It took me about 7 years, shooting only parttime. I didnt burn out because i was tired of shooting stock, i burned out because i was tired of being taken advantage of by the stock agencies. It lasted 7 years because i started early in microstock history. Today, i am sure it would take less time, and not even sure i would bother. It costs money to buy equipment, props, hire models, pay for travel, etc. At anywhere from .33 per image down to .02 cents per image now at some places, it just isnt worth it.

The only exception to that is if you are shooting other things like weddings, or shooting macrostock, and you use micro as just one more marketing tool. In other words, if you are a fulltime photographer and support yourself with income from work besides micro, i cant imagine burnout.

If you are only shooting microstock, my guess would be a couple of years now. When you start spending money then realize it will take you years for ROI, well...

For me just the opposite. I love ever minute of stock photography.  I keep making money photographing what i want to shoot. Yes maybe the money is less now but i am doing what i want to do. The 33 cents to even 2 cents add up. Everyone in this industry seems to only complain about how the sites do them wrong.  I say please just quit stock photography and work at Walmart or something.  I will keep getting the 33 cents which add up for me. Do the math and see how much money each sellable  image has made you . Some of your images will sell and some might not. The ones that do sell will add up , even 33 cents. For the rest of your just retire and go to work at Walmart. For me i love making money and knowing that my images are used and published all over the world.   

I love doing stock.

It feels very rewarding that strangers that I will never meet use my images in projects I will never see. Even when I am long gone my files will keep circling the globe being used somewhere.

I am focussing more on macrostock or specialized agencies for photos, but have some themes that continue to do well on microstock.

I have also fallen in love with video and at the moment the average download is higher than for photos. But processing and uploading 4k takes a lot of time.

To prevent burnout, I turn to editorial video and photos.

Look at events going on in my city or drive to a new place and try to capture that.

But for me stock is the best thing ever and now we have so many different agencies and styles, you can sell anything.

How many years does it take for a microstocker to run into a burn-out syndrom?
 
And how to overcome it? To take a break? For how long?

How to overcome a creativity block?

Any experience?

If I was still making money and seeing growth from my efforts I may not have burnt out. I quit about three years ago after five years of submitting. When I first started, I got really motivated when I saw revenue increasing consistently when I added new images. It was awesome for a few years until the plateau hit and then the drop. The hamster wheel. I still experiment with stuff like mobile to see if there's anything new that makes it worth my time but haven't found it yet. I spend my time producing stuff outside of micro where I still find profits and growth. I also license my own stuff through my site.

Like Mantis said, things are shifting. Up until a few years ago equipment and quality requirements were so high it prevented a lot of people from entering micro. Now the requirements are so low that anyone with a cellphone can join micro which opened up the competition floodgates to just about anyone anywhere in the world. And micros will continue squeezing people until they find that fine line where taking away too much negatively affects their financials. Hasn't happened yet and there's no bottom in sight.

Wish it wasn't this way because in the beginning I was so excited. I actually thought I could live off of this with just a few thousand images. Now I'd need tens of thousands and it's not viable.

Never had burn out syndrom. We are shooting stock video full time. Me and my girlfriend are doing it on daily basis and live just fine from it. It was easier to buy better equipment when we had full-time jobs and doing stocks part-time, but you forgot about relationship. So we dropped jobs and doing stock full-time. We enjoy it, because we work whenever we si it fit. When we have an idea to shoot, we shoot. We have a lot of stuff still waiting to be edited, and even much more to be tagged (still tagging some last year stuff). We perfected the flow of work, it's just the matter of what you feel to work each day. Our part-time work is finding some new niches to grow some new funds.

I make a living on micros since 5 years. In my country there is unemployment all over and the chances for decent employment dropped to zero in some areas, which means I am entirely dependent on my creativity. I am happy with every single cent in any hard currency.
I am doing illustrations only, I don�t need expensive equipment, models, studio and so on. A simple notebook and some open source software is all what I need. Going through the images I started with years ago, I am getting self-doubts, gosh, what kind of crap. And the crap made money, what kind of a miracle. Micros and a piece of land around the house for vegetables are feeding me and my family pretty well.
What I am only worried is: will I run short of creativity one day?

You may or may not run out of creativity. But one thing is certain that applies to everybody. Micro sites will continue to squeeze contributors by dropping commissions, removing benefits, or coming up with vague new licensing schemes that are a disadvantage to contributors until it financially hurts them. Which means contributors are leaving in waves every time there's a squeeze. Eventually things may drop to a point where it's no longer worth your time. That's been the trend. At some point image factories may take over where people are getting paid $1 a day to crank out hundreds of images per person and the market will be so flooded that few independent contributors will be making enough money to be profitable regardless of where you live. This is the nature of business. Walmartstock.

I quit shooting micro over a year ago, because of declining returns, but also because the future - subs, 'packages', giveaways - was obvious.  No offense guys, but in my math, 33 cents never adds up to anything.    Let's not even talk about 2.

Obviously there are people who would do this for nothing, at least for some period in their lives; and I think they'll get the chance. 

I am a noob and i am trying to get into stock and I dont understand what its happening. I see people complain about revenue and that they stopped producing years ago and my question is why are they still here wasting time on this forums ? I dont mean to be rude but something does not sound right to me ....

I still have photos on sale at a couple of agencies, so I watch developments.  You never stop hoping for a miracle, some new agency that does things really different but actually makes some sales.  It's not likely anytime soon.  Many former posters here are gone.   There's also discussion here about POD sites and I'm active in that.

Really, the OP's question was about burnout, right? So, I'm a burnout and gave my response.

Quote from: Mantis on November 27, 2016, 09:46

Quote from: cathyslife on November 27, 2016, 09:32

It took me about 7 years, shooting only parttime. I didnt burn out because i was tired of shooting stock, i burned out because i was tired of being taken advantage of by the stock agencies. It lasted 7 years because i started early in microstock history. Today, i am sure it would take less time, and not even sure i would bother. It costs money to buy equipment, props, hire models, pay for travel, etc. At anywhere from .33 per image down to .02 cents per image now at some places, it just isnt worth it.

The only exception to that is if you are shooting other things like weddings, or shooting macrostock, and you use micro as just one more marketing tool. In other words, if you are a fulltime photographer and support yourself with income from work besides micro, i cant imagine burnout.

If you are only shooting microstock, my guess would be a couple of years now. When you start spending money then realize it will take you years for ROI, well...

Same for me.  I haven't shot any planned studio work in well over a year.  A few video shots to test equipment, but other than that it's been shooting what I enjoy and just uploading that non-stocky stuff.  I have zip motivation to produce good, usable content for micro stock. The agencies have become so greedy and gutter bent on subs that I, like many, have given up the chase.  I will start shooting again after the first of the year but more to start building a site.  I am also going to get more serious about video where the pay is better than stills. 

Someone posted one key truth about the content of micros and that is the quality of the content will be, more or less, sustained by people in third world countries where $800 a month is a nice living.  Such of their work is very well done, images and illustrations.  They will own micros and micros will keep cutting to tenth of pennies and they will be fine with it.  I'm not. My cost of living is greater than theirs and that forces me into looking for new revenue streams that pay more. It's happening now. No longer a guess as to where micros are going.

Actually for $800 a month being OK earning you don't have to go to "third world countries". Even in the eastern parts of the EU there are countries with millions of people who would do almost anything for that kind of income.

Thanks for the added insights.

I am a noob and i am trying to get into stock and I dont understand what its happening. I see people complain about revenue and that they stopped producing years ago and my question is why are they still here wasting time on this forums ? I dont mean to be rude but something does not sound right to me ....

You'll also see war veterans meet up long after the war is over... Some people just like to hang out together and talk about their glory days. Glory days, when they were younger and ELs at Shutterstock were as common as sunny days... And when you were getting instant downloads...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vQpW9XRiyM

My sunny days are now!!!!!!!!

I've been doing this for 2 years now and it's normal to have some burn out every now and then. I haven't been discouraged, just pushed myself too hard and needing a break to get my senses together. I keep a long list of ideas and I'm constantly trying to go through it, but everywhere I go, everything I see gives me ideas. It's uphill battle to clear my plate.

The only time I really burned out was doing something else; making a game. That took me about 8 months and 1000 hours. Burned out multiple times. After going through that craziness, microstock is a walk in the park by comparison.