Author Topic: Stupid Question? (Read 5308 times)

pixel8 · « **on:** January 02, 2021, 11:29 »

I feel stupid for just now asking this question 8 years into stock photography but for those contributors who have been into it longer can you please answer this question.

Should I bother putting my images on Bigstock since Shutterstock owns them and I already have my images on Shutterstock? My fear was that if I added my images to Bigstock then my sales at Shutterstock would go down as buyers find my same photos at the other site. Is this a legitimate concern or am I just missing out on sales at Bigstock?

Thanks!

Astrantia · « **Reply #1 on:** January 02, 2021, 11:35 »

Don´t bother with BigStock. It´s not worth it. I had sales for 14 $ altogether for a period of more than two years now and I stopped uploading to them.

SpaceStockFootage · « **Reply #2 on:** January 02, 2021, 12:11 »

Quote from: Astrantia on January 02, 2021, 11:35

Don´t bother with BigStock. It´s not worth it. I had sales for 14 $ altogether for a period of more than two years now and I stopped uploading to them.

What do you make on SS though? If it's also $14 over two years, and the OP is making $1,400, or $14,000... then it might be worth it.

steheap · « **Reply #3 on:** January 02, 2021, 12:33 »

I put the same images on both sites. If you use Stock Submitter it is zero work and I earned $460 this year - about 5% of my SS earnings

pixel8 · « **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2021, 12:48 »

Quote from: steheap on January 02, 2021, 12:33

I put the same images on both sites. If you use Stock Submitter it is zero work and I earned $460 this year - about 5% of my SS earnings

But do you feel like its drawing sales away from Shutterstock?

Firn · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2021, 12:56 »

I think people put too much thoughts, worry and value into the whole "Images on other agencies" things, like when people said if contributors deleted their images from one ageny and uploaded it to another, customers would switch to the other agency and buy the images there. They forget that the great majority of images are purchased as part of subscription plans or at least packages. Someone who has a subscription plan at one agency will not purchase a single image from another agency unless the image is really a one-of-a-kind image they absolutely need where no other of the over 30 million images in the Shutterstock database is suitable as a replacement. So unless it's one of the rare single image purchases, customers will stick with the agency where they have a subscription or package plan and if they can't find one specific image in the database, they will search for a similar one there instead of searching on other agencies.

I am fairly new to Bigstock, only started submitting there a few months ago and only have a fraction of my SS profile there, but, while it's no big earner, it' a bit of extra cash and for me it's worth the minimal effort it takes to submit there.

mj007 · « **Reply #6 on:** January 02, 2021, 12:58 »

I put them on both. Not really sure it takes sales away from SS. Big Stock sales are low but I get a few sales most days.

steheap · « **Reply #7 on:** January 02, 2021, 15:14 »

I agree with Firn - it is unlikely that many people find something on one agency and then go to Bigstock to buy it (and if they did, they will find my image there and presumably buy it there. I never worry about people shopping around. You don't know if they do and you can't do anything about it, so why worry.

Astrantia · « **Reply #8 on:** January 03, 2021, 05:18 »

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on January 02, 2021, 12:11

Quote from: Astrantia on January 02, 2021, 11:35
Don´t bother with BigStock. It´s not worth it. I had sales for 14 $ altogether for a period of more than two years now and I stopped uploading to them.

What do you make on SS though? If it's also $14 over two years, and the OP is making $1,400, or $14,000... then it might be worth it.

In 2020 I earned about 400 $ on SS although I stopped uploading in June and had my portfolio deactiveated for two months.
BS made 7 $ over the same period.

To me that is a difference.

And it´s not that easy uploading to BS since they handle a max-size of 25 MB and most of my pics are around 45 MB in size. So that means I have to downscale pics for BS. And that´s where the "it´s not worth the effort" comes in.

Too much hazzle (downsizing) for nearly no earnings.

Astrantia · « **Reply #9 on:** January 03, 2021, 05:24 »

Quote from: mj007 on January 02, 2021, 12:58

I put them on both. Not really sure it takes sales away from SS. Big Stock sales are low but I get a few sales most days.

If it would take sales from SS I would prefer BS anyway.
Every sale on BS is minimum 0.25 $, SS sales are nearly all just 0.10 $.
So BS pays 2,5 x as much as SS does.

But there are hardly any sales. Over the last three months I had 10 sales on BS. With a portfolio of 1700 pictures. Ridicolous.....

I probably will never reach payout with them

That is in number of sales about he same I had on Alamy ( 11 sales in 2020) - but that made 220 $ earnings for me. And it´s easy uploading to Alamy, no downsizing....

Firn · « **Reply #10 on:** January 03, 2021, 06:29 »

Quote from: Astrantia on January 03, 2021, 05:24

But there are hardly any sales. Over the last three months I had 10 sales on BS. With a portfolio of 1700 pictures. Ridicolous.....

I had 223 images sold there in the past 3 months with a portfolio of 2,019 images, so, like so often, personal experiences can vary. It's still not a lot (I sell a multiple of that within one month on other agencies), but it's not as dreadful. Alamy is doing much worse for me.

Mrl · « **Reply #11 on:** January 03, 2021, 08:03 »

It's relevant to your contents.
I made near 1000$ for five past years.
But for me from past two years the sales was very slow.

SpaceStockFootage · « **Reply #12 on:** January 03, 2021, 09:44 »

Quote from: Astrantia on January 03, 2021, 05:18

To me that is a difference.

It is to me as well! Just making the point that $14 on its own wasn't much to go on... $400 on SS and $14 on BS definitely makes it not worth it. $4 on SS and $14 on BS definitely makes it worth it (if the OP is making a lot more on SS) etc etc.

Hannafate · « **Reply #13 on:** January 04, 2021, 08:57 »

I stopped uploading to Bigstock when I left Shutterstock. I left Shutterstock back when whole portfolios of stolen or public domain images were appearing. (whack-a-mole accounts) I didn't want my work associated with such unscrupulous behavior.

I haven't removed my work from Bigstock, but I'm leery of what the owners might do when they are done destroying Shutterstock.

Roscoe · « **Reply #14 on:** January 04, 2021, 10:19 »

I never really believed that distributing your assets over different agencies causes your sales to drop at any other agency. The vast majority of the licensing happens via subscriptions, meaning that those customer don't shop around very much. They are looking for something that suits their needs, and if your asset is not available, they will choose someone else's. Agencies' databases are stuffed with similars and variations anyhow.

So, if you're non exclusive, and you want to make the most out of it, you might as well consider uploading to all major agencies. Just make up your mind about how low you are willing to go in terms of royalties and how much effort you are willing to put into it. Optimize your workflow or use automated distribution, as agencies like BigStock are not worth the effort if you have to upload and keyword your content manually. But that's just my point of view.

It might be a different story for scarce or truly unique content. In that case exclusivity might be a better option, as royalties are higher, and from what I hear, agencies tend to push up exclusive content in their search engine algorithm.

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Author Topic: Stupid Question? (Read 5308 times)

pixel8

Astrantia

SpaceStockFootage

steheap

pixel8

Firn

mj007

steheap

Astrantia

Astrantia

Firn

Mrl

SpaceStockFootage

Hannafate

Roscoe

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