I have been with agefotostock now for over a year, I was told it has similar sales as Alamy, but to date I have had ZERO sales at Age as compared to some pretty good sales at Alamy....has anyone had sales at Age.  Wondering if it is worth the effort to continue uploading.

I have had some sales there.. Not the quantity like Alamy though.. Depends on what you shoot.. They are pretty commercial, if you shoot creative commercial style people shots you should be able to get some sales there..

In my first year on AGE Fotostock I was not able to sale any photo, then sales came out regularly. My current portfolio on AGE is about 600 pics.

Stefano
www.stefanopolitimarkovina.com

They ask to Download form (of types of membership you want) and send initial sample images to their office address. I dont get it. How do they accept them- Online or by post ?

I'm with them through zoonar but I've given up bothering uploading to Zoorar as virtually no sales there.

Quote from: fotografer on May 29, 2012, 12:56
I'm with them through zoonar but I've given up bothering uploading to Zoorar as virtually no sales there.

+1 and Age seems to accepts everything from Zoonar (in my port in any case), so that will mean no sales at Age as well.

You upload photos to send to them via FTP. They should give the parameters needed to do that.

Stefano
www.stefanopolitimarkovina.com

Quote from: CD123 on May 29, 2012, 20:44

Quote from: fotografer on May 29, 2012, 12:56
I'm with them through zoonar but I've given up bothering uploading to Zoorar as virtually no sales there.

+1 and Age seems to accepts everything from Zoonar (in my port in any case), so that will mean no sales at Age as well.

But do you actually find any of your stuff on Age? Zoonar shows accepted on everything for me, too. But I cannot for the life of me find a single of those pictures on Age.

Quote from: MarcvsTvllivs on May 30, 2012, 16:18

Quote from: CD123 on May 29, 2012, 20:44

Quote from: fotografer on May 29, 2012, 12:56
I'm with them through zoonar but I've given up bothering uploading to Zoorar as virtually no sales there.

+1 and Age seems to accepts everything from Zoonar (in my port in any case), so that will mean no sales at Age as well.

But do you actually find any of your stuff on Age? Zoonar shows accepted on everything for me, too. But I cannot for the life of me find a single of those pictures on Age.

Had a quick look. Use 3 word search criteria of 2 different types of images I submit a lot and found most of my images.

As someone who only recently started to upload on Age, I was wondering: In the unlikely event that something does sell, what kind of money can one expect? I know this is hard to say for regular RM, which can vary greatly - what I am interested in is the LBRF (where I have dumped much of my small micro portfolio). There appears to be nowhere on the site that says anything about the prices (and thus commissions) to expect.

Don't expect big money! 

Stefano
Travel Photographer

Quote from: stefano on July 29, 2012, 10:04
Don't expect big money! 

Stefano
Travel Photographer

I wasn't - and was pleasantly surprised. Sold my first two images last month, one through their European (Spanish) main agency, one through the American office. Each brought in about 15 Euros, and one of them was a "Low Budget Royalty Free" image. That is not bad for micro!

I sell plenty of RF at Age and for good money. Secret with Age is, its got to be commercial, conceptual or else its hard. They have some very big customers.

i remember one needs to mail them a copy of contract with signature instead of apply online, is it still the same way?

I am with Age.  I sell under RM and RF licenses.  I don't sell under the Budget RF or the Video scheme.

If you are selling through Age directly, then go through the posts on their forum through Yammer.  Alfonso (the CEO) comments regularly on everything from what is selling, what isn't selling, what they would like to add to the collection, what Getty is accepting through their distribution partnership, etc.

One thing you will note -

In April of this year, one image was licensed for $10,000.  This was an RM image that was very generic.
Alfonso has mentioned on multiple occasions that RF sales are declining and RM sales are increasing.

Quote from: mtkang on September 20, 2012, 17:35
i remember one needs to mail them a copy of contract with signature instead of apply online, is it still the same way?

yes you need to send signed contracts along with a copy of your ID proof through any courier or registered post. They are now paying through paypal also. And you need to send mail and then have to send original W-8BEN form and a copy of your residential certificate of your country to their Spain office to get any concession in tax. And to get EIN number to fill in W-8BEN form you need to fill W7 form. Bit complicated but Age people are good and quite supportive.

Been there for 6 months and had 2 sales of 75$ each but that's about all for now

Agefotostock is an old, small, inefficient, badly managed and not very nice stock agency.
Same here, no sales compared to others (micro and macro with RF and RM stocks).

Not a wonder, the only thing they seem to want is to grab your pictures to increase their collections. They have been there since quite a long time, a bit like these old fashion shops that are completely outdated, they never make any sales. Everybody wonders how they survive....

The uploading is horrible. The contract binds you for 3 years (and under Spanish law...!), plus you have to send it by post to Spain (great). And you have to send a formal letter by snail post to make sure this contract is not renewed automatically for 3 years !! Again, the goal seems to be to grab your pictures.

To top it all, you can't remove your pictures once they are uploaded, there is no online mechanism for it (the website is archaic at best). When you ask them to remove pictures, the invoke the contract not to do it (nothing mentionned in this very dubious contract about images removal).

In short, if you make the mistake to sign with them, not only you'll sell nothing but you will have to check thoroughly what they really do with your images. Avoid the trap 

Hmmm...I'm with AGE directly.  Yes, you aren't going to license 5 or 10 images per day at 38 cents each, but you will get an occasional sale.

I'm not sure why you say uploading is horrible.  It's very simple to me....I upload my images to my website, then I click two boxes and they are FTP'd directly to the collection ready for review. I'm done from there - no more work to do.  It's very simple.  If you have a model release just change the file name to end in _MR and it's accepted.  If you don't have a website you can do this from, then save the images to a folder on your desktop and use an FTP client like FileZilla - it's really easy to do. I have a similar experience with a small traditional agency I work with in Austria - just FTP the images over and it's done.  With a workflow like that, I'm not sure why you wouldn't upload to them.

A contract is a contract.  I have contracts with some agents that are 5 years in length, I have contracts with some agents that are 3 years in length.  If you don't like the terms, then don't sign the contract.  If you want out of the contract, then stop uploading and when it expires, then cancel.

Hi Ed,

Sorry but, well, when you explain how the upload works there, it looks even more complicated  Who needs to download filezilla or use its website to upload pictures to a stock agency website in  2014 (except small Austrian agencies of course) ?

Welcome to the 21st century and electronic forms and contracts like other do (Alamy, Getty, Shutterstock etc...).

besides, how many "occasional" sales have you made compared to the time you have been with them and number of images online ?

Also, sales with other agencies who have a little more exposure are more around 50 to 300 $ than 38 cents, but again we have to compare apples with apples.

The only qualities they have are: they do RM, they don't ask for exclusivity (how could they, nobody know them). It's not a lot.

Nobody know them?  LOL....I suspect this is a personal vendetta of some sort.  You do realize that Alfonso (CEO of AGE) is president of CEPIC?

Nobody knows of AGE??? A truly respected agency that has been around for much longer than any microstock site. just sayin.

If AGE is this amazing selling agency why are they not even on the poll on the right? It cant be that 30k members of MSG dont know about AGE or it must be the best hidden gem on the planet.

Quote from: Ron on January 25, 2014, 08:09
If AGE is this amazing selling agency why are they not even on the poll on the right? It cant be that 30k members of MSG dont know about AGE or it must be the best hidden gem on the planet.

It's not Micro.
Getty isn't on the list either.

The mentioning of RF confused me. Why is Alamy on the poll then?