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| Selling Stock Photography - Page 2 |
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LATEST UPDATE (September 1, 2008): MORE MONEY FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS: While both iStockphoto and Shutterstock initially paid their photographers only 20 cents per client download, both services now charge their photo buyers higher fees for extended services, and pass the increases onto their contributing photographers. In January 2006, iStockphoto relaunched its Web site and raised its prices so that high-resolution images are now $5 each, with medium and low-res images at $3 and $1. Larger images sell for up to $40 (with photographers still receiving 20% commissions at all levels). In March 2006, Shutterstock raised its commission from 20 cents per download to 25 cents -- a 25% increase. In May 2008, they raised their download commission earnings again to 33 cents (another 32% increase) for any photographer that had made $500 or more in lifetime earnings. Their new "On Demand" downloads cost buyers between $4 and $10 each, and can net photographers between $0.81 and $2.85 per download. They also allowed clients the option to purchase "enhanced" licenses on images (a program the photographers could opt out of at any time). This enhancement allows the client some increase merchandising uses for the downloaded images, and gives the photographer an additional $28.00 net per image. To increase its international exposure, Shutterstock now mirrors their agency on four other language sites: Spanish, German, French and Japanese. MORE SUCCESS - LESS REJECTION: My Microstock Newsletter will help you learn which images sell better than others and how to get more of your photos accepted. Did you know that about 90% of photographers who make their first submission to a microstock agency get rejected? This even happens to many of the experienced professionals! If this happens to you, be sure to return and subscribe to my newsletter, and we'll walk you through the steps to a successful full or part-time stock photo business. GETTY BUYS ISTOCK FOR $50 MILLION: Getty Images, the largest stock photo conglomerate in the world, began to take notice of the rapid growth and success of the micropayment stock photo industry, and announced on February 9, 2006 that it had acquired iStockphoto for $50 million! Unlike former acquisitions, Getty says it plans to operate iStockphoto separately, rather than incorporate it into the Getty brand, so it's quite possible operations could remain somewhat the same for a while. Photographers should be aware that Getty has previously tried successfully to impress market analysts and investors by boosting earnings through increasing its operating margins. Getty has done this by cutting its operating costs -- mostly at the expense of photographer's fees. Besides a history of lowering photographer commissions, Getty has instituted a continuing strategy of acquiring, producing, and selling more wholly-owned images -- images produced by staff photographers. IStock photographers could soon see wholly-owned images from Getty's other divisions enter into the istockphoto stream (along with prominent placement for these company-owned images) and competing with the independent photographers already on iStock (don't say I didn't warn you). By comparison, Shutterstock's founder and CEO, Jon Oringer, appears to have more of an independent spirit, and currently has no intention of letting one of the corporate conglomerates like Getty gobbled up Shutterstock (or other big corporate agencies like JupiterImages, who last year purchase the large RF image producer, Brand-X, for over $60 million). In fact, when Jon learned that Getty had purchased his competitor, iStockphoto, he showed appreciation to his contributors for Shutterstock's rapid growth by raising commission payouts on standard client downloads from 20 cents to 25 cents, and then again to 33 cents -- a 65% increase! Another way iStock (and Getty) have tried to control photographers is by encouraging exclusivity (agreeing to the option of only allowing them to market your images). Putting all your "eggs in one basket" can be a wise option with some high-profile rights managed images, but this option seems absurd when it comes to micro RF, where you need as many distributors as possible because each sale is so small. I expect that iStock will begin to place more enticements and pressure for their contributors to opt into exclusivity arrangements now that Getty has ownership. I strongly recommend that photographers who want to try the micro market to join and contribute to iStock, but not to fall for their "exclusivity" ploy. (Several of the other micro services have never offered an exclusivity option, and freely encourage contributors to place their images with other markets.) ADDITIONAL MICRO DISTRIBUTOR CHOICES: To my knowledge and experience, Shutterstock and iStockphoto are still your top choices, if you only had time to submit to one or two services. But if you do have the time to submit to all of the micro services, your income potential could increase considerably. A year after my October 2004 review, and after submitting virtually the same images to four different micro agencies, my income results were as follows: Shutterstock - highest, about $14/image average per year) iStockphoto - slightly lower, about $12/image average per year Dreamstime - about $8/image average per year* Canstockphoto - about $4/image average per year Combined, these four micro agencies produced an income of about $38 per image per year. My original sampling was with only about 100 images with each agency, and your results will vary. However, if a photographer can place a group of only 2,000 similar quality images on these four services, he could potentially make about $76,000 per year. This figure might even be conservative, since Shutterstock has raised its commission rate to photographers by 25% (without raising its fees to buyers) and iStockphoto has raised it's fee structure to buyers (by 50%) since my test. |
| (Interestingly, about one-half of the images in this micropayment comparison experiment were old rights-managed images of mine that had stopped selling 5-10 years ago, but now found new life as micro RF images! Many of the other images were from early 3MP and 4MP digital cameras, since all four of the micro agencies in the test comparison accept images as small as 2MP or 2.5MP.) |
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THREE MORE MICRO CHOICES: Three additional micropayment services have come to my attention since my October 2004 review and one-year test: There is no reason you can't do the same -- pick one or two images to send to a top royalty-free agency, like TSSphoto.com, then send the out-takes exclusively to one micro service like Shutterstock.com or 123rf.com (use the data in the above article to pick the best performer). If you're uncomfortable with exclusive arrangements, you can do the extra work of sending the same out-takes to two or more different micro services (we've given you information on seven services), submitting each on a non-exclusive basis. Either way, you'll greatly increase your chances for more sales from the same photo shoot!
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MICROS GAIN IN POPULARITY: When I wrote my October 2004 review on microstock agencies (or "micro-payment") called "
