Lefty, I never once put down any new photographers.  I think you are reading what you want to see, and looking for an argument where there is none.  My only point was to say that someone with a high rejection rate who hasn't yet reached their first payout is probably losing faith in microstock during this downturn, and that it is possible we will lose some contributors over time.

There are plenty of "real" looking ordinary people in microstock. 

Problem is they are nearly impossible to find, drowned as they are in a sea of Yuri's and Monkeybusiness's  perfect looking, cookie cutter images. 

If the micro sites don't find a way in their search engines to allow the real people type images to see the light of day, they will continue to lose buyers to Flikr and the like.   And adding the keyphrase "real people" isn't helpful because buyers don't know to search for it. 

Agree.

Lefty is using a Kodak Instamatic,  1982 model, typical neewbie stuff.

ha!ha! very funny. And for 60% on Istock and close to 80% on others mine performance must be incomparable.

Lefty, everyone is your competitor in this game. It doesn't matter a  what they think of you or me or newbies or old-times. What we try to do on this forum is try to understand what is happening in our marketplace.

If you want to kick the old-timers, go and take sales off them by outclassing them. Newbie or not, that will get you their respect (but not their love).

Competition stiff bring out sometime not so nice reaction. Even we see in simple match of wit or simple fun tournament tennis, football, hockey. Not unexpected too in micro stock. Maybe I write to sound I come in here
to pick war with old timers but no, I read with seriousness the situation. I understand too some people get overreaction like me too. But make no mistake I am not out to bash you Pauliewalnut or any oldies.
Only looking for idea to get behind real reason for slumping or is it only for oldie.
Be new I am that my treatment of a newbie is only month to month exceed expectation. So is surprise
there is slumpage. Maybe when I am ten year old in microstock comparing today obvious will be slumpage
. All business in slumpage over 10 years picture retroactive.
Only cigarette, alcohol, and drugs do not face slumpage.  So natural to see slumpage for long term comparision.

I thank all that it is reality to face bigger task to success in microstock than 5, 6,7,10 years ago.
So happy to know stiff competition is for the future continuing.

I will continue take pictures with Instamatic and try mantain approval of more than 20%  , ha!ha!

Quote from: lefty on August 24, 2010, 11:43

Only looking for idea to get behind real reason for slumping or is it only for oldie.
Be new I am that my treatment of a newbie is only month to month exceed expectation. So is surprise
there is slumpage.

That's an interesting point. Newcomers will still see the rapid rise in sales as they increase their portfolios by a huge percentage each month. So that will give them encouragement.

What happens later on, Lefty, is that you have, say, 2,000 photos online and it takes a huge effort and a lot of time to increase that by 50%. If the earnings per file are falling by two or three percent a month, then a large contributor can barely keep pace with it - you may have to add 50 or 100 photos a month just to stand still.

The new contributor, with say 100 photos online, can increase his portfolio size by 50% in a month, with a bit of luck. If the sales are falling 3%, all he will notice is a 47% increase in earnings.

The bigger your portfolio gets, the harder it is to increase your earnings and the more obvious any slump becomes.

Much appreciation . You are a good person . I can tell from your response.

And for your insight, I realise that, as I read always in spite of other insistance of volume, people like sjlocke stress the contrary to focus on quality not quantity.  So yes, I am no big hurry to reach 10,000 images. I don't have that factory production or patience to churn out volume. But yes , I take sjlocke insistence very seriously, forget playing numbers game and pay more attention to quality.

Thank you again BaldricksTrousers.
by way, last, BT what a funny name you got. Where does it come from?

FWIW I have had 4 consecutive solid week days at iStockphoto, and today is my best DL day since June 16. 

this is going to be my bme after a full year on is.

They must have flipped a switch or something (or someone kicked the server) because things suddenly look better this week. Not great, but much better than the last six weeks or so!

Its been a bumpy few weeks on IS. I'd mainly attribute this to the changes made to the site. I think until everything is settled again we'll see a few more weeks where sales will be inconsistent, though hopefully the worst is behind us.

I made the switch last month to exclusivity after 4+ years as an independent. I've now started to use my upload quota to try to build my IS portfolio to the numbers that the other sites had, so in a sense its really early days. This month it looks like I'll get to about 75% of my total pre-exclusive income. Bearing in mind that I still only have less than 50% of my old SS portfolio on IS, so far I'm not unhappy with the switch. 

Yes!  I noticed a bit of sales increase as well and in the right direction,  maybe the summertime blues is over.

Summertime???  here in Sweden its been bloody rain from start to finish.

I seem to have flatlined all summer but then I haven't uploaded anything. So shutterstocks fall from not uploading has been covered by istock still growing. I think i may have got lucky but can't find the motivation to crank back up again! It's definitely true as my port grows uploading doesn't increase sales. zero motivation and the summer rain is relentless in the uk too!

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on August 27, 2010, 04:14

Quote from: lagereek on August 27, 2010, 01:58

Summertime???  here in Sweden its been bloody rain from start to finish.

You'll be relieved to know it is almost over, then, and you have autumn to look forward to 

As it happens Autumn in Sweden is a lovely season, really colorful stuff. My second home is in the UK, London and Cornwall and boy, even more rain every single day.

I'm starting to think that London is Atlantis. We havnt had a classic blue sky stock day where the light is perfect for weeks.

Its been a bumpy few weeks on IS. I'd mainly attribute this to the changes made to the site. I think until everything is settled again we'll see a few more weeks where sales will be inconsistent, though hopefully the worst is behind us.

I made the switch last month to exclusivity after 4+ years as an independent. I've now started to use my upload quota to try to build my IS portfolio to the numbers that the other sites had, so in a sense its really early days. This month it looks like I'll get to about 75% of my total pre-exclusive income. Bearing in mind that I still only have less than 50% of my old SS portfolio on IS, so far I'm not unhappy with the switch. 

I did the same at the end of july so it's only my 2nd month as exclusive and I'm heading for my 2nd best month of the year for earnings. I did not have much time to upload with the new quotas with the new baby born 3 weeks ago but I intend to grow my portfolio more this fall.

As for the summer slump, earning per download is a LOT higher but the number of downloads is still a bit slow. Way better this week though as someone pointed out. Let's hope it will pick up with the autumn rush.