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kgb224 · Joined: 21 Jun 2008 Posts: 463 Location: Pretoria,Gauteng

After six days my first sale for August.
Not such a good start for me this month.

martyhaas · Joined: 25 Apr 2007 Posts: 148

Who has time to download photos when the Olympics are beckoning for our attention every waking hour?

rixie · Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 3433 Location: Hampshire, UK

July was down for me, with the week before last being the lowest this year. Last week picked up a bit and this week is maintaining that sort of level - but Friday was the worst day in ages, with sales only being that of an average Saturday. I am nowhere near down the 50-60% that the thread title mentions but, I am down, and it is disheartening.

I think my European sales are down in particular, and I am hoping that this is just a combination of Olympics and August holidays. Sales of new images are also way down. I think that recent search changes are playing a big part in this downturn, (as it is much more pronounced this year than in previous years), but I am hoping that Shutterstock will have the good sense to complete any changes/experiments/maintenance they are doing, before the traditional sales upturn starts in September.

rixie · Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 3433 Location: Hampshire, UK

semmickphoto · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:18 am

But if this is the case, all photos we submit now, are burried under a million new photos by the time everbody goes back to work.

Should we as contributors slow down with submitting in the vacation period too?

rixie · Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 3433 Location: Hampshire, UK

baz777 · Joined: 03 Dec 2008 Posts: 3441 Location: No idea, I'm old!

Picked up a bit today with 4 OD's

adigrosu · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 6:17 am

Craptacular. I'm not even in the mood to give you details. And don't give me the famous two rules of Dave, it has nothing to do with it, but with the damn "relevant" thing.

baz777 · Joined: 03 Dec 2008 Posts: 3441 Location: No idea, I'm old!

Just picked up a bit more with an £18.00 SD :)

My highest value SD to date.

hhltdave5 · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 6:51 am

My start of August is up about 60% from last August (comparing first week to first week). I also took July 2012 and compared it to July 2011 and I was up 10%.

Some people are going to have an up month compared to last month or last year and some are going to have a down month.

I know they have been mucking around with the search algorithms and there have been some serious issues and bugs and I wish they would just fix it already so so many people would not have to worry if that is why sales may be down. But, as I said some have sales that are up and some that are about the same. And no, I will not give my famous two rules of stock photography.

I just don't make myself crazy trying to figure out something when I do not have all of the data needed to make a decision. Do I wonder why they are messing with things? Yes. Do I want them to know our concerns about it? Yes. Should we stay on it till it does get fixed or we get an answer? Yes. I just refuse to let it put me in a rubber room with nothing sharper than a crayon to write with.

Ron to your question about slowing down submitting till everyone gets back from vacation? Not going to work. What happens when all those people start submitting again? Talk about people being pissed about slow review times and then you will have the same problem with all the images hitting the database around the same time. They are still going to get buried. That is if you can get everyone to follow the game plan which ain't gonna happen.

robhainer · Joined: 03 May 2010 Posts: 2746 Location: Dallas, GA, USA

Just keep uploading; it's all you can do. Let the sales take care of themselves.

I actually compared the first week of July to the first week of August, and my total downloads are up in August. July was a BME for me. I'm just missing some of the EL money that I got in July, but you can't really count on ELs. They're just little extra presents. Steady wins the race.

red06 · Joined: 05 Feb 2007 Posts: 1283

I think you need a new rule some years are up some years are down.

chris56 · Joined: 28 Feb 2006 Posts: 734 Location: Stockholm, London

True! nothing to do with Olympics or holidays. Its the Search change, relevant, thats the culprit and since day 1, of introduction. sad.

nder · Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2012 1:59 am

Yep ... some of my most popular images just stopped selling at all, so I guess they weren't 'relevant'. :(

Still, taking into account the current state of economy, I'm really glad Shutterstock and other micros are doing OK. It could be worst. Much, much worst.

red06 · Joined: 05 Feb 2007 Posts: 1283

well without writing a novel here are my simple closing thoughts to this thread.

In the end SS is so awesome and great I must go on the belief that I have control and I can improve on my SS sales with even more new images.

ss rocks woohoo.