I understand your frustration and I wish they had more sales, too, but complaining and calling them names is not very constructive.  It is not easy to set up a successful stock agency and compete in the current market - it takes tons of know-how and cash.  The goal for the owners of the agencies is to make money for themselves, we are just the means for them to achieve their own benefit.  P5 at least is paying us 50% of any sales they make, which is a lot better than almost every other agency, and based on their poll position they are doing fine for many contributors.  We can either contribute to them or not.  If enough contributors decide it is no longer worth it and stop then eventually the agencies will have to pay us more to entice us back.  The problem is that there are always people willing to give their work away for very little or even for free, and the agencies already have so many files that they really don't need to accept any more in the short term (e.g., GL Stock) to survive.  And it may be that the microstock wave has passed and moved on to new ways of selling images - Google, Adobe and facebook may be the marketing giants of the future with very little revenue for us.  Or not.  Who knows?  I will continue to support any agency that makes it easy to upload, has reasonable reviews and 40% or more commissions as long as they have enough sales to get payouts in a reasonable time.  When sales no longer justify the effort then I will stop.

I have basically no Christmas images and so far January is better than December.  Less than 25% of what I have uploaded has been through review - stuck in the October limbo - so very few online but a decent return per accepted image so I am hoping the others get reviewed soon.

So what?  It's an ad to encourage buyers - almost all the agencies do this from time to time.  What is your point?

Are you even a P5 contributor?  If not, then why are you complaining?  And if you are a contributor there and hate them so much then why not just drop them?

Get back to work people.  There was no glory for the Egyptian slaves who built the great pyramids either.

Ouch.  Love that quote.  Unfortunately, I think that pretty much sums it up.

Thanks for the news - some more details would be appreciated.  This could be good, bad or neutral for contributors depending on how it is implemented.

If this means that Rex content will now be ingested into SS - as Getty did with their own content on iS - then for contributors it will be very bad.  Just more competition for the same buyers.  Please don't expect us to cheer if that is the case.

If the two companies will stay completely separate and the only difference is who owns them then for contributors it is probably neutral.

If this means that SS contributors will now be able to sell content RM on Rex via SS then it could be very good.  Many of us sell images RM on Alamy and another market for those images would be welcome.  In that case we will cheer.

Please let us know about what this means for contributors in practical terms (if known) so we will know whether to cheer or jeer.  Thanks.

Up about 10% with a 15% increase in PF size, so not great.  SS dropped a lot beginning in June and has not recovered - sales to Europe dropped off dramatically then - and December was the worst month there in more than 2.5 years.  Canstock and DT tanked the past six months and iS regular sales died last month.  Other sites really dropped during the last quarter so not looking bright for 2015.  I hardly submitted anything the past six months so I'm sure that had a negative effect as well.

I sent the link to a colleague who is an expert on mushroom taxonomy and she said probably Strophariaceae for the family - that is the same family that contains the genus Psilocybe so is consistent with what others thought.  Spore color is often very important for mushroom identification so making a spore print would be helpful as suggested by ShadySue (in case you haven't done that before, cut off a cap and put it on a piece of white paper for a day or two - very easy to do and some of them are quite interesting).  Good luck.

i want to know if there is a constancy in the income of microstockers or it all depends on luck!!

There is no constancy - best sellers today could stop selling tomorrow and agencies often make changes that are not in our favor.  However, you can have some consistency if you have a large portfolio of high-quality images (or so I gather from those who do).  Like success in almost anything, luck plays almost no part - it is all about hard work, dedication, paying attention to what is needed and creativity.  As others have said, if your goal is to raise $11 K you will be better off to get a real job - that may be boring but is much more certain.

As I understand it, if you're selling only through agencies then this won't affect you except possibly with Envato.  Don't let the frothing, wild-eyed doomsayers scare you - the sky is not falling on January 1st except in some people's paranoid delusions.

For me regular iS sales plunged in June and really tanked beginning last month.  Unfortunately I think this is the new normal.  Who knows why, but the most likely explanation is that their buyers have moved elsewhere, probably to SS.

Looks like Mantis posted while I was writing and I agree - only worth checking once a week like the other slow sites.  It's very sad, as they used to be my #1 earner - I liked the old days when iS could bring in a lot of money.

United States is no difference

The US is completely different - you have no idea what you're talking about.  Why would you even mention the US in a thread about European VAT anyway?

Just a coincidence - I've still had sales

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on December 10, 2014, 20:25

Quote from: Alatriste on September 03, 2014, 05:01

Mine is the Zenslider:
http://zenslider.com/

I don�t think you can find anything with better support and price
Great people behind this.


You can see it in action here:

This looks good.  I went to their web site and priced it out.  The basic slider with VAT and shipping comes to almost 725 euros so around $905 delivered to the US (Indiana).  The Flycam version is $854 with shipping so the price for each is similar.

Hi mate,

Shipping to US has no VAT, so price should be around 600 EUR including shipping (around $750). Drop us an email for an exact quote and an discount.

Regards
Javi

Thanks - that's good to know.  It adds the VAT into the price if you fill out the order form on the web site - might want to put a note that it doesn't apply to the US.  It sounds like a great product.