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Introduction to Microstock

all right, Here we are. It's the big micro stock discussion time. So from gosh, from 2000 and 6 to 2000 and 12 I had the immense pleasure in honor of being the chief evangelist for istock photo dot com, the world's premier royalty free stock photography company. So I stock started in about 2000 and three, and it started out with a group of folks who were just providing their own images online for other so download. But for you to download images, you also had to upload your own images. So it started out as a sharing site, and it quickly got very successful. They made lots and lots and lots and lots, lots of money, and now they're owned by Getty Images, as a matter of fact. But anyway, the whole phenomenon of I stock is stock imagery. Rather is really incredible. So how does micro stock differ from rights manage stock? Well, it's a heck of a lot more affordable. For one, photographers make their money through volume because if you think about it, you are. Your images are available to th...

e whole world. So companies like Istock Photo served as your agent so to speak and you retain your copyright. But the stock photography companies sell a license to use your imagery. The thing that's really great about it is that so many photographers are contributing to this particular kind of stock imagery that you confined any kind of image you want. It's really wonderful resource for designers or for anybody who can't go out and shoot what they need or draw what they need. So the neat thing about royalty free stock imagery is that it's incredibly affordable. So instead of spending thousands of dollars per image in the rights managed world like we have for years with Getty and Corbis and those guys, you can spend anywhere from a dollar to $50 you know, sometimes $100 in some of the advanced collections or higher in collections, so they're very, very affordable. So it opened up the ability to have professional level imagery to folks that couldn't afford it before. So we're talking companies like small to medium sized businesses, nonprofits, schools, churches, things like that, sole proprietors who really need and want good imagery to promote their business but just simply can't pay those prices. So the thing about royalty free is that you can use it again and again and again and again forever for as long as you want. So when you purchase micro stock images, you download them to your hard drive and they stay there and as long as you're using them in the promotional capacity. So that is to promote yourself, your company, your client, your service, your book, your new music CD, your new video, your event as long as it's in a promotional use. Then you don't have to pay any extra fees for the duration and what you use that image or the individual instances in which you use it. So it's really affordable. So we're gonna be taking a look at some of the different companies the big players that we have in the stock photography micro stock photography realm right now, but a little more on the different types of stock that we have rights managed. That's folks like Getty and Corbis. Like I was saying, You pay a fee based on usage and how long you use it, how many times you use it, and it's very expensive. And that's not bad. Okay, there's no judgments on any of these kinds of stock photography. Editorial is another kind of stock imagery that you'll encounter, and that's what's used in news and sports and entertainment. So we're talking about entertainment, celebrity photos, Brad Pitt, Brangelina, etcetera. You know, sports heroes and things like that in that realm. Logos or okay, Uh, property releases usually require depending upon where you shoot, and we'll talk more about model releases and property releases later. So editorial is a little less expensive than rights manage. But then we got into royalty free stock photography, and you really you have one fee, depending upon the size, the pixel dimensions of the image that you're downloading. That's what determines the size at most of these stock companies. You can't have any logos in world T free in a DRI. So if you capture something with the logo, you have to foot a shop that out, and we'll talk a little bit more about that later on most of these sites that are selling world T free stock photography right now, they price the images in credits. So if you've ever purchased a game off of your Microsoft Xbox, you know exactly what that's about this the same kind of idea. So you purchase a pack of credits and depending upon or the downloader purchases a pack of credits and depending upon how many credits they purchase in a package, those credits could be anywhere from in cost that could be anywhere from a dollar to $2.3 dollars apiece. So the images are priced with credits according to their dimensions. So really honking big images could be, ah, 100 credits or 50 credits, or what happy, really small websites. Images were talking. Maybe 400 by 600 pixels. Could be one credit, which, depending upon how many credits you purchased at that time, could cost you a dollar. So it's very, very affordable, and it has really taken off. So I sought. Photo was the first company that did this, and since then there have been 100 companies just flat out copy their business model. But one of the many things that I loved about Istock photo is that as a photographer for them, you retain your copyright. So you know your name was all over that image. Copyright owned by an ELISA Snyder. What have you and they do a lot to help their contributors and educate their contributors. And I just love the way that they operated, so I always felt very secure. They also have one of the most strictest acceptance policies of all the stock image companies, so we'll talk a little bit about that later on. In fact, a cute little story he was that when getting images purchased Istock photo in February of 2000 and six. I happen to be up in Calgary, Canada, which is where the company is based. And a lot of the Getty photographers were all excited there thought, Oh, that's cute. That little micro stock thing over there will just sign up and will become contributors for I stopped photo to Now that get he owns them, it won't be any big deal. Almost all of them got rejected. It was a scream. Oh, it was a screen. They did not like that at all. But but the reason that happened is because I stopped. Photo has always had one of the strictest acceptance policies for not only contributors, but individual images are inspected within an inch of their life, pixel by pixel. So but eventually they were accepted as contributors. You know most of them? Probably, but it. But it took him a few rounds of submitting images to get there. So and we'll talk all about the process that you go through later. But I thought that was kind of funny. Ah, one more thing before we leave. This visual is the minimum size image that you can submit for royalty. Free stock photography is 1600 pixels by 1200 pixels minimum. So a lot of people ask me, What can I shoot with a point and shoot camera for stock photography? Absolutely. You better be using a tripod. It better be really good. But obviously, most photographers who are successful are not shooting with pointed shoes They're shooting with digital SLR is where they can get much more detail, much more color in their their photos. So while if you get a really great photo off that point and shoot, you might be able to get it into the database. But you're going to transition away from that point and shoot pretty quickly. So who are the big players today? These guys, like I said, I stopped photo, had their business model to straight out, copied. One time I was working at a show with them in London. I think it was the Mac Apple Expo Mac Expo, and I think it was shutter stock. They're a bit naughty in that they're there. Booth, visuals, all of the images, you know, that made you think that you could buy those images from that company. They're all I stopped. Just so our boots were a little bit across from each other, and I was like, Oh, I guess that that's the sincerest form of flattery, right? So that was neat, but But, really, all these companies were good. I sought photo dot com shutter stock dot com dreams time dot com for Tolia dot com. Fatally, A is another one that sponsors being and lets me use their database whenever I want. So I love that they're company based out of Paris, France, and big stock is another reputable, so there are many other ones out out there. But these are, in my personal opinion, the most reputable with I saw it been at the top of that list, but it's also the most difficult to get accepted to these days. And to get your image is accepted as well. So it's a two step process. You have to sign up to become a contributor, and you submit three images that you feel best represent your work as or your unique vision as a stock photographer. Now they'll tell you that those three images don't necessarily have to be three really great stock images, but they kind of oughta be. Really. So what they're looking for is what your particular style is in your treatment. You're I the things that you like to shoot, and it really is best that you stick with things that you like to shoot. I'm gonna share with you several a secrets for specific things that sell well in stock. But you know, when you shoot items that you love, then that passion comes through and you will have much better success in the world. He free stock photography round. So do you remember to shoot what you love? So after you submit these three images and most of the companies work the same way, there either accepted or decline, and if they're declined, you get an email telling you exactly why they were declined. Let's say one of them may have been over sharpened. One of them may have some artifact ing from being up sampled, which is a big no no, we'll talk more about no nos later on. So if they're declined, you have, ah, time period, in which you can submit new samples. And then once those three samples are accepted. And when I went through it, it's all anonymous process. And last time I checked, I stock had about 150 inspectors based all over the world. It's an invite only position. It's very coveted. They take their job very seriously, so they download images and they inspect them at 100% view level. Every single square inch of that image looking for J J Peg artifact ing up sampling over filtering logos, copyright infringements, all kinds of things like that. So it's quite the process. So once you get your three images accepted, then you start submitting to that site to have those images go into your portfolio. So just because you get three images accepted when you're doing your contributor application, that does not mean that you're you have a portfolio because you have to do that again. Eso but It's a neat thing. I think it's Ah, it's a really fun game and you can either make beer money, mortgage payments or I've got several bodies that make six figures doing royalty free stock photography alone. So pretty amazing. What kind of money can you expect to make? All the stock sides are fairly similar. When it comes to this world, he free micro stock. So this just gives you an idea, and these numbers do change a little bit now and then. So the deal is want to you at least that I stopped. Once you have 250 downloads, that could be one image or a series of images, and you have a 50% approval rating or or acceptance rating when you send in your images. In other words, at least half of the images that you submit are accepted. Okay, then you get or just 500 sales. Then you get the opportunity to become exclusive with Istock photo, and you get a little bit more royalties. So when you start out, when you just sign up, you're just getting started. You get 15% of every sale, and you can see the money's in your account and I stopped photo. You can take them out. Once they reach $100 you can have a check sent to you. You can have it sent to you via pay, pal. Etcetera Eso It starts at 15% and if you go exclusive than it jumps up to 25%. But while you're not exclusive, you can submit to all these different companies every one of them that was on the slide before. You don't have to submit to just one. You could submit the same image to all of them. I know a lot of folks that do that, but if you do go exclusive with any of these guys, then you're basically saying, Hey, I won't. I won't play in the royalty free sandbox with anybody but you. That's basically what you're saying. You can go to rights, manage stuff all day long for getting in Corpus and those guys. But when you go exclusive with these companies, you're saying I won't do any royalty for you with anybody else and they like that a lot. Now I stock has a couple of a higher end collections of photos. What they consider their super duper cream of the crop. And those air called a Veta collection and the agency collection and the royalty structure changes a little bit with those guys. Those photos are quite a bit more expensive about double the price of the other ones. So as you get more sales or downloads of the photos in your portfolio, your royalties go up. So you can see here in both the non exclusive and exclusive, uh, columns that when we reached 2000 you know, we get a 1% bump If we're not exclusive, we stay the same for exclusive when you sell 12,500 images and you go up to 17% non exclusive, 30% exclusive and so on and so forth, and you can go all the way up to 45%. But as you can see, you gotta sell a heck of a lot of images. Uh, almost over a 1,000,000. So that's a lot. But the great thing is, is that these images are available to the whole planet that a couple of years ago, when I was still with, I stopped photos. I've only I think they killed the evangelism program last year, so it's only been about a year. So they were the 216th 216th most visited website of all websites. Let that sink in for just a moment. 216th of all the Web sites on the planet. We're not just talking North America. We're talking the pull an it. So there's immense traffic imminence traffic. And while this fee schedule, I can feel the photographers on the Internet bristling a little bit. What do you mean? I only get 15% of the sale. What if my image sells for a dollar, get 15% of the dollar? You kidding me? Why would I ever do that volume, my friends volume. It's got crazy traffic. And while you're not gonna make, you're gonna make pennies on that dollar sale. If you sell that image for a dollar 5000 times, we're not talking pennies anymore. So your money is going to come from volume. You have to shoot a lot and upload a lot, and your pictures need to be seen and download it. And that's how you're gonna make your money through volume. So it's a very different creature from rights managed, where you make a lot of money on fewer sales. So micro stock is you make a little money on a ton of sale. So that's how that works. When I was at the big photos show that happens in New York, I think. What is it? Photo Plus in the fall I was working the booth with, I stopped photo thereto answer questions and things about image processing. And this was when I stock really got big. And so a lot of photographers, pro photographers that had been doing rights managed imagery were pretty pissed off about this whole micro stock situation. You know, how dare you sent sell my image for a dollar? You know, you're killing the stock market. We're not killing stock market. The people who were purchasing stock wouldn't micro stock would never have had the thousands of dollars to purchase rights managed images anyway. And it never was about, at least in my opinion, I didn't really understand why they got so angry. Other than change. You know, change can do strange, strange things to people, but if I could just get them to understand, and I would see these photographers heading at me and just red faced in just livid and angry and scared and frightened and upset, you know that they were gonna lose their business. But once I could get them to understand that submitting their be in sea level images to micro stock size was perhaps how they should be thinking about that because if they can sell their A level images for $1000 fantastic, do that. Don't stop doing that. But I bet you a 1,000,000 bucks that you've got bi level image is sitting there on your hard drive, collecting digital dust that aren't doing anything. You and your B and C level images are probably spectacular, so consider submitting those images to stock sides. Another great thing about at least I stopped photo, and I believe the other ones work the same way. Is that when you have an image in your portfolio, you can take it down any time you have complete control over your portfolio. So if somebody happened to buy that image and say, Hey, I really don't want that image to be available to the rest of the world, you just take it off of your portfolio. and that's it. There's no penalties or questions asked or anything like that. So it was neat, especially at that show. You could kind of see the rage subsiding a little bit when they when they started thinking about Oh, yeah, I do have some B and C level images that are probably pretty awesome. So consider uploading those to these micro stock sites if you want to play in the sandbox, which is a lot of fun.