Useful internet software, websites and blogsites.: The Top 8 Websites To Sell Your Stock Photos

Sent to you by Hemi via Google Reader:

The Top 8 Websites To Sell Your Stock Photos

via MakeUseOf.com by Matt Brian on 3/21/09

Photography to many of us is purely a hobby, something that we indulge in when we get the chance. For others, it is the very essence of living, if there is a photo to be taken, they are the one's who take it.

Whether it's a hobby or it's your job, making money from your photos can help supplement your income and help businesses get the right images for their brand. Many photographers are daunted by the stock selling process but in reality it is very simple.

Whilst you are able to submit your photos for review, not all stock photography websites will accept your work, so they would need to be of a pretty high standard to gain admission to a marketplace.

With that in mind, I would like to present to you eight websites that will assist you in marketing your photos:

1. Snapvillage

Snapvillage is a microstock website from Corbis that offers a unique marketplace for pictures and illustrations. Users buy and sell images without restriction at affordable prices in an intuitive and interactive way.

Users can upload as many images as they like, the Snapvillage team then review them and post accepted images for potential buyers to see. Royalties are earnt every time one of the submitted images is purchased and there is also the option to set your own prices.

2. iStockPhoto

iStockPhoto claims to be the biggest stock marketplace on the internet. They offer images, video and audio and givce 20% of the base royalty rate for anything sold. There are other initiatives in place that allow users to gain more from their work, such as making the work exclusive to iStockPhoto.

3. Stockxpert

Stockxpert is a royalty free stock photography community with the goal to provide customers with affordable stock imagery while offering a powerful tool to photographers and digital artists who would like to sell their work. Stockxpert offer 50% of the royalty fee on each sale, with the ability to check on the balance earned in real time.

There are specific websites for international users, meaning photographers can be paid in their own countries currency.

4. Fotolia

Fotolia is the first worldwide social marketplace for royalty free stock images, allowing individuals and professionals to legally buy and share stock images and illustrations. They currently offer the largest image bank of free and affordable royalty free photos and illustrations on the internet.

Fotolia offer international versions of their site, where users are encouraged to express themselves via the community forums and blog. For every file sold, users receive a royalty based on their ranking and exclusivity on the site; most royalty's are between 30% and 61%.

5. Shutterstock

Shutterstock offer many of their images to web designers, magazine editors and graphic artists whom sign up for their monthly subscriptions to buy images like the ones you may submit. In that time they are allowed to download upto 750 images of which you receive 25 cents for each sale. Once $500 is earnt, commission then rises to 30 cents per download.

6. ClusterShot

ClusterShot is different from the many stock photography sites out there in the fact you are free to submit whatever you want to the site and not have to run the gaunlet of passing a review. Clustershot think of themselves as an Ebay for photos, allowing you to submit as many pictures of your dog as you want. They have a very useful tool that integrates with your Flickr collection, allowing you to submit your entire collection for perusal.

Photographers can decide whether they set a fixed price or are open to offers.

7. BigStockPhoto

BigStockPhoto is an alternative to high-priced stock photography in addition to providing photographers with a marketplace to sell their work. They aim to bring power to the people who don't want to spend huge amounts of money on stock photos, in turn repaying some of the revenue to it's creator.

BigStockPhoto offers highest quality print and web resolution images - both photos and vector art - for virtually every use. Photographers will earn 50 cents for every image downloaded, with the option to withdraw funds once they amass $30.

8. 123RF

123RF is another subscription based website where buyers can either download to their prepaid quota or by using a credit system. Not only do 123RF offer a huge amount of stock paid images, they routinely release free to use images for it's members.

Photographers gain 50% on the sale of one of their images.

Conclusion

There are a lot of different things to consider when submitting your photos. For example, it may pay to choose a specialised market for the subject of your photos, to work out what images are the best to submit or even what license you wish to grant your work. These are all important in regards to profiting from your work but also making sure you aren't being exploited. As with all things of this nature, do your research and make sure you are clear on what you are doing before you submit to these sites.