Microstock Photography
Microstock Photography is websites that sell the use of images to people who need photographs for publication, for about a dollar apiece.
As a photographer, you spam these sites with a zillion of your own images as you keep shooting them in the hope that these sites sell the use of some.
You get paid about 25ў each when they do.
iStockPhoto.com was one of the first microstock websites. When I first heard their sales pitches to graphic designers, I figured photographers were doomed, since anyone can get all the images they need for a few bucks apiece. Why would anyone ever hire a pro again? I wouldn't.
With all the amateurs snapping away in digital, places like iStockPhoto eliminated the transactional friction which kept old-fashioned stock photo agency prices high. With 1,000,000 monkeys snapping away and uploading photos, a few of them are bound to be good enough for a dollar.
In spite of me thinking that selling the use of images for a few bucks apiece spelt the end of commercial photography and the end of any photographer being able to make any money at stock photography, the guy who started iStockPhoto sold the website to Getty in 2006 for $50 million dollars.
The reason these people make so much money selling the use of images for cheap is because there are so many people who want to use images. It's all about volume.
I don't participate in any of this, but my pal Laurin Rinder sent me his book-on-CD about how to make money in microstock photography. It's a 150-page slide show PDF on CD that's about half related to general photo tips (the same ones you probably already know) and about 40% actually about how to try to make money with microstock photography.
I've never researched anyplace else to learn about this, so Laurin's CD is the only source I know. It's not a book; it's a slide show as a printable PDF on CD, which I saw, and also the same thing available online somehow. Each PDF page has somewhat less on it than a printed book page. If you're interested, you can check it out at Laurin's site.
I think the price is high for a simple download or PDF file, but I've never shopped for downloads. I'll leave this judgment to you. Check it out if you're interested in microstock, which could be a painless way to let your snaps earn money for you all by themselves.
I didn't see any microstock agencies listed by name or much mention of actual experiance from my short read of Laurin's PDF, but it's trivial to find the current microstock sites online. Since this market changes quickly, anything Laurin could have listed could have gone obsolete by the time you get it.
Again, I know nothing of micrtostock and leave it to you to figure out if it makes sense for you. I hear there are plenty of full-time pros who do it.
from
http://www.kenrockwell.com/