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Author Topic: strategy between RM and RF  (Read 6187 times)

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eyeCatchLight

  • Imagination is more important than knowledge.
« on: November 07, 2009, 10:41 »
0
Hello,

It's probably an old topic, and i have found various entries about this in the search...but still...
recently I got accepted at Alamy, and now I am kind of reconsidering where I put which shots and with which license. I have just recently started, and so my pictures are not yet extremely stock-like, and on the microstocksites I have mostly landscapes and other nice things (weirdly they seemed to accept them more!).

so now i have to find a strategy. should i, in the future, put all my landscapes and nice travel pictures as RM on Alamy and only "cheaper" microstock stuff on the microstock sites?
How do you handle that?

Thanks!
Simone


« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2009, 12:06 »
0
Some of my landscapes are my best sellers, so yes, landscapes CAN sell on microstock.  Since the images won't look as dated as quickly as pictures with people, they also stand to have a longer shelf life.

That said, on average, a landscape isn't going to sell as well as something that is very stock oriented - so it is tough to make it pay with microstock where you should really have a mass of sales.  So where to put the images?  I would try some of both (with different images of course) and see what you like best or where your sales come from.  I end up giving most things to microstock because I like the feedback that microstock gives and the quick turn around in sales.  You could be waiting a good 2-3 years before seeing your first RM download. 

« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2009, 12:09 »
0
I realize this is a slightly different conversation but you may find this thread usefull too

Where to sell travel images

eyeCatchLight

  • Imagination is more important than knowledge.
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2009, 20:33 »
0
thank you very much for your answer!

yeah, i also sold landscapes on microstock, one is my second best seller.

maybe i should just keep the good ones for alamy, and where i have to crop or more generic shots for microstock.

it is hard to find out as you dont sell anything very fast, so you might start thinking it would have been better to put those pics on microstock because on macrostock you see no income for a while...

many people keep saying you shouldn't upload the same RF pics on both macro and micro. what is the percentage of people doing that? I setup a poll to ask people, i hope this is not offensive. your forum is really great, thanks leaf!

that said...let me congratulate guys here. i love this place on the internet. you are friendly, intelligent, polite people, and so willing to help. if one thinks that this is for making money it is quite surprising that people don't go against each other. it makes me very happy. (sorry that was off topic).
« Last Edit: November 07, 2009, 20:37 by simsi »

« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2009, 22:39 »
0
My strategy - I can't say whether it's a good one or not - is having general-looking images as RF and specifc subjects as RM.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2009, 04:39 »
0
many people keep saying you shouldn't upload the same RF pics on both macro and micro. what is the percentage of people doing that? I setup a poll to ask people, i hope this is not offensive. your forum is really great, thanks leaf!
I'd imagine not many people are going to admit to it, as it's a complete no-no.
Not only that, there is a very broad definition of sister files which shouldn't be split between them both. I was walked through just a slight bit of this by a Getty employee. I had a series of photos of giraffes necking - anything between two and five animals in the photos, obviously all necking, but in very different postures in each photo. I sent some to Alamy, some to iStock (different postures, different crops - i.e. all cropped or resized down) and kept what I considered the best for Getty. He told me that I should not be selling even these shots both RM and RF - and said they were sister shots because they were the same species exhibiting the same behaviour (even though the actual posture in each photo was different between the agencies) at around the same time of day (all taken within a 90 min timeframe, admittedly) with a similar background (we just moved as they moved). He said that if someone should buy one with a very tight usage license, then a legal battle could ensue if 'similars' were found on RF and possibly even RM with a different agency (as they expected to have exclusive use of that image and didn't expect a similar one to turn up elsewhere'.
I deactivated the alleged 'sisters' from iStock and sent the ones I'd earmarked for Getty to Alamy. Pity, as I'd wanted to do an experiment to see whether the shots sold better from iStock, Getty or Alamy over a period of time.
(FWIW, my Botswana pics are attracting almost no interest on iStock and nada sales of anything on Alamy, though these most recent ones were uploaded only this week.)

eyeCatchLight

  • Imagination is more important than knowledge.
« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2009, 09:45 »
0
oh yes, for RM photos on Alamy and RF photos on microstock I understand....
what i meant is more like if people put the same images as RF on microstock and RF on Alamy...
« Last Edit: November 08, 2009, 10:06 by simsi »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2009, 14:19 »
0
oh yes, for RM photos on Alamy and RF photos on microstock I understand....
what i meant is more like if people put the same images as RF on microstock and RF on Alamy...
Ah, that's a horse of a different colour, but it's not what you asked in your OP!
FWIW, ten of my top 16 sellers at iStock are landscapes. But on the other hand, loads of my landscapes linger unsold. If I could tell in advance which ones would sell, I'd do well  ;D


 

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