Good question, @bennett-family!
Ok, so short answer – Yes, I decided to go exclusive. 🙂
Now for the long answer! Sorry, if it’s long winded. 😀 I admit that I don’t have a heap of experience, but hopefully you can learn from some of my mistakes. Lol!
So basically, a few years ago, I heard that one of my friends brothers was doing stock photography. I hadn’t heard of it before and was really excited. After looking around at the different places, I ended up going with Fotolia. Off course, I was very enthusiastic to begin with and I submitted a heap of pictures and thought this will be a great way to make easy money! Well, there’s nothing quite like eating humble pie. Unfortunately, quite a few of the pictures that I submitted the first time, weren’t accepted. Yeah . . . I was disappointed, but it didn’t put me off. I kept trying and ended up getting quite a few pictures excepted and I was even selling them. But, after a while the enthusiasm died down a bit, and I stopped uploading and every so often I’d sell a picture. (which would make me all excited again. 🙂 ) But, still, it wasn’t really worthwhile and I was not dedicated to it. So, after a year or two, I started taking my photography more seriously and was starting to think, what am I going to use my photography for? What’s the point of taking pictures and not really sharing them? Then, my Mum and sister came up with the idea that I start a Christian photography stock site. I was excited about the idea, but knew that it could be a sticky thing to run and wasn’t sure if it’d take off or not. So, to cut a long story short, I decided to have a look and see if there was any Christian stock sites already. That’s when I found Lightstock. Now, this made me really excited! So, basically, I decided to try and get accepted as a contributor. The first problem I hit is that you needed an online portfolio – which I didn’t have. So, hoping for the best, I emailed them and they said that emailing some of my best pictures to them would suffice. Yes! I did that and got accepted. Then I had to decide the same thing that you’re trying to decide – to be exclusive or not to be. I ended up deciding that I wouldn’t be exclusive. I’d try and have my photos on as many different stock sites as possible (I didn’t actually end up doing this!) that way I was likely to sell more photos. So, I was uploading the same photos to Lightstock and Fotolia. That was all fine, but then it became a bit time consuming and when I did actually sell a picture, sometimes I wouldn’t even get a dollar, which is pretty disappointing. And that’s when I decided on the plan of attack that I’m using at the moment. Basically, I want to glorify God with my photography and use it to bless and help others. Lightstock is a way that I can do this. So, now I’ve decided that I’m going to keep Lightstock as my main priority and I’m trying to dedicate to it. It’s exciting to be helping out and being a part of a group of Christian stock photographers and buyers. And I’ve also gone exclusive. That way I get more money per image, my pictures are keyworded for me, it saves time etc. In saying that, I haven’t given Fotolia the flick! 🙂 LightStock is my main priority, yes. But, they don’t always expect every image. So, that’s when Fotolia comes in. The images that get rejected on LightStock, I submit to Fotolia. And then I can put the rejected images on Fotolia as exclusive. This way I have my finger in 2 stock sites, but at the same time, mainly contributing to the one that I really want to, but at the same time having more exposure by being on two sites exclusively, if that makes sense. LightStock is definitely more picky when it comes to accepting or not accepting pictures, as they’re trying to have more Christian type images that are very high quality. Whereas, while Fotolia is still picky, they often except the images LightStock doesn’t because they’re goal is to have a huge range of every type of picture you can image. All this said, I haven’t tried this out heaps, but is what I’m doing at the moment. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens as I dedicate more to it! I hope all that made some sort of sense. Lol 😀
As a side note, a few other tips is to organise your photos into shoots. It is optional, but I highly recommend it. That way people can easily browse through your images and see all the different angles/variations, making it more likely for your picture to be suitable for their project. Also, one thing I love about Lightstock is that they keyword your images for you. Fotolia doesn’t do this, and thinking and adding the keywords individually is time consuming. Still, sometimes I think they miss some important keywords on Lightstock, so when I have time I often go and add more keywords to their list. That way they’re more likely to come up in people’s search. Plus, I always thought of stock photography as a more passive income, but something I’ve been learning recently is that you uploading regularly is also important (I’m working on this one!). As people keep uploading your pictures get further down the page. So, just some things to keep in mind.
Wow. I feel like I really waffled on a bit here. 🙂 Hopefully some of these thoughts are helpful! I was actually thinking the other day that you should get onto LightStock. Some of the pictures you’ve submitted for different assignments, I think will go well on there. I hope you enjoy it as much as I’m beginning to! You should post the link to your photos when you get on there, so I can have a look! 🙂