I agree with you If for instance I was looking for a picture of a human hand and got handcuffs I would be very annoyed.

These keywords are way way beyond what is in the photo and I would be ticked off to see a pair of handcuffs with nothing else in the frame during a search for many of those words.

Sorry, but this one isn't istock's fault.

We've just been given back a bit of what we lost in previous best match shake ups.  My sales went from 50 -70 a day right down to 15 -20 a day  They have now gone up but still haven't reached previous figures   I'm sure that similar situations are making the independents look as if they are getting an advantage when in fact they are just not getting such a bad deal as before.

 

The feeling is that any exclusive boost in the BM2.0 sort has swung a bit too far to the independent side this time.

I wouldn't take a lot if notice about what Yuri reccomends as I started uploading to Crestock based on his reccomendations.  That was the biggest waste of uploading time that I have ever spent.  I think he has ulterior motives when pushing sites.
I would go with Bigstock if I were you.  They are my 6th site after (in order) FT, IS,SS,DT and StockXpert but don't expect to get anywhere near what you can on the big 4.

Yuri has been writing recently about Can Stock and I have heard some good things about Big Stock.

Many thanks...

I'm not seeing that at all and have just about 100% acceptance in the last 6 months.  Maybe they have a rogue reviewer that I've been lucky enough to avoid.  Saying that a lot of the people that are complaining about rejections post their images in the forums and quite honestly 90% of the images would be lucky to get accepted anywhere.

I was talking about a Fotolia thread, Fred:
http://us.fotolia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=19117

Even the moderator, Mat Hayward, showed concern:

I had all recent images rejected as well.  I'm not sure what if anything has changed in the recent criteria.  If I hear anything I'll post here.

Mat

As for the smalls images, I have no idea.  My last sale there was in mid-march.

Don't get too excited Stacey, these sites between them account for considerably  less tha1% of my total microstock earnings. To give you an idea how that relates to you IS give me 25% of my earnings.

well after a couple of days doing my homework (in other words, researching . out of this neurotically) as only I can do....it is terrible to admit a tiny bit of excitement about seeing where this one goes?

I thought when the announcement first came out that it would bring the exclusivity decision back into the foreground for me...and it did briefly.

but I have been reading and reading, and researching all these companies and how they are positioned in the market and you know, this plan might actually, shockingly, be a pretty intelligent thing to do. I can't believe I am saying it myself. though speculation means nothing without proof so I'll be opting in some files to see what happens. but, it feels a bit like an adventure.

my main concern was iStock changing its business model, which I no longer believe is the plan. and I see the potential for photos.com to compete well in the subscription theatre, which iStock has not been able to do since they are primarily known as a premium PAYG site.

in any case, I'm way less freaked and more optimistic.

LOL
but seriously so many people just don't get it, they think that they can just walk around the street or their home and zoom in on anything that takes their fancy and sell it as stock.
I have a friend who is a great photographer but  every shot she puts up for stock is far too arty and all though a lot of it gets accepted very little sells.

Come on, it's that hard to figure out that you need to have photo of people in business suits with laptops 

I've just checked out two of mine that were accepted yesterday and they are both showing in the search.

Why do you do so badly at IS compared to the rest?  I'm amazed to see even 123rf beating it.

30% less money than last month (march)

Thanks for the link, I loved it.  Listening to it was a great way to start the day 

They're definitely picking up for me. Today so far I have had twice as many credit sales as subs. and 3 of them were the nice XL 5$ ones.

Thanks again for all the advice. I won't do anything without asking permission from each site.

Thanks for all the replies.  I'll just have to e.mail the sites that I aren't sure about.

Yes, I understand that.  I am now making considerably more from stock than I do on my day job but have now got used to spending that much money.  If I now gave up my day job I would probably more than make up for it as I would have so much time for doing stock but it is a risk.

While I can easily say that I'd quit the day job, I'm not so sure that I'd be able to pull the trigger if I were in that situation. If I were making $10k a month in microstock, my total monthly income would be $10k plus what I was still making at the day job. So my total monthly income would drop significantly by quitting. On the other hand, quitting the day job would allow be to crank out a lot more new images for microstock, and eventually increasing my income back to (or beyond) the level it was at when I had the day job money still coming in.

Aw screw it... I'd still quit the day job anyway, even if my total income had to take a dive for a little while.

The freedom alone would be priceless.