2008 = 9 dl's
Alltime = 51
Last DL = Mar 18
Port = 294 or 295?
Earnings = $59.80

Views= 10,121!

Do you have the latest release of Capture to 1.3?  I didn't realize until a couple months ago that it had been upgraded (in November!), and OMG, what a HUGE difference in performance. 

MIZ!!! Shame on you. Okay, maybe you don't know the Miz's humour (yet) but I think this is a twisted form of compliment.

The biggest part of being a stock photographer is knowing what stock is.  You can be the most brilliant photographer, but still only make a couple of bucks a month at micro because you simply don't know what the buyers want.  There is a huge difference between art, photography and stock photography.

1.  Most of your port on IS is black and white. Big sellers are overly saturated colours that POP and entice the buyers to click on the thumbnails.

2.  Copy space!

3.  Isolated people and obects are the best sellers.  Not the most exciting to shoot, but great sellers.

4.  People in action:  at work, working out, knitting (hey Miz?), at church, doing something in a "category" sell extremely well.  

Find your niche, exploit it.  Move on to the next subject.

When I started I would send over any old photos to stock agencies and hope that some would stick.  Have they sold?  Not really.  At some point I realized that there is a difference beteen photos and stock photos and now I either take a photo and say "Hey this is stock!" or I shoot with stock in mind.  

Look at the best sellers of any site and you will likely find isolate business people, or background textures.   Look at the top photographers and say "hey, what does this guy have that I don't?"

You've got nice work and obviously the skills, you just need to study a little more!  

What StockManiac said.  But louder.

Back to IS restrictive uploading.  Okay - I partly agree with this.  My personal acceptance rate is horrible at IS, and if this was the only site I submitted to I swear my ego would have been so bruised I wouldn't still be doing it.  I am the one that they have the 20 uploads per week limit for.  I can also say this though, the ones they accept sell very very well.

But on the other hand.... are they not just hurting their business by restricting uploads from Yuri's, or Iofoto's, or Sharply's entire portfolio because of restricted upload limits?  You would think they would have a sliding scale for proven contributors - maybe based on acceptance rather than sales.

... but more astonishingly 57,000 new images added this week.

Is that number extraordinarily high (or on current pace?)  Could it be because they are revisiting the LCV rejections that created such an uproar the the past couple weeks?   (I think that long long forum post on SS said they were going to do that...)

I had a lot of trouble when I first signed up with them too, but once straightened out it is a very easy site to work with.  

$ are not marvelous, but yes Chode - I think worth the effort.  I sell more individual photos on 123 than StockXpert, and about equal # to FT = but less $ per sale due to their subs.  

So... what do you think of this?  This site is very sluggish, I tried to do some random searches to see if anything of mine has appeared here - but I just don't have the time to wait...

http://www.picapp.com/publicsite/

Supposedly "FREE" images for bloggers to use?  It's popped up in my RSS feeds quite a bit this week.

If you haven't used a particular model release in a while... all of my releases were corrupted with V2.  I had to re-upload the releases if I had new photos of the same models.  I mistakenly used a pre-V2 one last week, and the photo was approved almost the minute I resubmitted a new one.

I haven't done very well at BigStock at all.  But this month seems to have turned around, in one more sale I will match my best month there which was July 07.

Regarding the title of this thread, I would expect it to be the opposite actually...

Shutterstock must have buyers who are "in between" jobs and subscription plans, or who have already spent the budget this month (or their quota of downloads)... they have something they need in their lightbox and go find it at Istock.

I think that SS is just harming themselves by not offering single photo sales.  Even if they were for a much higher amount than Istock, they would keep their customers who don't need a new $159 package right now.  What if those who stray to IS for one single photo stay there?

You cannot deny how cool PicLens is.  It's been getting a lot of buzz the past few weeks.   

Okay, I have to be honest, the only reason I downloaded the plugin was because two photos that I submitted today appear first on today's slideshow (flattery will get you everywhere) so that was enough incentive for me to try it.

Pros:  Cool, innovative, slick.  Nice collection of photos (presumably hand picked because there isn't really anything mediocre there).

Cons: 
- Cool, innovative, slick
- activex plugin required
- When you click on a photo and click it again to the max screen, it looks horrible. 
- There is no trail to purchase a specific photo or to go back to zymmetrical - (other than the visible watermark on the photo)
- Not searchable. 
- May be too rapid - you just fly down the wall and miss half of the presenation.

I'm not sure of the purpose, is this a marketing tool?  It's not very effective when it doesn't lead back to zymm or a specific photo purchase page.  I could see it wowing customers at a trade show booth though. 

I don't know, it could be very effective for a personal website, but I'm not sure about a business when you can't browse, toss a photo into your shopping cart or lightbox, and continue shopping. 

It's fun for mindless browsing though.