How long were you waiting for first P5 download?

Please let me know the time from 1st upload to 1st download. What can I expect? Thanks.

Interesting question...

Clips that have been sold and are online now:
1 week ago: 171 days
2 months ago: 176 days
4 months ago: 190 days

I think there will always be an unavoidable delay; it takes a while for the big search spiders to index the pages. On top of this, google also indexes non clip pages like search result sets, clip bin search result sets, google video etc and that will naturally also take some time before all that is indexed by the search engines.

Marcus

for me I had two sales after having files online for two weeks.

Hi Mike,
I think the other thing is to look at is this is a numbers and keywording thing with respect to an upload to download timeframe.
I see you have 25 clips in your portfolio, that may take a little while longer for people to find your work from the many others online.

At least that has been my finding from looking at people that have 2000 clips vs people that have only a couple hundred.

By the way, very well done clips in your portfolio.

Jake

Marcus, does that mean on an average it took 171 days of on-line for a clip to have sold last week and four months ago it was an average of 190 onlines days for a clip to sell? Wow, if that is the case it surprises me. Although many of my sales are from a year ago uploads.

But yes Mike, many times I sell clips that have only been online for a week or so. It's all quality with a sprinkle of quantity helps.

Don

Don: Yes. But it doesn't take clips that have never been sold into account. I agree that is sounds oddly long, but at least the trend is good. Sold, online clips six months ago were online 210 days before being sold, on average.

The stats probably looks worse than it is; there are some old test accounts etc that makes it look worse.

The top list of fastest selling clips per user starts like (unit: days)
0.0622751628938648
0.0740446420372636
0.0744023779752078
0.0941725606692058
0.0974551129506694
...

Marcus

I had clips sell the same week they went online and others sit around for almost two years before they sold the first time. You never know.

And of course there's no guarantee that any given clip will sell at all. But then, clips I only uploaded because I was bored (never thought they would be accepted) sold repeatedly...

It might look scary but yup the trend is going the right direction. I kinda figure a 1-3% sales per month on clips really is a good number. I know many here meet or beat that. To a beginner that sounds low but in the world of stock not too bad really.

I can see the trend is just like you say. Last year I made much less for the entire year than I make in a month now. It does take quality and quantity.

Thanks for the update Marcus,

Don

I agree with all of the above. I uploaded my first clips on here in late October and had 4 sales within a week. I'm still fairly new to stock footage (only been in it since late august), but from what I've gathered so far, I'd say create a wide range of your best material (lots of variety in other words) and try to think outside of "the box." I know for myself, after being in this for only a few months, I've noticed myself constantly looking at things differently (ie: "this would make a good shot (or animation) for stock. This would probably sell.")

And just keep uploading! For me it's a little difficult cause I have a full time video production job as it is, but when I'm not making videos for that job, I'm doing stuff for stock. The big goal for me is to get enough clips up that they generate a steady source of substantial income. Right now I have a little over 200 clips. In another year or so, I'd like to get that number up to 1000+

I've noticed a steady increase in sales each month since I joined, especially November and now December (of course this may be due to the holidays), but I'm optimistic and hoping that this is the way things will continue.

Besides keywording, the part I also feel is tricky is pricing. Figuring out what people will pay for your work is tough. And I'm always wondering how crucial price is in people's decisions when buying stock. Does $10 really change someone's mind enough to make them look for a different clip? What's too much? - I think there can be a lot of different strategies here. On one hand, you could put all of your clips at a lower price to increase sales, getting your clips to show up at the top of the page (I also wonder if people buy clips based on how many sales the clip has - how popular it is). On another hand, putting a larger price tag on your work may also have its perks. You may get fewer downloads, but you'd earn more per download, and who knows. Perhaps some people avoid clips that are priced lower because they wonder why it's priced so low. It's quite a head game.

Just some things to think about... (that I'm constantly thinking about)

James

I had a clip sell (the very first one back in April) - then I thought to myself, this is priced to low for danger involved (lightning strike) - so I upped the price to double, and it sold again. Then also the number of views started going up as I raised pricing. So I think it is a game of value perception. Too many times I have caught myself selling short. No more! :)