I dont think this is too off topic. You do what you love, you spend your days creating. Now all you have to do is make it pay. Cropping an exclusive agency after all that uploading work may seem counter intuitive, but I have done it and it sort of psychologically "un shackles" you from a negative low end experience.

We forget we are free agents. Microstock is a business and its our own business, not the stock agencies. They are just a means to an end. Not to say i dont need them, just on my terms. I have tried making a website like symbo and others but its too time consuming. The hybrid solution works for me.

Not knowing if blogging will work or not sounds tentative. You have to be hard nosed and energetic about your business and test, try, fail, test again. You will find a river into the big sea if you keep working. The creative is only 10% of the business. The other 90% is selling it so spending time appropriately makes sense.

I'm going to give blogging a shot later on this afternoon and test the waters.  Working an overnight job full time has zapped my creativity and productivity though I have a to do list of images in a file that I need to get started on soon.  I also have a symbio site and you're right it is time consuming and I'm not really seeing much of a return on my efforts for that.  Then again I don't spend a lot of time marketing it either which I should probably kick myself in the arse and get going on.  So lack of sales on my own end is justifiably my fault where my own site is concerned.

And on the topic of leaving agencies, I just put in an email to leave Stock Fresh which knocks my list of waiting down to two left to go.

Thanks guys I appreciate it.

I left 3d Studios and Big Stock this year due to low performance.  I'm waiting on 3 more to get to payout to take off my list.

I've also been far too busy with doing other things like writing and playing my bass instead of churning out illustration after illustration.  If I could ever feel more motivated to sit down for a weekend and do anything I might upload more often.  Sales everywhere have been dismal for over a year and I'm not seeing any kind of  recovery from it.  I'm trying to remain positive but it sure is hard when there's nothing to really show for your efforts.

The question's in the subject.  Finally made payout there today after over 3 years from starting with them.

So how long does it take from a payout request?

It's not my illustration but it is a stock illustration that someone used to show their political views.  I called them on it and they seem to think that images are public domain.  I told them otherwise.

Here's the URL. I don't know what website they pulled it off of (I'm not talking stock image site but who edited the image) so not sure where a DMCA would be sent.

https://twitter.com/peddoc63/status/451359884538175488

They think it's cute to steal from the artists because they think it's free because it's on the internet so they can do with it what they wish.  I really feel bad for the illustrator as they obviously didn't get paid for their work.

Thanks Ron

Since they changed their payout policy and I'm above the $100 threshold when will the balance say that it'll be paid?  It's been awhile since I reached payout there so I don't remember how long after the first of the month that it will change from not due to due.

Thanks.

Anita

*Nevermind*

It shows it now.

I got the email too.  Was a little shocked as I thought it was set in stone but very nice nonetheless.  I can deal with $75 it's the same threshold as I have on SS so not anything I'd find fault with.

Must say it's a very good move by Alamy.

I have a thread going on at http://www.symbiostock.org but if you're not over there I'm posting it here as well.

Last week I noticed my contact form wasn't replying to the email of the person that sent the contact message using Contact Form 7.  In fact no contact form that I've used all day (including a standard html+php stand alone) will let me reply to the sender.  When I click reply it wants to reply to my email address and not the one that was placed into the text field.

I then deactivated all of my plugins except for contact form 7 and tested it.  I behaved as it's supposed to.  I then went about activating all my other plugins one by one and found it was the SYMBIOSTOCK - Emails and Notifications plugin within the SY theme that's causing the problems.

Others have seen the same problem on the other message board.  So I'm likely to believe that it's an SY issue since I have a different theme running on my main site and have WP and CF7 updated to current and that one works as it should.

Any insight on how to fix this issue since I can't have the SYMBIOSTOCK - Emails and Notifications deactivated.  I'm running SY version 2.5.6 with the Child Theme.

Thanks,

Anita

And with this I probably won't be uploading vectors after the first of the year either.

And just when I thought my year wasn't screwed up enough...

Thanks James that's the answer I was looking/hoping for.

How are you going to handle the vectors James?

I'm wondering since my port is mainly jpg illustrations of vectors.  Will there be an easy way to add the vector to their corresponding jpg file?

I don't have 1,000+ vectors so I'll have to wait until next year.  But it would be nice if the process to add the eps file to existing content would be made simple.

Thanks.