MicrostockGroup

I thought Superstock is exclusive only.

And don't the shots in the Flickr collection also have to be exclusive?

Why Getty via Flickr?  thats no good, why not try for the real Getty RM,  if your stuff is original, that is. Also you have Masterfile and Corbis, although Im not sure Corbis is selling anything nowdays.

Thanks,e xactly the advise I am looking for. Masterfile looks very good...I heard about em but they somewhat disappeared from my internal radar.

Corbis: I am still traumatized by the attitude of them from the old times. Before the rise of istock (MS in general) I tried to get in there...

I think many microstockers dream of getting more money for less work or getting their work more honored, and therefore looking out for RM. In my case it is the holy grail not for some kind of illusion, but more because I naturally tend to create iamges which are more creative or higher quality. Very often I have to refocus myself to create the more "sellable" MS content. I oftenly spend 8 entire hours on one image until Im got it like I want t.  I do not think such content is really well placed in MS.

Yes, you are right...I was not exactly looking for exclusive Agencies, but I am willing to opt in to material exclusivity if the agency is able to actually sell my material. Spreading my work out has to do with maximizing profit, not so much with refusing the idea of material exclusivity. What I reject from anyone or anytime is photographer exclusivity - a ridiculous concept of modern slavery.

Any other (probably exclusive) RM agencies which actually sell?

Not necessarily. As you can see, some high rollers have photos selling in the thousands or tens of thousands.
You might rake in $2.000 to $10.000 with one image over it's lifetime in Microstock.

I wouldn't mind spending 8 hours on such a photo.

The problem is to identify whether an image will do better as RM or Microstock RF...?

My "problem" is that I spend most of the time producing Microstock content as this is my bread an butter.

I wish I could increase my RM output but the same principle applies here as well: The bigger the portfolio, the better it is for your sales.

So applying to any RM agency with 50-200 really good images is not taking you far either. At least I've made that experience.
You need to pump out content non stop. Also some agencies that shall remain nameless originally were interested in my exclusive RM stuff but dropped me like a hot potato after they found out that I submit the micros as well - they just didn't want to have anything to do with Microstockers.

That's another hurdle you have to take with some agents.

LOL, as if any other long standing microstock contributor would offer to provide screen shots of their earnings...

You can take it or leave what I have to say, due to my anonymity but amongst other reasons, I don't show off my portfolio because the images that I was referring to in my previous post are niche images and I would shoot myself in the foot posting these on a forum filled with my own competition.

I have 7 images on Shutterstock with either more than 1000 downloads or 2000 downloads on SS alone (yes each image, not added together).

I admit that not many other agencies can show such high download numbers but if the royalties are added up for each image from all the agencies there are few that earned me more than $2000 each just on Microstock.

I don't assume that you would believe me what I'm saying, but you can easily look on iStock (and other agencies that show DL numbers) and there are quite a number of contributors out there that sold a single image more than 2000 times, some on iStock even more than 10.000 times. I'm not making this up, you can check this for yourself.

At iStock you can assume (based on my non-exclusive RPD of $1.5 per DL) that with 10.000 downloads you would make $15.000 - not to mention that exclusives would make significantly more.

Sure, not every picture in my portfolio performs like that, or remotely like that. I'm just saying that if I do my research right and I start working on a concept, I can invest up to 3 days for a single image, knowing I get my moneys worth.

However, it does depend on what the subject matter is, which also determines whether I upload as RM or to the Micros.

You do realize that agencies sell ELs?

I'm submitting to more than 20 agencies, focusing on 2000 downloads at SS as a non-exclusive is not really a representative figure considering that the images are selling on 19 other agencies as well.

Maybe that's what you're missing.

Believe me, I'm pi$$ed too that none of my top images come even close to Sean's or Yuri's, so, we're all playing in our own league.

I started in 2005 as well.

Just go to iStock type in "business" sort by downloads and take your pick. Use any other high value keyword and do the same. Plenty of contributors out there who make pretty decent money.

If anyone wants to play microstock, assuming they can pop out images that give them $2000 to $10.000 in return, it's far fetched - but not impossible

if all you want is quick money you better stick with micros.

RM is paying a lot less than micro-RF at the moment unless you're a super duper creative Getty RM photographer, this means you mainly do advertising, not travel, not still life, etc and to do these shots you need a well equipped studio and gorgeous paid models, it's not cheap.

of course you can score the odd 1000$ sale but you gotta be very lucky.

I've got complete faith that click_click is talking about real earnings so I won't add to that debate..

What interests me is this comment pasted above. I take mainly travel, landscape and still life shots - few model type images. Can you share some basic principles about which images you put into RM (presumably Alamy mainly?) and which go to the other microstock agencies. I have all my images spread on both sets of site, and I do get a few sales on Alamy, but no way could I ever make enough on that one site to compensate for the loss of sales on the microstock agencies. I've always wondered if someone finds my image on Alamy and then goes to buy it on SS or IS, as I get zooms that don't result in purchases, and purchases that don't seem to have associated zooms.

Steve

Getty, Corbis, Alamy are all good RM agencies.

if they reject you try LonelyPlanetImages, Robert Harding, Mauritius, Blend, Masterfile, etc etc

Well this is just it,  there are none,  what you call solid agencies anymore, them days are gone, unfortunately. Back in the film days I earned fortunes with RM agencies, today, its still good but a far cry from yesterday.
To make money in an RM agency isnt easy, its like night and day to a micro. Just look at it, any old generic rubbish will eventually fetch its 30c, in a micro, not so with RM, the successful RM shooter work mostly with conceptual imagery, etc. or extremley specialized portfolios.
If you gave us a hint of what you photograph, it would be a lot easier to point you in a direction.
Personally I still believe, you have to go with agencies like, Getty-house-collection, Alamy and Masterfile, they are well bona-fide agencies and house many fine photographers.