Catastrophe in May 2019!

@anon64521210 Goodbye, good luck!

To be honest, it is really sad have to read all this.

I know this are just words, but i would to see it this changing to a positive way.
Just can say, Good luck!

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I see no reason why you should leave AJ if you want to be non exclusive or delete tracks (unless you want to sign them exclusive somewhere else). You can always go back to exclusive if AJ sales is increasing a lot (then your Elite commission will be waiting for you as well).

What works for 1 author might not work for another, and I do understand you don’t want to give up “the road to Elite”, and I think many authors think the same as you as well.

For me going non exclusive have been a wake up call (a very good one), but it all depends what genres you focus on etc. Non exclusive is probably not the best idea if you are selling a lot on AJ.

I don’t know what the future will bring, but for me it seems very risky to stay exclusive in a marketplace that does not evolve in the right direction at all. It’s easy to see what you can loose in commission, but much harder to see what you can potentially gain. I think it will be more important than ever to have multiple income sources to sustain a good income from music licensing.

Anyway, I wish you luck and you will find your path eventually :wink:

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Yes, I find it difficult to decide, thanks!
Thanks again, I understood and heard you! :slightly_smiling_face:

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It still hurts sometimes :stuck_out_tongue: :unamused: but i had to take a decision and stick to it!
“Ηome is where I lay my head” they say!

Chill brother and take action! Βut first of all try to change your psychology and your energy for your own good. We are by your side! :slight_smile:

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Indeed this month so far has been terrible. Only 3 sales, very little traffic and I only needed just under $600 to reach Elite. I guess it is just a bridge too far.

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I feel with you clean magic. Struggeling by a new personal record of 27 Days without a Sale! :sleepy::sneezing_face:
Time for some meditation tracks from your portofolio. They are just amazing!

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I am pulling for you, @gballx. Looking forward to the day you announce that you’ve reached Elite status. You’ll get there, and I’ll be the first to congratulate you.

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@BeachVibes Thanks for your support! I understand that almost a month (27 days) without sales is terrible, I see that you had an emptiness in upload April 6 - April 30 (24 days), I also had an emptiness from April 18 - May 7 (19 days) . But this emptiness in general should not affect a large portfolio of almost two hundred tracks. But if so, it is very bad, we can conclude that now:

  1. The market does not sell new tracks (and after 4 days as soon as the track was out of sight of customers they instantly become buried) . The search engine is not adapted for new tracks and their more and longer visibility.
  2. Any small pause for the author is very dangerous and hits the pocket, and in general can be the last day of work here and destroy all sales in the future despite the number of tracks in the portfolio.
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stock music is almost dead for me… in all the markets I’m into
too many tracks, too many sellers…

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only 3 sales in May…I can’t afford to make music for life now.
Thinking about other ways to earn money by making music and sound, not stick music unfortunately.

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Thanks for this post @CleanMagicAudio. I am new to AJ and still trying to get my first track accepted…good to find out what you guys are struggling with here and also to see how some of you deal with low sale months. I wasn’t expecting becoming an author would be easy but it helps me realize that making any income off of audio jungle will have its challenges. I hope you get an increase in sales through the rest of May and good luck getting to Elite. you will get there, it’s all a matter of time and effort :grin:

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It’s only May 9th, give it time.

This is unrealistic for me but thanks!

I have to agree with you, we deserve some answers. I don’t understand this silence from Envato they know what is going on and they know that authors are the backbone of the marketplace.

I see contributors being very happy for 150$ contributor bonus on Elements, sad to see this man really sad, I am about to make a depression seeing what is happening now… I invested 10 years here but this doesn’t seam to matter.

I am selling scripts and plugins but even there I can see a decrease in sales and visits on products page as well.

I would like to advertise but what is the point since the Elements banner is everywhere.

I am very disappointed of what they are doing now…

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No, opposite of what I meant. I was meaning that, on verage, a product that is on Elements, in my opinion, should be a different class of product than an item you buy for 50$ or more for a single license, otherwise the single license simply don’t have reason to exist no?

Why should anybody pay 1000€ an iphone if on its side there is a shop you pay 50€ and take home any phone you want? You see? No difference. This I meant.

Is supposed that, if you build a class AAA product, you want to make more money with that instead of putting it on elements.

Simply this.

I did not look at any product of anybody in this discussion.

Pure. Logic.

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As an avid buyer of Envato content I thought I’d see if I could add some insight to this conversation. Please pardon my frankness. This is just data and not personal.

  1. Elements is definitely a factor. As a small business owner, my and my clients’ funds are limited. Elements makes producing content more affordable.

  2. The YouTube copyright claim process is a BIG factor. I had over 30 old videos uploaded to YouTube that use tracks I purchased over 10 years ago. They were all copyright claimed by Envato.

I don’t even know the names of the tracks or know where to get the authorization to even upload to fight the claim because I bought the tracks ages ago.

I have hundreds of envato tracks in my library, either purchased or from “free download of the month”. So now I’m supposed to go through all my old downloads and listen to them all and figure out which song was used in every video? Ain’t nobody got time for that! :wink:

There is no way for me to search by sound on the site. The claim doesn’t even tell me the name of the track so I could search.

So you know what I did? I stopped buying any tracks that have this YouTube copyright thing. I now use the YouTube library and Elements because the licencing is clear and easy and I don’t have to worry about claims on my YouTube uploads.

If I’m doing a commercial or something, I’m happy to buy a track for it on Audiojungle because it’s easy to get the licensing data for the TV stations and I’m buying the track at the time I make the commercial. And yes, of course I buy the extended license for this. Don’t be paranoid.

  1. On the “paranoid” note: I have to say that I don’t think there is as much stealing as you think. Especially in the US, UK and EU which are, from what I can see, the largest buyer markets here.

The people I know in business certainly don’t steal. My clients don’t steal. I would know. I think in general, professional people don’t steal. And that’s the market where the money is.

The snivelly little people who are stealing are just that - little. And they will stay little - and poor.

I think that most people are honest and want you to make money, because that’s fair. The people who aren’t honest are a very small percentage and they will get theirs.

So don’t worry about the dishonest little folks. Focus on promoting and making it easy for the honest folks. They’re the ones with the money. You’ll sell more.

  1. If I were an Audiojungle musician, I would contact YouTubers, DJ’s, filmmakers, and videographers and give them my music to use in their videos in exchange for credit. I’ve purchased many tracks that were credited in YouTube & Vimeo videos.

  2. Promote yourselves more and don’t just rely on Envato to promote you. Get your music out there. There is so much good music here, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be on Spotify, or iTunes. I’ve purchased many tracks here just because they were awesome. That means I paid like $20 for a track just to listen to it. Your selling yourself short by relying on one source of promotion or sales.

  3. And finally: Scarcity is a LIE. There are literally hundreds of millions of people on Earth with internet access who are qualified to purchase your products - meaning they have money and can pay you. Do they know you? Why not? GET OUT THERE! Find your market and PROMOTE.

I could stay here and write all day but I have to go back to work. :slight_smile:
Hope this helps.

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Great, great ideas expressed here. Thank you very much! I were tempted multiple time to upload my library to ContenID system (AdRev), but every time i thought about it, i had imagine buyers, trying to proof there are owners of legal licenses, so i decided NOT to use ContenID due very poor perfomance of this system. As for may sales - 2019 sales lower than 2018 sales. But i can survive. As for Envato - Envato did not so good job with Elements. They promised us to bring NEW customers, but reality shown us that we lost OLD customers to Elements. Elements was promoted everywhere, even in your basket. Guess what happened? We lost. Envato won. Bad news for us, good news for others. What make things more complicated is that not every author were invited on Elements, thus creating “new elite” bunch of authors who now make earnings from Elements, and other “poor one” who were banned from this tasty piece of pie. So all in all, i think new strategy of survival is in making unique content, which will not crossed with Elements type of content. I mean more niche but usable tracks.

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How is Elements helping you on this? Elements features tracks that are also ContentID registered, so I don’t see what makes it any different.

Well ContentID proved us otherwise. The pillage is massive! My listing shows that I have something like 10 detected illegal uses of my music for every legitimate license. The ratio is much higher for popular authors. Not just “snively little people” either, my thieves include a US pharmaceutical company, a luxury boat maker,…

If you were an Audiojungle musician, you’d know how infuriating that kind of statement is. Everyone is asking musician to work for free in exchange for credit. And frankly, this is getting old.

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