Tag: microstock

  • Comparing 10 most essential microstocks

    Comparing 10 most essential microstocks

    Note: This article is about making money online by selling your photographs. The top 10 most essential microstock agencies are analyzed here. Microstock agency are marketplaces for buyers and photographers.

    There are now tens of microstock agencies out there and new agencies pop-up quite often, some being closed too like LuckyOliver, which was quite good actually and many contributors loved it. The microstock market is certainly booming right now and will continue to grow, even big names in the traditional stock industry turned their views on microstocks, Getty Images owns now the oldest microstock agency – iStockphoto and is preparing partnership with Flickr, Corbis created SnapVillage, InMagine has it’s microstock clone – 123RF and other alliances and acquisitions will probably follow. There are now in my opinion 4 big players in the microstock market: iStockphoto, Shutterstock, Dreamstime and Fotolia which all have the biggest collections of over three million pictures and have most of the market share. Then there are two agencies that follow the “big four”: 123RF and BigStockPhoto, both in the market for quite long and with a large database of clients and contributors.

    I decided I’ll try to compare and analyze these 4 + 2 biggest microstocks today from the contributors point of view and present you with some statistics. Beside these 6 biggest agencies I included another 4 agencies with high potential for the future, but there are of course other few agencies out there that can present some value too. So I might say it’s the list of 10 most essential microstock agencies today! (more…)

  • How to earn money by selling your pictures through microstock agencies.

    How to earn money by selling your pictures through microstock agencies.

    Now, you probably heard that you can make money on-line by simply selling your pictures. Sounds easy, right? I’ve been asked a few times about how do I make money from my photographs, so that is supposed to be simple and concise reply to that question.

    First of all, there are several ways to sell your pictures over the internet, depending on your level and on what do you have to offer. Once you begin selling the pictures you’ll understand better what’s needed by your agency and how you can earn more. For start let’s explain what is stock photography, what’s microstock and how is it different from traditional stock photography.

    Stock photography is basically a collection of photographs on various subjects that can be used many times, so instead of hiring a photographer for a specific job or assignment, customers who need pictures just browse the stock collection and select the image they need, thus saving time and money. Traditional stock is what big publishing houses, advertising agencies, newspapers and magazines use. Microstock is what comes handy for small design studio’s, bloggers and everyone who just cannot afford to pay big money for a photograph. The main difference is of course the price you pay for a photograph and the license type. I’ll write a separate article on license types, but just so you know RF (stands for Royaltee-Free) and is what’s used for microstock and traditional stock uses both RM (Rights Managed) or L (Licensed) and RF. An RF image sold through microstock can cost somewhere between 0,20-5,00 USD and the same image sold on RF license through a traditional agency will cost at least 50 USD. (more…)