I waited a little bit until I was real confident that I had 10 that could pass any inspection, and got in on the first try at SS (7 of 10).  Is that unprecedented these days?

I got in at IS a few days ago on the 2nd try, 1 of 3 approved the first time, redid 1 and submitted a different one (only a few hours after the denial) and was approved in about 3 hours, I thought there was a waiting period?    Though I have had no files actually approved yet for sale, still waiting on the checkers.

I wish StockXpert would have given me something more than a "we aren't interested in the kind of work you do", they didn't say if any of the files were any good, or reference the files at all (I completely forgot which ones I submitted unfortunately, so I can only submit new photos taken after my last try the next time, oh well).

My question:  How long does it typically take for things to show up in your SS gallery, mine is still empty, aside from the 3 on the latest approved bar on the side, I have no way of knowing which 7 of the 10 actually were approved.  I am away from my email (always on pop3 client at home, the webmail version of my account stays empty because of it), they probably sent me a message, I am assuming?.

CONGRATS, Waldo4 !!!   Getting in first shot at SS  is a rare deed!!!  Took me waaaaaaaaaay more than one.  LOL    I did get IS first time at bat, but SS for me...I think was 3 or 4 times to get in the game.  Good Job!!  =tom

Thanks, yeah I found it.  A little surprised on 1 of the rejections (noise?, I pretty much consider it the most noise free image that I have anywhere in my portfolio, oh well), but I can see their reasons on the other two, not that I think that they are defects, but higher key and the use of shadow as a creative element are frowned apon now I can see.

Holy cow though, there is action on SS.  Though I only have 7 in my gallery, I already have 4 DL's today, my first day (the day is still young too), as opposed to 3 total on DT since the start of the month on a port that has grown from 0 to 32 (tons of views though, nobody seems to buy anything), and 5 total on FT on a port that has grown from 0 to 22.  Wow. 

My pitiful little gallery is posed to take over a DT gallery (100% file overlap too) that is nearly 5x as big and been growing over the course of a month, in earnings, in a matter of a few hours, it has already eclipsed it in DL's.

Though for some reason I think that my portfolio on DT performs especially poor (averaging about $0.10/image per month right now, as opposed to a FT average of of about $0.60/image per month, with close to 100% overlap (DT has taken everything that FT has but 1, but not vice versa)).  Weird thing is that I have yet to sell a file on DT that has been accepted at FT, every photo with a DT sale was rejected at FT.

That's a big accomplishment.  SS's standards are a lot higher now than they used to be.  A lot more people are getting rejected now, I think.

Wow, nice job!  I am still working at it.  I found a post on a different forum that had a link to a website with tips on getting past the review.  Hopefully with this help I can get accepted to what sounds like one of the better microstock sites out there.  Here is the link I found:  http://www.sprintingturtles.info/ShutterstockAcceptance.htm
for anyone else still trying.

Congrats, wow, all 10, great work.   In the little over 24 hours my images have been in my gallery I've already had 16 DL's, on 7 images!

Yeah it took all of two days for those 7 images to almost outearn all other sites combined (just FT and DT really, still haven't looked at my first batch at IS, finally looked at 'em at BigStock yesterday), for the whole month, where my port is 3x and 5x as big respectively, if it wasn't for an EL on FT, it would have outearned both combined, in 2 days (actually without the EL it would have beat them both combined the first morning)!  Just about every time I look at it I have a new DL, as opposed to waiting days between DL's at the other sites.

BTW - Let me guess, your textures are selling like hotcakes?  The texture that I had in my app has now sold 20 times, much more than the rest of the files combined.  It seems like they like textures at SS, a lot.

Really, nature shots?  That is a genre that I have been told to avoid, both in writing everywhere and by FT rejections ("....is intended for brochures....."), then again I've kinda just come to the "screw it, I'm gonna take the pictures that I wannna take, and see if they get accepted, to hell with my acceptance ratio" realization.  It's not like I'll be submitting bad work, quite the contrary, I'll be submitting my best work, is it stock? We'll see (it was prompted by seeing similar stuff on IS that was heavily downloaded that I knew that I could at least equal), but I tend to take better pictures when I don't force things (taking pictures for someone else that I don't necessarily like myself, instead of "wow, love it" shots).

I just got in, 10 out of 10. 

I suppose theyre half-sleep, because frankly im not over-awed with my own current abilities 

I applied after reading this thread and i got a response in , what, 3-4 hours.

For me, this the first day, 27 sales from a portfolio of 10 so far (I guess the day is soon over). One topseller but all bar one has sold at least once. Im very happy with it, sure beats the 1 download in 6 months I have at iStock!

Ill of course be interested to see when sales start dropping off. One thing Im wondering in that connection: as I understand, older pics will stop selling relatively fast - but will new uploads help the old ones a bit (e.g., by buyers having a look at your portfolio) or are they basically dead in the water?

Ill of course be interested to see when sales start dropping off. One thing Im wondering in that connection: as I understand, older pics will stop selling relatively fast - but will new uploads help the old ones a bit (e.g., by buyers having a look at your portfolio) or are they basically dead in the water?

I still see sales of older images pretty regularly. Of course my standard of "old" refers to May 2007 when I started at SS. But basically my entire portfolio sees sales.

There seems to be a new user blitz early on, and for a few months you will see higher-than-normal sales numbers. Things will level off, but if you upload regularly you might maintain your average. SS is definitely a harder place to grow sales numbers than most others, but it does happen if you keep at it.