To all Elements contributors

Elements contributors should NOT report anything regarding earnings. That is private and if they did they may be open to a public lynching by the forum community - as we have seen on several occasions. The forum can descend to unpleasantness quite quickly.

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Of course not report dollars and cents.

Yes. Please let us avoid that. At least in 1 thread :slight_smile: We must be allowed to be that ambitious.

I want to conduct a little eXperiment of my own, right here in this thread. :sunglasses:

Would I get lynched if I admit that I would seriously consider joining Elements, if I ever (not likely at all) receive an invitation? :innocent:

So is “The Experiment” to blame, or Elements? Authors have been complaining about lack of new item sales for the last 6-7 years, at least.

With an ever increasing library and pool of contributors, this is what happens.

Not to mention that when you scroll through new files, you’ve heard 9/10 of the tracks before. When you can take 1,000 other tracks, put them in your favorite DAW and switch between them, not noticing much of a difference, there’s your problem. :slight_smile:

After 1,000 “Epic” tracks with the same ostinatos and riser samples, 1,000 “Stomp Clap” tracks that can’t even have any melodic variation, 1,000 “Is Hip Hop, Hip Hop That, A Hip Hop” tracks that can all be cut into one and the same track…

You get my point. After a certain point, there is enough to choose from. Even if your latest “Epic” track sounds really cool and is very well produced, I can close my eyes and click around and not know I changed the track. :wink:

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Yes @flumen you have good points, and I totally agree. Still I think the topic in the thread was about how Elements are affecting AJ, and then its natural to discuss that in particular.

You can apply here: https://community.envato.com/become-an-elements-author/?referral_site=elements_footer

Good luck!

But, but, then I wouldn’t feel… special. :rofl:

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I speak from a Graphicriver author point of view: on the market my sales are decreased REALLY A LOT, way far from the months when elements was not an option for customers.
I firstly blame myself for this drop in sales because now is almost 2 years that i haven’t been very active and haven’t uploaded much, but definitely elements moved the focus of all the customers.
I feel the regular market has been abandoned to itself, flooded with new and (mostly) copied items where customers honestly don’t really know what could be the best for them, they just have too much choice and for an author, even if he/she is great, is really difficult to get noticed, unless you end up in some promotional campaign.
Ok, i understand this is a world “competition”, but you end up with authors with hundreds or thousand of items just because they need to be constatly present in the first pages to get noticed, lowering a lot the overall quality of work produced and originality.
Also i think is still absurd to have the exclusivity/non exclusivity option and that an author is forced to open 2 different accounts to sell different things, while on elements you are non-exclusive and get 50%.
This is why lately i switched to be a non-exclusive author, decreasing a lot my income (from 70% to 45%, this is ridicoulous since with my small work i contributed to make envato bigger and n.1 on the online resources market and i can’t choose what to keep exclusive and what not).
What i get from elements is approximately half of what i was earning from the regular market, so it keeps me alive somehow, but i am not happy about it.

Will i be able to go back to the regular market? Unfortunately not, because i would lose what right now is the bigger part of my incomes, and the regular market now has became something to keep just because is there, but my focus is probably moving to other martplaces where you get more revenue and an overall better quality, faster uploading procedures and similar incomes.

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Where it can be obtained for dramatically low prices that give large companies like Envato and their customers greater profit margins than before.

Those low prices charged by creators of digital assets can amount to a significant income in some parts of the world, and in others, those fees won’t begin to amount to enough to pay the rent, electricity bill, etc.

I agree with @Flumen. There are all kinds of factors that affect sales and visibility of new tracks. It is probably safe to say that Elements and the “Experiments” are playing some part in making it more challenging to sell music, themes, videos, etc.

But above all else, the growth of available options (at this marketplace, and in the industry, in general) is the #1 issue that is making it more difficult to sell your digital assets.

There’s a lot of good stuff out there, and the bar has been raised. Your stuff has to be really good, really useful, and above all, I think, really unique, in order to have a chance to stand out.

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I will add: so many good and cheap items. :joy::joy:
Oh my God, everyone buys what is cheaper, and we see this not the first time. Open the search(to see sales statistics for the last week or month and pay attention to prices)!

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Earnings are not reflecting the ones we could make in only 1 market. Our entire collection is available for less money so is not a good move in our regards.

People who sell plugins or audio are rated “1” in the earnings rating which is very unfair.

I feel like improving the existing markets and offer a subscription plan there, would have been better for us.

Since Elements doesn’t require to be Exclusive I intend to switch to non-exclusive very soon.

If Graphicriver and other markets won’t be promoted as much anymore and Elements will become Envato’s priority, it makes no sense to remain exclusive here??

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holy words

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You have identified the issue most authors that sell here are facing now. In 2019, what is the benefit / value to authors of selling their work here?

I’m guessing that Envato’s recent moves (emphasis on Elements, elimination of credits system, etc.) are driven by threats to their business by competitors.

In business, there is no status quo. If you get complacent, you get left behind. Especially in a business where technology is involved.

Consequently, their chosen direction, which many authors perceive as “author-unfriendly,” is important enough to them that it outweighs the negative feedback they’re getting from authors.

Which puts authors in a tough position to have to decide how to best protect their own interests, and how and where to find their best opportunity to sell their work.

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Thanks a lot to the authors sharing their insights! By no means I would expect anyone to share their incomes in terms of numbers, sorry if I was misleading, my English sucks. Nothing further from my intention than promoting a “public lynching”, nor pressing anyone to make a move in one way or another.

The whole idea, naive as it can be, was to have some honest feedback from fellow music composers participating in the subscription model, with no rants or passions, and propose a space for evaluation and reflexion. The way I see it, if the new incomes Elements represents does not compensate for an eventual drop (I’m fully aware I’m just guessing here) in revenues caused in great measure (not only) by the very same inclusion of Audio in the platform, then it could be worth reconsidering the whole move.

Then again, all we are doing is making assumptions (ones quite more convinced to be the absolute truth holders than others) and that’s the main reason I felt some feedback from actual Element’s authors could be enlightening. I don’t wanna upset anybody or heat things up, though. From the beginning this whole thing feels like a losing battle and it’s quite time consuming, so I might just live this at that.

Hey, but don’t forget to participate in the Gift of Giving campaign and remember the nominations for our Mega March event are still open! :smile::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::partying_face:

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Everything is fine, you did everything right, do not worry! :+1:

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Hey, your English is pretty damn good. I’m from the US, and I am entirely incapable of posting in another language and making any sense whatsoever. :wink:

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+1 to having a civilised discussion to find out facts. I’m guilty of jumping to conclusions and being emotional a lot at the moment since my sales are so bad. But without the full understanding of stats, we should deffo try to be more level headed. This is a wip for me :joy:

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Hahahaha! Thanks! I guess I owe that to Envato… Ironic, ain’t it?

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I’m willing to share privately my elements earnings. write pm

Wormwood, the best any author has done inside elements to my knowledge is earn $1500 in a single monthly pay period. I think it will evolve over time, but I highly doubt anyone will ever get to a $3000 to $4000 a month earnings level inside a very cheap subscription model. In comparison, Many elements authors have been able to earn 3K to 4K a month on audio jungle. Music Producers and stock music sites can undercut and undercut down to 1 cent a track but at some point the market stops and says 'Whoah, wait a minute here, I am not making any money!"

Envato has to be very careful about not allowing too much music content inside elements because if they do, everyone’s earnings in there will drop heavily due to dilution. Meaning - too many people to share the pie with so everyone will just be getting crumbs. This is pretty obvious based on how slowly the track count is creeping up in elements. As of now there are 12,000 tracks in there. Soon there will be 500,000 tracks on AJ. The Elements offering is only 3% of the market offering.

We’re also already observing disgruntled customers who buy the subscription then realize they are not getting access to all 500,000 tracks. They get annoyed and cancel the subscription. This model is a grand experiment, but eventually I have to believe customers will just get fed up and resume buying exactly what they need for their project. I am having a hard time making a decision myself right now. Should I Buy into the subscription for some stock photos I may need to develop a web site? Or should I buy each photo, one at a time just for this project? I won’t need the subscription long term, so why would I want to just keep spending $16.50 a month? Also buying the subscription then remembering to cancel it is a hassle…so most likely I’ll just buy what I need for this one single project.

If this is my thinking, I have to believe many will think the same way.

If top authors all start piling in their best selling tracks into elements, they take a huge risk on their one off sync license sales business. They’re in a situation of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.

One fact though for sure…subscription models will not produce more revenue for individual music producers long term. No one will be able to make a livable wage from that model if all music was dealt that way, and that way only. It’s a fascinating battle taking place. I wonder who will win? The controlling authority? or individual authors? Someone though will lose eventually whereas under the one off sync license model, I think everyone “wins”.

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