It just goes to show the total lack of consistency with the review process as it is completely at the whim of the individual reviewers.

That is correct

Where do I have to enter informations about my self, please?

I replied to an email that was sent to me but there is also a place on the "My Account" page, fourth bullet down and it says:

"Work with us to develop the text for your main page by sending us information about you, your work, links to your website and other relevant information related to you which we will place in our Featured Artists Section."

The words "sending us" is a link to a form where you can enter your information.
 

This whole thing reminds me of watching two Bighorn Sheep banging their heads together so hard they stand stunned and bleeding.

Can u sell them multiple times?

Yes you can. The default setting sells the template as a "public image" but you can also choose "extended use" or "limited distribution".

I signed up last night and was contacted within an hour by the community developer. I sent him some personal information about my experience with print, links to my website and some of my stock work. He said he would work on a portfolio page for me over the weekend. In the meantime, I used existing artwork to produce 9 business card templates where I uploaded the little backgrounds (around 1.6 mb), chose the location of the text, picked an appropriate category (large list of choices) and added a short description. I liked the feature where you could add a link to the original photo on IS or other agency. Creates sort of a "mini gallery" of your stock photos and allows a new audience to become familiar with your work. Looks good so far and this type of work is right down my alley.

Thanks for posting this opportunity ... but 5 bucks a pop doesn't sound like an awful lot for the amount of work that appears to be involved.

Maybe the idea is to sell each design multiple times? Then it would be worth the effort?
I did this type of work for years for freelance income (wasn't much) but with only one or two colors. It really is pretty simple work. May give it a try myself.

Ultimately we are all in competition with each other so I don't really get the point of threads like this, and also doubt whether the guys above would be freely sharing their strategies.

I rue the day I shared some of my strategies with someone and was utterly ripped off.

Wow! So does this mean its OK for you to gather information for yourself from this thread but you're not going to give anything back? Isn't the whole point of a forum to share information for the benefit of all?

For newcomer contributors it's frustrating experience. You may easily upload to smaller site and see no result for long time or try to work you way on old sites. In both cases it will take long time to see any results. I have been doing this for 3 months so maybe my perspective is to short to draw any valid conclusion but this is how I feel it.

As a fairly new contributor, I have found the experience exciting, challenging, uplifting and very rewarding. Sales and downloads are accelerating well beyond my expectations on the larger sites and are steadily improving on the smaller sites.

People who copy what is already there probably wont do well but those that can produce something different should still make money.  Buyers like new images and a lot of the older ones stop selling after a year or two, so the market might never become saturated.

Totally agree! It is quite surprising to see how many holes there are to be filled in the existing collections. I've found quite a few in the few short months I've been uploading.

The designers I know look for unique images for every new project they work on. I think there will always be a need for new photos and sometimes people want those odd photos that mostly go ignored. Surprising and sometimes unpredictable what people need and will download.

I'm having a very different experience. IS, SS and DT are the best performers for me.  StockXpert and 123RF, not so good.

Good for you! Seems like the more you upload, the more you make, eh? 

Closing in on my 2nd full month at SS and nowhere near reaching $500 and it will take many months to get there. I don't upload any of the best sellers from IS and have a hard time stomaching the little tiny prices. I feel more comfortable selling seasonal graphics and backgrounds than the regular photos. I do like the fact that certain photos kind of "catch on" and sell repeatedly long after they've been uploaded. For me, IS blows all the other sites away for total sales.

Since you're from a print and ad background, maybe you can answer this: then why does Alamy , the only one, insists on upsizing?

Anyone know why?

I'll take a guess. Maybe they would prefer jpegs from 12 MP originals but will take the 10 MP images if you know how to upsize them correctly (which is still not an ideal situation)? I use PhotoShop CS3 and use image size with Bicubic Smoother. Out of 55 photos uploaded they have rejected one for pixel discoloration.