I had one sale in three months, to slow for me I closed my account no time  to wait for them  to get things together

Some people do better on site A than on site B. I made more on ZM in 4 months with 50 shots than on LO in 14 months with 400 shots.
Quod licet Iovi, non licet Bovi 

Mark that would be useless since SS requirements went up a lot since 2 years ago. I got my third batch approved in a week, 9/10. One was rejected for the "focus" thing. The noise monster never catches me again, not because SS is more lenient on old folks like us, but because we simply adapted to the SS standards steadily.

It has to be said that SS reviewers have a very good eye for sellable stock. About 92% of my port was ever sold, and that percentage is much higher than at other sites.

1. LO
2. DT
3. FP

Grmppfffff     
Let's just talk about DT. One of the best managed sites with a clear professional business mind and friendly to its main asset, which is its contributors. FP and LO I don't know. They are sailing a very conservative course, with their own servers and apparently spending what their shallow pockets allow. To stay around, an agency doesn't have to make profit but just break even. If you can't win on the profit battlefront, you can stay afloat by being slim on the expenses line.

anyone know of a different model release that is accepted everywhere?

Minor  and Adult in 1
Adult only
Both are also good as property release. When I travel, I don't like to drag around several blank release types.

These are direct doc download links. The document is European A4 and I guess the US legal is a bit smaller, so change the page margins a bit.
I wrote them myself 1,5 years ago. Accepted everywhere. The only problem I ever had (solved by link 1) was with SS that wants the minor and the parent on 1 single sheet.

Works fine, uploaded 2 batches of 20 with it already.

It was an relatively difficult shot however. I had to wait for the light to be just right.

My bet is that it would be rejected for tight crop and sloppy isolation.

I totally agree. There is no sense in selling on FP at the same price than on other sites.

I put mine at 6$ and allow resizing, so the minimum is 1.40$. Except for bestsellers that have 10$.

In principle, the idea is great: photogs can determine price and license type. As such, it is all-in-1 and unlike any other agency. BUT I have the feeling we are thinking too much as photogs (supply) and not as customers (demand). FP is a photog-centered site.
Yes, we are working 50% of our time on the big 6 for advertising. Apparently sites only grow big with big advertising, such seems to be the law of capitalism.

A year or so ago, Rinder played around with the idee of a best of stock site that would only be on invitation and there would be no reviewers. Actually setting up a site like that technically is a piece of cake (unless for Snapvillage). But he discarded the idea later since he realized that he needed marketing, support, follow-up and it would just be another beginning stock site.

Actually a site like that would exactly be in the position of FP. Maximal yield for the photog, minimal overhead. So why make another FP? Let's face it, I love FP but for me it still sells only 8% of SS. Apparently, we think too much as photogs and not enough as designers.

You can even see it on all the great personal sites that are posted here. Photogs show off,  post tutorials and blogs and links for other photogs. That's great, but we aren't each others customers. So it won't translate in sales.

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I have been a designer for a while 2 years ago in a couple of projects and at one point I subscribed to CanStockPhoto to get my shots fast. I really didn't care about the photog, I was just looking in a rush at usable shots, et voila.
If you need hugs and aaahs and wows, go to Flickr. You'll get plenty for free. [that's imho the basic flaw behind the LO and MP commenting game - hugs are free].

For a designer, photos are a commodity and he isn't in the least interested in the wonderful personality of the photog. Just no time for that. Sorry gals & guys, we are just like the anonymous slave-artists that built the cathedrals in the Middle Ages: great carved stones and statues with no name on it.

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I'm revamping my site now slowly towards a designer-centered site with a fast and direct path to sales. Iofoto is my guide: a great designer-centered site.
Your own marketing can only be a funnel to existing ms agency sites. Existing sites are successfully run businesses with clever business minds like Serban and Jon, and those don't come cheap. They dominate the ms market and any newcomer will have to put up a giant sum in advertising to get settled in that market. The first guy that sold sand to the Sahara got rich. The original founder of iStock got rich. No way you can sell sand now in the Sahara.

There are just no shortcuts to significant sales than massive advertising and brand building, and the Matthew effect plays around: those who have will be given more, and those that have little will haven taken away the little they have. The first mice got the cheese. Coca-Cola is just another brown sweet drink. Why do they sell? Because 50% of their budget goes to advertising. You can buy cola-clones at local brandless markets at 1/3 of the price.

Where do we go from here? It's all about the customers. Think designer. For instance, at FP I have all my shots, also my favs rejected as "non commercial" by some of the big 6. And guess what? What I sell at FP is not those favs, but exactly the same top sellers as at the big 6.

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Summary:

- The first mice got the cheese already. Any new site is bound to fail since they will need super-advertising to overcome the established position of the big 6. There is no cheese left.

- Personal advertising only works if you think designer.

- FP will stay an exotic mini-market player unless they adverise.

- Just my 2 cents, but I want Eurocents!
(sorry for the long post)

In the article was mentioned that she was blocked from Flickr before, because she complained for a similar case on the forums there. My paying Flickr has been blocked a week ago because "somebody complained". No warning, no clue about which image. Maybe it's the photos of a lesbian wedding that shocked some creationist moron from the bible-belt, I have no clue. I will reupload when I have time on 5 new free accounts. Flickr doesn't get a cent from me any more.

in 2007 I had several spurts where for several months at a time there wasn't a single sale.  That sucks on a portfolio of 1500.

It's just a mystery why some people sell good at site A and bad at site B, and other people vice-versa. I started at LO and at FP at the same time with almost the same port, and I had to quit LO with 15$ and at FP I'm on my way to 3-th payout. With a smaller port and inferior to yours.

Update: I just signed up at OPP. They ask all your personal info like name, address, phone. But to be able to upload, you first need to upload a scanned copy of your passport ID.

No way! Those guys coming out of the blue by a poster with his very first post here, with no business track record whatsoever will have all my personal info, a copy of my ID, plus my paypal account email. Great for identity theft.

The site is buggy and the error messages that appear are in Romanian. Me smells another phishing site from the Easteuropean eldorado, and I bet the Illinois address is fake.

33 Eurocents per photo and 100$ payout level? No thanks.
Site looks cool and slick though. There are already 9 photos in the nature category: all from RZYMU. 500,000 more to go ;-)

You're right, I'll report it.  I followed your advice and found that the "here" link goes to "as1.emv2.com".

Phishing. Also beware of seemingly valid links, but when you hover over them, they link to a Javascript function, which you can see at the bottom on the status line of Firefox.

Just my 2 (Euro!)cents

- Subjects: whatever you feel happy with. On most sites there is a section with most popular images, so you can browse there to see what sells. But beware, those subjects are very popular so competition will be stiff. For instance I almost never do food shots since it bores me, it costs money, and much better food shooters around. Better find a niche (a hole) that is underrepresented and you like to shoot.

- Keywords: tag your images well. Given a good shot, the quality of keywords determines sales.

- Income: depending on your niche, a port of 2000-3000 should do. My niche of nature shots is not so popular so I would need 4000.

- Agents: don't waste time on beginning or low sale sites, like CanStockPhoto and LuckyOliver. Avoid overtly subscription sites like Crestock, except for ShutterStock which is a big money maker for most. I'm concentrating now on SS,DT,BigStock,iS,FP,Fotolia,StockXpert,123RF. The rest is peanuts and not worth the time. Also consider mid/macrostock like Alamy,Zymmetrical,MostPhotos as an investment.