Hi all,

I'm just wondering how the submission process works with iStock.

The submission page says "submit 3 of your best images", but is this forever? What if I get rejected? Will I be allowed to resubmit? And how long does the review take?

What's the general consensus? Do you make your photos exclusive? Does it pay off? And do people shots sell better than non-people? What are the more successful categories?

Hi, welcome!

It takes a few days. It's not forever: you can resubmit after a few days. If rejected again, you'll have to wait a little more each time.

There's no general consensus. I don't make photos exclusive - for a series of reasons, basically I think you can earn more by being independent and it's also safer in such a rapidly changing industry.
It pays off in the end, but it requires a lot of time and effort. If you are convinced, go ahead.
I don't do people shots so I can't tell. I do architecture, objects, food, backgrounds... Architecture is the least successful on IS - unfortunately since it's what I like the most

Your Flickr photos "artistic" pictures. I am not saying I don't like them, but I would not submit many of those for the test. You need to remove logos and be careful about copyright/property issues and unevenly lit/dark shadows. As Lisa said, don't submit shores, flowers, animals... they have too many already. I agree on the pictures she chose. I  like your "dark" portraits too (both the mysterious man and the girl), but they may find them too dark indeed. Keep them for later once you're in.

You are the copyright holder basically forever, unless you sell copyright (please don't!). So it's not too late to use for stock. There is evidence that people will buy the same picture at different price points and may even buy a photo which is available for free elesewhere: buyers are lazy (or have no time to lose searching). Actually your eye in your deviant art gallery may work for the test - provide they take the time to understand the selective b/w vs colour effect and don't choose the dreadful "overprocessed" reason for rejection.

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Another thing, where do you do your research? Do you actually ask the industry you're targeting what images they want? I've been a designer a few times now, so basically know what I'd select for a project, but I honestly don't know where to begin - there's so many options!

some sites actually have lists that explain what they are looking for. Another idea is to search different categories and see what is selling.

edit: I'm not saying copy what you see, either (I know someone is going to say that's what I am saying!). But you can get general ideas of what sells. For example, if you search for dogs and there are only a few big sellers, you know that's not a good subject to spend your time on.

Also, if you manage to come up with a niche that few to none have discovered, that is the key to initial success. 

Provided it's one that iStock buyers want to buy (and preferably other contributers can't easily copy).
I can assure you it's no good having the only photos for a particular keyword if no buyers are interested. Sometimes niche images need niche outlets.

The bottom line I think is that commissions are now so low that unless you can produce blockbuster images that will sell hundreds of times, the answer to "does it pay off" has to be "no".  And commissions at the big sites seem destined only to go lower. 

A big microstock now has  in excess of 10 million images to sell, and would probably be quite profitable for a few years if it just fired all the reviewers and stopped accepting new images.  They haven't done that yet, but the interest in new images is so low that they're telling their reviewers to spend as little time as possible looking at anything that doesn't jump out of the screen and meet some obvious current need.

The idea of bypassing these (arguably) exploitive microstock agencies has been discussed at length.  If Google decided to create a "GoogleStock" search service, that would give us a way to connect with buyers, but there'd be little intelligence exhibited in the search results, just as with Google Images today.  The other issue is that buyers need some reason to believe that the image they pay for is of good quality at full size - the microstocks do provide that assurance.  And then we'd all have to set up our own payment processing and download delivery systems.

The conclusion is usually that some sort of photographers' co-op would be the answer.  I think there are a few of those already, but to make it work, they have to stay small and be very restrictive in who they accept as contributors.

Cathy's advice for research is good, as long as you pay attention to the "no copying" part... 

I'v spent plenty of hours weekly on istock for a year without even realizing the photos there belong different individuals, because they all look the same... and those were the top sellers too.

If you can think of a unique take on a popular subject (business, food, lifestyle), you are likely to do very well.  Also, if you manage to come up with a niche that few to none have discovered, that is the key to initial success. 

I guess the bottom line is that this is late in the game to be joining micro.  All the easy stuff has been done to death.  In order to succeed at this point, you need to be better and more unique than what's already there in abundance.  Not trying to discourage you, BTW, just encourage you to bring your A game .

For DL's to pile up the shot has to be as generic as possible, so being unique is out of the question.

The initial intake is actually easier than getting  images approved.  Just because an image passes the first 3 image test  doesn't mean that it will be approved to be sold online and often they are later refused.

Yeah, I thought IS was a bit easy to get into compared to SS.

I want to get it right, so I'll concentrate on getting some really good basic stock photos rather than using existing. Any topic/subject suggestions on what to submit to SS?

If photography is proving too saturated, how are illustrations and footage doing by comparison? I have a 7D, so I have video capability, and I can pick up vectors I suppose.