Microstock Group - A meeting place for microstock photographers

I've been getting a few questions off list about where to put images and should they be RF or RM etc. The answer to most of these questions is, you need to try for yourself. If your images aren't selling on macro I don't need to look at them to know that they may not be suited for macro, same goes for micro. Which image will sell best? Who knows, the market is large and diverse, soon as some one needs it and you have it it will sell. As far as RM and RF is concerned, that's another who knows. You need to place non released editorial in RM, that's a given, after that it depends on where you want it placed. The only real way to become an expert in this game is experiment, asking questions is fine, I do it all the time but get out try different things, then you can tell me.

Just curious if most people here will sell their RF images on micros AND Alamy or if you just sell an Alamy RF image on Alamy.  I just got accepted there and was thinking of loading my micro portfolio RF there....the issue is to leave it up on micro as well or pull them as (and if) they get accepted to Alamy.  I had a few responses on another thread, but not many and just wondering what most folks do.  My gut feeling is to pull them from the micros as I go but I want to get a clearer idea if that would be dumb or not.  Most of my stuff is nature oriented which hasn't sold real well on micros...maybe $175 in 5 months on SS and hoping they will sell better on Alamy

Right. I'm only uploading my junk to the micros now, and if it gets rejected 'tant pis' as they say round here.

I have a feeling that the micros are gradually going to discover the truth in the saying "If you pay peanuts you get monkeys". And it's possibly one reason why IS is pushing its exclusivity deal so hard.

I have around 1500 images, and have for about two years, mostly RF but a few hundred RM. I was averaging about two sales per month on Alamy for the last two years, and the first three months of this year I had three or four sales each month, that was until July. No sales in July or August (and May and June hand only one small sale each month). I uploaded a bunch of images and i think that screwed up my ranking, however under general search terms many of my images show up on the first page so I don't know what happened. Around the beginning of the year I was considering only focusing on macro but now I've made a 180 degree turn and I'm thinking about just focusing on Micro. I've uploaded a few hundred new images to Alamy, Acclaim, and Photoshelter and nothing to show for it for the last three-four months. Maybe my particular type of images fare better in the micro world, don't know. Anyway, uploading and keywording images for Alamy, Acclaim, and Photoshelter is a lot of work for no sales. By far the majority of my income comes from the micro world with fewer images. So I'll give this new uploaded batch until the new year but unless i see at least one or two sales I may take everything down and send the images to the micros. I really hate how Alamy ranks (penalizes)  images based on similar keywords because photographers who specialize in a niche are essentially screwed. I do a lot of business conceptual still-life's and they all require essentially the same keywords but i get penalized for that. i can create a new pseudonym but the ranking of that new pseudo is low and from experience I know a new psuedo usually takes a year before it sufficiently climbs in rank, so either way it's bad for me to create images that I enjoy creating.

this month is about 1/3rd of either of last 2 months sales, ouch!