Consider any uploaded files as an investment in the future - we value them all but are trying to balance out all aspects of the business as we get this thing rolling.

Somebody must be doing something right at Zymmetrical since I got (to my surprise) a 10$ sale from just 4 photos uploaded as a test last September. Finally somebody who got his marketing right in "MidStock". Me guesses that ZM found an unserved audience of buyers that are willing to pay more than 1$ per shot if it's the right one and they only need a few now and then (SS's subscription being too expensive for them).

For now I personally consider ZM as a promising investment. No rush. Take it easy guys, but the clock is always ticking in Stockland. Just curious, will ZM be accepting postal DVD's as a way of submission? Could save bandwidth in case one has 500+ shots.

I think professional designers should look there, as they will have photos that are not on the micro sites.  I am starting to upload to sites that sell for higher prices and FP are one site on the list.

Idem dito. FP is not really a MS site, not really RM. It's all-in-one. You mould it into what you want, without the hassle to set up your own site.

I am guessing it would take a few days for the thumbnail database to be updated...

Yap. I quit too and it takes about a week. The confirmation email too.

ShuttersTime.

Tough choice to be honest. SS and DT are so different and me thinks they attract different customers, and are not competitive to each other. IS gives me bad vibes. I'd hate to leave BigStock, so... no.

Some choices in life are impossible to make.

There's a real risk that SS long-term is over-saturating its own market. Those who have had subscriptions for a number of years, build their own picture archives, so a subscription will, after a certain amount of time, be less interesting. One of the reasons for the high earnings at SS, is just that: customers download images that they may need in the future, as long as they have quotas left to do so.

That's why it's important to keep uploading new material to SS. At least, that's the theory. When I look at this month's downloads, I just observe very old shots download well too, and the most recent are there, but it's a minority.

The scenario that a buyer will shop for the same picture at several sites and then chose the subscription site is possible, but me thinks not that is common, - since a designer is under time pressure, - and if he finds the right shot for 4$ he won't be inclined to lose 5 mins to find the same shot at 1$ elsewhere. The gain of 3$ is marginal in the total cost (and the cost of his time) of the project.

I'm more worried about a customer buying a shot for let's say 10$ at BigStock, then finds later by coincidence that the same shot is for sale at CanStockPhoto for 1$. He might feel a fool and the negative vibes will come down on the head of the photog.

I tend to believe that it is the wrong strategy for a photog to upload the same shot at midstock or 5$+ sites, and also at subscription sites for 1$. A compromise could be to upload only 4 or 6MP versions to (predominantly) subscription sites, and 10MP full resolution at midstock or regular sites. In this case DT poses a problem, since subscription sales are (at least for me) not 50% of the total yet.

Once again (as I posted a while ago at LO), the goals of the sites and the individual photogs are partly the same, but partly also different. A site want to maximize profit for all ports trusted to them and there might be collateral damage for individual photogs. The photog has to have his own strategy to maximize his personal income.

I read posts here and at other forums of seasoned photogs for instance, that reserve their best shots (of a series) for RM like Alamy, and upload the lesser versions to microstock. Imagine a designer that buys a shot at Alamy for 50$, then finds later (by coincidence) that same shot is on CanStockPhoto for 0.50$. Not the sites will get a bad name, but the photog.

I don't bother to protest them either... hey, how can the reviewer be wrong, right?   Ain't no biggie to me, one doesn't want them, another will....

I never object either. SS rejected a few shots of handmade colorful guitars as "not commercial". The full series was accepted yesterday on DT (it used to be the other way round) and one sold 3 days after upload full-size at FP for 6$.

SS used to be right most of the time, and their rejects were mostly technical. They must have hired a reviewer now that thinks he knows what will sell on stock.

What brings me to the philosophical thought: how the heck any reviewer can know what will sell if he is a photographer that relies on his gut feeling and on what sells in his own portfolio? That should be a content editor with a wide experience of the market.

Seems to me that an experienced contributor (with his own style and with his own type of shots) knows best what will sell. Why not let the market decide, and just delete shots after 1-2 years with no downloads?

Ah, I thought I was the only unlucky one that hit the "crazy reviewer". After a year of almost 100% acceptance, my last 2 batches were suddenly rejected with very odd reasons ("jaggies in the illustration when it's a photo etc...) [3 of 3 rejected, 9 of 12 rejected].

Strange is that there were shots from a series that was accepted before (and sells) without any problem. Most rejects were sortof "this is not commercial". A new reviewer?

I was rejected the first time using all photos that had been accepted at BigStock or DT. I am currently awaiting the 30 day period before resubmitting ...
Any advice?

If the rejection was for noise (I bet it was since your landscape portfolio at DT is very impressive), do an additional noise reduction on the noisy parts of the shots (especially the skies). Or resize to 4MP. Then resubmit.

I've implemented a few tactics to place my images higher in the DT search engine

Ah? Let me guess. Adding "sexy" to the tags and replace "fuselage" by "body" ;-)

I replied on talkmicro ;-)

Ah, that "forum" where threads keep evaporating? ;-) I left there a few days ago. Time to move on.

I'm wondering, when will they start to sell ? 

With your quality portfolio, about 25$/month/100 photos, on condition you upload regularly (about 10 photos per week should do the trick). ShutterStock is $hutter$stock.
Great portfolio by the way!

Don't forget Dreamstime (if you're not already there). SS and DT are each other's complement. SS for the quick buck, DT for sales in depth. They have another customer base, as far as I can judge.

In the case of software, prices can be really outrageous.

MS XP Home edition is 4000php or 100$ in the Philippines. You have to order it since it's never in stock. 4000php is the monthly income of a rural lower middle class family or 200kg of rice. The DVD with XP Pro (and loads of cracked games) at the market is 60php or 1.5$ and readily available.

East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.