Got mine first week of July... as they said i should ("end of june").   =tom

With patience in short supply these days and contributors anxiously looking for return (and rightly so) on their work from new agencies- How about the next "Start Up" site?

Will you be diving straight in and uploading your full port or adopting a "Wait & See" approach?

I am really gun shy now......     =tom

gee,  where have I heard all this before?    to this day ( couple years later) I have not been given an explanation. 

riffmax.... there are plenty of threads on usps going back years......   they have a history around here... 

check out their stats...   largest folio vs sales     you should quickly see for yourself if  it is worth it.  btw,  I was with usps for over a year, emphasis on was. 

melastmohican--  Quite often you can find out how your work is being used just by sufing the net under your name, tag or name of the picture.  I've found plenty of my stuff out there. I just found one last night.  Some Maine tourism agency is currently using one of my pix on their title page. Give it a shot, see what turns up.
      This kind of tags onto one of your other threads.  Nature/landscape does sell....   it just doesn't sell well.  Again, try pimping your own work. Shoot out some emails, snail mails and make some phone calls.
     As far as restrictions,  while most agencies are pretty much the same, there are minor differences.  As advised, you need to fine tooth comb the agreements you made with each site.  =tom

thanks tom , thanks leaf...
what about selling direct to nature magazines eg ducks unlimited,etc...
or are we talking big time difficult impossibilities...
ie. like dreaming of selling to nat geog. 
thanks ppl!

That's what I'm currently doing.  I was first noticed in the micros, then contacted by an editor in a large publishing comp.  Of course, it's work selling yourself too.  That's the advantage of micros and macros,  they do that part.  But, they also take a large cut of the pie.  By free lancing direct,  I'm not sharing the pie with anyone else.  Is it easy?  Well, let me put it this way.   If it was easy,   there wouldn't be micro and macro agencies.   
   But it's possible. Honestly, I was in the right place at the right time.   ..........and no,  I don't think I'll ever make it to Nat Geo. I'm not that good.   LOL =tom
 

Never sold a pic on FP.    =tom

i'll reply this afternoon. -tom

Modified:     
Здравствуйте. Мой русский не той, какой она была. Я забыл многое начиная с 1970 года. Добро пожаловать на MSG. =tom

funny to read these comments.... I have almost come to a stop uploading to ALL my micros...  In over a month, I've  only sent 3 pix to SS (all rejected, didn't like the way I cropped them...pix of a hydroelectric dam) and 2 of the same pix to StockXpert (not reviewed since 5/24 & will probably be rejected there too).

I am not totally ready to give up on SS & IS.... but all others INCLUDING FT (which I gave up on well over a year ago)....   I stopped.

I'm prepping all my work for Alamy now.  Unless you have a folio the size of  the Congressional Library... the ROI is becoming less and less attractive in the bulk of the micros.    ....at least for me.

 =tom

no problem  =tom

Quote from: paulacobleigh on June 09, 2008, 14:01

Quote from: a.k.a.-tom on June 07, 2008, 08:56

The point:  I shoot what I want which is primarily landscape & nature, and I get paid to do it  and I am still doing what I enjoyed doing when I shot my first 35mm picture  47 years ago.

I'm a lot like you in the sense that I shoot what I like and upload it.  If people buy it, great.  If not, oh well.  I am not really into photographing people.  But I love hiking and nature.

I agree with both of you!  If either of you are ever out this way, give me a shout and we'll strap on a backpack and head out on a trail.

Watch out!!!   You might just hear a knock on the door!!! LOL....
BTW, Where is 'out this way',  Nativelight? =tom

.
..........I shot a lot of photos before I ever got paid for any of them and would continue to take pictures if I never received another penny � because I love it. .....................

I turn 60 in a couple months.  I've been shooting a 35mm since I was 13 years old.   I never sold a pic until less than 2 years ago and only then because my wife asked me if she could post some of my stuff on a microstock site.  I had no clue what the heck that was and I wasn't all that interested.  When the stuff started to sell,  I looked at it.  Wife said, you make more money shooting people on phones, ladies posing 54 different ways on the same chair and the like.  I thought about that,  I did actually spend  several hours shooting isolateds of anything in a little white box ....once.   
    I hated it. This was work.  I didn't want to screw around with models, models idiosyncrasies, model releases and the like... so I never shot people for sale in the microstock world.  I just continue to shoot what I want.  If someone else likes it and wants to buy it, that's okay with me. 
     If no one else likes it and no one wants to buy it .....  that's okay with me too.

I was soon asked direct from a publisher about my work and after a couple meetings in Starbucks and several cups of coffee later,  I now free lance for hire and have had entire articles written around series of pix I've taken... having fun.  This lead to being noticed elsewhere by others and now.............   my wife and I turn down work.  We pick and choose what we want to do.  I make far, far more bucks doing this than I ever will on microstocks.  I will never forget that I actually felt embarrassed when handed my first check for pix that were published in a magazine article.  That I should be given this much money for having fun out on a trail in the woods hiking with my wife  'n taking pictures. (I don't feel that way anymore, now I just say 'thanks').

   The up side.  We just went away for our anniversary.  Of course we shot pictures.  I will no doubt sell some of those pictures.  And the entire trip will become a write off as a business trip. The lodging, the travel, the food, the phone calls... the works.  I have a great accountant.

The point:  I shoot what I want which is primarily landscape & nature, and I get paid to do it  and I am still doing what I enjoyed doing when I shot my first 35mm picture  47 years ago.

On the other hand,  my wife and daughter are now shooting 'traditional microstock' pix.  They like it, more power to them, I think the will be good at it too.

As for me.....  I look forward to next weekend when I will hike up a mountain trail, be the only human within ear and eyeshot.. and sit on my fat backside until the magic hour when I'll snap off  several dozen pictures......  for my own personal enjoyment.

Then,   .....I'll sell some.  =tom

....... even I got one...   I would imagine that this was just some generic  bulk mail.  I can't see IS  actively seeking my exclusitivity....  really...
 =tom