Hmmm, interesting...I noticed that you built the website that you are linking to. Doing a little pimping, are we?

I wonder how successful this type of marketing for microstock really is. I think that people that aren't willing to pay even $2 for an image aren't going to buy from the microstock sites anyway. They will continue to surf the publicdomain site and get all the free images they can. Otherwise, wouldn't they just go to the microstock sites to begin with? Heck, most of the micros have a free image section now, too.

It would be interesting to hear from this girl herself, and others on that site, and talk about how much money she has earned by all the referrals and the $1 images she has sold. We are getting the statistics about this girl secondhand, from you. It might be nice to hear some first-hand experiences.

I am so envious!

I may be doing the same thing, kind of un-voluntarily, if my job keeps up on the path it is on. I think it would be a great adventure. I hope I can save a little more money though before it comes to that. And I always have my microstock income, good for a few meals a month, to fall back on.   

Have a great trip, Traveler!

OK to use mine. Will we get to see the finished product?

I have seen MANY images of maps on all the stock sites, and yet I had a photo rejected because it had a map in it. In my photo, the map was NOT the main subject at all, there were other objects in the photo, the map was out of focus and a secondary element. When I asked the reviewer why my image was rejected and tons of others are on their site, the reply was "get over it and move on, the image probably wouldn't have sold well anyway". That's a whole nuther rant, but my point is you might be able to get away with it if it's not the main element. By the way, it was istock that rejected it but it has gotten accepted on other sites.

I have a Rand McNally map book and it clearly states that no part of the maps can be reproduced as they are copyrighted. And yet maps continue to show up on the sites, and you know darn well they are NOT user generated. Some maps, like Rand McNallys, just have a specific look to them, to me anyway.

I don't think there is going to be a clear answer, because you have the human factor involved...there will always be a reviewer that will pass it through, and you will always have the reviewer that rejects it.

That is so cool, nice work!

Regarding Big Stock, I believe you have to write to support so they can delete your portfolio and inactivate your account.

I've worked on macs since the first model came out, with 64k of ram, in the 80s. I would never buy a PC to do serious graphics work on. But that's just me. Having said that, I have worked on PCs at various jobs (not by choice). There are some features about XP that I like a lot, and there are a ton more programs for the PC. But this just hasn't ever been enough to sway me to the dark side.  

Lisa, you must have gotten a lemon. That just does NOT sound like a Mac at all. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience.

I just figured out how to download Image Manager Pro for Macs. For others who might have problems figuring it out (or maybe I'm the only lamebrain 

Go here

http://im.lauchenauer.info/

Look in the center column at the bottom. The ImageManager Pro costs $20.00. You click the Paypal button, then you have a choice of paying with paypal or with a credit card. You have to pay first, then it will take you to a link to download.

I would like to download Image Manager and use it, even if I have to pay. I used it before, but I've gotten a new computer with a new OS and I can't seem to find a viable link to download Image Manager Pro for Mac OS X Leopard. If someone has a link, I'd be happy to take a look.

I searched but found nothing. I just made my own chart. 

I am exclusive on Fotolia (600+ images) , and I opted out on Sub, and since I was able to raise my price after reaching Gold, and my work got a little better, my earnings/month improved. So 2008 was a much better year for me. I have been at this thing for a little under 2 years but more actively last 8 months.

Everything else not accepted by Fotolia went to 123rf, and BigStock and despite having a larger portfolio on 123rf, I made far less each month. I have started sending landscape images and people w/o release to Alamy, will see how that goes.

I'm curious as well. If you are exclusive on Fotolia, I'm pretty sure you can't upload stock to any other royalty free site. Unless they have changed what exclusivity means and I don't know about it yet.

As far as being happy with 2008, I haven't checked all the comparisons to 2007 yet, but I believe I would have to say I am happy with 2008 in terms of having learned more about photography and having seen an increase in sales some months of the year.

I am NOT happy with 2008 in terms of the recession, the billions of dollars being given out to large corporations willy nilly and how this has all affected us as microstock contributors.

Normally I do ok at Shutterstock, but this month I will be lucky to make the payout minimum. Sales here, for me, have been steadily declining, just like istock. I will take part of the blame as I have been kind of lazy and have not been uploading much.