I don't recall hearing of any others, and if there are others I bet that there are very few of them. So the idea that being a top non-exclusive requires so much extra time and cost is a bit silly.

Comparing any of the top most successful microstock people to each other or anyone else really says very little about the business. To get any sense of which path is more likely to lead to the highest profit margin, you would need to sample contributors at some other levels of income and profit. Let's say those who earn around $100,000 from microstock annually. In that category, I doubt you'd see much difference in production costs between exclusives and non-exclusives, and percentage of profit would likely be similar. Just a guess, of course, but I think it makes more sense than the notion that exclusives are more profitable. 

I've hear of many others that do have a staff (and none of them are exclusive), but they're not as high profile. You make a good point about it being hard to compare the most successful microstockers and the need for a better sample size, but I disagree with you on the extra time and cost. The large portfolios require a lot of time to get uploaded, and time cost money. That time spent by non-exclusives uploading at other sites could be used to produce more photographs. It's about allocation of capital and resources.

I do think that if you're a top performing, high volume, non-exclusive than your costs are going to be higher because you would need a staff to keyword and upload to the multiple sites.

I've hear of many others that do have a staff (and none of them are exclusive), but they're not as high profile. You make a good point about it being hard to compare the most successful microstockers and the need for a better sample size, but I disagree with you on the extra time and cost. The large portfolios require a lot of time to get uploaded, and time cost money. That time spent by non-exclusives uploading at other sites could be used to produce more photographs. It's about allocation of capital and resources.

I do think that if you're a top performing, high volume, non-exclusive than your costs are going to be higher because you would need a staff to keyword and upload to the multiple sites.

Assuming that's true (costs are higher for top non-exclusives), then it would just come down to individual site performance. Even employing a staff, it can still be more profitable to stay non-exclusive. Of course this is all subjective, and varies from one artist to the next. But in the case of a top artist like Andres, who reported istock earnings in April represented 13% of his total microstock earnings, even if he employed a staff (which I don't believe he does but someone correct me if I'm wrong), and paying that staff took up half of his revenues (a very liberal estimate), it would still be more profitable for him to stay non-exclusive. Hypothetically, if he was making let's say $20,000 a month from microstock, his istock cut would be $2,600. If he were exclusive, that would be $5,200. Even if you add in some extra for better search results and Best Match as an exclusive, plus higher upload limits and shorter review wait times, at best I think you could estimate that he would still come in with maybe $7,000-$8,000 as an exclusive istock artist. Compared to the $20,000 he could make non-exclusively, even if he had to spend $10,000 a month on a few staff members (probably pert-time), he'd still be better off staying non-exclusive and paying for help.

Of course this is all hypothetical, but generally speaking I think that those who employ a staff do so because they know that for them, non-exclusivity is the best option, even if it means paying for some help. If we're talking about a non-exclusive artist who earns about 25% of their microstock income from istock, and is also currently paying for help, then maybe the math works out that exclusivity is the better option. But I know that for a lot of the top people, istock doesn't represent enough of a percentage of their microstock earnings to justify the switch.

Winther - You should run some numbers to see if it makes sense for you. Everybody will be different. For quite a while IS was 70% of my total earnings and 10 other sites made up the remaining 30%. The bronze level exclusive commission increase covered that 30% for me.

I've only been exclusive for a few weeks so it will be a few months before I can see how things pan out over a longer period of time.

I don't really think it is any use making reference to Yuri or Andresr - these guys are in a different league to most of us and their situations aren't really a good basis on which to make a decision that suits you.

However, the fact that Andres only has about 3000 images on IS is due to the fact that their uploading procedure takes far longer than any of the other sites. Therefore the argument about time taken to upload to numerous sites never works with me. In the time it takes me to upload 20 images to IS, I have uploaded and finished uploading to all the other sites. I tend to do this in the evening as well so I probably couldn't be using this time to shoot - that argument doesn't work for me either.

For me, one of the reasons I stay non-exclusive is that I like to check all my stats on the different sites, be part of different communities. It fascinates me when I have a great day on one site and the others are slow, when I get ELs on different sites and to see the evolution of different sites. Yes IS has evolved too but I have never really forgiven them for the disambiguation fiasco which cost me so much in time and money to fix.

Financially it would never make sense for me at the moment to be exclusive with IS. I am lucky, I have seem rising royalties with them these past few months when a lot of contributors have seen a downward decline but it is not enough to convince me that I would be better off with IS.

So the decision is yours and is a personal one - don't worry about what others have or would do. Weigh up all the factors - financial, time, management etc and make a decision that suits you.

Thanks for all your thoughts on this subject.
I was sure you need to be gold at 10.000 downloads to be considered for Getty - at 2500 I would think they are flooded with contributors. Where on IS can I read about this?

Thanks for all your thoughts on this subject.
I was sure you need to be gold at 10.000 downloads to be considered for Getty - at 2500 I would think they are flooded with contributors. Where on IS can I read about this?

They are supposed to be opening it up for silver level exclusives some time this fall. I think it was one of the "prestige" announcements a few weeks back. I will see if I can find a link for you.

And of course, RH is correct. You are certainly free to apply to Getty completely independent of istockphoto. You might want to do some research into how many new photographers are accepted there, and the rate of application rejection. There are a couple of "old-timers" around here who have chimed in with some anecdotal evidence to suggest that it might not be very easy to get in.

Quote from: bittersweet on August 28, 2008, 10:30

They are supposed to be opening it up for silver level exclusives some time this fall. I think it was one of the "prestige" announcements a few weeks back. I will see if I can find a link for you.

There is a thread on the subject but it's in the exclusive forum.

Yes, but there was a public announcement.

Here's the announcement:
http://www.istockphoto.com/article_view.php?ID=465

Here's one discussion:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=71579&page=1

Yes, you have to be exclusive, and no, you can't submit editorial to this collection.

You can always pursue that on your own by applying to Getty or Scoopt.

Quote from: sjlocke on September 02, 2008, 05:19

Yes, you have to be exclusive, and no, you can't submit editorial to this collection.

You can always pursue that on your own by applying to Getty or Scoopt.

I love shooting Editorial (events, concerts, sport) and I applied to Scoopt. They are pretty selective, which is a good thing. I have a handful images online: they appeared in Getty editorial searches.

Interesting - any bites yet?