Well we aren't talking about going totally exclusive benny - just having a small gallery of exclusive images available, much like the "free images" available here. It's a small gallery, but it might bring in more sales. If someone grabs your free image and they like the quality of your work, they might just come back and see what else you've got. (And before anyone says we shouldn't give away images I can tell yout that I have gained a very professional hard copy portfolio from some of my free images. That's very useful to have when you are standing in front of a client in his office who wants to see your work in use. I pull out one of the magazines or books and show him.)
The exclusive gallery would be similar - not large.
If you can only get a certain picture at this site, you have to come back and buy if from this site - you can't go to SS because you've got a subscription (or somewhere else) and buy the same one because it isn't there.
I already keep a few images (see my list above - it's only a few) exclusive to each site (except for SS) in an effort to help generate sales at those sites - particularly the new sites.
It could be a totally separate little category, right under "Free Images" in the listing. Maybe it only has a dozen or two dozen images in total. I don't see how that would create a problem for anyone. No one is saying each person would have to contribute to that gallery.
Realizing that each site has it's own group of buyers
Well, at this point, that's the problem isn't it? If you want a site you sell at to be successful, you have to have the buyers.
The exclusive gallery suggestion was an effort to help get some buyers here
not to depreciate the photogs galleries.
When I join a site like this I look at it as a bit of a partnership and anything I can do to generate sales at that site, or to help try and generate sales, is going to benefit me too.
At places like SS I don't make suggestions simply because they already have plenty of clients buying from them. I don't have to do anything there except produce marketable images.
But I believe that I should take responsibility for everything I do, including generating sales anyway I can. I'm the one whose ultimately responsible for my success or lack of it, so if I sit back and do nothing, then I should expect nothing.
Somebody else owns each site - sure, it's not my site and I guess I don't have to participate in anything - just like at SS. Well at SS I feel like I am working for them, and not for me. And while some photogs there think SS is working for them, they aren't. I'd rather see success coming to places like this where the photographers' suggestions are given consideration and where if I upload a landscape or floral I am not told they aren't stock, where my work is judged on photographic technique or skill, not on what's in the picture.
A lot of new stock sites end up failing - probably for lots of reasons, but among those reasons will be things like lack of proper marketing and photographer's who just want to stick up their photos and expect the site to do everything for them. If a site I join fails, I don't want feel like I didn't do my part in supporting them.
In the end it will have to be John who decides what's useful to the site and what's not. Maybe an exclusive gallery isn't something he thinks will help, but at least he listens to us, which is more than I can say for a few other places I am at
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