.. most people say that if you are decent you can expect somewhere at 1 sale per month per every 1000 images if you averaged that sale at $100 you get $10 per image per month.. But it is not fast cash like the micros, you have to wait for things to start rolling..

I am all with you except with your calculation... you probably just mixed up the numbers ..
$10/image/month I believe is more than Yuris Arcurs makes on all microstock agencies together.

I post-post-process: Post-process first in Lightroom and then sometimes I make post-post-processing in photoshop :-)

I do not think the background is too bad, but I agree with the others. The main subject should be more the" main subject". Its cut off and underexposed. It looks to much as a random snapshot.
But judge for your self: Search at iStock for cappuccino under best match and ask your self: can my image compete.

Quote by SS FAQ:

How much will I be paid as a submitter?
Our current payout rate for Standard License 25-A-Day Subscription downloads is: $.25 (25 cents per image download). After earning a total of $500, your rate increases to $.33 per download. Once you surpass a total lifetime earnings of $3,000, your rate will increase to $.36 per download, and after you reach $10,000 in lifetime earnings, your rate will increase to $.38 per download.

Our current payout rate for On Demand Subscription downloads is: $.81 for the Small/Medium Image Size plan, and $1.88 for the All Sizes plan. After earning a total of $500, the rate increases to $1.07 per download for Small/Medium and $2.48 for All Size. Once you surpass a total lifetime earnings of $3,000, your rate will increase to $1.17 for Small/Medium and $2.70 for All Size. After you reach $10,000 in lifetime earnings, your rate will increase to $1.24 for Small/Medium and $2.85 for All Size.

Additionally, the royalty for an Enhanced License image download is $28. A chart outlining payout rates can be found

Just got a file reviewed within 5 minutes 
But probably that was so fast, because I had one file already sitting there for a long 3 hours 

It all depends what you expect "worth the effort". If it is a hobby and you are happy spending lots of time with uploading and keywording just to see once in a while a download then yes. If it is a business then I suspect for most microstockers it is not worth the effort. If you have good stock images and you treat microstock as a business then yes it can be worth the effort.
For me it is more than a hobby, I am currently living from microstock but am also a student. So I need to use my time wisely (not saying that I am doing it all the time). So I started generally to do images I know are worth the time to uploading and preparing. I put kind of a price on my time, which I spent on microstock.  I had times, where I uploaded everything which remotely had a chance to get accepted. Quality suffered a lot, my rejection rate was quite high and the return/ hour I spent was laughable. I was one of those who contributed to the heaps of images which I do think jam the searches. Now I submit most time max 30 images a month, but I put much more effort in each image. The result is that yes now for me it is worth the effort. And it can be if you have reasonable talent and submit images which are in demand.
I still think it is a myth that you need masses of images, quantity over quality to succeed in microstock, in fact I think it is the other way around. Of course it is great if you can have both like sjlocke :-)
But to succeed on istock you especially need the quality not the quantity to succeed, that at least is my impression, if you want iStock being worth the time from a business perspective.

I have uploaded  13 images a long time ago and have plenty of downloads with them, but as sharpshot has said, while sales are reasonable, $0.25 are not. I am waiting for a raise which makes it reasonable to upload to them again.

I have had 4 ppds so far at photos.com: 1 X $21 and 2 X $3 and 1X $1.5.

I do not know if is worth it. I have the feeling, I get less ppd at StockXpert , becuase I am opt in for subs.
I just calculated the average earnings /dl for jupiterimages and photos.com together. For me its  $ 0,4.
Just for the sake of comparision:
At SS the average per download earnings is much higher with $ 0.59/dl.

Quote from: Freezingpictures on February 28, 2009, 06:27

I started selling my stuff on my own site as well. I use smugmug for this. The drawback is, that they still take a percentage, but it is only 15%. But the service is great. So far I would say I earn as much there as with Alamy. No regular sales (maybe a little bit more regular than Alamy). The problem I see with this is, that you need a highly specialized portfolio. To make really good money on my site, I need to produce much more of the subjects I am good at. If you have a unique special and good sized collection, I believe you can do really well. I will definitely continue to pursue that direction.

I keep running across SmugMug references.  On occasion, I take pictures of regional motorcycle races.  I considered establishing an "events" outlet there.  Parents love to have pictures of their kids. 

I had considered selling stock or fine art there.  Not so sure the print quality would produce fine art?  The intiial investment (I think it is $150 per year) scared me away.  How long have you been with SmugMug?  How do you guide buyers to your site?

I have been with Smugmug now just over a year. With Smugmug the 150$ a year I have very well covered by what I earned with this site. But stock is not my only outlet for smugmug. I use it for weddings as well. Each customer gets access to his own photos through my website and can sent friends and relatives to this site.

People find this site through my other website, google search, and google adwords. I do not know about the print quality. From what I heard it should be good. I never tried it out. I am actually thinking about having a pure wedding website with smugmug and seperating it from penguinphotos.net. Smugmug is really great especially for someone like me who is not so much into webdesign and has no website programming experience. Btw you can have a 14 day free trial with them.

So do you take every contributor from snapvillage? I am not yet on Veer I just discovered. Will I be there automatically when I am on Snapvillage?

Stacey, you have some nice images, but looking at your portfolio some of your images might have a hard time getting accepted, not because they are technically flawed, but because of the subject. My experience with iStock is, that they accept a lot as long as it passes the high technical standard. Rusty metal pipes have a harder time to be accepted at other agencies than at iStock. For example I am pretty sure Fotolia and Shutterstock would reject them. Dreamstime probably as well. Stockxpert I do not know.
I do not say your work is bad, its just that some of it is not what other agencies are looking for.

Altogether if you have the time, it is better to submit to several agencies, if you do not have a very good best match position. Thats my opinion and experience and probably of most non-exclusives. Thats why they are non-exclusive

If I were you and would do this bold step, I would try out Shutterstock, Fotolia and Stockxpert. If after 90 days it is not worth it or you see that it will become almost impossible to get to your former earnings, you can go back to be exclusive. For this reason I would not submit to Dreamstime, because you have to have your work there for at least 6 month.

i think there are different peoples work for the payout in germany or us... we dont get any payouts since 10 of the month

I am from Germany and got paid..

Payout from the 8th was processed a while ago, but have another one pending from the 11th and cannot request another one..