It's great to see everyone doing so well with their own sites and I hope it continues.  Congratulations to you all!  I haven't bothered myself due to lack of time and uncertainty over the return on effort but you almost have me convinced.

I think tickstock and Xanox have some valid questions that it would be interesting to have answered.  On the micros we report total sales as our profit since our costs are zero for the sites.  However, for self hosted if you make $50 a month but it costs you that much in charges then you haven't made anything.  I assume people are reporting their total sales on self-hosted sites but that is not directly comparable to what we are reporting for the micros where we have no additional expenses.  To fix that, it would be better for self-hosted to be reported as net after monthly expenses, rather than total.  Then the numbers can be compared directly and if the numbers are still high then it would look very favorable.  The problem of a few high earners skewing the results would remain but that occurs also for the micros so I don't see that as a major issue.

If the government furlough continues much longer I will have plenty of time so it might be a good chance to get my own site started - plus I will actually need the money instead of it being just a nice addition.

Quote from: cthoman on October 03, 2013, 13:12

My theory would be that there are a dozen or half dozen people similar to me. There are a few Illustrators out there who are likely candidates. I don't know who votes on the poll though because some of them only pop in here now and again. Then, there a bunch of people that sell one or two images a month, but they sell them for at least $10 a piece (as opposed to 50 cents a piece like at Big Stock or 123RF).

There might be a giant whale out there (does that count as a fish?), but I think it is probably just a lot of individuals having modest success growing their business.

If 12 out of 50 respondents are doing as well as you then the numbers would work out but I'm curious where the other 11 are?

You're anonymous - why shouldn't they be?

Quote from: ShadySue on October 03, 2013, 15:19

Quote from: tickstock on October 03, 2013, 13:22

Quote from: cthoman on October 03, 2013, 13:12

My theory would be that there are a dozen or half dozen people similar to me. There are a few Illustrators out there who are likely candidates. I don't know who votes on the poll though because some of them only pop in here now and again. Then, there a bunch of people that sell one or two images a month, but they sell them for at least $10 a piece (as opposed to 50 cents a piece like at Big Stock or 123RF).

There might be a giant whale out there (does that count as a fish?), but I think it is probably just a lot of individuals having modest success growing their business.

If 12 out of 50 respondents are doing as well as you then the numbers would work out but I'm curious where the other 11 are?

You're anonymous - why shouldn't they be?

I'm not saying they shouldn't be anonymous, I'm saying I haven't seen anyone (by that I mean anyone, anonymous or not) besides cthoman post that they have made more than even $100 per month let alone $500.  Look in the symbiostock thread, there are people reporting their first or second sales of 5-10 dollars for the most part, no one there is posting that they are even at the average.

True, but we never know who is posting what (i.e. true or not) in the poll. Like I said, I was for a while posting both iS and Alamy figures, but that put me in iS indie, so now I only post iS, but that nixes my Alamy figures. Not that either of these would impress anyone.

Added: Although not as bad as my dial implies. Why does it keep reverting?

Are we allowed to enjoy the results now? Do we have your blessing?

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which site?

See my signature.

Quote from: EmberMike on October 03, 2013, 15:54

I think people are thinking way too much about poll results. The poll is a very broad picture of what's going on out there. Remember it isn't that precise, it can be manipulated (no one has to prove they earned what they said they did), and it's capped (you can't enter anything above $2500).

So keeping in mind that the poll isn't perfect, nor could it ever be, I don't see why anyone would look at it and think one way or the other about Self-Hosted. Some people may be doing ok, some not so much, but you'd be hard-pressed to draw any real substantial conclusions about if it's worthwhile or not.

For me, it's worthwhile. I made $80 today on my site. Think I'll stick with it.

So you're the one making all the money.  Good job.

Whew! Mystery solved. Mike has all the money.

Seriously though, I think you are reading too much into all the little crumbs of facts and figures people are dropping.

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Much as we would all like it to be, this is not really statistically valid in the same way the number for IS exclusives is not valid.  The ranking over on the right is generally reasonable because it represents the same cross-section of contributors across the sites.  Both the IS and self-hosted numbers represent a relatively elite subset of contributors whose numbers are not diluted by the great unwashed.  A more accurate result would be obtained by, for example, extracting the SS and self-hosted numbers for those who report earnings on both and deriving the self-hosted result based on the resulting % of ss performance.  Not an option for exclusives unfortunately.

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To license your entire portfolio on symbiostock at Large size would cost me $12,000.

If you get interested in www.clipartillustration.com get in touch with me and we can make a deal I can sell you my entire orange man collection for $500 as opposed to the huge amount otherwise. Buying in bulk works to both of our interests

Edit - silly me - I already have a deal like that up -- http://www.clipartillustration.com/image/complete-clipart-illustration-collection-of-the-orange-man-series/

Quote from: heywoody on October 03, 2013, 17:21

Much as we would all like it to be, this is not really statistically valid in the same way the number for IS exclusives is not valid.  The ranking over on the right is generally reasonable because it represents the same cross-section of contributors across the sites.  Both the IS and self-hosted numbers represent a relatively elite subset of contributors whose numbers are not diluted by the great unwashed.  A more accurate result would be obtained by, for example, extracting the SS and self-hosted numbers for those who report earnings on both and deriving the self-hosted result based on the resulting % of ss performance.  Not an option for exclusives unfortunately.

Why are istock exclusive numbers not statistically valid?
Because the numbers only include istock exclusives of course.

When you figure out a way to include non-exclusives in the exclusive numbers and make it more statistically valid then the poll get back to us will ya.

Not valid in that you can't really infer relative performance as the average IS exclusive contributor would have sales that put him / her probably in the top 10% of contributors generally.  As to how to make it more representative, I believe I said you couldn't.  Mind you, RPI might give a better picture but only a bit better because it would only remove the port size element of the equation, not the commercial performance of the images.