I think some of you  will be pleasantly surprised by your payout if you havent checked your StockXpert account in a while. I hadnt checked mine for 2-3 years because I just assumed the earnings were being ported over to iStock. Nope, when I logged into StockXpert several months ago, I had $1500 in there. I requested payment and they eventually paid it out.

Thanks, I will open a ticket and see what they say.

Quote from: ShadySue on April 21, 2017, 18:48

Quote from: zimmytws on April 21, 2017, 18:33
The amount is $60+ dollars, seems like a lot for returns. I only make a few hundred a month from iStock

Maybe you got lucky and had a big sale a while back which has been returned?

Why not take out a support ticket and ask them for their explanation?
You might have to wait a while (several weeks), or you might get lucky and get a reasonably quick answer.
You might even get an answer which makes sense or even which resembles the truth.

The amount is $60+ dollars, seems like a lot for returns. I only make a few hundred a month from iStock

Quote from: cobalt on April 21, 2017, 17:48
Customers can give files back. Sometimes years later...this is deducted from your income. And if you have a negative balance you have to wait until they cover the refund.

Other macrostock agencies do this too.

But I have never seen this anywhere else on the micros. Maybe some do, I don´t know.

My statement shows a negative amount for "Royalty Free still". How can I have negative number, does anyone else have this???

I had been averaging about 1 EL for every 500 DLs, then starting in November 2014, they completely dried up. I havent had an EL since Oct 28th, despite averaging over 1000 DLs per month since then.
I just went into my SS settings to make sure I am still opted in to ELs, and it showed that I was. But I opted out, then opted back in anyway, just in case it was "stuck".  To have over 6000 DLs without an EL seems very odd to me after averaging 2-3 per month for years.   

I am wondering if it wouldnt make sense for some of these new agencies to just leverage the other agencies in terms of the review process, meaning when we submit files, we could just include the file ID# from 2 or 3 agencies where the file has already been approved, and then let the new agency just use that as proof the file will pass inspection. Seems like its a lot of wasted review time and money paid to review images that have already been approved by multiple agencies.

Just got my email, the clawbacks have begun!

Doing it right now, thanks!

I found some of my images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/safari_vacation/

Looks like there are quite a few more that dont belong to him.

+1
I have not reached Emerald(not really that close either) and my earnings have dropped from ~$250 per month to less than $100

Quote from: sharpshot on December 15, 2012, 17:55
It is a coincidence because many of us didn't turn emerald but still had the huge earnings slump.  They don't seem to discriminate by canister levels, anyone can see their earnings decimated.

"HA, it just happened to me!
They rejected 20 photos because of bad lighting.
Things like this"

It looks like a good isolation but... could just be my monitor, but when I look very closely at the top edge of the mushroom, it looks like there are some stray pixels. Maybe double check your isolation to make sure its perfect.  I get "bad lighting" rejections if I leave a few stray pixels on the edges. If its not that, then they're nuts.

Adobe Lightroom indexes/catalogs files and searching on keywords is very fast, much faster than in Photoshop. LR is expensive though

I dont know what to make of this, my August sales have been bad, and today is shaping up to be my worst weekday at SS in over 6 years. I would like to blame the Olympics, but I checked my SS sales from Aug 2008(the Olympics, per Wikipedia, ran from Aug 8th-24th in 2008), and my sales then were just peachy. 

I am, the submission page wont fully load, it cuts off at the bottom and wont let me scroll down to click "Submit" once I have categorized my image.

Quote from: stockmarketer on April 20, 2012, 15:42
Is there really a reason to worry about review times?

Anyone think its just a coincidence that the review times have gone from less than 48 hours, to almost a week, and they are floating an IPO soon?
Seems obvious at the very least that they have laid off reviewers, since the # of pics approved over the last few weeks has not really not up from the historical norm. Are they trying to improve the look of their bottom-line?

Who said I do primarily illustrations?  That's not true. 

[/quote]

So you do photography? The portfolio I was assuming is yours is 3D/illustration images. Maybe I have the wrong port.

Great return numbers you're getting, either way though.

Quote from: stockmarketer on April 20, 2012, 17:59

Quote from: Ed on April 20, 2012, 17:53
LOL...and this is why people get confused when others talk about $2.30 RPI in their portfolio (and why I never believe them) 

My RPI (for month of March) was $3.92.   Daily hovers around $.12.  No tricks.

I think it also useful to include some sort of "time spent per image" calculation in addition to just RPI. My RPI is quite low(~$.60-.70), but it only takes me about 20 minutes on average to produce an image(shoot and post-process). I shoot inanimate objects, in mostly natural light, so I can knock them out pretty quick, as opposed to having to setup time with models, lighting etc.
From content created in the last year I have earned approx $3000 , and spent about 120 hours to create them. So thats about $25 per hour. Of course that per hour number increases over time, since the time spent is fixed, but the $ returned keeps rising.

Someone who spends 5 times the amount of time to create an image, and whose RPI is 5x as high, is no better off than the person with 5x as many images, but whose RPI is 1/5 as high, since they spent the same amount of time to earn the $,

Stockmarketer, the images in your port are primarily illustrations, and I am guessing they take quite a bit more time to produce than mine. Have you ever calculated the "return per hour" instead of RPI?

Health care costs can add up very quickly in the US. Two years ago I broke my arm while snowboarding in Colorado. I underwent 5 hours of surgery, and spend 3 nights in the hospital. The total bills for that came to $112,000, not including the follow-up physical therapy. Quite ridiculous. Its easy to see how uninsured people in the US go bankrupt when they have medical problems.

Quote from: sjlocke on September 17, 2011, 14:05
"The issue of the million dollar treatment mention by some is a red herring.  Sure, a very minimal number of such cases would occur, but the vast majority of individual treatment costs would not come near that."

Minimal?  At the least, we are a nation of obese people, racking up treatments for diabetes, heart transplants, bypass surgeries.  Smoking, cancers, AIDS.... It's easy to pile up the bills.

post deleted

I really think it would have been better to have reduced only the employer part by 2%, and left the employee rate at 6.2%. Having to pay both parts as a self-employed worker is unfair, but Lisa is right, Social Security is going broke, so at some point,  all the tax rates are going to have to be raised. But I think there is some validity in cutting taxes when the economy is in the toilet.

...and I realized my original post was a little confusing, because I used "SS" to refer to Social Security, not Shutterstock as is customary here.

It looks like the recent tax laws passed by Congress will be giving us about a 2% or 4% break on our 2011 taxes. Since the SS tax rate is being cut from 6.2% to 4.2% and as "self-employed" workers, we also pay the "employer" portion of the SS taxes, that means we should get 4%(or 2% for sure) break in 2011. (although I am not 100% sure the "employer" part is being reduced)
That should at least help offset some of the hit many of us will be taking at IS in the new year.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/With-Tax-Deal-Obama-Makes-Bet-dg-894885590.html?x=0

I'll try resubmitting some, thanks Cascoly!

Quote from: cascoly on July 27, 2010, 18:45

Quote from: zimmytws on July 25, 2010, 21:19
I have submitted several pics to SS as editorial(for example minor-league baseball players), and they have gotten rejected for "not newsworthy" or something to that effect. I thought editorial images could be pics of people you didnt have releases for, buildings with logos etc. Do they not accept editorial pics unless  they are "current" news-worthy stuff?

you're correct - newsworthy is one of a number of possible editorial definitions, not the ONLY one - but some reviewers can't seem to grasp that concept --resubmit them and they may be accepted  by another reviewer

s

I have submitted several pics to SS as editorial(for example minor-league baseball players), and they have gotten rejected for "not newsworthy" or something to that effect. I thought editorial images could be pics of people you didnt have releases for, buildings with logos etc. Do they not accept editorial pics unless  they are "current" news-worthy stuff?

Quote from: Randy McKown on July 16, 2010, 00:52

Quote from: zimmytws on July 15, 2010, 23:47


I doubt very seriously that the financial department gives two craps about putting man hours into puckering up for 100K over a 12 month span. They probably net more than that every 30 days off interest on their holdings alone. I'm sure there's plenty of eye rolling and laughing behind the scenes going on there right now LOL.

Their "holdings"? Dreamstime is not some multi-national conglomerate. My guess is that, excluding reviewers, Dreamstime has less than 10 employees.

I wasn't referring to stock holdings I was referring to contributor holdings. All the money that is being held by the agencies until payout balance is reached .. you think the CEO stuffs your money in a bed mattress for safe keeping? Nope I'm sure it sits in an bank account drawing interest turning a profit ... for them .. it's not your bank account.
[/quote]

Well who knows if DTs cashflow is so immense that can afford to store wads of cash in low-interest bearing accounts, when they have lots of bills to pay too. My guess is that, like most compaines, 90%+ $ goes out the doors in the form of bills paid.