2014, 09:54 »

Another issue with comparisons is small portfolios can skew the results.

If you don't get many sales then 1 EL or high value SOD can make the difference between a worse month or best month. A single high value SOD could be 300% a normal monthly income.

With bigger portfolios all this is smoothed so it takes a long more to show a deviation from average. This is obviously a more accurate guide.

gbalex · « **Reply #115 on:** June 27, 2014, 10:39 »

Quote from: stockmarketer on June 27, 2014, 09:21

Best Month Ever = newbie response
Worst Month Ever = veteran response

I've finally come to accept that it's virtually impossible for an ms vet to get past the dreaded wall, and here's why...

If a newbie has a port of 50 images one month, and 100 the next, his/her port size went up 100%.
In that same month, the total images on any given site went up from, say, 25 to 26 million images, an increase of 4%. As long as the rookie's percentage rate of port increase beats the total image percentage of increase, he/she can see fantastic growth.

But if a veteran has a port of 5000 images one month and 5,100 the next, his/her port size went up just 2%. Compared to the 4% monthly growth in total images available on the agencies, the ms vet is going backward, and will see less money each month.

That does not explain the large drops "which occur overnight" and then continue for months for many long term contributors with large ports. As it hits more long term contributors as their ports age, the reality will set in that they are indeed punishing long term contributors in the search.

Shutterstock has a lot to gain from acquiring disgruntled IS exclusives. From the beginning (2004) shutterstock has given new ports a boost and I think a short term boost is certainly fair.

However the above has gone from a simple short term boost in the past to longer term boosts for new ports and punishment in searches for older ports. Contributors do not believe this until they too experience large overnight drops which do not abate over time. Some long time contributors are reporting that they can see progressive timed drops which occur on the same date over the last two years.

Nikovsk · « **Reply #116 on:** June 27, 2014, 10:49 »

The number of downloads in SS is also increasing, not as much as images of course, but I guess the inequality in image downloads is becoming more stronger. A successful picture on top of the search will generate thousands of sales and a large number of files will be buried forever. A more random search would reduce this problem, even though sales would be less predictable.

PixelBytes · « **Reply #117 on:** June 27, 2014, 10:55 »

Quote from: stockmarketer on June 27, 2014, 09:21

Best Month Ever = newbie response
Worst Month Ever = veteran response

I've finally come to accept that it's virtually impossible for an ms vet to get past the dreaded wall, and here's why...

If a newbie has a port of 50 images one month, and 100 the next, his/her port size went up 100%.
In that same month, the total images on any given site went up from, say, 25 to 26 million images, an increase of 4%. As long as the rookie's percentage rate of port increase beats the total image percentage of increase, he/she can see fantastic growth.

But if a veteran has a port of 5000 images one month and 5,100 the next, his/her port size went up just 2%. Compared to the 4% monthly growth in total images available on the agencies, the ms vet is going backward, and will see less money each month.

Of course, there are other factors such as monthly variations (March is always a better month than April, December is always much worse than January). So run the same calculation on an annual basis. Depressing, depressing results.

It's a numbers game, and once your port is a certain size, and as the agencies keep growing at an incredible rate, you WILL start going backward. I denied this reality for a long time, insisting that I could overcome the wall by finding niches and meeting an aggressive daily quota, and I may have held back the wall for a year or two by doing this, but it ended up crushing me.

I've got nearly double the port size I had two years ago, and I'm averaging a few dollars less every day. And I expect two years from now to be making even less. For the first time in nearly 8 years of doing this, I feel very negative about microstock.

Good post. Many vets have said this but nobody ever believes until it happens to them. Human nature to all think we are special enough to beat the odds.

MxR · « **Reply #118 on:** June 27, 2014, 11:00 »

A lot of images are series, too similars, editorial... we must search for quality, is the only way...

Nikovsk · « **Reply #119 on:** June 27, 2014, 11:06 »

I'm a new contributor and I definitely believe in the wall. I just hope that in this stage I'm already making much more than I spend monthly. In the long term, I will need to diversify with other investments and in like 10 years it will be simply a small passive flow of income as it won't be worth the trouble to upload anymore.

pancaketom · « **Reply #120 on:** June 27, 2014, 11:12 »

It is a numbers game, but unless you produce niche stuff, it is also a search placement game. Once your image is past say, page 5 (or 10 or 30 or whatever that people stop searching), it will not sell much. If you are a long time submitter you may have a number of images on page one that sell regularly. When the search gets tweaked, they are no longer on p1 and sales drop. When search gets tweaked again they probably don't end up back on p1 again. While in some ways this looks like a move to punish long term contributors (and maybe it is) in reality it is probably just the cold cruel world doing what the cold cruel world does. When there are many thousands of competing images in the same search any search shuffle is going to hurt established ports. There is always a chance this could elevate another of your images, but that is where the numbers game hurts us - the chances are low with so many competing images.

Eventually we will all run into diminishing returns as our ports grow more slowly than the agency collections - the question is is the income at that point worth the work required to keep our income at the level it is? Eventually that answer will probably become no - but hopefully we can all have a good run before then (or start over again with 3d pics and video or whatever is new).

Elenathewise · « **Reply #121 on:** June 27, 2014, 11:15 »

Looks like June is going to be 20% down from an average month.

dpimborough · « **Reply #122 on:** June 27, 2014, 11:54 »

Well all I can say is that Shutterstock just sells and each month is better than the last.

As to all of the other agencies it doesn't matter what I throw at them and they get the same images as SS yet their sales are flat and follow the same pattern every month. A few bucks and a handful of sales.

So to my mind SS can keep doing what they do and make me some money which is all I expect.

Goofy · « **Reply #123 on:** June 27, 2014, 12:40 »

Quote from: Teddy the Cat on June 27, 2014, 11:54

Well all I can say is that Shutterstock just sells and each month is better than the last.

As to all of the other agencies it doesn't matter what I throw at them and they get the same images as SS yet their sales are flat and follow the same pattern every month. A few bucks and a handful of sales.

So to my mind SS can keep doing what they do and make me some money which is all I expect.

enjoy the moment while the ride is fun

Rinderart · « **Reply #124 on:** June 27, 2014, 20:23 »

Quote from: stockmarketer on June 27, 2014, 09:21

Best Month Ever = newbie response
Worst Month Ever = veteran response

I've finally come to accept that it's virtually impossible for an ms vet to get past the dreaded wall, and here's why...

If a newbie has a port of 50 images one month, and 100 the next, his/her port size went up 100%.
In that same month, the total images on any given site went up from, say, 25 to 26 million images, an increase of 4%. As long as the rookie's percentage rate of port increase beats the total image percentage of increase, he/she can see fantastic growth.

But if a veteran has a port of 5000 images one month and 5,100 the next, his/her port size went up just 2%. Compared to the 4% monthly growth in total images available on the agencies, the ms vet is going backward, and will see less money each month.

Of course, there are other factors such as monthly variations (March is always a better month than April, December is always much worse than January). So run the same calculation on an annual basis. Depressing, depressing results.

It's a numbers game, and once your port is a certain size, and as the agencies keep growing at an incredible rate, you WILL start going backward. I denied this reality for a long time, insisting that I could overcome the wall by finding niches and meeting an aggressive daily quota, and I may have held back the wall for a year or two by doing this, but it ended up crushing me.

I've got nearly double the port size I had two years ago, and I'm averaging a few dollars less every day. And I expect two years from now to be making even less. For the first time in nearly 8 years of doing this, I feel very negative about microstock.

Agree 100%

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Author Topic: Sales on Shutter (Read 36452 times)

Phadrea

luissantos84

Metsafile

Mantis

gnirtS

roidi

photostockad

Goofy

gbalex

gnirtS

Mantis

Mantis

stockmarketer

stockmarketer

gnirtS

gbalex

Nikovsk

PixelBytes

MxR

Nikovsk

pancaketom

Elenathewise

dpimborough

Goofy

Rinderart

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