I hear this a lot from those looking into microstock to earn a full time living.  Questions like this come up frequently on microstock forums.  How many images will I need?  What can I make hourly?  Is building up a sizable microstock portfolio even worth the effort?

Now this article is not an article just to try and discourage people from giving it a shot, or attempting to discourage breeding my own new competition.  There are bazillion other blogs online where you can learn “How to make a living selling stock photography” and obviously there are already hundreds of thousands of contributors worldwide.  No one stock photographer or illustrator is alike, considering that everyone has their own style, their own work ethic, their own methods – to each his own.  Who am I to give my opinion?  I’m nobody special, just your average creatively minded computer geek.  I have been making a full time living for 2 solid years now.   My 2 years full time was built upon 2.5 prior years selling stock part time (approx 5-10 hrs a week) while working full time at a graphic design dayjob; the field I actually have my BA in.  So I’ve been in this stock business a solid 4.5 years… that’s not a very long time, but then again this biz is still very young.  4.5 years isn’t much less time than some of the top selling microstockers, either (ie: Yuri Arcurs and Andres Rodriguez to name a few of the top dogs).  In this short period of time, I’ve first handedly learned and experienced more in this business than I can even put into words in a Tuesday morning blog post.  With just a little over 5000 stock images, I still just consider myself a small fish in a big pond.

Here is my take on getting started in the business – straight up, no chaser.

If you’re just starting out right now… in 2010, I honestly think you’re going to need a prayer to initiate your momentum and to start earning enough images to make a living. I started back in late 05, early 06 – I was paying my mortgage by mid 07 and then went all out full time with the loss of my full time dayjob in mid 2008. If I waited until now, and transitioned from part time in stock to full time, I don’t think that I would make it. Things were much different back then, too.  It was much less difficult to get images approved (if you can’t get past that hurdle, you aren’t going to be able to sell them obviously) and it was much easier to get lots of downloads on simple subjects. It seems like every few years in stock it’s more of an uphill battle. In 06 you could submit a pile of crap, and still sell it like hotcakes. Technically imperfect photos, even. Now you’d better have your skills sharp and be able to hang with the rest of your competition just to get sales.

If you consider yourself an amateur and just want to make $100 a month just uploading a couple of new images each week, sure that’s definitely possible. If you’re looking to make $1000+ a month on a newer portfolio, you’re going to need to have a long road ahead of you, unless your work fills some sort of crazy un-touched niche with high commercial demand. Can you live off $1000 a month? Maybe if you live in India or Asia.  I wish I could.  In the US that won’t even pay the average mortgage or rent for the month.

Saying you want to sell stock is one thing – doing it and actually continually maintaining momentum in it is another. Putting up with the submission process, keywording, uploading (all the tedious parts) is another thing that stops 99% of people in their tracks. They realize all of the work in it, and are either too lazy or just get discouraged from lack of sales.  When it comes to stock – you either “get it”, or you just don’t. Some grasp at straws taking pics of churches, shooting fruit over white or zoo animals all day, while others create useful, commercial imagery. This is going to be the largest hurdle for most contributors, used to producing nice prints for their living room walls.

So here is what you need to make it:

- Self motivation (Are you a motivated self-starter? Can you stay on task without getting distracted while working alone from home? If not you might as well not even bother with microstock)
– Creativity… enough to choke a cow
– Business sense!  At least as much if not more than creativity
– Quality gear to accomplish whatever it is you’re shooting the most, I’d say an initial investment of $2000-4000 at minimum to cover most of your bases – computers/cameras/lenses/studio gear (don’t even waste your time with consumer point and shoots, unless you like getting over 50% of your images rejected for technical quality)
– Technical skills both in camera and off (Photoshop knowledge can make or break you in this business. If you’re lacking, you’d better hit the books or don’t bother uploading at all)
– Tons of regular uploads.  Take whatever you think is a lot to produce each week, and add 50 to that number.
– Good keywording skills (something that takes a lot of time to develop, for most)
– Ability to set and reach hourly / daily / monthly / yearly goals
– Lots of quality and variety
– Quantity quantity quantity in addition to high quality (a portfolio of 3000 images is the “new” 1000 – but 3000 crap images has the sales potential as a portfolio of 300 excellent ones)
– Patience, persistence, and a backup income before you get the stock ball rolling

Us full time microstockers are in the minority – I’d estimate there are probably under 500 in the world. Who knows?  I wish I knew the actual figures, but that would be a tricky statistic to pin down.  I’m not talking RM/ traditional stock sellers, but those that are strictly making their income with microstock, exclusively, whether they are working for one agency and an exclusive artist or they are using multiple agencies to sell their work.  We are a rare breed, and a lot of us are probably crazy for even attempting this feat   One thing you can’t expect from this business is to get rich off of it.  Gone are the days of making money from the snapshots laying around on your hard drive (heck, I myself even claimed that back in 2006 – because that was truly the case back then – but not anymore).   If you’re the type of individual that wants to earn a higher than average income, then you’re definitely barking up the wrong tree here.  It’s taken the seasoned pros years just to develop a portfolio strong enough, large enough, and good enough to consistently earn them a steady monthly income.  Don’t expect for this to be a quickly profitable start-up business without any sacrifice or years of “paying your dues”.

If you’re going to attempt this, you need to treat it like a start-up business.  40-60 hrs a week, working diligently and taking a stab at it.  After a few months you should then evaluate your time & cost vs earnings ration.  Time is money, so if you are seeing a decent return for all of your hard work right off the bat, then there is your answer whether or not you might be able to make it as a full time microstock contributor.  Otherwise, you might conclude that stock is a rainy day side hobby to dabble in whenever you’re bored or needing some extra cash for new gear or to take your wife out to dinner.  If you haven’t noticed, I don’t blog super regularly.  My blogging is highly intermittent.  I’m sorry, that’s just pretty much due to the fact that I’m too busy working, as a one-man operation.  I limit myself to a 40 hour work week, because money isn’t everything to me.  I work to live; I don’t live to work.  When you work for yourself you have to limit yourself; unless of course you want to be a burnt out workaholic that doesn’t have a happy family, spiritual, or any type of other life. I digress.

Do you already consider yourself a pro photographer, because you’re making a living in the wedding or portrait business?  Sorry to burst your bubble, but micro is an entirely different animal.  Please try not to go into it thinking you’re going to be all set and that it’s going to be a piece of cake for you, just because you’ve been a seasoned pro photog for years and years.  I’ve heard many stories of this happening.  You’re still going to have just as much learning curve as the amateurs will, just as any of us did back when we started.  The harsh reality of the nazi-ish microstock quality standards are enough to turn even the best of photographers away from this business.

Timing is everything, so I can understand why there are so many blog posts online explaining how the ship as sailed to be able to have a full time microstock living.  I respectfully disagree with that for those microstock contributors who already have their foot in the door with a large collection of images, established and already selling.  Given the continual move of buyers away from RM and more to budget RF images, as well as the continual movement towards digital media of all types in our daily lives.  If you are currently sell microstock part or full time, and are making a decent living, consider yourself a rare breed.  I wish everyone success in whatever creative field you’re involved in, and hope that my honest evaluation of the business in this article has helped those considering microstock as a career choice.  I’m tired of all of the nay-sayers and doom and gloom discussed about this business.  Remember too that there are a thousand ways to make a living in any creative field; it just depends what you want to set your mind to, and focus on in your own business.  If the microstock market tanks and us full time contributors can’t continue getting by, being forced to explore other avenues of income, then it is what it is.  Only time will tell.  In the meantime, happy selling!

What Should I Shoot? That right there is the million dollar question.  Even seasoned stock contributors find themselves asking this at times.  The world of stock is a mindset, and even once you’re in it, it’s easy to get to the point where you wonder, “Okay, what should I try and shoot now”?  If you really struggle with coming up with ideas on what to shoot, then you need to start opening your eyes to the world around you.  I don’t care where you are, what you’re looking at right now – inspiration can be smack dab in the front of your fat head.  Sometimes it’s there and we don’t even realize it.  Open your eyes, and don’t just see, but try to truly observe.  Reflecting on the who what, when, where, why, and how of everything around you is an easy way to come up with stock concepts.  Try to write things down when you think of them.  This applies in the graphic design world, as well.  Rip out that cool magazine ad you saw in the latest issue of your wife’s Elle magazine (I wasn’t looking at it, I swear…I was just sitting next to her on the couch at the time).  Save that piece of junk mail with the interesting modeling pose.  I tend to note things a lot, but I forget to follow through.  Make a little notebook or scrapbook of the things you’d like to try, the things that look are cool, and the things you think would appeal to a buyer, especially.

Getting Organized One of the toughest parts about stock photography is all the organization that goes into planning and properly executing a shoot of any given topic.  It’s a lot of work and effort.  Sure, there are times you might wing it and come up with a nice variety of different themes, but if I find that if I’m always trying to “wing it” my time isn’t used the most effectively.  If you’re going to be shooting models, you need to orchestrate the entire shoot with them.  Then, you need to decide on a location, wardrobe (what to tell them to wear) props, ideas and themes to try.  You want to make the shoot effective for the short amount of time you’ll be working together, for me it’s usually 1-2 hours tops.  Making sure you have your model release ready for them to sign, and not forgetting to have them actually sign them is even a chore.  Then there is the scanning and uploading of the releases to each and every agency you’re submitting those images to.

Shooting Subjects That Can’t Talk Back If you want to shoot food there is the purchasing of the ingredients, the prep and cooking time, the presentation of it all on the plate and table setting.  Food could sometimes be easier to work with than models, depending on the model.  Sometimes models can decide to cancel last minute, then what do you do with your time slot?  It’s very similar to any other business where you have to make appointments for your clientele, such as dentistry or a beauty salon.  There also is no “extra work” later on when shooting subjects other than people.  You don’t even have to edit the entire shoot unless you want to, and there is no mailing of a disk required.  You save on your time and money shipping a disk out to them.  Maybe you’re not interested in food. Well, maybe you could shoot other objects over white. Please don’t bother with apples, unless it’s done in a truly creative way.  Stock sites’ reviewers have seen enough of those and they’re be extra eager to slap that “reject” button as quick and hard as they possibly can.

Motivation This is the part where you come in. If you can’t get yourself motivated, nothing creative is ever going to happen.  Working from home, and being your own boss, can especially be challenging.  Maybe there isn’t a boss looking over your shoulder, and asking you whether or not you’re going to make the deadline.  You need to make your own deadlines for yourself.  Without having weekly, daily, even hourly goals, your time is going to be wasted.  I’m living it right now – some days I spend way too much time doing social networking on twitter or facebook.  Other days I spend too much time editing older, similar images that probably should have just been backed up and tucked away.  If you are having a rough time staying on task, don’t think you’re the only one.  Stay tuned, as one of my future posts here will address this topic.  There are things you can do to minimize distractions, and stick to your workflow.  Speaking of which, I think it’s time for me to stop blogging and start keywording my images!

In 2008, a new microstock agency popped up that caught a lot of our attention.  The site’s design was so simple, yet visually pleasing and easy to navigate.  Even the back end for contributors was designed for speed and ease of use.  I’ve been personally selling my images from them from the start, and recently I had an opportunity to interview the team.  I’m sure many will be interested in getting some insight from Yay Micro coming directly from it’s founders and employees.

To give some background information about Yay Micro, they are located in Oslo, Norway.  The company was founded by Jan Ole Kjellesvig, Linda Johannessen and Roger Bystrøm, all former employees at Scandinavia’s largest image agency Scanpix. In January 2009 Oddbjørn Sjøgren replaced Bystrøm as CTO. YAY Micro aims to be the best creative and editorial microstock agency in terms of low price, high quality, a good reputation and a high customer and contributor satisfaction rate. Yay Micro’s vision is to be a leading digital content provider.

Todd: Hey guys!  To start things off, besides Jan, Linda and Bjorn, how many others make up the Yay Micro team?

Yay Micro: The core team in Norway is Jan, Bjørn and myself, Linda. In addition, we have a Chinese office run by Martin and Tormod. People from the China Office are responsible for most of our routine tasks, while the Norwegian office mainly focuses on strategy, sales & marketing as well as system development. When needed we have additional people working for us in Norway, as well as China.

Todd: I’d like to say that Yay is definitely one of the easiest sites to navigate as both a buyer, and a seller.  Was this your original plan, and what did you learn from your experiences in the business prior to opening Yay?

Yay Micro: We get a lot of positive feedback on our design/usability! When we began we knew we had to make the upload process easy for photographers to give us a chance. We got great feedback from the first photographers, and based on this we adjusted the upload process to best suit photographer needs.  The same is true for customers – when we get customer feedback on difficulties we try to adjust our site. In addition, we have a strong interest in usability and clean design. The goal for YAY is that our website is easy to use –for newbees to online shopping, but also for the hyperactive web-user with low, or no, patience. By tracking all movement on the site we’re able to identify problems, and we have several major improvements planned for the next couple of months. (Both for customers and photographers).

Todd: Where do you think you see the stock photography business heading in general, in the next 5-10 years?

Yay Micro: We’re still in the middle of the industry settling into the paradigm shift of the digital era – with the Internet, more affordable, high quality digital cameras and user generated content, growth of RF-licensing and the lack of national boundaries for image agencies.

We can all agree that the largest change for the stock photography industry lately has been the growth of Microstock agencies. And, in the financial climate we have today, with focus on cutting cost in almost all industries, we believe Microstock will continue to grow and dominate the stock photo industry. We also see a future were news and celebrity images, together with microstock, will be the core business for the large stock companies, such as Getty.

For microstock companies I think we’ll see more of footage and audio, as well as other digital content. Some agencies will try to take the place of the traditional stock – as we already see – by making parts of their images more exclusive and sell for a higher price, or they’ll aim for a “midstock” price level. Others will keep true to the original microstock business model with extremely low prices for high quality images.  Nonetheless, there will always be a market for original, quality photos – and these will still manage to get a high price.

Todd: Do you think this low-price model will last, or will the general increase in photo quality and artistry lead to an uprising of the value of the images?

Yay Micro: As mentioned in the previous question, we think some of the microstock agencies will find their place in the low-price range, and others will try to raise their prices, with exclusive or “editors choice”-collections, and also by changing the size/price equation. We don’t expect the increase in technical quality to raise the prices; mostly the customers value the images in numbers (1 image) and the object/content of the photo.  Wasn’t it Yuri who experienced that an upgrade of his photo equipment did not increase his revenue proportionally?

At YAY we don’t have any plans for increased prices.

Todd: With so many microstocks in the industry, a lot of us are pulling for Yay Micro to succeed.  How do you think that Yay will be able to hang with the big boys, so to speak?

Yay Micro: Thank you, we really appreciate all the support we get from both contributors and customers!

We have been a slow, but steady growing company. Too slow some might think, but I like to think of it as the fable “The Tortoise and the Hare”.  We are building a quality company from scratch, and by working long and hard we’ll catch up, and pass, most of our competition.

We try to be an easy to use-site, with a high level of customer support and friendliness. We aim to reach customers looking for an “easy to use”-site, as we see our competitors making it more and more “crowded” at their sites. In addition, we plan to locally adapt the YAY-site to different under-served markets around the world. First of is China, and more will follow in 2010.

It’s important to remember that the stock image market is growing, both from new image users, with converted users from traditional stock agencies and new image markets.  Therefore we don’t have to solely rely on competing for the same customers.

Todd: Why should someone buy from Yay, over another major microstock site that they might already be comfortable with?  What makes Yay Micro stand out from the rest?

Yay Micro: We’re easier to use – and you’ll quickly get comfortable using the site. We have a low price, both for small images €1( = $1.5) and high-res files €10 (= $15.). With our subscription deals you can get a high-res images for as low as €1 (=$1.5).

You’ll also experience a high level of customer support and feedback on your inquiries. And – we pay a fair commission to our photographers and illustrators, with 50% on single image sales and €1 for each image subscription download.

Todd: Are there any current buying trends that perhaps have surprised you?

Yay Micro: Not any in particular. We don’t sell as many vector graphics as we’d thought we would. Given the great quality and variety we’re a bit surprised by this.

Todd: Is the YAY Micro team working on targeting selective world markets at the moment, for example just North America or Europe and Asia?  Or are you trying to expand sales worldwide?

Yay Micro: We began with mainly targeting Norway to gain some experience in a familiar market and with familiar customers. Then we began targeting “the world” in general. In the future we plan to target China, followed by other Asian countries such as India.

Todd: Microstock contributors whether hobbyists or even full-timers are extremely busy people.  The average microstocker probably submits to at least 5-10 different agencies, so their workload is already pretty full.  What would you say to convince a microstock contributor to market their work through Yay?

Yay Micro: The main reasons to join YAY would be the easy of upload, the high commission – and being with a growing company from the start. We also have a forum with some nice photographers, and we try to be an overall good, friendly company. When your business model is based on user generated content it’s important to want, and to have a good relationship with your users. We might not be the biggest or the highest earner, but we’ll do our very best to be a great company to do business with!

Todd: Who is currently the top selling contributor at Yay Micro?

Yay Micro: I don’t have the numbers here with me, but I would guess it would be one of the professional contributors with many files and who has been with us from the start.

Todd: I’d like to thank you for agreeing to do an interview.  I wish Yay Micro all the best and lots of future growth for years to come.

Yay Micro: Thank you for showing an interest in YAY.  If anyone reading this has  a comment or a question, feel free to contact us at post@yaymicro.com, or e-mail one of us directly on: Linda@yaymicro.com, Bjorn@yaymicro.com and Jan@yaymicro.com. If there are any questions in the comments we’ll try our best to answer!

Follow YAY Micro on twitter @Yaymicro or become a fan on facebook

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I don’t have many images that I say, “Hey, I want to print that really big and frame it – slap it on my living room wall.”  I was talking to a close friend this weekend, and said to me plainly, “That’s because you see dollar signs every time you shoot.  You’re looking too much for stock, and missing out on the rest of the world.”  You know what?  He’s right.  I need to start taking time to shoot my own personal artsy/fartsy stuff in addition to my normal backgrounds/textures/model shoots.  My friend Tim can spot things that are dying to be captured.  I give him a lot of credit, he just shoots strangers in the streets and takes their dirty or confused looks, if they even give him any.  Maybe once I can get over that fear, I can start to capture some cool street-photography style stuff that I would normally pass by. Sometimes I also reason to myself, “No, I won’t take that shot – I don’t have a model release for that person, so I can’t sell it as stock anyway.”  That’s probably my main problem. 

Check out more of Tim’s work here – http://www.pbase.com/tsla1124 He is an amazing photographer with a strength in travel, editorial, and lifestyle images. Tim is a busy guy – he has a lot of great images that would even sell great as stock – but no time to sell stock.  If you’re interested in purchasing licenses for any of his images for use in stock or prints, by all means tsla1124 AT gmail.com

He has photography from Italy, Greece, Panama, San Blas Islands, Mexico, Bost, New York City, and more. 

All images Copyright © Tim Sala 2009

All images Copyright © Tim Sala 2009

All images Copyright © Tim Sala 2009

All images Copyright © Tim Sala 2009

All images Copyright © Tim Sala 2009

All images Copyright © Tim Sala 2009

All images Copyright © Tim Sala 2009

I just feel like ranting this fine morning.

Has microstock devalued the industry? Sure it has. What once was a $500 photo sale has now turned into a $5 or even 50 cent photo sale.  But in general, the internet as well as digital photography have devalued the industry.  There are even websites being set up where people are posting links to our images, to download for free. One idiot buys them, and then shares them with the rest of the dishonest people that actually take part in the plundering and looting.  There’s really no stopping it, either.  There are contributors that can live comfortably off of a microstock income in many countries around the world.  Do you think these ones give a crap about devaluing the stock industry? Definitely not; they’re probably making a better living than they ever could before.

Traditional and old school photographers can sit around and whine about how much it sucks, or they can adapt to market trends.  Or, stay out of stock altogether.  Sure there’s still a market for macro stock, mid-stock, and rights managed. I personally dabble in a little of each.  Yes it’s nice when I make a photo sale for $400, but honestly if I relied just on those types of sales I wouldn’t be making enough to pay the bills.  Those sales for myself are few and far in between, compared to microstock sales, which are steady and in general, pretty reliable. Overall, the numbers for the rights managed and macro stocks are on the decline.  Getty was smart to acquire istockphoto (and they even recently bought stockxpert from Jupiter) so obviously they are trying to gain back their market share whatever ways possible.

Stock is only just one tiny corner of this incredible industry.  I started as a graphic designer, and even in that field it’s the same way.  You can focus on all sorts of corners of the creative industry…just pick one you enjoy doing the most, and obviously one you can pay the bills with.  If you can juggle a variety of things without trying to heat 6 pans on 4 burners, then go for it.  There are a lot of ways to make money in this business.  We can’t change how the market is, but we can fortunately pick and choose which areas we want to try and compete in.

It never ceases to amaze me…lately whenever I’m traveling every soccer mom, teenager, and senior citizen is rocking a DSLR of some sort.  If not a DSLR, then a state of the art point and shoot.  The technology is here, and it’s getting cheaper.  It’s so available, there is going to be a lot of competition in the future.  Thankfully for us there is a heck of a lot more to know in this business than just buying a camera and pressing the shutter.  BUT then comes the internet and google…where you can learn anything you want in a matter of minutes.  Maybe we’re all screwed

How long do you personally feel this microstock wave will last? A lot changes have happened in this business.  Agencies have come and gone, and there have been some buyouts and mergers.  I’ve been selling microstock for just 4 years now, and there have been changes galore.  The question is…how long will this microstock wave last? Will it continue the way it is for years to come, or will it eventually get to the point where it’s not even worth the time?  What do you guys think?  If anyone is reading this – I’d love to hear your predictions.

So, you wonder if you can make any money selling your images online.  I wondered the same thing, back when I was a full time graphic designer.  I was purchasing hundreds of stock photos for use in my designs. Then I thought, “Hey – why can’t I sell my own photos?”. Professional stock photo collections can cost anywhere from $200-$500 per disc, with single shots costing anywhere from $80-$200 themselves. It’s thrilling to find places online where you can purchase high-res, professional quality images at a fraction of that price. Recently there has been a boom in the micropayment stock photography business. The concept for photographers is this: instead of selling one image at $200-$300 once, why not sell it for $1-20 multiple times under a royalty free license? In the long-run, the profit margin can even be much larger than simply selling it at a larger, fixed price.  Are you looking to supplement your income with your hobby of shooting photography, video footage or illustration?  Then by all means, read on.

How much can you really make?

As much as you want…it depends on many factors.  How much time do you have?  How much commercial value do your images have?  Are you shooting unique niche images or mainsteam type images that are easily duplicated by the next microstock contributor?  Can you really make any money off of selling images for fifty cents each? Well, if you make just ten dollars a day (ie: by selling 20 images on one site or multiple sites at .50 per photo sale) you will be raking in an extra $300 a month. That should cover a few of those bills, maybe even all of your car payment! This is not an impossible feat, either.  The best part about it is, once you do the initial work of editing your images, keywording them, and uploading – you’re done.  At that point you can sit on your butt and let your images work for you.  There are all times that we get too busy...I have gone several months without being able uploading anything new.  What happened?  The sales kept on rolling in.  All of the past work I had done continues to pay off.  I know many that are even able to do this full time and the income they make from it pays all of their bills (they don’t all live in third world countries, either.)  There are even a lot of people that are making 4, 5, even 6 figures from stock photography monthly.  That’s right, I said monthly.  The sky is the limit.  Recently I have joined the ranks of “full timers” because I am personally tired for working stressful graphic design positions in the corporate world.  I’d much rather do my own thing, and be able to work from my home office in my boxer shorts.  Having more time to invest into stock is helping my sales tremendously. Don’t be fooled – things will cool down if you stop submitting new content (images, stock footage, vectors) regularly.  Don’t think that it’s easy to make a lot of money selling stock images, because it’s really not.  There are a lot more that make very little money than those that make a lot. 

“But wait…” you think to yourself; “I have a decent digital camera. Why can’t I sell some of my nice shots? “  Sure enough, people probably will buy them – they bought mine, back when I reasoned this same way. Whether it was a picture of my feet at the beach, a shot of a tricked-out sports car or even a background I created in Adobe Photoshop; people bought them. I didn’t start as a highly experienced professional photographer and you don’t have to either, in order to make money doing this. It helps to have some novice or amateur experience with a camera, and if you know your Photoshop you are going to be even more advantaged.  Upload to the microstock agencies when you get slow, and then you’ll be making extra money while you’re busy.  Graphic designers – both seasoned pros and students in training: you have an advantage.  Being a designer helps you know what types of images and artwork us wacky design gurus are looking for, and find most useful.  If you have both graphic design and photography experience, that gives you an even bigger advantage. I have been working in this industry for over four years, and I’d like to share with you my experience.

How does it work?

First, you obviously need to sign up for an account at one of the sites listed below. After that, you should make sure the images you are planning on uploading are of good enough quality to get accepted by the approvers on the site. After a while, you will get the hang of knowing what they will approve, and what they won’t. Your pics should need to be shot from at least a 4 megapixel camera (although some sites allow as low as 3) and should be corrected for proper color. If you are scanning in old film negatives, make sure you do so at a high enough resolution.  If there is noise in the image, you are going to have to remove it.  The best way to do this, is to shoot at a low ISO setting.  Most stock photographers rarely go above ISO 200.  A nice little photoshop add-on that works great for removing noise is NeatImage. There is another call Noise Ninja.  They both work great in cleaning up the graininess you might have in certain areas. Once you make sure everything is in tip-top shape with your image, you next need to upload it to the microstock website. Once it’s up there, you need to add keywords, so that designers can find your image through a normal search. You also have to give it a name, brief description, and a title. If the image has a recognizable person in it, you will also need to attach a scan of a signed model release.  Each agency has different image categories. After choosing the best categories for your image, your image is ready to be pushed into the site’s “approval cue”. Once accepted or denied, you receive a confirmation email. That’s it. Now you sit back, relax, and wait for the sales to come in.

What if you had your same small collection of images spread across many different stock photo websites? I thought this to myself, and decided to try it for ha-ha’s. Sure enough, my sales multiplied. Start off with one site at first. Once you get the hang of it, you can upload your titled / keyworded images to the other sites easily, then simply categorize and submit.

TIP: The trick is to keyword your images with an IPTC / EXIF editor either in Adobe Photoshop, or just download the free program called IrfanView www.irfanview.com Doing this saves you a lot of time, since you won’t have to keep typing in lists of words with every website you submit to.  It’s also way easier than copying and pasting things repeatedly. Also remember that when keywording, try using as many relevant words as you can. That will get you the most views/sales on your image. 

How do you get paid?

They can either send you a paypal transfer, or even a check. I prefer paypal, because it’s quick and easy.  Many sites also offer Moneybookers, which is similar to paypal.  Upon receiving electronic payments, simply transfer the funds from there over to your bank/checking account, and you are ready to spend that hard earned cash on groceries, the rent, even high-priced gasoline for your car.  Once you hit the site’s minimum payout limit (usually from $30-$100), then you can get a payment sent.

Which stock photo sites will earn the most money?
Trying to see which site sells more images than the next is tricky.  There are a lot of elements involved, and it seems like sales figures fluctuate from month to month amongst the micro sites.  Factors like portfolio size, photo types, site search engines, and even categorization all play a part.  All I can do is give you my best sites – the ones that I personally think are worth my time to upload to. Below are the links to my top-selling sites – sign up, and try them out. Then you can make your own conclusions.

What types of images sell the best?
This is definitely a fully loaded question.  Anyone starting out in stock asks this – it’s only normal.  I can personally tell you that what sells sometimes even still (after 4 years doing this) blows my mind.  Many times what you think is incredibly awesome and will sell like hotcakes sells the least.  Other times you are right on your judgement.  You really have to ask yourself the “who what where why when and how” about each photos.  Who could possibly find a use for this image?  Where could it be used?  Why would someone want to use it?  How could it be used?  You’d be surprised.  Look on the micros and check out the top selling images, if you absolutely have no clue what subjects to sell.  Generally…sports, medical, business/finance, people, and graphics shots are some of the top selling image subjects.  They always have been, and they probably always will be.

Shutterstock: My number one top seller. Shutterstock offers subscriptions to its users, so people on there are looking to grab their maximum limit of 25 images a day. If you have nice looking images, you’ll most definitely get tons of downloads. They have a very convenient ftp upload process as well, which saves a lot of time.  Shutterstock pays $.30-.38 per image, but that adds up so much faster than any of the other micropayment sites. Once you pass $75 in sales before the end of each month, you can qualify for a check or paypal payout. If you don’t surpass that, it rolls over to the next month.  I personally earn the most on this site.  Be careful, though – since they are a bit pickier when it comes to accepting images, be sure that your original 10 photos that you submit with your photographer’s applicaton are top-notch.  You might want to sign up for SS after you’ve uploaded at least 20-30 good pics to dreamstime, featurepics, and bigstockphoto (read about those sites below). If Shutterstock rejects your “BEST 10″ photo application, you’ll have to wait another month before you can re-apply.  Be careful, because that would be rough.  My suggestion is not to sign up them as your first micro site.  Sign up on the others, and then take the best 10 of your portfolios to upload for your Shutterstock application once you get the hang of this stock stuff.

iStockPhoto: This has a great earner for me, fairly consistently, with a minute fraction of the amount of images I have approved on the other sites.  These guys have been the leaders at the micropayment game for years now.  What I have found personally, is that the images that do get accepted-some sell like hotcakes – others not so hot.  I have an extremely small portfolio, and yet that is enough to beat many other sites’ earnings some months.  They are pretty tough on photos – at least mine.  It took me a few tries to get my application accepted, personally.  Bring your “A” game when you sign up.  The majority of my images are custom-photoshopped textures and backgrounds.  They seem to like real photos better.  I’m going to try to upload more of my stuff, as soon as I can find the time.  Don’t let the smaller image payout amounts fool you; they really do add up fast like with Shutterstock.  As much as I really think the upload process for iStock is more cumbersome, and a lot more work than uploading to the other micros – I still recommended doing it.  It’s definitely worth the extra effort.  Getty Images () now owns iStockphoto, and we all know that Getty is one of the biggest names in stock photography. 

BigStockPhoto: I’ve sold tons of images on this site. It’s a great site if you’re a first timer, since they are very lenient.  My personal approval rating (precentage of images accepted out of your total uploads) is the best on BigStock. This site is in my top 5 for sales. They have ftp upload as well.  You make $.50 or $1.00 per image on this site.  There are many other Extended licensing options that will make you even more than that.

Dreamstime: This site site ranks among my top 5 for sales. I get plenty of regular sales from DT. They now have ftp upload support – and ftp upload makes life a heck of a lot easier / much faster.  $.50 and up per image on this site, depending on the size of the photo purchased.

StockXpert: This site has been the latest breakout hit.  The good thing about StockXpert is that you can make sales ranging from .50-5.00 depending on the size of the photo that the user purchase.  I’d put this site in my top 5 for sure.  Whenever someone searches the free site StockXchange (www.sxc.hu) many times StockXpert search results show up near the bottom of the screen.  What a great way to market them.  Sign up for this one for sure.  They don’t even require you to categorize the photos, unless you want to.  They feature FTP bulk upload.

Fotolia: These guys have ftp upload as well.  Excellent income on this site.  Fotolia is in my top 5 best sellers.  Sales have been ever-increasing as fotolia continues with their own marketing.  On fotolia a low-res photo sale pays you $.33 up to larger sizes, which will get you over $1.00.   Once you achieve higher downloads, your status goes up -and your pay does also. The next level up gives you $.37 per credit sale. Recently rejection levels have been high, but sales have been growing also. I definitely would still recommend this site, as it is one of the “BIG 6″ for sales.

123 Royalty Free: Here the minimum payout is $50.  The sales come in fairly slow like BigStock, but very regular.  123RF is definitely worth uploading your portfolio to.  All you have to do, is upload your images that have the IPTC data/keywords embedded, and then wait for your review.  That’s it.  No categorizing, no more work.  You will generally make .22-.44 cents for each photo sold.  123RF is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Inmagine Corp LLC.

CanStockPhoto: This place has done pretty well for me also. They have a nice java applet that allows you to upload an entire folder full of images, or you can use their ftp feature.  The payouts on this site vary on whether a subscription member, or guest purchases the photo – and also on the size they buy.  It ranges from $.20 to over $1.00  Minimum payout is $50. Sales seem much better lately, way more enhanced license sale than there used to be.  This is due to a recent partnership / affiliation with the image search website Fotosearch.

Featurepics: I do sell images regularly here, and I get more per image the way I price them.  It’s worth submitting to, but in 2009 sales have definitely been on the decline, for myself at least.

Crestock: I really didn’t have much faith in Crestock at first.  I left a small batch of 50 or so images up on there, and surprisingly over a year or so they started increasing in sales every now and then.  So, I figured that I would upload the rest of my stuff.  Their upload process is simple and easy, and the sales have been picking up steadily as time goes on.  Definitely worth uploading to if you’re patient.  I’ve only hit a few payouts so far with them, but I hope to hit many more now that the minimum payout limit has been lowered to just $50.  Sales have been definitely picking up over here in recent months.  They reject A LOT of really good images, but that is just their philosophy.  Don’t get offended if they reject the majority of your images.  They probably reject the most out of any other micro.

PantherMedia: This is a German stock photo site that recently has been translated in English as well.   I just began to upload my photos to these guys several months ago, and already have had a handful of sales.  The earning here are a lot higher, as they are more of a midstock agency.  You get paid in Euros, which convert nicely into USD, seeing that the Euro is worth a lot more than the dollar.  Definitely jump through the extra hoops to try and sell your stuff here, if you can.  I’d say it’s definitely worth it. 

MostPhotos: This is a new site where there are NO REVIEWS!!  I am loving this – it’s a really fun community where you can comment on other images, rate them, chat with fellow photographers, and much more.  Try this one out.  You get paid in Euros, which convert nicely into USD, seeing that the Euro is worth a lot more than the dollar – and probably will be for a while.

Veer Marketplace: This stock photo agency sounds promising, as it’s owned by Corbis.  I’ve known the Veer name forever.  Every graphic design knows them – It’s recently been announced that Snapvillage is now going to be turning into Veer Marketplace, just in case you were wondering what happened to Snap.

Alamy: Not exactly a microstock site, but you can sell RF and RM as well as editorial images here.  You have the option to set your images as RF, RM, or RP.  I am opting to stick to the RF model, so that I can still sell my same images elsewhere on other agencies.  You have to upsize your images to 48M (not 48mb, for further info google upsizing for Alamy) which is just an extra step before uploading them.  You won’t get sales right away with this site, but once they come – they come in large amounts.  I sold my first image for exactly 1000 times more  money than I would normally make on a microstock site.  Not bad, eh?  

YAYmicro: This is a newer site that has been around since 2008.  They have a very easy FTP upload system.  I am enjoying the ease of the site a lot, and reviews are very fair.  Sale are slower than other microstock agencies, but they are definitely on the rise in recent months. Definitely give them a shot.

Fotomind: I’ve been with this place for a while now, and sales are very very slow.  A+ for ease of use so far.  Kind of hoped to see some more sales here, but it’s still a new site.  Might want to save this one for a rainy day, because honestly there’s not much action here.

ScanStockPhoto: I’ve recently signed  up with Scandanavian Stock Photo because I have heard of some sales when you have a larger sized portfolio.  If you’re just starting out, you might want to put this one on hold until you have a portfolio sized in the thousands.  Sales are there if you have a huge portfolio in the thousands, but they’re but very slow.

Cutcaster: This is a newer startup agency with a very unique concept.  The buyer can actually haggle with a seller over pricing. John Griffin, the founder of the site is very pro-active in the launch and marketing of the site, and I wish him the best.  He is a hard working guy, and has been busting his hump to market Cutcaster and drive up sales. So far I’ve sold a handful of images, and made my first payout.  The minimum here is just $20, unlike other newer sites which are set to $50-100.  Here you can price the images any way you want, just like on Featurepics.

TIP: FTP uploading makes life so much easier, since most images are over 1 megabyte, and if you’re on a broadband connection you can upload all of your keyworded images at once. Once they’re uploaded, you complete them by categorizing them and submitting. You can use a free program on your pc called FTP Surfer or if you’re on a mac with OSX you can download Fetch.

I’m not a member of all of the micropayment sites, but a good place to find more help and to find more sites is www.talkmicro.com It’s a nice place to have an “unbiased” discussion about all the micro stes.  Another great forum like this is www.microstockgroup.com

This microstock game can become very addicting, once your sales start coming in. It might be a little slow for you at first, but that will soon change if you put forth a lot of time and effort. Obviously you will get more sales with both higher quality and a higher quantity of images. I’ve spent a solid four years in this stock game to get to where I am now, and most of that was part time.   If you’re a graphic designer and want to stick only to “designing” check out those links above anyway. They all offer really great stock photos at ridiculously cheap prices. What I like about this  stock stuff is that I also get to keep and use all of the great stock photos that I create! You can never have too many images in your collection. Most importantly, have fun!  Stock isn’t for everyone.  Some people really hate keywording – they can’t be bothered because it can be tedious work.  You always have to put forth some kind of effort in order to make money.  Like I said, this is a job that takes work. Let me tell you – this is NO get rich quick scheme. . You’ll  really enjoy selling stock once the sales start rolling in.  There’s nothing more thrilling than your first image sale. If you want to make money doing this, you’re going to have to work your tail off.   You can work at it part time, and eventually be earning a really nice side income.  Everyone creates different types of art, and some of it is very marketable.  Some has high commercial value, while a lot does not.  It might look great, and you might want to make a print of it for your grandmother, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to make enough money to make a living.  How do you know how well you’ll do?  You have to try it for yourself.  Then make your own conclusions.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog at the upper right of this page.  I’m a man of many words! If you are interested in one-on-one consulting regarding your microstock efforts, contact me for further info. 

Question:

“Okay, so I am really trying to improve my stock photography because I have been uploading many images which some get accepted but very few sell because they aren’t really marketing type photos. I know you have had success with stock and was wondering if maybe we could collaborate on a stock shoot or something so I can get a better feel how you approach stock photography. I really want to be a full time photographer and having a good arsenal of stock photos helps keep the income stream going…”
-Anonymous

I feel your pain.  This is something a lot of people express when starting out.  Stock is a mindset, and it’s really tough for a lot of photographers to sometimes grasp.  I know what you’re saying – the glamor shots and general portraits that everyone loves at places like modelmayhem.com, don’t always sell that well for stock.  They’re still fun to shoot, but that is besides the point.  Try to think of themes; get ideas from magazine ads, tv commercials, any wherever else you can find inspiration.  Look around at other people’s work online for inspiration, but don’t copy.  It’s not hard to put your own spin on things.  That also, in turn, gives you an advantage by having images that are more unique, instead of the same old cookie cutter stuff.  People doing things, different expressions on their faces, you have to just think like a designer or image buyer.  Ask yourself, how would someone be able to use this?  Ask yourself, “will this image I’m shooting have sales potential?  Is this image going to tell a story?  Does the message come across clearly?  Is this the type of image that is generic enough where it can be used in a variety of ways, or is it more specific?”  It’s good to have a mixture of both types in your portfolio.  Will someone see this shot and want to buy it?  I’m not talking prints, I’m talking usefulness and commercial value.  Stock is stock, prints are prints  – two totally different worlds.

-Todd

If you’ve just read the Learn the Trade post and are thirsting for more juicy goodness on this stock game, here is something I threw together really quick for someone that just contacted me on another forum.

Is it Difficult to Get Started?

It’s not hard to get started, but it’s a lot to learn when it comes to quality. You basically have to stick to shooting at ISO 100/200 to avoid too much noise, and still have to noise filter all of your images most of the time with NeatImage or other noise filtering software.  If you’re fortunate enough to own a full frame sensor, you can sometimes get away with shooting ISO 800 and up.  Stock standards are way higher than print or wedding/event photography standards.  At this point in the game, it’s getting pretty competitive.  Shutterstock alone adds 10,000+ new images each week to their collection.  Even if 100 of those are yours, you’re doing pretty well if you’re selling any of those in that first week when it comes to the odds you’re up against.

What Kind of Camera Do I Really Need?
I’d recommend definitely using a DSLR at least 6-8mp despite what I’ve stated earlier about only needing a 3mp point and shoot.  Microstock is becoming highly competitive, and as point and shoots have come a long way, they are nothing in comparison to a DSLR with a larger sensor (I’m not talking megapixels, I’m talking the actual sensor size.)  The larger the sensor is, the better the quality of the image is going to be.  Don’t be fooled by the “15 megpixels is better than 10″ line of reasoning that the Best Buy sales kid is going to feed you.  IQ (image quality) all depends on the camera.

How Much Money Will You Make Right Off the Bat?

Some of the more successful photogs make about $1 per approved image per month on average.  Others make much less…it all depends on whether or not what you have is of any value to a designer or ad agency.  Shooting stock is an entirely different mindset than most of standard portrait or glamory stuff, if you know what I mean.  Don’t feel bad if you make peanuts your first month.  We all shoot differently, and all of us are on different skill levels.  Don’t try and compare yourself to others.

What About Shooting Models?
I don’t mess around with charging people for prints or shoot, as everything I do is just TFCD (Time for CD) shoots and the images pay for it in the long run. That’s the cool thing about stock.  You do the work and then you continue to make money off your past work.  It just builds and builds and then later on snowballs into a nice income.  Don’t forget that you need signed model release of all recognizable people in your images in order to legally sell them.  The agencies won’t even look twice at them without this.  Yuri Arcurs has an awesome blog site with some universal model releases that are accepted on every agency.

What Sells the Best?

You really never know what will sell – you just have to experiment.  There are all sorts of subjects, theme, styles that sell like crazy.  Just about anything and everything will eventually sell.  I have a shot of a chicken isolated over white that sells like crazy.  Just get ideas from other people, and then do your own thing – try searching some of the sites and sort by most popular.  Look at magazine ads, even TV commercials or the menus on your video games.  You can get ideas about what a buyer is looking for everywhere you look.  Media is all around us.  Don’t forget to try and research what hasn’t been over-done to death.  Find some nice niches that other contributors haven’t capitalized on yet.

Want to Thank Me?

People thank me a lot in emails and comments for all of the helpful information in a simple and easy to follow format.  I really appreciate that, and I’m glad to help.  I was once in your same shoes!  I don’t ask for donations, and I don’t sell ad space on this site.  I do believe in sharing helpful information like this with fellow artists, just as many have shared tips and tricks with myself.  If you want to show your appreciation for the time that went into this site, make sure you sign up to the micros through the links on the Learn the Trade page.  That way I might be able to make a few cents off of your referral when you sell an image (:

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A rant by Todd

As designers, we all know how difficult working with the public can sometimes be.  Many of us learned this first-hand as teenagers in our first job at the local grocery store, fast food joint, or gas station. But, hey guess what?  This is just a fact of life, and that same ‘can’t please everyone’ sort of situation carries on from our first jobs into our careers–especially as creative professionals.  Sure, there are times when the first proof you send over to your client gets a, “wow, that’s so cool!  I love it!” type of reaction.  But unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.

More often than ever, you get to work with small business owners that don’t know what they want.  It could be something as simple as a small, quarter page ad to run in a newspaper or magazine, or a larger identity project like a brochure or letterhead.  You email over the first PDF proof only to find that they give you a one sentence response.  “Okay…let’s try again.”

You send over a few more variations, trying to figure out what part of it was ‘okay’ and what part was ‘try again’,..but your client just isn’t able to articulate their specific desires. It seems like they don’t know what they want until they see something that they don’t want!

When I was new at this whole game, I figure d that the more versions I showed the client, the easier it would be to find out exactly what they were looking for.  Man, was I wrong.  I personally found out that the more variations you send along, the more confused they get and the more they want from you.  It’s like a “do-everything” administrative assistant in a company that does more and more and more, only to find that the expectations of their superiors have now been elevated.  Sometimes the more you do, the more people expect of you.  The customer figures that if you supplied them with 3-5 versions the first time around, it won’t be a problem to get even more nit-picky (and request another 3-5 revisions) in the next round.

“What the heck does this person looking far?” you wonder. You’ve gone through the images that your company has in its collections, or from the RF images you’ve personally collected.  These are the times when microstock sites are a godsend.  If you said to your boss, “Hey – I need to buy a physical therapy image for $80 for this client (who only paid $500 for their quarter page ad, including the design)”, your boss would go ape on you.  He’d similarly flip if you asked him to buy a collection of medical images that costs hundreds of dollars.

Thankfully, microstock sites allow us designers an easy way to grab low-res comp images in order to proof out ads with our customers.  Once they’re happy, then we log on and spend a couple of bucks for the high-res image. The customer usually has no idea where you purchased the image, or how much you paid for it.  And most of the time they aren’t large enough as a company to even care about anyone else using the same image.  You haven’t broken the bank, the customer is happy, and you’ve got an image you can use again in the future on another project.  Life is good!

Anyone that sells microstock photography is going to love this program. Try out the free demo they have here:

http://cushystock.com



This is a really easy program to learn, and it saves a lot of time.
Once you have your latest batches done, set it and forget it. Cushy
will upload your daily batches while you get on with your life. No
dragging files to multiple FTP site windows, and waiting for one to be
done to start the next.



If you haven’t already heard about it, Cushy Stock is a new application
designed specifically for photographers and illustrators to speed up
workflow and make submitting images to these agencies a breeze. It
allows you to upload to any site that has FTP upload, as well as the
others that are currently supported.



Let me know what you guys think – so far I’m very impressed with it!
Cushy Stock seems to be very active with program improvements and updates as well.