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RE: Market Friday: Market in El Alto, Bolivia. A photo documentary.
What an awesome well written blog, with great photography too! Welcome to Steemit.I wish you much success. You Upvoted my post, which is how I found you! Thanks for that
Awesome! I loved your post, it was very informative. Since I am selling stock photos at various microstock sites I have no way of verifying if a photo is actually licensed or stolen. I really hope the blockchain will bring a solution to this in the future!
There is some talk that there will be a blockchain database. Image theft is a huge problem for me. I've been doing stock since the 1990s - before microstock, and income has crashed big time - stolen work is a factor. They always say that it doesn't hurt because they wouldn't have paid for it anyway, but it affects our earnings because the the most popular images are the ones taken, and it dilutes the value in a customers eyes when they see it all over the place. I'm with some micros too now. Who are you with?
A blockchain database would be amazing, but I think it will take some years until this becomes reality.. Also, a decentralized Stockphoto agency would be amazing, preferably one that doesn't take as much commission from sales (Getty/iStock is giving me only 15%!).
I am using a software to submit every photo to various agencies with no extra cost, so I signed up with multiple sites, among them Shutterstock, iStock, Fotolia, Bigstockphoto, Alamy, Pixta, Depositphotos, 123rf, Dreamstime and Colourbox.
The payout per photo is mostly ridiculously low, once I saw one of my photos printed quite big in an advertisement in a German newspaper (ciclulation of 490.000), I got 25 cents for that.. But in the end it adds up and for me as a student stock photos provide a great passive income, but it would not be enough to make a living from it.
Wow! What software are you using to submit to them all at once? That would be a huge help! Photography has become so cheapened these days. I have had images on many many book covers over the years, and it was not unusual to make over $1,000 for a book cover. Even with my regular Getty stock, that has been drastically reduced these days.
And what I get from the micros is ridiculously low. But that is just a bit extra, as you say. I find that I have certain photos that are daily sellers though, and that helps because it does add up.
Good for you being a student and making some money on stock on the side. You should do well on here too - better than microstock by far!
I'm with most of the micros too now. I find that my best sales are through Fotolia/Adobe, Shutterstock and istock.
The software is called Stocksubmitter, it is free for up to 33 per month per agency, for more you need to pay, but 10€ for 250 photos is very reasonable. In case you have a mac, need to use the Windows version on Windows since the Mac version is not working really well. I might do a post about stock photography soon where I will recommend this software, it does safe a lot of time since you can also do all the tagging and categorizing within the software.
My photos are by far selling best on Shutterstock, also my earnings from Fotolia/Adobe Stock have been growing recently. Istock is on place three, but Alamy is catching up.