With the growing popularity of self-publishing which has increased by leaps and bounds, the demand of stock images has grown considerably. There are numerous microstock sites which came into existence, are providing photos to designers, bloggers, business owners, etc. with the option to select from different licenses of various uses.
These stock images are used in website designs, newsletters, blogs, posters and almost every place you can think of. Due to the demand for high-quality photos, any photographer can earn a decent sum of money with his/her extensive portfolio of stock images which are for sale.
To build a good collection of stock images, you can look at the most downloaded photos from these stock sites and create your own portfolio of profitable stock photos. The easiest way to sell your photos online is by using third-party websites like Shutterstock, iStockPhoto, Photocrati, etc.
Selling your photos via a stocky agency results in a quick and easy sale. These microsites do all the advertisement / marketing work for you where people search for images every day for their own requirement.
While most of the photographers start selling stock images by uploading their images to these sites, there are few drawbacks to this approach.
The major drawback is that you have to pay a substantial amount of commission to these sites on each sale of any of your images. This fees can vary a lot according to various sites depending on the various restriction of the license you offer. Majorly, these sites offer 20% to 60% royalty to the photographer for every sale.
Along with this, the set price for these images varies between these sites. Some sites charge as little as a dollar per image for low-resolution photos which leaves you with pennies after the sale.
Another important point to keep in mind that these stock image sites make it quite easy for people to select and choose photos from different photographers which makes it hard to develop and grow your own brand.
