try and get accepted first, then decide if you want to join or not...

Hi Stock Folks,
I just read a lot of strings (very negative) about iStock with one them stating that they paid someone 8c on a photo. I was thinking about applying for iStock but not sure anymore. Our min wage in Washington is over $8 per hour which sounds a lot higher than the $$$ or Cents that you would make at iStock.  If you were a rookie, like myself, would you pass on iStock?
Thanks.
Tom

You need to make that decision for yourself. I'm pretty sure I've seen Getty sales lower than 8c (for a very tiny web size). The secret is to find pics that will sell multiple times to iStock's target market (whoever that is, I'm not seeing iStock ads these days whereas they used to be ubiquitous). If anyone knew what these were, they wouldn't tell you. It also helps if your multiple seller isn't one that can be easily copied inspirational. Then the mysterious best match algorhythm can help your files or kill them. at least it changes quite often. Sometimes. It'll certainly improve your pixel perfect technical ability, if nothing else.

Thanks,


I plan on submitting my application very soon. I will select my 3 pics and see how they fare. Shutterstock was a major task for me - I hit 8 out of 10 on my application and my sales have been really good there considering I do not have a large portfolio. At this point in the game the more sites I belong to the better my chance of sales. So far deposit photos has been the best this month for me.

You'll find a lot of jaded and cynical points of view here, but they (we) aren't the whole reality.  You actually can make money at microstock, just not nearly as much, as easily or as fast as some magazine and newspaper features make it sound.

You can make money at IS but first you have to mentally prepare yourself for a tedious and probably frustrating period of just trying to get in the door.  Save yourself some time and aggravation by skimming this forum for a couple of hours, and some important points will start to sink in. 

I'd suggest not dealing with IS at first (and actually, maybe not ever).  Shutterstock will give you much quicker reviews, providing the feedback you need when getting started.

I had to think seriously about accepting 20% when I started in 2006, I really don't think I would bother with them if I was starting now for just 15%.  It isn't just the commission cut, I'm sure it's much harder for new contributors now because new images are buried in the search.  There was a time when I quite liked istock but the past 2 years have been really difficult.  They have really taken away my motivation to continue uploading and I find it hard to believe their incompetence lately.  There seems to be a new problem every week and non-exclusive contributors usually end up worse off.

with a small portfolio, you won't see much of a returns at the beginning at is. it takes a while for your photos to "age" to enter the search engine. so, is will be a bit of a sleeper at the beginning.

in addition to a measely 15% (i get 60% at zoonar), it's tough to pass their quality inspection and even tougher to get anything editorial pass their inspectors. if it's not artifacts, then there's something wrong with the caption, even if the 4 Ws are completely in place.

it will just be so frustrating to upload, that you won't even want to meet your weekly quota of 20.

however, once you get pass all of this, is can still be a top (2 or 3) earner. shutterstock is a piece of cake in comparison.

That is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous best match shifts,
Or to take arms against a sea of rejections,
And by opposing end them? To upload, to keyword,
No more; and by so doing to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand programming bugs
That site is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To not join, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream � ay, there's the rub...

For, if you don't join, what sales will come?


Actually I don't think you should join.  We have enough competition already. 

Submitting to Istock is a big pain - you'll have to disambiguate your keywords and if you're not careful with that your images will get rejected just for keywords; they pay ridiculously low commissions for an entry-level photog - 15%; you images probably won't be seen by anyone since they just tweaked their search to give better placement to their exclusive collections (and you're too late entering the game to be found by "downloads" search option); they reject images for "compression artifacts" or "overfiltered" when it's a raw image converted to tiff and saved ONCE as Jpeg with minimum processing;.... I can go on and on with this, but the question to you is why would you want to spend so much time and effort for something that's so unlikely to bring you any rewards?
I do submit to Istock - but I've been there since 2005 so my images have relatively decent placement in searches and I have someone handling submissions for me. On my scale it's just one of many agencies that we're dealing with, one more one less doesn't matter much. On your scale, you'll spend a lot of effort and frustration on something that's unlikely to bring any reasonable rewards.

If I were coming to MSG as a newbie today I'd be wondering about all the seemingly confilicting feelings about IS and whether it's worth submitting there.


- IS is a royal PITA to deal with, and has been systematically cutting commissions and de-emphasizing photos for new and non-exclusive contributors.

- IS has a big share of the market despite all their current troubles.

I might be typical: I'd like to make more money at microstock, but I don't want to deal with IS any longer, and while I'd like to see newer, better agencies start eating their lunch,  I don't see that happening yet.

So I'm stalled.  IS produced about a third of my sales and if I just cut them out, it's hardly worth continuing.  But every day I see new reasons not to deal with them.   I guess at this point I'd be producing images for some future market that I hope is going to develop.

You do need a differant attitude, not getting rich over night here you know, in fact out of your salary of 8 quid per hour you just might have to fund all us members here at the Forum, then we wont spill the beans about your association with SS.
Suck on that caramel for a while.

I do agree with the 500 to 1000 images (good ones) that you have to develop before any sales come on a regular basis thus prepared to work my tail off to reach that limit before I have any expectations whatsoever. I made my first on Can Stock Photo (CanStockPhoto) yesterday! It only took me 188 pics in my portfolio before I made my first sale- I just laughed to myself since I know my images are not shunning yet. I learning to process and so much on photography thus having simple objects is okay for me this year- I just took my first professional course and learn a lot on basics of what works best for my camera. The instructor taught using my camera thus I learn light metering, W/B, ISO, AP and some other very interesting things all within 8 hours time period. My next classes will be in lighting and compositions. My goal this year is to be making $100 per month and $500 by the end of next year. If I reach these goals I will than re-evaluate my side business and see if I can up my levels. Utlitmately I would love to make around $5K per month ($60K per year) say in 5 to 10 years before I retire from my day time job.

Tom

I do agree with the 500 to 1000 images (good ones) that you have to develop before any sales come on a regular basis thus prepared to work my tail off to reach that limit before I have any expectations whatsoever. I made my first on Can Stock Photo (CanStockPhoto) yesterday! It only took me 188 pics in my portfolio before I made my first sale- I just laughed to myself since I know my images are not shunning yet. I learning to process and so much on photography thus having simple objects is okay for me this year- I just took my first professional course and learn a lot on basics of what works best for my camera. The instructor taught using my camera thus I learn light metering, W/B, ISO, AP and some other very interesting things all within 8 hours time period. My next classes will be in lighting and compositions. My goal this year is to be making $100 per month and $500 by the end of next year. If I reach these goals I will than re-evaluate my side business and see if I can up my levels. Utlitmately I would love to make around $5K per month ($60K per year) say in 5 to 10 years before I retire from my day time job.

Tom

Don't want to spoil your motivation, but I can give you ourselves as an example.
My partner is an experienced professional photographer with ~10 years of experience. It took us 12 months at ~160 hours a month to reach 970$ per month with about 4K of invested in equipments alone.

We just invested another 7K in additional equipment and we expect to make ~2,000$ per month by the end of the year.

All figures I mentioned relate to INCOME and not PROFIT. Our business is still losing money every month.

IMO your numbers are a bit optimistic.