6 Reasons Why Microstock Earning Will be Down in 2015

Microstock sales has been on a declining trend since the middle of 2014. It looks like this dreadful trend will continue to 2015 and more. Below are 5 reasons why this downtrend will continue.

1. The strengthening of US dollar against Euro and other currencies may seems to be positive thing at first. But in reality, buyers are taking a major hit. European, being the biggest buyers of microstock is having a tough time as Euro has hit 11 year low vs the USD. This means, buyers will be buying less stock images because it is much more expensive now. So far, my number of sales has gone down by about 30%.

2. More and more well establish stock factories are producing amazing number of qualities images everyday. To be honest, I am not sure if they could actually cover up the expenses to produce these images given the golden era is over, but this intense competition is not a good thing for lone ranger like us.

3. Another bad news would be iStock HQ is being moved from Canada to USA now. This means, we will have to pay 30% tax to US government if the purchase is being made from USA. Moving forward, I predict my earning will be at least 10% less from iStock now.

4. Stock agencies are getting more and more sneaky by manipulating numbers and playing with their system to benefit themselves more than us, the contributors. Cutting royalties, and introducing confusing sales packages and partners site are some examples of such manipulations.

5. Microstock is now being treated as commodities. The prices are getting hammered due to stock agencies pricing war. Nobody win in this situation, except the buyers. 

6. Smaller agencies such as CanStockPhoto, Crestock, GraphicLeftovers, and GraphicRiver are starting to feel the pressure with lack of regular sales. Inactivity is the scariest thing for Internet business. Check out all the 0 sales for new vectors at GraphicRiver http://graphicriver.net/category/vectors?page=1. It is very demoralizing to see such sight. With the weakening of smaller agencies, bigger agencies will soon take even more control. This is not a good thing.

As a conclusion, I predict 2015 will be a pretty bad year for us. There will be a lot of contributors giving up this year. It may no longer be worthy to be a stock vector artist now. In 2009, you can make $100/month. In 2015, you can only make $10/month with the same images.

Why are Microstock Contributors Always Angry

Microstock contributors have always been angry, but we have got our reasons why.

1. Agencies have been treating us badly. They cut royalty whenever they feel like it. We have almost never got a raise, but pay-cut is on the corner every so often. Is not fair.
2. Agencies randomly reject our submissions. So much effort and so much hope - yet they reject it nonsensically. Is unreasonable.
3. So many copy-cats out there. They copy with the thickest face ever. They copy it blindly. They copy the titles and keywords too. They have got no shame. Is crazy.
4. So many new agencies appear throughout the years. We have helped. We have submitted. We have hope. But we have got no downloads. Is a total waste of time. 
5. So many spammers in our world. Icon warriors, marijuana-guy, yogurt-man, and bla bla bla. Check these spammers out at MicrostockGroup.com. Why do agencies even treat them with love? Why why why?
6. We work so hard. We work like crazy. We dont get to sleep. Why is our works not getting a sale? Is demoralizing. 
7. Agencies love to play around with their partners and somehow, we get an unfair cut. We are so helpless. 
8. Agencies have been treating us like commodities. We have very little faith in them and in ourselves now. 
9. So many people use our works without paying. So many of them never buy the right license. So many of them got away. Just so many.
10. So many mother fuckers took our images and post them for free. Is demonic. 
11. There are so many hate, jealousy, sarcasm, bullies, and, copy-cats among us. Many dont feel like posting anymore.

Finally some Good News in these Gloomy Days of Microstock Industry

Extremely heavy competition among contributors, sales drop despite heavy uploading, tricky stock agencies manipulating our royalties, and the devaluation of our stock vectors and photos have been among all the bad news we have had in the past 2 years. We are demoralized by all these and got very fed up. Every other time when a stock agency wrote to us, we will be expecting for another cut. Not this time, though :)

First, ever since Adobe has taken over Fotolia, good news have been limping over and over again for contributors. Adobe raised our royalty ranking to one level higher for everyone - a very generous move. This is a big increase to our overall earning. Apart from that, Adobe has "cut ties" with the ludicrous DPC (DollarPhotoClub). I have also been witnessing an increase of Extended License and total number of sales at Fotolia too. I really hope this trend can continue for a longer period of time. 

Secondly today, IStock-Getty is giving us a raise to our subscription royalties rate. Although, I really dont like the idea  of "mini-subscriptions", but a raise, is nevertheless, still a raise. Furthermore, a credit sales download at iStock only yield us about $1.60. Given that iStock is now "forcing" buyers to commit to 10 or 25 downloads a month which yield $1.00 per mini subscription download, it may actually result in a higher total revenue at the end of the day.

Microstock Earning and Summary for 2012

The year is coming to an end, and here I am to conclude the earning and major hull of 2012. Overall, it has been a great year with improvement in many sites due to heavy uploading and hard works.

Shutterstock has been amazing all along except for the few months in summer holiday (June, July, and August). Although, there is no extraordinary improvement in it compare to last year, but it is still a satisfying year. Every now and then, you hear people announcing BME (best month ever). There is still room for improvement with demands coming in. Shutterstock introduced SOD (Single and Other Downloads), and there are people who reported netting $120.00 for one single download. This is a major leap for Shutterstock and the whole microstock industry. This proves that there are buyer who are willing to pay a lot of money for stock photos and vectors. Apart from that, Shutterstock has also introduce a new Follow feature that allows buyers to keep track on contributors new files.

IStockPhoto has been catastrophic for its exclusive contributors in 2012. Ever since the introduction of RC (Redeemed Credits), IStockPhoto has been on a major downturn. Major contributors had been reporting a loss of 50% in recent months. The site is buggy and slow as well. And due to their greediness on hauling contributors earning percentage to as low as 15%, contributors had been driving customers away. They no longer recommend IStockPhoto to their customers. This is the power of words of mouth. Due to the obvious  major downturn, IStockPhotos management is in the panic and is trying to gain back contributors trust by reaching out to them through the forum and promise to do what they could to restore it back to its former glory. This is difficult though, because there are layers of politics and hierarchy in IStockPhoto management.

IStockPhotos major downturn is not a good news for every contributors in the whole microstock industry . If the exclusive contributor turns independent, their exclusive photos and vectors file will start to flood into the market, and thus creating a massive competition among contributors. By leaving exclusivity at IStockPhoto, one contributors earning will undoubtedly drop to hell at IStockPhoto. As a matter of fact, many major vector artist in iStockPhoto are icon designers. Their icons are normally grouped in a set of 12-16 icons. They sell this for about $15.00. However, in site like Shutterstock, many vector artist grouped over 100 icons in a set and earn about $0.50 average per download. By understanding this simple scenario, it would mean hell for iStockPhotos exclusives if they are to leave exclusivity because the competition out here is crazy and may be too wild for them. So, if you are an independent contributor, please do not be sadistic about IStockPhotos problem, because it may soon be yours.

Fotolia continues to be OK in earning, but they still rejects all my work. Due to this, I cannot increase my earnings at Fotolia. They dont communicate with contributors even when you try hard to contact them. I just hope they change their reviewers soon as their reviewers have very different opinions with standard reviewers in the industry.

123rf is doing OK too, but not good enough. Many contributors failed to reach the Redeemed-Credit rate of 50% for next year. Good for 123rf, bad for contributors. I hope they will soon learn that contributors is an important asset for the success of a microstock company, and appreciate us a bit more.

CanStockPhoto and DepositPhotos are doing well throughout the year. DepositPhotos has been advertising hard and creating a lot of promotions. DepositPhotos acceptance rate are high too and less stressful. However, I think they need to increase their price, especially for subscription package. As for Dreamstime, they has been doing well near the end of the year. A lot of on-demand sales and they are less strict in accepting my files these days. However, Dreamstime continues to approve vector file in a very slow manner.

Crestock is rubbish. Despite a change in management, they continue to fail in getting customers. Not only sales are rare, all of them are subscription sales that earns me only $0.25/download, the lowest in the industry.

GraphicRiver continues to sell in constant rate throughout the year, but agency like this must step up a bit more in case they wanted to reach the next level. I have not been uploading here for a long time because the acceptance rate is low, inconsistent, and the uploading process is a hassle. I do think Envato pays very little attention to GraphicRiver because Envato has many other sub agencies to take care of. They should start accepting more work and turn it into a real stock site. At the moment, it is more of a community-driven site.

Graphicleftovers - nothing special about this site. Sales are slow, and rarely reach $50.00 a month.

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So what is it up for us next year? I just wish Shutterstock will continue to rise steadily and the IPO thing will not interrupt the daily operation. I wish IStockPhotos management can gain back the trust of its exclusive contributors so that we all can have a win-win situation here. Fotolia should review their reviewing process, and GOD DAMN IT, PLEASE ACCEPT MY WORK ALREADY. CanStockPhoto, DepositPhotos, Dreamstime, and 123rf, please be a little more aggressive in 2013.