Well,

I just prepared by 10 QC photos so I hope (and I probably will) be accepted in given that these photos were accepted at iStock so I hope that they get accepted. The reason I'm turning to Alamy is two-fold - RM seems to still be very popular (70 something percent of their sales were RM in Q1 2007) so the potential to make more money is there as well. One sale at Alamy could potentially double or triple my earnings for a month. I also believe my photos themselves lend to the RM more than RF. I have somewhat of an excellent set of baseball photos I took in September of last year, and after doing a search on Alamy, there's no editorial stuff of pro baseball players (Blue Jays and Devil Rays) playing. As well, my travels to Banff will hopefully (surely?) produce some photographs that will be more appropriate for Alamy than SS and IS.

The second reason, is that I'm sick and tired of the bad reasons for rejection. I just had 16 photos go through review at SS, and only 3 were accepted. My all-time rate of acceptance is about 65%, and I know what works and my technical quality is quite good. Its 65% because I used to upload everything I took, and my early pictures were really crappy too. My skills have gotten better, yet the rejections keep getting worse. I got "Composition" for most, then one was "the focus is not where we'd like" but it was a macro of a cloth texture which was perfectly flat, and "Limited commercial value" is another one that blows my mind. Best part was I was trying to be creative and trying to be inventive, capturing food from different angles and some random portraits - one of which got accepted.

This is one of the reasons that exclusivity is becoming so much more appealing. iStock is very good to their exclusives and they have preferential treatment, better downloads and such. Plus, its probably easier to submit just to Alamy and iStock than to have to go through SS and FT and DT and BS and LO, so many with small returns.

Just wondering what your thoughts are on this. As well, who submits to Alamy? What kind of success have you had? How have sales been?

PS - I'm writing this again because the other thread on Alamy is really long and harder to follow.

1) Be careful about exclusivity. I ran the numbers, saw that it made sense, went exclusive, then a month later algorithms changed, another month and they added free images, another month and changed pricing schemes, another month they changed the algorithm again, and eventually, I'm the one that ended up losing. It was a lesson learned.

2) Alamy doesn't take everything. They do look at image quality and you may very well still get rejections for artifacts, soft focus, bad lighting, etc. The difference is when you send them a CD of 100 images, and they review 3 that they don't like, the reject all 100 instead of just the 3. Check out their forum and you'll see the very same complaints you mention about microstock.

3) Not every sale is over $200. After taking into account for sub-distributors, and exchange rates, you could end up with $30 for a sale. Minimum payout is $250.

4) Travel images sell the best on Alamy - specifically European travel images. Those of us on this side of the pond don't do as well as others because of our subject matter.

Your best bet is to play both sides of the game. Choose some RM images and some RF images and some micro images. List them accordingly.

That was what I was thinking. I hear that animals and travel do well on Alamy and thats what I want to split up with my portfolio.

Ed,
If I remember correctly, you were exclusive with DT?

I think iStock takes much better care in general of their exclusives than anyone else, and that iStock exclusives enjoy a boatload of benefits that help them to prosper even more, so thats why I like iStock for that.

Yep. I've changed a lot of things around and a lot of the ways I do business - best thing I ever did was sit down and write a business plan. It took a long time to do, and there were some very tough questions to answer for myself, but I'm feeling better about the way I'm doing things. You also have to do things on your own - what's best for you is not necessarily what's best based on what everyone tells you.

iStock has by far treated me as a contributor better than any other agency (and I don't just mean in terms of a money maker). I know some will disagree but I've actually picked up the phone and called their offices, spoken with folks, and I'll be honest, if they treat customers the same way they've treated me, then it's no wonder they have the revenue and loyalty they do.

Personally, I feel there is a place and market for various agencies and business models - each one does business differently. If you want steady revenue from all of them, you have to build your portfolio and have patience.

I've been with Alamy for a few years, I totally agree with what eendicott has written and you should seriously consider the exclusive thing at iStock.

Are the most succesful photogs in the Microstock field exclusive - No, why do you think that is?

I wish you all the success with Alamy and I'm sure you'll do well, but please don't get your expectations up too high just yet.

Best of luck

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Richard

I rejected exclusivity about 2 years ago and I'm glad for it. So many changes in the market itself and rediculous rejections were the main reasons then and I see by reading the forums that things have gotten even stranger since then. I've seen big ups and down in dls across all the sites so beingo on many (8 for me) sites has evened out the income flow and made any outrageous occurance on any one site more bearable.

One of the big three or four stock sites will likely get even more dominate by leapfrogging the others in terms of user/contributor interface that includes image analysis tools for contributors. If a given site, say, can give meaningful feedback to their thousands of shooters I believe they'll get much more focused submissions. I know my own downloads increased dramatically when I learned about the downloads/per/month feature on iStock. Immediately I saw exactly what areas were the hottest in my portfolio. I went from two or three images in my hottest subject to over 24. And they are all kicking ass. For me that means 5 to 25 dls per month per image.

So I'd hate to be sitting on only one site when any number of sites can surge ahead at any time.

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istockPhoto
Shutterstock
Dreamstime
Stockxpert
SnapVillage
Fotolia
BigStockP
FeaturePics
YayMicro
TheNextMicroWannaBe

"Are the most succesful photogs in the Microstock field exclusive - No, why do you think that is?"

This is debatable. Very debatable. Lise Gagne and "Hidesy" and probably a select few more are exclusive and could perhaps be considered more successful than Yuri Arcurs or Andres Rodrigues. It really depends on the total information being given.

From my point of view, I'd like to see exclusivity, maybe not right now, but very soon may be an option.

Well said/