Payoneer vs Paypal: 3 Reasons Why you Should use Payoneer over PayPal.

I have been using PayPal for over 7 years now. They are reliable and secure. I like their popularity, supports, and overall user interfaces. I am satisfied with them on everything except their currency conversion rate, which is very expensive.

I have actually heard about Payoneer for quite some time, but I've never bothered to try it because most of my stock agencies cannot remit money through it. Recently, Shutterstock, the top stock agency has started to use Payoneer and so I thought I should give it a try to see what are the options I got there.

Here are my findings and 3 reasons why I preferred Payoneer over PayPal now.

1. The conversion rate is about 1-2% percent cheaper than PayPal. And that's a lot when you started to do this in long term. There is no reason not to accept the increment of that extra 1-2% when you actually can.

2. The money transferred to your local bank account is a few days faster than PayPal. Now, why would I wait for my money a few days late if I have the choice?

3. The referral program is good because when I referred someone in, we both will get $25 when he/she receives a total of $1000. My referral link is

https://share.payoneer.com/nav/nWLEamJxMun-IAk9Ttj-WI7ijNfgYN-cwkNyPpSycwvwJGLkL1-X6765YPHn8Nik2bcSBOFVjsxxLI1PpjRP6A2

If you have decided to use Payoneer, please use my referral link above to sign up because both of us will earn $25.

For your information, it is not necessary to sign up to Payoneer Prepaid Mastercard to receive and transfer money. So, there is no hidden charges or whatsover. I have tried and confirmed it.

Do comment below or shoot me an email at leremy[at]gmail.com if you have any doubts and questions about it. I will try my best to help.

Why are Microstock Contributors Always Angry?

Microstock contributors have always been angry, but we have got our reasons why.

1. Agencies have been treating us badly. They cut royalty whenever they feel like it. We have almost never got a raise, but pay-cut is on the corner every so often. Is not fair.
2. Agencies randomly reject our submissions. So much effort and so much hope - yet they reject it nonsensically. Is unreasonable.
3. So many copy-cats out there. They copy with the thickest face ever. They copy it blindly. They copy the titles and keywords too. They have got no shame. Is crazy.
4. So many new agencies appear throughout the years. We have helped. We have submitted. We have hope. But we have got no downloads. Is a total waste of time. 
5. So many spammers in our world. Icon warriors, marijuana-guy, yogurt-man, and bla bla bla. Check these spammers out at MicrostockGroup.com. Why do agencies even treat them with love? Why why why?
6. We work so hard. We work like crazy. We don't get to sleep. Why is our works not getting a sale? Is demoralizing. 
7. Agencies love to play around with their partners and somehow, we get an unfair cut. We are so helpless. 
8. Agencies have been treating us like commodities. We have very little faith in them and in ourselves now. 
9. So many people use our works without paying. So many of them never buy the right license. So many of them got away. Just so many.
10. So many mother fuckers took our images and post them for free. Is demonic. 
11. There are so many hate, jealousy, sarcasm, bullies, and, copy-cats among us. Many don't feel like posting anymore.

Finally some Good News in these Gloomy Days of Microstock Industry

Extremely heavy competition among contributors, sales drop despite heavy uploading, tricky stock agencies manipulating our royalties, and the devaluation of our stock vectors and photos have been among all the bad news we have had in the past 2 years. We are demoralized by all these and got very fed up. Every other time when a stock agency wrote to us, we will be expecting for another cut. Not this time, though :)

First, ever since Adobe has taken over Fotolia, good news have been limping over and over again for contributors. Adobe raised our royalty ranking to one level higher for everyone - a very generous move. This is a big increase to our overall earning. Apart from that, Adobe has "cut ties" with the ludicrous DPC (DollarPhotoClub). I have also been witnessing an increase of Extended License and total number of sales at Fotolia too. I really hope this trend can continue for a longer period of time. 

Secondly today, IStock-Getty is giving us a raise to our subscription royalties rate. Although, I really don't like the idea  of "mini-subscriptions", but a raise, is nevertheless, still a raise. Furthermore, a credit sales download at iStock only yield us about $1.60. Given that iStock is now "forcing" buyers to commit to 10 or 25 downloads a month which yield $1.00 per mini subscription download, it may actually result in a higher total revenue at the end of the day.

How to select Open Path and Unfilled Path in Adobe Illustrator CC

We used to have a plug-in to select open path at http://rj-graffix.com/software/plugins.html#SelectMenu. But it is no longer working in Adobe Illustrator CC because the plug-in is not updated to accommodate the latest version of Adobe Illustrator.

However, I have found another alternative for this purpose. You can use the Javascript (this is not a plug-in) from http://www.aridocean.com/illustrator-extended-select-script to select open path and unfilled path in Adobe Illustrator CC. The good thing about using this script is that it will not get outdated :)

Simply download the script and paste it into your Adobe Illustrator CC folder Presets/en_US/Scripts. Restart your Illustrator and you will be able to use it under Files > Scripts > ExtendedSelect

Many thanks to Arid Ocean Maps for this wonderful scripts.

6 Reasons Why Microstock Earning Will be Down in 2015

Microstock sales has been on a declining trend since the middle of 2014. It looks like this dreadful trend will continue to 2015 and more. Below are 5 reasons why this downtrend will continue.

1. The strengthening of US dollar against Euro and other currencies may seems to be positive thing at first. But in reality, buyers are taking a major hit. European, being the biggest buyers of microstock is having a tough time as Euro has hit 11 year low vs the USD. This means, buyers will be buying less stock images because it is much more expensive now. So far, my number of sales has gone down by about 30%.

2. More and more well establish stock factories are producing amazing number of qualities images everyday. To be honest, I am not sure if they could actually cover up the expenses to produce these images given the golden era is over, but this intense competition is not a good thing for lone ranger like us.

3. Another bad news would be iStock HQ is being moved from Canada to USA now. This means, we will have to pay 30% tax to US government if the purchase is being made from USA. Moving forward, I predict my earning will be at least 10% less from iStock now.

4. Stock agencies are getting more and more sneaky by manipulating numbers and playing with their system to benefit themselves more than us, the contributors. Cutting royalties, and introducing confusing sales packages and partners site are some examples of such manipulations.

5. Microstock is now being treated as commodities. The prices are getting hammered due to stock agencies pricing war. Nobody win in this situation, except the buyers. 

6. Smaller agencies such as CanStockPhoto, Crestock, GraphicLeftovers, and GraphicRiver are starting to feel the pressure with lack of regular sales. Inactivity is the scariest thing for Internet business. Check out all the 0 sales for new vectors at GraphicRiver http://graphicriver.net/category/vectors?page=1. It is very demoralizing to see such sight. With the weakening of smaller agencies, bigger agencies will soon take even more control. This is not a good thing.

As a conclusion, I predict 2015 will be a pretty bad year for us. There will be a lot of contributors giving up this year. It may no longer be worthy to be a stock vector artist now. In 2009, you can make $100/month. In 2015, you can only make $10/month with the same images.

2015 Resolutions

1. Believe in God a little more.
2. Be generous.
3. Be nice.
4. Be calm.
5. Be moderate.
6. Be creative.
7. ... and have more sex.

Yes, as simple as that :)

Am I Too Late to Sell Vector Graphics now?

That's one hell of a question. But, every old birds in the microstock industry will tell you that it is never too late. However, 10 times tougher you must expect (with Yoda voice).

Contributors used to sell hundreds of downloads for a simple set of 16 vector icons during 2008 era. One such simple set of icons can generate you thousands of dollars over a short period of time. Today, a big set of 100 - 500 vector of icons can only generate you $10 dollar a month. Though, this is just my hypothesis, but I believe many can agree and more would agree soon.

Too many people contributing too many high quality works causes the meltdown. The supply is overshadowing the demands. Do you want to know who you are competing with? Take a look at this.

Searching for the keyword "icon set" at Shutterstock.
Searching for the keyword "silhouette" at Shutterstock.
Searching for the keyword "animal cartoon" at Shutterstock.
Searching for the keyword "labels" at Shutterstock.

Are you up to the challenge? Can you produce such quality and quantity? If you think you do, then it is not too late for you. And all is not lost. There are contributors who are still be able generate a comfortable side income from this with less quality works. You must be able to hit the right niche and continue to be committed to it.

If you really want to give it a try, then I recommend you to try the below 3 agencies first due higher volume of downloads and acceptance rate.

Shutterstock (must try first)
Fotolia
DepositPhotos

The golden era of microstock is definitely over, but that doesn't mean you cannot create your own golden era if you start now.

Shutterstock Vector Sales Not Doing Well

Vector graphics earning in Shutterstock had been on increasing trend for a very long time. Contributors were working very hard to produce more and more high quality vectors. The competition was stiff as ever, but we survived. Not this time, though.

Reading posts from everywhere around the Internet, I can see that we've probably hit the peak somewhere in 2013. 2014 is a decline for Shutterstock and it is still declining. Yes, probably only Shutterstock is declining because other agencies have been neutral. Sad, but true.

I am seeing a sharp drop in my sales at Shutterstock just like everyone else. Many have come up with theories such as:
- search algorithm changes by Shutterstock
- server uptime issue
- summer holiday
- tight competition among contributors
- Getty giving away free images
- ... and many more...

Everything above could be true, but I personally don't think of that. I think Shutterstock is losing clients.

Fotolia introduced DPC (I have opt out because I don't like the idea).
IStock introduced subscription model.
DepositPhotos and 123rf are advertising heavily.

All these are hurting Shutterstock sales and we don't see our overall earnings spread evenly because the income of our vector images are getting less and less everyday in other agencies when they "silently" played around with their royalties, ranking system, and buyer packages.

The trend of "race to the bottom" is also worrying one. Agencies are fighting a price war. Contributors and agencies are suffering because of this. Jon Oringer knows this (who would have know better, if not Jon?). If I am Jon, I will probably start diversifying my investment into other new revolutionary ideas.

Uploading Timing Strategy

One thing often comes to every contributor mind is that whether you should upload now, or later?

There are many factors that affects your sales. Below is a list that you may want to consider with some explanations of what you can do about it.

• Approved on weekend - If your works happened to be approved on weekend, then you will definitely misses a good chance for good downloads. Without good downloads, your new vectors will be "buried" by other new vectors that approved on weekdays. Although it is good to be approved on Monday, but I realize that you have no control over this, especially agency like Shutterstock could approved your vector between few hours or 2 weeks later. However, some agencies like DepositPhotos does have some consistency in approving your stuff. So, plan it right ;)

• Summer holiday - Summer holiday are often referred to months from June to August. Contributors consider these as slow months. While, it is good to take a break in these 3 months because there are less downloads - it also means that your competitors are taking a break too. So, visibility of your vectors got higher too.

• Good downloads months - March, April, May, October and November are good months. You should not miss these five months. Work hard before and during them.

• Trends - Should I follow trends? Now, everybody is talking about flat icons. And Christmas is coming too. The answer is yes, you should follow trends and never go against it. 

• Should I draw more vectors first, and upload all at once? No, you should upload as often as possible. It is tiring and daunting to think of good keywords. Uploading 30 vectors at once could take you 2-3 days. Also, uploading a lot of vectors at one time could potentially increase your rejection rate.

As a conclusion, I do believe timing is something not to be ignored if you want to maximize your profit. Good luck.

iOS 7 Tab bar Icons by IconBeast

IconBeast has once again updated their iOS icons with the latest iOS 7 tab bar icons. These icons are designed specifically for iOS 7. If you an iOS developer, this icon set is for you. The good thing about IconBeast is that they really thought deep about design. This 300+ iOS 7 tab bar icons comes with grey + an active blue color. The active blue color contains slight modification - so essentially, they are more than 300+ icons here in this pack.

iOS 7 Tab Bar Icons (Black)

iOS 7 Tab Bar Icons (Grey)

iOS 7 Tab Bar Icons (Blue)

This icon set is selling for $25 and it is essentially one of the cheapest rate in our microstock industry.

Shutterstock Search Rotation Myth is a Truth

Contributors have always been mentioning about Shutterstock's search rotation. What is a Shutterstock's search rotation? It is when Shutterstock modified the search engine to test out how well it will affect the overall downloads in the site. I have always believe that this is either a bug or a myth - but recently, Shutterstock has come out to claim that this is indeed a truth.

Here is a quote from http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=130239&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=135

Hello all,  

At Shutterstock, we perform regular tests of small modifications to search. Those tests are typically released to limited segments of the overall customer population. If a test wins over time – which typically means that the changes have demonstrably increased the total number of customer downloads – then the resulting improvements are accepted and deployed.  

Search testing and analysis is a continuous process of small improvements that generally won’t result in dramatic swings in search. Changes are carefully tested and evaluated to make sure that the overall effect on customer downloads and/or purchases is a positive one.  

Customer demand, content differentiation, keyword quantity and quality, global holidays, seasonality and other factors can affect an individual contributor's day-to-day earnings. We recommend allowing a little time before evaluating the effect on your personal portfolio.  

Sincerely, Anthony Correia Director, Contributor Success Shutterstock|Bigstock

So yes, many of us have been experiencing a swing of downloads from time to time. Shutterstock is doing testing on what can contribute to the best result. I wouldn't say this is a bad thing because afterall, the most important thing is, customers need to be able to find the images they want in the shortest possible time. That would then be able to retain a customer for a longer period of time.

So, what should we do now? There are two things that we can do in order to minimize our risks from this.

1. Title and keywords. Shutterstock may change the weight given to the number of keywords we put in, and the length of title as well. So, as a contributor, mix your uploads with different quantity of keywords (in the title as well).
2. Time of upload. You should upload frequently, and not upload hundreds of file in one shot. This is because the freshness of your files may also contribute to the factor.

I totally support Shutterstock hard work on this because this is an important factor that contribute to our success. 

Single and Other Downloads Brings Joy to Shutterstock's Contributor

I have been submitting my vector graphics to many different agencies in the past 3 years, and it seems that only Shutterstock is improving in a very constant and improving ways. The IPO of Shutterstock must have really been working out. To be frank, I have been really skeptical about the IPO because it means "change". I don't want to it to change because it has been good so far. But, Shutterstock proves me wrong. Not only the sales has been improving, but the feature of the sites are upgrading too. One very good example would be the Follow, Set, Same Artist, and Customer also Liked features. These features bring back sales to old images and open up an opportunity to new images too. I love how they want their buyers to maximize their download, instead of playing cheeky -  since the more subscription downloads a customer used, the less profit for Shutterstock.

Let's get back about sales in Shutterstock. The very special thing about what's happening recently is the "Single and Other Download" sales  A customer cannot see this package in Shutterstock's Subscribe Page.
So, how exactly Shutterstock bring in these "Single and Other Download" sales? I suspect this is done by a real salesman that walks into a customer office, and sell it.

The prices of "Single and Other Downloads" varies from $0.88 to $120.00. Nobody knows what's exactly happens to it and how did it took place. But, recently Scott Braut from Shutterstock hinted us about it. Here's a snippet of his explanation:

While individual user reports might be describing a variety of customer purchases, we also had a single large-volume educational book publisher purchase a large number of licenses today. 

High "single image" royalties are often the result of a prenegotiated agreement with volume buyers such as large publishers and advertising agencies. These volume buyers may require additional license or workflow features, such as the option for sensitive use, indemnification, multi-user accounts, prenegotiated pricing, and special billing and workflow features.

There goes the two very important point, "large-volume education book publisher" and "prenegotiated agreement". This is important because this means Shutterstock is doing something more than just online marketing. They are now sending marketing agent to workplaces and sell our images. One of my friend told me that IStockPhoto agents do come to his office and sell/market/negotiate prices. They show his boss about new and interesting photos + "gently warn them" not to steal their photos.

Contributors has been reporting a good sales on "Single and Other Downloads" recently, and I hope this continues. While we are really happy about it, we should also hope Shutterstock can cover the cost of their marketing, because when it don't, we are the first to be doomed.

14 Most Important Tools to Learn in Adobe Illustrator for Beginners

If you are just starting out to learn Adobe Illustrator, then you will really get yourself into a lot of confusions and overwhelmed by all the tools that are presented to you. As a matter of fact, you only need to learn some important tools to get yourself ready for some illustration.

Below are the 14 most important tools that you will be using all the time:

1. You must first understand well the differences between  the Two Arrows above. One is to select and move an object, while the one is to select an anchor point of an object. You can also use them to scale and modify an object.
2. The Pen Tool is the most used tool in Adobe Illustrator. You use to draw everything.
3. Type Tool. You use this to insert text into your illustrations.
4. Primitive Object Tool, to draw basic shapes such as rectangle, circle, star, and etc.
5. The color swapping feature. Do understand that every object contains background color + stroke color. The 3 small options below is for you to have more options on how you want to feature the object, either with or without a stroke/background and gradient color (shading).
6. Stroke Menu. This is to manipulate how your stroke looks like.
7. Gradient Menu. To create color shadings.
8. Transparency Menu. To create opacity or alpha color, so that your object can be seen through.
9. Color Menu. As mentioned.
10. Path Finder Menu. This is one of my favorite tool. This is to combine or dissect two or more objects. Do experiment with this tool and you will know how useful it is.
11. Layers Menu. To put your object on above or below another object.
12. Character Menu. To modify your text.
13. Transform Menu. To see the details of an object such as the location and size.
14. Align Menu. Another favorite tool of mine. Use this to make alignment between two or more objects easier.

IconBeast Pro: iPhone Icons (Updates)

Previously, I have recommended IconBeast Pro for iOS developers in my blog, and now they have receive a big update for their iPhone icons collection. This is a great news for all the previous and future buyers because these updates are worth it.

IconBeast Pro has receive a massive update of

• 300 new iOS tab bar icons (with retina display)
• 120 new iOS toolbar icons (with retina display)
• icon design modification to 15 existing tab bar icons
• icon design modification to 9 existing toolbar icons
• fixed some naming errors and PNG sizes
• SVG files included

These iPhone icons are great in every way, and they are exotic. Some of the iPhone icons are very original and hardly similar to anywhere.

iOS Tab Bar Icons

iOS Toolbar Icons

IconBeast is available in both commercial and free versions. If you are not ready for IconBeast Pro, then check out the IconBeast Lite for the free version.

Microstock Earning and Summary for 2012

The year is coming to an end, and here I am to conclude the earning and major hull of 2012. Overall, it has been a great year with improvement in many sites due to heavy uploading and hard works.

Shutterstock has been amazing all along except for the few months in summer holiday (June, July, and August). Although, there is no extraordinary improvement in it compare to last year, but it is still a satisfying year. Every now and then, you hear people announcing BME (best month ever). There is still room for improvement with demands coming in. Shutterstock introduced SOD (Single and Other Downloads), and there are people who reported netting $120.00 for one single download. This is a major leap for Shutterstock and the whole microstock industry. This proves that there are buyer who are willing to pay a lot of money for stock photos and vectors. Apart from that, Shutterstock has also introduce a new Follow feature that allows buyers to keep track on contributor's new files.

IStockPhoto has been catastrophic for its exclusive contributors in 2012. Ever since the introduction of RC (Redeemed Credits), IStockPhoto has been on a major downturn. Major contributors had been reporting a loss of 50% in recent months. The site is buggy and slow as well. And due to their greediness on hauling contributors earning percentage to as low as 15%, contributors had been driving customers away. They no longer recommend IStockPhoto to their customers. This is the power of words of mouth. Due to the obvious  major downturn, IStockPhoto's management is in the panic and is trying to gain back contributor's trust by reaching out to them through the forum and promise to do what they could to restore it back to its former glory. This is difficult though, because there are layers of politics and hierarchy in IStockPhoto management.

IStockPhoto's major downturn is not a good news for every contributors in the whole microstock industry . If the exclusive contributor turns independent, their exclusive photos and vectors file will start to flood into the market, and thus creating a massive competition among contributors. By leaving exclusivity at IStockPhoto, one contributor's earning will undoubtedly drop to hell at IStockPhoto. As a matter of fact, many major vector artist in iStockPhoto are icon designers. Their icons are normally grouped in a set of 12-16 icons. They sell this for about $15.00. However, in site like Shutterstock, many vector artist grouped over 100 icons in a set and earn about $0.50 average per download. By understanding this simple scenario, it would mean hell for iStockPhoto's exclusives if they are to leave exclusivity because the competition out here is crazy and may be too wild for them. So, if you are an independent contributor, please do not be sadistic about IStockPhoto's problem, because it may soon be yours.

Fotolia continues to be OK in earning, but they still rejects all my work. Due to this, I cannot increase my earnings at Fotolia. They don't communicate with contributors even when you try hard to contact them. I just hope they change their reviewers soon as their reviewers have very different opinions with standard reviewers in the industry.

123rf is doing OK too, but not good enough. Many contributors failed to reach the Redeemed-Credit rate of 50% for next year. Good for 123rf, bad for contributors. I hope they will soon learn that contributors is an important asset for the success of a microstock company, and appreciate us a bit more.

CanStockPhoto and DepositPhotos are doing well throughout the year. DepositPhotos has been advertising hard and creating a lot of promotions. DepositPhotos acceptance rate are high too and less stressful. However, I think they need to increase their price, especially for subscription package. As for Dreamstime, they has been doing well near the end of the year. A lot of on-demand sales and they are less strict in accepting my files these days. However, Dreamstime continues to approve vector file in a very slow manner.

Crestock is rubbish. Despite a change in management, they continue to fail in getting customers. Not only sales are rare, all of them are subscription sales that earns me only $0.25/download, the lowest in the industry.

GraphicRiver continues to sell in constant rate throughout the year, but agency like this must step up a bit more in case they wanted to reach the next level. I have not been uploading here for a long time because the acceptance rate is low, inconsistent, and the uploading process is a hassle. I do think Envato pays very little attention to GraphicRiver because Envato has many other sub agencies to take care of. They should start accepting more work and turn it into a real stock site. At the moment, it is more of a community-driven site.

Graphicleftovers - nothing special about this site. Sales are slow, and rarely reach $50.00 a month.

--

So what is it up for us next year? I just wish Shutterstock will continue to rise steadily and the IPO thing will not interrupt the daily operation. I wish IStockPhoto's management can gain back the trust of its exclusive contributors so that we all can have a win-win situation here. Fotolia should review their reviewing process, and GOD DAMN IT, PLEASE ACCEPT MY WORK ALREADY. CanStockPhoto, DepositPhotos, Dreamstime, and 123rf, please be a little more aggressive in 2013.

iOS Tab Bar and Toolbar Icons

If you are an iOS app developers, then you will be needing a lot iOS tab bar and toolbar icons to make your app more beautiful and stunning. There are graphic designers who create these icons for a price, while some are for free. Over here, I will be recommending IconBeast Pro.

IconBeast Pro is a set of over 1000 vector icons which priced at $75. These are icons are ready-to-use for iOS app with retina display supported. These icons are not only stunning, but they are pixel perfect even if you don't have a retina display devices. By purchasing IconBeast Pro, you will be granted a royalty free license and you are also entitled to free update when IconBeast Pro adds more icons in the future. This is a good bargain.

IconBeast Pro | iPhone Tab Bar and Toolbar Icons ($75)
IconBeast Lite | Free iOS Tab Bar Icons (Free)

300 Free iOS Tab Bar Icons

Vector Sales Earnings in June, July, and August 2012

Vector sales has been amazing all the way until the last 3 months. Shutterstock has the biggest drop in sales compared to the rest. Many big contributors have been reporting a loss of 30% to 50% at Shutterstock. Other agencies fluctuated, but are still consistent and bearable, except Dreamstime.

In the last 3 months, I had failed to reach a payout ($100) at Dreamstime. This never happened in the last 2 years. The sales at Dreamstime is very disappointing with a lot of subscription sales ($0.35) and hardly any on-demand sales.

Other agencies such as DepositPhotos, CanStockPhoto, GraphicRiver, 123rf are all doing fine with little fallback. I hope they rise further.

iStockPhoto maintains its usual trend although I did not upload much there. This shows that iStockPhoto is consistent and sustainable. The sales is hard to improve, though.

Just like iStockPhoto, Fotolia remains strong, but again, I do not see major improvement despite heavy upload. The Enhanced License purchase at Fotolia is getting rare and almost unseen these days.

I believe the biggest reason for drop in sales (especially in Shutterstock) are due to summer holiday, Euro Cup, and Olympics. Many have complain that Shutterstock screws up its search algorithm making it difficult for buyers to purchase. I do not believe this is true. Looking at the site analytic from compete.com, Shutterstock traffic is dropping dramatically.

Summer holiday is ending soon, and I hope the slowdown is over. We should be seeing major improvement from September and onward. However, if no improvement can be seen at Shutterstock, then we could have a big problem.

The big problem may caused by competition from sites such as DepositPhotos, Fotolia, and ThinkStock which are currently promoting their subscription model heavily.

Why New Images at Shutterstock No Longer Selling Great?

Shutterstock new images have always been performing well, but not in the past 6 months. Contributors are claiming that Shutterstock must had tweaked the search algorithm making new images getting less exposure. Or, perhaps bugs have been creeping through the site. But, I don't think those are the cases here.

Feeding the beast worked in the past because there were simply not enough of good images, then. When buyers could not get what they wanted in Popular, they will try to search through New. However, after years and years of uploading, Shutterstock has got enough of good images today. Buyers no longer need to search through the "irrelevance" New. We all know that searching through New is nightmarish due to keywords spam by contributors.

Here is a good example of why buyers no longer need to search New. Try to search for the keyword "seal" in Shutterstock...

http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?searchterm=seal&search_group=&lang=en&search_source=search_form

... and under Popular, you can see all the seal vectors presented are good enough to satisfy the buyers. Buyers have no reason to search through New when Popular has enough of good choices already.

The beast is no longer liking the same old food. The beast wants to taste something new. Feed the beast with unexplored topics and I am sure they sell better than the seal.

Children iPad Game that used Stock Vectors

All vectors contributors have been wondering where their works will be used after being bought. To be honest, I have sold thousands and thousands of vectors, but I have almost never saw where my work being used. It is so rare.

Recently, there is a children iPad game that used all stock vectors to produce the game. The developer is smart enough to pick Danilo Sanino's illustration as it is one of the best. This is cost saving for the developer as hiring a graphic designer to create such a work exclusively will be expensive.

Puzzle Safari HD is a children iPad game that designed for children from age 2 to 6 years old. I have downloaded the game and tested it out in my iPad. It is great. The game performance is smooth and I believe children will love it.

Whether you have a kid or not, I suggest that you download Puzzle Safari HD and see how our vectors are being used in the real world. This is an example of a successful vector artist. Danilo must be proud of this :)

Fotolia is Rejecting my Vector for no Good Reason

Fotolia had been one of my best agency. I used to love it. It accepted everything I submitted and produced a decent sales all the time.

But recently, Fotolia has been rejecting my vectors... without giving me a good reason. I am really frustrated and annoyed. Below are the sample of rejected vectors. Bear in mind that these vectors had already been accepted by all other agencies and they are selling already.

And below is the rejection reason from Fotolia.

Fotolia: Photograph Declined - Technical Problems 

Hello leremy, 

We regret to inform you that photo 39961352 was not accepted. Photographs submitted to Fotolia must meet high technical standards.
The image contains one or more technical problems:

• Blurry or out of focus

• Over/Under exposure

• Framing problem

• Over or under saturated colors

• Problems with contrast

• Noise or Pixelation

• Quality of routing

• Interpolation problem

Looking at the rejection reason, one vector contributor can clearly understand that these reasons are standard reasons for declining a photograph, not a vector. Vectors will not have the problems mentioned above. What I am really questioning now is whether my reviewer is a qualified vector artist himself or merely a photographer who don't understand anything about vector.

Since Fotolia did not gave me a reason that make sense, I guess the problem could be having jagged edges in my vector when Fotolia requires us to submit a 15MP resolution JPEG for the vector. You know, when you save any artwork of that size, your artwork will have jagged edges because the DPI in our screen could not accommodate such a precision. This is actually a limitation. That could be the reason for rejection. Thus, I have resubmitted my vector and explained to them about the problem in the Note to Moderator column. What happen was, they rejected it again with the EXACT SAME reason like above. I was hoping that they could at least give me a clue on what's my problem was. This is utterly frustrating.

I then, wrote a message to Fotolia about all the problems mentioned above. Below is the message.

Fotolia keeps rejecting my vector work recently and the reviewers did not specific the problem. They only give me a general reply to the rejection which doesn't make sense at all. This is making me very frustrated.
The REF in my Inbox for these problems are:9054164490541643905416419054164090541639
Can you please explain in details what are the problem with these submission?
From a very frustrated contributor. 

And this is their reply. Again, another standard reply which makes you feel the that you are unimportant to them.

Hi,
Thank you for your e-mail. 
All of your images and videos have been reviewed by our selection team. Please note that the selection team is a separate department, so we have no influence on their decision. The main criteria for validation or rejection are: the quality of the image/video, the technical requirements, the similarity to existing Fotolia photographs and the image's/video's sale potential. We know that it can be difficult to have an image or video rejected but please bear with us. You would be able to view your deleted files by going to: "My Files > Manage My Files > Show Deleted Files (green button located on the right side)". We encourage you to continue uploading your images and videos.
Kind regards,
Fotolia.com 

You see, up to this point, there is almost nothing I could do to get my artwork approved. These artworks had taken days to produce. It is not just about tracing photograph. It takes days and months to gather the resources from real objects and human model I photographed myself.

To conclude this, I will give up submitting to Fotolia for the time being, and hopefully there will be a change in the reviewer system one day later. Of course, this will not break my spirit to continue since all other agency still love my work.

If you are a vector contributor and having the same problem, please share with us. Thank you.