Selling photographs

Stryder

Hi.
Was wondering if many people have had experience selling stock photography. Saw artical about photonation and other sites. Is this a fools errand or can you generate regular cash from it?

OneYorkshireLass

I've got a few photos on http://www.picturenation.co.uk/. I haven't made any money from it yet and, being realistic, I don't expect to. You can upload 5 (I think) for free, then you have to pay to upload more - I can't remember how much it is.

Standard (marketing, personal, education etc uses) web purchases will sell for £1, and print purchases sell for ten or fifteen pounds depending on the size. Extended purchases (where people can use your image for re-sale) can sell for anywhere between £35 and £75. The company pay 40% commission.

Picturenation are quite picky about the images, so it's best to read the 'seller's pack' where they state what they are and aren't looking for.

cazmanian_minx

Have a look at alamy.com - you'll see their photo credit popping up in loads of magazines and newspapers. Very helpful forums if your initial submission is rejected, no charge for displaying your pictures, they just take commission if you make sales.

InsideInsurance

Have sold photos on fotolia and iStockPhotos. It is like many things, that without reputation it is difficult to sell and its difficult to get reputation because no one will buy.

Most the photo's I've put up sell very little, there were a series of more "classic" stock images that I put up (cocktails) which sold very well and of cause because they were selling well they came higher in listings and so sold even better. They probably made a total of £200 of sales which for £1 of food dye and a couple of straws wasn't a bad return on investment... clearly doesnt pay for the camera or anything else. If I had more inclination I would do more similar photos and probably continue to get a good return but my lights went off to storage and it was hassle to get them back etc

vax2002

Alarmy have some very outdated conditions on the quality of the image and pixel size that bare very little resemblance to whats required from a picture library.
They will reject images on quality control regardless of content and ALL of the top 25 selling images of this year would be automatically rejected by the scrutiny board on quality control.
It is a huge stock library of pictures nobody wants to buy, but all pass quality controls ?.
A very baffling site indeed.

chrisbur

Stryder wrote: »

Hi.
Was wondering if many people have had experience selling stock photography. Saw artical about photonation and other sites. Is this a fools errand or can you generate regular cash from it?

There is a long thread about selling pictures here
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/576153

As a long time contributer to stock photo sites my advice would be

1 Decide if your pictures are good enough. Look at published pictures and pictures on different sites and ask yourself if you can compete with them.

2 Look at different sites (you will see lots in the thread link above) and decide if you want to go for the micro sites or traditional sites. Micro tend to pay low and take a higher percentage as commision but in theory sell more while traditional tend to pay higher have lower commision but sales may not be so regular. If you choose the micro route then I can give no more advice I supply only traditional sites.

3 Assuming you are going traditional do you have a speciality, if so search out a site that does that sort of picture. Look up BAPLA for a list of sites and what they specialise in. If you do general then look at general sites.

4 Pick a site that you feel your pictures would fit into and that you have seen picture credits for in books and magazines etc.

5 Check that they accept new contributers and you are happy with the commision and other terms and submit exactly what they ask for. If they want four to start send four if they ask for 100 send 100.

6 If you are accepted concentrate on taking and sending more pictures it could be a long time before sales start coming in.

7 If you are rejected try again with better pictures or perhaps try a different site untill you are accepted or decide that this is not for you.

Whether or not you make regular money will depend on how good your pictures are and how many you can get onto picture sites.

chrisbur

vax2002 wrote: »

Alarmy have some very outdated conditions on the quality of the image and pixel size that bare very little resemblance to whats required from a picture library.
They will reject images on quality control regardless of content and ALL of the top 25 selling images of this year would be automatically rejected by the scrutiny board on quality control.
It is a huge stock library of pictures nobody wants to buy, but all pass quality controls ?.
A very baffling site indeed.

As a regular contributer to Alamy, and having sold around 230 pictures through them, I feel I must stand up in defence of them.
All libraries have slightly different rules you need to check and follow the rules whoever you send your pictures to. The rules for Alamy are not difficult you will find libraries that are a lot harder to get into.
They may not have sold any of the top 25 but they do sell lots of pictures. Alamy credits appear in books magazines newspapers websites etc on a regular basis. If you check out the forum on the site http://www.alamy.com/forums/
sales are reported daily and these are just the tip of the iceberg.
If nobody wants to buy them where do all these sales come from?

Stryder

Thanks for your comments ... still thinking about it. RE Quality that is a hard one. I like my photography but I am not so objective.

Gracie_1827

Try Zazzle and Redbubble...there you can make your photos, doodle & drawings etc into cards prints cups you name it they'll make it. No cost to you. If someone likes your stuff they order an item and you get commission..simples