Also, Yuri is not there which is kinda worrying... 

He's there now with 9000+ images and 8 downloads apparently. I think I'll skip for now

Definitely.  GL has the fastest payouts in the business - it's something I wish was more standard in this business.

Yes, something like one hour. It's crazy

This month so far

1. Shutterstock
2. Fotolia
3. iStock (down from 2)
4. Dreamstime
5. Canstock (down from 4)
6. ClipartOf
7. Veer
8. Bigstock
9. 123RF
10. Graphic Leftovers
11. Crestock
12. FeaturePics
13. DepositPhotos
14. Cutcaster
15. Stockfresh

I also work almost only with vector illustrations. I'm thinking of uploading my portfolio (about 400 works) to vectorstock.com. In shutterstock i sell average 28 images a day this month. In other agencies (fotolia, dreamstime, 123rf, etc) this number is much lower - only from 20 to 5 sales during whole month. What could i expect from vectorstock.com? Is it just another low earner, like depositphotos, cutcaster, or is it better for you? What kind (style, theme) of illustrations do You sell here best?

It's entirely your decision whether to upload or not, but keep in mind they price 99% of their vectors at $1, severely undercutting the rest of the agencies.
My impression is they sell fairly well. Not surprising though, why wouldn't they with their prices. It's just a matter of time till all buyers know of the site and stop shopping at SS, DT, IS and the rest.

I am also very glad to hear that the API partners cannot further sublicense the images.

Agreed. I'm not aware of any agency allowing this, but I bet there are some. And it's definitely not beneficient to the contributor, so thanks Yay for not going down that path.

I've actually been running at 100% acceptance for some time.  Only a few rejections a year.

I think that if Shutterstock tells you it has too many of the type of image you're submitting, they are doing you a big favor.  It's a big wake-up call that you need to stop providing more of the same-old oversaturated subjects.  Take this opportunity to branch out, and you'll be far better off.

Otherwise, even if they did accept those images, they wouldn't sell... you'd be happy for the moment that they took your latest batch... but worse off in the long run because they're just buried in the bunch of thousands more just like them, and you'll make no money from them.

In other words, don't be offended by it, be empowered.

Problem is they seem to reject stuff if it fits into a certain category regardless of the quality of the work. I don't know about photos, but this has certainly been the case for illustrators since the site was flooded with colorful EPS10 backgrounds. I had an icon set rejected in November, and shortly after I reuploaded it with a note to the reviewer. It was accepted and has sold more than 550 times in the four months it's been so far, which I would say is good for an image that was initially rejected.
If I go ahead and draw objects, animals, food illustrations or cartoon characters I know they're going to accept those no matter how awful they are. But they don't sell nearly as good as backgrounds, stickers, labels, icons and buttons, plain and simple -because everyone needs images like these, only a few need images of a donkey or a screwdriver. Why not let us continue creating what buyers need the most.

They would be way better off deleting images with less than 10 sales in a year or so, clean up the database and keep everyone happy.
I'm certainly not changing my subjects just because SS doesn't want this and that at this point of time. That would mean more for the other agencies untill SS went back to normal.

It's getting really strange now.
Just tried entering the sales page of one of my vectors from a URL proxy (I'm guessing the server is located in the U.S.) and now it says $15.

So I'm guessing either they want buyers from rich countries to pay more and buyers from poor countries to pay less (hence the $2.5 / $3.75 commissions) OR this is simply a temporary glitch. And I hope it's the latter, because it doesn't sound like a sustainable business model


ETA:

$10 countries

Denmark
Great Britain
France
Poland
Spain
United Arab Emirates

$15 countries

Netherlands
Germany
United States
Sweden

I don't see a pattern, so either a glitch or they're slowly rolling out a new pricing structure across countries - that would be my best guess

Sounds weird. Mine are still $10

Must say, I really dont get it? why?, how?  can you supply, upload, etc, month after month after month, spend all this time that could easily be time generating much more with the big ones and the end result is: 3 sales per month
I know everyone here hungers for money but this is ridiculous, its like being greedy for pennies, Scrooge business.
I mean its quite obvious the middle-tier aint ever, never gonna see themselves in the top-tier, its wishful thinking. The only one that can somehow come close is Bigstock, if they play their cards right, they have a much more professional approach and now with the partnership Shutterstock, they have a good chance.

Im sorry guys we are already shoting for peanuts but I mean theres got to be a limit, surely?

Canstock surpassed Dreamstime for me last month with just regular sales, and it had been slowly building up to that point before that. So it was my fourth best earner for February, would you call that a waste of time ?
Bigstock is much worse for me. Different agencies work better for different people.

Quote from: Mantis on March 03, 2011, 07:54

Same here, Slovenian.  I had about 30 uploaded in a single batch and non ever sold.  In fact, I could not find them with a keyword search.  Then a day or two later they were there but no DL's.   shame we work so hard on creating images and get nothing in return. 

Microstock is not "falling apart."   What needs to be fixed is how contributors are going about it.  The sentiment above is a symbol of the biggest problem.  Relying on "Most Recently Uploaded" status to get your new images noticed is a recipe for failure.  It's admitting that your images are nothing special, and that the only way buyers will find them is if they appear at just the right moment in a Recent Uploads search.   Quit uploading more of the same old stuff that is just like thousands of other pics already online.  What are you contributing?  Noise.  It doesn't help buyers and it bogs down the agencies (no doubt contributing to the very problems that prompted this thread.)

Recipe for success: Find under-represented subject matter.  If you can't, at least offer a bold and unique approach or style to well-covered subjects.  Think like a buyer and ask yourself "Why would I buy this image over the countless others just like it?" 

If you can't come up with an answer, then microstock will forever seem "broken" or "falling apart" to you.

I do agree, but don't forget the images have to show up in the "recent" search before they can climb the "most popular" search. Shutterstock updates once a day I guess, and either you're lucky and have your images end up on the first page, or they end up at page 50+. I've tried both and it does make a huge difference sales-wise. It's not "sustainable" to entirely rely on this kind of luck of course, but the initial sales boost is very helpful to the images potential of going into the most popular search. SS has had bugs in the past that caused the images to show up several days after they were accepted, thus ending up at page 100 where no one sees them. Especially if the subject is a generic one like backgrounds.

Some people are talented enough to get their images in the most popular search regardless of their initial placement (Anja Kaiser for instance), but I'm sure it still makes a difference what page no. the images ends up at in the first place.

The fair solution imo, would be to update the library more often, once an hour or so. It would give buyers a chance to see all recent submissions, and better yet it would kill off any speculations and worries among contributors on what weekday to submit, how to spread uploads etc. but I guess it takes a lot of bandwidth or maybe buyers prefer it this way. It used to be okay I believe, but with this many contributions each day it requires a little more updating of the library

Here's the details page by the way, for anyone interested

http://yaymicro.com/pages/third-party-sales-program

I've earned �1 in total for several years, but after I decided uploading my entire portfolio a week ago I just got three sales yesterday, �5 each. Nice to see they do have buyers