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Messages - ruzgar344
1
« on: November 21, 2016, 11:22 »
I think Alamy are one of the best places to sell. There's no silly rejections, they sell new images and sometimes you can earn more from 1 sale than an entire month on most of the microsotck sites. Don't expect much from the first year, it isn't an instant gratification site.
Thank you sharpshoot! I will start with Alamy
2
« on: November 21, 2016, 11:22 »
It is true that Alamy is one of the best places to sell, if you upload the right images. Run-of-the-mill microstock images will sell from time to time but they are not Alamy's strong point. Explore Alamy and see what sells there - they have lots of tools for analysing views and sales. Mostly they excel in editorial, both soft editorial and live news. They are especially strong in the UK but do sell images worldwide.
Sharpshot is right to say there are no silly rejections, but that is because most submissions are not inspected - they expect the photographer to be professional in their work and only submit acceptable images. They use a sampling system for their quality control where only one or two images per batch are inspected. However, if you do fall foul of their quality control it can really hurt as they will put your upload queue on hold for a month and then fail all images currently in the queue. Most contributors soon learn to self-inspect their uploads thoroughly before submission.
With 500 images in your portfolio you could hope to sell maybe one every two or three months, assuming you are putting up well composed images and do not have a lot of similars. The royalties for each sale however are likely to be many times greater than microstock. I sill have microstock portfolios but it is several years since I shot new stuff for any of them, as far as still images are concerned I prefer to shoot specifically for Alamy .
Alamy is not microstock (even though their prices are slowly being dragged down by microstock competition). Take the time to learn how Alamy works, don't expect instant results, be professional in your work and uploading there will reward you.
It means a lot to me! Thank you so much, you are so kind. I will now go ahead and start uploading to Alamy. You threw a light on my way, thank you!!!
3
« on: November 20, 2016, 21:19 »
Hi folks,
I am selling stocks for more than 4 years and I don't upload very much. My total photos would be 600 in Shutterstock and like 500 in iStockphoto in this period my earnings are $750 and $250 respectively.
But believe me in the last 2 years I have not uploaded anything. Now I would like to be more active, make new photoshoots and upload.
To say the truth, I can sell 30 to 50 photos from Shutterstock per month which doesn't bring a lot profit.
A friend of mine told me to upload to Alamy. I don't know which way to go, what to do.
Can you please help me and throw a light to my way?
Shall I only upload to Shutterstock or shall I also go with Alamy too or any other sites?
Many thanks and kind regards,
Alp
4
« on: April 11, 2013, 13:50 »
I am confused a lot with Alamy..
I am selling photos on istock,shutterstock,depositphotos,fotolia and dreamstime...
1) I can not upload photos to Alamy if I don't have a release for a property,house,mosque,cathedral,model,he/she ??
2) If I have a model or property release and I also sell these photos on somewhere else, can I sell them also on Alamys as RF ?
Can you please clarify widely?
Thanks,
Alp
5
« on: April 10, 2013, 19:46 »
If you have anything that needs a release, a model or any visible property, you need to say you either have a property release, or you dont. If you dont, it has to be RM, and you can only sell RM if its not sold as RF elsewhere. FOr example, if you have a photo of a barn selling without release as RF on the micros, you cannot put it on Alamy as RF because on Alamy everything needs a release. YOu cant offer it as RM either because you are selling it as RF already. Just read the Alamy website to get familiar because Alamy is completely different cup of tea.
Thank you so much, I appreciate ur help!
6
« on: April 10, 2013, 16:29 »
Hello again,
I am new at Alamy...
When editing the file, I should select the license type:
Royalty Free
Rights Managed
Rights Managed - Exclusive
Can I have your advices which one should I proceed with?
Thank you,
Alp
7
« on: April 10, 2013, 16:23 »
I've started on Dec 2012...
I've deleted my files and closed my accounts
These two sentences combined are telling me that you are not realistic in your expectations. Stock photography is about long term thinking and consistency. If you expected to get rich in three months, then it's no wonder you are not happy.
When I started at iStockphoto it took about 18 months for my portfolio to make serious sales. And that was a few years ago when the libraries were much smaller and the competition not as strong as today.
There is no agency that will make you money in a short term. You can try higher priced agencies, but all you will find is that it might take six months to only get a first sale.
I'd say you need at least 1,000 images to earn some money on a regular basis. Get there and then wait at least for six months before judging which agencies are worth the effort or not.
Thank you so much!! U are pro and I am only a poor amateur.. I appreciate your comments... Thank you very much again!!
8
« on: April 10, 2013, 15:11 »
Good! I am Turkish and living in Istanbul. Hope I can do something good for Shutterstock and also for me.
Because I really love this company... I can sell sooo many images here... My personal thought: SS is the best of all...
9
« on: April 09, 2013, 15:53 »
I mentioned this in a different thread, but I keep a detailed record of images on each site and earnings from that site - by month and by year in my annual review.
Of course, this depends on the type of portfolio, but you will see how much I earn from each of them on my blog.
Steve
Hey Steve! I can only say WOW... Now I am reading your blog and you r really fantastic! thanks a lot!! Also I just bought your book from itunes a couple of mins ago ALP
10
« on: April 09, 2013, 14:42 »
There are HUGE differences in the size of the agencies, i.e. the number of customers they service. You can look at the webtraffic of the different sites to get an idea for how many people they reach.
But of course the price and the quality of customers is also important. there are smaller agencies like Alamy, getty etc...that serve only a small prt of the market, but their prices are higher. So maybe you will only get a download once a month or once every 6 months when you are starting out, but you will get 50, 100 or 200 dollars.
It all takes time.
The most important is to decide who are your customers, and where do you think will they buy? What is your target group and target theme?
But if you send in 30-50 images a week to several agencies and just do this steadily for a year you will see which agencies work best for you.
Thank you for your long and helpful comments Cobalt, I appreciate.. What I will do is, I will proceed working with shutter, istock, depositphotos , dreamstime, alamy and fotolia... I don't know if I missed any better selling agencies?
11
« on: April 09, 2013, 11:06 »
You have a tiny portfolio alp. You need to build up a port of a few thousand files before it becomes really interesting. Also on some agencies you need a lot of time, for your images to move up in their search ranking. So I dont really understand why you closed your account with fotolia and deposit. If you have 2000 files online and few sales I understand, but not 160 files in a sea of 20 million or more.
If you really want to just upload a few images here and there and not work with other agencies you might want to consider going exclusive with istock, inspite of all the drama that has been going on there.
The prices are higher and your files will be preferred in the search.
In the end it is up to you. You will get out of the stock market what you put into it, like any other business. Many people posting here do it as a full time day job and just treat their online webshops as a normal webstore, which is what they are in the end.
Good luck!
I understand... Thanks for your nice comments... So I'll make these (depositphotos and fotolia) online again... There will be 5 sites on-line.... Shutter,istock,deposit, dreamstime and fotolia... Do you have any other advice for other sites? Alamy, etc..  Also when Shutterstock sells 3-5 image per day, the same portfolio can only sell 1-2 photos per month in depositphotos or fotolia... How can we explain this? Is it something to do with the power of the microstock agency/the people they can reach?
12
« on: April 09, 2013, 10:40 »
Dear all,
I am almost new at microstock as I've started on Dec 2012 and I have 147 online files at iStockphoto and 190 at Shutterstock.... I also had files on fotolia and depositphotos but as the sales were too bad on these 2 sites, I've deleted my files and closed my accounts (fotolia and depositphotos). Because every upload is a hard for for each site and if a site is selling 1-2 per month and at the end of the day you earn 0,20 - 0,50 USD, it is not feasible. Dreamstime is the same, I've 166 online ones but no sales there...
On the other hand,
Shutterstock is very nice... I'm selling 2-3 or 5 photos per day.... iStockphoto is so so , I can sell 2-3 images per week max. So I am currently working with istock and shutterstock.
Do you have any advices for other sites? Should I go with Alamy or any others?
How is your sales with others?
I would love to hear from your comments.
Thank you in advance & regards,
Alp
13
« on: March 29, 2013, 16:01 »
Hello again,
I am new at Alamy...
When editing the file, I should select the license type:
Royalty Free
Rights Managed
Rights Managed - Exclusive
Can I have your advices which one should I proceed with?
Thank you,
Alp
14
« on: March 05, 2013, 13:55 »
I've tried 5 times and they did not accept me. 10 days ago submitted 10 and past Sunday I've received an email saying that 10/10 are accepted and I am a SS photographer now  Second amazing thing is: 2 days passed from getting accepted and today I have signed in for uploading some files and I saw that 2 of 10 accepted files sold SS is really lovely!
15
« on: February 09, 2013, 00:18 »
Bigstock is the site that I have started 10 days ago.
I saw the topic and also read the email came 2 days ago. Besides this, file review periods is a huge waste of time which I have never faced in istockphoto or depositphotos, I have sent them an email for deleting the pending files and closing my account. They have confirmed and now I cut my relations with BigStock.
16
« on: February 03, 2013, 08:59 »
I've a very different issue with shutterstock. I've uploaded 10 to be selected as a contributor. They said that 6 of them are O.K. , 2 of them have focus problems and 2 of them doesn't have a property release. Later on I said that I have a property release for the 2 files that they have rejected. But they did not accept the release at all. They told me that the review is over and I have to wait 2 weeks to upload 10 another files and another inspector will see again. I have lost the chance by only 1 file and they do not give me an chance to upload the property release
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
17
« on: February 02, 2013, 08:12 »
Hi everyone,
I have a MacBookPro with OSX Mountain Lion.
I am a contributor in 5 different sites like istockphoto, fotolia, shutterstock,etc..
I am in need of a Mac application which I can track, upload, organize my photos...
Is there any app for Mac like this? Or shall we do everything in manual mode?
Thank you in advance,
Alp
18
« on: January 24, 2013, 14:25 »
Dear ShadySue, fotografer, JPSDK and jsnover,
Thanks for all your kind and helpful comments. I appreciate...
So I think I will work with 3 sites now:
1) iStock
2) depositphotos
3) shutterstock
I think it is not a good idea to sit and wait selling 250 photos to become an exclusive in istockphoto.
Better to work with 3-4 sites and see the volume or speed...
19
« on: January 24, 2013, 13:34 »
With all the things going on at IS at the moment I don't think that now is the time for anybody to decide to go exclusive with them.
Thumbs up, that would be a good point for my way..
So it is better to publish & sell at in 3 different sites:
1) istock
2) shutterstock
3) depositphotos
what do you think?
or any site to add into this list?
I also get a regular pay out at dreamstime, fotolia, 123rf, bigstock and canstock. Most of them have their faults but they all bring me in a monthly pay out. I've started uploading to Alamy as well a few months ago and am pleased with the results.
I see thanks... Good advices for me.. But what if you decide to be exclusive? You need some time for that? Or how will it be?
In the unlikely event that you would want to go exclusive at iStock [1], you'd have to make sure that all of your photos from all sites and partners are removed. You will need to check the T&C of each site to see how long that would take. Up to six months, in some case.
[1] I don't know who else has an exclusivity program other than DT, and I haven't read that that was ever a good move.
in iStockphoto I now have a few downloads.. So I think it is best to work with 3-4 sites for now and when my download approaches to 200 or more, I can check again the terms that time and later on it will be better to delete my files in other sites and be an exclusive for istock photographer... This would be a best option for me?
20
« on: January 24, 2013, 13:15 »
With all the things going on at IS at the moment I don't think that now is the time for anybody to decide to go exclusive with them.
Thumbs up, that would be a good point for my way..
So it is better to publish & sell at in 3 different sites:
1) istock
2) shutterstock
3) depositphotos
what do you think?
or any site to add into this list?
I also get a regular pay out at dreamstime, fotolia, 123rf, bigstock and canstock. Most of them have their faults but they all bring me in a monthly pay out. I've started uploading to Alamy as well a few months ago and am pleased with the results.
I see thanks... Good advices for me.. But what if you decide to be exclusive? You need some time for that? Or how will it be?
21
« on: January 24, 2013, 13:01 »
With all the things going on at IS at the moment I don't think that now is the time for anybody to decide to go exclusive with them.
Thumbs up, that would be a good point for my way.. So it is better to publish & sell at in 3 different sites: 1) istock 2) shutterstock 3) depositphotos what do you think? or any site to add into this list?
22
« on: January 24, 2013, 12:41 »
1. At this time this may have been the smart move, nowadays, not so for someone starting out.
2. As above, plus SS doesn't have an exclusive programme.
3. Nowadays, being indie is probably the smart move. But it's a lot more hassle just keeping up with what your contract at each agency might in the future allow them to do to you, who is partnered with whom, etc etc.
If I were starting out now, I'd probably only submit RM to Alamy, but that's not a way to get lots of sales. Having been a microstocker does seem to make one a persona non grata at some other RM agencies (can't even get a foot in the door).
Essentially, everything boils down to you, the sort of images you are supplying and how much time you have to keep on top of all the agencies you submit to. What works for me or any other person may or may not work for you.
thanks ShadySue for your time. If any different thoughts, I'd love to hear.
23
« on: January 24, 2013, 12:07 »
Hello,
I am new at stock photography and confused in some points. Let me explain below and I really need your helps:
I only have an account at iStockphoto with 23 files online currently. But I want to be exclusive here after reaching to 250 downloads. Because of this idea, I have not signed into any other stock photography sites. Because I didn't want to divide myself into parts.
If you were me, what would you do?
1) Always go with one stock photography site and make a goal to be exclusive there?
2) go with 2-3 sites and when shutterstock or istockphoto reaches exclusivity level, be an exlusive in one of these...
3) Never be an exclusive and sell in different sites..
Which one will you take? (shall I take)
Secondly,
I have some model and property releases but signed in the format of iStockphoto. Will I able to use them in other sites like shutterstock or depositphotos, etc.?
Thank you in advance,
Alp from Istanbul
24
« on: January 23, 2013, 02:33 »
25
« on: January 22, 2013, 18:21 »
There is one thing I don't understand. I am new at istock and just sold my 1st file. Maybe my question is not related with the topic but I wanted to ask. The file cost was 25$ (XXL size) but they just gave me 0,66$ . Normally they were talking about 16% but what does this 0,66 $ goes for?
Thanks in advance,
Alp
I will give you the benefit of assuming this is a genuine question, though I suspect people at least read the basic facts about any agency they sign up with. Of course, these facts can be twisted and mangled at will. But this is very basic and upfront.
What makes you think that the file cost is $25? Is that the American cash price?
Cash sales are a fairly recent invention at iStock, and probably the majority of buyers buy in credits.
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/help/buy-credits]http://www.istockphoto.com/help/buy-credits]
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/help/buy-credits[/url]
You can see that a credit can go as low as 29c for a published regular credit and 24c for a published sub credit. There are even lower prices for huge bulk buyers, which aren't publicised.
As well as that, there are various discounts, like 10% for a new buyer, or up to 25% for special promotions.
And apparently there are old credits from the year dot still flying around with about 10c values.
Thanks for your comments. Seems that stock photography is very hard... 
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