Quote from: Minsc on August 15, 2018, 02:00

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 15, 2018, 00:32

Quote from: Minsc on August 14, 2018, 23:25

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on August 14, 2018, 23:09

That's not been my experience. I only make about 3% of my monthly stock earnings from FT/AS.

Videos probably sells better in other agencies. For photos and vectors, FT/AS is the best from what I've experienced.

For most people I think SS still leads despite the gloom, capping, manipulation, near bankruptcy, incompetence and downright dastardliness.

There's definitely more potential on SS. My estimate is very rough, but I think SS gets at least 8-12x the total number of downloads across its entire portfolio compared to FT/AS on any given day. For bigger contributors, the ceiling is higher, but the competition is tougher. Older contributors also have an advantage over newer ones.

I think smaller and/or newer contributors can really make some noise on FT/AS. There's less competition and if you have the right type of portfolio, it can really thrive there.

I also have/had  a theory that Fotolia did better in the European market...not sure if thats so true anymore.

It isn't. EU sales went into oblivion. Credit sales completely gone.

About 60% of my sales are non-us

One of the tech bods told me that the US/Other income split is based on which portal that is used. AS = US and FT = Other. Whether this is correct I wouldn't like to say for sure. Maybe Mat could say?

As far as income. Been a couple of quiet weeks lately but also some really busy ones. Two of my busiest weeks at AS/FT have been in the last month. Last month was my best Jul for 2 years or more. This month is looking good (for August) and hopefully will also be well up on last year.

The thing is, around the UK and Europe, a lot of work holidays always have to be taken in July /Aug and in the UK, all the Schools are off at this time. Most business know they will have lower staff levels and therefore ease back on starting new projects until Sept. While this does not apply across the entire globe, it will have an impact on earnings so I just accept Jul & Aug have potential to be car crash income months....normally with a Boom before and after. It's just the way it is.

My weekly rank hasn't really changes that much (slight fluctuation), overall rank is still getting better.... probably improved more over the last 1-2 months that the previous 2.

All you can do is forget about it, focus on completing new projects and creating plenty of work to upload now and in the coming months!

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 15, 2018, 05:10

About 60% of my sales are non-us

One of the tech bods told me that the US/Other income split is based on which portal that is used. AS = US and FT = Other. Whether this is correct I wouldn't like to say for sure. Maybe Mat could say?

As far as income. Been a couple of quiet weeks lately but also some really busy ones. Two of my busiest weeks at AS/FT have been in the last month. Last month was my best Jul for 2 years or more. This month is looking good (for August) and hopefully will also be well up on last year.

The thing is, around the UK and Europe, a lot of work holidays always have to be taken in July /Aug and in the UK, all the Schools are off at this time. Most business know they will have lower staff levels and therefore ease back on starting new projects until Sept. While this does not apply across the entire globe, it will have an impact on earnings so I just accept Jul & Aug have potential to be car crash income months....normally with a Boom before and after. It's just the way it is.

My weekly rank hasn't really changes that much (slight fluctuation), overall rank is still getting better.... probably improved more over the last 1-2 months that the previous 2.

All you can do is forget about it, focus on completing new projects and creating plenty of work to upload now and in the coming months!

I've heard this theory with summer month each year, it maybe true for some but I never experienced it, at least on SS.
June, July this year were my BME in 6+ years and last year I only had lower sales in December.

Even with all the hiccups at SS, this August is normal, with just subs though and we still have half a month to go.

At AS however, my weekly dropped today from 6 to 4 and not a single new download.

 FT was my favorite, well earner but I don't think AS will ever come back for me so, it's time to move on.

Right now even DP is better.

Quote from: HalfFull on August 15, 2018, 05:39

Quote from: Pauws99 on August 15, 2018, 05:10

About 60% of my sales are non-us

One of the tech bods told me that the US/Other income split is based on which portal that is used. AS = US and FT = Other. Whether this is correct I wouldn't like to say for sure. Maybe Mat could say?

As far as income. Been a couple of quiet weeks lately but also some really busy ones. Two of my busiest weeks at AS/FT have been in the last month. Last month was my best Jul for 2 years or more. This month is looking good (for August) and hopefully will also be well up on last year.

The thing is, around the UK and Europe, a lot of work holidays always have to be taken in July /Aug and in the UK, all the Schools are off at this time. Most business know they will have lower staff levels and therefore ease back on starting new projects until Sept. While this does not apply across the entire globe, it will have an impact on earnings so I just accept Jul & Aug have potential to be car crash income months....normally with a Boom before and after. It's just the way it is.

My weekly rank hasn't really changes that much (slight fluctuation), overall rank is still getting better.... probably improved more over the last 1-2 months that the previous 2.

All you can do is forget about it, focus on completing new projects and creating plenty of work to upload now and in the coming months!

I've heard this theory with summer month each year, it maybe true for some but I never experienced it, at least on SS.
June, July this year were my BME in 6+ years and last year I only had lower sales in December.

Even with all the hiccups at SS, this August is normal, with just subs though and we still have half a month to go.

At AS however, my weekly dropped today from 6 to 4 and not a single new download.

 FT was my favorite, well earner but I don't think AS will ever come back for me so, it's time to move on.

Right now even DP is better.

July at SS was good for me, best it has been (for that month) for sometime, not far off $1k compared to a low of $600 last year. When looking at the Alexa rankings, it does show an increase in web traffic in July and continuing into August. That is after a low in June.

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/shutterstock.com

AS/FT has performed way better than SS for me, has done for the last 4-5 years. You say your weekly dropped by 6-4? Your weekly rank? 

Quote from: HalfFull on August 15, 2018, 11:18

July at SS was good for me, best it has been (for that month) for sometime, not far off $1k compared to a low of $600 last year. When looking at the Alexa rankings, it does show an increase in web traffic in July and continuing into August. That is after a low in June.

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/shutterstock.com

AS/FT has performed way better than SS for me, has done for the last 4-5 years. You say your weekly dropped by 6-4? Your weekly rank? 

Sorry, I was not clear, 6 downloads/week , "Sold this week: 6", now just 4. Not the rank, I wish...

I'm sorry to be blunt, Dodie, but when you only manage 6 sales a week, you can't extrapolate and declare a site dead, dead, dead.

6 downloads a week is just noise.

You should do at least 20 times better than this, to lift yourself above noise level and get some understanding of ranks, trends and site performance.

Quote from: Zero Talent on August 15, 2018, 22:10

I'm sorry to be blunt, Dodie, but when you only manage 6 sales a week, you can't extrapolate and declare a site dead, dead, dead.

6 downloads a week is just noise.

You should do at least 20 times better than this, to lift yourself above noise level and get some understanding of ranks, trends and site performance.

I don't mind you being blunt but you don't listen. Of course it is noise, not even that.

I never was such a big player like you but I am not talking about how much but about the direction things turned for me.

It has nothing to do with my "understanding of ranks, trends and site performance", AS simply doesn't perform as FT did and I am not alone in this situation. If it were my fault, other agencies would have tanked too.

I am not talking about event photos which normaly die, I am talking about evergreen subjects like food, which will never die. Photos that reached over 150 dls in a short time in 2015, now they don't exist.

The main reason for this is the lack of Eu market because food photos and not only are region specific (more or less). On SS almost all my sale are in EU and all around the world, just a few US sales.

Despite new uploads the trend is descending:

I can tell you now what triggered the decline for you. The closure of DPC.

This happened in April 2016 and that is when your sales dropped. I remember it well, I dropped about $300-$400 a month after they shut that down and took a while to stabilise and increase again after that. Despite all the negative comments it got, it did return good $'s each month for the couple of years or so it was there. I'd sign up again if it came back. 

Edit. The bouncing around from months to month in the 2nd half of 2016 was also due to DPC members having their remainder of credits/subscription transferred to an Adobe account. There was a lot of unhappy DPC customers who left after their credits etc ran out with AS/FT. In 2017, you're seeing the new reality and since then, you have been relatively stable with moderate swings.

I'd wager that your current month will be pants and then Sept will lift again once the summer recess is over, parents back to work and kids at school.

Adobe Stock has been doing fine for me - given summer is always a bit slow, but that's across the board.

What I took a look at was the US/non-US split in earnings for Adobe Stock versus SS, and, in a very limited way, versus what Fotolia used to be in 2007 (my last full year there before I went exclusive at iStock).

The percentage of non-US earnings has fallen significantly at Adobe Stock but is much higher and roughly unchanged at SS.

In 2017, my Adobe Stock non-US earnings averaged just under 28%, with a high of 43% and a low of 15%. For SS, that was average 51.5% with a high of 62% and a low of 39%

For August - only half a month so far, the Adobe Stock non-US earnings is 8.7% and the year so far averages 12%. That's quite a big change. Shutterstock is so far averaging 49.5% for Jan through July (they have been around 50% for as long as they've been reporting US/non-US earnings).

For amusement, for 2007, Fotolia had two months were there were only non-US earnings! That year's average was 87% non US earnings.

I find it really hard to build a decent sized portfolio on Adobe Stock. For one thing, they don't accept editorial and I shoot a heck of a lot of editorial. So there are a lot of photos I have that I cannot submit. And when I do submit photos, about half of them cannot go through due to some weird technical issue that nobody has a solution for. If I try and resubmit, they will still not go through. And with the images that do make it through, there is a very tough review process which rejects a fair few of my images. Though a fair few of my images are also accepted as well.

I don't get heaps of regular sales on AS but considering the tiny size of my portfolio on there, I'm actually surprised by the number of sales I do get. My portfolio on Dreamstime is over 3x larger than my port on AS and yet my sales on AS are a lot more 'regular' compared to DT. If ya had a large portfolio on AS, I think there'd be pretty good potential.

Quote from: dragonblade on August 17, 2018, 04:10

I find it really hard to build a decent sized portfolio on Adobe Stock. For one thing, they don't accept editorial and I shoot a heck of a lot of editorial. So there are a lot of photos I have that I cannot submit. And when I do submit photos, about half of them cannot go through due to some weird technical issue that nobody has a solution for. If I try and resubmit, they will still not go through. And with the images that do make it through, there is a very tough review process which rejects a fair few of my images. Though a fair few of my images are also accepted as well.

I don't get heaps of regular sales on AS but considering the tiny size of my portfolio on there, I'm actually surprised by the number of sales I do get.

My experience as well.
In addition Fotolia is the only site I get rejections for "lack of aesthetical or commercial value". At least they are very consistent with. Now I can foresee with 90% efficiency which files will be rejected. All images with dark-ugly-negative-disgusting subjects don't pass. Fotolia is "old microstock school" site loving happy jumping white teeth smiling women on exotic beach. It is their politics and I respect this. But there is a market they are missing as these images sell.

Yeah, I'm sure dark ugly disgusting images sell like hot cakes.