"shudderstock"

if you want people to take you seriously, you just have to provide links to your portfolios on istock or getty. You claim to be a successful istock exclusive artist and supposedly make a full time living from getty...welll....show us...don�t hide...what are you so scared off???

If we see an impressive port with over 200 000 downloads, you will notice that what you write will be taken with a lot more appreciation.

Without a portfolio and proven success you will remain hot air. Anybody can make claims about their millions on mars, if it is not possible to verify the story.

Also you are doing Getty and istock a great disservice by being anonymous. It makes the company look totally desperate that they need to send in "anonymous posters" to msg to "sway the stupid masses".

If you think we are such idiots, why bother to come "down here" to enlighten us?

That is, if you are indeed a successful photographer making a full time living on istock and getty. There are only so many black diamonds out there and I have never heard of anyone of them needing to hide.

You have to remember that the istock exclusive contract is an artist exclusive contract for all your royalty free files. You cannot sell files anywhere else, not even files they reject.

You start with 25% royalty as an exclusive and then have to reach a yearly target of "redeemed credits" to keep whatever level you achieve. 45% is a very, very elusive target only reached by one or two single artists, the others are studios with several people working in a team. I think 35-40% is a very realistic target if you have enough high quality material.

However you only receive that for your normal exclusive files on istock. Files that are moved to getty via the e+ collection or those that you opt into the PP collection only receive 20%. Your vetta files only receive 22-28% on istock if I remember correctly, and only 20% on getty. istock is also one of many agencies in the Getty universe and you don�t know how much they market it compared to their other agencies like Thinkstock, photos.com, jupiterimages and Getty itself. This is different from many other agencies out there where you know they do all they can to push their only agency (like Fotolia, Shutterstock,Alamy,Dreamstime...). You are istock exclusive and receive your highest royalties there, but you never know if istock gets the full attention and marketing push from the Getty management. They laid of a lot of people last year and closed at least one overseas istock office in Berlin.

If you do go exclusive, please make sure all files are removed from other sites, becaue they do go and check if you have files still available elsewhere.

It is a serious commitment. Two years ago I would have whole heartedly recommended it, but in the current situation I would advise to have a look around.

If your files are so good that they are putting them into Vetta already, maybe it is worth reaching out to Shutterstock as well to ask about their new Offset Collection that is coming out soon. Then there is also a very small new agency called stocksy that takes artistic content. It is a coop that pays out 90% of all profit to the artists.

Another option would be to write directly to gettyimages and see if they offer you a contract. Getty has image or series exclusivity, so you can send a series to getty but are still free to send other work to other agencies. Getty also has RM files, so they would definetly be worth checking out.

Shop around a bit, before you decide, if you have good work, make the agencies compete for you and look at the different offers they make and then decide what you want to do. In theory you can have a contract with Getty, join stocksy and offset if they take you and then still be free to send regular work to istock and the other micros if you want to.

Or you sign the istock exclusive artist contract and trust them to handle all the sales completly for you. The people on the istock team itself are very nice and helpful. You just have to remember that the really important decisions (budgets, marketing) are not made by them.

Good luck!

Well getty does exactly that and somehow it seems to work. Getty has very high list prices on their website, but you can find the exact same content already with 25% discount at Punchstock. But you also find many of the exact same images on Thinkstock and buy them with a subscription.

From what I understand, is that the license on getty itself is different and contains many rights that you would usually need to buy an extended license for. So just because a file is listed at 250 dollars it could still be cheaper than on the micro site because it has broader usage rights.

The other thing is of course that they sometimes give amazing discounts..even undercutting the micros.

At that price range the price on the website is open to a lot more negotiation than a price that is set at 5 dollars.

It will be interesting to see how SS handles this and what usage rights the license will grant.

I would also like to thank you Scott for coming here in person and being so professional. It is such a relief to be treated in a normal business way and not with the arrogance, emotion and disdain I have encountered elsewhere for daring to ask too many questions. I think that alone will make many artist switch to independence.

I know many excellent artists who will never allow their files to be sold for 25 cents or lower micro rates. If Offset is a success you will be swamped with great choices. Both stocksy and offset are coming at the right time and the market is more than big enough for both of them and maybe others.

30% for non exclusive content, I presume?

Didn�t SS say somewhere they paid out over 42 million to their artists last year? and that in 2012 their revenue was 160 million? That would make it 26% of gross revenue. But I don�t know if these numbers are correct, maybe someone can find the data on the internet somewhere.

The good thing about SS is that it is publicly traded their data is transparent. You can also buy shares and be a co owner, even on a small scale. Just one share is enough to go to their yearly meetings and ask questions if you want to.

I think the transparency of the business data is a big plus for them.

The best would be a holidays and celebration category. I would choose objects if they are objects, if they have cake and champagne food if there is a large flower bouquet flowers. but wedding should either be part of celebrations or have it�s own category.

Ok, maybe they changed that. Well, the queue is long anyway, so I guess 2 weeks more or less don�t matter. But like they suggested I would add a note to the reviewer that you are coming from istock in the batch that you upload.

You will love their upload process, it is just fantastic and easy.

If you are really interested i would use that mail they provided in a thread somewhere for exclusives who are leaving. The admin who responds to these emails is very helpful. You might not have to upload 10 images, because they will look at your overall portfolio and rank and just ok you so you can start uploading. It will save you time. Otherwise, prepare yourself, the queue there is incredibly long.

The initial inspection tests are for newbies where nobody knows if they can shoot stock. Also with any  other agency I would write to them first with a portfolio link and ask if they want you to join. Especially at the moment many agencies understand that this is the best opportunity in years to attract high quality exclusive content.

One agency told me they just couldn�t believe their luck that Getty is attacking their own contributors and openly telling people to go away.

Hallo Julian,

die Seite sieht sch�n aus aber ich denke was die meisten Fotografen wissen wollen ist einfach  - habt ihr Kunden?
Und was ist an euch besonders oder anders als all die anderen Agenturen damit mehr Kunden zu euch kommen?

Es gibt immer wieder neue Agenturen und leider reicht es einfach nicht nur eine gut funktionierende Seite zu haben.

Aber wenn ich mal Zeit habe, vielleicht lade ich auch bei euch hoch. Wenn ihr mich nehmt.

Beste Gr��e

Jasmin

They could at least add check boxes instead of the pull down selections. that would make a huge difference already. And put all what needs to be selected on one large page.

Seriously, the UI seems to be designed to make me waste as much time as possible.

I also haven�t found a lightbox or gallery tool. I need to organize my portfolio by subjects because I shoot many different themes. And obviously these media boxes should show together with the image. How else can the customer find more of my files?

The site looks great, is fast and responsive. Just the uploading, especially the descriptions, keywords etc...are a pain. Although I agree with weighted keywords. But why do i have to add manually how many people are in the picture? That is what model releases are for, right?

It has been open for 24 hours. Give it time to grow. There is no hurry. Solid, sustainable, longterm. I like that.

Here is another good article.

http://www.popphoto.com/news/2013/03/new-service-stocksy-aims-to-make-stock-photos-co-op?fb_action_ids=10151292623577237&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210151292623577237%22%3A628086800540093%7D&action_type_map=%7B%2210151292623577237%22%3A%22og.recommends%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D