I have a few exclusive images, the extra 10% is nice, but they do not seem to be favoured in the search engine, however, they are not my best images, maybe that is why they are not selling so well..

Hmm,

I start to like this site, and one reason is the prices and second, in fact, you do not need to keyword your files, they do it for you! But you are allowed to.


And I found this in the FAQ:

"Can I create my own titles & keywords?
Sure! You�re welcome to upload titles and keywords, but you don�t have to. We know that most of our photographers would rather be out taking pictures than sitting in front of a computer filing out forms � so we are willing to do the work for you."

If every agency would do that.. we really would have more time for photography...
Massuploading will be available soon too aparently.

I also found a blog of them:
http://blog.snapvillage.com/

My mistake haven't seen the note. Images didn't came through, because at least one side has to have 2100 Pixels. I had 2000 X 2000

Lately I am spending more time per image. Between 10 min and 30 min.
But it also depends on the image. On some I spend just two min. On two other images  I spend about 7 hours this week.

And if its perfect, low ISO, right exposure, no isolation,cloning etc, than its perfect and I spend about two minutes typing in the keywords and the description :-)

No I wasn't implying for all photographers who are at the bronze level. Maybe conclusion was not the right word. Impression might be better. I just wanted to summarize it.

One person could only submit once to one poll, they somehow managed this with the IP address. But yes, a person could submit to both exclusive and non-exclusive. And there were two or three really unusual votes in the non-exclusive part. But so many votes were taken in the non exclusive poll, I doubt it overall made a big difference.

Sorry, I had to edit the exclusive poll results at the question where the photographers sold their images before they became exclusive. I just discovered the mistake looking again at the results.
 There is one exclusive photographer who joined exclusivity programm when he was Bronze and sold his images on 4 other agencies before. You cannot read this data in what I provided here, but exactly this photographer is one of the two photographers who reported a decrease in earnings after he went exclusive.

Although the poll was not taken by too many exclusive photographers, my impression out of this is, that it generally is not worthy regarding the earnings if you get exclusive at the Bronze level.
There might be exceptions. If you are one of the few Bronze photographers who earns 65-80% upwards on Istockphoto, you might increase your earnings by turning exclusive.
Another photographer who turned exclusive at the Bronze level had 65-80% of his total income on Istockphoto before he joined the exclusivity program. His total earnings increased  30-40% after he became exclusive.
However the other photographer allready mentioned who sold his images at 4 other agencies and had a decrease of total earnings, reported also that before he became exclusive, istock earned him 65-80% of his total income.

All the other photographers who turned exclusive at the Bronze level and had 80-100% of their income allready before they became exclusive, reported an increase of earnings except one. Coincidentely, all those photographers have been just on one or none of the big 6 microstock agency.

Conclusion: for the majority of photographers it is not worthy if you just look at the income to turn exclusive at the bronze level.

And here part two:

The poll for non exclusive photographers:

Question: How high is the amount you earn on Istockphoto as a percentage of your total income on microstock?

Base photographers (28)

6 answered: less than 15%
11 answered: 15-25%
4 answered: 25-35%
4 answered: 35-45%
1 answered: 45-55%
1 answered: 55-65%
1 answered: 80-100%

Bronze photographers (41):

5 answered: less than 15%
5 answered: 15-25%
8 answered: 25-35%
11 answered: 35-45%
6 answered: 45-55%
2 answered: 55-65%
2 answered: 65-80%
2 answered: 80-100%

Silver photographers (19):

1 answered: less than 15%
2 answered: 15-25%
7 answered: 25-35%
6 answered: 35-45%
1 answered: 45-55%
1 answered: 55-65%
1 answered: 65-80%

Gold photographers (10)

1 answered: 15-25%
5 answered: 25-35%
3 answered: 35-45%
1 answered: 45-55%

Diamond photographers (2)

1 answered: less than 15%
1 answered: 35-45%


Question: On which agencies are you selling your images? (Options were: Dreamstime,Shutterstock, Fotolia, Stockxpert, Bigstockphoto)

Base photographers (28)

1 answered: no response
1 answered: SS
1 answered: SS,DT
1 answered: SS,FT
1 answered: DT,BS
1 answered: SS,DT,StockXpert
5 answered: SS,DT,FT,StockXpert
3 answered: SS,DT,FT,BS
14 answered: SS,DT,StockXpert,FT,BS

Bronze photographers (41):

2 answered: no response
1 answered: StockXpert
1 answered: SS,FT
1 answered: SS,DT,BS
1 answered: SS,DT,FT
3 answered: SS,DT,FT,StockXpert
6 answered: SS,DT,FT,BS
1 answered: DT,FT,StockXpert,BS
25 answered: SS,DT,StockXpert,FT,BS

Silver photographers (19):

1 answered: SS,DT
1 answered: SS,DT,StockXpert
2 answered: SS,DT,FT
1 answered: SS,DT,FT,StockXpert
2 answered: SS,DT,FT,BS
12 answered: SS,DT,StockXpert,FT,BS

Gold photographers (10)

2 answered: SS,DT,FT,StockXpert
8 answered: SS,DT,StockXpert,FT,BS

Diamond photographers (2)

2 answered: SS,DT,StockXpert,FT,BS

Question: How many images do you upload to Istockphoto every week on average?

Base photographers (28)

17 answered: less than 10
11 answered: 10-20

Bronze photographers (41):

29 answered: less than 10
12 answered: 10-20

Silver photographers (19):

14 answered: less than 10
3 answered: 10-20
1 answered: 20-30
1 answered: 40-50

Gold photographers (10)

4 answered: less than 10
2 answered: 10-20
3 answered: 20-30
1 answered: 30-40

Diamond photographers (2)

1 answered: 10-20
1 answered: 20-30


Question: Would you upload more if you were not restricted by the upload limit? If yes, how many would you upload on average per week?

Base photographers (28)

14 answered: No
8 answered: 20-30
1 answered: 30-40
3 answered: 40-50
1 answered: 50-75
1 answered: 150-200

Bronze photographers (41):

30 answered: No
4 answered: 20-30
5 answered: 30-40
3 answered: 40-50
1 answered: 50-75
1 answered: 100-150

Silver photographers (19):

12 answered: No
2 answered: 20-30
1 answered: 40-50
1 answered: 50-75

Gold photographers (10)

8 answered: No
1 answered: 30-40
1 answered: 50-75

Diamond photographers (2)

1 answered: No
1 answered: 30-40

Question: Would you consider going exclusively to Istockphoto? If yes, at which canister level?

Base photographers (28)

12 answered: No never!
12 answered: I do not know
2 answered: Yes, Bronze
1 answered: Yes, Gold
1 answered: Yes, Diamond

Bronze photographers (41):

23 answered: No never!
7 answered: I do not know
4 answered: Yes, Silver
3 answered: Yes, Gold
3 answered: Yes, Diamond
1 answered: Yes, Black Diamond

Silver photographers (19):

8 answered: No never!
5 answered: I do not know
2 answered: Yes, Gold
4 answered: Yes, Diamond

Gold photographers (10)

4 answered: No never!
2 answered: I do not know
3 answered: Yes, Diamond
1 answered: Yes, Black Diamond

Diamond photographers (2)

1 answered: No never
1 answered: I do not know

Probably I will write an analysis on my website some day, right know I am too busy for that..

Congrats Eco!!
I knew it too
Here is the announcement
http://www.crestock.com/blog/photography/the-crestock-photography-contest-2007-57.aspx

And here the interview with him:
http://www.crestock.com/blog/photography/the-crestock-photo-contest-2007-interview-with-the-final-winner-nico-smit-83.aspx

My sales are down too at SS. At IS my sales continue to be down  a second month in a row. Maybe slightly better than May, I do not know yet.

You are not allowed to sell your images royalty free anywhere except getty. You are not even allowed to give your images away for free. But if that image is Rights-Managed you can sell, or if it is work for hire by that magazine.

The non-exclusive poll is completed! 100 photographers filled it out! (The poll is limited to 100, if you only have a free account on sureveymonkey)
Thank you so much!
The exclusive part is at 11 photographers. Thats not too much, but may tell us a bit. I will try to give you the results this week. So exclusives please continue filling out the poll

Penguins and business people
Go to Istockphoto for example and click on most popular files.

Quote from: Karimala on June 13, 2007, 13:03

The good news is that my sales don't seem to have been affected by the latest change.  The bad news is they are down overall now that exclusives are once again getting preferential placement, and I had my first zero DL day in nine months on Sunday.      

What makes you think that exclusives are getting preferential placement?
I'm not exclusive and my placement in the searches is much better than it was before the re-shuffle and my downloads have gone right up.  I have lots of my best sellers that were lost for the last couple of months back up and selling and turning up on the first and second pages of searches.

Yes I agree with fotografer, the last two days were really good and my bestseller started again to sell after several of weeks of very slow sales. In fact, today seems to be one of my best days I had on IS without counting ELs.