Darich..
While what you said is somewhat true microstock sites are not bad for those photos of yours that really are not 'stand alone' or what not. Most companies will go with microstock site for general photos to use. If they are willing to pay a real stock company most likely they will just get a photographer to shoot exactly what they want. Also.. if you practiced taking a bunch of pictures of toothpicks in a light tent and have some nice ones but nothing that really 'means' anything and will just sit on your hard drive why not submit it to the microstock site and see if it sells. I am not saying send in your masterpieces to these places (which unfortunately some do) but if it is just sitting on your computer and won't ever go anywhere why not submit it? Someone might want it for a brochure or minor image. True you won't make much but more then it will sitting on your machine.
You have a point and I've considered this a few times. When i go out for a day's shooting I'll end up with 200 images and I'll maybe only print or publish half a dozen on my website.
However, therein lies the problem.
Let's say you have your 20images of toothpicks and you upload 15 average ones to a microstock site. Then a few weeks later you're contacted by a company looking for toothpick images. So you hand over the best one and receive a decent payment. Great.
But then what happens, is that the company who paid you well, finds you are selling
very similar images for a few pence. They'll not be happy, and possibly write to you saying that you're breaking the rights of use agreement by selling the image they bought. I know you'll argue it's a different image. In reality you're right - it may be a different f stop and another shutter release, but to 99% of people it's the same image.
I also know that if you sell your toothpick image to company 1 for a calendar and company 2 comes looking you cannot sell that image or any of the
very similar ones to anyone else for a calendar. Again, rights of use etc.
And that's the problem with microstock sites and royalty free - you have no idea where or when or how often your images will be used. So any images that are similar or possibly even of the same subject cannot be sold anywhere else once you sell them royalty free.
And considering the poor rates of pay, sometimes around $0.20, or about 10p to me, I'd rather not sell it to retain control and the possibility of a REAL sale later on. And i often think, if it's good enough to sell then why not retain the rights???
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