nowadays, I also would not recommand photopin. I got sales report about 0,02 US-Dollar for one picture.
No, thanks.

Sorry, I am confused Luis.  Did you get paid for November partner program sales yet?

November royalties were payed.

Quote from: Allsa on January 14, 2011, 22:12

Thinkstock is an abomination that I hope and pray fails, and fails big time. If Thinkstock succeeds it will be yet another nail in the coffin of microstock. Do yourself and the microstock industry a big favor and delete all of your images from the site. If you continue to tolerate this type of treatment, you send Getty the message that it's OK, and things will just continue to get worse as time goes by.

Rather than answer the long rant from someone else about interest and our money, which is a pittance, I will make an effort to explain a couple of things.

When you sell a business the money owed is not considered assets, it doesn't help their position at all.

It's against the law to collect interest or invest money that is owed for commissions, so they make nothing on what they gold.

Anything that Getty is holding or not paying for a month, isn't doing them any good, in fact it's a liability. nIt's debt!

Maybe some other people think that this incompetence is a conspiracy, I think it's just a farce and having a lack of resources to handle the needs. Now there's a way to save money, low payroll, short staff. 

Things should pick up from now on sales-wise and views-wise (this is already happening). First couple of week of January is always very slow.

Thanks to Jim for making it a guest post - and to Leaf for making that happen.

It says a couple of key things about how Daniel has achieved his sales volume, and talks about the exclusivity decision. Without the higher upload limits of an exclusive, Laflor could not have increased his portfolio as he did in 2010. I think an independent diamond gets 38 slots a week, and even at 100% approval rate that would net you slightly more than 1900 images in a year.

Certainly a partnership or some sort of sharing deal with another photographer to help keep expenses under control would be a big assist in making this profitable (versus just excellent revenue). Given iStock's exclusivity rules, it would seem that Yuri and Daniel's arrangement is just about the ideal - Daniel pushes the shutter button and he's the legal copyright holder. His images look very much like Yuri's, but as long as Yuri's OK with that, iStock has no say in having many "similars" out there on other stock sites.

Certainly all food for thought.

I got an email today from Darek and he told me, maybe sometime next week.

Lets keep fingers cross.

Weird..., this is happening to me too. I couldn't seem to access the upload anything since 3 days ago. It says "Sorry to inform that uploads will be temporarily stopped for 1 hour to facilitate a scheduled maintenance of our storage system."

I can upload via FTP, but couldn't access the upload page at all. Contacted support and still waiting an answer.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on January 12, 2011, 21:34

I keep hearing all of the analysts saying having your own site is the way to go. "The future". I'm not buying it unless some new innovative method is developed for connecting buyers with contributors. In my experience, all of the people who have contacted me directly want freebies. Buyers use stock agencies. Freebie hunters use Flickr and Google. There are exceptions of course but it's rare. Every once in a while you hear about someone on Flickr making a sale.

Why would anyone want to do stock as a hobby? Flickr is a hobby. Stock is a business. But it seems to be turning into a "supplemental income" business. Commission cuts, competition, oversupply, economy, and hitting the growth wall all seem to be slamming contributors pretty hard right now.

If you build it, they will come. Kidding (sort of). If you have a site that has content and is relatively search engine friendly, people will find it. My site has only been open a few months, and guess who is leading the pack this month? ME!

I can't say this will last or improve or that other people will have the same results, but who knows. Especially, if you don't even make an effort. Do some research about SEO, web design, marketing etc. You don't have to be an expert, just motivated. Most of us know more about selling our work than any other agency does. Why? Because it is our work and we are actually paying attention to what sells and what doesn't. If I think 100 images of parrots in tuxedos are what people want, then I don't need rejections for "too many" parrots in tuxedos. I also have sold at many different price points, so I have some idea of what buyers want to buy my files for.

My quest isn't to become a multi-million dollar corporation. I just want to make a living off the work I do. If I have to do a little extra hard work now to make that more viable in the future, then I'm going to suck it up and do it. If nothing else, I can strive to have better customer support than istock, lately. 

I understand.  I tend to be quite sparse and very specific in keywording, and possibly I miss out on some searches that I don't anticipate... and I think what you're saying is fine, as long as you don't end up being rejected on those keywords.  I'm just trying to help you understand the reason for your last rejection, so that you don't have the same problem in future.

For me it's important to never use a word that does not relate directly to the image.