When the footage is made for feeding AI's, I guess aesthetics were not really taken into account.
But 10.000 different subjects is a lot, and I would say chances are fair some of them will start selling very regularly.
Also: 2 weeks is nothing. Give it time.

If you want to make it completely effortless: why not contact a distributor, and ask them to do the keywording and uploading for you?
With that volume, you might be able to cut a deal with them to skip the regular uploading process via their interfaces, and provide them the footage directly.

Just found out they were bought by Talenthouse (https://business.talenthouse.com) in March, so delayed payments might as well have to do something with that.
Maybe they ran out of money and needed a new investor who is able to turn things around. And we all know who feel the pain when agencies decide they need more profit/cost reductions. Or maybe not, and they just need time (really? two months?) to rearrange their financial structures and payment systems.

I'm not really invested in Eyeem and earnings there only account for some monthly lunch money at best. But it shows that working with distributors rather than agencies can be a risky business. If the distributor runs into trouble, you lose all the income streams of any agency they distributed the content to. And what happens with the images that were distributed to different agencies? They remain online to feed the debt collectors, investors, and anyone else except contributors who thinks they need some money?

Anyhow, let's wait and see what happens. Might as well be a long stretched glitch in their payment system.

@cobalt: agree. Sad to see how it went. There's some great offbeat, creative and authentic content on Eyeem. I love browsing their collections to kill time and find inspiration.
But in the end, the only thing that ever sold there for me are the run-of-the-mill stock images and I guess many other contributors are in the same boat.

For anyone who's interested: I did request my June payout, but 10 days later, this one also remains in status "requested".
So they are two months behind now.

I wrote their support on the first of June about the May payment, still haven't got an answer.

So beware. Eyeem might be the next one to close shop. 

Most of the agencies seem to have incompetent reviewers.... out of focus/motion blur-- nope.  Technical error-- nope.  Poor composition- nope -- from reviewer who has no clue what composition is.  Similar image-- nope one is a macro  -- totally different.  Just move on-- they do sell at agencies where accepted-- rejecting agency's loss.

Not sure. Speaking from my own, anecdotal, experience here: some of my good earning images were rejected during the first upload.
I had to upload them twice or even a third time before they were accepted. I thought those were quality-wise rather decent shots with respectable commercial value, so I persisted despite Shutterstock telling me different. In the end, I was right, and they started selling, earning me several hundreds of dollars.

Quote from: ribtoks on June 30, 2022, 11:46

Hello

A little rant from me for hearing too much about Wirestock: https://xpiksapp.com/blog/never-use-wirestock/

Let me know what are you thoughts! Do you think this is all wrong and actually WS is a good time investment?

I was there for a little while amd left once I found my images were being given away in a free site just because they didn�t sell well. That really sucked.

You mean the instant pay program? I can�t recall Wirestock giving images away for free other than instant pay, which you can opt out of.

Aside from all that above, I think it's a fair system and a choice that each person needs to decide on their own. Some won't use the service and don't like the way it works, or has worked. Others are in the middle and use parts, mixed with their own. (that's good enough for me) And some other people are all in with Wirestock.

Free Choice.

Correct. I fully understand the ones who go full in after evaluating the pro's and the cons. They make a well educated decision that suits their situation best.
I also fully understand the ones who avoid services like Wirestock, because, yeah, there are some potential painful disadvantages to it.

It's a free, personal choice, but before making a the decision, read topics like this and decide what's best for you.

I'm more in the middle, and use parts of them, or use them for certain content.
But honestly, the more I use them, the more I'm leaning towards cutting them out of future uploads.

Yes, just got it today.

You don't know why? Usually Adobe gives a rejection reason.

Yes they do. Under "Uploaded Files" -> "Not Accepted" -> right of the screen in a red rectangle.
Can't miss it.

I didn't see a specific raise in rejections at Adobe. I can live with the few ones they reject, and the reasons they give me.
And I don't have the feeling they are particularly picky, except for their illustrative editorial content maybe.
I mean: it's illustrative editorial, I get that, but sometimes plain editorals are accepted too while some other illustratives are rejected. Their policy in that regard is not very clear to me, or maybe I'm not fully understanding the concept of illustrative editorial.

I'm still waiting for my May payout at Eyeem.
The payout status is still in status "Requested".
Already reached out to their support, but no answer so far.

So I'm hesitating to request my June payout.

Go to the batch of which the image belongs to. Find your image in the batch. At the right of the screen, the reason for rejection or revision is given in red.

Other alternatives include:

1. Direct selling via your own shop (see threads on Etsy and Shopify)

2. Print on Demand (eg. Fine Art America, Society 6, RedBubble)

3. Designer Resource Agencies (Creative Market, DesignBundles, Hungry JPEG)

4. Book Covers (see Alex's blogs and threads)


Upside. After about 6 months, its quite feasible on some of these sites to start earning as much as the middle tier agencies - with a potential to earn more. Once you're in, there is no reviewer system. You set your own prices. Lower or no agency commissions. (Not sure about book covers)

Downside/s: Learning curve. Needs research to understand what buyers need. May have to change what you shoot. Some places are very choosy about who they accept. Without a reviewer system you have to become your own reviewer and may have to raise your quality standards to increase sales. Without an agency between you and the buyer you may have to put up with demanding buyers who can drive you crazy. You may have to do your own marketing. Site fees/costs on direct selling sites.

Bottom line. After all of this hard work and effort, you may start to appreciate what agencies actually do for us. Although I still can't see how some of them justify taking up to 85% of our income to do this.

And yes, we need more agencies that allow us to set our own prices. That's the main benefit of most of these alternative venues above.

Very useful Annie, thanks.

Maybe one addition, all of that requires - from my point of view - the shift from "taking" a shot to "making" a shot.

You show up at the right place at the right time, you have the patience and timing to push the shutter button at the right moment, you know how to frame your composition, you know how to operate stealth, you have the gear and ability to pull it technically off under conditions which you have little or no control over. 
All of that enables you to "take" fantastic shots, thinking landscapes, street, documentary or journalism for instance, which can do very well at "numbers game" microstock, but I think (correct me if I'm wrong) a lot of that is less suited for POD, book covers or the other designer oriented markets you mentioned.
Of course, well framed landscape shots or specific architecture can still do well for book covers or POD, but the options are more limited.

Your game requires an additional talent or skill. You have the creativity to come up with a conceptual idea and construct or direct a scene in a controlled environment like a studio.
You first "make" you shot, based on knowledge about what creative buyers need, and then "take" the shot. Great for Microstock, but maybe even better/less frustrating for creative markets because they offer RPD?

Both are different disciplines and one is not better than the other. Very often, both disciplines are covered by different people.
Think food photography for instance. The one I know has a cook, a set designer and a photographer. All very skilled in their own discipline.
Of course, they don't do microstock, they do assignments for major food brands.

In the end, speaking for myself here, it still comes down to upping your game by developing an additional skill.
And my observation is that people who keep on developing their skillset, or treat it like a business and hire additional skills, grow out of microstock and find different, better paying markets.

That said, kudos for you that you can all do it by yourself, and be successful at it!
In my book, that's a very respectable achievement. 

Quote from: Firn on May 20, 2022, 01:29

Quote from: Unamas on May 20, 2022, 00:55

Is there anyway to exclude sales to China?

No, there isn't.

Luckily, I don't get many of these 2c sales to China - but I had one refunded!!!

And I saw my download counter in DeepMeta drop with 40 today. Refunds? I can't recall any refund at iStock!