Sheila
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Upload & Sell: Off
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Selling stock photography is getting harder and harder these days with the advent of microstocks (I won't start ranting about them here ). If you want to sell your images, firstly get a website of your own or alternatively, take a look at Photodeck I should here and now advise that I am a Photodeck contributor and there is a deal between Photodeck and its contributors that any introduction gives me another month's member and the new member gets 10% off their annual membership. Well, I've got that out of the way!
The plus of having your own website is that you pay no commission. Photodeck does not charge commission but it does have an annual fee which includes a website with a large amount of GB space for image uploads. I also have website at PBase which links to my Photodeck website. Basically, Photodeck adds e-commerce to websites: You upload high res to your Photodeck site and Photodeck does the rest. If a client sees what they like, they go through to a shopping cart procedure and you are advised by Photodeck of the sale and upon payment, Photodeck sends the high res image to the client.
I am also a member of Alamy - UK based stock library with 25 million images - a lot of competition there. Alamy takes 40% commission and mainly licenses editorial type images. New contributors have to upload 4 images which must be absolutely 100% correct. Perfect exposure, no dust bunnies, no CA, and must be sharp (without post processing sharpening). Before these images are uploaded, they must be checked by the contributors at 100% crop because that is how Alamy QC does it. Alamy does not edit for content so as long as your images are 100% perfect in the aforementioned, they can be absolute dross  - take a look at Alamy images and you can see why they should have edited for content on Day 1 but its far too late now. Alamy images must be over 24 MB and do not recommend upsizing.
Getty takes an appalling 70 or 80% commission (depending on royalty free or rights managed). They are also exclusive so you cannot have the images on any other stock library or even license them on your own. You also have NO choice on the model of license ie rights managed (preferred by most pro photographers) or royalty free. Getty chooses the model and their say is more or less final. I am opting out of Getty on 1 December 2011 when my contract expires as they reneged on contracts whereby Royalty free images on Getty can now be sent to their microstock site, Thinkstock, without reference to the photographer and you will receive very little for your work in TS. You have no choice in the deal and that is why I am letting my contract expire although I have done quite well with the few images I have on Getty, one image being licensed four times to different buyers.
I am also a member of GlobalEye Images, Australian based and the membership is around $320US a year. Matt Brading who runs the site out of Queensland works very hard for his contributors but has to compete with the big boys.
I am also a member of AGE fotostock where I have sold one image in about two years. European oriented and very strangely run!
I have also been a member of Photographers Direct which is run by Chris Barton. Chris rates your images (low res uploads) and if a client finds one they like, Chris contacts the photographer and its down to the photographer to negotiate directly with the client regarding price and how the image is used. Should the sale go ahead, you advise Photographers Direct and Chris bills you 20%. I have done quite well with PD in the past several years although, like all stock libraries, things have been really tough and the nibbles are few and far between.
Hope this helps.
Sheila
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