Yesterday was great for me due to a single license sale.. wow 

I wish I get such sale all the time... 

Something worth reading... shame on the culprit.

http://imageandview.com/notes1/how-a-stolen-photo-became-a-contest-winner/

oh god... 
This is the worst Sunday going for me right now... 

What is happening to the worlds biggest microstock agency...

I don't think anyone is suggesting a raise in prices. Any raise should come from the agencies, not the buyers end of things. Because we all know that there is still room there for contributors to get more. 20%, 30%, even 50% of each sale is low. I can't help mentioning the Apple App Store example again, where developers get 70% of each sale.

That said, I don't expect to ever see a raise in contributor royalties. I just don't think any of these companies care if it's impossible for any of us to have a long-term career in this business. I can't do this 10 years from now if I can't grow my income to keep up with increasing costs of living. But do any of these companies care about that? So I have to drop out of microstock in the next five to ten years. Big deal. Why should they care?

That's the real problem. Not whether or not anyone deserves a raise or whether these companies can afford it (they all can, it's a fact). The real problem is that these companies have zero incentive to helping us make this a sustainable (sorry to use that word) business for contributors.

A raise will never happen, that's just how it is. So we can either struggle to keep up by constantly cranking out more content faster, or expect to be doing something else to make a living in the next several years.

+1 Dark side of microstock 

August will pick up at the end as folks get back from their summer vacations than Sep, Oct, Nov and Dec simply ROCK! 

My previous December was terrible, due to late approval of my batch. My Christmas files got approved after Christmas was gone. No cookie for me. Entire sale went down at that time.
Hope for good this December.

Mine got reviewed faster than expected and rejected faster than expected. Sure, maybe some deserved it, but isolated objects with almost no blank space around them rejected for composition? Silhouettes rejected for lighting? I wonder if this is courtesy of some new software?

It is a shame because it almost seemed like new images might be selling again.

There may be reason for this. 132,156 new stock images added this week.
Since review time has corrected now due to which a huge number of files are now coming online now per week. By rejecting images they are now looking for better quality so that they can maintain their per week ratio.

Thanks for your reply. I wrote them again. Let's see 

BTW, what is the type of your batch content? photos, vectors... etc?

Vectors. 
Hope they get in touch with you quickly. Good luck!!!

Hey CGartist!

I use DeepMeta (http://www.deepmeta.com/) for my vector uploads on iStockPhoto. It's not perfect, but it makes things a lot easier as I'm able to copy descriptions and keywords, save work-in-progress stuff and much more.

It's not very well optimized for vector uploads though. (in fact, you'll notice that it says that it does NOT support vector uploads) As such, I have to upload everything via the usual route first, and then edit their information via DeepMeta. I then complete the submission via the iStock website, and then re-update the keywords/descriptions. It's a little cumbersome, but it's better than nothing... especially when you're uploading 20-30 vectors at one shot -- every little bit of help counts!

Hope this helps!

Thankyou David,

I never thought that I could use deepmeta for vectors as when I went to the website.. it clearly said. "Vector/Flash/Video/Audio contributors cannot (yet) upload through the software, but can nevertheless use all other features."

so never tried this.
But now I will be trying it out and see how it goes. I hope that this reduces time consumption.

Corrected... Thanks Steve and Yuliang.

Not sure where this piracy will lead too..

There was a time in year 2009-2010 when most popular use to update on daily basis and the images also use to get reviewed in daily basis.

But now it seems(although they are experimenting) that most popular do not updates soon. Sometimes they remain same for years too.
I wish that shutterstock should look at this thing and allow most popular to update on either daily or weekly basis. This will give fair chance to everyone to get in popular line.

Let me know what you ppl think about it.

3D Software + X amount of machines is the simple answer.

I use 3DS Max and Vray myself. I could network render with it as the licenses provide up to 1000 networked machines, but I use a render farm instead and charge it to the client.

As for the spec of the network machines obviously the more power the better, but I'd research the exact details.

What is your current set-up?

I am currently owning just one machine with core i7 processor with 8 cores. I recently rendered a file which took around 2.5hrs for complete render. I want this task to speed a little, as I was researching for network renders I found that people use one machine and network it with others and use all their power to render things.

I do not want to contact rendering farms right now, instead was planning to get 1 high performance CPU or whatever required to speed up my processes. I was wondering that how much can it cost me and what will be the configuration of the machine.

the limit can be increased... just contact them and ask for increase in limit.

Anyone working with these two.

I have heard a lot of these two sites but haven't worked with any.
I am a vector artist and was wondering how much can I earn if I upload my work there.

Also is this worth working with these two Zazzle and Art of Business Card.?