I honestly don't see the point of these kind of posts. Altough the OP is in my block list for an abundance of self-serving and totally useless posts, I keep seeing the fallout. Ah, while I'm at it, I got a bunch of EL's at SS. Who f*ing cares? Grrr...

hey, mr. grinch. i like hearing success stories. let's hear yours.  

but since the op had posted the el photos, it gives us a better idea of the kind of images buyers are looking for larger print runs/products, etc.

i'm surprised at all the swearing. for all the venting microstockers do, we seem a much more civil lot.  

maybe it's because we don't have 'clients' to deal with.

The micro market has already been ruined by dirt low prices, each site trying to under sell the others and pay the photographers less to cover their losses. They make less and we make less. Many of the sites will fail and go broke very soon. Another bad point: Free images on every site to attract the low payers or no payers to the site. NONE of my images are free on any site and never will be. Thousands more are stolen every day and the sites do next to nothing to stop it. Ever hear of a image theft being fined or put in jail for copyright theft? NO. So why pay?

When I sold stock photos in the 50's 60's and through the early 80's NONE sold for less than $100.00 for RF images and RM sold for $200 to $5,000.00 per image. Calendar and greeting card companies never paid less than $500.00 for an image. Book covers $250.00 and up. Now they get them for less than a cup of coffee.

The Internet ruined it all. That is why I have lost nearly all interest in up loading any more to any site. I can sell Cd's full of images on Ebay for $25.00 per each for low res shots RF and not give a crap what they actually do with them. They do not get my best, only my rejects the ones I did not ever try to up load. Junk.

Sorry to sound sour but those are the facts. I for one just don't want to work for 5 cents an hour.

Larry

i'm surprised with such a solid photography background as yours that you even attempted to dabble in microstock at microstock prices. if you're only a member at the three sites on your profile, then i can understand why you're so obsessed with the commission per photo. microstock is all about volume and dt and bs have little volume to speak of. if you'd join is and ss, you'll be more concerned with the bottom line, which should be 10-20x of what you're getting. at that rate, you won't care whether your photos sell for a $1 or $20.

also, a lot of us happen to like the microstock online business model. the immediacy, of it, both for buyers and sellers, is really appealing. if i wanted to be fairly paid at the prices you used to get, i'd put everything on alamy. there are a lot of photographers who do really well there. i remember one gentleman who's based in a remote part of scotland, never leaves his hometown and takes mostly rm, no mr, photos and is making hand over fist. i presume he takes good photographs.

Quote from: gostwyck on April 16, 2010, 05:48

No. The inspections are undertaken by humans so nothing to do with the servers.

The girl looks to be Thai, is described as Thai (and therefore presumably is Thai) so describing her as 'Chinese' is simply wrong. Do you think all Asian people look the same then? Once you start down the road of trying to stretch your keywords they'll rightly hammer you.

Agree 110%.  How incredibly ignorant.  

i think it's kind of difficult to see if she's thai or chinese, but i guess, gostwyck, you have your ID down to a science. however, it's accurate to say she's asian or either chinese or thai (if she is one or the other), but not both. but, then, she could even be eurasian or half chinese/half thai. it's not that cut and dry with ethnicities these days. but, i get your point about trying to pass someone off as chinese just because it's a bigger market.

dead in the water, but just surfaced for a little air today - tiny bubble. 

this is all really interesting and thanx for the tax tips on tax day. 

but, er, have you ever been audited? as an individual or company? 

I'm still very new with less than 200 images online.  My best download day was 11 but my best dollar day was $30.88.  I was thrilled to see a payout in just over 2 months.  Still gathering the confidence to try iStock.   

very similar to your numbers! my mind boggles at those with 100+ dl/day. what kind of photos are those (can't see their port).

i'm sure is will be a cake walk for you, but don't expect the same spectacular results with ss. they're a very steady performer though.

Thank you all! I didn't hear so many nice words in a long time It's a good feeling. We should give more often compliments to each other. Maybe we would fight less then and everyone would feel better
Kisses for all of you!

that's really sweet...i think you can be msg's official cheerleader! congrats with is.

Is it not much more difficult to hold steady if it doesn't have a viewfinder? Maybe it's just a technique you have to learn and get used to.

lol, these double negatives have my head in a tizzy. do you mean, it's much more difficult w/o a viewfinder? yes, the lcd screen is useless in sunlight or strong light and the image is often much poorer than reality or the actual shot you see later. i don't like using it for i just don't get the feel of the shot.

for me, the rebound started yesterday, with ods and  and one el at ss. even dt joined the party, a little.

Perhaps. But you are not taking into account the better search placement that you would get as an exclusive. I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes but I'm sure it's something. So being exclusive your RPD and your number of downloads should increase, not just RPD as you estimated.

didn't you go exclusive at is only a short while ago? (i remembered the drama with dt.  ) how are you finding your new status? is it all it's cracked up to be? vetta and better search placements? any other perks? (complimentary drinks and napkins in first class, eh)

i only started testing the waters with a few images last august. but i feel the returns growth is commensurate, if not exceeding, portfolio growth all along. ie a 10% increase in upload can result in 50% revenue growth. so, i feel the good old times is now. i'd imagine for the real old timers, they were probably experiencing 100% growth on a monthly basis. ah.....