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How To Make Money Selling Your Photos!

O

ooartist

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 2, 2002
51
0
Spring Hill, TN
I thought I would let everyone here know about this place I found(ShutterStock). You join and you can upload photos that you have taken (must be at least 2.5MP). The photos go thru a approval process and if they get approved they get added to a stock photo library of 55K+ photos that get searched by subscribers. If your photo gets downloaded you get .20 cents (thats per download)! I have uploaded a lot of my shots (55) just in the past 2 weeks and I have already made $4 dollars! I know your thinking "dude that's not a lot of money". Think about it thats off of 55 photos in just 2 weeks. I have about 1000+ photos that I have taken and the more I put on there site the more downloads I get and more money!

Well anyway I have become addicted to taken stock photos now so I thought I would try to get some of the Mac-Heads (usually aspiring photographers) out there addicted too.

Check it out:

http://submit.shutterstock.com/

Enjoy!

ooartist
 
Capt Underpants

Capt Underpants

macrumors 68030
Jul 23, 2003
2,862
3
Austin, Texas
I don't know whether or not to think this is legit. It seems too good to be true, but then again... it looks legit...

Has anyone else had experience with these people?
 
mkrishnan

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Seems like a really good idea! Assuming their quality process is any good, and they have at least vaguely google-worthy searching technology, then it would be a real boon to SOHO or educational uses of stock photography, like student newspapers and so on....
 
Mechcozmo

Mechcozmo

macrumors 603
Jul 17, 2004
5,215
2
Sounds too good to be true. Then again, it is a really good idea. Who wants to be the Guinea Pig?
 
Capt Underpants

Capt Underpants

macrumors 68030
Jul 23, 2003
2,862
3
Austin, Texas
Mechcozmo said:
I officially nominate Capt Underpants. You posted first, you should try it first. Its an honor.
Click to expand...

If I ever did decide to try it, I would take the "ref=1585" out of the link. :D This should really be counted as an advertisement, given that the poster is making money off of very person that signs up via his link. I wish this deal could be true, though... but we won't know until someone guinea pigs it. I wonder who's willing to do that :confused:

The poster does have some credibility, though, because he/she is a macrumors "member", and not just a n00b.
 
Sun Baked

Sun Baked

macrumors G5
May 19, 2002
14,937
157
Capt Underpants said:
If I ever did decide to try it, I would take the "ref=1585" out of the link. :D This should really be counted as an advertisement, given that the poster is making money off of very person that signs up via his link. I wish this deal could be true, though... but we won't know until someone guinea pigs it. I wonder who's willing to do that :confused:

The poster does have some credibility, though, because he/she is a macrumors "member", and not just a n00b.
Click to expand...
Yes, that refer number makes it sound a lot like a multi level marketing plan.
 
CanadaRAM

CanadaRAM

macrumors G5
Oct 11, 2004
12,417
6
On the Left Coast - Victoria BC Canada
Let's see: I currently charge between $25 to $175 for a single use of one of my flower photos in a magazine or a book (which is already well below the professional photography standard prices), and that's limited to a single use with a defined print run. People pirate photos from my website http://www.everyrose.com all the time, but they're at least getting only a 40 Kb low res.

With this online stock photo plan, someone could download my 2.5 Mb photo and do WTF they like with it, and I would get $0.20.

Yeah, I'm going to be all over this opportunity, yessirree.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
 
Sun Baked

Sun Baked

macrumors G5
May 19, 2002
14,937
157
Though it's an awsome deal for the person downloading the stock photos from this site...

For one low price... ie, instant advertising campaign for $129.

If you grab all the pictures you'll need for the year during the first month. ;)
 
maya

maya

macrumors 68040
Oct 7, 2004
3,225
0
somewhere between here and there.
CanadaRAM said:
Let's see: I currently charge between $25 to $175 for a single use of one of my flower photos in a magazine or a book (which is already well below the professional photography standard prices), and that's limited to a single use with a defined print run. People pirate photos from my website http://www.everyrose.com all the time, but they're at least getting only a 40 Kb low res.

With this online stock photo plan, someone could download my 2.5 Mb photo and do WTF they like with it, and I would get $0.20.

Yeah, I'm going to be all over this opportunity, yessirree.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
Click to expand...

CanadaRAM, this might sound like a silly question however I hope you are watermarking your images even the low quality ones, much better to be safe than sorry.

Even if the image is low quality I can still enlarge it with a few photo magic tricks and even if its has watermarks I can do a few tricks the as well. ;) However the point is to make it as difficult and a trying process to the end users not that I would rip someone creative hard work(s), however just a thought for the future.

If you have watermarks then I apologize for taking your time. Nice images though it bring me back to my memories of BC island and mainland. :)
 
Daveman Deluxe

Daveman Deluxe

macrumors 68000
Jun 17, 2003
1,555
1
Corvallis, Oregon
CanadaRAM said:
Let's see: I currently charge between $25 to $175 for a single use of one of my flower photos in a magazine or a book (which is already well below the professional photography standard prices), and that's limited to a single use with a defined print run. People pirate photos from my website http://www.everyrose.com all the time, but they're at least getting only a 40 Kb low res.

With this online stock photo plan, someone could download my 2.5 Mb photo and do WTF they like with it, and I would get $0.20.

Yeah, I'm going to be all over this opportunity, yessirree.
Click to expand...

Yes, but what about all of the other photos in storage that you could never sell for any price? That's the purpose of submitting photographs to stock photo companies--they're a convenient way to get photos out to places that need such photos, but would never contact photographers individually.
 
maya

maya

macrumors 68040
Oct 7, 2004
3,225
0
somewhere between here and there.
Daveman Deluxe said:
Yes, but what about all of the other photos in storage that you could never sell for any price? That's the purpose of submitting photographs to stock photo companies--they're a convenient way to get photos out to places that need such photos, but would never contact photographers individually.
Click to expand...


I disagree to a point here, even if the photos that (s)he does not sell the whole reason here is $0.20 USD for a single image is way to little considering what they might be making on it maybe. Maybe a higher price $1.00 USD maybe sounds better then again we all have our price. :)

And also the lack of control on your images/photos, no way of knows who will do what or make X amount of prints for $0.20 USD.
 
CanadaRAM

CanadaRAM

macrumors G5
Oct 11, 2004
12,417
6
On the Left Coast - Victoria BC Canada
>And also the lack of control on your images/photos, no way of knows who will do what or make X amount of prints for $0.20 USD.

Yeah, that's the thing.

Traditionally, the payment to the copyright owner for use (not ownership!) of a photo is scaled to the image size, the number that will be published, the number of times it wil be used and what the intended use is.

The publisher of a limited run book that publishes a 1" square photo pays less than a corporation would for the same image that would blown up to full page size and be the centre of an advertising campaign in millions of newspapers published worldwide.

For $0.20 I am giving away complete creative control and the right to negotiate the terms of use of the image?

Not even for a photo of my cat's litterbox. If it's worth publishing, it's worth paying for.

You know what a viable market would be -- $0.20 for a web-only image - low res, not suitable for print work - sure; people would buy it to put it on their web page or make a inkjet greeting card. But the outfit wants 2.5 Mb images. That's a no-go for me.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
 
Doctor Q

Doctor Q

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
39,782
7,514
Los Angeles
We don't allow people to advertise commercial sites (without paying arn), but we'll give ooartist the benefit of the doubt and assume that the purpose of this thread is to alert you to a site you might find interesting. I removed the referrer code from the link.
 
CrackedButter

CrackedButter

macrumors 68040
Jan 15, 2003
3,221
0
51st State of America
CanadaRAM said:
>And also the lack of control on your images/photos, no way of knows who will do what or make X amount of prints for $0.20 USD.

Yeah, that's the thing.

Traditionally, the payment to the copyright owner for use (not ownership!) of a photo is scaled to the image size, the number that will be published, the number of times it wil be used and what the intended use is.

The publisher of a limited run book that publishes a 1" square photo pays less than a corporation would for the same image that would blown up to full page size and be the centre of an advertising campaign in millions of newspapers published worldwide.

For $0.20 I am giving away complete creative control and the right to negotiate the terms of use of the image?

Not even for a photo of my cat's litterbox. If it's worth publishing, it's worth paying for.

You know what a viable market would be -- $0.20 for a web-only image - low res, not suitable for print work - sure; people would buy it to put it on their web page or make a inkjet greeting card. But the outfit wants 2.5 Mb images. That's a no-go for me.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
Click to expand...

I'm glad you posted what you did, I was tempted but you gave me room for thought. I have loads of photos which I have sitting on my drive doing nothing, some which I cannot take to my university interview. I was going to look into it but not now.
 
Sir_Giggles

Sir_Giggles

macrumors 6502a
Dec 18, 2003
507
0
I see nothing wrong with linking it to a referral. I would not have known about it otherwise, and if I find it profitable, the person who made the attempt to introduce it should be fairly compensated. No ulterior motives.

Now the question of the site, too bad there is now way to order single photos. In a typical month, I may only use 4-5 images in my design work so paying $129 USD seems excessive.
 
Sun Baked

Sun Baked

macrumors G5
May 19, 2002
14,937
157
Sir_Giggles said:
I see nothing wrong with linking it to a referral. I would not have known about it otherwise, and if I find it profitable, the person who made the attempt to introduce it should be fairly compensated. No ulterior motives...
Click to expand...
Just part of making people advertising for cash to pay for a banner/ad on the site.

The majority of people here don't see anything wrong with that, people can introduce their Mac-related Website in MacScene (once) -- as long as they don't make it smell like they are spamming out an advertisement.

However, it was the referral numbers with the freeiPod stuff, which basically made referral numbers a bad word -- which can quickly get you banned.

The mods gave the member the benefit of the doubt, by only removing the referral number and not banning him.
 
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