Help me cut to the chase here.   

Can I just submit all my micro images to Alamy, as RF only?   Are there hoops to jump through, that aren't there on the micro sites?

Yes you can, and there are far fewer hoops to jump through than getting them accepted at the micros

Everyone with a 6 mpx sales camera can call themselves a pro photog.
You'd be amazed as to what they submit.

Patrick H.

After switching from a film SLR, I shot 6 magazine covers with my old 6MP D70 directly for clients and over 100 inside shots, newspaper photos (several front page, Sunday supplements, etc) before I tried my hand at microstock. It's the photographer and not the equipment that make the photo, though clearly having pro equipment helps. I wish some of those photos had been shot with my D700 and my $1,600 lens vs. the kit lens I used with my D70 (I have several full-frame Nikkors, including a 50mm 1.4 I got on ebay for $40 that can't be beat, but the difference between the equipment I use for most shoots today vs. what I started with is obvious).

Yes, there's a lot of stuff on Alamy that makes me scratch my head and wonder why anyone would consider it stock, but their unique selling proposition is that they don't give you the perfect people shots you find on the edited collections. With their crowd-sourcing concept, the micros and Alamy are clearly aimed at the advanced amateur or aspiring pro, as well as the established pros.

 I do this part-time and have a small portfolio, and my example was meant to relate my experience to those who appeared to have less experience with Alamy than I do. I don't make my living from stock photography (most of my income comes from corporate writing and corporate and editorial photo assignments) and I can't imagine being able to even were I do do it full time starting out this late in the game. I just figured concrete examples might be helpful to those starting out. Clearly, most folks on this forum do not consider themselves pros. Yet many have done quite well with stock photography. I don't think the person who asked the question expected to make a full time living at it.

As far as licensing fees are concerned, this past year they have ranged from a whopping $0.83 for novel use (may as well be micro-most individual sales on Dreamstime bring in more) to over $250, with the average (ignoring the novel use sales) about $140 per license. I know others who've made over $1,000 licensing a single image within the past few months.  On the whole, however, prices seem to be on a downward trend, although the number of photos I've licensed is steadily increasing. Hoping the license fees increase when the economy gets better. You can't discount the economy. Photographers aren't the only ones whose income is suffering.

Hope this gives you a balanced picture. I've got about 350 photos there, so it's a small portfolio, but much larger than the number I have on the micros. With the exception of a handful of RF images, most of my images on Alamy are RM, primarily editorial. There's some overlap in the types of images I have on both, but I haven't put my entire micro RF portfolio up on Alamy.

Quote from: lagereek on April 02, 2011, 15:59

Well sure! what I mean is, the golden days of RM and similar is gone. I only have to look at my own stats with over 25000 RM shots in my portfolio, built up over a period of 20 years. Ten years ago they used to bring in a six figured amount,  today: less then half.

Half of six figures is still good money, IMO.   

But I do get your point.  Images have been way devalued, and micros are probably to blame. 

Yep! still good I suppose but its a strong devalue, thats for sure and the price/per sales are not anywhere near what it used to be. Youre right though, Micros have got a lot to answer for here and as ELENA, says, equipment, Internet, etc, all play a big part in the devalue of the RM market.

Besides, think about it, who really needs RM? its only needed for the rights, copy, etc and then we are down to just a handfull type of buyers, AD-agencies, Corporates, etc, campaigns. These are very few and far in between nowdays.

I agree with RM had very good sales last year and already this year. But macro RF is really struggling IMHO.

John Lund has a current post on this very question, FWIW:
http://blog.johnlund.com/search/label/2010%20Stock%20Photo%20Statistics