For the past two years, I’ve been uploading images to stock photography agencies such as Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, and Pond5. The experiment has had mixed results. From a financial point of view, I would call it a massive failure. For skills and education, I would call it a subtle success.
Let’s get the financial part out of the way first. I’ve uploaded a few thousand photos and videos. Of the images that sell, they average around $1 per sale which is not horrible. The problem is, less than 10% of the content sells. The same stuff tends to sell multiple times rather than a little bit of everything. Some of this is from the quality of my content, but it also appears to be the nature of the beast. My average earnings per upload across all agencies is only around $0.25. I have no clue what this would break down to hourly, but can assure you it is pennies after taking, editing, keywording, and uploading all the content. I have no problem calling the financial side a huge failure.
What have I learned from becoming a stock photographer?
1. Having an audience of paying customers.
If your content has good commercial quality, it will sell. This probably won’t be immediate, but it will happen. It is a sink-or-swim type of game. Finding ways to sell content will carry over to areas outside of microstock. Generating leads has been one of my biggest struggles with my photography business. Oddly, the persistence I learned from stock photography has carried over into other areas of my life. It generally takes more than one marketing post per month to book clients. That’s just reality. That one marketing post takes a fraction of the time I spent processing images to upload.
2. Writing descriptions and keywords will become second nature.
Finding ways to get your content viewed and sold on large microstock agencies will without a doubt build a solid foundation for other areas of online marketing such as YouTube and paid ads. I’ve spent so many hours tagging and describing stock photos. Putting a small portion of that effort toward blog articles, a YouTube channel, or promoting my business will pay off significantly more.
3. Getting over the fear of failure.
You win some and you lose some. It’s all good as long as you are doing something you love. Photography is something I truly enjoy and do regardless of if I’m paid or not. Either way, putting yourself out there isn’t easy. I’ve contributed over 1,000 images that have never sold. That is a tough pill to swallow, but taking that into account, why would I expect to go viral after one YouTube post? It’s not likely and is also a long game that requires creating an assortment of content to determine what works the best.
4. Building a catalog of B-Roll for your own personal content.
There’s a reason why people use stock photos and videos. I’ve found my personal catalog continues to grow. One area this has already helped me is with YouTube videos in addition to business marketing images. The microstock agencies are designed to make money. Unfortunately, the contributors are left with pennies. Think of putting that effort into licensing custom content for small businesses. That approach is a little more practical and gives the creator a better way to earn more.
5. Experimenting and finding new approaches at scale.
This is a different concept. Things move slowly in the microstock world. It takes a month or two to see results. Continued growth is important in anything, but how can you do that with such a delay? Doing what works best while tossing out some small sample sizes of new ideas and experiments. This has helped me grow my photography business quite a bit in the past year. I’ve been able to experiment with different marketing styles and pricing. This has helped book significantly more work than last year.
There are many ways to learn. Unfortunately, one of my top ways is the school of hard knocks. I’d say there are better and more efficient ways to educate yourself. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list or even one you should follow. It is just my practical experience outlining a way I’ve been able to connect some dots in my brain.
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