First time out in MicroStock

[inlina]

Hi all,

About a month ago I submitted my first batch of 10 images to some Microstock sites, and it was particularly interesting to see what was rejected and what was accepted. I chose to start submitting to ShutterStock, iStockphoto, Dreamstime and Fotolia as they seem to be the 'Big 4' in Microstock.

I have written a detailed post on my blog about it ('My First 10 Microstock Images'), so I won't go into the details here, but I will provide some conclusions.

1) ShutterStock are very picky. Even images that were accepted by the 3 other agencies were rejected by Shutterstock.

2) Not all back ends/management systems are created equal. iStockphoto is by far the worst. Dreamstime is probably the best once you have a look around and Fotolia is not too bad. I cannot comment on the Shutterstock back end in full since I am not yet accepted there yet, but the submission system was good.

3) If you get multiple rejections for an image, the agencies don't always reject for the same reasons. One image could be rejected by one agency for too shallow a DOF, and another might reject the same image for poor lighting.

Just thought this was an interesting result and might provide some insight for others looking at dabbling in Microstock.

CG

[steheap]

I checked out your blog - interesting to see which images were accepted and which rejected. After 4 years, I have given up trying to guess which ones will be OK - I just submit and accept the results - very rarely do I do any further work on the images to get them accepted.

If you are interested in my thoughts on the other sites you could submit to, I have written extensively about my experiences, good and bad, with microstock. It is not for everyone, but OK for some!Backyard Silver - Making money from stock photography

Steve

[Pinellas Guy]

For those on Dreamstime. What is the purpose of all the free images on there.

I do design work for my not-for-profit I work for so I love the stock photos of "clients" for free. But on some portfolios they have pretty good free images. Does Dreamstime determine what images will be free.

[steheap]

No - the photographer decides. Some sites ask you to donate images that fail to meet the normal standards into the "free" section. Others allow you to place images there for a short time (the idea is that a buyer will see the free image and check the rest of the portfolio and see a better one). I think there is an agency that lets you put a small free image on the site so that a larger file size is purchased.

I don't actually bother with that process - seems much to much like hard work, and a picture rejected on one site often sells on another.

Steve

[Jim Bryant]

There was a car salesman, who submitted his images to a microstock agency that had a cover shot run on TIme Magazine and got paid a whole $30.00 for what is normally billed for $3,000.00. Yes, I know he can brag to his friends about landing a cover shot and getting paid peanuts, however...just how stupid was that?

The only way you can make money is to find a unique niche and send something that at least 15,000 or more photographers haven't submitted.

[ororockcrawler]

Shutter Stock does not seem to know whats going on, I get a rejection, submitt it minutes after and get accepted, its rolling dice, whos in a good mood and have they reached there rejection to accepted ratio that day.....basically its a joke

[Pinellas Guy]

Originally Posted by Jim Bryant

There was a car salesman, who submitted his images to a microstock agency that had a cover shot run on TIme Magazine and got paid a whole $30.00 for what is normally billed for $3,000.00. Yes, I know he can brag to his friends about landing a cover shot and getting paid peanuts, however...just how stupid was that?

The only way you can make money is to find a unique niche and send something that at least 15,000 or more photographers haven't submitted.

Thats right but if Time Magazine knew they could pay $30 for a royalty free image with printing right of up to 200,000 would they pay another photographer $3,000 for the image. Almost as bad as what happened to me.

My photo was published by the Florida Bar News to the 92,000 licensed attorneys in Florida on the cover too. I was told that photo credit was provided but they failed to provide it. What makes matter worse - they printed in off of a 850 150 DPI file - which is the only file I released. Here is my photo - St. Petersburg Bar has a new home . But yes, I brag to my friends too that my photo landed on the cover - just wish my name was on there. I'm a paralegal and work with the group who I photographed so I didn't want to cause any issues.

Kyle

[Jim Bryant]

Originally Posted by Pinellas Guy

Thats right but if Time Magazine knew they could pay $30 for a royalty free image with printing right of up to 200,000 would they pay another photographer $3,000 for the image. Almost as bad as what happened to me.

My photo was published by the Florida Bar News to the 92,000 licensed attorneys in Florida on the cover too. I was told that photo credit was provided but they failed to provide it. What makes matter worse - they printed in off of a 850 150 DPI file - which is the only file I released. Here is my photo - St. Petersburg Bar has a new home . But yes, I brag to my friends too that my photo landed on the cover - just wish my name was on there. I'm a paralegal and work with the group who I photographed so I didn't want to cause any issues.

Kyle

I see your point, but I'd give that editor a piece of my mind over the photo credit issue.

Originally Posted by Jim Bryant

There was a car salesman, who submitted his images to a microstock agency that had a cover shot run on TIme Magazine and got paid a whole $30.00 for what is normally billed for $3,000.00. Yes, I know he can brag to his friends about landing a cover shot and getting paid peanuts, however...just how stupid was that?

The only way you can make money is to find a unique niche and send something that at least 15,000 or more photographers haven't submitted.

If Time wanted to spend $3000 for an image, they would have. They were obviously looking for a bargain, and found one.

You get too hung up on "what you could've gotten for it". A photo is worthless until someone is willing to pay for it. If your friend didn't get $30 for it, he probably wouldn't have gotten anything. At least now he has $30 and bragging rights.

[steheap]

Yes, this is the promise and threat of microstock. The chances of someone like me (4 years into trying to sell photographs) being able to get my images on Getty or one of the macrostock sites that charge $3000 for a single use is pretty low. What I could do, very easily, was to get onto about 20 micro sites (some of which can pay $100 for an image from time to time), and now my photos sell regularly and I have just achieved one of my goals - earning $1000 from my photos in one month.

So, the question, as the previous post explained, is: "is it better to get $30 for an image than to have no chance of getting $3000?"

The people who are losing out are obviously the ones on Getty who see images being sold for far below the cost of production, in their minds.

Steve