To everyone, The declines ARE really hard to take. The fact that alot of us have been here so long when GCU was growing up, and us with them. It is like all of the sudden we are on the chopping block. Our art is no longer looked at as art, but as someone's new idea of what a professional card is. With my recent around 100 declines there are some of them I do agree with. But for more than half of them I would say it feels like just one person's opinion instead of, lets let the customer decide.  
ANY card imaginable is the new slogan, but is not what is happening here. We all spent more hours than anyone can imagine designing those cards, lots of them for specific requests, unique to this site for GCU specific customers. And, now, they are no longer valid. Now all of the time we spent creating them, waiting for approval, and the right customer to find them has POOF, vanished into thin air at the stroke of a No thank you, we have 500,000 cards now, and yours is no longer good enough for our site. Plus, those cards have been created over the past four or five years, so going back on our hard drives, searching for them, fixing them, resubmitting, re waiting, is it worth it?
While the reviewer was slicing out my cards in the past two days I did sell 56 cards. My heart was crying, hurry customers , look fast, they may be gone tomorrow. It was also feeling, OUCH do they just want me to go away? Rejection is hard, and it hurts. It is never easy to be rejected. It is harder when you cannot agree or feel the valid reasons.
We have had other growing pains here and have made it through them, and remained, and continued to sell, which is what we all want to do. And, for me it is what i will continue to do, unless they ask me to leave   . But, at this point business is business is not a valid point of respect for the artist's work and hours spent helping our site grow. Customers validate our card's worth by purchasing them, and our customers are looking for different cards, not the run of the mill perfectly cropped photo. The point is they are everyday people who, for the most part do not know if you filtered your photo right, or used the right lighting, or if your font is exactly the right size with the correct bevel. They do want the variety that is varied as we are and some of them will like that shiny drum with a dark background ( i did) or that impressionistic art piece that has blurred edges, they truly do want any card imaginable!  
Sincerely,
Sandy  

sometimes this is where I get confused with what GCU considers marketable.  How do they know precisely what people might want?  Her card is unique and not commonplace and might be exactly what someone is looking for if they don't want the commonplace green trees with the perfect shape, color, and decorations.  Are we going to have to make sure that if we design a card with a Christmas tree that the only acceptable forms will be this "cookie cutter" type green tree with sparkles, glass bulbs and tinsel?  
 
If so, then I think GCU owes it to us to spell out that only those designs are acceptable so we don't waste our time with our own unique creativity (art if you wish to use that word) or if we do that we know to post it elsewhere instead of waiting the weeks for reviewers to assess and kick back or decline.  Wouldn't it be worth taking a chance and let an artist sometimes have a little creative freedom and see if it sells?  Maybe there are people out there that are looking for something that screams DIFFERENT and unique in form but still possesses the same sort of message and doesn't look like all the rest.

Just saw that one of my cards they removed was a sale for me on Sept 22

Thank you Sandy, your post warmed my heart for sure this morning!  I know how you feel and I know it hurts when they decline a card.  They declined one over here that just sold 3 copies of, on another site  yesterday, it stings!  But you know what, they are going to do what they are going to do.  They have a plan and they are going to stick to it and some of us might get our feelings hurt when they cut a card that we loved creating.  I totally understand how you feel.  What helped me come to terms more with it is that GCU is a business and it owns this website.  Period.  We are all artists that enjoy our own shops to create and sell our cards.  But my feeling is at the end of the day, it's them who hold the power and they will set this site up the way they want it.  Yes we have all been a huge part of GCU all these years.  But things change.  Change stings sometimes, for sure.  It's good to get your feelings out, even if there is nothing we can do to change it back.  Our feelings are still important.  We did put a whole lot of heart and soul and did play a HUGE part in getting GCU to where it is now.  I'm trying not to take it personally as it is happening to alot of us.  Thanks for your encouragement, you made my day after a seriously hard week helping someone very close to me recoup from a heart attack.  Take care, hang in there!

You are welcome Cara,
Prayers for you and the person you have been helping. That is what matters in life.
I am just now looking at the comments on mine, as I had 84 decliined in the past two days, and I am glad that I read here first.  One , I just looked at sold three separate times in the past two months here, but is declined because the photo is "This image has lighting problems that make for unattractive shadows." So, does it not matter whether the customer wants the card?
But anyways, as you said life goes on and it is what they decide it is.
Hope your weekend is restful and healing!
Sandy

Sandy, what is wrong with the flower?    Oh, boy this is SO discouraging!!    
 
can you post the PID and if not, a link someplace where we can view it?  I don't get it...  
 
is someone having a field day just declining cards??

just noticed our post numbers have stayed the same  

Maybe someone should open up a card store with the rejects from GCU!