Patricia L. Ballard

Many of us here on RB have recently gotten interested in selling on stock sites. It’s not for the faint of heart. What I’ve found is that you need to find sites that appreciate your type of image, submit your work, and don’t get upset by rejection. The competition on these sites is stiff and getting stiffer by the day. As established professional photographers and designers see their income drop from the downturn in the economy; they are increasingly putting outtakes from their rights managed shoots on the non-exclusive microstock sites. All that said, I think for some of us, it’s worthwhile to explore this area for marketing our work.

My favorite 3 sites are:
Dreamstime
LuckyOliver
SnapVillage

Dreamstime is one of the largest selling microstock sites. I’ve found them to be fair in their assessment of my work. I’m probably biased as they gobble up my fractals. Their message boards are great, too. Their rejection email are canned, but I still find them helpful.

LuckyOliver is a relatively new site and not a big seller yet. They are wonderful about working with you to get your images accepted. Their reviewers are the nicest that I’ve found on the web. It’s a very friendly site.

SnapVillage is still in the beta stage. The quality on SnapVillage is lower than on the other sites. They admit that they take 95% of all submissions. However, I like them anyway. It’s a painless way to get started posting images for stock sales. SnapVillage is also owned by Corbis one of the big three stock photography agencies. You need to be an established photographer with an agent to even apply to Corbis. However, Corbis is using SnapVillage as a way to try out new photographers. Do well on SnapVillage, and you may be bumped up to Corbis which could result in big bucks.

Another helpful site that I found today is:
microstockgroup

Microstock group has tons of information on all of the different sites. I haven’t explored it fully yet, but I’m thinking that I’ll be using it all the time for research.

Hope this helps anyone thinking about going into microstock selling. Just remember to develop a thick skin and be relentless in submitting your work.