Make Money with Stock Photography

I have put my photos into a few different stock photography sites through the years. I have FINALLY found one I can recommend to both professionals and amateur photographers alike. I have found a place where, for very low cost in time and money, you should join if you have 25 or more great quality images that you would be willing to trade short term rights for US$ cash for. Typically, each use of your image (business card, advertisement, article etc..,) will after submission, simply require that you hit an "Accept" button on an email sent to you and you will receive payment of $150 to $25,000 USD. Realistically, $150 to $250 is the most common amount per use that you will receive as your share.

If you have far more than 25 great and appropriate images and you can add great images periodically, over time you should expect to see very decent ongoing income from this source.

If you have less than 25 great images - come back later, when you have 25 great images.

This first section gives a very brief list of complaints I've had with previous Stock agencies, then I'll discuss why I like this one so much.

• Some agencies require a certain number of a certain type of photograph per month. If I am busy, I still have to "produce" or they take me off their list. I should note that for photographers that work full time creating stock, this is not a problem, but for most professional photographers and all amateur photographers, this is a huge stumbling block. I couldn't commit, so I was unable to go with any of these.
• Several agencies let me put my photos in their library FOR FREE. But, years later, I have yet to receive one thin dime from them. Let alone checks of $100's of dollars. So yes, they were free, except for the cost of my getting the stock work to them. (Time and shipping) Do you want to know why *I* think these ones failed - after all, they did it for free - they only make money if they sell my photos ... I think they failed because it was free. You see, when I looked at the pictures that various people submitted - they were mostly junk. And the BUYERS won't get to see my pictures because they gave up after seeing the crap that most people had sibmitted - they never looked at mine.
• Other agencies wanted me to pay a LOT of money up front. (I consider anything more than $100 to be a LOT of up front money - and when they talked color brochures, they wanted $1000's.) Guess what: I have never made a penny off of the ones that took a lot of money up front! Not one penny. It turns out that these companies frequently make their money simply from the fees they charge the photographer - they don't have to sell any images to make a wack of cash.

So - is the conclusion that I suck as a photographer? Well, my clients keep coming back, so they must not think so. So maybe I'm just a rotten stock photographer? Well, I have concluded NO - because my images ARE selling through the one through the company discussed later in this page.

So does it cost any money with them? Yes it does - it is going to cost you up to $50 USD to get going - $35 is the cost that most photographers will pay to get going. That counts the cost of joining, the cost of shipping your work to them and the cost of shipping it back. It does not count the cost of your time to find the negs/digital images/slides/transparencies to send to them. If your indexing system sucks, sorry, this is going to take you longer than it takes me<g>! If you only have 25 great images, your cost will be a little less, but if you have lots of images, count on spending $50 initially. If you have 1000's of great images - I recommend you start at the $50 cost. Pick 5 to 10 from each genre, and submit those. Then take a look at what sells first, and use that to decide which/when to send in the future. Once you start successfully selling, your only cost is the cost of shipping your work. So send lots at one time when you get to that stage! But still send quality - you don't want potential clients saying "leave this guy's stuff out of the choices."

Are they just trying to make money on the up front fees?

I have owned and managed several business. And I can tell you for certain, that they are SHARING the upfront costs with you. They charge a small startup fee, and until you have rented 3 images they charge you 50 cents per image to put into the stock portfolios.

They claim, and I believe them, that it costs them more than 50 cents just to handle each image on your behalf. They are losing money until your work starts to sell. So they are charging a fee so that you don't send them tons of junk in the hopes that something might sell. This is not the place to pull out all your old negatives and slides, stuff them in a box, and mail them in! The 50 cents makes you self edit (or get help from family, friends, other photographers). This is one case where the opinion of your friends and family does count in how you run your business! (If you are an amateur photographer and don't understand that comment - start any business, then listen to the "advice" you get from friends and family. Then you'll understand that comment.)

At this point you may be wondering: Does Peter own shares in this compay? Is Peter employed by them: So let me set the record straight. On this (my) web site I recommend many different products, and I give my reasons. In this case I am recommending a service that I use personally and think highly of. I was not paid by the company to put this page up. I was not given a discount from them. I was not given preference by them. And NO, I don't own shares in the company. This is not a ploy to get you to pay me money. I don't receive money when you sign up. I don't receive money when you submit photos.

I do receive some money if and only if you receive money first (and it doesn't cost you a penny -it is paid to me above and beyond your commission, not out of your commission). But if you think I don't deserve it, you can still take my recommendation and sign up so that I won't ever make a penny - so this advice is free and I get no benefit from it. On the other hand, if you decide to sign up, I would be pleased if you could list us as the contact that sent you (state: "Horwood 5599") - and it won't cost you a penny, but I will benefit if you suceed and I will send you a tangible thank you out of the benefits I receive as well - so you get more too.

I think that's fair. But again, if you do not think that's fair, then you can easily cut me out completely. And I won't even know so you don't have to worry that I'm thinking "gee, he didn't acknowledge my role in getting him there". The only way I know that you took my advice is if you state on the checkout that you heard of them from "Horwood 5599" Want to get going? Click Here

So, if you have taken at least 25 great photographs I recommend you spend the $30.95 to get started. If you have 1000's of great pictures, I recommend you spend up to a maximum of $50, and see whether your work is appropriate for making money.

Questions that are NOT answered on their site:

Q. How did you cost justify this? (The $31 to get going and the approx 4 hours of work editing, collecting, driving to the post office.)

A.

1. First of all, I know that THEY are losing money at $31 ($25 for the initial package with a $25 image credit, and $5.95 for return shipping). So if THEY are losing money, they really plan to sell lots of images to make up for it. So, not only did I spend $31 (actually, I submitted quite a few more images so I was closer to $50) but I know they spent at least $31 - probably more - on me. This is a fairly important factor to me because if I have to pay $500 or $2500 to be "listed" - I know that if they get several photographers a month to sign up, they are making decent income, even if they sit back and do nothing with my images. I like the fact that this company is bearing some of the cost. If they don't realistically expect to sell my images - they lose money.  Yes, I like it a lot.
2. Second - they ARE charging some money. This means that if you have a box of rotten images, you aren't going to be submitting them because you have to pay (albiet a very small amount) money before you can submit your garbage. So if you don't think it will sell, you won't waste your time and money submitting your crap. Now, why is this so important that I made it #2 on this list? Simple. Consider WHO is going to have to fork over money before I am going to get paid? Obviously someone who needs an image. Now, if this person is looking for an image, and they come to a stock company that has 1 million garbage images for every good image - are they going to come back to this stock company or take a different route next time? Rhetorical Question, of course they are going to go to another company or go the custom (assignment) route. If you have to spend 6 months sorting through garbage to find a good image you are going to be better off custom ordering an image - and that means they won't see my quality work next time because they won't look! So I WANT it to cost some money (See special mostly unrelated note at the bottom of this page) so that my quality work will be shown with your quality work and even if the client chooses your quality work instead of mine this time, they will come back, and maybe next time they will like something that I did instead. Putting this in context, one organization I belonged to charged me NOTHING to put my work in their stock library. Not only that, but they did NO editing. They accepted and displayed everything, the good with the bad. When I looked at what my "competition" was, I realized that anyone looking for an image was going to leave their site after the first 2 or 3 pages of images because there was so much junk and so little good content.
3. I checked with the BBB. And yes, they have a good rating. So they aren't getting tons of photographers angry that they aren't delivering on their promises.
4. $31 and a couple hours of work is pretty darn cheap when you consider the minimum income is $150 if they rent even one of my images even once for the smallest possible distribution and use. I didn't need 10 sales to break even - I just needed to have one sale and I had a profit .
5. I looked at the many things I spent money and time on to get me "ready" to make money. And though about how cheap $31 is.
   • My web site whew - talk about a cost of time - and it is ongoing writing pages like this one. But then I enjoy maintaining the web site. I enjoy looking at my photos. I enjoy picking "the best" photos. (And I admit I enjoy making money because of what a great tool money is to achieve other objectives and pleasures.)
   • My last lens. But lets not talk about how much THAT cost. In fact - where can you get a valuable lens for $31? OK, I picked one up for $25 at a garage sale a few years ago. But generally speaking - what lens can you buy for $31?
   • More batteries for my camera. I use NiMh, but after 500 to 1000 uses, they wear out too. But if you use Alkaline and you are a digital photographer - well, even an amateur is going to spend $31 on batteries in very short order.
   • Film for my camera. The last wedding I did with film cost me over $100 on the film, and a bunch more with processing. The last photoshoot I did with my 4x5" camera (nice camera - very limited for point and shoot, but nice camera for many purposes) I spent over $80 on film and processing - and that was to effectively take "one" picture for "one" client.
6. I looked at the free sites that let me download images that automagically got placed where prospective buyers could see them. So there was virtually no cost for the owners of those sites, so they really had no incentive to get the marketing right for selling my images. I guess that's why I made $0 from them. Here's the kicker, my attitude was "oh well, I can risk it". But now I've learned (by writing books and various other life lessons) to always make sure that BOTH parties have costs so that BOTH parties have a reason to do the job right - or not even start.
7. Then I came back to "If only one image sells - I've covered all my hard costs nearly 5 times over, if only two images sell - I've covered all my costs AND I've made a very decent hourly rate. If 3 more images sell, well, obviously it doesn't take much to make it a very worth while exercise!" This is not one of those schemes where you have to be highly successful to even break even.

Q. Why "Stock" rather than "Assignment"

A. First, both have their place, and I play in both arenas and enjoy both. But the simple answer is that, for the most part, Stock is cheaper per image per use for the client than Assignment - IF the correct Stock image exists. Assignment is simple: If there isn't an appropriate stock image, then if you want the image, you have to pay the big bucks (loonies in Canada) and pay to have your custom image. So - if you are buying images, look for stock first, if you can't find it in a reasonable time (see point 2 in the question above) then go the Assignment route. (Oh, and if you aren't a good photographer, don't forget to hire me for your assignment work!)

Q. I'm a Canadian, do I have to ship my photos to the States and deal with all the brokerage, customs, immigration, GST police issues?

A. No. While their main address is in the US, but you can ship your images to a Canadian address and they return them from their Canadian address - the address is on their contact page.

Q. I'm from (Country other than Canada and the US) Where do I send it?

A. Either the US or the Canadian address currently.

Q. If I have a cheap consumer digital camera that produces 4 Megapixel (or less) images - can I reasonably expect them to make me tons of money?

A. No. You might luck out, but you are going to be dissapointed when advertisers come to you and say "we love it - send us the high res version for our full page spread". Now, if you are already submitting images, and you have a fantastic one that is only 2 Megapixels - go ahead and submit it. Because yes, if it is a great image, their are uses for it that might make you some money, but be realistic - expect first of all to have people who want it but can't because it is too low resolution and expect it to sell near the lower end of the pricing scale ($150 USD per use is the lowest normal amount you will receive.) But if you are always shooting that low resolution - I say, forget it for now. Practices, become good, and when you get a Pro level camera, then start shooting stock. HOWEVER: If your pictures are truly excellent quality, just not high resolution, then if you want to gamble about $35 - maybe you should - I could be wrong - I've never submitted low resolution images. If you do and are successful, please let me know (if you give the code Horwood 5599 - then I will automatically know when you are successful.)

Q. When they rent an image for $300, they only pay me $150. When they rent an image for $1500, they only pay me $750. Is that fair?

A. In my opinion yes, yes yes . Do you have any idea what it would cost you to try to sell yourself? Look on my site. You will see that I sell images. Guess how much I make? The answer quite honestly is "very little". I make far more money from letting others who specialize in it, who have the contacts, who spend the time marketing for me. Yes, they lump mine in with dozens of other photographers - but if my image is seen by the correct person, it will sell! And that's the point - THEY have the ability to let MANY interested people see it, and that increases my odds of success. So, I am happy that they are willing to pay me so much - 50% given how little I have to do and how inexpensive they make it for me.

And if you don't agree - set up a web site like I did, pay $10,000 for a couple advertisements. Hire a salesperson or agent. Put together the display books. And see what it gets you - and at what cost. Here's what I think will happen: You will, like I do, get individual jobs where people like your style (if they like my style, they're going to hire me not you<g>) but you are not going to make money selling stock photography. If you want to sell your images as stock, then do it the cheap, effective easy way, not the expensive, ineffective difficult way.

Q. If I submit it today, how many hours before I get my first paycheck.

A. Expect 6 to 12 months (sorry, this isn't a quick get rich scheme), and then, expect them periodically after that. If you submit lots of great work, expect eventually to receive monthly checks (they send the checks out only once a month so don't expect weekly payments no matter how much you submit.) If you only submit 25. Don't expect lots of checks. But be content with the occasional sale. Of course, if you shoot the right picture, one picture can be sold many many times so if you do you can make a lot from one submission. But lets be realistic. I'm not trying to tell you that you will become rich from just submitting a few images. I am telling you that based on my experience, I truly believe that, for an incredibly low cost you will be getting yourself into the best chance of being successful - and you don't have to be professional in this case to be successful.

Q. Where can I best go to see what type of photograph will "sell"?

A. Look in magazines you read, on billboards as you drive, watch TV ads. Gee - an excuse to watch TV and call it "work". Of course ... what I'm suggesting you do is fast forward throught the movie and only watch the ads. If you watch the movie, you can't count that as "work"! Shoot what you like to shoot - why not have fun? When friends look at one of your images and say "wow" - then this is an image you should consider putting in your "to submit next time" folder (be it a paper folder or a computer folder.) If "Cute",, "Fantastic", "Inspiring", "Unique" are used, that's a good sign too.

Q. Do I ever lose the image forever?

A1. Only if you choose to - and you will typically get paid more than $10,000USD if someone wants to buy permanent rights to your image.

A2. Lets jump ahead to a time when you have rented several and sold one image. Since this is in the future, if you aren't shooting digital already, you have taken a small part of the money from the image sale and you bought a digital camera and the paraphernalia to go along with it. Now, the next time you find a fantastic image that you think might eventually result in a full "sale" - you shoot 5 or 6 nearly identical shots. Now when you sell one of the 6 (you only submitted 1 to the stock agencies), you have 4 or 5 additional ones that can be rented or sold. You can never ever use the one you sold again, but you will have the other ones which may give you good options. Well, that's what I'm doing anyway.

Followup Q to A2: I received a phone call today from a photographer who asked : Are you saying that as long as it is a different photo I can sell it even if looks almost exactly the same as the one I already sold?

A. Don't get me wrong. I'm not telling you to cheat on a contract. Don't assume that just because you DID take several similar images that you can sell or rent them all. Your contract selling the image may prohibit this and if so, I wouldn't even try to cheat on my client. This "problem" exists both in print and film - sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. All I'm saying is - it is cheap insurance to take the extra shots and have them in case you can. And it may come down to a discussion of whether the second one is "different enough" and that may be messy. So there are 2 points: 1 make sure you are happy that you were paid enough and 2 have the extra similar shots so you have possible options. Note: I am not a lawyer, I am not giving legal advice, however I am practical and I'm giving you advice that gives you a low cost way to give you the maximum potential.

Concluding thoughts:

OK. That's my opinion. You may ask me questions by email, fax or phone and I will answer your questions on this if you will agree to one condition: IF you decide to sign up, you will list me as the person that directed you by saying "Horwood 5599" (the 5599 is their code for us.) Click Here to sign up now

Special Unrelated Note: Well not quite unrelated as you'll see if you read to the end of the paragraph. I send my children to a private school. I sent my kids to the same private school even during 2 years when I was losing money - I was borrowing against my house to pay for food. But I kept paying to send them to the private school. Why? Because all the other parents, including several who had incomes below the poverty line where paying to send their kids to the school. It is beautiful - almost all the kids in the school have parents who care about them more than money and as a result, all the kids have the same parental pressure.The result is almost all of them - smart and stupid alike, do far better than they would (or were) in the public school system where there are far too many parents who are too busy making their double income to care about the attitudes and actions of their kids. You see - by charging for something that you can get free - those who are PAYING both provide and demand quality! And more important, when everyone has quality on their minds, everyone is brought up a notch in the eyes of those around (or in the case of the school - in the eyes of the provincial examiners). I'm glad the government does NOT give my private school full funding (they get about 25-30% of the total that the public school system gets per kid when all the public school payments are totalled up). Because they don't the same amount, my kids are far better off than the "privileged" public school kids. You see - bringing it back to relevance to this page - just like the stock agencies that charge "lots" of money, in schools "more" money frequently results in lower quality. Remember this if you are making a lot of money or your stock sales start to take off: If you are making more money, in most cases, you will have to work HARDER to produce quality, the human tendency is towards sloppiness. And yes, if you do produce more quality, your rewards will go up again, and you'll have to work HARDER (but perhaps much fewer hours) to produce quality. It is easy to do a poorer and poorer job as you have more and more money. Don't let yourself become sloppy and fall into this trap.