Lately, there’s been a lot of blog chatter about the finer points of selling microstock and how it’s a good idea. Well I, for one, want to start some chatter about how much of a bad idea it is.
Here’s a quote from a recent post at Photoprenuer.com.
“Take a Little Extra with Microstock
If the idea of spending your spare time drinking Champagne and eating salmon or chicken doesn’t thrill, then microstock could be a good alternative.We talk about microstock a lot here because it’s an easy way to make your first image sale. Remember though that to get the multiple downloads and permanent customer base that top microstock photographers rely on, you need to shoot commercial images that sell, not offer your top artistic shots and hope someone will buy them because they’re nice.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can shoot microstock whenever you want. While top-earning microstock photographers shoot full-time, you can generate some useful extra income by shooting at the weekends and editing and uploading in the evenings.”
The whole mentality that you should sell your photos for less than a fair value simply because your a part time shooter is seriously flawed. Microstock is an awful business model. By selling your photos on sites like this, not only are you devaluing photography prices in general, but you are losing money every time you sell a photograph for way under what it cost you to make it.
Think about it. How much did your camera cost? Your lenses? Your lights? You computer? Let’s just say $6000 for this example. Now, how much do you get paid an hour at your day job? For the sake of argument, let’s say $15/hr. Say you spend an average of 10 hours a week for a year doing photography “part time”. Your value for working 520 hours a year is $7800. Grand total for your first year of business costs: $13,800. Now how much microstock would you have to sell to just cover those first year of business costs? Ummm… average profit from a microstock sale is what, $.25? You would have to sell your stock photos 55,200 times just to break even!
And you know what the average pro is making from microstock? PDN reported in a survey that 58% of image makers “had an average of $3,900 in 2006 stock income, although 501 of them (58% of all microstock respondents) reported earning less than $1,000 from stock sales last year.”
Still think microstock is a good idea?
If you want to get a real idea of how much it costs to be a professional photographer, even a part time one, then do yourself a favor and learn about Cost of Doing Business. You’ll never sell a photograph for $.25 again.
Here’s a CODB calculator provided by the National Press Photographers Associaton: http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/cdb/cdbcalc.cfm
Also, if you do want to dabble in stock, join agencies like Alamy or PhotoShelter Collection. With Alamy, you can submit anything you want and try to sell it as stock. PhotoShelter is open to anyone right now too and they pay 70%! All their prices are based in reality, too.
Just my opinion,
-lincoln
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October 16th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
I made $300 on microstock this year and am very happy with that result. I have NO INTEREST in being a professional photographer. I enjoy photography as a hobby, and feel excited that my images were like by someone enough to pay for them. Even if it was only $1 that they paid. I purchased my camera gear for my personal enjoyment, not for the purpose of microstock. I think your argument is way too broad sweeping. Microstock is great for me because it is not work for me, photography is my hobby. And how great is it to have a hobby that pays for itself!
October 16th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Hey Wes,
I’m glad you enjoy photography. I do too. It was a hobby for me in the beginning, but now I make a living at it. And I have to say that it’s the best job I’ve ever had.
Believe it or not, the moment you sell a photograph for money, you have become a professional. Yes, it may not be your sole source of income, but cash is cash in the eyes of the IRS.
My point in writing this article was that I just don’t want to see photographers undervalue themselves anymore. You’re not paying for pixels when you pay for photography. You’re paying for hundreds and hundreds of hours of learning and experience. That’s where the value comes in. That’s why microstock devalues photography. It cheapens the effort you put into it.
You are worth more than $1. Much, much, much… more. Don’t sell yourself short.
And educate yourself. Start with the Stock Artists Alliance featured articles on Stock Photography (http://www.stockartistsalliance.org/info/news/reports.htm). You owe it to yourself to understand the industry you’re a part of now.
Good luck!
February 4th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
i have contracts with 3 of the largest stock companies in the world (not microstock) and i also submit my work to a mircostock company. i won’t reveal how much i made from real stock photography last year, but i will tell you what i have made from mircostock from december 2005 to jan 2008. that figure is $75.20 cents. and i have a fair amount of images on there and the quality is of course high. microstock is like a pyramid scam. the owners of the company make the money and the corporations buying the imagery are literally having a field day lowering their expenditure on advertising costs using microstock sites.
now there are of course those you don’t care and just love taking photos. these weekend shooters are the life-blood of the mircostock industry and there is a never ending string of them that will sustain this bargin-bin spin-off for years to come. so what’s my point?
point is - photography is becoming devalued. those in a mircostock agency, wishing to aspire to the likes of getty images or corbis etc will go no further than they are now because the base price of a digital RF image has been set. istockphoto’s base price has been rising slightly over the last 2 years or so. that’s great news for the mircostocker one might be lead to believe. however, as soon as the base prices becomes large enough to be undercut significantly, another little micro-micro stock agency will appear and all those at the old micro stock agencies will be feeling the same as we big agency stock photographers feel now. if your base price is 15$ for the past 2 years would you be willing to let it drop back down to 1$ and start all over again? no. that’s why the base price cannot rise. the larger agencies already have business models in place to compete with microstock so microstock can’t go any higher. if you are a client - where would you buy your image if it were the same or very similar price? getty or dollabinjunkpixels.com?
so here we have a never-ending stream of amateurs with hard-ons for wanting to be published and not caring about income and thus a pricing limit for RF that cannot be broken. so mircostockers are stuck where they are. some may want to go onto larger agencies or even break into editorial or advertising work but they have only a record of selling their word on bargin-bin sites. if you are thinking about breaking into photography and want to make a living from it - mircostock is not a place to start. create fantastic imagery, decide what part of the industry you want to be a part of and go out there and get the work. some people may feel like they don’t have the confidence to do so and it’s easier to just upload stuff to a site…. it is easier. it is not hard work. and you will be paid accordingly.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
[...] 18, 2008 by myrmecos The rise of microstock photography has many established photographers wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth over how microstock companies are destroying the [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Hi Lincoln,
I liked your article particularly as you acknowledge it’s your opinion. I personally am new to the stock photo industry and while I often struggle to see things from the perspective of people such as yourself, I realise that it’s important to understand both sides of any debate and to at least try to see how things look when standing in the shoes of people with a different background to your own. For this reason, I’d like to offer some friendly but challenging questions. I’m interested in broadening my understand more than I am in changing your mind or proving you wrong, so please take my questions in that context.
Don’t you think that digital photography, having put high-res and high “auto everything” quality images within reach of anyone with just $1000 to spend on a DSLR camera and lens (ok, maybe a little more than that), don’t you think that’s lowered what is “fair value” for a stock photo, at least at the lower quality levels? Naturally hobbyists will never compete with established professional stock photographers with top quality equipment and professional well-staffed shoots. But at least at the microstock level of quality, it seems the value of an image came down before the price did. What are your thoughts on that?
And microstock has obviously brought in a massive quantity of new buyers who previously couldn’t afford stock photos at macrostock prices. Small businesses, charities and bloggers are the most often cited examples. It’s a fair assumption that some organisations who previously did buy macrostock are now buying microstock, but it seems like a separate sub-market where low-budget stock photo producers (hobbyists and pro-microstockers) are supplying low-budget buyers. And the buyers who’ve migrated from macrostock to microstock obviously didn’t need either the quality or Rights Managed / exclusivity options offered by macrostock anyway. At risk of grossly over-simplifying this otherwise long question, there’s obviously buyers for microstock, who without the supply of microstock contributors would be without a market.
…just in case it didn’t come through, I’m aware that there will always be large clients willing to pay high prices for top quality stock with Rights Managed licenses, and indeed top quality stock photographers to supply them.
In response to Steve’s comment above, I’m seeing lots of people using microstock as their starting place and/or learning ground. Indeed many macrostock agencies actively campaign microstock contributors wanting them to contribute. Many microstock contributors are often inundated with requests for contract work and other offers. And many are taking them up on their offers. Most of the top photographers in the microstock market now also have photos in Getty, Corbis and Jupiter. Let me know if you’d like me to show you examples.
Finally Lincoln, the comments above from Daniel and Egor are spam. Placing the article title in the comment is easily automated and if you check their links you’ll see they’re not ‘on topic’.
Hope that helps.
Again, I hope I haven’t upset you with my questions, but I’m interested in your opinions and I’ll be happy if you can show me some holes in my argument or show me a view I haven’t seen.
Respectfully,
Lee.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:38 am
Hi Lee,
Thanks for pointing out the spammers. I have removed those comments.
To answer your first question, the cost of cameras and the quality has absolutely nothing to do with the fee you should be paid for usage of the image you create. You can buy a pinhole camera kit for around $20 bucks and take a decent photograph on 35mm film. A scan costs about $5 bucks and you have a digital sellable image for way less than any DSLR. Does that mean you should sell it for $.25? No, what gives that image it’s value is the partly the subject matter and partly the perceived value. The quality of the image (or what camera it was shot with) has very little to do with it.
For example, Terry Richardson (http://www.terryrichardson.com/). He shoots mainly with film point & shoot cameras with on camera flash. Yet, he’s an incredibly famous and sought after photographer. If Terry started selling his images on a Microstock site, that would devalue his credibility and thus devalue the fee he commands.
My point is, as a photographer (of any level), you have to be mindful of the company you keep. Placing your images on a microstock site will never get you credibility with any serious art buyers or photo editors. You sell your images cheap, then you’ll always be cheap.
Also, why would you want to let a Microstock profit off your learning experience? Your spending time and money to build a library of images and all they do is collect money off it. That’s just a terrible disrespect to your self. Do you not value yourself at all as a person?
Besides, the microstock business model probably won’t be able to sustain itself in a few years. Read more about it on John Harrington’s blog http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/2008/04/not-so-luckyoliver-shuttering.html
Thanks for commenting!
Lincoln