If you're not selling stock photography - read this!

[ehphotography]

Hi everyone,

Freelance switch had a great article last week about selling stock to make extra money.
http://freelanceswitch.com/

The article is not aimed directly at photographers (more illustraotors and flash developers) but you get the drift

For anyone that isn't in the stock selling business, you might find this a little inspiring.

Any thoughts?

[candleman]

thats the problem with stock.. actually selling it..

i'll shutup before i start ranting on about photoshelter again.. gguuh..
(*slips into the sea of despondency*)

regarding stock in general.
speaking from my own excperiences..
its certainly not "without doing very much".. its actually allot of work.
you spend a massive amount of time on creating shoot sessions, getting props etc etc.. then more time edting to get them "perfect"
then after that you spend even more time keywording (thats the killer)

[Lebowski]

Looking at microstock sites, it seems like the vector artists get a lot more downloads per image than photographers, even for art that seems fairly simple (to me). Maybe that would explain the higher "profit"?

[microstockinsider]

I think the key thing about going full time is to diversify, you should already have an income from microstock and a growing portfolio, and then also income from something else related to your photography (training courses, selling prints at a market or on ebay, doing portraits or weddings, real estate etc, event, this list goes on as far as your imagination if you find a nice little niche)

Work out how long you could last without your full time job salary and if its less than a year then be very cautious. You could take the point of view that it's a 6 month or 1 year trial to see how things go, a working holiday doing something that you enjoy, and if at the end of it you have to bite the bullet and go back to what you were doing then it's not the end of the world. I wouldn't mortgage my home on a business plan involving photography at the moment!

If you think you'll lack motivation then you can be dam sure that the thought of going back to that office job or whatever it was you were doing before will drive you to work until you drop! (which might be what you'll do)

you'll know when the time is right, a few things will fall into place and bingo. success will probably be less about your photography and more about you and your business acumen (which is kind of sad really, as i guess most people reading this including myself have a passion for photography which running a business will try to suck out of you).

[marcal]

Originally Posted by Lebowski

Looking at microstock sites, it seems like the vector artists get a lot more downloads per image than photographers, even for art that seems fairly simple (to me). Maybe that would explain the higher "profit"?

I've quite a lot of work with vector graphs (Illustrator CS3) myself for one of my other hobbies and I can say that to draw a Vector Graph it's actually A LOT of work or, at least, it is to me. The point in vector graphs is that you must be able to enlarge the image as many times as you want and it must be "perfect" until the end. No pixelation... Ok, it doesn't explain the more downloading thing but, from the point of view of a Vector Graph hobbyist, I'm happy for them...

[Ffred]

Selling stock means that you're training people to think that this image that you've spent 3 days in the woods to take, freezing your ass off under your camo net after quite some time of preparation is worth $1.

Thanks but no thanks.

[marcal]

Originally Posted by Ffred

Selling stock means that you're training people to think that this image that you've spent 3 days in the woods to take, freezing your ass off under your camo net after quite some time of preparation is worth $1.

Thanks but no thanks.

don't be so negative... Think about this from another point of view:

You like taking photos. You, usually, like to process them in order to get nice results, right?. Well, if you upload your better photos to some stock-site and get some money out of it... there is little time spent, right?. I mean, you take the pictures and process them anyway.

Well, just my opinion...

[Ffred]

Originally Posted by marcal

don't be so negative... Think about this from another point of view:

You like taking photos. You, usually, like to process them in order to get nice results, right?. Well, if you upload your better photos to some stock-site and get some money out of it... there is little time spent, right?. I mean, you take the pictures and process them anyway.

That's if you think of your images as holiday snaps. When you start making contacts with your photos and they find out that they're also available on stocks for $1 apiece, you lose all your credibility. There are people who have lost real sales because of that.

Taking it from another point of view, are your photos just something you do in passing during your vacation with your cellphone or something you invest time, research and a significant piece of your life in (never mind the money) ? If it's the latter, is your soul worth a few dollars ? Making money on stock sites is like making money with Second Life. Lots of people talk about it but it almost never happens. Mostly it's a full time job for pretty much no return.

[Mr Guy]

Originally Posted by Ffred

That's if you think of your images as holiday snaps. When you start making contacts with your photos and they find out that they're also available on stocks for $1 apiece, you lose all your credibility. There are people who have lost real sales because of that.

Taking it from another point of view, are your photos just something you do in passing during your vacation with your cellphone or something you invest time, research and a significant piece of your life in (never mind the money) ? If it's the latter, is your soul worth a few dollars ? Making money on stock sites is like making money with Second Life. Lots of people talk about it but it almost never happens. Mostly it's a full time job for pretty much no return.

And there's a strong argument to made that really everyone loses, because instead of getting GOOD high quality images that are PERFECT for their situation, the availability of mediocre sorta okay pictures leads people to choose those instead. So instead of having people using the exact right images, they are using generic images dozens of other people have used that kinda fit.

Remember when it was cool and trendy to put clip art into your presentations because it showed you were cutting edge? Notice how now describing something as clip art is an insult? The same thing is already happening with stock photography. A place using stock photography is a place that isn't putting the money into their image that their image deserves. Or rather, I should say, they are getting exactly the quality they feel their image deserves.

[windrider86]

I tried selling stock for awhile and rarely sold any. at a very small amount it wasnt worth my wile and the place that i was going thru had a minimal amount that they would write you a check for and if you didnt reach that amount in 90 days you lost anything you had made.
So I got frusterated and gave up that venture