The situation is further complicated because I usually let my Adobe earnings accumulate and request payment the when I need the money. Often it's in another calendar year.  What a pain in the a$$

I received a 1099 from PayPal for my stock royalty payouts for 2024.  problem is, I also receive 1099 for those same royalties by the individual stock agencies.  has anyone else encountered this?

I honestly don't understand how ss calculates earnings.
Each year I climb the ladder of earnings and see the earnings schedule which reads level 1 - 15%, level 2 - 20%,  level 3 - 25% and so on.
I don't remember off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure in years past I've gotten to level 5.  But throughout the course of the whole year I continue to see .10 images earnings. Why?

I upload to SS, DT, Deposit, Alamy, IS, Adobe.
I seriously hate the upload process for IS and Alamy.  They are the most time consuming.
What are everyone else's thoughts?

Hi, I have no idea whats going on.  I always use deepmeta for uploading. I when prompted in deepmeta I clarify the keywords that come up for additional clarification.
Today I noticed in ESP that my reviewed/accepted files still show those keywords in red  because it doesn't recognize the word and is asking for clarification!  This is on hundreds of files that have been uploaded for months!
I investigated further by looking for these images in my istock portfolio. those keywords do not show.
Additionally, when I view my portfolio it doesn't appear that all my accepted images display.  For instance, I have 3 images of New York University that was accepted several weeks ago.  When I look at my portfolio in date accepted order, only one of my New York University Images displays.
Can someone help me.
Is Deepmeta a bad option for uploading?  is it best to upload directly on ESP?  If i upload on ESP can I copy/paste for similar images in a batch?
Im so upset.  This is driving me crazy.
thanks!

does anyone contribute at 123rf?  do you know if they're still up and running and accepting submissions.  I've been uploading for over a month both via web uploader and ftp but nothing ever appears in my queue.

Quote from: DavidK on August 16, 2018, 18:33
I think you'll find the first two on your newer sites list do produce some exciting things, however revenue won't be one of them. Believe it or not those two are sites where people give their stuff away. FOR FREE. That is exciting.

i just died laughing..
there ya go

im a longtime contributor at
Shutterstock, dreamstime, deposit, fotolia, istock/getty, canstock, 123rf, alma

and like many of us long time contributors I've seen the fall of microstock compared to years ago.  DT, Depoits and Canstock barely produce pocket change for me these days.  Shutterstock crashed but I still have many old photos that sell regularly enough to make decent money. 
I did a google search of 'stock images' and was surprised to see DT doesn't even come up on the search.  I do see many newer sites that I don't contribute to -
Pexels, Upsplash, Canva.  wondering if these new sites are producing anything exciting.
and i do mean exciting...lol

Quote from: stockmarketer on June 01, 2018, 12:22
I've been in microstock 10 years now.

I remember when it was exciting to track sales and watch my income steadily rise, like some on this page are reporting. 

But a few years back, everything changed:

- My port size hit 10,000 and each new upload was a miniscule addition as a percentage of my total collection... meaning I couldn't expect to see constant growth like I did as a newbie.

- At the same time, oversupply at the agencies was getting out of control... total collection sizes were going up by tens of millions a month, and my few hundred new images meant nothing.

- The agencies started stacking the deck against us, favoring the brand new artists to give them hope that this is a sustainable income so they keep uploading.  (news flash... it's not.)

So, how was my May?  Crap.  At least I assume, because looking too deep into the numbers is depressing and I've stopped putting myself through that.

Im in the same place.  when i had 3000 images and 4 years in my microstock income used to pay my mortgage.. now I'm at 5000 and 7 years in and wow its a kick in the face seeing how each quarter I'm less and less profitable..
so the question is, if this 'hitting the wall' is the inevitable fate why aren't we all uploading under a new account under our spouses or best friends credentials and start from scratch?

Ive been uploading for the past week yet nothing appears in the queue for editing.  anyone else having this issue?

I'm trying to upload via Deepmeta.  i have the newest version.  not having any luck with the upload.  anyone else still experience a problem?

I currently submit to SS, Getty/IS, Fotolia, Alamy, Deposit, CanStock, DT, Pond5 and 123RF
I curious is anyone has any success submitting to any of these agencies using mobile phone images and mobile apps?

Ive always submitted NYC street scenes with people and cars as editorial.  now suddenly they're getting rejected for having recognizable vehicles and people without a release.  is there a change in policy? i don't get it.

Thx JoAnne

I didn't receive February payment either.  And I'm traveling using a mobile device and can't access the link to contact support.  Is there a phone number?

QuoteOne thing's obvious, agencies don't want you to remove dead wood, or they would have done something about it.

well they do alert me when something is over 4 years old with no downloads.  they suggest putting them in the free section.

QuoteWhy do you think this would help? My crappy unsold 5 year old images might sell if they are on the site. Possibly the algorithm may be affected by having a lot of unsold images. But the only certainty is if the images aren't up for sale they won't sell. I have found certainly on SS some really old and pretty poor images start selling for unknown reasons ;-).

My reasoning is maybe portfolios that have 3000 images that sell and get views may get more exposure by showing more towards the beginning in a search, then a portfolio of 4500 with 1500 images that have gotten lost in the shuffle.  Idk.  but after years of sales where i was making a few hundred dollars a month to being lucky if i sell pocket change, it seems like i need to do something to shake things up.  btw..many of my images that have 0 views and 0 downloads sell on a regular basis at SS, FT and IS. 

Ive been a contributor since 2010 with about 4400 images in my portfolio.  I always had a positive experience here with a reasonable amount of success.  My sales over the past year have dropped off considerably and I'm thinking perhaps I need to do some portfolio spring cleaning by deleting older images with no downloads.  Im talking about a considerable amount of dead wood - maybe even reducing my portfolio by 20% and keeping only images that are a few years old and images that are older but have a least 1 download.  Has anyone here done this? Was it helpful to getting more portfolio visibility?  Or is this a bad idea?

Im embarrassed to admit i don't know the answer to this question.  I found one of my images on amazon.  apparently its being sold as a photography backdrop.  i have my images on all the major micro stock sites for many years and I've run across various images on websites and in print in travel brochures.  but I'm questioning the right for my image to be used to be resold like this backdrop.  is that even legal?

id like to know this also.  i only use deepmeta.  I've experimented the hero and the ESP site but didn't even see where the option to disambiguate is on those services.  deepmeta has had off and on technical issues with disambiguation.  i wish getty would drop that whole requirement.

Quote from: FrankyDM on May 09, 2017, 07:56
I noticed you posted the same question on the iStock forum. Just letting you know I replied there ...

thanks franky.  I saw that and responded there. look forward to hearing from you

I have a question for folks who use the copy/paste for uploading similar images using deepmeta.
Have you noticed that the keywords that have been refined on the first file aren't carried over with their 'refines' to the file you're pasting in? wow...this is really bothersome. i must have uploaded dozens upon dozens of images that haven't had their refined keywords applied. I just assumed the copy paste worked like it used to before the transition. 

do these people actually make money off these lame spammy images? if so, i may just dump my camera and photoshop very word in the dictionary on various backgrounds. 

same thing happens to me. it always corrects itself within a few days though.  newly approved images seem unstable for the first few days.

I have no idea what's going on or what these people are doing. Just received an additional clarification of the original clarification lmao!!  I give up. So long as they fill my PayPal with something I'll be happy