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Topics - morning.light

Pages: [1] 2
1
Shutterstock.com / Account...gone!?
« on: January 17, 2014, 14:58 »
I wanted to check my earnings but my portfolio is gone! I'm seeing the initial page, the one you see after you get accepted to the site. Upload your ID and upload your first 10 images. I searched for one of my pictures and my portfolio is still visible on the site though.

Please tell me it's a bug and someone else is experiencing the same thing...

2
General Stock Discussion / Editorial or not...
« on: January 16, 2014, 04:31 »
I'm about to submit some pictures of various landmarks and famous places in Tokyo, like Sky Tree, Tokyo Tower, etc. I looked on Shutterstock for the same kind of pictures and I noticed that some people submit them as editorial while others submit them as normal pictures. There are pictures of the same places, so I'm really confused. Should they by submitted as editorial or not?

And I have the same question about cityscapes. There are various logos on the buildings if you zoom in. Should I submit cityscapes as editorial or if they contain logos I'm not allowed to submit them at all?

3
Shutterstock.com / No words anymore
« on: September 13, 2013, 06:29 »
Every time I used to see low sales during weekend I would comfort myself with "it's ok, that's because it's the weekend". Then when I would see low sales on Friday I'd say "it's ok, that's because it's just before the weekend". But what should I say when I see 0 sales days in the middle of the week? "It's ok, sales are low because it's the middle of the week?"  :-\

I really don't understand what's happening lately. I upload and upload and sales are getting lower and lower...

4
General Stock Discussion / Model release or property release?
« on: September 12, 2013, 10:27 »
I want to scan and upload some pictures of me when I was a baby. But what would I need for this? A model release would be weird because they ask for your age and the baby in the picture is clearly not 24 years old. Should I submit a property release for the pictures or...?

5
Adobe Stock / Really confused after contacting Fotolia
« on: August 27, 2013, 08:03 »
I'm having some problems with my first payment ( waiting for 3 weeks already and still didn't get the money ). I contacted Fotolia about the issue. For a few days, the status of my question was "we will reply as soon as possible" or something like that. But today the status turned into "The issue has been closed". I can't see any reply on that page, I didn't get any email from them and didn't get the money either. I'm really confused.

6
Adobe Stock / Payment problem
« on: August 23, 2013, 21:05 »
I requested payment two weeks ago, but still didn't get my money. Is there a way to see the status of the request? The only thing I can find is the credits history, but it only says "Credit transformation with Paypal  -50", and there's nothing written under "status".

Thanks in advance!

7
General - Stock Video / Pond5 cart adds
« on: August 12, 2013, 09:45 »
I noticed that lately a lot of my videos and pictures have cart adds. I read on the Pond5 forum that usually a cart add means that there is a 50% chance you will have a sale. I got really excited, but weeks are passing and there is still no sale for those files.

So I was wondering, how much time passes between the purchase and the confirmation mail? As far as I know, buyers get some time after the purchase just in case they want a refund, is that right?

8
I got really angry with Dreamstime because I had only one sale last month, ( 30 cents... ), and they also rejected 90% of my latest batch for the stupidest and most random reasons I have ever heard. Not to say that it's almost my worst performing agency. My overall earnings are so low they seem like a joke when compared to the other agencies, even to the lower tier ones.

So for the first time since I started doing microstock I seriously thought I should just screw this agency and stop uploading. Two hours later: had two sales for 3 dollars each. I'm going to try to give up everyday from now on, maybe I'll finally make some money.

9
Cameras / Lenses / Help me choose between two lenses
« on: July 25, 2013, 10:55 »
After looooooots of thinking, I finally narrowed down my options:

1. Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD
2. Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

Besides the weight difference between them, I pretty much like both, so don't know which to choose.

Can someone who worked with both these lenses tell me which lens gives a better image quality? This is the only thing that could help me finally choose.

Thanks in advance!

10
Microstock Services / Is prostockmaster still free?
« on: July 17, 2013, 15:28 »
I wanted to use it today but this message appears: "Lightburner account for your username is suspended! Did your account reach your subscription limits? Please contact [email protected] ASAP to resolve this issue." Then I remembered that lightburner is not free anymore. Is this the issue?

11
Adobe Stock / Fotolia payment
« on: June 27, 2013, 13:00 »
I read somewhere that Fotolia pays contributors in different currencies. Does that mean that some contributors get more money than others? Let's say a contributor in Europe has 50 credits and one in USA has 50 credits as well. The one in USA will get 50 dollars and the one in Europe 50 euros? ( that's almost 15 dollars difference! ). Or something is done to compensate this?

12
General Stock Discussion / First Pond5 video sale!
« on: June 09, 2013, 22:32 »
I'm so happy and excited that I have to share this with someone! 6 months after I started doing video and when I was veeeery close to give everything up, I finally had a video sale on Pond5! 30 dollars!

God, this really compensates for the bad picture sales on Shutterstock and my overall crappy week. It's my biggest single sale ever and feels so good to get from one sale half of the money that I usually make in a whole month.

Btw, do Pond5 do refunds? Cause I'd die if I see those money disappear  :D


13
Dreamstime.com / Confused about credits
« on: June 06, 2013, 05:42 »
I had a sale for 7 credits ( M size ) and I got 1.73 dollars for it. Then had a sale for 8 credits ( L size ) and only got 1.54 dollars. How is it possible to get less money if the picture was bigger and more expensive?  ???

14
Shutterstock.com / What's left to do
« on: May 20, 2013, 08:10 »
I worked like a maniac for almost an year to create 300 good images. Around 200 were accepted by SS. After a lot of stress, uploading, rejections, failures, I started at last to have 100 downloads a month.  I finally felt motivated to upload more. I had around 10 pictures on the first popular pages which brought constant income.

Then SS did whatever they did with the search and only 1 of those 10 pictures is still on the first page ( but almost at the bottom ). My downloads dropped and I'll probably have only 40 downloads this month ( from 100 ), and that's only because the first half of the month was still on the old algorithm.

What can you do in this situation? When an entire year of hard work just goes to hell one night?

15
Shutterstock.com / Subscriptions vs single sales
« on: May 16, 2013, 15:12 »
I find it a bit weird that at most agencies I have a lot of single downloads each month, but never had one on Shutterstock even though I'm selling a lot more pictures there. Let's take the main agencies for the last month.

Fotolia: 11 single downloads and 17 subscriptions
Dreamstime: 5 single downloads and 4 subscriptions
Shutterstock: 80 subscription downloads and...that's all.

Why is this? I was expecting to have a lot of singles for that sales volume...

16
General Stock Discussion / When to upload winter videos
« on: May 01, 2013, 06:15 »
I made some pretty videos last time it snowed, but I'm not quite sure when it's the best to upload them. I know people upload winter pictures in autumn or so, but what about videos?

17
Shutterstock.com / Offset invitation?
« on: April 24, 2013, 13:19 »
I just got this mail: "Thank you for requesting access into Offset. I'm excited to share that your invitation will be arriving in the next few weeks."

Is this a generic message that everyone who applied received?

18
Dreamstime.com / Weird sales pattern
« on: April 06, 2013, 07:37 »
I noticed that I have a sale every time I upload new files, even though the file that sales is not among the new files! That's really confusing.  Do you think there is a connection? Uploading more files gets you a better place in the search results or something? I don't think these are coincidences because my sales on this website are dreadful, I sell almost nothing, except when I upload a new batch. After that I always sell one of the older pictures  ( screw logic  :o  )

19
Shutterstock.com / Shutterstock featured lightbox?
« on: April 03, 2013, 12:07 »
How are your files chosen to appear there? According to sales or...?

20
Shutterstock.com / How often do you get single downloads?
« on: March 28, 2013, 19:35 »
My SS sales are increasing together with my portfolio, so no problems here. But despite lots of sales, I didn't get any single downloads until now. I'm getting a lot of single downloads even on websites where I sell 10 times less pictures compared to SS. So I was wondering, how often do you guys get such sales? Or is there any secret I should know concerning this? Are there certain subjects that tend to sell more as single downloads?

21
General Stock Discussion / Contacting Pond5
« on: March 23, 2013, 10:24 »
Is there a way to have your problems solved with this website? I've been having some problems with my model releases for ages. Had no luck in asking on their forum and here. So I emailed both contact and the curator that accepted my files. Still no answer.

22
General - Stock Video / Fotolia footage subscription sales
« on: March 23, 2013, 09:11 »
I'm selling a lot of subscription footage on Fotolia lately. I sold like 5 this month. I'm annoyed to get only a dollar for each sale and I know I have an option to to take my files out of the subs program, but I don't know what to do. I have the same files on SS and Pond5 and NEVER had a sale. So I'm thinking they are selling on Fotolia because they're cheap. If I take them out of the subs program and they'll have the normal price maybe they won't sell even there. So in that case 1 dollar is better than 0...

Please tell me your opinions! Should I leave them like this or not?

23
The whole Istock fiasco happened when I was just trying to get accepted. Not a good way to start this business ><

But anyway, leaving aside the Google problem, Im interested if its still worth it to get accepted there. I know theyre not what they used to be, but how much did the earnings actually drop? People say their sales decreased dramatically, but I dont know what to believe. They dropped to 0 or does it still qualify at least as a middle tier website? Or at least as a low earner?

If the earnings, as low as they are, would surpass let's say Envato, I'm thinking it would still be worth submitting to them.

Please keep your answers on topic. I know everyone is annoyed about this website, but I read all your opinions in other threads. Im only interested in what I asked.

24
They rejected me two times. All those images are accepted even by Shutterstock and some of them are my top sellers. Just applied for the third time but I'm wondering if it's worth the trouble...

25
General Stock Discussion / Opt in/Opt out services
« on: March 06, 2013, 03:53 »
I noticed just today that Alamy has opt in/opt out services ( the novel uses and partner sales ). It annoys me to no ends that I was a member there for 6 months and never knew about that.

Are any other websites with such options? I only know about Shutterstock and Alamy.

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