As a photographer interested in getting started selling stock photography on
Dreamstime.com, you may have many questions at first, most often focused on the earnings side of this opportunity. One question on people’s minds is how much can you make per image sale? Do stock agencies provide a steady income stream? Will stock photography earnings overcome the status of just a side income? Can you make passive income from selling photos?
For starters, let's understand the role of a stock agency, so we can put all these questions and answers into a context. A stock photo agency has to create a balance between what stock photographers expect from image sales, the buyers' demands in terms of content quality and the realities of the market. Photographers will always expect to be paid more for their hard work, buyers will always seek to pay less per photo, and the market will always regulate itself depending on the competition that exists, at any given moment, both between stock photographers but also between buyers.
Selling stock photography is as much a numbers game, as it is a quality and innovation play. Any stock photo, on any subject, has some alternatives: sometimes in the same portfolio of a photographer, other times in other portfolios of the same agency, and sometimes on other stock photography websites.
When certain stock images become popular, they may create a snowball effect, leading to even more success for the same image or for the others in the same portfolio. That's because, usually, internal and external search engines are striving to provide the best search results for their users, so they will have to keep a balance between both new and popular photos. So, if you're thinking of developing a strategy for your content, you should keep in mind that there's a correlation between how many photos online you have, how different are they from each other, how often you upload on stock photography websites and how big are the buyers' demands for your images.
Quality should always come first, but diversity and quantity are equally important for a successful stock photography income.
Getting back to revenues, there are a number of factors involved in calculating a stock photographer potential income that makes it difficult to give a quick answer. It may be a good idea instead to start by understanding what factors go into the equation:
1. Per image sale
The stock photography industry is by its nature transactional. Stock photographers and digital artists create images that are place online for potential buyers to browse and select. So the amount you make through the stock photo sites will depend on the number of images you sell and the vehicle the buyer chooses to use to make their purchase.
Dreamstime.com offers two options for buying stock images - subscription plans and credit plans. They also use a Level ranking on images based on the number of times that file has been downloaded – this rewards popular content of stock photographers with higher payout levels while giving new content a competitive chance.
Subscription payouts are determined strictly on whether the contributor is exclusive to
Dreamstime.com or not or if the image is exclusive or not.
While image downloads will make up the majority of your income, there are other ways to maximize your potential stock photography earnings as well.
2. Additional formats
Depending on the image type, you have the opportunity to upload additional formats. These could be the vector files for illustrations, clipping masks for isolated objects or the camera raw file.
These formats sell for higher credit values or can generate an additional subscription sale on those images. In any way, the earnings per image and number of sales may increase by simply making these additional formats available, along your stock images.
3. Extended license
When uploading images, be sure to take a look at the Extended License options available. Enabling licenses for Unlimited Seats (U-EL), Print (P-EL) or Web (W-EL) usage translate into larger net sales. You can view of modify the rights on all you images at any time by using the Manage Licenses option in the My Files section of your Dashboard.
Two other options that can add significant passive income are the Sell the Right (SR-EL) and Time Limited Exclusivity (SR-EL 1 and SR-EL 3). As the name implies, these options transfer the right to the image to a third person in perpetuity or for a specified time period (one or three years) so the decision to offer these options should be taken while weighing the consequences.
4. Increase your Sales
Maximizing your sales potential is the best way to control how much you make on
Dreamstime.com. The only way a buyer has to find your images in search results is through the quality of metadata you include with each photo. Taking the time to carefully consider the appropriate Title – Description – Keywords information associated with your image will pay dividends in their sales potential.
While it is true that having more images online will also increase your revenue potential, as specified earlier in the article, it is important to prioritize quality over quantity. Lots of mediocre, irrelevant images will not be as rewarding as fewer high quality, in-demand assets. Spend time researching which images sell best, what type of stock photos are chosen for the monthly assignments or in the Editors Choice section to help you plan your photo shooting time better.
So, while an easy answer on exactly how much you stand to make being a stock photographer at Dreamstime.com is not that simple, you probably understand better now the factors that go into it.
Long story short, if you're thinking of being a stock photographer as a day job, and earning from stock photos online as main activity rather than just passive income, you can definitely do it, with the right strategy. Many photographers are doing it already. Also, if you're fine with being an amateur photographer and just making a sale every now and then, it won't hurt to adjust your workflow and strategy to make the most of it and sell your photos more often.
Source: Dreamstime.com
