May was our first month of
operation, and as such, we spent a lot of time signing up to the various
Microstock agencies and essentially jumping through hoops to get accepted as
contributors. If you've ever tried to join Microstock agencies, you know what I've
talking about.
Each agency has it's own criteria
for accepting contributors - from just confirming your email address, to
passing their own little quiz about what it means to be a contributor, to
uploading 20 photos for review manually (no FTP allowed).
We managed to meet the criteria for
several agencies by the end of the month, a few are still pending now, and we
got knocked back by a couple.
What has become obvious over the
last month is that all the Microstock agencies have very different acceptance
criteria for stock photos - we found that some photos where being accepted by
some sites and knocked back by others for technical reasons. This just confirms
in my mind the need to be submitting photos to many different agencies at a
time. Sure you don't earn as much commission on each sale as you would being
exclusion with a single agency, but I'd much prefer a lot of little sales in
the month instead on hanging out for only a couple with a high return rate.
We managed to scrape together about
81 photos from our May photo shoots that we felt had the potential for stock
photos. The table below details how we went with our submissions to the various
agencies.
|
Microstock Agency
|
Current Portfolio
|
New Photos for Month
|
Number Photos Sold
|
Total
$ Earned |
|
123rf
|
55
|
55
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Alamy
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Albumo
|
45
|
45
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
AllYouCanStock
|
80
|
80
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
BigStock
|
18
|
18
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
CanStockPhoto
|
54
|
54
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Colourbox
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Crestock
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
CutCaster
|
10
|
10
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
DepositPhotos
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Dreamstime
|
10
|
10
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
FeaturePics
|
5
|
5
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Fotolia
|
3
|
3
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
GraphicLeftovers
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
iStockPhoto
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
MostPhotos
|
81
|
81
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Photaki
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Photokore
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Pixmac
|
64
|
64
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
PocketStock
|
20
|
20
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
ScanStockPhoto
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Shutterstock
|
14
|
14
|
1
|
$0.25
|
|
Stockfuel
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
StockPhotoMedia
|
70
|
70
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
SuperHug
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Vectorial
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Veer
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
YayMicro
|
47
|
47
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Zoonar
|
39
|
39
|
0
|
$0.00
|
|
Totals
|
612
|
612
|
1
|
$0.25
|
As you can see we managed to make
our first sale in May. We sold the image below via Shutterstock, and that was
within 24 hours of the photo being approved. This just proves that a couple of
photography novices with absolutely no experience can make money from
Microstock - although it does take us a little bit more work to achieve it.
It's the best $0.25 that I've made in a while - or should I say $0.12, because
I have to share it with my sister....
Cheers
Fiona
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