I wonder if there are any exclusive IStockers on this forum? I'm curious about the process for someone who decides to go that route.

It sounds to me like they require that you pull all your images down from other sites. I may be wrong in that understanding. Does anyone know?

I'm also interested to find out if the exclusive contributors to IStock are happy with their decision. Does it make financial sense? It seems attractive on the surface...IStock sells well, and it would be nice to just supply one site instead of a bunch. That would be a big time savings. However, I have to wonder if they can match the income stream of Fotolia/StockXperts/ShutterStock/DreamsTime and IStock combined?

There probably is no "right" answer. exclusivity obviously works for a bunch of photogs because they do it.

Thoughts? Opinions? Thanks!

Surprised no-one seems to have replied to this post... well, I'm an exclusive iStocker.

You are correct, iStock exclusivity requires that no images be available for RF sale on any other site, so if you have accounts anywhere else you must close them down. They do allow images to be used in "Work for Hire" (agreed terms regarding use), and prints may be sold elsewhere, but that's about it.

And that means ALL images, including rejected ones; a slight bone of contention there, many contributors feel it's unreasonable of iStock not to allow them to sell rejected images elsewhere, but those are the terms.

Certainly anyone who is exclusive is presumably happy with their decision - otherwise they would rescind it - iStock allow that obviously, and they even allow you to change your mind again and go back to being exclusive, after a wait (90 days I think).

As for the process, as you say, it's a decision each person must make for themselves. You get extra income and vastly more uploads, also faster inspection times and (they say) higher promotion, but in the end it depends on the individual.

I submitted to a couple of other sites (BigStock and Fotolia) before going exclusive with iStock; sold some but very little, so it was a no brainer for me. Others apparently make more on other sites and would not be willing to give that up, or in some cases will do but only when they reach a canister level on iStock that warrants it (the extra bonus increases with each canister level).

And as you say, it's a lot less work submitting to only one site. But I'm not making a living at it, if I were I can see it might be worthwhile doing all the extra work.

Thanks for the info. I think I've decided against for the time being. I sell about an equivalent amount income-wise on ShutterStock and supply some other sites as well. I'm very interested and motivated to get my portfolio up to a couple thousand images by the end of 2008 and 5,000 by the end of 2009. At that point (or somewhere in between) it may make sense to put the eggs all in one crate...but for now I like the flexibility of multiple sites.

Probably the biggest thing advising against exclusivity for me is that the images that don't get accepted are also restricted. I have about a 60% acceptance rate at IStock. While I completely understand why they do it, I'd still hate to sacrifice 40% of my work. I find both ShutterStock and Dreamstime are more liberal in terms of what they take. Technically I seldom have problems...I tend to get rejected for composition and subject -- I like weird stuff -- so my quality is almost always good. And often something rejected by IStock sells well elsewhere.

I do like IStock a lot...so I'll keep up with them. Just not exclusively. At least for now.

Hi there,

I am an exclusive member on istock but I don't have enough images there so actually it doesn't make much sense to just post my images on istock. It all depends on how much image material you have. The more material you have on the site the better because of the canister levels, so you get more money per download. If you have, let's say 1000 images it would make sense to switch over to the exclusive program and I think it would be easy for you to reach the higher canisters. There are photographers on there who make a living with just istocks exclusive program.

It's too bad that they don't have ftp to upload images ...

YES! I would love to upload more to iStock photo, but they have left the norm and are so complicated that it gets frustrating. Now, I do recognize the power of the "controlled vocabulary" concept, but certainly they could allow you to upload via FTP and get the keywords from IPTC and then allow you to go through and hit the ones that you meant....


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