MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => Newbie Discussion => Topic started by: Cider Apple on July 10, 2012, 15:15
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Hi all! I'm new to this forum and pretty new to microstock, although I've been creating and editing footage as my occupation for years.
I basically wanted to ask a few questions and to join a good forum! (Ive been reading threads on here for a few months now)
I'm an exclusive footage contributor to one of the big agencies and started to upload footage around the end of December 2011
I'm really happy how things have gone as I've been averaging $600 a month since Feb this year (I'm beginning to think I could cut down hours at work to spend more time in micro-stock).
Feb / March / April was pretty similar in downloads and royalties. May was mental and I broke the $1000 range, but since then June was around the $350 mark and July doesn't look too much better? Is this up and down sales normal?
I read somewhere that the summer months are slow for picture sales, is this true in video footage too? and if so when does it normally pickup? September?
Also is there a forum somewhere only for video contributors?
Lastly when I joined the agency I became an exclusive straight away. Is this the correct move or should I upload my videos everywhere? What makes the most money? My portfolio has risen to 450 videos to date? The slowdown in sales the past two months have been a bit disheartening as I've really tried hard to make a large portfolio only to find less downloads!
Thanks to anyone who can enlighten me!
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I presume you're an istock exclusive? It's not unusual to see big dips and peaks in sales with them. I went for non-exclusivity but footage is more of a hobby for me. I do much better with Pond5 than the other sites and I removed most of my portfolio from istock when they cut my commission to 15%. That's too low for the effort it takes to upload there.
If you're exclusive with istock, I presume it's the same as stills and it's only royalty free exclusivity? So when alamy finally start accepting submissions, you might be able to have a separate rights managed portfolio there. There are other sites that do rights managed footage but I haven't tried any of them yet.
I haven't found a good forum for video contributors. There's some good discussion of places to sell footage in this timelapse forum if you do a search
http://timescapes.org/ (http://timescapes.org/)
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So when alamy finally start accepting submissions, you might be able to have a separate rights managed portfolio there. There are other sites that do rights managed footage but I haven't tried any of them yet.
Thanks for the quick reply sharpshot! What do you mean by separate rights managed portfolio? That I can upload different clips to other agencies as long as its not the same clips as the exclusive agency? When I became exclusive is that only on the clips and not to where I want other clips to go? Sorry I'm a bit confused?
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Istock exclusivity is for the royalty free license, so you should be free to upload different clips to another site using the rights managed license.
Have a look in their FAQ
Does that cover all of my files?
Exclusivity only covers your royalty-free stock files. iStock does not require Exclusivity for:
Rights-managed files with other organizations
http://www.istockphoto.com/sell-stock-photos-exclusivity.php (http://www.istockphoto.com/sell-stock-photos-exclusivity.php)
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Spen
Also is there a forum somewhere only for video contributors?
http://www.stockproducer.com/forum/index.html (http://www.stockproducer.com/forum/index.html) is more for Footage Sellers, Audio, 3D Models and After Effects Templates as well as here of course