Just echoing everyone else really... possible, but probably very unlikely.

Twenty years is probably a bit excessive. I bought my first video camera in 2007, used After Effects for the first time in 2008, sold my first stock video in 2009, started doing stock seriously in 2014, gave up freelancing to do stock full time in 2015, started travelling the world using just my stock earnings in 2016.. just working one or two days a week on new items.

I'm maybe the exception to the norm, but if you have common sense, a bit of business acumen, an 'eye for the shot' and a basic understanding of what sells... you can learn the rest pretty quickly. If you read books, watch tutorials and shoot as much as you can for a month, you'll have all the knowledge you need to shoot stock content that will probably sell from time to time. Shooting the right stuff and figuring out what sells will take a bit longer, and creating stuff that will do a lot better than 'probably sell from time to time' will take a lot longer than that... but probably years rather than decades.

On the other hand, you could be at it for twenty, even forty years... and still be s**t! There's certain things you can't really teach... it's the same reason why some musician who's been at it for twenty years might be a multi million dollar performer, and another might be getting the crowd going before the bingo starts. I appreciate there's more of a 'right place at the right time' and an issue of getting the right opportunities in that scenario, but hopefully you get the idea.   

Honest answer? I would expect to be able to put images and video up for sale without and agency manipulating earnings.

So would I, but I've not been presented with any compelling evidence that such things are happening.

...all will be well when it is clearly not.

Might be clear to you, but not to me!

Not sure if a screensshot of your software with the working file would help. Maybe worth a try.

What are the 3D animations of?

they end up with an agency of russian contributor with model with typical face feature of that part of the world only.

A photographer that only shoots models from their part of the world?! How dare they... it just sickens me. You think they'd at least have the common courtesy to fly people in from different parts of the world. What have we come to as a society when I'm forced to look at images and footage of people from different parts of the world... it's just not right. 

I think the new uploader might still be in beta, but there's a form you can fill in to give you access. I'll try and find it. From one of the most difficult uploading processes, it's now pretty good. Upload multiple files simultaneously, auto generation of all your previews, upload directly from Dropbox etc. The first two are pretty standard, the Dropbox option is a nice addition. 

Here you go... https://envato.formstack.com/forms/new_vh_upload_page

Just needs to be 960x540, render using the H.264 option in the format dropdown so you get a .MP4 file, and make sure you've added the VideoHive watermark. However, if it's footage rather than motion graphics, you should be able to use the new uploader... no need for preview images, previews and thumbnails, it does it all for you.

I make decent enough money... enough to live on. I do videos which have a higher return, and I have some After Effects templates which sell pretty well, but I've got less than 500 items.

What everyone else said... but even if you've not had a zero sales day before, what was the next lowest sales day? One download, two, three? That's not exactly a massive jump from there to zero. Combine that with natural variance, the weekend, increased competition and the holidays... a zero sales day was bound to happen at some point.

to follow up on my previous success story. today (saturday) i achieved ZERO downloads.

time to evaluate  the site performance and look for alternatives.

You're looking for alternatives after one day of having zero sales... and on a weekend? You might be jumping the gun slightly. What happens if you get no sales for two days in a row... delete your entire portfolio and burn all your equipment?

Quote from: ShadySue on May 26, 2017, 14:06

I've been reading of nets of less than $5 for Getty Premium Access video.

Does that minimum only apply to drone cityscapes with full commercial releases (as they say 'creative'. But then they have the bizarre category of 'creative unreleased'). Are they going to protect these specific files from premium access? Or are they somehow disingenuously declaring that 'Getty Premium Access' isn't a Getty sale?

Who knows?

I've got some sales with less than 2$ for my completely unique drone clips, my prices were 500-700$ at Pond5 for those clips!! I quit Getty directly after couple of sales like that, really disgusting.

Do they sell at $500 to $700? If you're getting one sale a month, per clip, then happy days! If it's one a year, then not so much. Not questioning your pricing, just curious!

Best month ever, over 200% increase on April with a week to go. Probably just a spike though.