WAHM Forums

Is there anyone here who uploads pictures on istockphoto and get royalties or commissions on the photos?

I want to try this out because it seems like a passive income stream because you just have to upload once and it sells itself in the website. How is your earnings here? How "complicated" should your pics be? Are simple pictures enough?

Are there any other photo sites that pay well and pay with Paypal?

Thanks for the help!

I saw a forum online about this. You should do a google search.

Hope this helps!

Thanks! But I think it's from istockphoto also. I just wanted to ask if it is worth doing or is it too much work?

Hi There,

I have never sold on istockphoto (so I have no idea what the costs involved are), but I have spent ALOT of money downloading images (mainly graphics) for personal and business use.

I can tell you that they are a well-published, and well designed site, and some people make a ton of money there.

I would suggest you do searches on the site similar to the type of photos you are planning to upload, and you can see exactly how many times each has been downloaded/ purchased. That will give you an idea of how much people are selling/ making. Your photos should be interesting and unique. People will use them for personal items as well as business use (websites, correspondence, business cards, presentations, etc....)

My advice, it may be definitely worth your while.

I use several sites myself, and I have seen the same artists and photographers on quite a few of them.

Here are some others:
Dreamstime.com (my personal favorite! Love them!)
fotosearch.com
and there are quite a few more!

Good luck!

Kat
Edited by: katnger

I enjoy doing photography,and I am registered on a few sites but I've never had any of my photos approved yet. I have some good photography,though. I recently registered on http://www.gotstockphoto.com and submitted my first photo to them today. I hope it's approved. I don't know how much you get paid there,I should check into that.

The sites are very strict on the technical details of the photo to be uploaded! I'm no photographer and I still have to study the exposure and other technical stuff about the camera. Plus, I have to learn to do Photoshop! That would take time.

Yeah,they want the pics to be a certain size and everything. I have a little Photoshop skill but I still would have a lot to learn. I used to be a Graphic/Web design major but I didn't finish,and I just took a few graphic design classes. I'm not a graphic designer.

It is hard to get pictures accepted with the really good stock photo sites. I have tried my hand at selling stock illustrations and so far have made $6.20 at istockphoto for 2 downloads. I submitted pics but they were all of similar subject matter, outdoorsy stuff and they want to see a varied sample of what you can do so I'll have to try that again later. You have to be very technically on your game and be creative with what you photograph to do well in that business. There are a few other good stock sites to sell on such as www.fotolia.com (http://www.fotolia.com)and www.dreamstime.com (http://www.dreamstime.com). I've sold illustrations with both of those companies as well. Good luck to anyone who gives this a shot. Istock has forums on their site where you can learn a lot too.

I've never used them. There are some other sites like it though:

http://www.dreamstime.com
http://submit.123rf.com/submit/makemoney.php (http://submit.123rf.com/submit/makemoney.php)
http://www.luckyoliver.com/
http://www.fotolia.com/Info/HowToSell
http://www.canstockphoto.com/
http://submit.shutterstock.com/
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/