Hello everybody, I started this blog to give some inside into microstock.
but first things first. Are you a great amateur photographer, that wants to make additional money by selling stock. Microstock sites are a great way to do this.
But are you a professional photographer who wants to base your children education and your health and life on making money with photos, than run. Run as fast as you can, and never, never discredit yourself by selling out your hart and valuable work on Microstock.

Now this is a hart statement, and some would say, wait a minute. I make money.
Again I will ask you to differentiate your work. Look at it from the balcony.

You must know, that every professional produced photo sold on a Microstock site is one job less given to a photographer, one job less for a photo model, one job less for a stylist, and one job less for an art director etc. Now selling your professional photo multiple times, is a disaster for the industry.You can draw the picture here youself. It results in a insane decline on the demand for professional photography.

I am a professional photographer for 30 years in stillife, and recently bought a digital SLR to have some fun. I learned as a consequence a lot of what is going on on the internet and must say it is depressing.

It seems basic economic principles are not understood by all this creative hart working wonderful people.
They recognise often way to late what is going on, and than it is getting suddenly very hart to pull of the expensive productions from the  Micro stock sites. They no very well why they don't want you to easy delete your submitted pics.

Stock photography is a old thing, and it exists basically since photography was utilised in advertisements. It was always very conceptual but seldom really specific. Many things have changed. Nowadays photographers are suddenly competing globally.
Any smart lobbyist would immediately pull the emergency break here, the OPEC would reduce its oil output drastically to stabilise prices, the unions would establish minimum wages to ensure that the workers can still feed their families.

The microstock is a cone, carried out by the photographers themself.

The entire Microstock phenomenon is based on the opportunity to sell your creative work several times. That lures the photographer in. Now wait a  Minute, if I can sell my artwork several times, doesn't this mean there is more demand? And if there is more demand, should i not get more money than usual? Why do we get so little for our artwork and productions. Millions of photos are competing with each other, given to this stocksites for nothing. through this huge oversupply of photos the value of each foto is down to nothing.
Sites need to get as many photos as possible to create a sufficient base. Than they start separating the ash from the corn. They try to leave the area of amateur contributor and enter into a more professional level.
Istockphoto is the best example. And every professional sold photo on stock is one job less for a professional photographer.

I read several times this week in several blogs photographers discussing their income from stock sites. I must say i am embarrassed for how little photographers are working, this is worse than slavery. There are few, very  very few Microstock photographers that can make a living from it. Many People have 500 photos on a site and get 2 or three times a payout per year. Thats sounds great, but it is actually nothing, its probably less than the upload time has taken calculated in hourly minimum wage. not to speak about the production of the photo. this is em baressing. Please forgive me my English i am German.

So think twice, before you sell out your work on microstock. And if you sell your professional production shots on stock, don't blame others when no agency wants to pay your Daily honorar anymore.

But there are positive ways to market your pictures. Get a unique stile, and offer this photos exclusively for royalty on a site. Art directors are sitting in the same boot, they are the next target by those modern slavemakers. Do not worry, they will stop using Microstock as they see advantage for their industry by paying good money and supporting their industry.

Sincerely, Lisa

The same old argument we have heard over and over again.

Like any company: adapt or die. You just talk about the falling market due mostly to internet (micro) but you forgot to mention all the new selling opportunities too. In Micro, you need to learn to reduce the cost of making your photos. I'm not doing this full time but I know many who does and are living a nice life.

Lisa, you are going to join microstock yourself eventually.

Internet has changed the price for everything. Photos and illustrations is not the only thing that got cheap! Basically go to ebay and buy what you couldn't buy for those prices 10 years ago.

And stop telling people what to do & what not to do, like they are some kind of idiots who are not aware of what's going on as much as you. 

Stop this people!

Stop "the microstock" or I am going to have to join in myself That's what I read in your post.

Well, you are not welcome! I hope many people will listen to your suggestions, including you! 

"Microstock ran off with my wife", "Microstock stole my dog" and "Microstock wrecked my trailer" are just some of the great songs on my new country western album, "Microstock Done Me Wrong".

Just when I was starting to miss Old Hippy.  Now we have Lisas4s. 

Let the games begin, LOL.

As it was a long post I used auto summarize to get the gist of it :-

"Nowadays photographers are suddenly competing globally. "

Like any company: adapt or die. You just talk about the falling market due mostly to internet (micro) but you forgot to mention all the new selling opportunities too. In Micro, you need to learn to reduce the cost of making your photos. I'm not doing this full time but I know many who does and are living a nice life.

If youo considder "saving reducing" discribed by you a nice life.
It is sad to sea, how many good phptographers are so bad economist.
Every new 1 dollar selling is another >1 dollar killing. Thats the problem here. And if you make hundret photojob-killings, you made 100 dollars.

The same old argument we have heard over and over again.

and I never paid any attention to it, because ....

they are all wrong.

It is sad to sea, how many good phptographers are so bad economist.
Every new 1 dollar selling is another >1 dollar killing. Thats the problem here. And if you make hundret photojob-killings, you made 100 dollars.

It is also hard to see how average photographers can also be such poor debaters.

I will be doing some experimenting over the next 12 months with some macro images, but it is experimenting as there is so little information out there and may well cost me potential income based on what I could have got from the micros. I respect your opinion and we get someone here every few months saying the same thing.  But the message is always the same "just dont do micro", there never is any 'hey go here for info', 'no have a look my portfolio', 'no heres how much people are making (whole portfolio, not one image)'.

Basically if you want to change what people are doing, you have to show them a better way, not just tell them to stop.

Well, they won't.  Traditional guys want to keep their numbers to themselves.  I want to keep my numbers to myself.  It's all cool, but certainly don't expect to find it all laid out there like here.