So in September 2011, I left being exclusive at DT, not because I wasn't happy, but mostly because the terms were too exclusive and there were something I wanted to do with my photography that didn't fit within the terms of being a fully exclusive photographer.  At the same time, it seemed like I might see gains as a bonus.  I'm part time at this, but at this point have tens of thousands of sales with over 3K images.  What is interesting (in a bad way), is that looking at my year over year income (graph of the 12 previous month's of income, a month at a time) it is pretty obvious that I've lost money in the transition to being non-exclusive.  The arrow below shows the month I dropped exclusivity.  I pretty much sat flat in total annual revenue for about a year and now see a steady climb in income.  The interesting part is that the slope of the graph is identical to before when I was exclusive.  So I basically just put my growth on hold for a year   Of course, I can't say how I'd be doing if I'd stayed, but I still see positive growth on DT, if I compare to any previous non-exclusive month in the last two years.

Food for thought   No guarantees you'll do better as a non-exclusive!

Very interesting, thank you!

It will be interesting to see what I can share end of next year!

I think I'd argue that you are better off even though your rate of growth is the same as before, in part because you are now (a) insulated against DT losing ground and (b) positioned to benefit from growth at other sites. In particular where you earn more over time at sites like SS, you'll see your income there really go up once you get paid at the highest rate.

You don't say (and don't have portfolio links) how many other sites you now upload to - is it at least the top 4 to 6?

Yes, I'm on all the top 10 (on the right) to some extent.  I've never seen a sale at Alamy so haven't spent much more time on it, and have stopped uploading anything to IS.  My main issue has been getting files from the last 5 years on other sites.  I took the approach of keeping anything SS wouldn't take as exclusive on DT.  But only half my portfolio is on SS.  If I could get all my files up they would beat DT.  But that is the biggest argument for starting out non exclusive - later it takes time to build up at other sites and work through their level system.  I'm up levels at DP, FT, and almost to the max level on SS, so it looks like a while before I'll jump another level...

Also of interest is that a few sets I've monitored show no obvious site winning for me.  One group does better on DT, the next better on SS.  I find that interesting as I typically feel like new images don't do as well as they used to on DT, but my data show otherwise.

Quote from: Megastock on September 16, 2013, 14:41

My main issue has been getting files from the last 5 years on other sites.  I took the approach of keeping anything SS wouldn't take as exclusive on DT.  But only half my portfolio is on SS.  If I could get all my files up they would beat DT. 

What for? I don't think exclusive images by non-exclusive contributors get favoured in search results and you only get a little extra for these exclusive files on Dt. If I had 3k images I wouldn't keep half of them on just one site because they didn't get on ss. Plus if you choose again carefully, I'm sure a lot of the ones which didn't get on ss would get on next time, their reviewing process is primarily a human one.

I glossed over some detail - I don't have 1500 exclusive on DT...  The ones I chose to leave are higher level on DT.