MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: captain on January 17, 2015, 22:08
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From last Dec,sales of Shutterstock started to being sinking and sinking and never come back :(. more photo uploaded,more visitor on photo portfolio,more nice photo ( i suppose) but less download. It really not good.
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From last Dec,sales of Shutterstock started to being sinking and sinking and never come back :(. more photo uploaded,more visitor on photo portfolio,more nice photo ( i suppose) but less download. It really not good.
If you want us to help you will need to see your portfolio on shutter. Just be prepared for some very straight forward comments ;)
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From last Dec,sales of Shutterstock started to being sinking and sinking and never come back :(. more photo uploaded,more visitor on photo portfolio,more nice photo ( i suppose) but less download. It really not good.
Me too so sew StokShuter sale of to drop. Dec who? Me my frind cales Dec.
Shuting a lot, not good. Not gut dowload less no more.
It a realla nota gooda...
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From last Dec,sales of Shutterstock started to being sinking and sinking and never come back :(. more photo uploaded,more visitor on photo portfolio,more nice photo ( i suppose) but less download. It really not good.
How long have you been selling stock?
I ask because there is a strong seasonal variation for most portfolios, so what you want to do is compare Jan 2015 to Jan 2014, or 4th quarter this year to last. Sales are generally pretty low in January and mid-summer and there is a Spring and Fall/Christmas boost.
Sales in late November and December will be poor if you have no seasonal images. Sales in January are slow for most people regardless of how many new uploads or nice photos.
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Last year (2014) my January sales were just fantastic. Much better than Nov., Dec., and Feb. around. In 2015 it's tragic.
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Goes to show how different our experiences are -- my sals at Shutterstock have been very strong, especially since fall and surprisingly all the way through the holidays and, so far, January.
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on the way up again..... :)
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Depends on what your used to.
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70% down on Jan last year!
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February / March, the action will be back. These last few months have sucked.
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today i have half sales from last three mounts, if u dont make every day useful staff, sales drop immediately, it is very cruel business model.
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today i have half sales from last three mounts, if u dont make every day useful staff, sales drop immediately, it is very cruel business model.
Not my case. New stuff sinking. Really old forgotten stuff selling.
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I have stuff selling I forgot was Mine....Honestly. why upload is the question.
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i am a little less than 100dls and if i want to stay on this volume, i have to upload every day with 2-3 images, to have this volume.
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Portafolio a bit more than doubled in size compared to Jan 14 but sales only increased in 47% :-\
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Subs sales are more than 50% less than the usual pace, but high-value sales are higher making $$$ normal overall or maybe even slightly better. Like others, old images selling better than new. Weird, but I'll take it.
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Subs sales are more than 50% less than the usual pace, but high-value sales are higher making $$$ normal overall or maybe even slightly better. Like others, old images selling better than new. Weird, but I'll take it.
Same here. I am down for Jan but not by much due to the random SODs. But subs are down 50% for me, OD's are down 50% as well. If I don't nail some SOD's my days are in the $15 range, VERY LOW compared to the past. This is to say that I am relying on licenses that are unpredictable, random and infrequent, and the ones that are regular are down 50%. Though business and getting tougher by the day.
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i am a little less than 100dls and if i want to stay on this volume, i have to upload every day with 2-3 images, to have this volume.
100 dw per day, week or month?
How many images youv got online?
died from overdrawn
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December was slow because of seasonal factor, but this month has been good so far. I expect the sales on Shutterstock to go up as I keep adding new contents.
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i am a little less than 100dls and if i want to stay on this volume, i have to upload every day with 2-3 images, to have this volume.
100 dw per day, week or month?
How many images youv got online?
died from overdrawn
90 per day, 1500 images
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You are good!
I have 1600 images and 20-30 dls per day!
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10 images are sold every day , they produce about 20dl/day, other 70 dl are from last 800 images, 10 are facebook sod ( not happy ),
BUT! this year i have 20% less on demand downloads
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I've increased my portfolio by about 50% in the past 4 months. My sales are up, but my SODs and DODs are decreasing, so my income is actually going down. I added up how many subs I would need per day just to get a decent 2nd income without the SODs. It is depressing, to say the least.
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You are good!
I have 1600 images and 20-30 dls per day!
Photography or vectors? You are good too dude
died from overdrawn
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We all know that different photographers have different experiences. Photos, vectors, 5,000 images, 600 images. And different concepts and subject matter as well.
I have only been doing stock for a few years and am pretty selective in what I submit, so have a very small portfolio (300-380 images, depending on who accepts what images) but have made my minimum (at least) on SS every month for well over a year. Often much more when SODs were selling (unlike now).
However, this month (so far) is REALLY different for me! I submit only to SS, BS, DT, and FT.
To date (Jan. 21), my sales from FT have consistently been AHEAD of SS, and I expect to make my minimum payout with them in a single month for the first time ever.
Normally SS is way, way ahead of the other 3 in both sales and downloads. But not this Jan. This might be just a weird month; so I'll certainly be interested in seeing if the trend continues for me in the following months.
More than ever, microstock is a moving target. Gotta stay on top of it. That's one reason I appreciate this forum.
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My sales on Shutter are really weird lately - one day it's an X amount, the next day it's 2*X amount. And the next day it's an X amount again. It's been like that all January (so far). Kind of a yo-yo thing... a little bit unnerving. Used to be way more consistent.
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i wouldn't say sinking deeply but it is slow after an amzing dec.
my accounting buddies say it's slow in jan for business usually finish off their budget in dec.
then submit a new budget in jan or they get to know how much they can spend , usually
late jan. but also depends on fiscal yr, if it means anything for us ??? :o
-me? i am thinkng maybe i was lucky someone had excess leftover to spend
and found use for my work in dec so i got a real wonderful dec.
-but now i am expecting more, and it seems like hell :P
as for rinderart comment old stuff forgot selling... i think maybe it is good news for you,
like someone said in another thread, something about if they churn their inventory
they won't need anymore new work from us.
which also mean we will get a revival with our forgotten section of work.
not sure but maybe is hopeful. but sure thing, new work is not encouraging.
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Well this week was absoultely horrid for sales on ss. Almost all subs, 2-3 ods and zip on videos. These are the kinds of weeks where i get very worried and discouraged. They are happenning more and more on ss
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Whole month looking pretty bad for me. Are people still hangover from New Years?
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My sales on Shutter are really weird lately - one day it's an X amount, the next day it's 2*X amount. And the next day it's an X amount again. It's been like that all January (so far). Kind of a yo-yo thing... a little bit unnerving. Used to be way more consistent.
Been saying that for a long time, together with a few others (Duncan), its a returning pattern and I am no longer worried about it. Agree its a lot more erratic than 2 years ago, but I just look at what the figure is at the end of the month to draw any conclusions. There's people in the Doom and Gloom thread on SS screaming murder for the whole month and at the end you seem them reporting a BME.
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My sales on Shutter are really weird lately - one day it's an X amount, the next day it's 2*X amount. And the next day it's an X amount again. It's been like that all January (so far). Kind of a yo-yo thing... a little bit unnerving. Used to be way more consistent.
Been saying that for a long time, together with a few others (Duncan), its a returning pattern and I am no longer worried about it. Agree its a lot more erratic than 2 years ago, but I just look at what the figure is at the end of the month to draw any conclusions. There's people in the Doom and Gloom thread on SS screaming murder for the whole month and at the end you seem them reporting a BME.
I am worrying because those gaps are getting bigger. I've accepted that they happen but what I am seeing is the time between peaks and troughs is widening. So we should be worried in my opinion.
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I am not experiencing these long gaps... Yet
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Bad month for me as well, December was much better, but that is misleading because of a few SOD-s. Now only subs, and gaps...
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I had 2 decent weeks there this month, but the last one was back to holiday levels.
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Just to put things in perspective, i am currently this month $400 behind last month with five days to go. I will have to have some pretty good days this week to even get close to last month. The interesting thing is everything is slow on ss this month, including videos. But it is a cyclic business and for me the cycles get wider and wider each six months or so.
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Last year (2014) my January sales were just fantastic. Much better than Nov., Dec., and Feb. around. In 2015 it's tragic.
Same here.... jan 2015 disastrous for me.... it will be the worst month in years. :( :-\ :-\ :-\
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yes, i wonder too Mantis...5 days left and unless some single big 85,105 dollar earning happens it looks like a dump >:(
the gaps of 00 days are getting more, and i am beginning to look at my activity earnings
with a little cynical look. as someone said, if u remove the single large sales, it really does not look like ss is doing better... actually worse.
maybe they should spend less time pleasing shareholders and more time getting more or newer clients.
do we look out for the dude running away with the bank soon, like our old friend sh*t istock???
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yes, i wonder too Mantis...5 days left and unless some single big 85,105 dollar earning happens it looks like a dump >:(
the gaps of 00 days are getting more, and i am beginning to look at my activity earnings
with a little cynical look. as someone said, if u remove the single large sales, it really does not look like ss is doing better... actually worse.
maybe they should spend less time pleasing shareholders and more time getting more or newer clients.
do we look out for the dude running away with the bank soon, like our old friend sh*t istock???
my monthly sales graphs have always been jagged sawtooth mtns - differences of 30-40% from previous month either way; little seasonal variation. but the running averages tend to be smoothly upwards trending. so looking at any single month or 2 gives little information.
also, my sales don't have any connection to whether I'm uploading or not -- sales are similar whether I'm home and adding 500+ images a month, or traveling and adding none. in past year a higher % of sales on ss have come from 'recent' additions, but overall sales still cover a wide range of middle demand sunjects (travel, nature, backgrounds, etc)
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December was $300 down on the previous December, January is some 700 downloads down on last January. In short, it is disastrous, and probably time to find a different job. These kinds of sudden losses are hard to deal with, when you rely on the income to pay the bills. One expects variations of maybe + or - 10-15% but my downloads/income this month will be down by approx 35% on Shutterstock.
Soon Shutterstock will only have artists from poorer countries, as the rest of us can't live on the income we receive, and will be forced to use our talents elsewhere.
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Jan 2014 and Jan 2015 are now exactly the same with 4 days to go. So its not a big difference, but still more than last year. I am hoping to get some 500 fotos online in the next couple of weeks. See if that helps.
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January started really slow but things heated up on these last 2 weeks.
Some strange days though, like a couple of sundays selling twice as much as monday.
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yes, i wonder too Mantis...5 days left and unless some single big 85,105 dollar earning happens it looks like a dump >:(
the gaps of 00 days are getting more, and i am beginning to look at my activity earnings
with a little cynical look. as someone said, if u remove the single large sales, it really does not look like ss is doing better... actually worse.
maybe they should spend less time pleasing shareholders and more time getting more or newer clients.
do we look out for the dude running away with the bank soon, like our old friend sh*t istock???
This is true for me. My sub sales at SS are 1/2 of normal 2014 avg and if it weren't for the SOD's this would be "just another" micro stock site. Whoever said this is correct. Long term, will SS be able to sustain these big licenses or with the competition find a way to dilute them like they have the whole industry?
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hm, intresting, my story is diffrent, sales are the same every week, there is no volatility at all. ok christmas and new year week was half :)
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I wish it was mandatory for those who post that we can see there ports and how many Images they have to at least get some idea about credibility in Posting Numbers.
People Saying your Up Could mean Your getting 10 Sales a day compared to 5.
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Oh you mean credibility and real people, willing to stand behind what they write. Yeah, we all saw how that went over when Leaf hinted at it. Supposed to be a "professional" forum? But it's loaded with anonymous posters and people who don't want to be identified.
To be fair, someone with 200 killer, desirable, well produced and excellent shots with a message, will beat someone else with 2000 crummy, average, photos that are just nice pictures but have much less market demand. So "How Big Is Yours..." doesn't play for making anyone more credible?
I wish it was mandatory for those who post that we can see there ports and how many Images they have to at least get some idea about credibility in Posting Numbers.
People Saying your Up Could mean Your getting 10 Sales a day compared to 5.
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it is the same to me, low sales and much more rejection from ss, maybe something is happening in their business.
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I wish it was mandatory for those who post that we can see there ports and how many Images they have to at least get some idea about credibility in Posting Numbers.
People Saying your Up Could mean Your getting 10 Sales a day compared to 5.
Who would willingly give away their ideas to the copycats?
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As i read this in is a flashback to about 4 or 5 years ago...... Reading the iStock posts and watching my 6500 plus port sales drop in the same way many are describing above.
Anyone see a graph charting photos for sale online overlaying a graph showing sales? I suspect the lines are diverging rapidly.
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Maybe I spoke to soon, yesterday was slow, today slow is a massive exaggeration. Its been a long time ago I had this few DLs at the end of my afternoon.
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Who would willingly give away their ideas to the copycats?
Sue is right. If someone comes here and share his numbers you don't really need to see his portfolio to guess which kind of images he produces (of coarse you must be aware of your work). Of coarse if someone says that he has 20dw/day with 1500 img he's doing good images.
Personally i don't make any good or high value images and i know my numbers (3/4 downloads day with 600 img)
if someone says that he has 90 donwload/day with 1600 a good start would be in believing him.... Then you have two options:
1-try to get there with a "market reseach" and better shots
2-Don't care and continue in your standard work without whining :)
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"Soon Shutterstock will only have artists from poorer countries, as the rest of us can't live on the income we receive, and will be forced to use our talents elsewhere."
+1000
they have been Farming those countries for a few years.
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January on shutterstock, for my small portfolio is the best month ever
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December and January were both slower than usual for me. A stream of subscription sales with almost no SODs. I was starting to feel crabby about SS.
However, this morning produced my first EL since last summer… the longest I've ever gone without one. Since 2011, this Black-tailed Jackrabbit image (http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-104082047/stock-photo-black-tailed-jackrabbit-at-dawn-at-sand-hollow-state-park-in-utah.html?src=&ws=1 (http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-104082047/stock-photo-black-tailed-jackrabbit-at-dawn-at-sand-hollow-state-park-in-utah.html?src=&ws=1)) has been a steady, reliable sub-seller for me. Several dozen subs per year, usually in the US. But this is the first bigger-than-a-sub sale it's ever had… and that sale came from England, no less. Somebody there is putting out a book on North American rodents???
So anyway, right now, I'm happy with SS. All of a sudden, with a single nice sale, things are looking up. It's a good reminder (as if we needed one) of how unpredictable this business is.
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"Soon Shutterstock will only have artists from poorer countries, as the rest of us can't live on the income we receive, and will be forced to use our talents elsewhere."
+1000
they have been Farming those countries for a few years.
I am from the poorer part of Europe and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
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"Soon Shutterstock will only have artists from poorer countries, as the rest of us can't live on the income we receive, and will be forced to use our talents elsewhere."
+1000
they have been Farming those countries for a few years.
Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
yes, so right u r. that is why in those countries where it is said to be "cheap to retire" there is a wide rich-poor disparity where the guy who can afford a DSLR is driving a Citroen while right outside his apartment which is all fenced up with 10 ft iron railings are street people rushing for carton boxes each night for their bed. the 3rd world is not poor; only the elites with connections are rich while the majority scrape for a day's meal.
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like us......LOL
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like us......LOL
Yeah, I was thinking that too, given today's rampant economic inequality, even in "first world" nations.
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"Soon Shutterstock will only have artists from poorer countries, as the rest of us can't live on the income we receive, and will be forced to use our talents elsewhere."
+1000
they have been Farming those countries for a few years.
Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
I live in Canada, but was born in one of those "poorer countries". One of the cultural shocks I had to overcome is how much housing actually costs here. Food and clothing or even a car compared to your rent or mortgage is nothing. Most of your income is spent on having a roof above your head. So, count yourself lucky still - you don't have to work your behind off just to avoid sleeping under the bridge.
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"Soon Shutterstock will only have artists from poorer countries, as the rest of us can't live on the income we receive, and will be forced to use our talents elsewhere."
+1000
they have been Farming those countries for a few years.
Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
I live in Canada, but was born in one of those "poorer countries". One of the cultural shocks I had to overcome is how much housing actually costs here. Food and clothing or even a car compared to your rent or mortgage is nothing. Most of your income is spent on having a roof above your head. So, count yourself lucky still - you don't have to work your behind off just to avoid sleeping under the bridge.
My comment was only intended to illustrate the fact that in some parts of the world, $1000 for example, is a substantial monthly income, whereas in other places, it won't even cover the rent.
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there is also the rich apparent (no, not rich parent, although it applies too) in first world countries esp NAm where money grows on trees (ie bank dispenser machines and credit card) where many have maxed-out credit cards keeping up with the joneses . so much so that people in the 3rd world think you are loaded because you live in a nice house, drive a sports car, travel to tropical countries for winter,etc
not realising that 90% of it is borrowed money.
OTOH, in the poorer countries, the hut and the land with fruit trees are all bought with cash... no incidence of Prada to Nada in their case. so really who is richer?
as the Latinos highly regard the Gringos as (the "white" foreigners with lots of money); if only they knew that many are really bankrupt 8)
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You are good!
I have 1600 images and 20-30 dls per day!
Photography or vectors? You are good too dude
died from overdrawn
Photos
But every month when I reach my average income, my sales have dropped on several per day, it is usual in last week like this...
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"Soon Shutterstock will only have artists from poorer countries, as the rest of us can't live on the income we receive, and will be forced to use our talents elsewhere."
+1000
they have been Farming those countries for a few years.
Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
Yep!
100$ In Balkans countries worth like 50$ in US! Proved!
http://online.konzum.hr/# (http://online.konzum.hr/#)!/offers?show=all&sort_field=name&sort=nameAsc&page=1&per_page=24
1$=6,6 kn (Croatian Kuna)
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Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
Go to New York, take a beer, cigarettes, go to restaurant and then after maybe go to disco.
Than come back here and look your post
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"Soon Shutterstock will only have artists from poorer countries, as the rest of us can't live on the income we receive, and will be forced to use our talents elsewhere."
+1000
they have been Farming those countries for a few years.
Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
Yep!
100$ In Balkans countries worth like 50$ in US! Proved!
[url]http://online.konzum.hr/#[/url] ([url]http://online.konzum.hr/#[/url])!/offers?show=all&sort_field=name&sort=nameAsc&page=1&per_page=24
1$=6,6 kn (Croatian Kuna)
:) :) ... regarding ''3rd world countries'' or ''cheap countries'' how about this (in my case) : House mortgage + all utilities/month 350 euros ( around $420) ;) only SS in a disastrous month produce more than that, and I'm talking about an European Union Country that I believe is not a 3rd world country ;) ..... what i trying to say is that in some countries in this world prices are exaggerated.
Ok... back on topic.....
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... how about this (in my case) : House mortgage + all utilities/month 350 euros ( around $420) ;) only SS in as disastrous month produce more than that, and I'm talking about an European Union Country that i believe is not a 3rd world country ;) ...
And what country/city would that be?
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Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
Go to New York, take a beer, cigarettes, go to restaurant and then after maybe go to disco.
Than come back here and look your post
+10
You would need around 15,510.52kn (2,286.81$) in Zagreb (Croatia) to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 6,800.00$ in New York, NY (assuming you rent in both cities).
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Croatia&city1=New+York%2C+NY&city2=Zagreb (http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Croatia&city1=New+York%2C+NY&city2=Zagreb)
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"Soon Shutterstock will only have artists from poorer countries, as the rest of us can't live on the income we receive, and will be forced to use our talents elsewhere."
+1000
they have been Farming those countries for a few years.
Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
I live in Canada, but was born in one of those "poorer countries". One of the cultural shocks I had to overcome is how much housing actually costs here. Food and clothing or even a car compared to your rent or mortgage is nothing. Most of your income is spent on having a roof above your head. So, count yourself lucky still - you don't have to work your behind off just to avoid sleeping under the bridge.
My comment was only intended to illustrate the fact that in some parts of the world, $1000 for example, is a substantial monthly income, whereas in other places, it won't even cover the rent.
+10
Average Monthly Disposable Salary (After Tax)
London 3,225.03 $ Buenos Aires 1,264.91 $
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+Kingdom&city1=London&country2=Argentina&city2=Buenos+Aires&displayCurrency=USD (http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+Kingdom&city1=London&country2=Argentina&city2=Buenos+Aires&displayCurrency=USD)
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http://www.movehub.com/sites/default/files/filemanager/cost-of-living-(original).jpg (http://www.movehub.com/sites/default/files/filemanager/cost-of-living-(original).jpg)
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by the way we are goind waaay off topic :) SS is doing baad also for me this week :(
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Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
Go to New York, take a beer, cigarettes, go to restaurant and then after maybe go to disco.
Than come back here and look your post
Well, you don't have to go to restaurant, take a beer and smoke. One of the reasons it looks like we, in poor countries, need less money is we are not used to commodities the way you are. For example, here at Balkans, during post war years, it was a science fiction to go to restaurant, travel for vacations, have a car, have nice clothes, buy anything except food, basic clothes etc.
Luckily, that changed. I know many wealthy people now that have made their fortune thanks to internet. Web designers, software experts, musicians, photographers, videographers, translators to name a few.
"Soon Shutterstock will only have artists from poorer countries, as the rest of us can't live on the income we receive, and will be forced to use our talents elsewhere."
So if you have to blame someone for your microstock failure blame this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee)
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With all of my income from stock I almost succeed in pay my car rate (I bought a second hand skoda octavia made in 2004).
But I do this kind of work from passion, and, I also believe that when you do just for the money, you are wrong!
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With all of my income from stock I almost succeed in pay my car rate (I bought a second hand skoda octavia made in 2004).
But I do this kind of work from passion, and, I also believe that when you do just for the money, you are wrong!
Well, I believe that who ever is doing microstock not just for the money is out of their minds... ;D
I would never ever do microstock as hobby. There are much more rewarding types of photography if you are just following your passion.
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Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
Go to New York, take a beer, cigarettes, go to restaurant and then after maybe go to disco.
Than come back here and look your post
Go to one of discos on Balkan, see some girls there and then come back and look your post! :D
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Poorer countries? I am from the Balkans and I can tell you that food/clothing prices are the same or higher than in the US. Yes, we have a crap but cheap healthcare system and housing/renting is much cheaper but the prices of the main commodities are getting more and more similar across the globe. The main difference is in wages.
Go to New York, take a beer, cigarettes, go to restaurant and then after maybe go to disco.
Than come back here and look your post
+10
You would need around 15,510.52kn (2,286.81$) in Zagreb (Croatia) to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 6,800.00$ in New York, NY (assuming you rent in both cities).
[url]http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Croatia&city1=New+York%2C+NY&city2=Zagreb[/url] ([url]http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Croatia&city1=New+York%2C+NY&city2=Zagreb[/url])
Come on!
Zagreb is not in Croatia as Manhattan is in New York (likely situation is different in New Jersey).
Why you don't compare with Dubrovnik in Croatia, but with disco, beer and restaurants as someone mention that here!?
Coffee in Dubrovnik is $5
BTW Croatia is a part of EU...
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
[EDIT] Just to add some link to some greenish pastry : http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-246725053/stock-photo-fresh-artisan-sourdough-olive-bread-on-the-table.html?src=-_6k8tYpZfIefSpkYd9ExQ-5-85&ws=1 (http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-246725053/stock-photo-fresh-artisan-sourdough-olive-bread-on-the-table.html?src=-_6k8tYpZfIefSpkYd9ExQ-5-85&ws=1)
Who needs that kind of photo?
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Do you have anything to share with us that proves that theory?
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Do you have anything to share with us that proves that theory?
Added edit in my previous post. About the wall? Well... Mostly all what I can tell you about it is what I've heard. Search has changed when EX iStock exclusives come to SS. Many of people have very hard times to maintain their earnings if they don't upload on regular basis. New images don't sell as they sold before. You might get one or two sales in week after upload and that is it. So, there is a constant burying of new images...
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Oh come on guys - my comment was not meant to spark a debate over which countries/cities and more expensive than others or, indeed, the reasons for that.
I will reiterate my point and simply state that falling Shutterstock sales can have a bigger impact on some people than others, and that can be relative to where you are based in the world.
A 50% drop on monthly sales of $100 will probably have less financial impact than a 30% drop on sales of $1000 a month. Similarly, that same 30% drop on $1000 will affect people differently, depending on the cost of living where they are based.
Regarding, whether this occupation should be for money or passion? Again, that depends on each contributors circumstances. If you have a talent and a passion, and use these to run a business, then surely this is an occupation that is both for the love and the money? It certainly is in my case, and I prefer to do this than flip burgers in McDonalds 40 hours a week for minimum wage, even though that may end up paying more per hour, if stock sales continue to sink. To state that you shouldn't be in this business for the money is somewhat simplistic and is, again, dependant on the individual circumstances.
My Shutterstock income for the last two months is down by about $650 on the same period last year - where I live, that's a months rent. So, to get back to the thread topic, my Shutterstock sales are sinking deeply.
I wish I had the answers as to why sales are sinking but, as is the case with everyone else, I can only speculate that search changes/global economy/saturated market, etc. etc. are to blame.
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Oh come on guys - my comment was not meant to spark a debate over which countries/cities and more expensive than others or, indeed, the reasons for that.
I will reiterate my point and simply state that falling Shutterstock sales can have a bigger impact on some people than others, and that can be relative to where you are based in the world.
A 50% drop on monthly sales of $100 will probably have less financial impact than a 30% drop on sales of $1000 a month. Similarly, that same 30% drop on $1000 will affect people differently, depending on the cost of living where they are based.
Regarding, whether this occupation should be for money or passion? Again, that depends on each contributors circumstances. If you have a talent and a passion, and use these to run a business, then surely this is an occupation that is both for the love and the money? It certainly is in my case, and I prefer to do this than flip burgers in McDonalds 40 hours a week for minimum wage, even though that may end up paying more per hour, if stock sales continue to sink. To state that you shouldn't be in this business for the money is somewhat simplistic and is, again, dependant on the individual circumstances.
My Shutterstock income for the last two months is down by about $650 on the same period last year - where I live, that's a months rent. So, to get back to the thread topic, my Shutterstock sales are sinking deeply.
I wish I had the answers as to why sales are sinking but, as is the case with everyone else, I can only speculate that search changes/global economy/saturated market, etc. etc. are to blame.
Just remember that GL stock images stopped to accept uploads before last year end. Why? Possibly they figured out that there is some lack of buyers happening. So, they stopped accepting new uploads until they recover in buyers numbers. Shutterstock on the other way is growing on more than microstock branch and there might be our problem. While they grow offset or venturing new acquisitions they possibly have less stable buyers base for microstock images (I mean creative images for example). They grow music, video, editorial... But, what do they do with market which made them who they are? In all what I've heard and read they are failing in sales to basic creative stock images.
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Do you have anything to share with us that proves that theory?
Added edit in my previous post. About the wall? Well... Mostly all what I can tell you about it is what I've heard. Search has changed when EX iStock exclusives come to SS. Many of people have very hard times to maintain their earnings if they don't upload on regular basis. New images don't sell as they sold before. You might get one or two sales in week after upload and that is it. So, there is a constant burying of new images...
No not about the wall, about the part I bolded
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Do you have anything to share with us that proves that theory?
Added edit in my previous post. About the wall? Well... Mostly all what I can tell you about it is what I've heard. Search has changed when EX iStock exclusives come to SS. Many of people have very hard times to maintain their earnings if they don't upload on regular basis. New images don't sell as they sold before. You might get one or two sales in week after upload and that is it. So, there is a constant burying of new images...
No not about the wall, about the part I bolded
Try it for yourself! Just use search for exactly the same image today. And, try it again in a day. And then try the same search in 2 days! All will be clear to you!
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Sorry Albert, that doesnt prove anything in relation to favouring lower royalty images. I reached 38 cent a while back and didnt notice a drop in income. I had BME after my promotion to the highest tier.
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[EDIT] Just to add some link to some greenish pastry : [url]http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-246725053/stock-photo-fresh-artisan-sourdough-olive-bread-on-the-table.html?src=-_6k8tYpZfIefSpkYd9ExQ-5-85&ws=1[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-246725053/stock-photo-fresh-artisan-sourdough-olive-bread-on-the-table.html?src=-_6k8tYpZfIefSpkYd9ExQ-5-85&ws=1[/url])
Who needs that kind of photo?
Doesnt look greenish to me to be honest, maybe your monitor needs to be calibrated ? It looks like normal yellowish dough color to me.
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I reached 38 cent a while back and didnt notice a drop in income. I had BME after my promotion to the highest tier.
I had a different experience. My sales have plummetted.
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[EDIT] Just to add some link to some greenish pastry : [url]http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-246725053/stock-photo-fresh-artisan-sourdough-olive-bread-on-the-table.html?src=-_6k8tYpZfIefSpkYd9ExQ-5-85&ws=1[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-246725053/stock-photo-fresh-artisan-sourdough-olive-bread-on-the-table.html?src=-_6k8tYpZfIefSpkYd9ExQ-5-85&ws=1[/url])
Who needs that kind of photo?
Doesnt look greenish to me to be honest, maybe your monitor needs to be calibrated ? It looks like normal yellowish dough color to me.
+1
just a little bit green in shadows...nothing dramatic to call this a useless image :)
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I wish fellow microstockers would stop pointing at other people's work or a person's earnings level/age in the business as a reason for deterioration in their own sales.
Besides which, the contributor highlighted has 50,000 images accepted and that says a lot about a work ethic which many of us (myself included) would do well to emulate.
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37 photos sold today on SS, and only TWO of them SODs. >:(
I've increased my port by 50% in the last 3-4 months, and the only result is more and more subs every day.
"If I can just get that 500 files on SS, I'll be making decent money". "Ok, 800 should do it". "Surely by the time I get 1000".....
Reality is starting to set in for me and it bites.
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Do you have anything to share with us that proves that theory?
Added edit in my previous post. About the wall? Well... Mostly all what I can tell you about it is what I've heard. Search has changed when EX iStock exclusives come to SS. Many of people have very hard times to maintain their earnings if they don't upload on regular basis. New images don't sell as they sold before. You might get one or two sales in week after upload and that is it. So, there is a constant burying of new images...
No not about the wall, about the part I bolded
I think it is not the picture was cheaper. It is SS get more money from newbie,less left for contributor.
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Is it possible than sales are slightly lower because of dollar(unusually high value)?
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The strong dollar is my friend now :D. An average 15% more income per image sale compared to last year at all the dollar based stock companies.
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Do you have anything to share with us that proves that theory?
Added edit in my previous post. About the wall? Well... Mostly all what I can tell you about it is what I've heard. Search has changed when EX iStock exclusives come to SS. Many of people have very hard times to maintain their earnings if they don't upload on regular basis. New images don't sell as they sold before. You might get one or two sales in week after upload and that is it. So, there is a constant burying of new images...
No not about the wall, about the part I bolded
I think it is not the picture was cheaper. It is SS get more money from newbie,less left for contributor.
I know that, in fact, if someone uses up their 750 images per month, SS will lose money. But that is not what I am asking. I am just asking if there is proof that SS is favouring images from newbies? I am no newbie, I am on 38 cent, I dont see a decline. And I know more people with 38 cent ports still increasing their earnings.
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The strong dollar is my friend now :D. An average 15% more income per image sale compared to last year at all the dollar based stock companies.
I know, mine too. But, does it affect sales? For example, I stopped buying on Ebay US in dollars. Waiting for things to change.
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[EDIT] Just to add some link to some greenish pastry : [url]http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-246725053/stock-photo-fresh-artisan-sourdough-olive-bread-on-the-table.html?src=-_6k8tYpZfIefSpkYd9ExQ-5-85&ws=1[/url] ([url]http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-246725053/stock-photo-fresh-artisan-sourdough-olive-bread-on-the-table.html?src=-_6k8tYpZfIefSpkYd9ExQ-5-85&ws=1[/url])
Who needs that kind of photo?
Doesnt look greenish to me to be honest, maybe your monitor needs to be calibrated ? It looks like normal yellowish dough color to me.
Someone's monitor needs calibration indeed - but also those who agree with your comment might need a medical exam... Never mind... Anyway that shot is pure crap... Ad that is what shutterstock accept lately!
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Do you have anything to share with us that proves that theory?
Added edit in my previous post. About the wall? Well... Mostly all what I can tell you about it is what I've heard. Search has changed when EX iStock exclusives come to SS. Many of people have very hard times to maintain their earnings if they don't upload on regular basis. New images don't sell as they sold before. You might get one or two sales in week after upload and that is it. So, there is a constant burying of new images...
No not about the wall, about the part I bolded
I think it is not the picture was cheaper. It is SS get more money from newbie,less left for contributor.
I know that, in fact, if someone uses up their 750 images per month, SS will lose money. But that is not what I am asking. I am just asking if there is proof that SS is favouring images from newbies? I am no newbie, I am on 38 cent, I dont see a decline. And I know more people with 38 cent ports still increasing their earnings.
Formula for that is what? To upload thousand or two thousands photos a month? Do you claim that all of that photos are pure quality? Come on? Just wait and see the wall you hit in some time!
[EDIT] I see that you have blasting sales on other places... Dreamstime for example... Well dude, cut the crap! You are not in position to demand evidence. Evidence is for court!
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I wish fellow microstockers would stop pointing at other people's work or a person's earnings level/age in the business as a reason for deterioration in their own sales.
Besides which, the contributor highlighted has 50,000 images accepted and that says a lot about a work ethic which many of us (myself included) would do well to emulate.
Indeed? So, crap photos allowed for those pursuing work ethic? come on! That is why good shots get buried and hard to find. I am against overabundant uploading of same sh*t in multiple variations. Yes, you might be right that microstock become crapstock if such ethic is what you call ethic.
[EDIT] Just to add. I am not whining about my sales - they are almost fine as they should be. But, I see some little minus regarding my earnings. So, that should be something to get worried about because I upload quality images and I do it in good quantities!
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Well, I just had a look at my stats from the past: My January 2015 income from Shutterstock is about one quarter of that from January 2011, and one third of that from January 2010, 2009 and 2008. I then had a fraction of the photos I have online now.
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Disagree please! I love to see you don't like to see usual woohoo and wooyay posts here! Thank God that I think differently than most here. Group which is always ready to agree to disagree with someone who don't agree. But, most of you would sell your image for a dime if you can. I have better things to do than argue with some community which doesn't have any sense for future. Good Luck Suckers!
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The monster week i needed to make my average month isnt happening. Very strange but no video sales, no sod's and very few od's and subs are low--almost half the average volume. Cant understand it. See how next month goes.
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Do you have anything to share with us that proves that theory?
Added edit in my previous post. About the wall? Well... Mostly all what I can tell you about it is what I've heard. Search has changed when EX iStock exclusives come to SS. Many of people have very hard times to maintain their earnings if they don't upload on regular basis. New images don't sell as they sold before. You might get one or two sales in week after upload and that is it. So, there is a constant burying of new images...
No not about the wall, about the part I bolded
I think it is not the picture was cheaper. It is SS get more money from newbie,less left for contributor.
I know that, in fact, if someone uses up their 750 images per month, SS will lose money. But that is not what I am asking. I am just asking if there is proof that SS is favouring images from newbies? I am no newbie, I am on 38 cent, I dont see a decline. And I know more people with 38 cent ports still increasing their earnings.
Formula for that is what? To upload thousand or two thousands photos a month? Do you claim that all of that photos are pure quality? Come on? Just wait and see the wall you hit in some time!
? This wasnt about the wall but about your claim that images of newbies on 25 cent royalties are favoured in the search. No one attacked you, just disagreeing, no biggie.
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The monster week i needed to make my average month isnt happening. Very strange but no video sales, no sod's and very few od's and subs are low--almost half the average volume. Cant understand it. See how next month goes.
This week completely collapsed for me too.
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This thread is about as useful as the Doom and Gloom thread over at SS....all problems and no solutions. Then again, most of us know it is unwise to offer solutions in business until you've milked the opportunity dry yourself.
Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Do you have anything to share with us that proves that theory?
Added edit in my previous post. About the wall? Well... Mostly all what I can tell you about it is what I've heard. Search has changed when EX iStock exclusives come to SS. Many of people have very hard times to maintain their earnings if they don't upload on regular basis. New images don't sell as they sold before. You might get one or two sales in week after upload and that is it. So, there is a constant burying of new images...
No not about the wall, about the part I bolded
I think it is not the picture was cheaper. It is SS get more money from newbie,less left for contributor.
I know that, in fact, if someone uses up their 750 images per month, SS will lose money. But that is not what I am asking. I am just asking if there is proof that SS is favouring images from newbies? I am no newbie, I am on 38 cent, I dont see a decline. And I know more people with 38 cent ports still increasing their earnings.
Formula for that is what? To upload thousand or two thousands photos a month? Do you claim that all of that photos are pure quality? Come on? Just wait and see the wall you hit in some time!
? This wasnt about the wall but about your claim that images of newbies on 25 cent royalties are favoured in the search. No one attacked you, just disagreeing, no biggie.
Dude, no biggie at all... Just trying to show you that you and most here are using your time not to read and understand what is written. Most people read to find something in post to respond. That is what is problem! I asked you directly about your formula. I expect to see what Dave has to say also. Yes all newbies are favoured in search since ages. As you are established stocker you must know it. On shutterstock newbies have priority in search for first 3 months or so. That is not any kind of secret! The point is that some searches for some specific images today show some specific image. And the same search would not show that image day after and so on! So, Shutterstock has search which excludes some results from showing - not on first page - it excludes some result showing AT ALL!
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Hello guys!
Same for me here, since December SS is sinking.
I have a portfolio of almost 19k images and noticed a big decrease in the last 15days of December, surely because of the holiday season. The problem is that it didn't recover in January. This is worrying me a lot since stocks are my work and SS represents a bug % of my income :(
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Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Who needs that kind of photo?
as all here know, i am one of the biggest ss objector when it comes to their problem with us.
but here i have to be pro ss re: your statement about overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo bit.
the way i see it, u should be happy that if it is true. the more overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo being approved ... the better for you the better for me.
the downloaders are not blind, they can see the difference.
i wish u are right, as the more overabundant crap ss accepts the better my portfolio is going to look.
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Agree with you in theory Estudiante but I think the over abundant crap just makes it harder for buyers to find the good stuff.
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Agree with you in theory Estudiante but I think the over abundant crap just makes it harder for buyers to find the good stuff.
And let me add. The vast.VAST majority of DL's are blogs,church fliers etc,etc,etc , Not book covers or Billboards what not. They want the ordinary, The everyday,The real and the simplistic story that can be told, Not blown out super Pics with unreal colors or massive time consuming composites as much as we love seeing them,appreciate and love doing them. Clean and clear even if they could do them themselves.
Im not saying the High enders here aren't doing well, they probably are but, thats not the bulk of what Microstock really is and where it's roots are. hence the reason for stocksy,Offset and the like. I have and can do some fairly artistic stuff Photographically But what sells for me..Personally is the simplest stuff I've done and every now and then something I thought was cool sells But, By and large it's the dead on simple message that can be used over and over which, is the hardest thing for me to keep doing and could be the reason The majority of my sales are Very Old when I had more of a "PURE" stock mentality.
It's just so * Boring...LOL
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And let me add. The vast.VAST majority of DL's are blogs,church fliers etc,etc,etc , Not book covers or Billboards what not. They want the ordinary, The everyday,The real and the simplistic story that can be told, Not blown out super Pics with unreal colors or massive time consuming composites as much as we love seeing them,appreciate and love doing them. Clean and clear even if they could do them themselves.
... Im not saying the High enders here aren't doing well, they probably are but, thats not the bulk of what Microstock really is and where it's roots are. hence the reason for stocksy,Offset and the like....
It's just so * Boring...LOL
Could not agree more... Even though I'm doing stock only one year, I'm starting to realize what is it all about. Decent composition, soft light, ordinary subject, everyday activity, happy faces, no shallow DOF, no noise.
So... The most important thing is quantity of photos in your port. There is quite stable equation how much downloads you can have depending strictly on quantity. With a few exceptions...
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Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Who needs that kind of photo?
as all here know, i am one of the biggest ss objector when it comes to their problem with us.
but here i have to be pro ss re: your statement about overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo bit.
the way i see it, u should be happy that if it is true. the more overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo being approved ... the better for you the better for me.
the downloaders are not blind, they can see the difference.
i wish u are right, as the more overabundant crap ss accepts the better my portfolio is going to look.
Dude, shhhh! they might really read what you wrote. But, anyhow they will not understand what you are talking about. Most of those 10000+ images stockers have more than 4/5 of pure crap in their ports. That is why they woo yay on crap photo I showed here ;)
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I'll take 4/5th of Sean's 'crap' photos any day ! ;D Still ten times better than my best shots LOL.
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I've got some right duffers in my port and I'm sure everybody has. This isn't art, although some would like to think it is. Having said that, there is room for art of course but I'll bet there are images of a pencil sharpener out there that outsell images of some elfin girl prancing through a wheat field back lit by a setting sun.
We have a saying in England: Where there's muck there's brass. Loosely translated, crap makes money. The trick is finding the right sort of crap and making it look fit for purpose.
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I've got some right duffers in my port and I'm sure everybody has. This isn't art, although some would like to think it is. Having said that, there is room for art of course but I'll bet there are images of a pencil sharpener out there that outsell images of some elfin girl prancing through a wheat field back lit by a setting sun.
We have a saying in England: Where there's muck there's brass. Loosely translated, crap makes money. The trick is finding the right sort of crap and making it look fit for purpose.
exactamento 8)
lady gaga, miley cyrus, justin beiber, etc sells more tickets than pavoratti even when he was alive.
the cardboard tasting fast muck at the foodcourt sells more per minute than your best restaurant.
microstock is no different. as someone said many years ago here , Ansel Adams would be a pauper if he was in microstock.
it's like the newsprint , we were told write Primary 5 (British school) English ; don't try to write anything "vague" . Even Bob Dylan's lyrics would confuse the newsprint readers.
microstock is no different. creative depth of field would be considered out of focus,
and low sunlight cast would be consider wrong WB.
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Well, I don't want to be a party pooper but my Jan 2015 sales are currently just 78c short of my Jan 2014 sales, with 24 hours or so left to beat last year's tally. Admittedly, both years are significantly down on the 2012 and 2013 (so I was probably complaining, this time last year) but flatlining on last year is not a catastrophe. I just wish all the other sites would do at least as well.
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How many have you added in the year. If a whole bunch, You lose. with adding None your ahead. More goes into what I call a bad month than sales. Cost effectiveness doing this has always been a big Factor to me.
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How many have you added in the year. If a whole bunch, You lose. with adding None your ahead. More goes into what I call a bad month than sales. Cost effectiveness doing this has always been a big Factor to me.
I increased my portfolio by less than 10%, so as I've been at it for almost 11 years now that's a bit below average for annual uploads. Not sure how that affects your assessment.
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Time spent and expenses for return. If I get a 100 Sub sales,add in the cost of shooting,equipment and processing Time Based on a Hourly rate....Im going backwards. Micro is No longer sustainable looking at it Like that.Thank god, It has never accounted for more than 20/25% of what my Nut is being a full time Photographer when OD's SOD's and EL's become very scarce.
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Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Who needs that kind of photo?
as all here know, i am one of the biggest ss objector when it comes to their problem with us.
but here i have to be pro ss re: your statement about overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo bit.
the way i see it, u should be happy that if it is true. the more overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo being approved ... the better for you the better for me.
the downloaders are not blind, they can see the difference.
i wish u are right, as the more overabundant crap ss accepts the better my portfolio is going to look.
Dude, shhhh! they might really read what you wrote. But, anyhow they will not understand what you are talking about. Most of those 10000+ images stockers have more than 4/5 of pure crap in their ports. That is why they woo yay on crap photo I showed here ;)
Maybe they should label 'Horrible Post' after you get -5 8)
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Time spent and expenses for return. If I get a 100 Sub sales,add in the cost of shooting,equipment and processing Time Based on a Hourly rate....Im going backwards. Micro is No longer sustainable looking at it Like that.Thank god, It has never accounted for more than 20/25% of what my Nut is being a full time Photographer when OD's SOD's and EL's become very scarce.
I have a different calculation, which is whether it lets me live as I choose. I would certainly earn more in a full-time job but I don't want to work for someone else, nor do I want to have to invest heavily in promoting my work in the hope of recouping the money through direct sales. The money isn't as good as it was so, like you, I'm going backwards, but I spend hardly anything on shoots and a day's work might still bring in $1,000 over the course of a few years if I'm lucky, so I'm still some way off throwing in the towel.
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I have a different calculation, which is whether it lets me live as I choose.
100% on this one - not having some tit in a suit telling me I have to "work on networking my personal brand" or having to sit in meetings and stare at a stale croissant, or pretending I care about mission statements, or listening to hours of gobbledygook at seminars, or having to watch my back constantly, or arriving sweaty and lost at some airport in the middle of nowhere at midnight is worth a million smackers to me.
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I have a different calculation, which is whether it lets me live as I choose.
100% on this one - not having some tit in a suit telling me....
Exactly. Plus I've just been to the Post Office and found $280 sitting in my box that I knew nothing about, and another $1,400 that I was expecting. That's job satisfaction.
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I have a different calculation, which is whether it lets me live as I choose.
100% on this one - not having some tit in a suit telling me....
Exactly. Plus I've just been to the Post Office and found $280 sitting in my box that I knew nothing about, and another $1,400 that I was expecting. That's job satisfaction.
Exactly.
That's all about this. It's the best job of the world.
And no matter what happens, no matter how many photographers enter into this, no matter how many photos will enter daily you just have to keep pushing.
Back in 2008 when the sales decrease a LOT, eceryone talked about the end of microstock.
Since 2009 I've been always increasing my income... It's true that in 2008 I sold a bunch of 25s in Shutterstock and never reached that volume again.
But then you got ODs, singles etc... the market will always fit and I believe that if we continue to work, things will work for us
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... or pretending I care about mission statements...
LOL! I know that feeling exactly!
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100% on this one - not having some tit in a suit telling me I have to "work on networking my personal brand" or having to sit in meetings and stare at a stale croissant, or pretending I care about mission statements, or listening to hours of gobbledygook at seminars, or having to watch my back constantly, or arriving sweaty and lost at some airport in the middle of nowhere at midnight is worth a million smackers to me.
Ironically, arriving sweaty and lost at an airport at midnight is how I avoid doing those other things which you despair about.
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Ironically, arriving sweaty and lost at an airport at midnight is how I avoid doing those other things which you despair about.
I envy you and when I was a whippersnapper I wasn't worried - but now I'm older flip flops and rucksacks are out. I prefer to have my luggage on wheels and my hotel in easy reach of a Mercedes, driven by someone who doesn't smell of boiled onions. ;)
PS. Apologies for straying off topic.
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Wow, I am not posting doom and gloom for once - on this last day of the month my SS sales are 2x both 2014 and 2013 (which were almost the same and still not bad). Had no el's but several SOD's ranging from sub value to $19.04. That column sure adds up nicely. Hopefully new norm!
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Time spent and expenses for return. If I get a 100 Sub sales,add in the cost of shooting,equipment and processing Time Based on a Hourly rate....Im going backwards. Micro is No longer sustainable looking at it Like that.Thank god, It has never accounted for more than 20/25% of what my Nut is being a full time Photographer when OD's SOD's and EL's become very scarce.
I have a different calculation, which is whether it lets me live as I choose. I would certainly earn more in a full-time job but I don't want to work for someone else, nor do I want to have to invest heavily in promoting my work in the hope of recouping the money through direct sales. The money isn't as good as it was so, like you, I'm going backwards, but I spend hardly anything on shoots and a day's work might still bring in $1,000 over the course of a few years if I'm lucky, so I'm still some way off throwing in the towel.
I agree. I've never had a Job in My 72 years. never took a paycheck from anyone. Did pretty well all said and done.
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Well my month improved slightly in earnings, due to a few late Els and a rather large SOD, so I ended about $100 down on last January, which was not so harsh as I thought it was going to be.
However, my downloads were down 25% on January 2014, despite increasing my portfolio by approx 15% over the last year.
Maybe this could have something to do with it?
'408,315 new stock images added this week'
That's an insane number
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Well my month improved slightly in earnings, due to a few late Els and a rather large SOD, so I ended about $100 down on last January, which was not so harsh as I thought it was going to be.
However, my downloads were down 25% on January 2014, despite increasing my portfolio by approx 15% over the last year.
Maybe this could have something to do with it?
'408,315 new stock images added this week'
That's an insane number
This is the beginning of the end of making a living at MS. It will be the place you can go to make $50 off your iPhone images. At some point, I think sooner than later, serious suppliers will abandon micro stock and in all likelihood remove their ports, leaving the sites with 20million "images on my iPhone".
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'408,315 new stock images added this week'
That's an insane number
400,000 a week adds up to over 20 millions/year or 200 millions in 10 years (not counting existing inventory)
However, since the growth has been closer to exponential rather than to linear, we could see 500 million new images in ten years.
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Well my month improved slightly in earnings, due to a few late Els and a rather large SOD, so I ended about $100 down on last January, which was not so harsh as I thought it was going to be.
However, my downloads were down 25% on January 2014, despite increasing my portfolio by approx 15% over the last year.
Maybe this could have something to do with it?
'408,315 new stock images added this week'
That's an insane number
This is the beginning of the end of making a living at MS. It will be the place you can go to make $50 off your iPhone images. At some point, I think sooner than later, serious suppliers will abandon micro stock and in all likelihood remove their ports, leaving the sites with 20million "images on my iPhone".
I wrote basically the same thing in 2006 and was booed at Big time.. were here. I also said when Asia starts submitting from there wrist Phones directly, 10 Cents an Image will be normal. mark My words. I'll lay odds on it.
Can anyone reading this, Post a link to "ANYONES" port that is really doing anything different Or groundbreaking. Something really fresh and new. Sure would love to see it. Sure ain't Mine. and sure ain't anything I've seen and I search a lot. New folks are doing what we did 7.8.9.10 years ago.
Just saying. If ya got something....Love to take a look.
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2006 was 9 years ago. It wasn't even close to the end back then.
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I will wait for Sstock to publish their latest results before predicting doom for all of us
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I will wait for Sstock to publish their latest results before predicting doom for all of us
I don't think Shutterstock will be feeling the pinch - just us mere contributors who are getting a smaller and smaller slice of the pie.
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Agree with you in theory Estudiante but I think the over abundant crap just makes it harder for buyers to find the good stuff.
And let me add. The vast.VAST majority of DL's are blogs,church fliers etc,etc,etc , Not book covers or Billboards what not. They want the ordinary, The everyday,The real and the simplistic story that can be told, Not blown out super Pics with unreal colors or massive time consuming composites as much as we love seeing them,appreciate and love doing them. Clean and clear even if they could do them themselves.
Im not saying the High enders here aren't doing well, they probably are but, thats not the bulk of what Microstock really is and where it's roots are. hence the reason for stocksy,Offset and the like. I have and can do some fairly artistic stuff Photographically But what sells for me..Personally is the simplest stuff I've done and every now and then something I thought was cool sells But, By and large it's the dead on simple message that can be used over and over which, is the hardest thing for me to keep doing and could be the reason The majority of my sales are Very Old when I had more of a "PURE" stock mentality.
It's just so * Boring...LOL
If the 'VAST majority of DL's are blogs,church fliers etc,etc,etc ,' then I would expect to see more ODD's at SS. How many bloggers/church-flyer makers need a few hundred images/month and would purchase a $200 subscription? I would imagine that these incidental users generate the majority of ODD's rather than subs sales. As the volume of ODD's appears to be decreasing, either these users have reduced their activities or simply gone elsewhere (eg DPC) where they can get their 10 'ordinary' images for an outlay of $10. Subs seems to be holding up reasonably well on SS but it's the loss of ODD's, EL's and big SOD's that is causing the declining income.
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Agree with you in theory Estudiante but I think the over abundant crap just makes it harder for buyers to find the good stuff.
And let me add. The vast.VAST majority of DL's are blogs,church fliers etc,etc,etc , Not book covers or Billboards what not. They want the ordinary, The everyday,The real and the simplistic story that can be told, Not blown out super Pics with unreal colors or massive time consuming composites as much as we love seeing them,appreciate and love doing them. Clean and clear even if they could do them themselves.
Im not saying the High enders here aren't doing well, they probably are but, thats not the bulk of what Microstock really is and where it's roots are. hence the reason for stocksy,Offset and the like. I have and can do some fairly artistic stuff Photographically But what sells for me..Personally is the simplest stuff I've done and every now and then something I thought was cool sells But, By and large it's the dead on simple message that can be used over and over which, is the hardest thing for me to keep doing and could be the reason The majority of my sales are Very Old when I had more of a "PURE" stock mentality.
It's just so * Boring...LOL
If the 'VAST majority of DL's are blogs,church fliers etc,etc,etc ,' then I would expect to see more ODD's at SS. How many bloggers/church-flyer makers need a few hundred images/month and would purchase a $200 subscription? I would imagine that these incidental users generate the majority of ODD's rather than subs sales. As the volume of ODD's appears to be decreasing, either these users have reduced their activities or simply gone elsewhere (eg DPC) where they can get their 10 'ordinary' images for an outlay of $10. Subs seems to be holding up reasonably well on SS but it's the loss of ODD's, EL's and big SOD's that is causing the declining income.
Well said and agree. DL numbers have remained somewhat constant.
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My shutterstock sales revenue goes up while my istock goes down !
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2006 was 9 years ago. It wasn't even close to the end back then.
A prediction Ron. we're here. But if someone said back then that 400,000 Images a week would be coming in, We would have laughed and said Impossible. When I was reviewing In those years 30, 000 a month was huge. You think our work is being diluted now. Just wait.
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Agree with you in theory Estudiante but I think the over abundant crap just makes it harder for buyers to find the good stuff.
And let me add. The vast.VAST majority of DL's are blogs,church fliers etc,etc,etc , Not book covers or Billboards what not. They want the ordinary, The everyday,The real and the simplistic story that can be told, Not blown out super Pics with unreal colors or massive time consuming composites as much as we love seeing them,appreciate and love doing them. Clean and clear even if they could do them themselves.
Im not saying the High enders here aren't doing well, they probably are but, thats not the bulk of what Microstock really is and where it's roots are. hence the reason for stocksy,Offset and the like. I have and can do some fairly artistic stuff Photographically But what sells for me..Personally is the simplest stuff I've done and every now and then something I thought was cool sells But, By and large it's the dead on simple message that can be used over and over which, is the hardest thing for me to keep doing and could be the reason The majority of my sales are Very Old when I had more of a "PURE" stock mentality.
It's just so * Boring...LOL
If the 'VAST majority of DL's are blogs,church fliers etc,etc,etc ,' then I would expect to see more ODD's at SS. How many bloggers/church-flyer makers need a few hundred images/month and would purchase a $200 subscription? I would imagine that these incidental users generate the majority of ODD's rather than subs sales. As the volume of ODD's appears to be decreasing, either these users have reduced their activities or simply gone elsewhere (eg DPC) where they can get their 10 'ordinary' images for an outlay of $10. Subs seems to be holding up reasonably well on SS but it's the loss of ODD's, EL's and big SOD's that is causing the declining income.
Subs were designed banking on People not using them up. Based on actuary tables from Insurance companies. If everyone got sick at the same time. Insurance Companies would go Bust Overnight.
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Subs were designed banking on People not using them up. Based on actuary tables from Insurance companies. If everyone got sick at the same time. Insurance Companies would go Bust Overnight.
so true, or like your telephone subscription or worse , a smartphone mobile plan of $100 monthly which even i on the basis phone plan pays for having a mobile which i use about 10 times a month. the most costly bill in my expense account is my mobile.
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Not sure what is going on, but sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
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Well my month improved slightly in earnings, due to a few late Els and a rather large SOD, so I ended about $100 down on last January, which was not so harsh as I thought it was going to be.
However, my downloads were down 25% on January 2014, despite increasing my portfolio by approx 15% over the last year.
Maybe this could have something to do with it?
'408,315 new stock images added this week'
That's an insane number
...and it's pointless too. Just type some basic keyword combo and arrange by date, it's almost all very amateurish junk, awkward shots, inept, unattractive models, etc, that never-ever-never gonna be downloaded. I don't know why people bother, also why SS bothers to let them thru.
The good news is that those simply won't bother your downloads, if you do somewhat more pro stuff. (yes there is definitely pro stuff too among that 400 000, just extremely small percentage. I wouldn't be surprised that if we cut the numbers down to stuff that actually makes a difference because it sells, that weekly upload number for that wouldn't even hit 15 000. Still not a diminutive number tho.
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I am more optimistic. The 400.000 is not relevant in my opinion - most of the images is newbie, boring and unsellable stuff with bad postprocessing like landscapes, flowers or pets. I think only small percentage is relevant and sellable. The question is also what will happen on the demand side of this business. It was growing rapidly last year.
-
Well my month improved slightly in earnings, due to a few late Els and a rather large SOD, so I ended about $100 down on last January, which was not so harsh as I thought it was going to be.
However, my downloads were down 25% on January 2014, despite increasing my portfolio by approx 15% over the last year.
Maybe this could have something to do with it?
'408,315 new stock images added this week'
That's an insane number
...and it's pointless too. Just type some basic keyword combo and arrange by date, it's almost all very amateurish junk, awkward shots, inept, unattractive models, etc, that never-ever-never gonna be downloaded. I don't know why people bother, also why SS bothers to let them thru.
The good news is that those simply won't bother your downloads, if you do somewhat more pro stuff. (yes there is definitely pro stuff too among that 400 000, just extremely small percentage. I wouldn't be surprised that if we cut the numbers down to stuff that actually makes a difference because it sells, that weekly upload number for that wouldn't even hit 15 000. Still not a diminutive number tho.
If the higher quality images never see the light of day in the search, buyers will never see or have access to those images.
Shutterstock makes more money on the new LCV images and that is why they accept them and also recruit the new photographers who produce them. Have you noticed how many new contributors are showing up here lately?
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Well my month improved slightly in earnings, due to a few late Els and a rather large SOD, so I ended about $100 down on last January, which was not so harsh as I thought it was going to be.
However, my downloads were down 25% on January 2014, despite increasing my portfolio by approx 15% over the last year.
Maybe this could have something to do with it?
'408,315 new stock images added this week'
That's an insane number
...and it's pointless too. Just type some basic keyword combo and arrange by date, it's almost all very amateurish junk, awkward shots, inept, unattractive models, etc, that never-ever-never gonna be downloaded. I don't know why people bother, also why SS bothers to let them thru.
The good news is that those simply won't bother your downloads, if you do somewhat more pro stuff. (yes there is definitely pro stuff too among that 400 000, just extremely small percentage. I wouldn't be surprised that if we cut the numbers down to stuff that actually makes a difference because it sells, that weekly upload number for that wouldn't even hit 15 000. Still not a diminutive number tho.
If the higher quality images never see the light of day in the search, buyers will never see or have access to those images.
Shutterstock makes more money on the new LCV images and that is why they accept them and also recruit the new photographers who produce them. Have you noticed how many new contributors are showing up here lately?
Search is so important to the customer value proposition. Even if many imags are substandard derrivatives of higher quality images buyers have to sift through them. When search favors some whacked logic where good selling content is buried it really doesnt matter what quality one shoots. All of the junk within that 400k uploads a week will simply shut down microstock as a reliable, MEANINGFUL source of revenue. Its really a no win for everyone. If they favor older successful content then new GOOD content gets buried, like the SS of today. Or the opposite where good successful content gets buried and new content becomes the king you better be supplying 10x more than the next guy to get some of those diluted sales. In my opinion, no matter what, a rate of 400k images added per week is a killer for everyone who takes ms seriously.
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Fully agree with Mantis there
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Well stated Mr. Mantis.
Getting to just this: "Its really a no win for everyone."
Dilution is the killer and the search becomes a useless wasteland, unreliable and irrelevant.
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I am a complete newbie to Shutterstock and only have just under 60 photos. Less than 40 at the beginning of January, started in November. January was my best month with 15 sales. I know that is nothing and this is horrible low compared to a lot of you, but for being so new, I am happy with that.
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Well my month improved slightly in earnings, due to a few late Els and a rather large SOD, so I ended about $100 down on last January, which was not so harsh as I thought it was going to be.
However, my downloads were down 25% on January 2014, despite increasing my portfolio by approx 15% over the last year.
Maybe this could have something to do with it?
'408,315 new stock images added this week'
That's an insane number
...and it's pointless too. Just type some basic keyword combo and arrange by date, it's almost all very amateurish junk, awkward shots, inept, unattractive models, etc, that never-ever-never gonna be downloaded. I don't know why people bother, also why SS bothers to let them thru.
The good news is that those simply won't bother your downloads, if you do somewhat more pro stuff. (yes there is definitely pro stuff too among that 400 000, just extremely small percentage. I wouldn't be surprised that if we cut the numbers down to stuff that actually makes a difference because it sells, that weekly upload number for that wouldn't even hit 15 000. Still not a diminutive number tho.
If the higher quality images never see the light of day in the search, buyers will never see or have access to those images.
Shutterstock makes more money on the new LCV images and that is why they accept them and also recruit the new photographers who produce them. Have you noticed how many new contributors are showing up here lately?
Search is so important to the customer value proposition. Even if many imags are substandard derrivatives of higher quality images buyers have to sift through them. When search favors some whacked logic where good selling content is buried it really doesnt matter what quality one shoots.
All of the junk within that 400k uploads a week will simply shut down microstock as a reliable, MEANINGFUL source of revenue. Its really a no win for everyone. If they favor older successful content then new GOOD content gets buried, like the SS of today. Or the opposite where good successful content gets buried and new content becomes the king you better be supplying 10x more than the next guy to get some of those diluted sales. In my opinion, no matter what, a rate of 400k images added per week is a killer for everyone who takes ms seriously.
Agreed, it will kill us all in the end. Do they care no, Jon is raking it in and does not care about the wreckage he is leaving in his wake.
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Not sure what is going on, but sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
Let me rephrase: Not sure what is going on, but MY sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
6 subs today. Thats abysmal.
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Not sure what is going on, but sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
Let me rephrase: Not sure what is going on, but MY sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
6 subs today. Thats abysmal.
I don't understand why someone who is stating their OWN info get voted down. I also don't understand why Gbalex and Mantis make very similar posts and Gbalex gets downvoted and Mantis gets so many + his post is in a box. Nothing against Mantis. I +1 both him and Gbalex cuz they basically said the same thing about flood of new lousy images burying good work. And +1 Ron too cuz this is a thread about our sales and he posted his sales experience.
Some people around here use the +/- system like spoiled kids instead of adults and professionals.
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Agree with mantis 1000%
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Food for thought......
http://davidduchemin.com/2015/02/commodity-failure-a-rant/ (http://davidduchemin.com/2015/02/commodity-failure-a-rant/)
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I am more optimistic. The 400.000 is not relevant in my opinion - most of the images is newbie, boring and unsellable stuff with bad postprocessing like landscapes, flowers or pets. I think only small percentage is relevant and sellable. The question is also what will happen on the demand side of this business. It was growing rapidly last year.
There is that of course. Over on fotolia I started with a total rank of 212400 right at the bottom. Now, 18 months later and with only 811 files and still on bronze level I have moved to 10800 in total rank. Which means I leapfrogged over 200 000 people on an agency that has been around for 10 years. And my portfolio is nothing really special, but it is fully usable stock and not snapshots of pets and flowers.
From what I have seen by working with artists it takes 2-3 years to really get into stock. There is so much to learn and most people give up a long the way. It is not easy money.
If an agency has a good search engine like SS they can handle a high volume of incoming files.
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I don't understand why someone who is stating their OWN info get voted down. I also don't understand why Gbalex and Mantis make very similar posts and Gbalex gets downvoted and Mantis gets so many + his post is in a box. Nothing against Mantis. I +1 both him and Gbalex cuz they basically said the same thing about flood of new lousy images burying good work. And +1 Ron too cuz this is a thread about our sales and he posted his sales experience.
Some people around here use the +/- system like spoiled kids instead of adults and professionals.
honestly i don't even look at + - thing. i just speak my piece .
but pixie u r right about too much crappy and cause a microstock constipation . perharps this explain the sudden blockup of sales these 2 months . is it because buyers are fedup with seeing flowers and birds and cats and field,etc and just going to fotolia or istock again>?>>
or is it just buyers have already downloaded all they want in the microstock smorgraboard (sorry spelling may be wrong but u know what i mean).
also re what someone said before, mantis or whoever, we look at the SOD getting us a motherlode when in fact if u remove the SOD, the sales are really dismal.
but i cant help doing a 180 about what i said here, and for believing what other ppl say in ss forum or here that ss is going to recover after the clients come back from their christmas vacation.
the buyers have all gone to the AGM and became shareholders and do not have to rummage through pages of crappy snapshots to find what they need in your/my port.
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Not sure what is going on, but sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
Let me rephrase: Not sure what is going on, but MY sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
6 subs today. Thats abysmal.
I don't understand why someone who is stating their OWN info get voted down. I also don't understand why Gbalex and Mantis make very similar posts and Gbalex gets downvoted and Mantis gets so many + his post is in a box. Nothing against Mantis. I +1 both him and Gbalex cuz they basically said the same thing about flood of new lousy images burying good work. And +1 Ron too cuz this is a thread about our sales and he posted his sales experience.
Some people around here use the +/- system like spoiled kids instead of adults and professionals.
The same young men vote down every post I make, this has been going on for ages and I know who casts them. The contents of my posts are of no consequence to them, they must hope that their down votes will gain momentum.
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I dont want to dig up old cows but you have always been saying I voted you down. Under this name I have voted you more up than down, and I am not young any more. Luis has also not posted in ages and a few others you had conflicts with. I wouldnt know who disagrees with you, but its not as if you receive dozens of down votes. I minus here and there is hardly a trend.
Sorry for the off topic.
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Not sure what is going on, but sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
Let me rephrase: Not sure what is going on, but MY sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
6 subs today. Thats abysmal.
I don't understand why someone who is stating their OWN info get voted down. I also don't understand why Gbalex and Mantis make very similar posts and Gbalex gets downvoted and Mantis gets so many + his post is in a box. Nothing against Mantis. I +1 both him and Gbalex cuz they basically said the same thing about flood of new lousy images burying good work. And +1 Ron too cuz this is a thread about our sales and he posted his sales experience.
Some people around here use the +/- system like spoiled kids instead of adults and professionals.
The same young men vote down every post I make, this has been going on for ages and I know who casts them. The contents of my posts are of no consequence to them, they must hope that their down votes will gain momentum.
Us girls can't vote you down? Sounds like you have some kind of persecution problem.
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I am a complete newbie to Shutterstock and only have just under 60 photos. Less than 40 at the beginning of January, started in November. January was my best month with 15 sales. I know that is nothing and this is horrible low compared to a lot of you, but for being so new, I am happy with that.
If you sold the equivalent of a quarter of your portfolio in January you are doing pretty well, I would say.
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I read it, I liked it, he's right. And I have two words for what he's pointing out.
Perceived Value
That and one brief conclusion = Darwin's theories apply to Stock Photography. :)
Food for thought......
[url]http://davidduchemin.com/2015/02/commodity-failure-a-rant/[/url] ([url]http://davidduchemin.com/2015/02/commodity-failure-a-rant/[/url])
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Not sure what is going on, but sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
Let me rephrase: Not sure what is going on, but MY sales have been abysmal for over a week now.
6 subs today. Thats abysmal.
I don't understand why someone who is stating their OWN info get voted down. I also don't understand why Gbalex and Mantis make very similar posts and Gbalex gets downvoted and Mantis gets so many + his post is in a box. Nothing against Mantis. I +1 both him and Gbalex cuz they basically said the same thing about flood of new lousy images burying good work. And +1 Ron too cuz this is a thread about our sales and he posted his sales experience.
Some people around here use the +/- system like spoiled kids instead of adults and professionals.
The same young men vote down every post I make, this has been going on for ages and I know who casts them. The contents of my posts are of no consequence to them, they must hope that their down votes will gain momentum.
Us girls can't vote you down? Sounds like you have some kind of persecution problem.
Quite the opposite, I speak my mind and leave it to you to take my inventory.
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I don't know what is happening at SS but sales are getting more dire by the month. Last week I had hope because sales went up all week. Today absolutley nothing. As if fallen off a very high cliff.
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i dont know, my sales are superb this week and are stronger and stronger every week, today i have 100 subs and 20 od, superb, go shutter, go shutter
my best sellers goes 6-7 a day
is here any heavy stock contributor with 500 commercial upload per month?
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i dont know, my sales are superb this week and are stronger and stronger every week, today i have 100 subs and 20 od, superb, go shutter, go shutter
my best sellers goes 6-7 a day
is here any heavy stock contributor with 500 commercial upload per month?
That might be one way to make ss really work, is to produce a very large number of files.
I can produce 200 files maximum and that includes everything, video,Micro,Macro,exclusive files etc...so I doubt I could ever send more than 10-15 a week to ss.
500 a month is what I see studios produce or people who have staff or family to help them every day. I think andresr said somewhere that his team and him create around 600 stock files a month.
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i dont know, my sales are superb this week and are stronger and stronger every week, today i have 100 subs and 20 od, superb, go shutter, go shutter
my best sellers goes 6-7 a day
is here any heavy stock contributor with 500 commercial upload per month?
That might be one way to make ss really work, is to produce a very large number of files.
I can produce 200 files maximum and that includes everything, video,Micro,Macro,exclusive files etc...so I doubt I could ever send more than 10-15 a week to ss.
500 a month is what I see studios produce or people who have staff or family to help them every day. I think andresr said somewhere that his team and him create around 600 stock files a month.
[/b]
i suppose if you are a grand-dad and you have children and children's children, you could put them all to slave labor and have them pose for you. much like the old famer who made lots of children so they would have them work in the fields. ironic, isn't it? microstock is the one modern (business) where having alot of children pays off ... in pennies ;D
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Greetings to everyone!
I see that we are becoming more and more people that we complain about the current situation, regardless of the quality or size of our portfolio.
I do not know how this thinks can help us, may be just to see that we are quite many who suffer from the same problems. My guess is this cries will not help us, but even to become increasingly more upset and frustrated.
Why do not try to come up with solutions / ideas, regardless of their nature? I find that we will have much more to gain!
Let us not caring about SS, FT, DT, etc. … Let's do something concrete or at least to think of possibilities and alternatives. I find it more constructive.
It is clear that will not get far with this microstock agencies provided above. Unfortunately, as said most people from here, it's hard to keep up with hundreds of thousands of new images and photographers, regardless of the search algorithm, quality, etc.
My idea: let's think together a system to begin to sell photos, regardless of photos nature. After that, let’s implement the system who we thought.
I know ... First temptation is to complain that it is impossible; it is difficult that we need a lot of money, and so on. However, there are the kinds of alternatives.
We can use some scripts that are not expensive at all, and then we can collaborate with freelancers to modify our script/web pages/sell system as we want.
There are google addwords, our web pages and many other promotional tools. If we make a big enough team, we can create something. And finally, let's dropped this mastodon that we are increasingly dissatisfied like SS, FT, IS... And ideas can continue...
I hope you will think at least to some new way to do this kind of job.
Have a wonderful day and the best possible light for your photos
:)
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my sales are ok, if u made commercial stuff, not old pipes or landscape, sales are ok then.
i made scenes, i need 2 hours to make scene for two images in basement, but then i expect at least 50dl/image, if i dont have 20dl/image i made loss.
i forgot, dont shoot food, too much food is on SS 8)
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If "LCV" shots are making money they can't be LCV can they? Customers will buy what they want to buy not what we think they should buy :o
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my sales are ok, if u made commercial stuff, not old pipes or landscape, sales are ok then.
i made scenes, i need 2 hours to make scene for two images in basement, but then i expect at least 50dl/image, if i dont have 20dl/image i made loss.
i forgot, dont shoot food, too much food is on SS 8)
But how are you producing 500 images a month? I also spend 2-3 hours on a few images, sometimes it takes me a whole day. That is why I can´t produce high volume. It might be easier if I worked more with models, because you can get different scenarious in one afternoon, but still life takes a lot of time.
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my SS downloads are still good...nothing changed from november...i had a bad dec. and a bad start in january, but now i'm back to normal downloads (6-7 downloads/day with 700 img/port)
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I see that we are becoming more and more people that we complain about the current situation, regardless of the quality or size of our portfolio.
I do not know how this thinks can help us, may be just to see that we are quite many who suffer from the same problems. My guess is this cries will not help us, but even to become increasingly more upset and frustrated.
Why do not try to come up with solutions / ideas, regardless of their nature? I find that we will have much more to gain!
hi Sebalos...this is a good point, and sometime ago i've said the same :)
but in this forum complaining and pessimism is the only welcome thing...in addition one "self proclaimed top photographer" answered (to an intelligent post like your) that he was not going to share his super good revolutionary ideas with his competitors (aka us) ;D
so don't expect any good answer because the forum is just a whining wall....
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i suppose if you are a grand-dad and you have children and children's children, you could put them all to slave labor and have them pose for you. much like the old famer who made lots of children so they would have them work in the fields. ironic, isn't it? microstock is the one modern (business) where having alot of children pays off ... in pennies ;D
And then there could be all the fun when your child sues you later on. (where 'you' = 'one', not you specifically)
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I see that we are becoming more and more people that we complain about the current situation, regardless of the quality or size of our portfolio.
I do not know how this thinks can help us, may be just to see that we are quite many who suffer from the same problems. My guess is this cries will not help us, but even to become increasingly more upset and frustrated.
Why do not try to come up with solutions / ideas, regardless of their nature? I find that we will have much more to gain!
hi Sebalos...this is a good point, and sometime ago i've said the same :)
but in this forum complaining and pessimism is the only welcome thing...in addition one "self proclaimed top photographer" answered (to an intelligent post like your) that he was not going to share his super good revolutionary ideas with his competitors (aka us) ;D
so don't expect any good answer because the forum is just a whining wall....
Thanks mojaric!
Sad but I get the point ...
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If "LCV" shots are making money they can't be LCV can they? Customers will buy what they want to buy not what we think they should buy :o
If that was actually the case, shutterstock would not have needed to completely kill off our best selling images so that they could reduce their "Cost Of Sales".
Buyers kept those images there because they chose them over new content that we all added. Shutterstock worked in the past for me because it was merit driven. My good images rose to the top because customers wanted and needed them and the others faded away because they deserved to fade away.
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If "LCV" shots are making money they can't be LCV can they? Customers will buy what they want to buy not what we think they should buy :o
If that was actually the case, shutterstock would not have needed to completely kill off our best selling images so that they could reduce their "Cost Of Sales".
Buyers kept those images there because they chose them over new content that we all added. Shutterstock worked in the past for me because it was merit driven. My good images rose to the top because customers wanted and needed them and the others faded away because they deserved to fade away.
i am not even sure the reviewers know what is LCV or what is HCV. that is all subjective. if the reviewer(s) know what is HCV, they would not have to work there as reviewers. they would just create images that are HCV and make tons of $$$$ on their own.
BOT, the "customer" still have the last say using keywords properly, as i have been seeing some of my most obscured images earning me the odd SOD of 28 to 100 dollars a shot.
only wish it is more often that we see this happening.
i am still not sure if i believe there is no flip switching whenever we make a big SOD sale . it sure seems like it. even when you just missed payout, the next month seem to die a slow death, as if the switch was flipped to have you stop earning any more once you reach payout in the opening days following.
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I see that we are becoming more and more people that we complain about the current situation, regardless of the quality or size of our portfolio.
I do not know how this thinks can help us, may be just to see that we are quite many who suffer from the same problems. My guess is this cries will not help us, but even to become increasingly more upset and frustrated.
Why do not try to come up with solutions / ideas, regardless of their nature? I find that we will have much more to gain!
hi Sebalos...this is a good point, and sometime ago i've said the same :)
but in this forum complaining and pessimism is the only welcome thing...in addition one "self proclaimed top photographer" answered (to an intelligent post like your) that he was not going to share his super good revolutionary ideas with his competitors (aka us) ;D
so don't expect any good answer because the forum is just a whining wall....
Thanks mojaric!
Sad but I get the point ...
What to do?
So we all stop uploading pix, hire developers to make our new platform, all become shareholders. When website ready we withdraw from all other agencies and only upload to ours.
Who is in? :)
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Food for thought......
[url]http://davidduchemin.com/2015/02/commodity-failure-a-rant/[/url] ([url]http://davidduchemin.com/2015/02/commodity-failure-a-rant/[/url])
brilliant Piece also the one with Zach Arias.1oo% true.
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As I've said many times, the LCV/HCV idea only works if you assume equal availability of both kinds of shot. If suppliers shun LCV and concentrate on HCV then the dilution effect will tend to equalise the returns. In addition, exceptional HCV may do brilliantly, while mediocre HCV are likely to underperform even LCV, since there is a small market but only a very few suppliers for the latter.
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Buyers determine the value of an image. It is a HCV image when many buyers vote by purchase.
They will never see or buy an image if it is buried on page 300 in a search, where buyers will never find it.
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I see that we are becoming more and more people that we complain about the current situation, regardless of the quality or size of our portfolio.
I do not know how this thinks can help us, may be just to see that we are quite many who suffer from the same problems. My guess is this cries will not help us, but even to become increasingly more upset and frustrated.
Why do not try to come up with solutions / ideas, regardless of their nature? I find that we will have much more to gain!
hi Sebalos...this is a good point, and sometime ago i've said the same :)
but in this forum complaining and pessimism is the only welcome thing...in addition one "self proclaimed top photographer" answered (to an intelligent post like your) that he was not going to share his super good revolutionary ideas with his competitors (aka us) ;D
so don't expect any good answer because the forum is just a whining wall....
Thanks mojaric!
Sad but I get the point ...
What to do?
So we all stop uploading pix, hire developers to make our new platform, all become shareholders. When website ready we withdraw from all other agencies and only upload to ours.
Who is in? :)
I am ! 8)
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I see that we are becoming more and more people that we complain about the current situation, regardless of the quality or size of our portfolio.
I do not know how this thinks can help us, may be just to see that we are quite many who suffer from the same problems. My guess is this cries will not help us, but even to become increasingly more upset and frustrated.
Why do not try to come up with solutions / ideas, regardless of their nature? I find that we will have much more to gain!
hi Sebalos...this is a good point, and sometime ago i've said the same :)
but in this forum complaining and pessimism is the only welcome thing...in addition one "self proclaimed top photographer" answered (to an intelligent post like your) that he was not going to share his super good revolutionary ideas with his competitors (aka us) ;D
so don't expect any good answer because the forum is just a whining wall....
Thanks mojaric!
Sad but I get the point ...
What to do?
So we all stop uploading pix, hire developers to make our new platform, all become shareholders. When website ready we withdraw from all other agencies and only upload to ours.
Who is in? :)
I am ! 8)
Yuri could have easily done this with his platform and the sites knew it. I think this is one of the reasons he got the deal he did.
I would be in if we collaborated to build a site of equal caliber.
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Count me in also. Start a factory or something. lets take control back. get 10 good folks with a VERY strong work ethic and Images and lets go. then we can contact each other Offline and do something. Im ready.Tired of complaining, It affects my work.Go to meeting anyone?
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I've said it before, Tyler has the power to turn this forum into a successful stock agency. We've got the sellers who are tired of being ripped off and we got enough buyers reading this forum. MSG is well known out there. There are enough skilled designers and programmers here to get started. Just imagine if this forum turned into a stock agency one day, the potential it could have, agencies would freak out and maybe that is exactly why this will never happen. I would like to know what Tyler thinks of this idea though, then again maybe he gets enough return from this forum and his portfolio and doesn't care.
Deep down we all know we are being ripped off but since the money is still good we let them abuse us a little longer, which seems to last forever ;)
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I've said it before, Tyler has the power to turn this forum into a successful stock agency. We've got the sellers who are tired of being ripped off and we got enough buyers reading this forum. MSG is well known out there. There are enough skilled designers and programmers here to get started. Just imagine if this forum turned into a stock agency one day, the potential it could have, agencies would freak out and maybe that is exactly why this will never happen. I would like to know what Tyler thinks of this idea though, then again maybe he gets enough return from this forum and his portfolio and doesn't care.
Deep down we all know we are being ripped off but since the money is still good we let them abuse us a little longer, which seems to last forever ;)
+10
So true, cos ppl and all the contacts are on MSG already.
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I've said it before, Tyler has the power to turn this forum into a successful stock agency. We've got the sellers who are tired of being ripped off and we got enough buyers reading this forum. MSG is well known out there. There are enough skilled designers and programmers here to get started. Just imagine if this forum turned into a stock agency one day, the potential it could have, agencies would freak out and maybe that is exactly why this will never happen. I would like to know what Tyler thinks of this idea though, then again maybe he gets enough return from this forum and his portfolio and doesn't care.
Deep down we all know we are being ripped off but since the money is still good we let them abuse us a little longer, which seems to last forever ;)
One of the Best Ideas I've ever heard. probably THE best. My head almost exploded. I've always said that a 50/50 split is fair for every sale. One size Image. let the buyer downsize, No subs. $5.00 Per Image. if a company can't make it on 50%, they don't belong in Business especially when the product is free. Brilliant Idea Snow.BRILLIANT!!!!!!! Tyler....You listening? I can get you a lot of very good shooters. MicrostockgroupPhotos.com.
I own the domain name Bestofroyaltyfree.com had it for a long time. Tyler , If interested and you do this, It's yours.
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I think we are on the right track with this idea . This forum is may be a perfect start. Let's do it !!!
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I think this is a brilliant idea! If we all take action and provide our images at only one site, 50/50 split, or if any existing site can get a large number of microstockers to agree to join this, then all of us will win. But the biggest problem is, how to get started?
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One of the Best Ideas I've ever heard. probably THE best. My head almost exploded. I've always said that a 50/50 split is fair for every sale. One size Image. let the buyer downsize, No subs. $5.00 Per Image. if a company can't make it on 50%, they don't belong in Business especially when the product is free. Brilliant Idea Snow.BRILLIANT!!!!!!! Tyler....You listening? I can get you a lot of very good shooters. MicrostockgroupPhotos.com.
I own the domain name Bestofroyaltyfree.com had it for a long time. Tyler , If interested and you do this, It's yours.
And to me it seems a fair deal. The website must invest in promotions tools, programmers, designers, and so on, and we, the photographers, in gear, books and other stuff.
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1. Name & logo
2. The web design & programming
3. Hosting
4. Commissions system (I believe 50%50 is ok without subs)
5. Site promotion
no matter the order.
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I've always said that a 50/50 split is fair for every sale. One size Image. let the buyer downsize, No subs. $5.00 Per Image...
I can get you a lot of very good shooters.
Excuse me but are you serious talking about very good sellers happy to sell their very good work for 2,5$ in high res.? Please, tell me it's irony only :)
Very good sellers or very mass sellers are you thinking about?
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I'm afraid to disappoint, but I won't be setting up an agency :)
It is an incredible amount of work and very risky, and not what I dream of doing the next 10-20 years. There are people much better than me which would much better suited for the task. MicrostockGroup is what it is (I feel) because it is a neutral stand-point between all the agencies. If it was an agency or part of an agency then the neutrality would be gone. Just look how emotional every Stocksy thread gets.
If I were to set up an agency, I think Stocksy would be exactly what I'd want to set up. No sense reinventing the wheel.
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why not take advantage of Symbiostock infrastructure ?
1. A meaningful domain like for example symbiostock.com, .net, .club, etc. as a landing page for the customer not individual pages.
2. Uniform licensable, uniform rates and a global search.
3. A service provider (Agency) who makes the administration and accounting for a fee.
One nice looking Domain on the infrastructure of Symbiostock promoted by all of us (viral/links/banner/adwords/ etc.) is the key in my view.
The developers simply need to get money so that their work pays off, that's another reason why Symbiostock does not develop further in my opinion.
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why not take advantage of Symbiostock infrastructure ?
Doesn't each individual there have to take on their own burden of VAT gathering, calculating and reporting? For the successful, that's a lot of paperwork (time not spent shooting). Even just constantly keeping up with the VAT rates across the different countries so that you have the correct rate for the date of your sale.
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why not take advantage of Symbiostock infrastructure ?
Doesn't each individual there have to take on their own burden of VAT gathering, calculating and reporting? For the successful, that's a lot of paperwork (time not spent shooting). Even just constantly keeping up with the VAT rates across the different countries so that you have the correct rate for the date of your sale.
3. A service provider (Agency) who makes the administration and accounting for a fee.
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why not take advantage of Symbiostock infrastructure ?
Doesn't each individual there have to take on their own burden of VAT gathering, calculating and reporting? For the successful, that's a lot of paperwork (time not spent shooting). Even just constantly keeping up with the VAT rates across the different countries so that you have the correct rate for the date of your sale.
3. A service provider (Agency) who makes the administration and accounting for a fee.
Whoops, sorry, I didn't know about that and somehow didn't register it in your post. :-[
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I'm afraid to disappoint, but I won't be setting up an agency :)
It is an incredible amount of work and very risky, and not what I dream of doing the next 10-20 years. There are people much better than me which would much better suited for the task. MicrostockGroup is what it is (I feel) because it is a neutral stand-point between all the agencies. If it was an agency or part of an agency then the neutrality would be gone. Just look how emotional every Stocksy thread gets.
If I were to set up an agency, I think Stocksy would be exactly what I'd want to set up. No sense reinventing the wheel.
Leaf, just find people to do that except you, and live after from some percentage...
Don't lose our good will from this forum... This is an opportunity, for sure!
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I'm afraid to disappoint, but I won't be setting up an agency :)
It is an incredible amount of work and very risky, and not what I dream of doing the next 10-20 years. There are people much better than me which would much better suited for the task. MicrostockGroup is what it is (I feel) because it is a neutral stand-point between all the agencies. If it was an agency or part of an agency then the neutrality would be gone. Just look how emotional every Stocksy thread gets.
If I were to set up an agency, I think Stocksy would be exactly what I'd want to set up. No sense reinventing the wheel.
Leaf, just find people to do that except you, and live after from some percentage...
Don't lose our good will from this forum... This is an opportunity, for sure!
If your so hot to see this happen, why don't you do it instead of badgering Leaf when he already said he isn't interested?
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I'll be looking into talking with a few people that Invest in these Kinds of things. May take awhile. I'll try to sell an Idea.
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I've always said that a 50/50 split is fair for every sale. One size Image. let the buyer downsize, No subs. $5.00 Per Image...
I can get you a lot of very good shooters.
Excuse me but are you serious talking about very good sellers happy to sell their very good work for 2,5$ in high res.? Please, tell me it's irony only :)
Very good sellers or very mass sellers are you thinking about?
Seems he is not happy with the 28$ he gets on SS. Its just too much.
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My sales on SS were horribe in Jan.... worst month since February 2012... I read most of the post regarding the ''SS problem''; I concluded that accelerated dillution combined with aggressive promotion of low quality but ''profitable'' (meaning .25 , .33 contributors) images in search engine.... SS is the winer and majority of professional contributors the loosers...
P.S. At the end you must satisfy the shareholders with constant growth in revenue regardless the metod.
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I've said it before, Tyler has the power to turn this forum into a successful stock agency. We've got the sellers who are tired of being ripped off and we got enough buyers reading this forum. MSG is well known out there. There are enough skilled designers and programmers here to get started. Just imagine if this forum turned into a stock agency one day, the potential it could have, agencies would freak out and maybe that is exactly why this will never happen. I would like to know what Tyler thinks of this idea though, then again maybe he gets enough return from this forum and his portfolio and doesn't care.
Deep down we all know we are being ripped off but since the money is still good we let them abuse us a little longer, which seems to last forever ;)
even if Tyler wants to start his own agency, why would he want all the headaches???
he already knows how many trolls he gets here, and he will get more death threat from the agencies he collected affliates commission when we all started becoming microstock-ers, as we all joined the agencies from clicking the links to the right.
i am not saying Tyler is ill-suited to start an agency. just saying he would not want to be the one to kill microstock. and eventually, he would in turn face the barrage of protestors because next time, they would all be whining here on msg about Tyler-stock ;D ;D ;D
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Yuri could have easily done this with his platform and the sites knew it. I think this is one of the reasons he got the deal he did.
I would be in if we collaborated to build a site of equal caliber.
now, again, why would Yuri do that??? this is the site that gave him the finger. 8) 8) 8) 8)
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Yuri could have easily done this with his platform and the sites knew it. I think this is one of the reasons he got the deal he did.
I would be in if we collaborated to build a site of equal caliber.
You may have misunderstood me, I did not mean in conjunction with this site and I am not at all surprised that leaf is not interested.
I am talking strictly about Yuris sales platform http://peopleimages.com/ (http://peopleimages.com/)
The sites knew that he could have turned his site into a cooperative site that included the ports of hundreds of micros top contributors.
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OK........We do nothing , were screwed. Period. Fast forward 2 years and folks still complaining. Im soooooooo Not into that.And Im so not into More complaining and not doing anything about it and the sites giving us crumbs and getting rich doing it because we do NOT STAND UP!!!! * . Boy am I getting tired. Newbies or semi Newbies. WAKE THE F ---UP. Because WE didn't.
It's on you guys now. they don't want us Old timers that cause trouble. They want you who go "WHOO HOO" I got 25 cents. Trust me on that. You are gonna be here soon. saying the same Chit.We are at a turning Point My friends and if we don't so something.......Anything, were screwed and the generations after us will Look and say why didn't they do something....They had the power and blew it. And if any of you doesn't think we have the power....Your dead wrong.
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OK........We do nothing , were screwed. Period. Fast forward 2 years and folks still complaining. Im soooooooo Not into that.And Im so not into More complaining and not doing anything about it and the sites giving us crumbs and getting rich doing it because we do NOT STAND UP!!!! * . Boy am I getting tired. Newbies or semi Newbies. WAKE THE F ---UP. Because WE didn't.
It's on you guys now. they don't want us Old timers that cause trouble. They want you who go "WHOO HOO" I got 25 cents. Trust me on that. You are gonna be here soon. saying the same Chit.We are at a turning Point My friends and if we don't so something.......Anything, were screwed and the generations after us will Look and say why didn't they do something....They had the power and blew it. And if any of you doesn't think we have the power....Your dead wrong.
Rinder, Your post will soon have tons of AGREE pluses.
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Old timers have been trying to get fair deal from the agencies for years since the agencies got greedy, but in the end here we are anyway. Not sure what newbies can hope to change if the biggest sellers weren't able to do it.
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In my opinion the system got too big for its little elements/contributors to be able to change it. There are nowadays too many contributors. Each one with their own goals and agendas. I truly believe that only the market laws will be able to shape this industry in the future.
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I'm afraid to disappoint, but I won't be setting up an agency :)
It is an incredible amount of work and very risky, and not what I dream of doing the next 10-20 years. There are people much better than me which would much better suited for the task. MicrostockGroup is what it is (I feel) because it is a neutral stand-point between all the agencies. If it was an agency or part of an agency then the neutrality would be gone. Just look how emotional every Stocksy thread gets.
If I were to set up an agency, I think Stocksy would be exactly what I'd want to set up. No sense reinventing the wheel.
Leaf, just find people to do that except you, and live after from some percentage...
Don't lose our good will from this forum... This is an opportunity, for sure!
If your so hot to see this happen, why don't you do it instead of badgering Leaf when he already said he isn't interested?
I'm not bothering him, how only one message could be bothering?
It is just my suggestion, because I think he has enough knowledge for that, together with our good will...
P.S.
I remember, how everybody here were thrilled when Yuri announced his new stock agency...Many of us needed more than few days to realize that it was not his invitation to contributing to his new stock agency, just his bragging... ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Els and footage sales are masking the truth, SS downloads are decreasing. Not sure what to do at the moment. I think I need to go RM, but I am on the fence. I want to get my photos out there, at least a 1000 photos I am sitting on, just dont know where to go with them! On my HD they make me nothing thats for sure.
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Old timers have been trying to get fair deal from the agencies for years since the agencies got greedy, but in the end here we are anyway. Not sure what newbies can hope to change if the biggest sellers weren't able to do it.
hope not take us any further.
The price makes the market.
If we do not have to pay the exorbitant commissions we could offer unbeatable prices.
We need a cheap and good platform which is tailored to our needs not to the shareholder.
We have the product not the agencies.
The agencies need us. Not the other returned.
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i am not even sure the reviewers know what is LCV or what is HCV. that is all subjective.
So how come there are images that outsell whole ports form other people? And ports with the same image number that make 20 times more money? The commonplace line about subjective this & that is such obvious nonsense I don't even understand why people keep repeating it. But they do. They keep up this mantra, while reality and the numbers it presents just annihilate it instantly. It's most apparent and dumb when it comes to human attractiveness. People keep repeating it's all different tastes among the sexes and individuals.... so how come Nick Bateman gets no less than 200 000 likes in 24 hours for any selfie he posts, while my balding, pear faced buddy has exactly got 0 for his several years on-line profile pic? :)) Same apllies to LCV / HCV.
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Well my month improved slightly in earnings, due to a few late Els and a rather large SOD, so I ended about $100 down on last January, which was not so harsh as I thought it was going to be.
However, my downloads were down 25% on January 2014, despite increasing my portfolio by approx 15% over the last year.
Maybe this could have something to do with it?
'408,315 new stock images added this week'
That's an insane number
...and it's pointless too. Just type some basic keyword combo and arrange by date, it's almost all very amateurish junk, awkward shots, inept, unattractive models, etc, that never-ever-never gonna be downloaded. I don't know why people bother, also why SS bothers to let them thru.
The good news is that those simply won't bother your downloads, if you do somewhat more pro stuff. (yes there is definitely pro stuff too among that 400 000, just extremely small percentage. I wouldn't be surprised that if we cut the numbers down to stuff that actually makes a difference because it sells, that weekly upload number for that wouldn't even hit 15 000. Still not a diminutive number tho.
If the higher quality images never see the light of day in the search, buyers will never see or have access to those images.
Shutterstock makes more money on the new LCV images and that is why they accept them and also recruit the new photographers who produce them. Have you noticed how many new contributors are showing up here lately?
If that was true buyers would have been leaving SS in droves because of a severely dysfunctional search for years now, which is obviously not true, since the company is doing well.
SS doesn't make anything on LCV images since they hardly ever get downloaded. That's why they are called LCV. Actually there should be a category called NCV. No Commercial Value - at least 60% of SS stock.
SS lets thru junk because the storage cost is so low it's a non-issue, and boasting about the numbers is usually effective marketing.
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+1000
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SS lets thru junk because the storage cost is so low it's a non-issue, and boasting about the numbers is usually effective marketing.
well yes and no. as i said in the other thread, it's like the rental guy trying to sell his bldg. new rentors and full occupancy = effective marketing. but if with the annual report, new images increase is not followed by the same percentage of downloads increase, that is not effective marketing.
that is telling shareholders we are letting in more unsellable crapola.
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Soul destroying sales and the uploading process is a complete mess, it's been broken for some time and nobody seems to be fixing it. What more can I say ?
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I also agree about the uploading process. Today it is very slow and all the images are not registering where they should be. Seems like someone in the"tech" dept could at least pick this up. It has been like this for days and nothing has been done about it.
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u know, looking at the other adjacent thread (envato, 500 px, ) ss can do no wrong just letting the other new hopefuls screw things up in their own way. but the IT at ss is a total f* head to flip switches and play with the search . and now this email thing , no doubt has alot of sh*t flying around in ss these days.
why they mess thing up in ss , this is a mystery. they must either think ss is invincible or some new kid off the old block is being given free rein to eff things up for all of us...let the goon(s) play around like this. and we all still think the other next 11 should smart up and give ss some competition.
not unlikely .
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My D/L's have been pitiful since last Thursday...things don't pick up soon, I may not make a payout for the first time in 6 years. I usually reach payout before the 10th of the month, this is awful. :'(
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Ron is right. Overall sub downloads and OD's are down. Subs are down 50% for me but when I get a video sale or SOD it pushes me back into "the norm". Once SOD's, EL's and OD's die for good, that's it. We are now relying on "miracle-type downloads" to make the month.
As far as Rinder's comments, they are true but shouting it out on the form is not going to work as we probably make up .01% of all contributors. To regain control you either leave, find other outlets to sell, accept being taken advantage of (most of us do this now, I do) or influence 90% of contributors who the agencies are relying on to pull their content. That is next to impossible.....unfortunately.
For microstock, my bolded statement is the only solution.
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Absolutley. Having a freak footage sale this month after months of no footage it has given me hope to reach payout in $3 time but now even that is looking bleak. It is truely awfull.
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Ron is right. Overall sub downloads and OD's are down. Subs are down 50% for me but when I get a video sale or SOD it pushes me back into "the norm". Once SOD's, EL's and OD's die for good, that's it. We are now relying on "miracle-type downloads" to make the month.
As far as Rinder's comments, they are true but shouting it out on the form is not going to work as we probably make up .01% of all contributors. To regain control you either leave, find other outlets to sell, accept being taken advantage of (most of us do this now, I do) or influence 90% of contributors who the agencies are relying on to pull their content. That is next to impossible.....unfortunately.
For microstock, my bolded statement is the only solution.
I think you can speak for many of us Mantis and we probably have totally different portfolio's so there is a pattern, no doubt about it.
My subs and od's are down but now and then an EL or big SOD drops in to make the month somewhat bearable.
Their way of saying "hey, here's something to chew on for the rest of the week, now shut the f.ck up and continue uploading or be gone"
Again, we still keep up with it because despite all this the money is still good but that is changing rapidly since we are finding new ways to make money or we pick up our old ways again and will eventually be able to leave micro. We deserve a lot better, for some it takes a while to get that, others are too naive and will never get it.
I know a lot of people hate Yuri for whatever reason but I went "Finally" when he made that bald move. He made a better deal somewhere and kicked all the others because he was fed up with it. We don't see him celebrating (oh right one post in 5 years promoting his business?) or venting about his success or downfall, he just adapts to the situation and that is how we should all act. While some of you love to take him down you should actually applaud what he did. He treats this a business, treats agencies the way they treat us, goes for the money just like they do by making deals. If we don't follow his example we are doomed in this business.
Disagree or not, bragg about how well you are doing and what I said is horsesh.t, if that gets you trough the day then be my guest just don't be surprised when you wake on day being on the other side and experience what many of us do. Over the years I've seen plenty of people cheering about their success one year while screaming about their downfall the next.
We are lucky to work whenever and wherever we want, but at what cost?
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Well said Snow, I agree across the board.
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Just this last bit before I go, this isn't related to Shutterstock only, on the contrary, the other top and middle tier agencies are treating us far worse. The reason I discuss this in SS forum is because I always thought there was still hope for SS and frankly it's the only agency I still care about. False hopes though and if they don't get their act together they will end up like the rest of them.
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Ron is right. Overall sub downloads and OD's are down. Subs are down 50% for me but when I get a video sale or SOD it pushes me back into "the norm". Once SOD's, EL's and OD's die for good, that's it. We are now relying on "miracle-type downloads" to make the month.
As far as Rinder's comments, they are true but shouting it out on the form is not going to work as we probably make up .01% of all contributors. To regain control you either leave, find other outlets to sell, accept being taken advantage of (most of us do this now, I do) or influence 90% of contributors who the agencies are relying on to pull their content. That is next to impossible.....unfortunately.
For microstock, my bolded statement is the only solution.
I think you can speak for many of us Mantis and we probably have totally different portfolio's so there is a pattern, no doubt about it.
My subs and od's are down but now and then an EL or big SOD drops in to make the month somewhat bearable.
Their way of saying "hey, here's something to chew on for the rest of the week, now shut the f.ck up and continue uploading or be gone"
Again, we still keep up with it because despite all this the money is still good but that is changing rapidly since we are finding new ways to make money or we pick up our old ways again and will eventually be able to leave micro. We deserve a lot better, for some it takes a while to get that, others are too naive and will never get it.
I know a lot of people hate Yuri for whatever reason but I went "Finally" when he made that bald move. He made a better deal somewhere and kicked all the others because he was fed up with it. We don't see him celebrating (oh right one post in 5 years promoting his business?) or venting about his success or downfall, he just adapts to the situation and that is how we should all act. While some of you love to take him down you should actually applaud what he did. He treats this a business, treats agencies the way they treat us, goes for the money just like they do by making deals. If we don't follow his example we are doomed in this business.
Disagree or not, bragg about how well you are doing and what I said is horsesh.t, if that gets you trough the day then be my guest just don't be surprised when you wake on day being on the other side and experience what many of us do. Over the years I've seen plenty of people cheering about their success one year while screaming about their downfall the next.
We are lucky to work whenever and wherever we want, but at what cost?
+10
...and a reminder of what's been said in July 2013, imho still accurate! -
"I tried everything I could for three years to inspire our microstock partners to close the gab. I submitted plans, did projection forecasts, showcased examples that worked, presented solutions and had literally hundreds of meetings. I tried every kind of approach I could think of to get the micro agencies to raise prices just a bit and leave place for the kind of photographer both photographers and customers love. I spent literally months in airplanes. No Luck.
Thinking back I must admit, that my chances where low: when 20% of the CEOs where sleeping in the sun, 20% had no clue what the industry was actually about, 15% thought that the only food customers needed was burgers and if they did not eat it for breakfast we just needed to convince them. The 45% rest where paralyzed by the initial success and for all means did not want the change anything."
http://arcurs.com/2013/07/microstock-sees-its-first-major-setback-in-6-years-and-here-is-why/ (http://arcurs.com/2013/07/microstock-sees-its-first-major-setback-in-6-years-and-here-is-why/)
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...and a reminder of what's been said in July 2013, imho still accurate! -
"I tried everything I could for three years to inspire our microstock partners to close the gab. I submitted plans, did projection forecasts, showcased examples that worked, presented solutions and had literally hundreds of meetings. I tried every kind of approach I could think of to get the micro agencies to raise prices just a bit and leave place for the kind of photographer both photographers and customers love. I spent literally months in airplanes. No Luck.
Thinking back I must admit, that my chances where low: when 20% of the CEOs where sleeping in the sun, 20% had no clue what the industry was actually about, 15% thought that the only food customers needed was burgers and if they did not eat it for breakfast we just needed to convince them. The 45% rest where paralyzed by the initial success and for all means did not want the change anything."
[url]http://arcurs.com/2013/07/microstock-sees-its-first-major-setback-in-6-years-and-here-is-why/[/url] ([url]http://arcurs.com/2013/07/microstock-sees-its-first-major-setback-in-6-years-and-here-is-why/[/url])
Yeah, well sadly putting Yuri in to project-manage at iS seems just to have made things even worse for many over there.
“Having just spent 3 days at GI in New York and today in Seattle with the IT exes I believe that very interesting things are in the pipeline for IS. Did I have a say in the upcoming changes... Yes - for sure. That being said. The GI top exe dev guys are highly competent and more flexible and agile towards change that I would have imagined. We are working on a set of core site improvements that will dramatically improve user experience and ultimately sales. Only thing that I can say now: Give IS three months and see the changes for yourself.
“Shutterstock might be in for a bit more competition than they expected, especially if GI has me project managing the develoment team and we utilize the two things GI has that nobody else has: 1. The best images in the world. 2. The best editors in the world. The best images displays that the world has ever seen is just around the corner. Watch this space!”
http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/can-istock-turn-midstock-sales-around/msg382833/#msg382833 (http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/can-istock-turn-midstock-sales-around/msg382833/#msg382833)
That was nine months ago and many of us are way worse off than we were back then.
Maybe Yuri fixed it so that things were better for him alone.
Though if he were that good, he'd have made an unequivocal success of PeopleImages and would be out of micro altogether.
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Which begs the question ~
If many people are experiencing falling sales at iS over months
and
If at least 'some' people are experiencing falling sales at SS more recently ...
Is it just the 'ever decreasing share of the pie' because of more and more contributors; or are buyers going elsewhere en masse, or just spreading themselves more thinly over the sites?
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My photo and video sales are up at IS, last year was my best year ever and last week I had earned $605.00 in one day on IS alone which is the third highest day ever for me. I think IS is hurting SS. Only time will tell. I am not hear to sing praises to Getty. I feel 500px and others have taken sales from mico as well. Interesting times :-) Now back to my regular shooting schedule.
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Ron is right. Overall sub downloads and OD's are down. Subs are down 50% for me but when I get a video sale or SOD it pushes me back into "the norm". Once SOD's, EL's and OD's die for good, that's it. We are now relying on "miracle-type downloads" to make the month.
As far as Rinder's comments, they are true but shouting it out on the form is not going to work as we probably make up .01% of all contributors. To regain control you either leave, find other outlets to sell, accept being taken advantage of (most of us do this now, I do) or influence 90% of contributors who the agencies are relying on to pull their content. That is next to impossible.....unfortunately.
For microstock, my bolded statement is the only solution.
I think we are in a situation globally where people who work for a living are cornered... but I also think ppl like microstockers with their passive income and many outlets are somewhat better off than most working for a monthly paycheck. Look at the fotolia situation: they got intimidated enough to start giving back more through that new subscription royalty system, which actually did bump up my income there significantly. It's not huge thing but it's not negligible. We could also op out of DPC. You might say "of course we could" but many working as an employee don' have these choices at all when changes come along.
But I agree this is not enough. We sould push our advantages as far as possible before we lose them, but most don't do it. Many didn't even opt out of DPC f.e.... Shame on them!
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I think there are a few reasons the industry as a whole is in better shape than this forum would have us think
It not actually in anyones interest to report how great they are doing it will encourage others
Those doing well are either disbelieved or marked down so they get bored with this
some people have an overblown sense of entitlement - there I've said it now
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My D/L's have been pitiful since last Thursday...things don't pick up soon, I may not make a payout for the first time in 6 years. I usually reach payout before the 10th of the month, this is awful. :'(
same here, last Wednesday afternoon.
but this does not include everyone!
Some people of us hit the lottery. Very very bad lottery :'(
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It not actually in anyones interest to report how great they are doing it will encourage others
quite so. like a fisherman telling u where his catch is always good. why should he be that stupid???
i think ss email approval glitch is endemically affecting sales, client locating images,etc etc too .
we all had some good months with SODs last 6 months then bust back to zero days. it can only be that someone screwedup . as i say if ss just don't screw things up search flip etc they dont have to worry about the other sites replacing them. ss just have not to screw things up and leave things as they used to be so working well before all this loose screws made contributors pissedoff.
who wants ss to fall??? it would be madness since we make the most from ss.
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Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Who needs that kind of photo?
as all here know, i am one of the biggest ss objector when it comes to their problem with us.
but here i have to be pro ss re: your statement about overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo bit.
the way i see it, u should be happy that if it is true. the more overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo being approved ... the better for you the better for me.
the downloaders are not blind, they can see the difference.
i wish u are right, as the more overabundant crap ss accepts the better my portfolio is going to look.
Dude, shhhh! they might really read what you wrote. But, anyhow they will not understand what you are talking about. Most of those 10000+ images stockers have more than 4/5 of pure crap in their ports. That is why they woo yay on crap photo I showed here ;)
Maybe they should label 'Horrible Post' after you get -5 8)
-8 as I am writing this now.
No point in fighting with windmills. They are static. They are wind-driven. And they never change! Listen to Rinder... I just had quite sarcastic approach which was not understood by those giving me minuses. Maybe some agency insiders did that? If contributors did that then we are all doomed!
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Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Who needs that kind of photo?
as all here know, i am one of the biggest ss objector when it comes to their problem with us.
but here i have to be pro ss re: your statement about overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo bit.
the way i see it, u should be happy that if it is true. the more overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo being approved ... the better for you the better for me.
the downloaders are not blind, they can see the difference.
i wish u are right, as the more overabundant crap ss accepts the better my portfolio is going to look.
Dude, shhhh! they might really read what you wrote. But, anyhow they will not understand what you are talking about. Most of those 10000+ images stockers have more than 4/5 of pure crap in their ports. That is why they woo yay on crap photo I showed here ;)
Maybe they should label 'Horrible Post' after you get -5 8)
-8 as I am writing this now.
No point in fighting with windmills. They are static. They are wind-driven. And they never change! Listen to Rinder... I just had quite sarcastic approach which was not understood by those giving me minuses. Maybe some agency insiders did that? If contributors did that then we are all doomed!
actually -10 but who's counting.
What made me upset is that you called out another artist onto the carpet. They have over 50,000 images in their collection and you pick one that you feel is not up to your standards. It has been said numerous times not to post another artist's work on this site yet you did it -especially a negative remark.
Hopefully you learn something on this post and how to respect others....
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Its not that my sales are sinking deeply, I do have the most weird days.
One day I make 95$ the next day I make 9.50$, I cant grasp that.
Plus the site is down again.
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And I make 0.33 today. It just gets worse and worse and worse.
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Unfortunately all solutions are at SS management side. Not at all in contributors hands... I'd say that the most significant problem in this diminishing sales is overabundant crap images acceptance. And, stupid search which gives advantage to cheaper images from newbies who are in 25c or 33c tiers. Established contributors have to deal with wall which comes up to doubling portfolio size if they want to keep their earnings pace.
Who needs that kind of photo?
as all here know, i am one of the biggest ss objector when it comes to their problem with us.
but here i have to be pro ss re: your statement about overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo bit.
the way i see it, u should be happy that if it is true. the more overabundant crap
who needs that kind of photo being approved ... the better for you the better for me.
the downloaders are not blind, they can see the difference.
i wish u are right, as the more overabundant crap ss accepts the better my portfolio is going to look.
Dude, shhhh! they might really read what you wrote. But, anyhow they will not understand what you are talking about. Most of those 10000+ images stockers have more than 4/5 of pure crap in their ports. That is why they woo yay on crap photo I showed here ;)
Maybe they should label 'Horrible Post' after you get -5 8)
-8 as I am writing this now.
No point in fighting with windmills. They are static. They are wind-driven. And they never change! Listen to Rinder... I just had quite sarcastic approach which was not understood by those giving me minuses. Maybe some agency insiders did that? If contributors did that then we are all doomed!
actually -10 but who's counting.
What made me upset is that you called out another artist onto the carpet. They have over 50,000 images in their collection and you pick one that you feel is not up to your standards. It has been said numerous times not to post another artist's work on this site yet you did it -especially a negative remark.
Hopefully you learn something on this post and how to respect others....
Dude, I don't care about respect. What do I get from respect? What do you get from respect? NOTHING! Posting another artist's work here is usual thing. That what you say is no-no may be valid for you. But, other people don't behave like that. I saw many other examples with publicly devastating many authors on this forum. Just look through this and search. I won't name them but there are many people who even got false charged from their fellow contributors. Also such fellow contributors even publicly posted links to other people's portfolios... What the heck respect? Regarding 50000 images contributors - it is well known that massive portfolios have crap in them. That one I showed here is just one of numerous examples how such 50000 images contributors are burying other people's images with crap. Period.
[EDIT] If that rule you are talking about is valid, then people who runs this site should delete all such posts and links with issuing warnings to those who are breaking those rules. Respect in this industry is for stupid. You don't respect even your own work. It is just all about making few bucks more. No matter if you will kill someone elses reputation or sales - that is ok if your plus is higher. Come on! If you don't think that way you should find some more respected job. Sure thing is that you respect your work so much that you are ready to sell it for dollar or fraction of it.
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Something fishy going on! since the crash on Thursday my port is like invisible to buyers. just a few subs and that is not normal
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Something fishy going on! since the crash on Thursday my port is like invisible to buyers. just a few subs and that is not normal
I have the same feelings :-\
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Something fishy going on! since the crash on Thursday my port is like invisible to buyers. just a few subs and that is not normal
I have the same feelings :-\
I agree totally. I have 3000 video clips and 150 photos and usually get a similar amount of income each week. This week it's fallen off a cliff. However I think it's possible SS death wish scheme of growing the Bigstock footage library may finally be showing signs of destroying the SS footage business
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Something fishy going on! since the crash on Thursday my port is like invisible to buyers. just a few subs and that is not normal
I have the same feelings :-\
I agree totally. I have 3000 video clips and 150 photos and usually get a similar amount of income each week. This week it's fallen off a cliff. However I think it's possible SS death wish scheme of growing the Bigstock footage library may finally be showing signs of destroying the SS footage business
Maybe so, but the sales drop off is not just footage. I am photos only and sales are 40% dowm on usual.
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SS is OK, sales good! Fotolia sales have stopped completely!
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This month will be my best on SS by roughly $300 thanks to a big SOD (not normal), but if I remove the SOD I would have a very normally low-average month, but it's a short month, too.
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This month will be my best on SS by roughly $300 thanks to a big SOD (not normal), but if I remove the SOD I would have a very normally low-average month, but it's a short month, too.
1 SOD makes this your BME? I would need a couple of HUGE SOD's to get there mate ;)
Good to hear you are slowly getting back on track. It looked that way for me the first 2 weeks of February but as usual the cap is on and sales are levelling off for the rest of the month.
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You got $300 SoD?? :o How did you do this?! :D I thought max is 1/3 of this...
My SoDs are very poor this month but OD is nice. However, far from BME...
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This is getting pretty sad. One sub so far today and no OD's in 12 days! Still haven't reach a payout level this month so far and only five days left. This could be the first time in five years that I didn't reach a payout. Terrible!
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No point in fighting with windmills. They are static. They are wind-driven. And they never change! Listen to Rinder... I just had quite sarcastic approach which was not understood by those giving me minuses. Maybe some agency insiders did that? If contributors did that then we are all doomed!
2 things i never do on forums
1- pay attention to minuses
2- never qualify those who disagree by giving snide remarks
1 thing i always do on forums
1- speak my piece.
as many others say, there is always the IGNORE button they can use... if they disagree.
calling me out is never going to work.
it should never work on you either. just say your piece. we may disagree with you
but if we still think we are not fighting the same war, we are more stupid than we give ourselves the discredit for being peanut-vendor instead of flipping burgers or squeegeeing cars at intersections.
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I dont' know what's going on but it's really bad :( My sales dropped and not only SS now FT too.
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I several times poited to search problems, but there was no reaction from SS on this. Seems it is planned, they can name it testing or favoring etc but search results are not what expected for many keywords, and for many too much foods returned. For me SS sales are declining and growing other sites altogether. BTW - in search results majority of images do not have keyword which was searched. From today noticed that search brings only 1-2 relevant images and all other have no relation to searched keyword
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Yes I can see this search problems but why is it good for SS? The buyers don't find the best photo what they search and the contributors haven't got downloads what usual or better...
(Sorry for my bad English)
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This is one of major agruments against exclusivity of photographer. You cannot prevent agency's play with your products, and giving exclusivity will be against photographer at the end. Agency will decide to expose your images or not, or whole your port. At beginning there is "democracy" but then there rest only interests of people in relation to business or its officers. This then gives space for another player and the cycle repeats.
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going back to topic, has anyone seen any chg to the sales in the last week or even the last couple of days??? almost 6 days left and it looks like sales dried up with the email eff-up. ask me i think IT eff-up also has the client side buying out of whack too. how else do you explain why sales suddenly dry up???
looking at right 91.2%
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My customers went to Fotolia
Lucky me ;)
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I'm guessing the iStock subs are taking effect, they've picked up quite considerably, bound to eat into SS. The Fotolia to Adobe API will do the same when it goes live.
The wind will be taken out of their sails this year, they'll have to adapt over the next few years or be content with losing market share.
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going back to topic, has anyone seen any chg to the sales in the last week or even the last couple of days??? almost 6 days left and it looks like sales dried up with the email eff-up. ask me i think IT eff-up also has the client side buying out of whack too. how else do you explain why sales suddenly dry up???
looking at right 91.2%
I have to agree. Seems like the image DB may have been corrupted and the index needs to rebuild from backup or the SE was knocked out of alignment and for what it's worth they're not going to say of course. No OD's in two weeks either, what's up with that?
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I have to agree. Seems like the image DB may have been corrupted and the index needs to rebuild from backup or the SE was knocked out of alignment and for what it's worth they're not going to say of course. No OD's in two weeks either, what's up with that?
3days to march 1 ... unless a miracle suddenly brings OD to numbers of $28-120
looks like a grim month again. does anything works at all over there in ss these days...
other than moderators at the forum locking thread??? >:(
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Despite of continuous uploading, sales have been going down for last several weeks :(
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Sinking?? More like freefall this month 50% down on last month. :'(
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i have low sales last two weeks, , but its getting better, this week could be better, we see how much od will be today
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i have low sales last two weeks, , but its getting better, this week could be better, we see how much od will be today
In the Western world there is an annual vacation called 'Easter'. It's happening right now. When fewer people are working then fewer images tend to be downloaded.
Bizarrely it appears to have happened at roughly the same time each year for the entire 10 years I've been selling microstock images. How weird is that?!
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i have low sales last two weeks, , but its getting better, this week could be better, we see how much od will be today
In the Western world there is an annual vacation called 'Easter'. It's happening right now. When fewer people are working then fewer images tend to be downloaded.
Bizarrely it appears to have happened at roughly the same time each year for the entire 10 years I've been selling microstock images. How weird is that?!
I didn't observe the same trend in last couple of years. It's just in this year for me.
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It looks like the after-Easter decline to me. Easter just happened to come early this year. Last year it was April 20th.
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Yestarday was again little lower.
more reasons could be problem:
1. too much upload ( too many contributors on this boat ( also new))
2. subs on IS
3. new subscriptions plans
4. in march you buy images to finish projects before summer, maybe
5. customers already have enough old images
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Yestarday was again little lower.
more reasons could be problem:
1. too much upload ( too many contributors on this boat ( also new))
2. subs on IS
3. new subscriptions plans
4. in march you buy images to finish projects before summer, maybe
5. customers already have enough old images
6. Could be also the economy and some projects being shelved.
In addition, some image buyers must have used their budget on acquiring SS shares rather than the actual images (as evidenced by almost 20% rise of SS share prices in the last month).
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For me, OOD sales are sinking... And NO SODs in April :(
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From last Dec,sales of Shutterstock started to being sinking and sinking and never come back :(. more photo uploaded,more visitor on photo portfolio,more nice photo ( i suppose) but less download. It really not good.
The most important fact left out - more pictures on Shutterstock (fifty millions more)
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Today and last monday were just like a weekend and this has been happening more often.
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Had a monumental last weekend and was looking set for a best week ever, then had an abysmal Wed to Fri. Not typical of SS which I usually find very consistent.
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This was the worst week after the last week of December 2014. :(
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Really bad. I saw many times that my sales are coming mostly from searches. This week it was nearly impossible to find my ss images by search. There was no problem with all other sites
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Comparing my earnings in the first 11 days of July 2015 vs July 2014:
SS up 10%
FT up 35%
(Port size up about 30% during this period, so I'm not thrilled with that SS number.)
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I have grow this year at all sites, except ss. Every EL at ss is a reason for several days fall down after.
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In SS, my port size is up by 40% compared to last year's June. And my income is down by 25% compared to last years June. July is even worse.
It seems like I have already hit the wall. Keep uploading doesn't help me at all. I'm thinking of stop uploading for sometime and see what will happen. Do you think that the income will drop down rapidly?
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In SS, my port size is up by 40% compared to last year's June. And my income is down by 25% compared to last years June. July is even worse.
It seems like I have already hit the wall. Keep uploading doesn't help me at all. I'm thinking of stop uploading for sometime and see what will happen. Do you think that the income will drop down rapidly?
My guess is that it would flatline for a bit and slowly start to decend
New i ages dont seem to help, they may get a few sales but unless you have some that sell almost everyday, hey quickly get buried
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lol, did u all come here after ss moderator deleted Laurin's comment re this?
not sure if i missed something ...but i thought he had commented on this issue
and then when i went back to see what else, that comment was gone.
btt, yes, it is dismal. and Laurin did say it was the search causing the downfall for all old portfolio earnings. he said something like "when i see some oldie get download " ... can't remember the rest,
but it was to say that old image suddenly get download but all the regular sales just bottomed out
for weeks. same thing for me too. nothing like that ever happened before.
usually it last a few days, not weeks, ..
what about you others???
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In SS, my port size is up by 40% compared to last year's June. And my income is down by 25% compared to last years June. July is even worse.
It seems like I have already hit the wall. Keep uploading doesn't help me at all. I'm thinking of stop uploading for sometime and see what will happen. Do you think that the income will drop down rapidly?
I hardly uploaded anything this year and sales are declining at about the same rate as before when I was working my a_s_s off. Even had a unusually good June, so it seems like uploading doesn't make much difference.
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Also decline here, no matter if upload or not, go more exclusive or not, its the same downward trend. SS is the only one I care about since it accounts for probably 80% of my microstock earnings. FT is much worse btw and other agencies are of no more importance to me.
Good luck to those who are starting out and want to take this business seriously, yikes!
This business is dying for many of us so now is probably the best time to seek other outlets for your stock/art and react to the decline by holding uploads or removing work from portfolio's. If we keep whining while continue uploading or keeping our work online the agencies get the upper hand and continue their path of greed, simple as that.
The ones doing well in micro these days are becoming very rare. It's just not worth the time and effort anymore unless you live in a lower standard country or use this as a hobby.
I've seen people brag about their sales on the SS forum but these guys upload fine art (ex skylines and landscapes) that are probably bought for a few pennies and then sold on print for hundreds of dollars. I do not envy them, on the contrary, I pity them for thinking they make good money while they don't have a clue what they leave on the table.
Others invest more then they get out of this by renting models, locations, props, gear and what not.
It's always a lose-lose situation for us no matter how you look at it.
Not to mention why we are so eager to put each other down instead of being more unite. The action that many (including myself) took towards DPC was a good example of how we should react to these manipulations.
If more established contributors would come forward people would realise this decline is spread out amongst many and we need to do something about it. But no, they rather hide in the corner and pray for better times again or that it will only affect their fellow contributors. Some pro's, afraid for retaliation so they rather keep their pants down and bent over.
::)
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Also decline here, no matter if upload or not, go more exclusive or not, its the same downward trend. SS is the only one I care about since it accounts for probably 80% of my microstock earnings. FT is much worse btw and other agencies are of no more importance to me.
Good luck to those who are starting out and want to take this business seriously, yikes!
This business is dying for many of us so now is probably the best time to seek other outlets for your stock/art and react to the decline by holding uploads or removing work from portfolio's. If we keep whining while continue uploading or keeping our work online the agencies get the upper hand and continue their path of greed, simple as that.
The ones doing well in micro these days are becoming very rare. It's just not worth the time and effort anymore unless you live in a lower standard country or use this as a hobby.
I've seen people brag about their sales on the SS forum but these guys upload fine art (ex skylines and landscapes) that are probably bought for a few pennies and then sold on print for hundreds of dollars. I do not envy them, on the contrary, I pity them for thinking they make good money while they don't have a clue what they leave on the table.
Others invest more then they get out of this by renting models, locations, props, gear and what not.
It's always a lose-lose situation for us no matter how you look at it.
Not to mention why we are so eager to put each other down instead of being more unite. The action that many (including myself) took towards DPC was a good example of how we should react to these manipulations.
If more established contributors would come forward people would realise this decline is spread out amongst many and we need to do something about it. But no, they rather hide in the corner and pray for better times again or that it will only affect their fellow contributors. Some pro's, afraid for retaliation so they rather keep their pants down and bent over.
::)
Couldn't have put it better myself.
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My earnings were steady until May this year when the big SOD's sales dried up. May, June and July have been well down on previous years. I haven't been uploading much for a few years and alamy is making up for a lot of the loss of earnings lately. Decided a long time ago that relying on just microstock was a bit too risky.
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My earnings were steady until May this year when the big SOD's sales dried up. May, June and July have been well down on previous years. I haven't been uploading much for a few years and alamy is making up for a lot of the loss of earnings lately. Decided a long time ago that relying on just microstock was a bit too risky.
sharpshoot - interesting about Alamy - they've really picked up for me this year too. SS started out well this month but right now I've got 4 days in a row with 0 sales, something I haven't seen there in years.
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My earnings were steady until May this year when the big SOD's sales dried up. May, June and July have been well down on previous years. I haven't been uploading much for a few years and alamy is making up for a lot of the loss of earnings lately. Decided a long time ago that relying on just microstock was a bit too risky.
y'know sharpshot, i am thinking this way too , your last statement. ss used to be reliable
until all that contributor scr*ewing started , much after they went public. then those mass rejections for others (not me, i was having consistent approvals, but when your colleagues en-masse started to grumble about robot rejections of good images , you must read the writing on the wall.
but i was stupid and thought ss is not going to be the new is.
how stupidly wrong i was. i eat sh*t here for believing ss is not like istock.
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Also decline here, no matter if upload or not, go more exclusive or not, its the same downward trend. SS is the only one I care about since it accounts for probably 80% of my microstock earnings. FT is much worse btw and other agencies are of no more importance to me.
Good luck to those who are starting out and want to take this business seriously, yikes!
This business is dying for many of us so now is probably the best time to seek other outlets for your stock/art and react to the decline by holding uploads or removing work from portfolio's. If we keep whining while continue uploading or keeping our work online the agencies get the upper hand and continue their path of greed, simple as that.
The ones doing well in micro these days are becoming very rare. It's just not worth the time and effort anymore unless you live in a lower standard country or use this as a hobby.
I've seen people brag about their sales on the SS forum but these guys upload fine art (ex skylines and landscapes) that are probably bought for a few pennies and then sold on print for hundreds of dollars. I do not envy them, on the contrary, I pity them for thinking they make good money while they don't have a clue what they leave on the table.
Others invest more then they get out of this by renting models, locations, props, gear and what not.
It's always a lose-lose situation for us no matter how you look at it.
Not to mention why we are so eager to put each other down instead of being more unite. The action that many (including myself) took towards DPC was a good example of how we should react to these manipulations.
If more established contributors would come forward people would realise this decline is spread out amongst many and we need to do something about it. But no, they rather hide in the corner and pray for better times again or that it will only affect their fellow contributors. Some pro's, afraid for retaliation so they rather keep their pants down and bent over.
::)
Completely agree, great post!
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Also decline here, no matter if upload or not, go more exclusive or not, its the same downward trend. SS is the only one I care about since it accounts for probably 80% of my microstock earnings. FT is much worse btw and other agencies are of no more importance to me.
Good luck to those who are starting out and want to take this business seriously, yikes!
This business is dying for many of us so now is probably the best time to seek other outlets for your stock/art and react to the decline by holding uploads or removing work from portfolio's. If we keep whining while continue uploading or keeping our work online the agencies get the upper hand and continue their path of greed, simple as that.
The ones doing well in micro these days are becoming very rare. It's just not worth the time and effort anymore unless you live in a lower standard country or use this as a hobby.
I've seen people brag about their sales on the SS forum but these guys upload fine art (ex skylines and landscapes) that are probably bought for a few pennies and then sold on print for hundreds of dollars. I do not envy them, on the contrary, I pity them for thinking they make good money while they don't have a clue what they leave on the table.
Others invest more then they get out of this by renting models, locations, props, gear and what not.
It's always a lose-lose situation for us no matter how you look at it.
Not to mention why we are so eager to put each other down instead of being more unite. The action that many (including myself) took towards DPC was a good example of how we should react to these manipulations.
If more established contributors would come forward people would realise this decline is spread out amongst many and we need to do something about it. But no, they rather hide in the corner and pray for better times again or that it will only affect their fellow contributors. Some pro's, afraid for retaliation so they rather keep their pants down and bent over.
::)
The established contributors have been chosen to take part in Premier Select, you won't hear them complaining because they are being well looked after by Shutterstock and will be taking a bigger share of the pie, your share and mine.
-
Also decline here, no matter if upload or not, go more exclusive or not, its the same downward trend. SS is the only one I care about since it accounts for probably 80% of my microstock earnings. FT is much worse btw and other agencies are of no more importance to me.
Good luck to those who are starting out and want to take this business seriously, yikes!
This business is dying for many of us so now is probably the best time to seek other outlets for your stock/art and react to the decline by holding uploads or removing work from portfolio's. If we keep whining while continue uploading or keeping our work online the agencies get the upper hand and continue their path of greed, simple as that.
The ones doing well in micro these days are becoming very rare. It's just not worth the time and effort anymore unless you live in a lower standard country or use this as a hobby.
I've seen people brag about their sales on the SS forum but these guys upload fine art (ex skylines and landscapes) that are probably bought for a few pennies and then sold on print for hundreds of dollars. I do not envy them, on the contrary, I pity them for thinking they make good money while they don't have a clue what they leave on the table.
Others invest more then they get out of this by renting models, locations, props, gear and what not.
It's always a lose-lose situation for us no matter how you look at it.
Not to mention why we are so eager to put each other down instead of being more unite. The action that many (including myself) took towards DPC was a good example of how we should react to these manipulations.
If more established contributors would come forward people would realise this decline is spread out amongst many and we need to do something about it. But no, they rather hide in the corner and pray for better times again or that it will only affect their fellow contributors. Some pro's, afraid for retaliation so they rather keep their pants down and bent over.
::)
The established contributors have been chosen to take part in Premier Select, you won't hear them complaining because they are being well looked after by Shutterstock and will be taking a bigger share of the pie, your share and mine.
Oh good. No we are bashing established contributors. Same infighting as usual here. Nobody's taking anybodys share except maybe the shareholders. There's just less to go around.to more people.
I happen to know that some of the people complaining about drops at SS are established contribs. I am one of them and nobody is protecting me at SS or anywhere else. Maybe you mean the top 100 or so. I can't speak for them, but the insults and conspiracies like this are probably why none of them post here anymore.
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Also decline here, no matter if upload or not, go more exclusive or not, its the same downward trend. SS is the only one I care about since it accounts for probably 80% of my microstock earnings. FT is much worse btw and other agencies are of no more importance to me.
Good luck to those who are starting out and want to take this business seriously, yikes!
This business is dying for many of us so now is probably the best time to seek other outlets for your stock/art and react to the decline by holding uploads or removing work from portfolio's. If we keep whining while continue uploading or keeping our work online the agencies get the upper hand and continue their path of greed, simple as that.
The ones doing well in micro these days are becoming very rare. It's just not worth the time and effort anymore unless you live in a lower standard country or use this as a hobby.
I've seen people brag about their sales on the SS forum but these guys upload fine art (ex skylines and landscapes) that are probably bought for a few pennies and then sold on print for hundreds of dollars. I do not envy them, on the contrary, I pity them for thinking they make good money while they don't have a clue what they leave on the table.
Others invest more then they get out of this by renting models, locations, props, gear and what not.
It's always a lose-lose situation for us no matter how you look at it.
Not to mention why we are so eager to put each other down instead of being more unite. The action that many (including myself) took towards DPC was a good example of how we should react to these manipulations.
If more established contributors would come forward people would realise this decline is spread out amongst many and we need to do something about it. But no, they rather hide in the corner and pray for better times again or that it will only affect their fellow contributors. Some pro's, afraid for retaliation so they rather keep their pants down and bent over.
::)
The established contributors have been chosen to take part in Premier Select, you won't hear them complaining because they are being well looked after by Shutterstock and will be taking a bigger share of the pie, your share and mine.
Oh good. No we are bashing established contributors. Same infighting as usual here. Nobody's taking anybodys share except maybe the shareholders. There's just less to go around.to more people.
I happen to know that some of the people complaining about drops at SS are established contribs. I am one of them and nobody is protecting me at SS or anywhere else. Maybe you mean the top 100 or so. I can't speak for them, but the insults and conspiracies like this are probably why none of them post here anymore.
I take it you didn't get your invite.
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Also decline here, no matter if upload or not, go more exclusive or not, its the same downward trend. SS is the only one I care about since it accounts for probably 80% of my microstock earnings. FT is much worse btw and other agencies are of no more importance to me.
Good luck to those who are starting out and want to take this business seriously, yikes!
This business is dying for many of us so now is probably the best time to seek other outlets for your stock/art and react to the decline by holding uploads or removing work from portfolio's. If we keep whining while continue uploading or keeping our work online the agencies get the upper hand and continue their path of greed, simple as that.
The ones doing well in micro these days are becoming very rare. It's just not worth the time and effort anymore unless you live in a lower standard country or use this as a hobby.
I've seen people brag about their sales on the SS forum but these guys upload fine art (ex skylines and landscapes) that are probably bought for a few pennies and then sold on print for hundreds of dollars. I do not envy them, on the contrary, I pity them for thinking they make good money while they don't have a clue what they leave on the table.
Others invest more then they get out of this by renting models, locations, props, gear and what not.
It's always a lose-lose situation for us no matter how you look at it.
Not to mention why we are so eager to put each other down instead of being more unite. The action that many (including myself) took towards DPC was a good example of how we should react to these manipulations.
If more established contributors would come forward people would realise this decline is spread out amongst many and we need to do something about it. But no, they rather hide in the corner and pray for better times again or that it will only affect their fellow contributors. Some pro's, afraid for retaliation so they rather keep their pants down and bent over.
::)
The established contributors have been chosen to take part in Premier Select, you won't hear them complaining because they are being well looked after by Shutterstock and will be taking a bigger share of the pie, your share and mine.
Oh good. No we are bashing established contributors. Same infighting as usual here. Nobody's taking anybodys share except maybe the shareholders. There's just less to go around.to more people.
I happen to know that some of the people complaining about drops at SS are established contribs. I am one of them and nobody is protecting me at SS or anywhere else. Maybe you mean the top 100 or so. I can't speak for them, but the insults and conspiracies like this are probably why none of them post here anymore.
I agree. If Shutterstock is giving a better deal to some contributors it's because they deserve it.
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What is Premier Select?
I really have no idea :)
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I take it you didn't get your invite.
I don't know about this 'premier select' thing. Probably what you are saying is true, but why should we believe you without any evidence?
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I don't know about this 'premier select' thing. Probably what you are saying is true, but why should we believe you without any evidence?
How about searching when in doubt?
http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/what-premier-select-means-for-shutterstock-contributors (http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/what-premier-select-means-for-shutterstock-contributors)
http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/new-ss-premier-platform (http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/new-ss-premier-platform)
https://premier.shutterstock.com (https://premier.shutterstock.com)
http://info.shutterstock.com/premier (http://info.shutterstock.com/premier)
https://vimeo.com/120523409 (https://vimeo.com/120523409)
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They say "Premier Select will not change the exposure of your content currently available to our Premier customers."
So it doesn't really explain why the large SOD sales have dried up for me since April.
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They say "Premier Select will not change the exposure of your content currently available to our Premier customers."
So it doesn't really explain why the large SOD sales have dried up for me since April.
yes, me too. but why is it that it is no longer a level playing field??? is it slanted to those who are cousins' cousins' cousin of shareholders? smelling more like istock before the exclusives jumped ship.
so, where do we go from here???
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Could have something to do with SS users switching to Adobe, seems a bit fast for that to happen.
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/07/14/morgan-stanley-highlights-seven-e-commerce-and-media-stocks/ (http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/07/14/morgan-stanley-highlights-seven-e-commerce-and-media-stocks/)
"55% of Shutterstock users indicated they would shift usage from Shutterstock to Adobe Stock if features were offered in the Adobe Creative Cloud that made importing images easier."
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Could have something to do with SS users switching to Adobe, seems a bit fast for that to happen.
[url]http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/07/14/morgan-stanley-highlights-seven-e-commerce-and-media-stocks/[/url] ([url]http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/07/14/morgan-stanley-highlights-seven-e-commerce-and-media-stocks/[/url])
"55% of Shutterstock users indicated they would shift usage from Shutterstock to Adobe Stock if features were offered in the Adobe Creative Cloud that made importing images easier."
I don't see an uptake on FT sales to justify your theory.
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They say "Premier Select will not change the exposure of your content currently available to our Premier customers."
So it doesn't really explain why the large SOD sales have dried up for me since April.
If users start buying on Premier Select they might never make it to Premier...so even though your content exposure wouldn't change on Premier, fewer people might be going there to begin with.
When I say "your" I mean "our," of course.
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Could have something to do with SS users switching to Adobe, seems a bit fast for that to happen.
[url]http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/07/14/morgan-stanley-highlights-seven-e-commerce-and-media-stocks/[/url] ([url]http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/07/14/morgan-stanley-highlights-seven-e-commerce-and-media-stocks/[/url])
"55% of Shutterstock users indicated they would shift usage from Shutterstock to Adobe Stock if features were offered in the Adobe Creative Cloud that made importing images easier."
I don't see an uptake on FT sales to justify your theory.
Like I said, it seems a bit fast for buyers to have switched over. We should know a little more about it in a few weeks but going forward I think it should be expected that buyers will move to Adobe, 55% of them? That seems like a lot.
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I take it you didn't get your invite.
I don't know about this 'premier select' thing. Probably what you are saying is true, but why should we believe you without any evidence?
I'm not trying to get you or anybody else to believe anything, for belief you need trust, you need faith, or merely to be susceptible to suggestion, not evidence. I was just responding to an attack on the "established contributors" by DesE who said "If more established contributors would come forward people would realise this decline is spread out amongst many and we need to do something about it. But no, they rather hide in the corner and pray for better times again or that it will only affect their fellow contributors. Some pro's, afraid for retaliation so they rather keep their pants down and bent over.".
By "established contributors" I took him to mean the top earners who seldom share their wisdom on the forums. I cannot accept that they are afraid as DesE suggested and the premise that he put forward that they also were suffering hard times seemed presumptuous, had that been the case we might well have heard from them. So I ventured to give what might be an alternative reason why they are not venting their spleen here, not only because they are busy making images, but because it still pays them to do so.
I make no insults and do not need conspiracy theories as suggested when PixelBytes tried to take a chunk out of me, and I may be wrong, but if I am I have been mislead by the Shutterstock blog on the matter.
It is quite simple, Shutterstock's Keren Sachs says in the blog regarding Premier Select "Ultimately, the goals for this initiative are to meet more of our customers’ needs, while providing additional, premium licensing opportunities to more contributors. As we test and learn, we will be back in touch with you about how your work can be included in this new collection." I take that to mean that they are hoping to increase the revenue from their customers, thereby increasing the size of the pie, and sharing the fees with those included in Premier Select, therefore excluding the majority of contributors. It stands to reason does it not that Premier Select contributors will get a bigger share of the pie and everybody else gets a smaller one, even if their actual income stays the same, as she says "Many of you regularly see downloads from Premier customers and you will continue to see those payouts. Premier Select will not change the exposure of your content currently available to our Premier customers.".
Don't let anyone tell you that they are baking another pie just for Premier Select, this is Shutterstock not Offset.
I have no axe to grind, I don't want any infighting, and I am not a fantasist, you might not agree with my reading of the blog, but it is just plain simple logic, you don't have to follow me down to the river.
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I make no insults and do not need conspiracy theories as suggested when PixelBytes tried to take a chunk out of me, and I may be wrong, but if I am I have been mislead by the Shutterstock blog on the matter.
I did not mean to take a chunk out of you. I included the post from DesE that you were responding to because his post about hiding bent over with the pants pulled down was the attack and insulting part I was talking about. The reason I included your comments was because as a established contrib I have not seen the increase you suggested. And yes I would like to know if other successful stockers are seeing an uptick.
I would really like to hear from those who are in premiere select, first how they were notified, and second if its making a big difference in earnings. But with the us against them mentality I don't expect any of them will bother to answer those questions.
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My guess is that anyone included in Premier Select probably has to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
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I make no insults and do not need conspiracy theories as suggested when PixelBytes tried to take a chunk out of me, and I may be wrong, but if I am I have been mislead by the Shutterstock blog on the matter.
I did not mean to take a chunk out of you. I included the post from DesE that you were responding to because his post about hiding bent over with the pants pulled down was the attack and insulting part I was talking about. The reason I included your comments was because as a established contrib I have not seen the increase you suggested. And yes I would like to know if other successful stockers are seeing an uptick.
I would really like to hear from those who are in premiere select, first how they were notified, and second if its making a big difference in earnings. But with the us against them mentality I don't expect any of them will bother to answer those questions.
It's OK the bandages are off, well the sticking plaster. I'm not used to justifying myself, I live alone. :)
I'm not against them, they are invisible or at least out of sight and out of mind, but I think Shutterstock are being divisive with this move.
I can understand Shutterstock wanting to keep their top earners on board, especially when one of them went off to exclusive heaven, and as they will not offer exclusivity, it is an alternative device to try and prevent that. A slow response and probably no longer needed and one they may have shelved, but I can understand why they may have hummed and arrged before they tested it, because they also know it's divisive. There is no promotion or relegation with these things, your in or your out.
I think that they had to act when they did because, as many have said on this forum, the cost of production has increased and at the rates they pay there is becoming little incentive to keep uploading.
Rather than giving a general increase all round, which might spread a little too thin and eat into profits, they have chosen to keep the big earners happy. They will be hoping that most folk will not notice their share of the pie has shrunk a little. A risk that all agencies take all of the time in one way or another, but a small risk.
There maybe speculation that Premier Select is Shutterstocks response to Adobe's presence in the market. Well, yes an no. It was likely in the pipeline anyway and I can't see Adobe offering this kind of service anytime soon. However, I can see image exclusivity being a threat that they may have taken into consideration, with Fotolia bumping rates up and Stocksy lurking in the margins there may have been some testing the water in their direction, I can see the temptation
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Shutterstock stock is sinking deeply, too...shares are selling at new low for the year. Fortunately for us we can concentrate on placing our images wherever the sales go.
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so certainly pressure to give precedence to 25cents offerings.....
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so certainly pressure to give precedence to 25cents offerings.....
What a fortuitous coincidence that shutterstocks Top 50 most popular pages irrevocably "broke" just as they rolled out the IPO and new search. Amazing that the pages worked flawlessly for over 9 years and could not be fixed over the last three years by a self purported technology company.
All of this just as a huge number of exclusive IS contributors jumped ship and long standing shutterstock members started reporting sudden overnight steep drops in downloads.
The transparency was nice while it lasted.
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Don't know about image sales but my video sales there have stopped since end of June - like, completely. Not that I'm a big seller or anything but I had become used to getting at least a couple every week.
Since end of June, nothing. Zilch. Nada. Nada di nada.
Oh well! Nice while it lasted...
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Tuesday great sales. Wednesday a drop. Today 1 sale.
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Tuesday great sales. Wednesday a drop. Today 1 sale.
Similar. Monday Tuesday $225 total Wednesday $10 today $4
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Tuesday great sales. Wednesday a drop. Today 1 sale.
Similar. Monday Tuesday $225 total Wednesday $10 today $4
Wow that's a huge difference between the days. I rarely get much difference in sales on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday which are usually the three best days of the week. Unless of course I get els or large Sods.
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that was a joke
Tuesday great sales. Wednesday a drop. Today 1 sale.
Similar. Monday Tuesday $225 total Wednesday $10 today $4
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Today i don't expect any sales - most of my portfolio is not shown, only gray squares. Forul is not loading, only main page
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Yeah, what's with that thumbs, they're not showing at all. Only showing gray squares. I thought, it's something with my browser. I had few sales, but no thumbs showing up in sales report, only "squares" with image title.
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Yeah, what's with that thumbs, they're not showing at all. Only showing gray squares. I thought, it's something with my browser. I had few sales, but no thumbs showing up in sales report, only "squares" with image title.
I thought that only happens to me :-\
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My sales are increasing since I started to upload SS in Jan 2015. This month is fantastic, last month was as well.
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July sales are on schedule and this is probably the most consistent week I've had since I became a contributor in February of this year.
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July sales are on schedule and this is probably the most consistent week I've had since I became a contributor in February of this year.
Wait...just wait.....
Make hay while the suns shines.
But wait.....
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July sales are on schedule and this is probably the most consistent week I've had since I became a contributor in February of this year.
Wait...just wait.....
Make hay while the suns shines.
But wait.....
I just double checked. I became a contributor on SS on Jan 22, 2015. So my honeymoon should have expired on June 22, 2015, right?
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I just double checked. I became a contributor on SS on Jan 22, 2015. So my honeymoon should have expired on June 22, 2015, right?
Depends if your "honeymoon" was 5 months or 6. If it was five, then yes, it expired on June 22.
But if it was six (as you wrote elsewhere), it will expire next Wednesday, July 22.
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I just double checked. I became a contributor on SS on Jan 22, 2015. So my honeymoon should have expired on June 22, 2015, right?
Depends if your "honeymoon" was 5 months or 6. If it was five, then yes, it expired on June 22.
But if it was six (as you wrote elsewhere), it will expire next Wednesday, July 22.
Next week will be an interesting week. I'll let you guys know if anything changes.
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Do you really think it is so simple as your port dying once the new contributor bump expires? I suspect the bump is now longer than it used to be.
If your images are well above average, your initial bump will give your port the momentum to last a few years, once you hit 38 cents. And once your images hit shutterstocks predetermined kill switch age. Your best selling images will be demoted overnight to Dante's lowest levels in the search; never to be seen again. Imagine your surprise when new images also find poor placement in the search.
So you think you have any control over your earnings....
http://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/75288-so-you-think-you-have-any-control-over-your-earnings/ (http://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/75288-so-you-think-you-have-any-control-over-your-earnings/)
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I don't think for once I'm in control of my income when it comes to microstock. I've seen too much and know too much to not see that it's always a matter time before something changes. I've seen Apple changed their search algorithm 4 times. I've seen a site I was contributing to and making good money on changed their algorithm to favor new contributors. It favor them so much that their work gets put on top, eventually pushed down by content one day newer than theirs.
I'm not exactly new to this game. If my sales go down next week, I won't act surprised or sad or discouraged. I understand that it's the nature of the beast, a beast I've dealt with many times. And dealing with this beast has taught more more than few things: Things are not black and white. My sales are not going to hit a wall...it may fall a little, but it won't be a hard fall. I'm prepared to have some of my images fall down the search rankings, but I also know that some of my images will NEVER fall down the rankings, because there is nothing else like it.
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I don't think for once I'm in control of my income when it comes to microstock. I've seen too much and know too much to not see that it's always a matter time before something changes. I've seen Apple changed their search algorithm 4 times. I've seen a site I was contributing to and making good money on changed their algorithm to favor new contributors. It favor them so much that their work gets put on top, eventually pushed down by content one day newer than theirs.
I'm not exactly new to this game. If my sales go down next week, I won't act surprised or sad or discouraged. I understand that it's the nature of the beast, a beast I've dealt with many times. And dealing with this beast has taught more more than few things: Things are not black and white. My sales are not going to hit a wall...it may fall a little, but it won't be a hard fall. I'm prepared to have some of my images fall down the search rankings, but I also know that some of my images will NEVER fall down the rankings, because there is nothing else like it.
Do you really think shutterstock knows or for that matter cares which images they are sending to the nether regions. They are doing it based on port and image age, it does not matter how great they are or how many are available. Talk to a few people who have been around for a while, we all managed to cling to the notion we had untouchable unique images, that is until the "day" they permanently dropped out of the search.
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Do you really think shutterstock knows or for that matter cares which images they are sending to the nether regions. They are doing it based on port and image age, it does not matter how great they are or how many are available. Talk to a few people who have been around for a while, we all managed to cling to the notion we had untouchable unique images, that is until the "day" they permanently dropped out of the search.
I'm more than confident enough to know that it won't. People's idea of unique is so distorted these days that the idea of unique is longer unique, but variation of something else that already exist, in a category with over 1000 images. My idea of unique is more like having the search results just to yourself. If any contributor is able push me out of the search results, I commend them. It would mean they have knowledge of some pretty obscure subjects. Let's just leave it at that.
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To the original subject, last week I made less than $20 each workday (M-F) for the first time in five years. Frustrating but reality of the micro stock business. I have a bit over 3200 assets.
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Do you really think shutterstock knows or for that matter cares which images they are sending to the nether regions. They are doing it based on port and image age, it does not matter how great they are or how many are available. Talk to a few people who have been around for a while, we all managed to cling to the notion we had untouchable unique images, that is until the "day" they permanently dropped out of the search.
I'm more than confident enough to know that it won't. People's idea of unique is so distorted these days that the idea of unique is longer unique, but variation of something else that already exist, in a category with over 1000 images. My idea of unique is more like having the search results just to yourself. If any contributor is able push me out of the search results, I commend them. It would mean they have knowledge of some pretty obscure subjects. Let's just leave it at that.
Yes, you can have the obscure subjects all to your self. But that is because there is virtually no demand for them. Stumble into an obscure subject that actually sells well and the copiers will flood your niche so fast you head will spin. Then guess what, your stuff is pushed back behind the ones that copied you.
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Do you really think shutterstock knows or for that matter cares which images they are sending to the nether regions. They are doing it based on port and image age, it does not matter how great they are or how many are available. Talk to a few people who have been around for a while, we all managed to cling to the notion we had untouchable unique images, that is until the "day" they permanently dropped out of the search.
I'm more than confident enough to know that it won't. People's idea of unique is so distorted these days that the idea of unique is longer unique, but variation of something else that already exist, in a category with over 1000 images. My idea of unique is more like having the search results just to yourself. If any contributor is able push me out of the search results, I commend them. It would mean they have knowledge of some pretty obscure subjects. Let's just leave it at that.
Either there is no demand, as mentioned or buyers just don't know this kind of content can be bought at microstock agencies. If the agency does not pimp your "unique" work it will never see the daylight.
Also, people recommend using "unique" keywords but I am willing to bet 99% of their work are still found via basic keywords.
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Yes, you can have the obscure subjects all to your self. But that is because there is virtually no demand for them. Stumble into an obscure subject that actually sells well and the copiers will flood your niche so fast you head will spin. Then guess what, your stuff is pushed back behind the ones that copied you.
He'll learn, don't worry.
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Do you really think shutterstock knows or for that matter cares which images they are sending to the nether regions. They are doing it based on port and image age, it does not matter how great they are or how many are available. Talk to a few people who have been around for a while, we all managed to cling to the notion we had untouchable unique images, that is until the "day" they permanently dropped out of the search.
I'm more than confident enough to know that it won't. People's idea of unique is so distorted these days that the idea of unique is longer unique, but variation of something else that already exist, in a category with over 1000 images. My idea of unique is more like having the search results just to yourself. If any contributor is able push me out of the search results, I commend them. It would mean they have knowledge of some pretty obscure subjects. Let's just leave it at that.
Yes, you can have the obscure subjects all to your self. But that is because there is virtually no demand for them. Stumble into an obscure subject that actually sells well and the copiers will flood your niche so fast you head will spin. Then guess what, your stuff is pushed back behind the ones that copied you.
Except that on SS specifically, how would the copiers know if a niche subject image had any dls at all?
I mean, let's say someone uploaded a photo of a (hypothetical) schoeck. How would anyone know if it had sold 0 times or 500 times?
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Don't forget that our ports have such statistically insignificant counts against the entire inventory that it is difficult to make statistical predictions. The sample space is too small. I think fresh, season appropriate content is important for driving sales. I read that the typical stock image has a 23 month lifespan with a peak in sales around 6 months in. If this is right what we are making today is a function of what we did 7-8 months ago.
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Do you really think shutterstock knows or for that matter cares which images they are sending to the nether regions. They are doing it based on port and image age, it does not matter how great they are or how many are available. Talk to a few people who have been around for a while, we all managed to cling to the notion we had untouchable unique images, that is until the "day" they permanently dropped out of the search.
I'm more than confident enough to know that it won't. People's idea of unique is so distorted these days that the idea of unique is longer unique, but variation of something else that already exist, in a category with over 1000 images. My idea of unique is more like having the search results just to yourself. If any contributor is able push me out of the search results, I commend them. It would mean they have knowledge of some pretty obscure subjects. Let's just leave it at that.
Yes, you can have the obscure subjects all to your self. But that is because there is virtually no demand for them. Stumble into an obscure subject that actually sells well and the copiers will flood your niche so fast you head will spin. Then guess what, your stuff is pushed back behind the ones that copied you.
Except that on SS specifically, how would the copiers know if a niche subject image had any dls at all?
I mean, let's say someone uploaded a photo of a (hypothetical) schoeck. How would anyone know if it had sold 0 times or 500 times?
Do you know any indies who just upload to SS specifically? Not to mention there are other ways the find out what new niches are selling. Most of the sites put out newsletters monthly suggesting what subjects are HOT. I am sure a lot of us who been at this awhile have had the experience of discovering a good niche and then a couple months later it is outed by the agencies. Not to mention some of the top selling factories have employees paid to do this research.
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Except that on SS specifically, how would the copiers know if a niche subject image had any dls at all?
I mean, let's say someone uploaded a photo of a (hypothetical) schoeck. How would anyone know if it had sold 0 times or 500 times?
Do you know any indies who just upload to SS specifically?
Yes, but they don't actively upload to SS any more because their niches are too niche - in particular, too localised - to do well there.
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Do you really think it is so simple as your port dying once the new contributor bump expires? I suspect the bump is now longer than it used to be.
If your images are well above average, your initial bump will give your port the momentum to last a few years, once you hit 38 cents. And once your images hit shutterstocks predetermined kill switch age. Your best selling images will be demoted overnight to Dante's lowest levels in the search; never to be seen again. Imagine your surprise when new images also find poor placement in the search.
So you think you have any control over your earnings....
[url]http://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/75288-so-you-think-you-have-any-control-over-your-earnings/[/url] ([url]http://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/75288-so-you-think-you-have-any-control-over-your-earnings/[/url])
wow, i think that sums me up too. i went back to see when my sales dumped big time and the large 28 to 100 singles disappeared. it was from the time i was a 38 cts "elderly".
is this just us, or normal occurence with 38 cent-ers.?
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You are not alone, it has happened to most everyone I know with older ports. They just do not want to bring themselves or others down by talking about it in public. Occasionally on very bad months they express their frustration on various forums, but if you talk to them in private most have no problem sharing the reality of the new normal at shutterstock.
I do know a few with very specialized ports who are not seeing as large of drops, but their best selling images have been demoted.
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You are not alone, it has happened to most everyone I know with older ports. They just do not want to bring themselves or others down by talking about it in public. Occasionally on very bad months they express their frustration on various forums, but if you talk to them in private most have no problem sharing the reality of the new normal at shutterstock.
I do know a few with very specialized ports who are not seeing as large of drops, but their best selling images have been demoted.
I;ve been around a long time, I talk to LOTS of people and I agree 100%.
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September marks my 10th anniversary with Shutterstock, and oddly enough, so far this summer has been my best ever in terms of overall revenue. It's the first summer where I didn't experience any drops in revenue and actually had decent increase in revenue...a very nice change of pace.
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Do you know any indies who just upload to SS specifically? Not to mention there are other ways the find out what new niches are selling. Most of the sites put out newsletters monthly suggesting what subjects are HOT. I am sure a lot of us who been at this awhile have had the experience of discovering a good niche and then a couple months later it is outed by the agencies. Not to mention some of the top selling factories have employees paid to do this research.
See, this is the type of negativity that's making this forum so gloom. 80% of contributors are struggling, but there are still the 20% doing well. And the funny thing is, the successful contributors don't disclose much and they don't want to talk about their success because someone is always there to tell them that their portfolio is going to fall off the search results or how they're going to see a massive decline soon.
Not all contributors are alike and not all of us think the same way when it comes to image creation. That's why some people are still doing well while many are not. And FYI, one of my little obscures image with no demand had 3 downloads on a Sunday and it's averaging 2 downloads a days now.
Let people do their research. Without proper domain knowledge, it's as good as a half-assed effort. Keep telling me how other contributors are going to push me out of the search results, because I'm preparing more images to push other people's images out of the search results.
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Do you know any indies who just upload to SS specifically? Not to mention there are other ways the find out what new niches are selling. Most of the sites put out newsletters monthly suggesting what subjects are HOT. I am sure a lot of us who been at this awhile have had the experience of discovering a good niche and then a couple months later it is outed by the agencies. Not to mention some of the top selling factories have employees paid to do this research.
See, this is the type of negativity that's making this forum so gloom. 80% of contributors are struggling, but there are still the 20% doing well. And the funny thing is, the successful contributors don't disclose much and they don't want to talk about their success because someone is always there to tell them that their portfolio is going to fall off the search results or how they're going to see a massive decline soon.
Not all contributors are alike and not all of us think the same way when it comes to image creation. That's why some people are still doing well while many are not. And FYI, one of my little obscures image with no demand had 3 downloads on a Sunday and it's averaging 2 downloads a days now.
Let people do their research. Without proper domain knowledge, it's as good as a half-assed effort. Keep telling me how other contributors are going to push me out of the search results, because I'm preparing more images to push other people's images out of the search results.
Let contributors who have been around much longer than you have report their own results.
Quit telling us how we should think, what we should do and what we should submit.
You seem to know a great deal about who is and who is not successful and your positive spin in the face of shared experience from those with large ports who have been here much longer than yourself; reminds me of the spin a zealous shutterstock community leader would use to attract new contributors. If you are going for referral $$$ you should talk to a few contributors who got stiffed by SS on the referral side.
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Let contributors who have been around much longer than you have report their own results.
Quit telling us how we should think, what we should do and what we should submit.
You seem to know a great deal about who is and who is not successful and your positive spin in the face of shared experience from those with large ports who have been here much longer than yourself; reminds me of the spin a zealous shutterstock community leader would use to attract new contributors. If you are going for referral $$$ you should talk to a few contributors who got stiffed by SS on the referral side.
I don't care about their results. I only care about my own results.
I'll stop telling people how they should think as contributors when people stop being so negative or when people stop telling me how my sales are going to fall soon. "Enjoy your newbie bump" from everyone sounds like "I can wait for you to fail" in a nicer tone.
And some of you guys seem to enjoy telling people that. I've seen some of the portfolios and believe me, many of them with thousands of images aren't that impressive. I have over a decade of design and art direction experience (agency & corporate) and I'm not going to pretend and say I'll download those photos for projects. Conversely, I have talked about how some contributors who are doing well with incredible portfolios. We're all creatives, I get it. We don't think for once that our portfolio is not good enough, but the reality is that not all portfolios are created equal. Some has high artistic value, but low commercial value and there are portfolios with low artistic value, but high commercial value.
The reality is that experience is not linear. If you guys keep telling me that based your experiences, I'm going to see my sales fall...what good can I get from listening to that? So I can be like everyone else who has seen their sales decline? No thanks. I have plenty of experience from different fields and so far, it has translated well into microstock. I'll keep doing what I'm doing. Thanks!
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Let contributors who have been around much longer than you have report their own results.
Quit telling us how we should think, what we should do and what we should submit.
You seem to know a great deal about who is and who is not successful and your positive spin in the face of shared experience from those with large ports who have been here much longer than yourself; reminds me of the spin a zealous shutterstock community leader would use to attract new contributors. If you are going for referral $$$ you should talk to a few contributors who got stiffed by SS on the referral side.
I don't care about their results. I only care about my own results.
I'll stop telling people how they should think as contributors when people stop being so negative or when people stop telling me how my sales are going to fall soon. "Enjoy your newbie bump" from everyone sounds like "I can wait for you to fail" in a nicer tone.
And some of you guys seem to enjoy telling people that. I've seen some of the portfolios and believe me, many of them with thousands of images aren't that impressive. I have over a decade of design and art direction experience (agency & corporate) and I'm not going to pretend and say I'll download those photos for projects. Conversely, I have talked about how some contributors who are doing well with incredible portfolios. We're all creatives, I get it. We don't think for once that our portfolio is not good enough, but the reality is that not all portfolios are created equal. Some has high artistic value, but low commercial value and there are portfolios with low artistic value, but high commercial value.
The reality is that experience is not linear. If you guys keep telling me that based your experiences, I'm going to see my sales fall...what good can I get from listening to that? So I can be like everyone else who has seen their sales decline? No thanks. I have plenty of experience from different fields and so far, it has translated well into microstock. I'll keep doing what I'm doing. Thanks!
i find this rather insightful from someone who has been with ss since feb of this year.
telling the others who have been with ss for over a decade , even, to stop being negative.
it isn't being negative. if someone says to you after the stock market crash they lost money and it's time to call it quits, they are not being negative, they speak from actual experience.
as for those contributors doing well not coming out to let you know. you did not read what Laurent mentioned about these contributors?
why would we want to let you think it's bad pitching for ss this early in the game.
oh well, we will talk to you after you discard your placenta or after you come home from your honeymoon ;D
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Tangentially, there was a bloke (?) who for a time posted a lot here who didn't photograph himself, but seemed to be the semi-sleeping partner who was financing one or more photographers and submitting to iS as an exclusive who a couple of years ago was forever on here and saying that people who weren't constantly on the up and up were clearly cluelss and incompetent, he was always increasing his sales month on month and just dissed everyone else.
Anyway, suddenly his sales started to reduce, and after a couple of months (s)he was gone from here. Unless they're back in a different guise, of course.
Still, you can tell us all in five years' time how great it still is.
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Let contributors who have been around much longer than you have report their own results.
Quit telling us how we should think, what we should do and what we should submit.
You seem to know a great deal about who is and who is not successful and your positive spin in the face of shared experience from those with large ports who have been here much longer than yourself; reminds me of the spin a zealous shutterstock community leader would use to attract new contributors. If you are going for referral $$$ you should talk to a few contributors who got stiffed by SS on the referral side.
I don't care about their results. I only care about my own results.
I'll stop telling people how they should think as contributors when people stop being so negative or when people stop telling me how my sales are going to fall soon. "Enjoy your newbie bump" from everyone sounds like "I can wait for you to fail" in a nicer tone.
And some of you guys seem to enjoy telling people that. I've seen some of the portfolios and believe me, many of them with thousands of images aren't that impressive. I have over a decade of design and art direction experience (agency & corporate) and I'm not going to pretend and say I'll download those photos for projects. Conversely, I have talked about how some contributors who are doing well with incredible portfolios. We're all creatives, I get it. We don't think for once that our portfolio is not good enough, but the reality is that not all portfolios are created equal. Some has high artistic value, but low commercial value and there are portfolios with low artistic value, but high commercial value.
The reality is that experience is not linear. If you guys keep telling me that based your experiences, I'm going to see my sales fall...what good can I get from listening to that? So I can be like everyone else who has seen their sales decline? No thanks. I have plenty of experience from different fields and so far, it has translated well into microstock. I'll keep doing what I'm doing. Thanks!
i find this rather insightful from someone who has been with ss since feb of this year.
telling the others who have been with ss for over a decade , even, to stop being negative.
it isn't being negative. if someone says to you after the stock market crash they lost money and it's time to call it quits, they are not being negative, they speak from actual experience.
as for those contributors doing well not coming out to let you know. you did not read what Laurent mentioned about these contributors?
why would we want to let you think it's bad pitching for ss this early in the game.
oh well, we will talk to you after you discard your placenta or after you come home from your honeymoon ;D
So what do you think I should do? Should I call it quits before it's too late? :P
You know, this is isn't the first time and it won't be the last. People doing something for a long time telling someone relatively new to the game that he/she won't succeed because they are no longer successful. Or kinda like how a parent whose experience is completely different telling their child that they won't succeed in their chosen field. Or like a bunch of people with a completely set of experiences telling you that your startup won't work. I don't see the point of it.
You know what's the natural reaction to that? People will try to prove you wrong and some will persevere. Having said it, I'll play the role of the "high energy naive upstart" for you guys. And I'm planning my honeymoon to Italy later in the year. Expect to see more pictures of grapes, pasta, wineries and the Piazza dei Miracoli on SS when I get back. ;)
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Let contributors who have been around much longer than you have report their own results.
Quit telling us how we should think, what we should do and what we should submit.
You seem to know a great deal about who is and who is not successful and your positive spin in the face of shared experience from those with large ports who have been here much longer than yourself; reminds me of the spin a zealous shutterstock community leader would use to attract new contributors. If you are going for referral $$$ you should talk to a few contributors who got stiffed by SS on the referral side.
I don't care about their results. I only care about my own results.
I'll stop telling people how they should think as contributors when people stop being so negative or when people stop telling me how my sales are going to fall soon. "Enjoy your newbie bump" from everyone sounds like "I can wait for you to fail" in a nicer tone.
And some of you guys seem to enjoy telling people that. I've seen some of the portfolios and believe me, many of them with thousands of images aren't that impressive. I have over a decade of design and art direction experience (agency & corporate) and I'm not going to pretend and say I'll download those photos for projects. Conversely, I have talked about how some contributors who are doing well with incredible portfolios. We're all creatives, I get it. We don't think for once that our portfolio is not good enough, but the reality is that not all portfolios are created equal. Some has high artistic value, but low commercial value and there are portfolios with low artistic value, but high commercial value.
The reality is that experience is not linear. If you guys keep telling me that based your experiences, I'm going to see my sales fall...what good can I get from listening to that? So I can be like everyone else who has seen their sales decline? No thanks. I have plenty of experience from different fields and so far, it has translated well into microstock. I'll keep doing what I'm doing. Thanks!
i find this rather insightful from someone who has been with ss since feb of this year.
telling the others who have been with ss for over a decade , even, to stop being negative.
it isn't being negative. if someone says to you after the stock market crash they lost money and it's time to call it quits, they are not being negative, they speak from actual experience.
as for those contributors doing well not coming out to let you know. you did not read what Laurent mentioned about these contributors?
why would we want to let you think it's bad pitching for ss this early in the game.
oh well, we will talk to you after you discard your placenta or after you come home from your honeymoon ;D
So what do you think I should do? Should I call it quits before it's too late? :P
You know, this is isn't the first time and it won't be the last. People doing something for a long time telling someone relatively new to the game that he/she won't succeed because they are no longer successful. Or kinda like how a parent whose experience is completely different telling their child that they won't succeed in their chosen field. Or like a bunch of people with a completely set of experiences telling you that your startup won't work. I don't see the point of it.
You know what's the natural reaction to that? People will try to prove you wrong and some will persevere. Having said it, I'll play the role of the "high energy naive upstart" for you guys. And I'm planning my honeymoon to Italy later in the year. Expect to see more pictures of grapes, pasta, wineries and the Piazza dei Miracoli on SS when I get back. ;)
No one is telling you you won't succeed and it's not a case of a bunch of grumpy negative people pouncing on you for being positive.
You come on here and speak with such authority as if you've been at it for years but you have almost no experience. Less than a year doesn't give you the insight to tell people how they should feel about an industry some have been in for over a decade.
You're the know-it-all who, on his first day of work at a new job, tries to tell the veterans what's what. They find that annoying.
Be positive all you want but don't talk as if you have seen it all. Being an app developer and buying stock photos gives you no cred.
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Do you know any indies who just upload to SS specifically? Not to mention there are other ways the find out what new niches are selling. Most of the sites put out newsletters monthly suggesting what subjects are HOT. I am sure a lot of us who been at this awhile have had the experience of discovering a good niche and then a couple months later it is outed by the agencies. Not to mention some of the top selling factories have employees paid to do this research.
See, this is the type of negativity that's making this forum so gloom. 80% of contributors are struggling, but there are still the 20% doing well. And the funny thing is, the successful contributors don't disclose much and they don't want to talk about their success because someone is always there to tell them that their portfolio is going to fall off the search results or how they're going to see a massive decline soon.
Not all contributors are alike and not all of us think the same way when it comes to image creation. That's why some people are still doing well while many are not. And FYI, one of my little obscures image with no demand had 3 downloads on a Sunday and it's averaging 2 downloads a days now.
Let people do their research. Without proper domain knowledge, it's as good as a half-assed effort. Keep telling me how other contributors are going to push me out of the search results, because I'm preparing more images to push other people's images out of the search results.
Sorry that my years of experience sound like negativity to you. Feel free to go on your months of speculation instead.
PS....If you are a designer who has been buying and using stock for years, you would be shocked to learn the identities and success levels of some of us who you are criticizing and complaining about. If you really have bought that much stock you have bought a lot of it from most of us long timers. To a certainty.
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No one is telling you you won't succeed and it's not a case of a bunch of grumpy negative people pouncing on you for being positive.
You come on here and speak with such authority as if you've been at it for years but you have almost no experience. Less than a year doesn't give you the insight to tell people how they should feel about an industry some have been in for over a decade.
You're the know-it-all who, on his first day of work at a new job, tries to tell the veterans what's what. They find that annoying.
Be positive all you want but don't talk as if you have seen it all. Being an app developer and buying stock photos gives you no cred.
You love me already, don't lie. Do you know what I find annoying? People equating experience to a time period IN a field as opposed to accumulation of experiences that deals with specific methods. I'm inexperienced when it comes to photography and I'm not even close to as good of many of the people here. However, when it comes to keyword research, metadata creation, stock photo usage/buying, search engine optimization, market trends, I have more experience than most people on here. Before I started uploading to SS, I've already uploaded over 1000 files elsewhere and dealt with different search engines and their nuances.
You make it seem like Microstock is rocket science. It isn't. Microstock isn't as profitable as it used to be, but then again, what is? What I do know is that in every saturated market, there are always niches to exploit. And from what I've seen, some veterans are far too discouraged to even give it a try.
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Sorry that my years of experience sound like negativity to you. Feel free to go on your months of speculation instead.
PS....If you are a designer who has been buying and using stock for years, you would be shocked to learn the identities and success levels of some of us who you are criticizing and complaining about. If you really have bought that much stock you have bought a lot of it from most of us long timers. To a certainty.
Don't take it personally. If your experience tells me that I'm heading toward inevitable failure, it's not something I want to hear. No upstart wants to hear cynicism or doubt. If that's something I'll face eventually, it's something I'll face on my own and I'll learn to adapt. Isn't the best education one's failure and learning from that failure?
And yes, I've download over 1200 images. Over 800 for my personal projects. 300 food pictures and 300 popular isolated objects for apps, 100 landscapes and about 100 random objects for a game I developed. This on top of the 400+ images related to healthcare, business, technology, vectors and random backgrounds I downloaded for work. I would not be surprised if I paid for one or few of your images.
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See, this is the type of negativity that's making this forum so gloom. 80% of contributors are struggling, but there are still the 20% doing well. And the funny thing is, the successful contributors don't disclose much and they don't want to talk about their success because someone is always there to tell them that their portfolio is going to fall off the search results or how they're going to see a massive decline soon.
Not all contributors are alike and not all of us think the same way when it comes to image creation. That's why some people are still doing well while many are not. And FYI, one of my little obscures image with no demand had 3 downloads on a Sunday and it's averaging 2 downloads a days now.
Let people do their research. Without proper domain knowledge, it's as good as a half-assed effort. Keep telling me how other contributors are going to push me out of the search results, because I'm preparing more images to push other people's images out of the search results.
So you side stepped the question of referrals nicely. If I had a nickle for every newbie preaching unbridled success to every referral he can drum up by driving people to his site & this one, I would be rich.
As for the success of your obscure images, your view of success is much different than my own.
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So you side stepped the question of referrals nicely. If I had a nickle for every newbie preaching unbridled success to every referral he can drum up by driving people to his site & this one, I would be rich.
As for the success of your obscure images, your view of success is much different than my own.
I haven't used referrals, so I really don't have anything to say about that subject. I'm not exactly ready to spam my Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter feed asking people to use SS. I think we both know there are enough contributors at SS and referring more will only create more competition.
Success is always relative. Those images are a success compared to other my images with no downloads. If every one of my images get 2 downloads a day, I would quite my job.
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Believing in microstock Success is quiting your job, good luck 8)
I once believe that, and almost quit my job ... I am glad I didn't take that step.
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So you side stepped the question of referrals nicely. If I had a nickle for every newbie preaching unbridled success to every referral he can drum up by driving people to his site & this one, I would be rich.
As for the success of your obscure images, your view of success is much different than my own.
I haven't used referrals, so I really don't have anything to say about that subject. I'm not exactly ready to spam my Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter feed asking people to use SS. I think we both know there are enough contributors at SS and referring more will only create more competition.
Success is always relative. Those images are a success compared to other my images with no downloads. If every one of my images get 2 downloads a day, I would quite my job.
If any of us got two downloads a day for each of our images, we'd all quit our jobs. I'd be getting almost 16,000 DLs per day then, and there are people here who'd be getting a lot more. But reality is what you're actually experiencing...you have one image that gets 2 DLs per day. I have some that get many more per day "in season," but I still don't make enough to quit my day job. The vast majority of images don't sell or hardly sell, unless you have a truly exceptional port (and there are a few people who do).
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My top earner made one or 2 DL a day on SS for a few years, then one day - bam - gone from page one usually line one or 2 and I couldn't find it searching out about 30 pages (out of 8,000 or something crazy). A month or so later I found it on page 3 and it got back to page 2. Now just one or 2 d/l per week. For subjects with lots of competition search position is almost everything. Sure, you have some influence on search position with keywords and image quality, but if you think that is all important you are sadly mistaken. It is more like the lottery situation mentioned above. Every excellent image with good keywording is another ticket but that doesn't mean you are going to win.
This month sales are weird (and mostly down)- more sales on Sunday than Wed or Monday (both like a weekend). I haven't had a good sales day all month that didn't have an EL or not tiny SOD. Usually there are a few with just regular subs and ODD.
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My month on SS started out so poorly but picked up so much this past week that it's already my BMY and my third best month ever. In the past 10 days I've had a huge upswing on SS, Alamy, and various POD sites. July is usually really slow for me - the thing that has really changed is that SS has become so unpredictable. I used to get a predictable number of downloads each month and unless I had ELs, a predictable income from SS which grew as my port grew. This year it's become so unpredictable - scary slow for the first half of the month but since the 13th sales are better than ever. Just weird.
My #3 earner (with tons and tons of competition) got a ton of DLs for three years and dropped off the map this past year and I'm not even at the 38 cent level yet, though it's back on p1 now so I hope it picks up again. My top 2 are still getting regular downloads (one with tons and tons of competition, one niche) but not as many - it's been nearly 5 years. Nearly all my best sellers were uploaded in 2011. They say the average life of a stock photo is 5 years, so that could account for the downturn I've seen this year.
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No one is telling you you won't succeed and it's not a case of a bunch of grumpy negative people pouncing on you for being positive.
You come on here and speak with such authority as if you've been at it for years but you have almost no experience. Less than a year doesn't give you the insight to tell people how they should feel about an industry some have been in for over a decade.
You're the know-it-all who, on his first day of work at a new job, tries to tell the veterans what's what. They find that annoying.
Be positive all you want but don't talk as if you have seen it all. Being an app developer and buying stock photos gives you no cred.
You love me already, don't lie. Do you know what I find annoying? People equating experience to a time period IN a field as opposed to accumulation of experiences that deals with specific methods. I'm inexperienced when it comes to photography and I'm not even close to as good of many of the people here. However, when it comes to keyword research, metadata creation, stock photo usage/buying, search engine optimization, market trends, I have more experience than most people on here. Before I started uploading to SS, I've already uploaded over 1000 files elsewhere and dealt with different search engines and their nuances.
You make it seem like Microstock is rocket science. It isn't. Microstock isn't as profitable as it used to be, but then again, what is? What I do know is that in every saturated market, there are always niches to exploit. And from what I've seen, some veterans are far too discouraged to even give it a try.
Accumulated experiences. Ok.
You're an expert in microstock because you have bought stock photos.
Awesome. I'm going to pretend I'm you for a second:
I've used apps on my ipad so I'm an app developer. I know it all because I've used apps and I can tell you you're doing it totally wrong. Trust me I'm an expert, I've used apps before. I also saw a TV show on brain surgery. I'm a surgeon. I could take your brain apart and put it back together and it would work just as well as it does now. Cause I saw it on TV.
I've been to a website so I am an expert on the internet. I ate a vegetable once so I'm a farmer. Someone took my photo once so I'm a fashion model, I've eaten a lot of food so I'm a chef.
Ok enough, it's exhausting being you and knowing everything.
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No one is telling you you won't succeed and it's not a case of a bunch of grumpy negative people pouncing on you for being positive.
You come on here and speak with such authority as if you've been at it for years but you have almost no experience. Less than a year doesn't give you the insight to tell people how they should feel about an industry some have been in for over a decade.
You're the know-it-all who, on his first day of work at a new job, tries to tell the veterans what's what. They find that annoying.
Be positive all you want but don't talk as if you have seen it all. Being an app developer and buying stock photos gives you no cred.
You love me already, don't lie. Do you know what I find annoying? People equating experience to a time period IN a field as opposed to accumulation of experiences that deals with specific methods. I'm inexperienced when it comes to photography and I'm not even close to as good of many of the people here. However, when it comes to keyword research, metadata creation, stock photo usage/buying, search engine optimization, market trends, I have more experience than most people on here. Before I started uploading to SS, I've already uploaded over 1000 files elsewhere and dealt with different search engines and their nuances.
You make it seem like Microstock is rocket science. It isn't. Microstock isn't as profitable as it used to be, but then again, what is? What I do know is that in every saturated market, there are always niches to exploit. And from what I've seen, some veterans are far too discouraged to even give it a try.
Accumulated experiences. Ok.
You're an expert in microstock because you have bought stock photos.
Awesome. I'm going to pretend I'm you for a second:
I've used apps on my ipad so I'm an app developer. I know it all because I've used apps and I can tell you you're doing it totally wrong. Trust me I'm an expert, I've used apps before. I also saw a TV show on brain surgery. I'm a surgeon. I could take your brain apart and put it back together and it would work just as well as it does now. Cause I saw it on TV.
I've been to a website so I am an expert on the internet. I ate a vegetable once so I'm a farmer. Someone took my photo once so I'm a fashion model, I've eaten a lot of food so I'm a chef.
Ok enough, it's exhausting being you and knowing everything.
I think you're taking things way too personally. If you haven't noticed already, you're stooping to personal attacks.
I'm not even gonna retaliate, but you need to relax and stop taking your anger out on the internet.
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gotta love the rollercoaster ride that is shutterstock, from BMY (july) to WMY (august), rooosh
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You are not alone, it has happened to most everyone I know with older ports. They just do not want to bring themselves or others down by talking about it in public. Occasionally on very bad months they express their frustration on various forums, but if you talk to them in private most have no problem sharing the reality of the new normal at shutterstock.
I do know a few with very specialized ports who are not seeing as large of drops, but their best selling images have been demoted.
Amen to that! been there since 2005 and its on its way down for sure and almost all so called "oldies" agree to that. I had sort of come to expect it and not surprised. It's the same right across the board, rights-managed, royalty-free or microstock. No difference. :)
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From last Dec,sales of Shutterstock started to being sinking and sinking and never come back :(. more photo uploaded,more visitor on photo portfolio,more nice photo ( i suppose) but less download. It really not good.
IMO, because of every day joining new contributors for selling images, I think the newcomers are recently increased too much, if the oldest members continuously wins, what will win new ones? if someone win, then someone must be lose I think.
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Think it was here? someone metioned they had accepted something like 60000 new images in one week, if so that speaks for itself. They are slowly creating a situation where the supply outstrip the demand plus all other agencies with lots of similars. All creating a very unhealthy business.
As you say, win and lose. When SS enforce a sort order change they take no prisoners, one side jumping for joy with the losing side totally annihilated. Trying to find some sort of a fair balance is no option. In fact its all based on short term hoping-for-more-profit thinking.
The old staff either left or was made redundant, the bean-counters moved in and the result is all too obvious.
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SS sales are still very healthy. There are occasional days where it dips, but it always picks itself up the next day. SS has the highest sales by far and it made me wish I started years earlier.
August was a pretty nice month on SS and I'm expecting September downloads to be nearly 1:1 with my portfolio.
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Yes this August was my BME in number of sales. But not in $. I wish I had more ODD's.
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Sure they are! I had a great August with some nine EL's and four single-sales alone. No complaints there. Business however takes a bit more imagination then just counting money, thats the easy part and if there is no money to count its even easier, saves counting :)
Sustainability is the name of the game. Do you think we still have terrific days when they reach 100 million images in files? takes years and years to build up a company, a reputation but only one bad move, five seconds to ruin it.
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Think it was here? someone metioned they had accepted something like 60000 new images in one week.
Currently it is almost 500 000 new images every week. That is 2 million new images every month :(
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Think it was here? someone metioned they had accepted something like 60000 new images in one week.
Currently it is almost 500 000 new images every week. That is 2 million new images every month :(
Absurdity has no ends!
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Just started a related thread, this could have something to do with it!
http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/image-spam/msg430414/?topicseen#new (http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/image-spam/msg430414/?topicseen#new)
"Do a search for "luck sadly wink" on SS (just to bring up examples). Does SS ever pull people up for spamming or is it just happy to be able to claim to have a massive collection even though a huge chunk is the same images spamming the search results?"
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Currently it is almost 500 000 new images every week. That is 2 million new images every month
If 500 000 images are accepted in a week, assuming a 50% acceptance rate, 1 million images are uploaded every week.
If the acceptance rate is 25%, then 2 million images are uploaded every week. That would correspond with over 100 million submitted images in one year.
Not too many contributors can keep up with this. Unless they submit 100 similars for each concept.
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Yes and this is what happens when you collect assets in the shape of pictures, jut to impress share-holders. Only thing is...... its our pictures, our assets.
just a thought.
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So we have to double our portfolio every two years just to keep with the flow.
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Just started a related thread, this could have something to do with it!
[url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/image-spam/msg430414/?topicseen#new[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/image-spam/msg430414/?topicseen#new[/url])
"Do a search for "luck sadly wink" on SS (just to bring up examples). Does SS ever pull people up for spamming or is it just happy to be able to claim to have a massive collection even though a huge chunk is the same images spamming the search results?"
good point. the shareholders cheer for that hype on xxx million inventory and x million a month new images. and most of it are what dreamstime would consider similars. one site encourage million similars another site reject any more than 2.
maybe if we all delete what has zero dl from our port
and then wait a month to upload as "new" , we can play their dirty game of boosting their
hype of more million new images per month, week, day,...
and maybe even get sales as the existing ones are as good as buried skeletons or (gusanos) worms by now
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Yes and this is what happens when you collect assets in the shape of pictures, jut to impress share-holders. Only thing is...... its our pictures, our assets.
just a thought.
Shutterstock and every other site Owns NOTHING. Zero assets. Amazing Business Huh? Don't make anything, rent some servers and bingo.
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SS sales are still very healthy. There are occasional days where it dips, but it always picks itself up the next day. SS has the highest sales by far and it made me wish I started years earlier.
August was a pretty nice month on SS and I'm expecting September downloads to be nearly 1:1 with my portfolio.
If you had started in the beginning then You would know how much it has dropped.
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Just started a related thread, this could have something to do with it!
[url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/image-spam/msg430414/?topicseen#new[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/image-spam/msg430414/?topicseen#new[/url])
"Do a search for "luck sadly wink" on SS (just to bring up examples). Does SS ever pull people up for spamming or is it just happy to be able to claim to have a massive collection even though a huge chunk is the same images spamming the search results?"
good point. the shareholders cheer for that hype on xxx million inventory and x million a month new images. and most of it are what dreamstime would consider similars. one site encourage million similars another site reject any more than 2.
maybe if we all delete what has zero dl from our port
and then wait a month to upload as "new" , we can play their dirty game of boosting their
hype of more million new images per month, week, day,...
and maybe even get sales as the existing ones are as good as buried skeletons or (gusanos) worms by now
LOL!!!!!!! I've done it and it works Like a charm.
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SS sales are still very healthy. There are occasional days where it dips, but it always picks itself up the next day. SS has the highest sales by far and it made me wish I started years earlier.
August was a pretty nice month on SS and I'm expecting September downloads to be nearly 1:1 with my portfolio.
If you had started in the beginning then You would know how much it has dropped.
I live my life knowing that any good thing can end one day. I've been though it many times in my life and when it happens, I do what I have to do, move on to something else. I know a guy who made $10,000 on a basic app when he was just in HS. Today, he knows he can't make anything in the app store. However, he's still $10,000 richer than if he started building apps today.
If I had started earlier, my images would have climbed up the rankings quickly and generated enough momentum for years. Now I have to slowly wait until it climbs up, in a much more competitive environment. Yeah, if I started years ago, maybe I would have seen a drop, but I'd still be making more than I am today. Not to mentioned all the skills I could have learned.
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I know that, earning system of shutterstock is highly based on your new upload amount.
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Well if based on amounts of uploads then a friend of mine would be extremely well off. Port of 22000 files, joined in 2009. He upload in thousands all the time. His earnings took a 40% dive this year. There are many more examples.
So called factories are probably well looked after and somehow I am sure the little people must get some sort of a favour if not only to keep the interest going.
It's all wide speculation I guess.
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ok so, sometimes I stop uploading new images and my weekly revenue decreases in proportion, at least valid for me.
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Does anybody know how often I should upload new content to SS so my portfolio be doing well at the search results? Is it once per month, week or day?
I'm new member with constantly growing port so I can not test those hypotheses that say regular uploads make your port/images more popular.
So... is uploading 2 images every day better than uploading 14 every week?
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So... is uploading 2 images every day better than uploading 14 every week?
I have tried that, but couldn't see more sales. I think it's more about what and how many, rather than when, you upload...
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Maybe I am imagining it, but I had the impression that if I upload 20-30 files on one day, I got a slightly better result than uploading 5 files a day. However spreading files out gives you a mix of reviewers and maybe better acceptance rates.
But just to upload something every week, that seems to be important.
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Maybe? its easy to imagine and guess anything as far as SS is concerned. One can become slightly paranoid :) the one thing I know for sure is, don't upload anything so that the weekend reviewers get their hands on it. Bound to get rejected!
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I'm still not sure where people get the sentiment that you need to "keep up" with SS. I haven't uploaded much to SS in the last few weeks and nothing has changed except an uptick in downloads. I don't think there is some conspiracy where SS down-rank older images and give favoritism to newly uploaded images.
I think it has more to do with other images getting more downloads, so they move up the rankings as opposed to SS move images down in rank to make place for newer images. It has everything do with competition and people need to accept the possibility that others may have better images than you do, causing your download numbers to suffer.
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I'm still not sure where people get the sentiment that you need to "keep up" with SS. I haven't uploaded much to SS in the last few weeks and nothing has changed except an uptick in downloads. I don't think there is some conspiracy where SS down-rank older images and give favoritism to newly uploaded images.
I think it has more to do with other images getting more downloads, so they move up the rankings as opposed to SS move images down in rank to make place for newer images. It has everything do with competition and people need to accept the possibility that others may have better images than you do, causing your download numbers to suffer.
Cannot agree more.