Yes the saying is "don't bite the hand that feeds you" which doesn't apply since contributors actually feed the hand in this case.  Sales are not going well at IS and the top 20 exclusives are noticing and reporting concerns which is my point.  Which further puts the comment at odds with a normal response.   

How ironic when you also consider how they treated contributors that were also buyers!

Back to the OP. How are people's sales going in October? Mine are still well into the doldrums: fewer sales than June - Sept and most sales at smaller sizes. My fist half of October was worse than half the $$ of any other month this year, yet traditionally Oct and Nov should be good months. (Actually, last year my October sales dipped after Sept, but this year is even worse.)

So far this month is going very well - for me my figures are already above June's totals. It looks like the weighting has shifted a lot more to newer files, so no doubt many of those with a large percentage of older files are going to be impacted. I think there has been a bit of a return to Vetta and agency as well in the last week or so.

For me, whenever they are updating TS sales, my regular DLs will slow down.

Does anyone see this trend?

It was reasonably good for Monday and Tuesday, but today it doesn't look promising.

Quote from: ShadySue on October 19, 2011, 06:35

Back to the OP. How are people's sales going in October? Mine are still well into the doldrums: fewer sales than June - Sept and most sales at smaller sizes. My fist half of October was worse than half the $$ of any other month this year, yet traditionally Oct and Nov should be good months. (Actually, last year my October sales dipped after Sept, but this year is even worse.)

So far this month is going very well - for me my figures are already above June's totals. It looks like the weighting has shifted a lot more to newer files, so no doubt many of those with a large percentage of older files are going to be impacted. I think there has been a bit of a return to Vetta and agency as well in the last week or so.

Wow that's pretty good I'm just over half as many sales as June.  I wouldn't say sales are bad but they could be better, especially for this time of year.  I took a break from uploading for a little while but hopefully I'll get between 500-1000 up before the end of the year.  Oh yeah try to stay dry, you're in Thailand still right?

It was reasonably good for Monday and Tuesday, but today it doesn't look promising.

I will second this part. Monday and Tuesday were very nice. And Wednesday was crap where I got only downloads from older files. This makes me think of a new best match change. It's slow at the moment.

Down 100% from every other month ever. 

Ditto.   

Something has happened as my sales have slumped again. They have been quite reasonable the last couple of weeks.

Two (2) dls today. There's only so much lower it can go. 

BS still doesn't make 10% of what I get from iStock. Either you are doing really well at BS or incredibly badly at IS

Here is what I see happening with the iStock best match.  Over the past days they are using it to churn the whole image collection.  The bad news is my sales are down.  The good news is I am selling images that haven't seen a single sale in years.  Perhaps they still have value but were heretofor buried.  Maybe some of my images that were lost on the bottom of the pile will get another chance at life. I can only hope this results in more sales later.

Earnings are really grim.  Never had an October there like this, it's usually a strong month.  The only good news is that it looks like being another BME with SS.

Sept and October are better than most previous  months. Feb March and June were my best months this year.  I should about hit last years royalties if things go on like they are in Sept and Oct.  Signed, small fish.

BS still doesn't make 10% of what I get from iStock. Either you are doing really well at BS or incredibly badly at IS

You got it. IS has dumped so bad in the past three months that BigStock is now bringing in more downloads and money. Something I never thought was possible.

I'll put it into perspective, I made more with my first download on IS the first month I was accepted, than I did for the whole month of September on sub downloads from ThinkStock + IS combined. I have many more images now and instead of growing the sales and income have been falling. The drop in commission isn't the major concern to do with the bottom line, what has changed month after month is less downloads on IS and no change on ThinkStock. In other words, IS is the problem, not stolen sales, but still it could explain why the same pictures have been selling for years are now getting no downloads at all? And this isn't timley, trendy or stylish stuff, just some isolations and cutouts.

Anyone have any idea why? Customers gone like CC said, seems to make the most sense.