Special Issue
Contemporary microstock
business or photographer’s
everyday job
Vsevolod Ivaschenko, Anna Donets
Today amid increasing globalization, microstocks are becoming one of the major
money-making instruments. They provide for equal competition in the international media
environment, both for a professional photographer and for a rookie. Microstocks give an
opportunity to become world famous and, in addition, earn serious money. It is a chance
to present one’s works to the most prominent while also most demanding editors of the
world’s media and advertising.
Vsevolod Ivaschenko,
larastock.com
Anna Donets,
Journalist
So what is the contemporary microstock and why does it
play such an important role?
A microstock is nothing, but an evolutionary form of a classic photo bank, and namely an online library of royalty-free
digital media content, which offers images for commercial and
editorial use.
It makes it possible to sell a licence that limits the use of an
image by customers.
The major dilemma is making a choice between much and
cheap on microstocks, or little but expensive on classic photo
banks. I can say with complete certainty that both models work
well, but microstocks yield a bigger financial income and, most
importantly, that income is stable.
Today the consumer market provides for equal opportunities to earn both on expensive exclusive products and on cheap
mass products. It is a natter of marketing and each company
independently makes a choice whether they should release
their product in a limited series or start mass production. By
the same token, each photographer is free to deal with microstocks or photo banks. As known from practice, one should not
give microstocks a miss.
Judge for yourselves as to how many exclusive photographs
you can make in a single photo session: out of a thousand images only two or three can qualify for the world’s leading photo
banks, such as Getty Images and Image Source. But not a single
expert can tell you how soon they will get sold, as it is entirely
a matter of chance. On the other hand, you can start earning
guaranteed incomes from the same images through microstocks! Practically all quality photographs can earn profits comparable to an exclusive sale – about a hundred images from a
single photo session earning several hundred dollars a month.
Today thousands of people earn hundreds of dollars a day on
stock images, so why not turn your creative work into a profitable business?! I mean business, because leading photographers on microstocks have developed a certain business model,
which turns a hobby into a well-modeled enterprise that can
deliver a product and secure consistent sales, while the instrument is already at your disposal. They set up teams, hire assistants, establish schools – and all this is a new photo industry.
In fact, microstocks are becoming leaders of the photo
trade, selling more than a million licences for the use of photo
images on a daily basis, forming a market with the annual turnover of more than $6 billion.
I will give you examples of image sales by the stars of the
microstock industry.
Licences for their photo images get sold thousands of times
a day, earning thousands of dollars. Microstocks are already
competing to become exclusive holders of these photographs
and lure contributors with unique terms of service. These people have weight and are the backbone of the market. Although
some microstocks do not find it important to have particular
photographers among their contributors and believe that any
person can be replaced, this is not true as these individuals can
take away a certain share of the market (along with the profits)
even from microstocks. Once you have established your name in
this business, it will stay with you forever and will automatically
become a selling brand (first you work for your name, and then
your name works for you).
Of course, you have to realize that, for instance, Yuri Arcurs may earn as much as $300,000 a month, but he shares this
money with his 100-strong team, which is an integral part of
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