One thing that worries me about smaller agencies is that they come, they go, they still have your images. What will they do with them? I was 'bitten' twice in the Bad Old Days when you sent slides to libraries, and I never got my slides back as they apparently 'disappeared'.  For all I know they might have uploaded them somewhere and are making someone else money even now.
So even if I wasn't exclusive, I wouldn't be rushing to 'support' any newstart venture.

ShadySue your approach and reasoning is solid as long as nothing happens to your preferred vendor/vendors. However, if something does happen and that vendor or vendors are no longer viable options wouldn't it be better if there were a multiple of other options? Along that line of thinking, wouldn't it also be prudent to be armed with some data as to which of these other sites might be good for your particular portfolio?

I am simply saying for those of us who aren't exclusive it isn't a bad idea to at least test some of these new guys even if it is in a limited capacity.

Let me explain- One could argue that the most successful contributors have a strong understanding of their particular target market. This is at least part of the reason they are so successful. I know you do... its obvious by your posts. Likewise, so do Cthoman, Yuri, and SJLocke. Each of you have significant portfolios and each one of you has chosen a different approach as to which sites you choose to market your images for you.

I guess I got dragged back into this. 

While I'm not as successful as those guys (not even remotely close), I agree that you do have to have a unique game plan that works for you. Small agencies can definitely be part of that. I feel lucky to have joined Clipartof (frequent top earner for me) when they were still accepting new contributors. Also, my own site has taught me that small targeted sites can develop quickly. I also realize though that other contributors haven't had these positive experiences with smaller sites, so I can understand the skepticism.

Well I supply some smaller ones as well,  Veers, DP, BS, CS, PM, GL, SF,  not as much as the big 4, but they still get good stuff, etc. Question is, how many can you cope with, before you sit there 24 hours in front of the computer?

Also I have always been a firm believer that we/us, the contributors are partly to blame,  the supply is outstripping the demand!  thats why some of us with sucessfull portfolios, so called, "hit the wall",  i.e. no matter how much you upload, no matter how good a material, you simply can not increase revenue by much, its a sort of staus-quo feeling, where nothing happens.
This is a phenomena, very common to stock-photography.

Totally agree 1000%

I sometimes don't upload anything to a low earning site for a year or more.  Then one day, I'll upload lots in one batch.  It doesn't take much time when I'm working on other stuff on my computer.  I just FTP in the background.  Had some nice sales recently with Snapixel and had a payout, so I'll upload some more there now.

just registered at Snapixel, activated my account and as I got in I saw that... not that I have seen anything like that before but..  

several people have supported the idea that small niche sites can produce good results, but so far no one has shown any actual examples - what are the nioche ms sitwes that perform well?  1 or 2 artists selling a few 'niche' subjects isnt a niche market - it's a coincidence. 
[foto or 123, big and pond]
i dont know of any MS agency that is 'known' for their special niche

in adddition, even if there is something like that, it's an enormous jump to claim this is the way of the future.  how many artists of the thousands out there make their primary income on any of the bottom agencies?  for me, 80% of my sales $ come from 3 top agencies, [ss, dream and foto or 123] and 15% comes from another 4 [foto or 123, big, yay and pond]

all the rest are essentially worthless - maybe 1 payout a year.  it's possible one of those top agencies may someday replace SS as biggest earner, but the idea that any group of the tiny agencies could do so is vanishingly small.

finally, just how are the buyers supposed to find these niches?  when i was doing some keyword  traffic analysis, i found my images on the top search pages of google with links to ss, dream mostly, a a scattering of sites like cut, war,, etc.  so here, if someone finds my images at a minior site, it will be because they pop up high in a search, not because they're on a niche site.

Quote from: sharpshot on May 25, 2012, 16:38

I sometimes don't upload anything to a low earning site for a year or more.  Then one day, I'll upload lots in one batch.  It doesn't take much time when I'm working on other stuff on my computer.  I just FTP in the background.  Had some nice sales recently with Snapixel and had a payout, so I'll upload some more there now.

just registered at Snapixel, activated my account and as I got in I saw that... not that I have seen anything like that before but..  

That is a fnk niche alright...ROFLMFAO

The problem as I see it is that most of the micros are applying. "more of the same" issue to selecting images.  This is stupid IMO. We have reached saturation of the "stock look" image.  When will the micros take a more forward looking approach and allow  different image styles?    Alamy is one macro agency that does not filter on content, but your technical standards must be high.  And it seems that they are doing very well with this strategy.  Yes, you may not  get multiple sales every day, but the sales you do eventually get return far more than micros.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 25, 2012, 02:34

I've shot scores of wildflowers recently and the only possible hope of making any money out of them is if a magazine, book or postcard publisher wants a collection of images of the wildflowers of Crete, with scientific names, all shot in the same style. There's no point in my letting them grab those of the micros so they're going to Alamy and I'll keep my fingers crossed that maybe oneday somebody will want them and I'll get a decent payout. If there was a niche micro for the island of Crete it would guarantee that such work was a complete waste of time for everyone, including those supplying similar material to it and the host website itself, because of low demand.

Actually a niche macro for the island of Crete or flora of the mediterranean would be the second-best options for these images.
The best option would be to identify suitable magazines and contact them directly with a words-and-images package.
Serious wildlife/nature buyers don't deal with the micros or even the generalist macros like Alamy and Getty because so many shooting there just don't know what they're doing, shoot them wrongly, identify them wrongly and they don't want to wade through a lot of stuff to get what they want.

You're right, but I want to concentrate on photography not to spend my time writing and engaging in direct marketing. Perhaps sometime I will.

Just ran across this from 2009 and was reflecting on the "future of the little guys" question. Also got a laugh at the same time.

"Lee Torrens says:
September 23, 2009 at 10:10 pm

Interesting thoughts. I believe that if there become fewer top agencies it will become easier for new agencies to break in. I suspect this is a factor in Jon�s decision to keep operating BigStock as a separate business and Getty�s decision (at least so far) to keep StockXpert going."

Feb. 10th 2010 iStock closes Stockxpert

Also in the news... 2010

    Getty Images introduces ThinkStockPhotos.com Getty Images recently announced a new stock photo site offering images by subscription.

    ThePhotoStorage.com is Closing "Dear Member: We regret to inform..."

    Shutterstock Reaches 10 Million Photos Shutterstock, the world�s largest stock subscription site, has reached 10 million stock photos online for sale.

    Fotomind.com will be closing on 15th April 2010 "All your photos and personal information will be permanently..."

PS Bigstock is holding #8 position in the MSG polls for earnings at about $12 dollars a month for the best contributors in the world. Is that small enough for you?

Race,

That's a good point.  I haven't been able to grow my monthly income there in 5 years.  Always about 75-80 bucks no matter what I do. However, the one point I might make is that if buyers by-in-large defect from Istock to SS (who owns BigStock) there may be some promotional momentum for BigStock. 

I like the design, very nice:)

Interesting thread to go back and reread after about a year. Especially with Stocksy, Offset and other options coming online.

I like the idea of any new agency that isn't trying to sell all the same stuff, to all the same people.   And I like the idea of specializing in something like macro, and leaving the endless model shots to others.  Admittedly I'm biased because I do macros, and not people.  :-)

At first glance the site looks good, and some good photos are shown on it.

Anyone tested the waters here yet?

On one hand we chose macros because we are passionate about it, we have worked on graphic design for years and macros are a great source for using on design projects, they are good for inspiration and for producing visuals without a specific subject(like a city image, a person, etc). On the other hand we wanted to avoid the hassle of model/property releases and of course we wanted to be specific. In my opinion trying to compete with all mayor sites selling any kind of photos is mad.

We have many contributors already. I wrote to the admin of this site to see if they can add our Stock site to the New Sites list, so I can invite contributors to post there and give feedback about it.