PHOTOGRAPHER JOBS, GRAPHIC DESIGN JOBS, VIDEO AND AUDIO JOBS ...... LEARN HERE ABOUT THESE JOBS.
How can I earn money as a photographer, graphic designer, video or audio producer working with stock agencies, or Micro Stock? Keep on reading.
If you want photography jobs or graphic design, illustration, or audio or video multimedia artist jobs in stock agencies, we will give you the necessary advice so that you can take the first steps.
What is the secret of this work?
We can tell you honestly and from personal experience because we are photographer and this is our job, so having made our way in this business we would like to share some advice about photography jobs. The first thing we need to make clear is that since stock or microstock is a type of agency that sells images, photographs, video, and audio, where clients go looking for good products at good prices, we need to learn how to offer the product the client wants. The secret to working in stock agencies is to remember that we need to generate the image that the final consumer wants, that is the secret of our photography and graphic design jobs. As well as knowing how to surpass the first phase of adapting to this new job format, in this new world there are 3 players and we must know how to play the pieces well. The three players are: the client, the editor and the artist (photographer or graphic designer).
The editor decides which of your images to select. That is his job, he is the intermediate between the photographer and the client; the person we need to sell our product to, not with words but with actions, that is, with pictures. The editor is the middle man who knows what the clients want and is in charge of the selection of the artist’s (photographer, designer or artist) images based on that demand. Therefore the secret is to realize that through the images that are accepted or rejected we can learn about our own job as a photographer or graphic designer, what works and what, although of equal or greater artistic and technical talent, is not in demand. In this way we can take rejection as a form of learning or training. If we understand that this is the main secret of this jobs, we have already won the game, like the beginning of any job that we need to overcome. We can definitively state that once that initial phase has been surpassed, the graphic design artist or photographer gains a very different perspective, from which they see their income growing and the percentage of accepted images rising because they have begun to understand what clients are looking for. Also, they are getting to know their new job thanks to the training provided by the editors in the initial phase. That was the editor’s job, but they help us greatly with our part. Also, we must not forget that editors are humans like we are and occasionally their good or bad moods can affect their work and this will markedly affect ours.
Why are we recommending these jobs to you?
Why this works are good to you? Well, simply because you can work from home or wherever, you can travel and bring your work anywhere, at any time. Trying to create and promote your own website, and make it functional, with all the technical programming requirements stock or microstock currently requires ends up being disproportionately expensive for a photographer, taking into account the expense needed to promote it on the web. Competing against consolidated agencies in this business, more than being a lot of work, is less than a utopia, and that is why we recommend as better jobs working in these agencies to photographer and graphic design artists. They are stock agencies with proven reputations and everything is set up from the very first moment.
How do these stock agencies or image banks work?
Although many photographers or graphic design and vector artists who are reading this are already familiar with this medium and are just using this information to complement their own knowledge, we must also inform those who do not know about these jobs. Some topics we will discuss supposing zero knowledge of these jobs on the part of the photographer. Just as the term “stock” means store, these banks store millions of pictures categorized using certain criteria and keywords that we add to each image (generally between 10 and 50 keywords). It is part of our job to make sure that when we upload images to the stock agencies, their internal search engines show their clients the images that correspond to the search criteria entered by the client. Most agencies require that this be done in English, but more and more agencies are allowing you to use your country’s language if this is not English. Working as a photographer online and in your own language was not possible until recently.
With this model for selling images, while you are asleep or on vacation, your images can work for you. If that sounds like one of the better jobs, it is. This system of image sales allows you to choose your level of commitment, allowing you to enjoy photography jobs as a hobby and keep your current job, the difference being that with a little dedication you can turn your hobby into a lucrative activity or a second job in your free time. Or, you can get involved with more dedication and become a professional with a great job. On the other hand, you can sell not only photographs, but also illustrations, graphics, vectors, 3D renderings or video clips, and in some agencies even audio.
Micro Stock or Microstock compared to Macro Stock or Macrostock…which one is more profitable for my work?
Both business models are stock agencies or image banks, but this site is dedicated to work in microstock. Micro Stock sells images at a very accessible price to the final client, and is the type of agency that is more in demand at the moment and certainly in the future. The secret lies in selling the same image many times for a low price and in this way make up for the low profits that come from an individual sale. Macro Stock or traditional stock, which works with images with more protected rights, or Rights Managed, has dominated the stock photography market for many years, but now it is playing a smaller and smaller role in the world of online image sales, due to the excellent option of microstock, which offers the same quality of images in many cases with a much more attractive cost, as well as the simplification of the use of said images by the final client. When selecting images, macrostock agencies are excessively demanding with the photographer and graphic design artists that collaborate with them and sell their images and the percentage of rejection is much higher. In the same way, monthly yields are lower, up to a point where it is not worth it for many professionals to invest their time in traditional stocks.
Contracts, Image Rights, Exclusivity, Commissions…so many doubts
Don’t worry, because we are going to explain in a simplified way how this job works. The image rights belong to the photographer or graphic design artist who produces the work, and only they can transfer these rights. To explain briefly, the stock functions like an agency that sells your work, photos, videos, vector images, illustrations, etc., and they do it in exchange for a commission. The commission varies but generally 40-75% goes to the agency and the rest to the artist or photographer. We must remember that the agency’s expenses are high, and the more one gets to know the system, the more one understands why this disproportion exists. The agencies have to pay to host millions of pictures, for the bandwidth to upload and download them, for editors to review thousands of pictures a day (which is a lot of work), for the software and programming that must be constantly updated, for publicity campaigns for the site on the Internet, where a large proportion of their returns are invested, and they also want to earn their part. If you do the math it is not as disproportionate as it seems at first glance. Of course, it is obvious that they receive a nice compensation for their work, surely bigger than ours if we compare our job to theirs. The intelligent thing for a photographer to do is to think about their own compensation and work on improving it. Often agencies will raise the percentages of compensation for their graphic design artists and photographers as sales go up over time, which is a good incentive. Contracts of exclusivity are a delicate subject, but our opinion is it is best not to put all your eggs in one basket, at least in this job. Although many companies run their publicity campaigns so that the photographer or artist ends up becoming exclusive by noticeably raising the percentage of compensation for the same work, as well as other benefits, we should remember that on the Internet everything moves very quickly and these big companies can change their course overnight and decide on a different policy which does not benefit us. In that case we would be faced with having made a long journey and a big effort for nothing, all that work lost. On the other hand, if we decide to work for various agencies at the same time without exclusivity, the sum of all the compensations will without a doubt be more than those from a single company even if this company makes an effort to raise the percentage of compensation for our work.
Our recommendation for this jobs is to be willing to learn about all the kinds images like photos, vectors, illustrations that these agencies are looking for, as well as the technical and artistic conditions that they expect from us. Along with getting over that first stage of starting out, these are the two keys to succeeding in this business. Our advice is…go for it! You can visit the agencies we have recommended by clicking on the links in the column on the right with the names of the agencies. Get registered and start your new photography or graphic design jobs!
