Well, people only put the best stuff about their life on facebook or any social media place.

For what would the buyers use your random shots? If they don't fit a buyers need they won't sell.

Right, but what I mean by random is stuff is, you walk around, say, in a farmers' market. You snap a few pics of this and that, and anything that seemed interesting to you at that moment, and then you pick out the best or most useful shots  for stock. Although you shoot random stuff, but you don't upload randomly, you choose shots that, A) have hight chance of  acceptance, and B) that you think might sell.

I know this is a million dollar question, but more specifically what I would like to know is this:
If I run around snapping random whatever and upload for sale, does this random sort of fluff sell much worse than say images that I actually took some thought into making?

Maybe not discrimination, just no buyers there anymore?

I guess I'm being more sarcastic than serious in my verbage, but yes, something is happening. Is iStock losing buyers?

My back of the hand calculation of my portfolio and knowledge about my friend's portfolio is that we both average about $0.50 per image per month. Thus 200 images might be the number your looking for. The 20/80 rule definitely holds. Most don't sell, but a few sell well.

Interesting, Thanks

I fell like some of you guys are beating around the bush.  The fact is, none of you would be in the microstock business if you did not anticipate how many images you would need to upload to make X, and what kind of images you need to upload to reach that goal.

I'm not talking about exceptions where one uploads 100 images and gets 0 sales because he has no clue what he's doing. I hope that's not the case, because if there are some folks who aren't making money from 100 images, they shouldn't be selling stock.  Selling stock is a business, and in any business model you make predictions, those predictions are based on what you already know about the industry, and practical side of business, based on those two factors you anticipate what you need to do to reach your highest potential. The usual suspects who claim microstock is like a blind-folded person throwing darts at a bulls eye, are blowing smoke.  Microstock is not art in the pure sense of being art.  It is about supply and demand rather than art, because it is not done for art's sake, its done to make money.  Sure, better quality stuff is in more demand, and I suppose those guys who already been with microstock long enough, know the gist; what sells, what to expect, what not to do, what has been overdone, where the shifts are happening.  In this sense nobody, who is actively pursing microstock, is doing it blind-folded.

So, since some folks like to speak for other people, I want to ask you, how many images did you upload to reach your first $100 a month goal?

Why do you think there is any useful answer to such a question?

It depends on your images - more needed if you aren't very good or shoot subjects that aren't in demand, fewer if you're a Yuri clone.

I think you would do better to focus on building a portfolio you are proud of and that might keep providing you income for a while

I think there should be an average. I understand there are good and bad exceptions. But in any business model, there is a forecast, growth model that you can look back and see.

I've used a slightly modified version of the Getty release and had it accepted by all of the agencies who have seen it.  I'm told that Dreamstime has an issue with the standard Getty release due to its language about relying on the laws of the country with the nearest Getty office.  I changed that wording to refer only to US law.  I can give you a copy of my release if you're in the US or don't mind changing the wording to your home country.

That would be great. I'm in the US so that would work out perfectly for me

Thanks
Ben

Is there a one model release form out there that can be used with istock, dreamstime, shutterstock, fotolia and depositphotos? I really dislike the idea of creating a model release form for every microstock I upload to.

Thank in advance