Quote from: clau on July 28, 2009, 12:47

Quote from: pixdeluxe on July 22, 2009, 06:31

I started uploading in January, with maxing out upload limits @ IS. Today i have 950 approved online, with a total collection produced since jan., of 2500. Anything at all is possible, set your sights high.

January 2008 that is. Right? That is not 6 moths but still; your story is really impressive. CONGRATS  ! The Q of this post was also nice
Really good work btw. I'd like to be able to do nothing but stock one day.

Now if I'm thinking abut your exclusivity and if that it's really a good move.
After an estimate regarding your earnings you could do a lot more then that if you would not be exclusive, especially looking at what kind of images you have.
Why did you go that way ? Or am i missing something here about the advantages of being exclusive with IS?

The difference is subjective to who you are, what you shoot and how you shoot it. For me, istock exclusive was more advantageous because when you can max out uploads every week and maitain an acceptance rate of at least 90% the numbers are better than non-exclusive. Logistically, spreading your port across 8-15 agencies is a nightmare and difficult to track performance and fluctuations. Also, depending on where you are as a photographer/producer, you may not want to spend all your time retouching or keywording. Hire people to do this, if the images are good this more than pays itself back, and gives you more flexibility to focus on producing great images.

iStock has done an excellent job and their moves since Getty took over have been great. The vetta collection is showing promising signs as well..

With respect to anybody starting off with submissions, istock can be a bit of a steep learning curve and sales are not friendly to new users, at least in the start... in could take too long to even obtain the 250 downloads needed to become exclusive.

Everybody has their own methods and reasons.. Yuri does maintain that non-exclusive is the better solution, and he's reached that conclusion on everything he knows and based on his own performance, so its more than probably the right path for him.

The prices are not that higher for exclusive so I still don't see the reason. About Getty sales I have no idea at the moment because I only opted in today sooo I'm only guessing that you sell now around 500 files per month and I'm sure your files would sale like crazy on SS. I don't do so much stock and I would not upload at more then 4 agencies and only slowly at other 4 agencies so that's not that hard to do or keep track off. If I would be exclusive (so higher prices and all) even with double sales then before I would still be in disadvantage as exclusive by a lot.

http://istockcharts.multimedia.de/
this chart is interesting but is kind of funny why the reviews are mentioned at all !?!
DLDs per last month would be something )