Online Stock Houses

Hi,

I've just set up my own website ( www.images-underwater.net ) and received a response suggesting I join an online stock house istockphoto. (However Bellow questions apply to any online stock outfits I guess.)

- Are these type of sites genuine ?

- Will I ever earn anything for my images ?

- Has anybody out there made any money from them ?

- Are there any catches (honest or hidden) ?

or - Have I been spammed and just fallen for it ?

Any advise or comments much appreciated.

Cheers,

Richard B.

Hey Richard

I supply pics to an online stock house - not underwater pics sadly. The market for these has changed in the last few years as digital has grown. The theory was, I believe, that for every pic you had with an agency you could earn about £10 a year. Now its about £1 a year - if you're lucky. So you need to get lots of pics accepted. My agency takes 50% of whatever fee they negotiate - and send me a cheque about once a quarter. The whole thing is based on trust: that the agency are dealing with you honestly.

Catches? Well once your image has been accepted by the agency you are normally required not to try and sell the image elsewhere - I had to sign an agreement to this effect. This means of course if you think the agency are being a bit slow, you can't switch the images to another possible outlet.

So you'll probably never get rich and you need to get loads of images accepted. But its nice when the occasional cheque rolls in. Good luck with it!

I've been selling video footage through iStock since June and I'm happy them with so far. It takes quite a bit of time to get the clips uploaded and the rates of pay per sale are a lot higher for video than for photos, but I'm currently earning a couple of hundred dollars a month. As I get more clips online I'll obviously earn more, so all in all its not bad for two or three days work a month as my time allows. I did a fair bit of research before I jumped into bed with iStock. I could have gone for a more specialised underwater or nature footage library, but iStock are certainly one of the biggest stock libraries out there and they seemed to be a nice fit for me.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Simon

I've been selling video footage through iStock since June and I'm happy them with so far. It takes quite a bit of time to get the clips uploaded and the rates of pay per sale are a lot higher for video than for photos, but I'm currently earning a couple of hundred dollars a month. As I get more clips online I'll obviously earn more, so all in all its not bad for two or three days work a month as my time allows. I did a fair bit of research before I jumped into bed with iStock. I could have gone for a more specialised underwater or nature footage library, but iStock are certainly one of the biggest stock libraries out there and they seemed to be a nice fit for me.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers, Simon

Hi Simon, out of interest are you an exclusive videographer with istock?

Cheers

Richard

Hi Richard

Yes I'm exclusive with iStock. I have not hit any of the download thresholds yet for increased royalties, but being exclusive does allow me to upload more clips per week than I would be able to do otherwise. I don't put my really valuable clips on there, just my general stuff that anyone could have shot, but there is still some nice stuff and it seems to sell pretty well. I've probably got 10% of my library uploaded now, so there's still some way to go!

Cheers, Simon

Hi Richard

 

Yes I'm exclusive with iStock. I have not hit any of the download thresholds yet for increased royalties, but being exclusive does allow me to upload more clips per week than I would be able to do otherwise. I don't put my really valuable clips on there, just my general stuff that anyone could have shot, but there is still some nice stuff and it seems to sell pretty well. I've probably got 10% of my library uploaded now, so there's still some way to go!

 

Cheers, Simon

Hi, I'm tending towards the non-exclusive, variety of agencies route, my thinking at this stage is that it enables me to use the footage in my own productions and also getting as much coverage as possible through a greater number of potential outlets. Is anyone else using this method and if so which agencies for footage have people found to be most user/contributor freindly?

At the moment I'm with Oceanfootage and istock.

Cheers

Richard

Hi Richard

istock hold the exclusive rights to sell my 'Royalty Free Images' only. I can still use those images in my own productions and I can still sell rights managed images that are not contained within my istock portfolio - at least that's my interpretation of the contract. If it was any different from that then I would go non exclusive in a heartbeat.

I just don't have the time to spread my stock library around a number of agencies and I've got quite a lot of travel/general nature footage, so all in all they seem to be a nice fit for me personally. The last couple of months have been very good for me on istock with lots of extended license sales which really boost the balance.

Cheers, Simon