Exclusivity vs. NON-Exclusive

For more information on shooting/selling stock footage check out my other posts:
GETTING STARTED
KEYWORDING
WHAT SELLS?

Should you be Exclusive with one stock footage website or should you be non-exclusive and post your footage to many sites?

I want to offer some different scenarios that make sense in regards to Exclusivity; the scenario that makes the most sense for you will depend on who you are, and what your reasons are for shooting stock footage.

Scene #1 - You are Exclusive with iStockphoto.com. iStockphoto is really THE premiere royalty free stock footage site currently. If you choose to be exclusive, do it with iStockphoto. To see the full benefits of being exclusive with them go to their Exclusive Program Page

If spreadsheets, data entry and business managent scares you and you want to spend the majority of your time shooting then exclusivity makes good sense, at least when you are starting out. If you choose to only sell through one website then it is not vital to keep records of all your keywords and descriptions, and theoretically you could rely on iStockphoto (or whoever) to keep all of your footage backed up on their hard drives, as long as you don't plan to use your own footage or sell it anywhere else. If I were exclusive, I would still choose to keep proper records and back-ups incase I changed my mind, or iStockphoto went out of business or something. (see my posting on Organization)

To make the most of being exclusive, you have to be shooting constantly, and really focus on shooting high-quality, unique footage. Always have something in the queue (iStockphoto takes about a month to review footage before they post it for sale). Ideally a few new clips of your footage would be accepted every day. New exclusive footage gets posted to the "New Footage" Section of iStockphoto and it gives your entire library more exposure, and potential to sell.

Also, be active on the iStockphoto website. Comment on other people's clips, write in the message boards, make friends with other contributors. Build/organize "light boxes" of your footage.

The downside of being Exclusive is that, in most cases, you do not have as much potential income. It would be the equivalent of being in a band and selling your CDs at one record store. Even if it is the best record store, they have a limited number of customers that shop at their store. Even if they put your CD in the front window of the store, and they give you a bigger percentage of the sales you just won't have as many sales as you could if you distributed your CD to 100 different record stores. Now if you were creative/driven enough to come out with 100 CDs, and they were really good, then you could create a loyal fan base, and the customers would buy ALL of your CDs, you could make good income, and no one would ever call you a sell-out.

In summary, if you are more of a purist, you don't need to make the most money possible, and you want to focus on shooting footage... Give exclusivity a shot. If you don't like it, you can change your mind down the road.

Scene #2 - You are NON-Exclusive and you post you footage library to multipul stock footage sites.

There are 4-5 good stock footage sites that sell consistently, and 40-50 that sell next to nothing. If you choose to be NON-Exclusive you want to sell footage through as many GOOD stock footage sites as possible, and maybe test the waters in a few up-and-coming stock footage sites. The stock footage world is dynamic, a new stock footage website could start up today, and in a year they could dwarf all the other sites. It's good to keep your eyes open, and try new sites out once in a while.

To make the most out of being NON-Exclusive you should really think of your stock footage as a business and you should constantly be uploading/keywording footage. Organization/record keeping is VITAL (see my post on organization) Where an Exclusive stock footage producer just needs to upload each of their clips 1 time, a non-exclusive producer will never be done uploading, the more uploading, the more potential sales. I upload footage to the best selling sites first, then work my way down the list. If I ever have 100% of my library uploaded to all sites, then I'll open an account with a new stock footage site and test the waters.

The reasons for being non-exclusive, besides having more potential income, is that you can get more mileage out of your library, the income is more consistant/predictable, and there are an infinite number of different ways to increase your monthly income besides just shooting more footage. I have a demanding career in Post Production right now so I don't get to shoot as much as I'd like. Being non-exclusive, I can leave a bunch of clips uploading at home before I leave for work in the morning. I can keyword a few clips on my lunch break, or a few here or there in the evenings. With an organized keyword/descriptions database I can even recruit other people (employees) to help me get more clips online, and increase my monthly income.

This is a "Sell Out" method of selling stock footage, but that is what stock footage is all about. I have no shame putting my cd in as many record stores as possible, there are a lot of people in the world that need to hear my music.

In summary, if you are organized, somewhat business savvy, don't mind a little data entry work, and you are driven to get the most money possible out of your stock footage then NON-Exclusive is the way to go.

Scene #3
An alternative method would be to shoot different footage for different sites. You could be exclusive with multipul sites, and divide your library in such a way that the best clips go to the site that sells the most... or to the site that pays the highest royalties.

There is a faction of stock footage contributors that believe you will maximize your sales with fewer clips in your portfolio, clips that are the highest quality, and that have a common theme. The theory is that when a potential buyer finds one of your clips, they will be able to look through your entire portfolio and find other related clips to buy.

Whatever you do, don't claim that you are exclusive and post the same footage to multipul sites, you will get caught. Play it straight and karma will reward you. Another thing to be aware of is that you can even get in trouble for posting "exclusive" footage to Vimeo, vimeo has a clause in their user agreement that says something like, "Vimeo can re-distribute anything you post." That will violate most exclusivity agreements.

Final Thoughts:
This information WILL help you to make more money selling stock footage. When you understand what you want your stock footage business to be, you can better understand where to focus your limited time and energy. Thank you for reading, and I will be sure to include more pictures in the next post.

Happy Shooting!
HDCineman