I make a lot more on Zazzle than I do on all of my microstocks combined, except Shutterstock. Ranking: Zazzle, Shutterstock, All Other Microstocks and PODs. Forget CafePress, their interface is so clunky and the last time I was there, you had to resize artwork for each different product... Losers!

Zazzle and Shutterstock are my bread-n-butter. 

Stacey

Some of my images that have been refused are on the basis of lighting or WB. Am I allowed to re-submit without being suspended ? I am reluctant because there is no option of writing a note to the reviewer.

I've heard of people getting warnings after 3 resubmissions of the same image, be careful.

I haven't seen an app for any of the other sites... however, have you seen this?  Microstock Report, reports earnings on most sites! Very useful!

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nebogames.microstockreport&hl=en

Very impressive, Stacey. I can't say I've given zazzle a fair chance, but the $1.24 that's sitting in my account doesn't exactly motivate me much. Good to see you've made it work for you.

Thanks!  I think your style is suited to Zazzle very much... now you just have to select which of your stuff, and create new stuff, that appeals to consumers (its a totally different market than microstock), and once you have a pulse on that, your sales take off.

I've only ever sold one thing through Zazzle a coffee mug over a year ago.  Like most of us it's trying to find the time to make things and get them up on the store.

Anita judging from your ports, I think if you put your mind to it (and time), you could be making an income comparable to your microstock income and then some, with Zazzle.  I think your style lends itself very well to the application.  The people buying stuff for themselves are looking for cute, different, artistic artwork that sets them apart from their friends, and helps them make a statement about themselves. Just think about what designs of yours could be put to that use, I'm sure you have lots of them already... and the funny thing is, once you get a bead on that, new ideas start jumping into your head like crazy!  Because its a different market than what we draw for microstock, its more wide, diverse, creative, so your brain will go nuts thinking of things to "Zazzle" (it's a verb now, too).

Ha ha yeah, not like I want the competition, but good luck guys because I know you could be some stiff competition for me. I introduced Kirsty Pargeter to Zazzle and now she has a beautiful store, I'm sure she is going to blow us all away with her amazing work... but we're good too!  Zazzle advertises all over the place so I can imagine we are getting some real grassroots exposure to the consumers of the world and I think we're just beginning to see the great results.

Good luck guys!

Stacey

Got it now.

I wonder though why the illustration category is still available when editing pending files... 

It's available for rasters... when you upload a vector, it already knows its an illustration and it chooses itself, and gets "grayed out."  As for a raster, it has no way of knowing whether its an illustration or not, so you're supposed to mark it.

I know my increased rejections are caused by my camera becoming old, outdated, noisy... its not just the camera, it's the standards at the agencies that are slowly becoming higher and higher as the quality of the work begins to reflect the new cameras and techniques.  I understand that as time goes on, I have to upgrade my own materials and skills to keep up with it. It's been that way since I began in microstock 5 years ago.  Of course when I get rejections I have to stomp and scream and get angry, but that's just the red-headed Irish Leo in me.  Then I calm down and say, "okay time to buy a new camera and upgrade to PS5."

Until then I illustrate. I rarely get rejections on my illustrations.

@pet_chia, the keyword Nazi, LOL... yeah I know what you mean, but as I have been doing this for a long time, I see a pattern, there are two keyword philosophies:  One is that you just use keywords that apply to the image literally, i.e. a book, a flower, a table. The more "liberal" philosophy about keywords is to use conceptual words, ones that are more a stretch of the imagination, or ones that could speak to the potential use of the image, such as a brochure or report cover, or what not.  I think the stock agencies more appreciate the first way to do it (only use words that apply to the image itself), and some reviewers probably do not appreciate all the gazillion "potential uses" that we think of to use as keywords. Plus, there is an insane amount of keyword spamming going on, I think the worst patterns I see of that is by the people that "purchase" their keywords from a keywording service. I'm sure the reviewers are overwhelmed... as a buyer I know I am, I can rarely find just what I want from all of the junk keywords that I come across.

In other words if you get a keyword rejection, be glad its not a technical rejection that you won't be able to fix, just pare them down as much as you can and resubmit.

I contacted Palm Springs Walk of Stars, and they answered:

Hello Ivan,
 
Thank you for your inquiry. The logo of the Palm tree is trademarked with the name Palm Springs Walk of Stars.
 
Best regards,
Kevin

So, the star in the square is not copyrighted. So, I gotta contact all stock agencies to enable my file.

Not sure I understand how you got "not copyrighted" from that statement. His response is ambiguous at best, but I believe he was telling you that they ARE trademarked.  Perhaps you didn't copy/paste the statement where he said the "star in the square" are not copyrighted?  You may wish to clarify this with him before you contact the agencies.

Twelves cams... does that mean six vessels doing interventions in the well? 

That's what they're saying... it's Sunday night at 8 p.m. Pacific time (10pm at the Deepwater Horizon) and no work is being done right now... the best vid is from the Skandi ROV 1 & 2, that one seems to usually be right at the outpouring and shows them trying to get the cap stack on. Looks like at least 6 units are working, but maybe not round-the-clock!  Meanwhile thousands of gallons of oil gush into the saltwater every hour... but they can't violate Union rules and make those guys work more than 8 hours a day! 

That's funny... but interesting as well because that's what I tell people to do after they think they have isolated an object on white... it's a good way to find your mistakes and places you missed.  Or, of course you can slide your levels temporarily to darken up the missed spots.

Thanks for sharing, that's too cute.

OMG!  ROFL!!!

Stolen?! Hijacked straight from the site?

THAT IS TOO FUNNY!

Shutterstock has announced that starting Monday, vector artists may begin to upload files saved back to EPS-10 format, and have increased the file size limit to 15 megabytes!

Do you guys have files saved on your hard drive that were too big to upload? Or wouldn't pass through because of the problems saving back to EPS-8 such as transparency and color profile problems? I'd like to hear your thoughts on it!

If there's one lesson I've learned (or not learned) about microstock is, I can never predict or believe what buyers will buy. The second you think you have a money shot, think again... then you upload that one you're sure will be rejected, but you like it, and it sells 100 times in a year.

Congrats on that... simple sells, that's for sure. As long as you can get it past the reviewers who want to reject it for LCV, that is.

Stacey