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| My experience with microstock sites (so far): istock, shutterstock, dreamstime and bigstock |
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| Wednesday, 11 January 2006 20:58 | ||||||||||||
I've had a few questions about how my microstock experiment is going, so here's a little summary. I started uploading images to a handful of microstock sites in February of 2005 as a test to see how it would go. These sites allow people to upload images which are then sold cheaply for royalty free use, with a certain percentage of the sale going to the photographer. There were two sides to the debate, in my mind: the first side that can’t believe how cheap these sites sell their images and can’t help but think that this business model is contributing to what might be called the “Wal-martization” of photography, and the second, which sees this as a model that is closer to an “Open source” model of photography, providing affordable images to a broader base of designers, bloggers, churches, nonprofits, etc. On reflection, I have to come down on the latter side. For one thing, images on these sites are generally being uploaded by people with the means to buy a digital camera and access to the internet—not children in third world sweatshops. (That said, I do think a few of these sites could raise their payment rates some). Also, providing low-cost, legal imagery will allow many people to use it who would otherwise use none, or use other copyrighted images that they found online (perhaps illegally). And for those who are worried about the future of photography as an occupation, you’ll always have the bigger companies and corporations who will pay top dollar for exclusivity or for images that are not sold on sites such as these. With the countless digital cameras that are out there, it was inevitable that a model like this would spring up. My goals (beyond seeing how these sites worked) were fairly modest: to pay off my digital camera. I am well beyond that mark at this point--now I plan to use the earnings as seed money for an eventual full-time freelance career. To the right are the five sites I have uploaded to with my total revenue to date on each site listed beside it and a few graphs of earnings. If you are thinking about uploading, take these numbers with a grain of salt, because each site has a slightly different audience and not all sites have the same number of pictures uploaded (for various reasons). If you want to try selling images, I recommend submitting the same batch to all sites for a few months to see how your images do on each one and where they fit in best. I also recommend editing the EXIF data in the files to add your keywords and description directly in the file. These sites can all read that information and input it automatically into the correct fields as you upload, saving a lot of time. (Keywords and description can be incredibly important in actually having your image come up when a designer is searching for imagery.) Once you have the keywords and description you just have to choose the categories it belongs to on each site as the final step after uploading. Many of the sites have batch upload capabilities as another way to save time. It’s also worth noting that two of these sites allow vector imagery to be uploaded: istockphoto and shutterstock. So if you don’t have a digital camera, you could still create vectors (sort of like clip art) to upload. Have fun and if you have any questions, feel free to post them. Related: | ||||||||||||
Comments
dusegard.se
It's faster than others and will soon be about 10 times faster again.
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Thanks, XXXXX, I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I asked the question because I am an outsider (someone who loves photography/digital imagery but is not a professional) and was wondering what you thought, from the inside. I realize my perspective is very limited and as a result, that the market could be changing dramatically without me even realizing it.In some ways, though, as camera costs go down and with the rise of digital, it seems microstock was/is inevitable, and I love aspects of it in the same way I love open source software (giving access to the little guy / non-profit / etc). My sanguine attitude is tempered by the knowledge that people who could afford to pay will also take advantage of this, and by the ridiculous percentage that these sites pay. Those running the sites are making big money and paying chump change to the photographers. If I could change one thing about the microstock sites, I would work some kind of a scale into the system which provides the imagery at the lowest possible rate to non-profits (or small run projects) and increases dramatically for for-profit (or very large run projects).Obviously not as you wouldn't have said it but could you expand more on the rules for this? Thanks.
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Click here
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i am getting regular sales from Fotolia, Luckyoliver, Stockxpert and 123RF. The last 3 are very easy to upload to. I wont put referal links onto your blog but feel free to check out my blog at:
http://microstockphoto.blogspot.com/
Interesting blog with some useful links. If anyone is interested I also have a blog http://www.nicemonkey.co.uk
Shutterstock has been the biggest moneymaker and as I begin to upload images again, I find myself most interested in uploading there for a number of reasons:
* They allow FTP uploads which read the EXIF data from the image file so uploading is relatively painless.
* They have the most formats and license options (Photos and Illustrations, Royalty Free and Editorial, Footage)
That said, I will probably keep uploading at iStockphoto and Dreamstime for the time being since they have also done quite well for me.
Personally, I work with 8 stock agencies:
ShutterStock
iStockPhoto
Dreamstime
Fotolia
123rf
BigStockPhoto
CanStockPhoto
LuckyOliver
and plan to add some more in the future. Why not, they all generate me cash! The formula is quite simple: for the same image, more agencies = more money.
Since I am too lazy to do all the uploading/statisitcs/keywording job for each agency I am working with, I developed ProStockMaster software, which do all the work for me: http://www.prostockmaster.com
There is a free version limited to 5 uploads daily, so you can install and work with the software as long as 5 uploads a day are fine for you.
ProStockMaster can upload a complete image folder to 8 stock agencies just in few button clicks, it features automated keywords generation (IPTC), EXIF data reading and more.
This summer ProStockMaster, supported by thousands of submitting photographers, celebrates its first year on the Internet. You can download it for free and see how ProStockMaster streamlines your stock photography workflow.
http://pdtnc.wordpress.com/2007/06/24/stock-image-spr eadsheet-averag es-and-earnings/
I finally got my blog updates :)
http://www.shutterpoint.com/Learn-Marketabl ePhotography2007.cfm
we have been around for just a year and already we are seeing great results. We would be honored to have you as a member.
Would be graetful for any hints.
karsten
You can download and try Stock Photo Express here for free - www.stockphotoexpre ss.info
keywords, etc. If I want the same picture to go to 5 sites, I have to make 5 copies of the original and change the sizes of each copy because each site wants a different site.
What is the simplest way?
Most microstock sites will allow you to upload at the highest resolution you have, in JPG format, so you shouldn't need to resize for them. (I think Alamy is the one that makes you save it as a TIFF for some reason, and submit your first batch on a CD by mail).
ther is a new stock agency in englisch online. PantherMedia is Midstock, not Micro. So prices are higher. Thats better for photographers. Furthermore the integrated community is quite interessting. And its free of charge... If you register now you might have quite good salles, as the stock is mainly german at the moment!
By the way, I didn't start getting sales with them until I had a few hundred images on there.
2. average subscribers only use about 15 - 30% of the full potential of their membership. This means that most pictures in a subscription sell at a 5-6USD price-point in average, giving us (photographers) about 25 cents in commission. A bottom-line commission of about 5 percent. Even if I was totally wrong and every subscriber actually downloaded the double of what I have heard, the commission would still only be 10%.
3. Same price at all size, even 16mp the price same as 1.3mp?
4. Deep Discounts
First, in the business world, deep discounts are normally given to the best customers. Giving a deep discount (up to 35% off or more from the normal price) is understandable. But subscriptions go much, much deeper than that.
The approximate cost and royalty for a maximum size image is as follows at the top sites:
IS: ()
DT: ()
SXP: ()
FT: (.50)
So an artist will receive between .50 and for a maximum size image from the largest sites.
If a customer buys lots of images, then a discount should be given. Giving discounts to large customers is good business. But most sites already have discounts for purchasing large token packages. For example, on IS if you buy 1500 credits, then you will receive a 34% discount. On DT, if you buy over 150 credits, then you will receive a 25% discount. On SXP, if you buy 500 credits, then you will receive a 20% discount.
But subscriptions go above and beyond these deep discounts. Almost to the point of giving away our images.
For example, on DT, a submitter receives 0.30 for a subscription. That is a 93% discount from the normal royalty (of for a maximum size image with over 100 sales). On SXP, a submitter receives 0.30 for a subscription. That is a 97% discount from the normal royalty (of for an XXL image).
5. Macro Buyers
Second, the buyers that are purchasing subscription packages are normally the large agencies that need lots and lots of images. These are the agencies that used to purchase macrostock images for 0s (if not ,000s) of dollars apiece. These are the customers that could actually afford to purchase images individually (if needed). According to the financial news, this is a multi-billion dollar industry. They have deep pockets. But yet, they now want to offer them even deeper discounts (over 95% off) on images that are already cheap. It makes no sense
Downsize your image before send to the subscription model agencies.
this link is interesting
http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?topic=3278.0
for photographer future, there is pay per photo and 70% share agency out there...
FeaturePics.com is one of them.
-25cents per dl if you have less than $500 in lifetime sales
-33cents for less than $3,000
-36cents for less than $10,000
-38cents beyond that
I usually recommend that you get a really good batch of photos (10 or so) and submit them to a variety of sites -- at least the top three, maybe bigstock thrown in there too. Different sites have different needs and different reviewers, so often an image that is rejected on one site will be accepted on another. Also, even if they are accepted on multiple sites, you have more chance to sell the image, and you can see which site is performing best for your particular images. After exploring the waters for a few months you can decide whether you'd like to focus on a single site or continue to upload to multiples.
Good luck!