Great read! Creative market is a different kind of place. After the new licensing update, I doubled my prices and don't see many sales now... plus I don't like how they include "their" cut in your MISC 1099. That is not right ..

I thought the same thing at first. I was coming off of the Envato thing and it felt like CM was doing the same move. But it's pretty different. CM still considers all of your income from them one big number for the year, where as Envato regards it all as individual invoices between the contributor and the customer.

I talked to my accountant about how CM does it, and he said it's surprisingly common in many industries to do that kind of reporting. It's an easy enough work-around, and just means a few extra minutes of bookkeeping work to track it.

I still think it's weird, because it's money that never actually reached me and yet I'm supposed to say that it did. But apparently it's an extremely common practice and not nearly as big a deal as I originally thought.

I know there are plenty of folks around here with more years in the business than me. But with 10 years in the books, it�s been interesting to do a little reflecting on how things were when I started, what happened along the way, and what the state of the business seems to be (in my opinion). So here�s a little of what I�ve been thinking about:

I started selling stock images (mostly vector icons and illustrations) with StockXpert in May 2007. I got into selling after being a buyer for years and finally realizing that I could probably make things of a similar quality level as the stuff I was buying. A few icon sets later, I was pulling in some coffee money every month.


Some of my early stock stuff from May 2007

Back then the big discussion was �Should I go exclusive with iStock?� Probably the worst thing I could have done would have been to go exclusive, and fortunately I resisted the temptation. But believe me, the temptation was there. Back then, iStock was still a mostly reputable company, and financially speaking, exclusivity still made sense for a lot of people. Crunching the numbers and trying to guess what might happen if I went exclusive, I was sort of on the fence about it. It was possible that I could make more money working only with iStock. I didn�t go for it, though. I liked spreading my work out to as many places as possible, and I bet on the long-term profitability of that strategy.

By 2008, after shutting down a failed business I was running and getting back into full-time graphic design work, stock was the perfect side-gig for me. I worked at a local ad agency during the day, and could make stock images at night. I got married that year, but didn�t have any kids yet so there was plenty of time to create new stuff to sell and things kind of took off from there.

By 2010 I was out of the agency job and on my own, freelancing as a graphic designer but largely supported by my income from stock image sales.

Between 2010 and 2013 I saw the best financial times in my stock image career. In my best year, I pulled in around $70,000. Nearly half of that came from Shutterstock.


2010-2013 - This was the kind of stuff that really kicked my earnings up.

During these years, I also saw the most change in the stock image business. The feeling that we are a commodity to agencies became less a theory and more a reality. Getty definitely showed that, and said as much with their comments about money not being what should make us happy. These years marked a pivotal moment for me in this business, when I really felt that stock image licensing as I knew it up to that point had a definite expiration date on it, and I would not be able to do this in the same way for long. As good as things had been going, there was also this looming doubt in my mind that this wouldn�t last long.

Of course we all know how that went. Since 2014 it�s been much harder to make a living at this. Impossible, in fact, for me and many others. I don�t make anywhere near what I used to, and this is fully a side-gig income again for me. To be fair, I had a hand in that shift to some extent. I was skeptical about the future prospects of stock and I pulled away a bit. I didn�t upload as much as I used to, and I started looking for other things to do. But it was always a part of my life and I still had hopes that either things would turn around or I�d figure out some way to get things moving again.

Through the years, some unexpected and really cool things landed at my doorstep because of stock, and some of these things helped fill the gap of the declining income.

For example, I got an email from Shutterstock years back saying that someone was interested in buying exclusive rights to one of my images. Actually they wanted one badge design from a single image (a set of 9 badges). It was a set of college logos/emblems, and apparently some design company that was hired to design a new logo for a university took one of my stock images and passed it off as their own custom work. The school used the logo on banners, signs, books, all over the campus before finding out that their logo was a stock image. It was too late to re-do it, and too costly to tear down everything that already had the new logo on it, so they reached out to Shutterstock to find out about buying the rights to the image. I got a few thousand dollars in the deal, and the school got to keep their logo. From what I heard afterward, it was kind of a local controversy when the whole stock logo thing became known. Not just because of the drama with the design agency, but with the fact that the logo they were now fully committed to came from outside the community (outside the country for that matter).

A few similar stories came up over the years. I had a buyout request from a guy who, like the university, thought he got a custom logo design but it was one of my stock images instead. He actually loved his new �custom� logo so much that he got it tattooed on his arm. I felt bad for the guy, I couldn�t even sell him the rights. It was my top-selling image at the time, sold over 10,000 times. After years of sales there was just no real value in having exclusive rights to the design, no way to really own it when so many people already had valid licenses to it. Last I heard, he was getting a new logo done and planned a cover-up for his tattoo. That�s one of 2 people I know about that have had my stock work tattooed on them. 


Band t-shirts and tattoos.

I�ve had quite a few buy-out requests because of designers passing off my work as their own custom design. One was the Kabbage logo (the leaf graphic part of the logo). I was able to work out a deal with them to give them ownership of the leaf graphic.

Probably the weirdest one was from a designer who told me she "accidentally" designed a logo that looked exactly like one of my stock designs, the client saw the stock image, and now the designer wants me to stop selling it so her client doesn't sue her. Oh, and she didn't want to pay more than $20 in the buyout. The best part? This was somehow partially my fault, and I should "do the right thing" and sign over rights to the image to get her out of this messy situation.

Stock also brought some awesome clients to me for custom design work. I got an email from a guy who saw my work on Shutterstock and wanted to hire me to do some designs for his skateboard company. Within a few hours I was on the phone to an office in France, talking to the founder of Element skateboards, one of the largest skate companies globally. I�ve done over 20 custom designs for them since, and my work is on t-shirts, hats, and decks in skate shops around the world.


Custom work for a skateboard company.

I�ve done a ton of logo and t-shirt design work as a direct result of my stock portfolio. I have a steady gig with a clothing company doing around 10 t-shirt designs each month. I�ve worked on graphics for apps, product logos, murals, even branding for a big marijuana and music festival, all the direct result of people finding me through stock site portfolios.

I�ve seen my stock images used in some interesting places. On products and packaging in stores like Target, in ads, tv commercials for Verizon and Kayak, on news websites, on band merchandise, as the background artwork on a Shell gasoline card, on products and store graphics for Olan Rogers Supply, in graphics for shows on the TWiT network, in poster art on the walls of the high school in the Fox tv show �Glee�, and in print materials for the Boy Scouts of America.


Stock image sightings.

Along with the good, there is also the bad side of putting your work out there. I�ve had countless cases of people stealing my work, reselling it, taking credit for it, putting it on products for sale without a proper license, I even had one guy who tried to sell the rights to one of my images to another company. He signed a contract and everything, and I had to inform the company that their contract with him was invalid.

I had to deal with the IRS thinking I drastically underreported my earnings one year, and get my accountant to fix the issue and make that $18,000 IRS invoice go away. It was that PayPal 1099-K form making it look like I earned twice as much as I actually did.

Still, the good has far outweighed the bad, and the 10 years I�ve been doing this have been worth the hassles, the ups and downs, and the sometimes chaotic environment that the stock image business can be. This business gave me the freedom to be my own boss for 6 years, and it was a great side-gig during the other 4 years. It helped me hone my skills creating vector graphics, logos, badges, illustrations, and other designs, and build a portfolio that landed me projects I couldn�t have gotten otherwise.

Looking forward, I don�t see it being possible for anyone to make the kind of living at this in the same way and at the same level that was previously possible. That�s been true for years now, and will only become more real for us all in the years ahead. It�s why guys like Yuri cut deals with agencies, they know as well (or better) than all of us that they can�t maintain earnings rates.

The only constant in this business is change, and we need to change with it. For me, that change is what led me to Creative Market and why CM outperforms all of the stock sites I work with except Shutterstock. Although I can see the day coming soon when it does surpass Shutterstock. Creative Market never tried to match what microstock companies were doing. It�s why they never really gained much popularity with the microstock contributor community, but it�s also why they have outperformed many microstock companies for many contributors. It�s a different market, with a different buyer mindset and different paths to success. Trying to apply the same ideas and strategies to that platform doesn't work.


2017 new work. Definitely on a roll with camping-themed stuff lately.

I believe that marketplaces like Creative Market are the future of this business, at least for people like me who do vector design and sell customizable design elements. The best version of the product I sell isn�t the flattened font-less EPS file buyers get at Shutterstock, it�s the fully editable, easily customizable, feature-rich product that gives buyers the tools to make something awesome. Sure it�s more work for me to make that kind of product, but it�s worth it. And the sales results prove it, for me and especially for the top earners who see six-figure or even seven-figure earnings.

In another 10 years I�ll still be doing this, but it likely won�t be with all the same companies. Probably half of the companies I currently work with won�t even be around in 5 years. The market for pre-made visuals will still be as necessary in another decade as it is now, maybe even more so. But we�ll have to better meet the customer where they are and not expect them to just take whatever we throw out into the market. We need to respond better to what they want, give them products that fit their needs and not just give them the products we want to make and expect them to be satisfied with that. Adobe will be an interesting company to follow in this. They are already are offering more than photos and vector icons.

When I look around my office, I�ve got skateboards and prints hanging on the wall that show work I did because of connections I made through microstock. I�ve got sketchbooks and folders on the bookshelf full of ideas for new stock graphics and illustrations. I'm wearing a t-shirt that someone sent me with a sea turtle mascot on the front, one of my stock designs. And I�ve got a whiteboard with a list of projects I need to do, many of them for people who clicked around on Shutterstock or Creative Market and found me through those sites. What started out as me selling vector icons to pay for breakfast turned into something that has defined my career. No matter what happens from here, my path is forever changed because of this business. I think that�s pretty awesome.

Thanks for 10 years, microstock, and thanks to everyone I�ve met on this crazy journey.

I used to report them but not as much lately. If it's someone taking my work and re-uploading it, then for sure I'll report that.

I had 2 bad experiences with reporting infringements that kind of put me off of it. One was I reported someone who was truly remorseful and because of the harsh policies of the agencies, the guy was essentially black-balled from microstock for life. I understand the need for policies to be strict in this matter. But there are always cases where an honest mistake or just plain ignorance about copyright leads someone to do something unintentionally nefarious. That incident left me feeling kind of crappy about reporting people and, in this one case, taking away any chance this guy had at pursuing microstock further.

The other bad experience was a reporting of an obvious infringement that was removed from a site, and then later overturned and the infringing images re-instated. They're still up for sale today. That one just left me feeling like "Why bother."

For the most part, infringements are sub-par copies and I don't view them as taking anything away from me. The better images often get better search placement, and even if my image is side-by-side with a copy, buyers will probably go for the better image every time.

I think the agencies have more to lose by not taking infringements more seriously. The collection doesn't benefit from lesser-quality copies.

Quote from: EmberMike on March 24, 2017, 21:03

Companies like Getty will still say that they can't afford to pay more, but it's B.S.

Not necessarily. Remember that they have piled up gigantic debts in the vulture capitalist merry-go-round of buying the company, borrowing in the market to repay the people who bought it all charged against (our) future earnings, then selling it on to somebody else who repeats the process. They've piled up so much debt to line the pockets of the "investors" that the rating agencies were starting to downgrade them the last I heard of it.

I was thinking more historically, from back in the beginning up to the years around the Getty deal. More recent events have certainly made it impossible for them to raise royalty rates to anything even close to 50%. But in 2010 and prior, they could have done it. Back when they called it "unsustainable" to continue paying rates on the system before the redeemed credit scheme, I think that was kind of a dishonest statement. Maybe at the time it was becoming unsustainable, but it certainly wasn't always that way and we now know that 50% and above is sustainable if a company operates in a way that views contributors as valuable (and critical) asset.

Today, sure, it is unsustainable to pay more. It's impossible, actually, and really it's kind of amazing that they survive at all considering how many hooks investors have in the company and how bad things are over there financially.

your holidays snaps probably wont have commercial value, you only have 100 images, they are average, and then consider competing against 100 million other images...

I'd remove "probably" from that statement and then fully agree with it. To be honest, none of your images are commercially valuable. Snapshots just don't work as stock anymore, not when there are high-end photos of the same subjects shot with a lot more intent, effort, and setup. The casual "Hey I bought a latte so let me take a quick shot of it" photos don't cut it for the typical buyer these days.

This is a business that looks like it's just that simple, that you could take a picture of the plate of food in front of you with a DSLR and you're on your way to making money. The reality is that those simple-looking shots are staged, prepared, composed, lit, and edited to look the way they do. There's nothing casual about them.

Your latte photo is up against hundreds or thousands of other latte photos, many of them part of a shoot that might have taken hours to set up. I know a stock photographer who shoots in a restaurant, has chef-prepared meals plated and served and he has a full light kit around a meticulously set up table. And it's not when he's sitting down to eat dinner. He goes there when the restaurant is closed specifically to do a photo shoot.

That's how you have to treat this to make it work. It's a job, like any other, and one that requires effort and hard work. Companies used to market this as a "sell your home snapshots" business, and for a time, it was. But that was almost a decade ago.

People still upload to iStock?

People are still exclusive at iStock??

 

So my verdict for illustrations and vectors is that Quality is King!!!

I agree. Unless you're one of those insanely productive illustrators who can crank out hundreds of thousands of images, I think the quality game is the better play. At least that's what I've experienced. In my limited experimentation with faster production of lower-quality images, the lower quality stuff just can't sell enough volume to keep up with a few high-end images.

Q. Why did Creative Market report the gross and not the net on my 1099-MISC?

A. US federal income tax law requires that Creative Market report the royalties earned by Shop Owners, as the gross amount (i.e., prior to reduction for the fees charged by Creative Market). Our legal counsel instructed that this is the proper method of reporting. Please note that we are unable to comment on the operations of other businesses that may or may not do this differently.

Just make sure you know for this year.

https://creativemarket1.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/217900638-Tax-FAQ-for-US-Shop-Owners

That's still very different than what Envato does. At least in that kind of reporting I can pretty easily resolve the tax reporting issues. Envato treats every sale as a direct transaction between the buyer and the contributor, and creates invoices for each sale on behalf of the contributor. It's a tax reporting nightmare. At least what CM is doing still maintains the traditional relationship between agency and contributor in which the only reported transactions we need to concern ourselves with are those between the company and ourselves.

It's not ideal, for sure. But it's easy enough to work around it. Certainly worth the trouble considering where CM ranks on my earnings list each month.

Yes, they have pretty decent royalty option.
I really wish they'd marketed the product properly.

They never will. And it's a shame, they could have very well been one of the major players in the business now if they had done it right years ago. They emerged right at the time that both buyers and contributors were getting really frustrated with istock. Buyers with the changing prices and confusing credit costs, and contributors with the RC system and decreasing earnings. Stockfresh emerged with a simple credit system and a fair royalty rate. And on the heels of StockXpert, which was largely viewed among contributors as a good agency.

It was almost perfect. You really couldn't set up a more advantageous situation for an emerging agency. If only they had taken advantage of it and made themselves visible in the market all those years ago.

Instead, they skipped marketing almost entirely, and no one ever noticed them. They hardly sell anything, and we hardly earn anything as a result.

...you don't like Getty so you would rather harm yourself than do something that might be good for you and Getty...

There is no scenario left in which something can be done that is mutually beneficial to both Getty and artists. Getty's motivations are clear, and they don't include an ounce of consideration for what's good for contributors.

You can't do anything that benefits both sides when one side only wants to take and take, never willing to give.

I'm not signing that petition. For what, to beg for a pittance?

Have some dignity and self-respect, people.

I'm still waiting for a Skrill payment...

 

He talks about looking forward and finding the next great creative assets, but I hope he'll take the time to also look at what they have and figure out how to better market it. They never took the Images section of the site seriously. They've always been video first and foremost, and oh, yeah, they sell photos and vectors on the side. They seemed to want to broaden the marketplace a couple of years back, and they ingested a lot of non-video content but they never did much with it or make any noticeable shift to a more multi-media marketplace.

It's too bad, really. They pay well per sale, just wish they made any effort to actually sell the non-video content.