I was just wondering how many agencies each of you contribute to? Is there any downside to contributing to quite a few sites compared to only contributing to a few?
Hi, I'm also interested to hear from anyone who contributes to online photo agencies where you get paid for each download. Can we really make good income from the download? Thanks for reading.
I'm with iStock and I'm still far from the USD100 payout. But definitely many are making good income from micro stock, by looking at the download numbers on some popular shots. I'm just not good enough...
Shutterstock will most likely be your #1 in sales from the start. I have uploded to 4-5 sites and shutterstock is the only one tht has given me a payout every month (but I only have 100 or so images up)... I hear Istock can be pretty good but I hate their uploading and keywording process!
edit: to answer your question, I dont think there is a downside to uploading to multiple sites.
I've got images on 7 sites, if you count Gimmestock and Canstock, both of which are totally useless for me. I don't contribute to those any more, but have left images there in the hope that things will improve so that I can get a payment one day. I should probably write off the few dollars they owe me and delete my accounts, but so far I'm leaving them there.
From best to worst on 2008 performance
Shutterstock
Dreamstime
iStockphoto
Fotolia
Bigstock
However the order is not consistent. After a bad run in 2008, iStockphoto has been my best performer so far this year. As has been said elsewhere, uploading and keywording at iStock is rather difficult, and I find it much more difficult to get images approved there. I definitely think they favour people who are exclusive.
Few weeks ago I have submitted some shots to other micro stock agencies mentioned above. However the sales was really bad. Nature photographs don't sell well after all, I guess.
I upload to 7 sites and find that the variety works well. Some months one site may have bad sales, but often times it is made up by the other sites. I keep statistics on earnings for each site at //www.sprintingturtles.info
