Approached by a German Wildlife Stock library

Hello all,

I've been approached by the following company:

http://www.okapia.com/agb.html

who want me to put some images into their stock. ANyone have any experiences with these guys or any advice for me before I'm tempted by the $$

Thanks in advance

Alex

Not much information for photographers on their website.

Took a quick look at their collection and noticed one "big name" in underwater photography listed with them, so it might be worth listing your images there, but only you can decide that question.

Some questions I would ask are:

Are they image exclusive?

What percentage of the sale do you get?

How often do you get paid?

Is there a minimum account balance needed to be reached before triggering a payment?

Do you have to sign a contract? How long and what terms?

How do you submit images? Mail or Internet?

Who chooses whether your images are marketed as Rights Managed, Royalty Free, or as Microstock.

Do you actually earn money or "points" when someone licenses your image?

These are just a few questions you might want to ask before deciding whether you would like to submit images for licensing.

Good Luck, hope it works out well for you.

Stock can be hit and miss. I have had some very good sales, and some derisory "why did I bother" values.

Things to watch for:-

Check the % share. Normal is 50%. Good is 50%. Bad, in my opinion, is anything below this

Look for terms like "Novel use" or "Microstock" - this means your work will be licensed for peanuts. Opt out is the recommendation.

Sub-agents & sub-licensing - Sounds great in practice, but in reality you get 50% of 50%

Check if the contract is exclusive or non-exclusive.

Check for payment thresholds. I had one agency sitting on a few hundred pounds for a long time as the numbers were below their minimum payment trigger...I may have lost a few quid (first time ever in 10 years...) when a stock library went into voluntary liquidation...not 100% certain how much as there may be something coming my way. Just glad its not £k

By all means PM me the contract and I will have a read, if you wish.

There is more to add on the workings of the stock image market, and how it does not always work in the photographer's interests. Given more time, I will post.

if I was a prospective customer, I would like to see some examples of the available images online, I'd like to do a search and get some quick results. This website doesn't provide that and so I would move on and look somewhere else immediately.

Something for the contributor to consider....