So You wanna earn money from your photos? (part II)

Microstock: The players

 

Shutterstock

Now if you’ve taken even a cursory glance at the table on the previous page it should be immediately evident that if there is one stock site you want to be on - this is it.  There isn’t too much to complain about with shutterstock, sure they are a little more discerning with their content than the other sites (bar Istock & SXP) but when you have the industry presence they obviously do, you can afford to be.  In fact it could well be part of the reason why they do so well - customers are going to go where the quality is, so tougher acceptance hoops to jump through can really only be a good thing for the contributers as a whole.  Uploads are as simple as FTPing a batch of shots, then assigning categories (1 or 2) for each shot and if applicable a model release.  Submitting could perhaps be made a touch swifter with some sort of bulk categorising/release assigning feature but that’s a reasonably small gripe given all the reasons ($) to be on here.  If you are looking to be a microstock shooter, you have to be on here, it’s as simple as that.

Dreamstime

Ok so Shutterstock is a done deal, but if Shutterstock is number one on your list then for my money Dreamstime comes in at number 2.  Now I hear what you are saying “but look Ben, your own table shows us that Istock has earned you more money both overall and per shot per month! Are you crazy?”.  Well yes, this is true (just ask one of my ex’s!), but in terms of effort vs payout Dreamstime wins hands down.  They are if anything a touch easier to submit to than SS as when categorising each shot you have the ability to just copy the categories from a previous shot, this makes things a tiny bit quicker.  They have a slightly longer approval time than SS but what’s a couple days when the shots will be earning you money for years down the track?

 

Istock

For my number 3 vote I really wish I could go with SXP because I love some of the things they do but well, you just can’t argue with numbers ($) and Istock has them.  Considered by many to be the first, the biggest and the best it certainly does sell a few pics (once you jump through the ridiculous hoops they set up to get them on there).  First of all there is no FTP, they are the one site on this entire list without it, so you have to manually upload each shot individually from a html upload page.  Then there are the upload limits, which although they’ve just been increased are still far lower than any of the other sites here.  I won’t bother listing them here as they tend to change more often than my car breaks down (and yeah - I drive a piece of shit).  Then there are the model releases, do you think they save them in a handy folder somewhere?  Of course not, got 20 pics of the same model?  Well you just have to upload that same model release document 20 times.  Then there is the ‘disambiguation’ process, what this means is you have to go through each keyword and tell the stupid computer what it means.  For example does ‘orange’ mean the color or the fruit? does ‘breakdown’ mean your car has stopped or you’ve just tried to submit 20 shots in a row to Istock?  Another factor that doesn’t help with time vs payout is the large amount of rejections one gets from here, although that’s the one thing I don’t really have a problem with.  To be honest half the time I get rejections from them are when I secretly knew the shot wasn’t good enough to upload anyways but figured I’d try my luck.  Good once you get the shots on here, but if your work is a little below standard or you just don’t like beating your head against a monitor in frustration then I’d pop this site a couple down your list of update priorities.

 

Stock Xpert

These guys have done a bunch of stuff right, first off is the (unique) ability to upload shots and have them approved BEFORE you go to the bother of assigning categories etc.  The one exception being model releases, if your shot requires one then you have to attach it before it will be reviewed.  Second thing right is the bulk editing tool, it allows you to tick off any number of shots in a folder and assign categories, model releases, descriptions, keywords & titles to all simultaneously.  Note that you don’t HAVE to do all these things, you can mix and match what you are editing, so you can just do categories, or just model releases - brilliant.  The combination of these two features means that even though they are pretty picky with the shots they accept, submitting is quite easy and painless.  For the most part you don’t have to put any time at all into your submissions until you know they are good enough for the site and going live - this saves a lot of time.  My only gripe with them is that along with Bigstock they have some outdated beliefs about the human body - in a forum thread about why they don’t accept nudes their admin actually made the comment “I mean what are you going to use them for apart from your own enjoyment? :D”  which I must admit I find damn near offensive.  Once they grow up and join the 21st century the site will be nigh on perfect.

 

 123 RF

Next up is 123 RF, I’m giving them a higher spot than Fotolia simply because they are so easy to submit to, FTP up a batch of images, go in and assign model releases and you are done.  Well that’s assuming you’ve been smart and pre keyworded all your images in photoshop or other software before uploading them to the different sites (more on this next article).  There are no categories, no lengthy drawn out processes and almost no rejections (not necessarily a great thing in my book but perhaps a good confidence builder for those starting out).  This one could even be a couple spots higher in this order simply because of how easy it is.  It has also really picked up in sales for me this last month or two, if that keeps happening it will be a winner of a site. 

 

Fotolia

There isn’t too much great to say about Fotolia, some people seem to get good sales there but I wouldn’t call mine all that crash hot.  With a submission process that is only beaten by Istock’s at being a pain in the ass it doesn’t seem all that time efficient to upload here in comparison to the above sites.  The problem with the submission process here is that we have a prioritising system where you have to go through your keywords and sort them in order of priority.  When you are submitting a large amount of shots this quickly blows out to a VERY large amount of time.  There may be daylight between Fotolia and Istock with regard to submission ease but there is also daylight between Fotolia and all the other sites - just in the opposite direction.  On top of this the whole site has a clunky feel and is quite slow to load.  Still if you have your keywords, titles and descriptions already done you may as well upload here for a few extra dollars from shots you’ve already put the hard yards into.

Big Stock Photo

Last up is Bigstock and they are easy enough to submit to but if you have a look at the sales table from the previous page the reason for their position on the bottom of this list is clear to see.  No real problems (aside from the old fashioned view on nudity that they share with SXP) but given the poor sales they are a solid last place for me.

In the next part of this article I’ll be giving some tips and tricks I’ve picked up so far on shooting for and workflow in stock. 

<—Part I     Part III —>

Comments

[Dream]

Nice articles Ben, looking forward to the next one, as I'm currently testing few of these stock sites too.

Cheers Dream, I'm hoping to have the next two parts knocked off by the end of the week, hope you can get something out of it all!