For example, WE has it's own site, so you'd get 50% royalty on what you sell there.  But yes, if they distribute to Getty, based on whatever they negotiate from that, you get your %50.  So, if they negotiate 20%, you end up getting %10.  Since most Getty licenses seem to be for less than a dollar these days, you aren't losing out on much.  Hopefully you make it up in volume from the number of agencies the distributor goes through.  They may be able to start with a higher % too from Getty or whoever - whatever they work out.

  Since most Getty licenses seem to be for less than a dollar these days, you aren't losing out on much.

Really???

If you just got accepted as a Moment contributor at Getty, I wouldn't bother. Most of your images will go to the Moment Open collection which is low in the search rankings. Some will go to Moment RF or RM which are higher in the search rankings. And then some images will go to the Prestige collection after a couple of months, but even then you can get sales of 40 cents.
It used to be easier to get into the RF and RM collections, but now it's different, how they choose the images for the collections puzzles me. From the same series I had my best going to the Open collection while some of the not so good ones going to the RM collection. Also from the same series they sometimes select only 1 or 2 and reject the rest as similar even if it's not similar. I hardly upload there nowadays.

IMHO agencies like Westend and the likes are more worth it. From photographers I heard that these agencies are getting a lot of applications at the moment, if you apply it will take some time before you get a reply, sometimes you don't get a reply at all.

These distributors hardly make any direct sales from my experience, all they do is send files out to other 3rd parties and take a big cut. So yes you will see plenty of tiny sales. Most of these distributor agencies made most money from Corbis and Getty, now Corbis is gone and Getty is selling more for low prices.

There certainly is some truth in it, it's not just those two but in fact four partner agencies made about 75-80% in number of sales volume for me. However, the other 20-25% typically are bigger sales and they come from agencies that I would never have access to, some names of Australian, Swedish, Chinese or Korean agencies popped up that I've never heard of but also collections like Fotolia Infinite or Shutterstock Premier. So while the number of sales is low, their share in the revenue is rather big in my personal experience.

People are doing less better in Moment but a few are reporting good sales each month. Try and join westend. Test them out.

Well, there is the problem with distribution agencies. You can't just "test them out". If you think, you can just fill out an online form, submit a handful of images and see what happens, you will be disappointed. It takes a long time (12-18 months) and some consistent submissions to get any meaningful results. The distributions takes its time and the reporting of sales back from all over the world takes time as well. Also it's not like the microstocks: Either your new images sell or they get ranked back in the search a week or two later. You will naturally get some quicker sales (which can still be 4-6 months) but those are likely to be only smaller ones. The bigger sales take even more time because there is most likely a designer agency plus a customer involved before things go into print while a typical web use is something the editor decides right away.

So if you just "try" to upload 20 images in a first submission and then wait to see what happens, you will get disappointed. There is no way this way of thinking could work out with a distribution agency.

Thinking of applying to Getty and/or W61..

Does W61 accept RF or only RM?

Thank you!

Thinking of applying to Getty and/or W61..

Does W61 accept RF or only RM?

Mostly RF because it sells better.

I think RF is best, more posibilities.

In w61 you are not exclusive content Getty contributor, this content can go to other sites. 

Quote from: JaenStock on July 18, 2016, 07:59

I think RF is best, more posibilities.

In w61 you are not exclusive content Getty contributor, this content can go to other sites.

But is W61 selling images regularly? I have heard very little from those that contribute.

I don't think I've actually licensed any through W61 itself.  I get a lot of less-than-a-dollar sales from Getty through them.

There are some larger sales than the typical Getty ones.  My portfolio is relatively small there.

The only distributors I know that also sell out of their own stock is Blend and Science-Library. They have their own editors and art directors and possibly the best placements at Getty.
These are quite specialized agencies so its not easy to become a member.

 If WestEnd will take you I would go with them definitely.