YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SELLING STOCK PHOTOS & HD / UHD VIDEO FOOTAGE AS
EDINBURGH SCOTLAND UK - October 29 2014: Soon to be Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon address SNP supporters in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK shortly before becoming First Minister of Scotland. With IndyRef2 (a second Scottish Independence Referendum) possibly on the cards, this set has been doing so-so, unlike other stock on Shutterstock! My apologies for not posting much in the past few weeks, as I have been very busy editing new stock images and I thought it would be more concise to talk of periods of three months, rather than one.
I have now been submitting images and video to Royalty Free Microstock since August 2016. The image above is something of an experiment, as although I am represented globally by Avalon, through a network of sub agents, I have never seen any of the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum images sell through Avalon (formerly Photoshot). While tantalising, I am still not entirely sold on the RF Microstock license model, as it appears to be mainly subscription downloads, which do of course, add up - to a fairly small sum. The following is a month by month breakdown of sales from Shutterstock: Last Quarter of 2016 September 2016 - A handful of files live on the site = US$2.00 for 8 downloads October 2016 - Approx 50 images = US$6.76 with 14 downloads with two $1.88 sales November 2016 - Approx 70 images = US$11.77 with 21 downloads with four $1.88 sales December 2016 - Approx 100 images = US$4.50 with 18 downloads (all subscription) First Quarter of 2017 January 2017 - Approx 150 images = US$7.30 with 21 downloads (all but one subscription) February 2017 - Approx 180 images = US$12.44 with 36 downloads with two $1.88 sales March 2017 - Approx 200 images = US$19.87 with 48 downloads with one $1.88 sale and another for $4.86 (the first I have ever seen). As March 2017 is not quite over yet, I will update this stat in a day or two. Total Shutterstock sales thus far = US$64.64 One big problem I have with Shutterstock, is that their picture editors on the whole seem to be chosen from well, people who are very poor picture editors. According to my statistics, some TWO THIRDS of the images I submit are rejected, often on spurious grounds. I get the impression they are more interested in their server fees than helping contributors. A total lack of understanding exactly what editorial stock is and it's market is given over to priority for model-released stuff by the looks of things and this means I have wasted more than the sum you see above in precious time editing for them. This is so bad - I've been in stock photography for over 20 years and have seen pros at work - that personally, I would not hire anyone who has Shutterstock Photo Editor on their CV, as they are probably useless as a photo editor. That issue aside (it is their company and if they hire picture editors with poor skills, then that will impact on their profits too and doubtless put off a lot of good contributors), the problem with this license model is that simply put - at present - it does not generate enough revenue for me to cover one event like the one where I took the image of Nicola Sturgeon which is posted here. Getting a quarter - just $0.25 per image - does not cover costs, hence, at the moment on Shutterstock, I am making a loss. This is of course, where capitalism in it's western form, comes a serious cropper and enters lala land. However, keeping the aforementioned in mind, it is instructive to take the long-view. How much royalties could these images have over a 2-4 time period after being edited and - with luck - accepted and published on Shutterstock? Does it rack up eventually as a day rate like you would get off a news agency? Maybe it does. With the IndyRef2 - as it is termed on Twitter - a possible second Scottish Independence Referendum possibly on the cards, there has been sustained demand for these Nicola Sturgeon images and for ones of her campaigning with Alex Salmond in Perth High Street. Bloggers, news sites and others have been busy downloading these images, which have made up over 50% or so of my total revenue from Shutterstock. My time is worth money and compounded by being medium anaemic, which means I burn out quickly on the energy front. I do resent it when perfectly usable images are declined by an editor who seems to lack any knowledge of the stock image market - especially editorial. Shutterstock are completely anal about captions and get them precisely right for editorial and they can help raise that acceptance statistic. But with these peanuts, is it worth it? That of course, depends on your circumstance. For some it may be. Sadly, as the editorial market is terrible these days, I don't seek out such subject matter so much these days, as the up front cost is quite high. Maintaining a car, fuel, coffees, food, not too mention computers, cameras, mobile phones and lenses all cost money. It looks to me, in any license, that the Internet providers get a lot of the license fee and agencies take the lion's share and the photographer is thrown some crusts. Some crusts can be full of gold and diamonds, metaphorically-speaking, though mostly are just some change. Indeed, begging on the street with the appropriate sign reading: "I'm a microstock photographer: Please give generously" - is probably a better income stream. As far as other Microstock outfits have performed, the answer is not very well with a mix of editorial and commercial stock images. BigStockPhoto - which owned by Shutterstock, sell some $1 and $2 sales - more so than Shutterstock since I began uploading, I have earned just $15. Results from Dreamstime have been quite bad, with several hundred images online, they have only sold $25 thus far - around a third of what Shutterstock have done. Of course, stock photography is not a predictable business, though usually some averages on a high quality bar do arise and Dreamstime have a $100 payout threshold (versus $35 from Shutterstock) - so I am still very far, it seems from seeing a cent from them and I have not been active on the site for some time, as I loose money when I do so, as I contribute to Getty Creative, which is more profitable than the agencies above, for me, at least. Dreamstime charge a little more, though it seems clients are so penny-pinching - and I mean penny-pinching that Scrooge himself would wince at - that no one wants to pay photographers anymore. Perhaps we could try this with bankers? I also signed up to Adobe Stock some months ago and they have a higher rejection rate than Shutterstock. This is a bit more understandable as they are NOT looking for editorial and seeking to establish themselves in the market, though some of their decisions are also no brainers. Adobe Stock is integrated into the Adobe Creative Cloud plans for those using their software, which are often people who need images. I have had four sales over the past quarter totalling £2.17, two for £0.74, one for £0.50 and one for £0.19 all on subscription. I suspect that Adobe Stock (it is also Fotolia) will do quite well with the right portfolio - which would be on-trend model-released stock sets of trending themes in advertising. Mostly, I put nature and wildlife images on, as I am not usually in an easy position to organise model-released shoots. Though the returns are slightly encouraging, as there is only 45 images that they have accepted and put live on the site. In conclusion, two quarters and a new collection is not exactly a scientific study of the sales performance of a given RF Microstock agency and it will be interesting (from an academic, rather than financial point-of-view) to see how these agencies perform over 2017. Though with a Rights Managed collection on Avalon with over 11,000 press / editorial (and some commercial stock) images is not much better, with an average return per image / per year of under £0.20. Scaling the numbers up is also instructive. With 200 images on Shutterstock, I earn $64.64 in seven months, which is an average of $9.23 in royalties per month. Taking the last six months to be more accurate, this is $10.77 a month. Imagine that the portfolio is 10 times that, at 2,000 images - same mix of editorial and commercial stock - then the numbers are a bit healthier. Taking the past two months as a base for this calculation, I made $12.44 in February 2017 and $19.87 in March 2017. Added together this is $32.31 times 6 (to make up a fictitious year) is $193.86. If we take this sum and divide the number of images on Shutterstock (201 at the time of writing), then we get an average of $0.964/per image/per year. So a good estimate of Shutterstock revenue from 2,000 images (editorial and commercial - if you only produce commercial stock, it is likely to be higher) is 2,000 x $0.96447761 (to be precise) = $1,928.95 in royalties. These averages can be deceiving, as stock photography is a rapidly-changing marketplace with little in the way of continuity. Therefore, this is a good average to work on - though could be a few hundred dollars more or less. Due to the ludicrous rejection rate of high-quality images submitted to Shutterstock, I would need to upload some 6,000 images to make this happen. Even with very slick workflow, it is not easy to produce more than 12 images per hour (not including upload to Shutterstock, tweaking before final submission, etc) and therefore 6,000 / 12 = 500 hours of basic editing time, double it for actually capturing the images and add on 100 hours of Shutterstock site work and you arrive at the figure of 1,100 hours of work. On the basic minimum wage in the United Kingdom of £7.20, if you were to employ someone, it would cost £7,920. Assuming that you don't, 1,100 hours of work equates to 27.5 full 40 hour weeks of work. Therefore, you would need some four years of strong sales to make up the same money that can be earned in the British economy on the minimum wage. So, there is money in RF Microstock, but it does not arrive overnight (unless you are extremely lucky) and you are looking at putting in respectable part-time job type hours to make it work - presuming that is you are a good photographer and remember this is not counting all the other work you need to do, such as studying trends, research of subject and equipment, etc, etc. While in the short-term, most Microstock agencies are a zero-hours contract from the devil's anus itself, over the medium to long term, it can pay OK. But really, these rates are so bad and the return on investment so long, as not to make it viable for many photographers, especially younger ones. And of course, I have not factored in income tax and national insurance contributions, shoot expenses, equipment, etc. Hence, to conclude. While the first quarter of 2017 in the weird world of RF Microstock has been interesting, it certainly has not been profitable or particularly encouraging and one does indeed wonder how anyone can upload 60,000 images, to get 20,000 on the servers, to get something approaching a not-so-good salary, unless you live in an economy which is like Burkino Faso or Nepal. It does somewhat, of course, depend on your needs. Those approaching retirement may find it alluring, others for whom photography is a serious hobby may view it as useful for buying cameras and lenses. If you live in Europe or the US or Japan or another economy which is sort of rich, then it may not be such a great bet and you may find EyeEm (whom supply Getty and Alamy with commercial stock mostly) a more fun and perhaps more lucrative option. It is worth keeping in mind that the above analysis is talking of still images, if you produce HD / UHD video clips or illustrations, then it may be a different story (perhaps better, perhaps worse). I hope to go into more depth about all this in my new ebook on RF Microstock which is currently in production and is scheduled to be published later this year.
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AuthorMicrostock Insight is written and edited by Jonathan W Mitchell, a seasoned stock photographer and photojournalist with over 20 years experience submitting images to photo and video agencies. Categories
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