Not sure if you read the forums on fotolia a while ago but they changed the numbers for getting to each canister so you have a while to go before reaching bronze now. I personally would never go exclusive with fotolia. I actually have more images on fotolia than i do on istock yet I have 5x more sales at istock. Sales come very slow on there. But then I hear that the legendary yuri thinks its his best site of all so some ppl must like it more than others

Its all about being called Anthony these days 
I just think that each site is different and something I noticed is that what sells more on fotolia are vectors/illustrations and not really photos. I tend to upload to all sites and if an image is rejected from all but fotolia then I will click the exclusive button for it but wouldnt ever upload to fotolia to be exclusive. I understand why ppl do go exclusive with a site due to less hassle but every site offers something different and allows you to upload more and potentially earn more too

Unless you are so lazy that uploading at 5 agencies is a nightmare for you (but you already do it for 50% of your images if I understand well), I don't see any good reason to be exclusive with fotolia or with any other agency.

I would bet you are loosing money here.

I am exclusive at Fotolia, and I am 1/4 into silver (a long way still) This is because I opted for higher commission at the expense of #dns, I raised my price as soon as I reached gold, to $2 for most good images and I left my earlier work at $1. I like getting at least 1.04 on the S . 50% of my downloads are at least M or larger, and a couple of ELs so those are nice downloads/sum. I have about 600+ on Fotolia, started about 2 years ago but the later images sell better (isolated background). My earlier images were mostly landscapes, nature and I was still figuring what is good stock photo. Certain images/themes do better on Fotolia.

I submit my best to Fotolia first, everything else they turn down go to three other sites that I submit actively. Now my strategy is just shoot a subject for Fotolia, then change the set up and shoot for the sites where the files will be non-exclusive.

I find that works for me, because I like the higher amount per download I earn at Fotolia, which allows me to have a payout every month or less. I don't like the 0.31-0.32/dn (and that only happened after many kicked and screamed) for non-exclusive which is the lowest in the industry. By comparison, one gets at least 0.50 at BigStock and 0.36 (occasional 0.25) at 123rf. I for one think it is crazy that when so much time/equipment/effort has gone into shooting one stock photo that buyers are able to download for pittance, so I stayed exclusive on Fotolia which allows me to turn off subscription there. For me, it is like "sorry this is what I am willing to sell it for, otherwise no deals"

This is not my main profession (one of my side projectsl) so I have the luxury to go this route. For most pros, being on as many sites as possible will probrably bring them the most bucks per photo/ROI over time that seems to be case from what I gathered. I would say experiment for a while and see what works best in terms of return/your themes.

I am registered through Fotolia.de and have about 13% images of my portfolio as Exclusive images. Most of these are either images no other agency wanted - or (as in most cases) images specificially targeting Fotolia's main market, Germany (at least that is where most of my images go from there). These images often contain some sort of German text. I raised the prices of most of these to 3Cr. by now and am selling these well. Maybe a similar strategy could work for you too?

Thinking out loud about this further, this would be an excellent application for lookstat, which could have a built-in "Sales Maximizer" that would run analyses to determine if you'd be better off listing an image at multiple sites or have it listed exclusively on either DT or FT. I'll give the lookstat guys a 'heads up' on the idea.

this is a really cool idea. we just added individual image sales history and once we add Fotolia, I think we might be able to take a stab at this. I think we could just look at avg sales for exclusives vs. not and come up with a simple equation.

I gather Fotolia and DT allow exclusivity on a per image basis?

I gather Fotolia and DT allow exclusivity on a per image basis?

Yes they do.

This IS a great idea.

Quote from: Rahul Pathak on January 27, 2009, 12:03

this is a really cool idea. we just added individual image sales history and once we add Fotolia, I think we might be able to take a stab at this. I think we could just look at avg sales for exclusives vs. not and come up with a simple equation.
...

If you implement it well enough I can see this being your primary sales point. Let's face it, it only takes 15 minutes per day at most to track sales across multiple sites. Obtaining the data isn't the hard or beneficial part, analyzing it is. If you can use this data to perform a highly-desirable task that would otherwise require several hours of work (i.e. maximizing sales), you'll have a product that everyone will want. You won't be able to take orders fast enough. As it stands now, I see little or no benefit to using lookstat - I do more than it does with little effort.

That being said, you clearly need to do more market research. You're making a product that tracks sales and you don't even know which agencies offer exclusivity? If you're serious about making lookstat a success you'd better get on the ball, Rahul.

All points well taken sir.

I do agree that the real value comes in turning data into information that actually lets you do something.

If you can use this data to perform a highly-desirable task that would otherwise require several hours of work (i.e. maximizing sales), you'll have a product that everyone will want.

Correct. For the moment, we only have glorified FTP uploaders and quaky databases of what you uploaded to several sites, not to mention tools that live of the (keywording) sweat of others. Lookstat has a dynamite potential and can bring something new. In another thread Rahul hinted at a functionality to track an image's performance over several sites. I figure he has to use some image recognition software for that. That would really be innovative.

Lookstat also has the potential (given enough members) to yield real sales figures in general of different agencies, without having to rely on subjective polls. As such, it would be unique, and he could sell these metrics to the site owners easily for big $.

Quote from: totony on January 26, 2009, 08:10

... On one hand, I'm happy to see my prices double there, but on the other hand seeing all of you choosing not to upload exclusive content to fotolia makes me think I'm on the wrong track.
...

There are a few people who list images exclusively on FT while at the same time using other agencies, but they use a different method than you.

The technique is to upload images to all sites, then regularly visit FT to see what your best sellers are. You then compare the potential exclusive income of each best-selling FT image to the income it is currently generating from all sites. If FT comes out ahead you remove the image from all agencies and change it to be exclusive at FT. Although I've never done this, my gut feeling is that I might make at most an extra couple of hundred dollars per month - for me this is not worth the hassle. A problem with this method is BigStock: you can only remove an image there after it has been online for 90 days. The policy at DT is 6 months, but they allow you to remove 30% of your less-than-6-months images, so it shouldn't a problem there unless you have a very small portfolio.

thanks for this, a have a few images that sell daily or better on fotolia but are absolutley dead elsewhere (probably because they aren't that good anyway they sell well there and turning them exclusive would work well

Regards
Phil