.

You have to remember that the istock exclusive contract is an artist exclusive contract for all your royalty free files. You cannot sell files anywhere else, not even files they reject.

You start with 25% royalty as an exclusive and then have to reach a yearly target of "redeemed credits" to keep whatever level you achieve. 45% is a very, very elusive target only reached by one or two single artists, the others are studios with several people working in a team. I think 35-40% is a very realistic target if you have enough high quality material.

However you only receive that for your normal exclusive files on istock. Files that are moved to getty via the e+ collection or those that you opt into the PP collection only receive 20%. Your vetta files only receive 22-28% on istock if I remember correctly, and only 20% on getty. istock is also one of many agencies in the Getty universe and you don�t know how much they market it compared to their other agencies like Thinkstock, photos.com, jupiterimages and Getty itself. This is different from many other agencies out there where you know they do all they can to push their only agency (like Fotolia, Shutterstock,Alamy,Dreamstime...). You are istock exclusive and receive your highest royalties there, but you never know if istock gets the full attention and marketing push from the Getty management. They laid of a lot of people last year and closed at least one overseas istock office in Berlin.

If you do go exclusive, please make sure all files are removed from other sites, becaue they do go and check if you have files still available elsewhere.

It is a serious commitment. Two years ago I would have whole heartedly recommended it, but in the current situation I would advise to have a look around.

If your files are so good that they are putting them into Vetta already, maybe it is worth reaching out to Shutterstock as well to ask about their new Offset Collection that is coming out soon. Then there is also a very small new agency called stocksy that takes artistic content. It is a coop that pays out 90% of all profit to the artists.

Another option would be to write directly to gettyimages and see if they offer you a contract. Getty has image or series exclusivity, so you can send a series to getty but are still free to send other work to other agencies. Getty also has RM files, so they would definetly be worth checking out.

Shop around a bit, before you decide, if you have good work, make the agencies compete for you and look at the different offers they make and then decide what you want to do. In theory you can have a contract with Getty, join stocksy and offset if they take you and then still be free to send regular work to istock and the other micros if you want to.

Or you sign the istock exclusive artist contract and trust them to handle all the sales completly for you. The people on the istock team itself are very nice and helpful. You just have to remember that the really important decisions (budgets, marketing) are not made by them.

Good luck!

The problem is I have not given them the reply to be exclusive, and my files are automatically converted to vetta without my notice.

My description files are in the istock folder without any changes in particular.
 I only notice the files turned vetta when i check to see them on the searching results.

Now, i am not very sure whether to deactivate my files at shutterstock. I am selling at shutterstock and istock, and now i m forced to choose between this 2.

You either choose to go exclusive or you don't. I've never heard it being forced on anybody. If they did, then it is their mistake.

Again, it sounds like you already decided, if you have Vettas.

You can be an exclusive vector contributor, and submit rasters elsewhere, afaik.

Well considering rasters can now be 'illustrations', wth knows.

I checked my earnings at istock today and It's true that I received 25%. 10% higher than my last 15% and a few dollars more, but earnings doesnt change significantly.

I think it is more profitable selling blueprint on multiple sites than just selling vector on istock. I will probably deactivate my port on SS temporaily to observe sales from istock for about a mth.

I will opt out of exclusivity if sales is not as good as expected. 

I heard abt Shutterstock offset, and may consider to try.

Again, it sounds like you already decided, if you have Vettas.

You can be an exclusive vector contributor, and submit rasters elsewhere, afaik.

Is this legally written in black and white?? I cant find any written info on istock exclusive terms and conditions program.

I may be a newbie, but i m not rookie. I know you are at loggerhead with Yuri and booted out of Istock recently.Oops!

I have 375 downloads so far and i dun consider it very good. I have an average of abt 4 to 6 dls per day, and i made 1.50 to 3.5 bucks per file based on 15% commission which is miserable.

Quote from: sjlocke on April 06, 2013, 10:45

Again, it sounds like you already decided, if you have Vettas.

You can be an exclusive vector contributor, and submit rasters elsewhere, afaik.

Is this legally written in black and white?? I cant find any written info on istock exclusive terms and conditions program.

Yes
When they suddenly introduced the RC programme, they made it much more difficult for those with multiple media ports to reach targets by splitting the RCs across media. Previously, all your sales counted towards reaching your next percentage raise (after encouraging people to submit multiple media, ha  ) and if you were exclusive, you were exclusive (RF) across all media.
Sometime after that, they were forced, through contributor pressure, to concede that as they were splitting RCs it was only fair that exclusivity should be split across media. (Which may have been the last time that they conceded that something was 'only fair'.)

"Because iStockphoto offers different categories of content, this agreement may differentiate among categories of content that you produce, such as still photography, which includes all raster files (for greater clarity, raster files include, but are not limited to, photographs, 3D renders, photographs of works of art that otherwise meet iStockphoto standards and digital scans) (collectively, �Photo Content�), illustrations (for greater clarity, illustrations include all vector files) (�Illustration Content�), flash files (�Flash Content�), or video files, animations (�Motion Content�) and related material produced by Supplier. Exclusivity with respect to one or more categories of Exclusive Content (as defined below) depends on your qualification under each such category, and to the selection of the chosen categories under the �Exclusivity� portion of the preferences panel in your account profile on the Site."

http://www.istockphoto.com/sell-stock-photos-exclusivity.php (1a)
NB: for some reason that page does not show up if you are exclusive in one medium - you get taken to your own exclusivity contract. You need to click on that link when NOT signed into iS.

Do you have work spread ou already? I think you can make a decision by looking at you current potential and weighing against what iStock exclusive could provide. Either way there is some uncertainty, but go with what will potentially provide you the most income.