Royalty Free or Licenced? Any Recommendations?

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Just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on whether I should market stock images as royalty free, or rights managed? I've managed to get some images passed Alamy QC - something that I did more to improve my skills. However, now that they are there, I want to market them as effectively as possible and am completely lost on which 'licence' to choose.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

From what I understand, the customer would pay more for RF, but it could then be used multiple times on multiple projects etc etc. Basic rights managed is what was being discussed in another thread earlier today where the customer pays a rate based on useage, print run, etc.

Does royalty free put people off because it's more expensive? Is royalty free more expensive even? Is royalty free best because people are more likely to buy knowing they can use the image as and when?

Any guidance on this muchly appreciated.

Lee
 
That's the page I have been looking at, and don't know what is the best option - rights managed, or royalty free. Sorry, I used the word licenced just because alamy mark the images with either an 'L' or 'RF'. Have changed wording of original post.
 
Ok, just found a linky here which gives some more info, but would be keen to hear anyone's personal thoughts on which option is best?

From what I can see, it's pretty much even stevens.
 
Basically Rights Managed (rights Protected) means you need to sell it at a good price and know exactly what the buyer intends to use it for and you only sell it once,Rights Managed (Licenced) means you can sell it multiple times and know what it is going to be used for. Royalty Free means it can be sold numerous times with less restrictions and you do not know what it is going to be used for.

Alamy have started doing microstock so it could be sold very small and for low prices, they do not call it microstock but something else and you have a few more days to opt out and then you cannot opt out until next April if I remember correctly.
 
Kerioak said:
Alamy have started doing microstock so it could be sold very small and for low prices, they do not call it microstock but something else and you have a few more days to opt out and then you cannot opt out until next April if I remember correctly.
Click to expand...

By microstock, is this the RF option of buying an image at quite a small size? At the moment, the smallest size is about £60 RF.

I understand the principals of the various licence options. What I dont have is the experience to know which licence is best and how you decide which one to pick.

To be honest, any images I get onto alamy are going to be fairly 'uninteresting' and nothing new. I am merely learning and putting them on as it's better they stand a chance to make some money, than none sat on my HD. Having said that, I'm not going to give them away FOC or for sweet FA. So if RF means they'll be available to buy for 20p, then I don't want to go down that route.

Lee
 
The Alamy information is probably more relevant than Acclaims unless you are uploading to both - in which case you need to be careful as Rights Managed (Rights Protected) should be exclusive.

This is also something else to think about - Royalty Free does not need to be exclusive to one site (unless that is in the agreement somewhere) so the image can earn you income from more than one source.
 
Yeah, I found that Novel Use bit... thanks.

Can I take it from your response that you'd personally recommend royalty free? And you'd recommend submitting to a number of stock sites including microstock ones?

I was going to steer clear of microstock given the reputation and the fact that it appears you need to really be playing a numbers game to get anywhere near worthwhile returns.
 
The way I look at it is this, RF will sell 3 x L or RM. So you're really good work you've put time into set as L, you're work that you shoot while doing something else or just for fun - but that has a commercial value - let it go RF - that's what I do.
 
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