IS- 55% (BME 1953 downloads on 448 images  )

That is some pretty good money you are making at this. Apparently it is still possible to make a six figure income at microstock even if you are not one of the top three contributors.  Especially if you live in some tropical part of the world with a nice beach and beautiful women.  Man, I need to move! 

I didn't get the newsletter, but from my understanding, if $.23-.30 a download is true, this is ridiculous. I submit a lot of vectors, and I especially hate to see my work sold for such low prices.  Since vector art is mostly a microstock product, these subscription plans make it no longer worth the effort to produce vectors unless the vector artist becomes exclusive to IStock. Selling vectors this low is simply an insult. If this subscription plan is how I read it, at the very least I will  reconsider submitting any new vectors there, especially if there is no opt out option. This also cements my decision to put more effort into traditional agencies and other markets.

What is especially stupid IMO is that Fotolia is trying to pull this off at the same time IStock is apparently planning on making it a better deal to go exclusive there. With the drop in revenue at other sites due to subscriptions, coupled with this announcement, and IStocks latest announcement that they plan offering more incentives to people to go exclusive, I would bet that the majority of vector artists will either go exclusive with IStock now or quit contributing to the micros altogether if they cannot get more for their work. I cannot go exclusive there for at least six months even if I wanted to due to commitments elsewhere, but I am sure many will. I am sure many other vector artists feel the same way as I do.

I don't really see it as a good thing one agency dominating the microstock market, but that is the way it looks things are going, I think in the long run the agencies are  shooting themselves in the foot.  Remember when many of the traditional submitters were saying that this is a race to the bottom? Perhaps they are right after all. I have also been working with some  more traditional agencies, ones where you know the owner on a first name basis and they work with you individually. The difference in mutual respect and how they treat contributors compared to the micros is like night and day.

you dont need a teacher to learn - contrast this to what we should expect if this talent was BORN -- you could hand your camera to someone who'd never taken pictures, never seen an archer, and knew nothing of basic physics and they'd still get the shot you did - how likely is that?

The technique was learned, what wasn't learned was getting the idea to shoot something unconventional in the first place. He said that no one else there thought to try to get a shot like that. This is an example of original thinking.

One thing to consider is that IStock probably does not want to alienate their exclusive contributors. If contributors really do get the short end of the stick IStock may risk losing a substantial number of their exclusive contributors, and hence lose a major advantage they have over other sites. My prediction is the subscription packages will be slightly less than the equivalent bulk purchase but not by a whole lot, just enough to make it look superficially like a slightly better deal to accounting departments.

Thanks for the info, I guess I will try it on mine and see if it works

Some might see that as a negative (I suppose we have come to expect big leaps every couple of years) but on the other hand Nikon have managed to produce the same quality at 12.4mp from the APS sensor.

I think the D300 uses a CMOS sensor like the D2X does, whereas a D200 uses a CCD sensor, if this makes any difference. It seems that the D300 is more like a D2X then a D200.  It appears to me like Nikon repackaged the D2x in a D200 like body, gave it many of the features of the D3 minus the full frame and D2x like body, and they made a D300.  I have never owned a D2X or a D200 so I have nothing to compare it to, but when reading the specs on a D2X, other then the built in battery drive/grip I really don't see anything better about the D2x, in some ways the D300 even appears to be a better camera.

thanks for the reply, didn't know there was another post, I looked at the top couple of pages, I guess I should have done a search too, sorry.

was wondering if anyone else had this problem-I keyword in photoshop, and it saves as semicolons. Then when I upload to Panthermedia it only accepts commas, so I have to delete all my semicolons by hand and replace them with commas. I can't be the only one with this problem, as I am sure others keyword in PS? Anyway, that is a HUGE pain if I am going to have to do that with thousands of images I think I am screwed.

I had a wonderful idea....
.... I thought IS might like an image taken from the little town in which I live called Kerhonkson.

It's located 100 mile North West of NYC as the crow flies. Let me see them reject this!

1. It's got no noise at all.
2. It's in super sharp focus.
3. There are no release forms to deal with.
4. I am the copyright holder.
5. Perfect depth of field.

It was an relatively difficult shot however. I had to wait for the light to be just right.

I don't know if IStock will take it, but I am sure some art museums will. It represents the darkness and utter blackness of pure form, a stunning visual depiction of the nothingness of mind, or something like that...

Not sure yet. I have been frustrated so far that my new uploads do not seem to be increasing my overall sales at Shutterstock much at all like I expected and hoped, IS was doing great until a couple of days ago and today would have been horrible if not for an extended license sale. Hope they didn't change the search engine there again last weekend. StockXpert a little slow but hoping it will pick up, DT seems to be picking up the last few days, the rest about the same I guess, I will know more at the end of the month but I am crossing my fingers and hoping my 50 new uploads this month, and the 100 or so I will have ready by next month(all vector illustrations) will raise my sales everywhere enough to make it worth the effort. Looking forward to getting my D300 on order and then I won't have to upsize so much for Alamy

My guess is the reviewers are checking a few photos from each batch, and if they find more then a few they don't like they will check a few more, then if they don't like those they will reject the entire batch. Don't know for sure that is what they are doing but I think some agencies may do this with large batches if they get backed up with too many files to review, and in fact on Alamy it is their stated policy to do this. Not saying I agree or disagree, but that it is possible that is what is going on.

well, today was a little better, but nowhere near where I expected to be last March, much less last summer.

If every other day in June ends up like today is for me, that will be a 95% sales drop over March. that means my June sales will be about 5% of my March sales.