Anyone compared the pro and cons of going exclusive with one stock site?
I'm looking at it from the micro stock perspective and I thought that the most important thing is to get your photos out to as many people as possible. That's the whole intent of selling "cheap"... .
If that's the case, is it more profitable to "not" go exclusive?
But there seemed to be photographers whom made it big just by going solo with istock or shutterstock etc....
You'd have to do the math based on your own sales. I would suspect the answer for most people would be no.
For exclusivity you're losing the ability to reach the broadest possible market. You're only being paid slightly more and moving up a little in the searches on that one site. You're not entirely locked in but you can't get out of exclusivity very quickly.
Right now I only deal with Shutterstock, though I have accounts at the others. I'm considering pulling my best sellers off of SS and putting them on Alamy to see how they run there. I'm going to wait a while, tho, and build up a bigger catalog of images at SS. Right now I only have 40 images up there and pulling in about $10 a week.
i would generally say it is not worth it going exclusive.
If you are just starting out and think you will only ever have time for one site, then maybe exclusive isn't so dumb, but you are really cutting yourself short of a lot of sales by uploading to only one site.
I would rather upload to a number of sites and after you have about 500 images, calculate how much you would make by going exclusive with just one site. Chances are you would loose money by going exclusive.
I was exclusive at istock for the better part of a year before cancelling that and signing up with multiple agencies. For me the jury is still out, but it isn't a slam-dunk either way... it's a close call. While I was exclusive at istock, not only did I make a higher percentage per sale, but I made more sales per day.
Cancelling there cut my monthly income about in half. I am able to make most of that up with the multiple agencies, but it means roughly the same payout for added effort. So far, anyway.
Another thing to be aware of is that if you sign up with dreamstime, you are obligated to them for a minimum of six months.
dpchallenge user LEAF hosts a website devoted exclusively to microstock users HERE ... you might find some additional information or opinions there.
... dpchallenge user LEAF hosts a website devoted exclusively to microstock users HERE ... you might find some additional information or opinions there.
