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.
) now owns iStockphoto, and we all know that Getty is one of the biggest names in stock photography.
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.
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.
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