24 Jan 2011 How to Negotiate with New Microstock Agencies

Did you know that, as a microstock contributor, you can negotiate for a better deal with new microstock agencies? Turns out many of the top microstock contributors do this for each new agency that solicits their portfolio. And with great success!

After evaluating a new agency and determining that it’s likely a profitable opportunity for you, or close to it, negotiating can help decrease the cost of submitting and increase the profitability of the partnership. But what can you request in your negotiations? Which agencies will be open to negotiations? And, how do you know how much negotiating power you have?

Which Microstock Agencies will Negotiate?

Historically microstock agencies have not negotiated with any contributors at all. Even today, if you approach one of the top four agencies with the intention of negotiating you will have no success, regardless of who you are and how good your stock photo portfolio. Top agencies have enough selling power that they simply don’t need to negotiate. Their quantity of contributors also makes it impractical and creating a precedent would be dangerous.

However, new microstock agencies – and even smaller agencies that have been around for a while – don’t have the same selling power nor the same quantity of contributors. They also have a more desperate need for content. Given this situation they’re much more inclined to negotiate deals beyond the standard offer.

But before you start responding to the solicitation emails from new microstock agencies with a list of demands, you have to know how much negotiating power your microstock portfolio provides you. Even if you’re completely unattached to the outcome and you know the agency is desperate for content, they’re not going to bother negotiating with you if your portfolio has low sales performance.

What Gives you Negotiating Power

1. Portfolio Quality – This is the single biggest factor to your negotiating position. Agencies need quality photos to please buyers. An agency boasting that they have a portfolio of a million photos doesn’t help if all photos are low-quality with lots of similars.   A contributor with 500 high-quality images that sell well has much more negotiating power than a contributor with 10,000 low-quality, low-demand photos with lots of similars.
2. Portfolio Size – After quality comes quantity. Of two portfolios of equal quality, the larger portfolios is obviously more attractive for agencies. So the larger your portfolio is, the more negotiating power you have.
3. Portfolio Uniqueness – Some stock photographers have a unique style, shoot a particular subject, or have a higher quality level to set themselves apart. This adds much more to their negotiating power than a photographer whose images are similar to those of every other stock photographer.
4. Reputation – It’s not easy to build a reputation for having a high-selling microstock portfolio without actually having one. As a result, those contributors in the market with a strong reputation have what new and small microstock agencies need. The additional benefit for the agency is boasting about the high-profile contributors who have already signed up to encourage other contributors.

What to Request

1. Bulk Submission – agencies can import photos in bulk from a hard drive or DVDs. This means no submission: no categorizing, no attaching releases, no disambiguation and no submit buttons. To take advantage of this, you’ll need to have a spreadsheet to manage your releases. Just put the filename of each photo in column A and list the release file names that apply to each photo in the other columns. Doing this once, and getting it setup as part of your workflow, is a worthwhile exercise as it opens up many more distribution opportunities. If any agency claims they can’t do bulk submission, don’t believe them. They may not be setup to do it easily, but it’s never that they can’t, only that they won’t.
2. Blanket Acceptance – if it’s clear from your portfolio that you have a professional stock photography workflow and a high level of quality, it’s possible to negotiate blanket acceptance. This means no reviews; all of the images you submit are accepted and there’s no rejections. Not all agencies will be open to this request, and those that are will be very selective about who gets it.
3. Exclusion from Subscription – stock subscriptions are a necessary component for agencies but usually not so lucrative for contributors. When a contributor with negotiating power thinks that they can earn more by not participating in subscriptions at a new agency, this is often something they will request. Again, not all agencies are open to it, but it can be worthwhile requesting if it’s important to you and you have a strong enough negotiating position.
4. Matching Ranking Levels – not all new agencies have ranking levels like the top agencies, but when they do it can be lucrative to request that they match your other status levels. Fotolia have a formal program to do this for new contributors.
5. No Upload Limits – microstock agencies use upload limits for a variety of reasons. New and small agencies use them to limit the cost of reviewing images from contributors who lazily upload directly from their memory card, without proper editing (selecting), or without proper attention to metadata. In this case, they’re likely to lift upload limits for contributors with proven experience when asked.

Premium Demands

When your microstock portfolio reaches a certain point you will have access to a whole new level of negotiating power. How do you know when you’ve reached that level? It’s simple. If you don’t already know, you’re not there yet.

Here’s what the top contributors can, and frequently do, demand of new agencies when they submit their portfolio.

1. Higher Royalty Rates – this is perhaps the request that makes the most difference to the profitability of new agencies. When you see top contributors who seem to have their portfolio on every agency you come across, this is the reason why. By negotiating a high royalty rate, they ensure they’re not losing out from sales at other agencies.
2. Prepaid Royalties – not all new agencies survive for very long. When they close down, contributors lose out as they’ve invested time and sometimes money to submit their images. But top contributors ensure they don’t miss out by demanding the agency pre-pay a set amount of royalties. If the agency fails, the contributor keeps the money. This is relatively low risk for the agency, but they must be well funded to make it work, and are likely extremely selective about which contributors get this request.
3. Search Result Boost – not many microstock agencies let business get in the way of their relevance search result orders. It’s one of the most powerful tools of a microstock agency – and one of the biggest challenges – but it’s usually considered too important to artificially manipulate too heavily. New and smaller microstock agencies, like traditional stock photo agencies, will occasionally negotiate a boost to a contributor’s search result positions in order to convince them to contribute.
4. Exposure – when you see new contributors promoted on a new or small microstock agency it’s not always just because the agency is proud. Some contributors negotiate for blog exposure, featured contributor status, or even inclusion in a press release.

Know Your Place

Stock photographers notoriously over-estimate the value of their own portfolios. Chances are you’re no exception. Starting a negotiation with “I think my portfolio is worth¦.” will inevitably result in a disappointing response. The solution is to use external measures that are publicly visible or can be easily demonstrated or verified:

1. Check your ranking levels at the top agencies. iStockphoto and Fotolia have contributor ranking levels that are publicly visible. The higher you are, the more negotiating power you have.
2. See where you fit on the iStockcharts rankings. This provides a simple numerical score of where you fit in the iStockphoto contributor base. Your rank may be disproportionately low if you’re new to iStockphoto or have a small portfolio, but expect the agencies you want to negotiate with will check out your rank anyway.
3. Check your rankings on the MicrostockGroup rankings lists. Not everyone participates in these rankings, but it’s another data point that adds to the overall picture.
4. Compare your portfolio size to the top contributors. Dreamstime lists the largest contributor portfolios on their Community & Stats page.

It’s not a numerical measure, but you can also compare the quality of your portfolio to that of the top contributors. View their portfolios sorted by downloads to get an idea of what makes a high selling stock photo. In this context, suitability for stock is a prime measurement, so pay attention to the subjects and style as well.   This will be what makes the bosses of new microstock agencies bend to your demands.

With a little background research and a solid understanding of your position in the market, you can make new microstock agencies work hard for you instead of the other way around. Imagine seeing those solicitation emails as an opportunity for lucrative distribution expansion rather than the dread of yet another new microstock agency.