Funny how there used to be a race to publish the previous months results - now, not so much!

So I'll start. December was pretty lousy. After what had seemed like an endless run of months being better than the same month the year before, December dropped by $850 or so for me. Most sites were just poor and little of my holiday shots seemed to sell. However, I also did my annual review of 2018 on my blog and this graph stood out as a real sign of the future:


At this rate, I need to keep doubling my portfolio just to earn the same. Nothing new there, but the steadiness of the decline is the most worrying feature. No sign of a leveling off - just down and down.

Lets hope that 2019 is the year that pulls us out of this - although I can't think of what would cause that to happen, unfortunately.

My full results are here:
https://www.backyardsilver.com/2019/01/stock-photo-review-of-2018/

Happy new year to all...

Steve

Quote from: steheap on January 02, 2019, 11:07

Lets hope that 2019 is the year that pulls us out of this - although I can't think of what would cause that to happen, unfortunately.

Steve

The answer is in the question "I", yes you.  Follow the money, Premium and Exclusive content is where it is at, just hope it is not too late for the penny to drop, or are you waiting for your earnings to drop substantially before you jump.  It's time to stop selling good quality content cheap.

Happy New Year

well i would like t see all those premium content how much sell..im with some bouquet agency they sell nothing last year.....even stocksy am sure is not growing or selling a lot....if you check some portfolio you see many authors slowing down their uploading in stocksy too....the fact is that free image website are killing this industry. unspalsh file are download in million , and most are sale who don't go to micro stock or premium...a lot of enterprise or magazine prefer an unsplash file for free than spending thousand dollar....even apple use unspalsh file for big presentation and advertising content.
in my opinion the only way is released file , good and creative content with model released, files who still struggle to find their way in free image sites due to release document. for the rest is a drive to the end,,,my 2018 is better than 217 by only 15% despite lot of work and a grow of portfolio of 30%. i expected much more.

Thanks Jo Ann

I was thinking that exact question. Alamy "sort of" was that premium site, but because they took everything it had no sense of being higher quality or more exclusive. Some of the smaller agencies that are exclusive don't seem to get the sales (Robert Harding comes to mind) and I'm not really aware of other sites where you can rely on at least a steady income.

Always happy to learn, though!

Steve

Oh boy, trend line makes for depressing news

Oh boy, trend line makes for depressing news

It would be "news" if the trend had got worse or suddenly reversed. This is just a continuation of whats been happening for 4-5 years. Surely no one is surprised are they?

Here is some good news then!


I added some agency specific charts to my blog last night to see if all agencies were behaving the same. Thank goodness one of them was different! The intense variability in the past few months is partly because this is a monthly chart (the other was a quarterly average) and also that I uploaded a lot of files in the past 2 months that will be depressing the results a bit.

https://www.backyardsilver.com/2019/01/earnings-per-ounce-of-effort/

Steve

Adobe seems to be the only site making a serious effort. Showing sustained improvement for me and I'm not climbing the rankings so most must be doing well.

https://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/96070-yet-another-thief/ [nofollow]


Strange somebody selling stolen images from unsplash... and by the way indian... strange)) .. in the last year hundred of indian account with stolen images .

You made me actually go out and search for some of my images on unsplash.... I don�t have a lot so this is easy, but there search is horrible. Try searching some of your images, the results are just terrible

Guess this could be a good thing though, not for them, and not for me looking for stolen photos but I can see it being frustrating from a customer perspective.



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Quote from: rwslippey on May 13, 2019, 09:04

Quote from: jonbull on January 03, 2019, 13:24

https://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/96070-yet-another-thief/ [nofollow]


Strange somebody selling stolen images from unsplash... and by the way indian... strange)) .. in the last year hundred of indian account with stolen images .

You made me actually go out and search for some of my images on unsplash.... I don�t have a lot so this is easy, but there search is horrible. Try searching some of your images, the results are just terrible

Guess this could be a good thing though, not for them, and not for me looking for stolen photos but I can see it being frustrating from a customer perspective.



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I took a look at Unsplash and it's actually stupid funny. Three word descriptions, most are wrong, many others are somewhat like the spam uploads on SS, "man, taking, photo" Really, wow what an important description to make the photo show in a search?  Red car on white background. And since I looked at cars, they have a F1 car listed as Go Cart, an Indy Car listed as F1 car, and some that say things like time lapse of car, which isn't a time lapse but a panning blur.

So for someone slow, why would anyone put anything up on that site? I mean people who actually took the photos not some thief or maybe someone looking for likes or something? Why?

I'd consider posting something there that's terrible, as a joke? Or maybe... OK just the one question, why would anyone upload to that site?

Our Culture has changed for the worse I�m afraid. It�s not more important to get �likes� and retweets than it is is to earn a living and support a family. So to answer your question, I think the primary motivation is social acceptance. The hatred of capitalism has spread so badly that people actually think they are social justice warriors by giving away what they worked to produce.

I�d be curious to see the percentage that are actually stolen.... I thought about it to, how long do you think the site will last? They don�t seem to be very interested in dealing with DMCA, just the attitude I got from reading their site on the subject. And what do people get from buying images from SS or others and putting them up on a free site? I can see trying to sell, wrong, but at least it�s logical.

I searched for a complete title of one of my images and got completely unrelated images. For instance, a search for valley forge returned

-a bird
-a tree line with skyline
- another bird
-a few welders
-An actual forge (like the metal working forge.... which makes sense... )
-a city in Italy

The birds aren�t even in an identifiable location, so Valley Forge isn�t even logical there.

And looking at the names of the descriptions, �man holding welding rod�.  Where in the world did their search get forge out of that!

I won�t even get started on the City in Italy because it�s way off base.




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It's not all doom & gloom...

Latest May 2019 Earnings Report:

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2019/05/31/may-2019-brutally-honest-earnings-report/

Congratulations. Very grateful for this thread in the forum and for your blog. Thank you.

Latest June 2019 Earnings Report, including the nomination of the coveted "Turd of the Month Award":

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2019/06/29/june-2019-brutally-honest-earnings-report/

Quote from: Brasilnut on June 01, 2019, 04:59

It's not all doom & gloom...

Latest May 2019 Earnings Report:

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2019/05/31/may-2019-brutally-honest-earnings-report/

Very nice and informative. May I ask if most of your iStock collection was submitted as a non-exclusive?

I'll just mention, if you look under his messages, there is a row of agencies he submits to. He can't be an iStock exclusive. 

You don't see mine, for example, because I don't choose to disclose, but Brasilnut shows his.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on June 29, 2019, 09:14

Quote from: wds on June 29, 2019, 09:05

Quote from: Brasilnut on June 01, 2019, 04:59

It's not all doom & gloom...

Latest May 2019 Earnings Report:

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2019/05/31/may-2019-brutally-honest-earnings-report/

Very nice and informative. May I ask if most of your iStock collection was submitted as a non-exclusive?

I'll just mention, if you look under his messages, there is a row of agencies he submits to. He can't be an iStock exclusive. 

You don't see mine, for example, because I don't choose to disclose, but Brasilnut shows his.

But if he was iStock exclusive in the past, the photos submitted as an exclusive would still be selling at a higher price and generate more revenue.

Didn't know someone could do that. You mean old exclusive images, which aren't anymore are paid at a higher rate, even thought we could upload someplace else? And they stay as exclusive. I wouldn't have imagined that. No I was never an IS exclusive. JoAnn would know best... she was exclusive and changed.

Now the question becomes interesting.