Microstock Group - A meeting place for microstock photographers

It is with deep regret we must announce Zymmetrical is closed. The stock industry and the economy in general are a hard situation these days, and we have made the difficult decision to close the operation, preserving our health and future potential.

We met a lot of friendly image producers & agents who are doing great things and working hard in these turbulent times. Sales were up, business systems were finally getting stable and fast, but you need to know when to fold. When your job is not making you happy any more then it's one of those times - and what makes us happy is creatives getting properly paid for the output they produce, in a sustainable way.

All content on Zymmetrical will be securely deleted from the system, with the same attention to detail and respect for Artists that we exhibited throughout the short life of Zymmetrical. Flyerstarter Services Ltd. will carry on growing at our original site, Flyerstarter.com. Vector designers are strongly encouraged to have a look, if you are already had a Zymmetrical account you can login with those credentials. Business is booming and we have some great new features coming online.

Keith Tuomi will continue leading Flyerstarter.
Paul Melcher can continue to be found saying it like it is on his blog.

I would personally like to express eternal thanks to everyone who participated, your patience and understanding is truly appreciated.

A special note here to thank Tyler (Leaf) for creating and maintaining the MSG Community.

Sincerely,
Keith Tuomi
Director, Flyerstarter Services Ltd.

Good luck Keith, stay in touch, wherever you might be.

(slightly disgruntled since I uploaded a bunch of new full-size shots 2 days ago and lost an hour on it - but that's life)

Altough I quit last year I really thought Zym had fair chance to survive this crisis.
Good luck in what ever you gonna do.   

That news really made me sad. Good luck in the future Keith. You deserve it.

Very sorry to see Zymmetrical go!  I admire Keith and I'm sorry that he has had to make a choice like this.  Hopefully Flyerstarter will explode (in a good way) now that he doesn't have to split his time between the two agencies.  

I received my final payout this morning without requesting it, so it looks like they are closing shop the right way.  

Isn't it troubling that micro has become a 4-site show and there is very little room for a new player to elbow into the game?

God you are so right buddy!
As I see my pictures on the covers of books I have that feeling that many would call "rip-off" but we accepted being part of this system. In the end they market us, sell our works and give us a good exposure: this has a cost anyway.
At least the editor should have a good coscience to credit the ARTIST and not the agency... sheees!

I see what you mean and I agree.
That act is that what makes agencies go on are the buyers and they all want the best at the lowest price, who can blame them?
I'm not wishing that the sales revenues went ridiculously high but it would be much better if they raised the $0.20-0.30 limit to $1.00 per download.

I am both sorry and surprised to see Zymmetrical go. They were one of the "new" sites I had the most hope in. I wish Keith much success in his future business.

Many thanks for the final payout guys. All the best for the future

I think maybe that's happening, just not all at once.  During the year I've been doing (a little) microstock and watching this forum, I've noticed increasing discouragement. Hardly anyone draws the line, says "I'm out" and closes their microstock accounts; but I suspect that many contributors are just submitting fewer and fewer photos as time goes by.  Unless your subject matter can generate big numbers of sales, the return just isn't there.  So we slowly turn our interest to other things.

Hasn't the number of new images being submitted to the sites increased this year?  I think we see a lot of people complaining here but it looks like there are much more that are uploading more than they ever have.  It is easy to get a false impression, I am sure that people are more likely to post about how bad their sales are than brag about how well they are doing.  I hope it tails off in 2010, less competition would be good.

I had closed my account months ago, but sorry to hear that.
Good luck!

What a shame, sorry to hear that Keith. I wish you all the best in your upcoming ventures!
take care
Laurent