Yes iclick, I already contacted all agencies I'm in. I'm waiting for answer...If I am lucky enough I probably won't tell anybody because I guess it's forbidden

Hi Traveler,

 That is a great and important question in these changing times. I used to be an old school RPI guy and you just divided your collection by your returns annually and you had your per image return. RPI is still important to the agencies because that is how they track how much money they make off of your work and your value to their collection. They also watch your " Sell Through Rate " ( how many of your images actually sell in their life time ). This helps them analyze your value but in this changing market they don't mean quite as much to us photographers as they used to at least not the RPI. Boy when I think about it that is actually a mixed subject because as long as agencies use these tools to figure out our worth individually as photographers then we do still have to pay attention to these figures.
 How I actually track sales from my point of view while intergrating what I just said above is to include these methods for consideration of my value through my agencies eyes while at the same time being very aware of what each actual shoot produces in returns. " Return Per Shoot " is how I am tracking my internal sales these days to see where my money is being best spent and how well it returns a profit. With shooting Micro at 200 images a day or doing 10 images for Stone RM in the same amount of time I can't use just a basic RPI anymore. I have to calculate what I spent on the shoot with what it will return my company, as well as how much fun I had doing it. 
 If my images are making me a good return per shoot then I imagine they are also making a good return for my agency so my need to track RPI is not as important as my need to pay attention to " Sell Through Rate ". This is what my agencies are really paying attention to ( Micro will see more focus on this stat over time ), they do not want to waste space or workflow on an image that never sells. If you have a good " sell through rate " agencies take notice and will be more likely to support your growing relationship.
 If I have completely confused you I am sorry, let me know and I will try to clarify. Numbers, it all comes down to numbers. What is going out and what is coming in. Don't forget to pay yourself when you are doing your estimates. I think many Micro shooters do this for fun so this doesn't apply as much to those people but for those who are trying to grow this into their business remember to pay yourself. You have to calculate all your costs to produce an image especially your time that was taken to produce your work. It is easy to forget about yourself.

Best,
AVAVA

Quote from: patrick1958 on October 30, 2008, 01:52

When you photograph a man or woman wearing a Prada outfit..... do you need a property release from Prada .?.. no.
Same goes for tatoes, you paid them, you own them, in fact .. tatoes are part of your body now, a jewel that is hard to remove.

Patrick H.

So this is your opinion. The OP did not ask for opinion. He asked whether he would need a property release to sell royalty free images with a tattoo featured as a prominent part of the image. The answer is still yes, regardless of whether you agree with the reasoning behind it or not. Of course the OP is free to test your theory. That would, however, be contrary to his original goal of not wishing to waste time.

"Selling your negatives" is the worst reason ever for not uploading RAWs. Film negatives can be duplicated, does it mean the original photographer can't prove he's the author? Or sent to a stock agency,which might lose them. Is he no longer the author? And what if you shoot JPG? You can't prove you're the author?

This is not a suggestion to upload RAWs, that's really your choice. It depends from a contributor to the other. I don't do it, as I simply don't have the time to shoot and upload RAW. But I truly regret I don't have it for my popular files. A level 5, 14 credits file in RAW, would be 28 credits, higher than a U-EL. Even the regular level 1 would sell it for 12 credits.

People who sell RAW can increase their RPD a lot. Even if some get downloaded via subscription, average RPD is still much higher. And many people who download RAW via subscription, download the JPG too.