There are many reasons I'm trying to leave my industry. I started doing stock for fun, then when I started making a nice "Christmas bonus" from it, I started to see it as a viable way out. Still trying.

Even if one can make a few sales a month from an indie site, which helps pay the bills, replacing a six figure income seems daunting, if not improbable.

I think the only reason that I make a profit via Photoshelter is that I'm licensing stock at traditional prices so I don't need to make thousands of sales - there's no way even the best marketer in the world could compete with the big sites - traditional or micro - even Yuri couldn't do it. And it's just a small part of my photo income, but it helps pays the bills.  I use my site for more than just licensing stock, and since it's so easy to make my images searchable as I upload them, the effort involved is worth it for me.

I'm not sure my marketing efforts have made any difference except that getting my work on Lattice seems to coincide with greater interest in my images, but that could be coincidental. Most of my clients find me because they are searching Photoshelter, with a few finding me via google.

Shelma, I totally get what you're saying, doing something in your day job with a big team and resources behind you for a well-funded company is not the same as the frustration of trying to market yourself when the competition is so huge and well funded. I've devoted countless hours this past year to marketing my prints on FAA and Crated and have only a few hundred dollars and 2,000 new twitter followers to show for the effort - time that I could have spent shooting and processing images, sending out queries to potential clients, or writing articles.

I think Photoshelter is an excellent platform, but I don't expect to make a full time income licensing stock directly. People sign with the agencies because they have the clout, and small agencies sign up with large distributors because they have the clients. That doesn't mean licensing direct isn't worth the effort, but for me at least, it's just one avenue.

Although I have been doing stock photography for years and years I have no experience in building your own platform as a stock outlet.

My homepage and photoshelter, not a stock agency as such bring in good sales and for proper royalty-free pricing. I aimed my photoshelter pages at two specific markets and its paid off very well.

one way of doing it I suppose.