This post is written by Orson, the successful microstock artist behind the popular site Selling Graphics

So you want to sell your photos, bitmap or vector illustrations, flash, footage or audio on the internet and earn some money, but you don't know where and how to start – right now you are on the right place, I will try to help you in this article – it should be a detailed guide for selling images.

Simple question – where to sell?

Simple answer is: on Royalty-free microstock sites – what the hell is it? Check some definitions from wikipedia:

Microstock photography, also known as micropayment photography, is an offshoot of traditional stock photography. What defines a company as a microstock photography company is that they:

1. source their images almost exclusively via the Internet,
2. do so from a wider range of photographers than the traditional stock agencies – including a willingness to accept images from "amateurs" and hobbyists
3. sell their images at a very low rate (anywhere from $.20 - $10) for a royalty-free image.

A number of microstock sites also sell vector art, and some sell Flash animations and video, as well as images.

Ok and what is royalty-free? Check the Wikipedia again.

Royalty-free (RF) – "Free" in this context means "free of royalties" (paying each time you use an image). It does not mean the image is free to use without purchasing a license or that the image is in the public domain.

• Pay a one-time fee to use the image multiple times for multiple purposes (with limits).
• No time limit on when the buyer can use an image
• No one can have exclusive rights of a Royalty-free image (the photographer can sell the image as many times as he wants).
• A Royalty-free image usually has a limit to how many times the buyer can reproduce it. For example, a license might allow the buyer to print 500,000 brochures with the purchased image.

Simply said royalty-free licence means, that a buyer can use it several times, for various projects, but without exclusivity (other buyers can use it at the same time). The seller (author) can sell it on various sites (it is standard practice for photographers and illustrators to sell their images on more sites).

As you can read, the price of your graphic on microstock will be just a few dollars (sometimes even less!), but you will make many more sales from microstock in one day than in five years from classical stock sites.

So what will you need

• a few minutes of your time (the more you give, the more get back)
• patience
• a photocopy of your ID
• a small portfolio of your own photos, illustrations,… (at least 10 pieces)

Step 1 Registration

First of all you need to register yourself on some microstock site (it is free of charge). Part of the registration process includes (in most cases) uploading a photocopy of your ID – it is a standard procedure for identification. On which sites can you register yourself? Check the list of best microstock agencies. At the end of the article you will find a recommendation which site is the best for beginners. Finally check iSyndica's list of supported sites.

Step 2 Getting approved

After your registration, the stock agency needs to review your work – you have to send them a diverse collection of your best sample images (3–10) and they will decide if you are good enough for them. Upon approval, you can start uploading your files. If you get rejected, you will have to improve, select better images and try again (or try again on some other agency). Some agencies don't require pre-approval. This means that you can start uploading your photos and illustrations immediately (Dreamstime, Fotolia, 123RF or Crestock). Others are quite hard – check some articles with acceptance tips and tricks.

Step 3 Uploading images

With iSyndica, you can very quickly upload your files on a microstock site. If they are not supported but offer an FTP access, you can configure a Generic FTP connector to add the site. Check the video tutorial on how to upload and distribute your photos and videos with iSyndica.

There are some requirements on your files:

Photos:

• format JPG in the best quality you can provide
• minimum resolution 4 MPx (width of the photo x height of the photo in pixels must be bigger than 4 000 000) – on some microstock sites you will earn more money if you sell image in bigger resolution, so you should upload big images
• subject of the photo shuld be commercial (business, computers, contemporary life scenes, isolated objects, portraits, seasonal images) they have enough photos of your pet, sunsets, landscapes, flowers,… (but if you have some really good, try it)
• photo shouldn't contain any logo or trademark, added texts, frames, watermarks, timestamps
• if the photo contains an identifiable person, you have to add signed model release

Vector illustrations (from Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator,…)

• format EPS version Illustrator 8
• you have to add also JPG preview of the EPS file
• there are file size limits – around 6MB on EPS files (only on some sites)
• some agencies wants to have the EPS file zipped

Bitmap graphics (from Adobe Photoshop)

• same requirements as for Photos

Important note: The photo must be yours! Also if you are creating some illustration, you have to use your own sources, you can't use part of the graphic from internet and just add some sauce around.

Step 4 Image description and keywords

When your file is uploaded you have to add some information to it – name, description, keywords, categories. This is a very important part of uploading – the name and keywords have the power to attract buyers to your pictures. The more accurate your keywords, the better (try to use no more than 5–10 keywords).

For this step you can use some handy tools:

• Photo Keywords Tool
• Find Photo Keywords
• Stocktagger

Step 5 Image review

Now the reviewers from microstock agency will look at your image(s) and approve or reject them (you will get an email about it). If your image is rejected, you can (sometimes) fix the problems and upload it again – it depends on the rejection reason, sometimes it is just in description, keywords, sometimes you have two color profiles in vector illustrations, noise in photo, and sometimes you simply can't fix it (poor quality, bad lightning,…).

Step 6 Waiting for sales

It can take 1 hour to 1 or 2 days after the acceptance of your image to be visible on the stock site / image search results. So your first sale can be within one hour (on some sites), but mostly will be within a few days – it depends on the quality of the picture, size and quality of your portfolio and also on the specific site. If you have 10 images in your portfolio you have to wait quite long for your first download, if you have around 1000 images, then you can have a sale every 5 minutes.

Sometimes people ask me: how much do I have to pay to get my photos/illustrations up on microstock sites? It is free on every microstock site – the agencies will get some percentage from your sales (agencies take around 50% – 70% of your earnings). So the final earnings for the author are around 25 cents to 30 dollars, mostly around 1 dollar.

Step 7 How do I get paid

Most of the stock agencies offer 3 possibilities:

• by cheque – they will send a cheque to your address
• by Moneybookers – they will send it to your Moneybookers account (and then you can send it to your bank account or just spend it shopping online)
• by PayPal – they will send it to your PayPal account (similar to Moneybookers)

You can create your PayPal or Moneybookers account for free, you will pay just small amounts for transferring money to your bank account. There is not a big difference between Moneybookers and Paypal, just:

Paypal

• better for shopping (more e-shops offer PayPal payment)
• more expensive for sending money to your non US bank account (check the PayPal fees)
• connected to your credit card

Moneybookers

• less e-shops offer payment via moneybookers
• cheaper money transfers to your bank account (check the Moneybookers fees)
• you don't need to connect it with your bank account or credit card at all

You need to have a minimum payout amount to transfer your money from microstock agencies to you – on some sites it is around 30$, but mostly it is 50$, 75$ or 100$. If you have bigger portfolios, then you will reach this minimum amount quite soon, but if you are just a beginner with few images, then it can take you a few months to get your first payout.

Which sites are the best microstock sites for beginners?

My recommendation is to start on Dreamstime – the registration is easy and you don't need to send them sample files for review – everybody is accepted. So you can start uploading your images immediately! Of course, some of your photos or illustrations will be rejected for various reasons, but that's part of the standard selection process, which will teach you which images are good for microstock (once again microstock doesn't require any art production - they want commercial shots and illustrations).

You shouldn't be frustrated from the small amount of sales – you have to build bigger portfolio to earn bigger money. With 10–30 images on Dreamstime, you will have 1 – 5 sales within one month (this is just a raw estimate, and it depends on the quality of your images). The more images, the more sales.

Referral earnings

Microstock agencies need new customers and also content submitters – so they offer affiliate programs. And as you can see all links on this page has some referral code. If you use them for your registration, I will get a few dollars from those agencies (that you buy or sell something). It is not much – you can't get rich from it, but it provides some motivation for writing and for helping you be successful on microstock

If you have any problem, just leave a comment and I will try to help you.