MicrostockGroup

As a newbie to Fotolia, earlier this year, I was very encouraged when my earning doubled with one single dl . It was on my fourth month and with a really tiny portfolio . I got an Ext Lic. and my commission was something like 6 dollars.
For a small portfolio and a new contributor it was nice to see my commission total
double in one day.
My question to all you here is twofold:
i) in your longer time with Fotolia and others, do you sell many Ext Lic?
ii) do you think certain images have more potential of getting Ext Lic
than others?
iii) if you say yes to (ii), would you say it pays off if we just try to make images that
do better in getting Ext Lic.

(iii) might sound naive to some of you experts, so bear with me. I am here to look for ideas to improve my portfolio which I think personally has improved a lot for someone who is only a bit over one year old in micro stock. and just half year with fotolia.

Cheers in advance for your input.

The bulk of my EL are with SS..
As to the what and why?  I've seen no rhyme or reason.  Who knows why people buy what they do.  I dont know how many times I've sat and wondered about some of my stuff... "What in the world will someone use that pic for?"   In fact, I'm often surprised that they even get accepted... but,  they do and... they sell.

who knows? =tom

SS and FT have more EL's for me than the other sites.  I had one with cutcaster last month and that took me past the payout level.  I think some of the sites should sell more and they are doing something wrong, perhaps not making it as clear when an EL is required? 

I don't know what makes an image get an EL.  Sometimes it is a bland photo that hasn't sold much and sometimes it is one of my best sellers.  I get more as my portfolio grows and I spread it out on different sites.

I just had one today. It is hard to predict what image will get an EL. I have one image on FT with two ELs and it's an image taken with a point and shoot camera before I even started with stock photography.
I think that ELs on FT should be more common as they are much cheaper than on other sites.

Cheers all for your input. It's good to know that ext lic with Fotolia is not just once in a blue moon situation. I hope more with come for me.
fotografer, or anyone with more experience in Fotolia, additional question for you all:
As a newbie I notice that going exclusive image with Fotolia does not give you any benefit viz: more money. You have to be at the even higher level to make exclusive images worth the exclusiveness.
For this , I don't understand why I should want to make any of my images exclusive with Fotolia. At least, not until I reach a higher level to get something better. Did I read it wrongly?

o' well, too bad. H'ever, maybe with this new thing at IStock with exclusives, Fotolia might think of something good too. Afterall, they just hired 2 ex-IStock CEOs . Who knows, we might see some new ideas from Fotolia too.  Cheers again PixelBytes for the quick response. 

I have just turned silver at FT and asked to have my ELs set to US$75 (mas would be $100).  Am I being conservative?  I haven't had any EL latelym despite frequent regular sales (many subs as usual, but DT is the worst on subs this month), so I was unsure about setting prices too high.