If you have been submitting to these microstock photography websites all along, you may have noticed a decline in the amount of monthly income you are earning from your photos.  This is partially due to the large influx of photos that are submitted to these websites on a daily basis.  If you don�??t keep up by constantly uploading new images �?? your earnings are bound to take a nose dive, this is something I have seen happen with my own photos over the past year.  In fact, I have seen my average monthy earnings on Shutterstock go from about $125 a month to about only $65 a month.

This decline in earnings has caused me to try and find other sources of income that can be created with my camera.  While I was living in Los Angeles, I frequently shot headshots for local actors and business people who needed these types of shots.  If you are a photographer who is looking for alternate ways to make money �?? you should consider shooting headshots. 

My headshot sessions usually only last about an hour an a half and I let the client keep the full rights to all of the images that I shoot.  I am currently charging $179 for about 160 photos, which includes four wardrobe changes.  I don�??t shoot in a studio and all of my images are shot outdoors in natural light.  Now that I live in Colorado, I only get a few headshot clients a month �?? but I love being able to make a few hundred bucks in only a couple of hours.  

If you are already shooting microstock you won�??t need much to start doing headshots in your local community.  You may need an assistant to hold a bounce board, but other than that �?? your investment should be minimal.  You will want to build a website that shows samples of some of your previous headshot clients and give them an idea of your shooting style. 

You should list your headshot website on all of the major search engines; Google, Bing and Yahoo.  It is a good idea to contact local talent agents or modeling agencies and show them samples of your work.  If you can develop a relationship with these agents, there is a good chance that they will send their new talent to you when they need headshots.  Believe it or not, many people are even hiring headshot photographers to take �??dating�?� photos for use on dating websites like match.com and eharmony.  Real Estate agents also use headshots in many of their printed advertisements and on their business cards, so advertising at a local real estate school might be a good idea as well.  

Headshot photography is a great way for freelance photographers to supplement their income without a large investment.  You can take an inside look at a recent headshot session that I shot in downtown Denver, Colorado below�?�

If you are a photographer who has delved into headshot work or you have other ideas for making income with your camera �?? please let us know by commenting below.  Feel free to paste a link to your photography website as well.

You can visit my headshot photography website here: Wolfe Photography 

Happy shooting! 

Michael-John Wolfe 

Tags: make money online, residual income, royalties

This new microstock agency is called Veer and it is a very user friendly website.  You can sell both images and illustrations on Veer and there is also a merchandise section, which I think is full of products that you can customize with your images or illustrations. 

Veer is owned by Corbis, so you know it is backed by one of the leaders in the stock photography industry.  Veer offers both rights managed and royalty free options for your images.  Their website makes uploading and tagging with keywords very simple – one of my pet peeves is microstock websites that make it a pain to submit your images. 

I submitted my first ten images and had seven of them approved.  These were some of my very best images, so Veer is definitely choosy when it comes to accepting images.  These ten images were accepted at almost all of the microstock websites – except maybe iStockphoto, which is another agency that is very selective.  I am not sure if there is good money to be made on Veer since I just submitted my first images.  Once I have my entire portfolio uploaded I will come back to this post and let you know if I am making some good earnings.

If are a contributor to Veer.com and you can tell us about your experiences or level of earnings, please comment below.  Also, if you know of other microstock photography websites that I have left out of my list – please send me an email with your suggestion.

You can visit Veer’s website here: Veer

Let us know what you think about this review of Veer, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

The Residuals and Royalties blog has become a great resource for photographers who are looking to get started in microstock photography.  If you click on the “photography” link in the sidebar, you will get a full list of all of the microstock photography websites that I have used and have had success with.  I was hesitant to list any more than the ones that I have listed so far, but there is another microstock photography website that some folks have had success with.

The site is called Fotolia and I have met some people in the Shutterstock forums that are having pretty good results with it.  I have personally uploaded my photos on Fotolia and I have had little success.  (I only have a handful of photos on Fotolia – compared to 300+ on Shutterstock.)  Seeing the success that other photographers have had with Fotolia, I have decided to add the rest of my microstock photographs to this website.

I would love to hear from some of the other microstock photographers about their results and earnings on Fotolia.  (I have a hard time getting photographers to give me their input!  Unlike the freelance writers – who always have something to say!)  If you consider Fotolia to be one of your top earners – or if you think it is a complete waste of time.  Please, let us know so that we don’t spend hours uploading our images on this website.  Overall, microstock photography is a great way to make money online and create residual income.  The more quality sources of earnings from our photographs that we can create – the better!

You can visit Fotolia’s website here: Fotolia

Let us know what you think about this review of Fotolia, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

Another microstock photography website that I have been earning residual income from is Dreamstime. I have about 110 photos uploaded on the Dreamstime website and I average about $40 – $50 per month in earnings. While this may not seem like a lot of money, if you add in the other five or six microstock photography websites that I use, they all combine for a great source of monthly residual income.

I know some of you may be growing tired of all of the microstock photography websites that I am posting, but I want to make sure that people and photographers who are looking for legitimate websites to make money will know which websites are the best. Believe me, I have tried over 15 different microstock photography websites and only a few have gotten results worthy of my time uploading.

Unfortunately, the microstock photography industry as a whole is becoming flooded with photos. Many websites now have millions and millions of photos and I have noticed a slight downward trend in my earnings. This is exactly why you have to create multiple streams of online income and you can never rely on just one source. I am not saying that microstock is not a worthy venture, I am just saying that you are going to have to submit higher quality photos and many of them to actually make some money.

There are people with thousands and thousands of photos in their portfolio, many of whom have very expensive photography equipment and cameras. These photographers have the money to hire models, pay for locations, etc. So you will be competing at a high level. I will continue to post the remaining few microstock photography websites that help me earn residual income and make money online. If any of you have any other microstock photography websites that you recommend, let me know and I will investigate it.

You can visit Dreamstime�??s website here: Dreamstime

Let us know what you think about this review of Dreamstime, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

If you are not familiar with Shutterstock, let me tell you how to get started selling your photos online. First off, you�??ll need to have an eye for getting a good shot and a camera that takes photos that are at least 4.0 million pixels. For example: a photo which is 2400�?1800 adds up to a total of 4.32 million pixels – a photo of this size is valid – however, a photo which is 1000�?1600 adds up to a total of 1.6 million pixels which is smaller than Shutterstock�??s minimum size requirement. A digital SLR with multiple lenses is the best choice for those who are serious about making residual income selling photographs online.

Now the trick is finding out what type of photos you should take. The best way to do this is to browse through the top 100 images. You can find this link by signing up with Shutterstock here: Shutterstock and then clicking on the link that says �??Most Popular Images�?�. Take a look at the top images and you�??ll notice that the quality of these photos is very high. You don�??t need perfect photos to make money on Shutterstock, but your photos do need to be good enough to pass a check by Shutterstock�??s reviewers. Typically I get about 60% of my images approved. Although it is frowned upon by Shutterstock �?? I do sometimes wait a month or two and resubmit rejected images. Many times these photos will get accepted on their second time around.

If you want to take photos at home indoors, you can set up your own mini-photography studio and create images at your convenience. Set up a small table and some lights and you can shoot food related shots, which are very good sellers. This is called table top photography and believe it or not there are photographers who make their living doing table top photography alone. From what I have seen however, the best sellers are photos of people and vectors. Getting high quality photos of people can be tough and when you do submit these photos, you�??ll need to get your models to sign a model release. This release tells Shutterstock that these models are giving up the rights for their image to be purchased or sold royalty free.

People also sell illustrations in vector format on Shutterstock and in many cases these illustrators make even more money that the photographers. There are some folks earning thousands of dollars per month in residual income through micro stock websites such as Shutterstock. One example of a photographer making a ton of profit is Yuri Arcurs. He is known as the top micro stock photographer in the world. You can visit his website at http://www.arcurs.com/

If you decide to pursue micro stock photography with Shutterstock, you will probably face a few hurdles getting started. But those people who are committed to creating high quality photos with great concepts can be rewarded very handsomely. Make a commitment to submit a certain number of photos each day and you will see the financial rewards in no time! Before you know it, you�??ll have created a stream of residual income that has limitless growth potential. Happy shooting!

You can visit Shutterstock’s website here: Shutterstock

Let us know what you think about this review of Shutterstock, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

BigStockPhoto is the last microstock photography website that I am going to reccommened to my readers.  So far I have reccommended Shutterstock, iStockphoto, Stockxpert and Dreamstime.  I have tried multiple other microstock photography websites and no other sites have yielded financial results worth of my download time.  BigStockPhoto just barely makes thecut, I typically make about $30 in residual income every two months on BigStockPhoto.

So if you are looking for big payouts, then BigStockPhoto may not be the website for you.  I have, however noticed a nice upswing in sales and it does seem that the website is growing.  This past month it took me only one month to make $31, which is good considering that $30 is the minimum payout.  BigStockPhoto pays very quickly through PayPal and I have always recieved my payments within days of requesting it.

Even if BigStockPhoto is not the best microstock website, for me it is just another tool to make money online and build residual income.  Their website is easy to use and unlike iStockPhoto, you can easily upload multiple photos at once.  Their keywording system is simple and the entire website is easy to navigate.

I would only reccommend BigStockPhoto to photgraphers with at least 30 photos in their portfolio.  I have 103 images live on BigStockPhoto and I am in the process of adding more.  Overall, BigStockPhoto looks to turn the corner and join the larger microstock websites as a nice source of residual income.

You can visit BigStockPhoto’s website here: BigStockPhoto

Let us know what you think about this review of BigStockPhoto, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

Another microstock photography website that I make some residual income from is iStockphoto.  iStockphoto is much more stringent regarding the quality of photos they will accept on their website.  For example, I have 306 photos active on Shutterstock, I submitted those very same photos to iStockphoto and only 74 images got accepted.  With those 74 images, I make about $40 t0 $50 per month in residual income and I think the payout is slightly higher than Shutterstock.

If you think that your photos are top notch, then you can definitly give iStockphoto a try.  The worst thing about iStockphoto is the fact that you have to upload one photo at a time.  It can take forever just to upload 10 photos on iStockphoto.  For some reason, their website does not allow you to upload multiple photos at a time or use an ftp server.

Today I read on iStockphoto that they are now accepting audio files to sell on their website, I am not sure what kind of market there is on iStockphoto for audio files, but if you are a musician or producer – you may want to upload some of your songs onto iStockphoto and see if you can garner any sales.

Overall, I believe that for upper echelon photographers – iStockphoto can be an excellent source of residual income and one more tool for microstock photographers to use to make money online.

You can visit iStockphoto’s website by clicking the banner below:

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

I first found Stockxpert last year and honestly it wasn�??t worth my time, with over one hundred of my photos on this website I was only earning $10 – $15 per month. But recently things have changed – I�??ve noticed a steady upward trend with this website and the fact that they are affiliated with Jupiter Images is a pretty big deal. I am now averaging roughly $50 per month in residual income and I hope to see this trend continue.

One of the best things about Stockxpert is the fact that they have an easy to use ftp upload and Stockxpert their keyword system is very user friendly! At this time they have 2.7 million images on their website, which is half the amount of some of the larger microstock websites �?? so at least you will be competing against less photos for now.

Microstock photography can be a great source of residual income and it is one of the top ways that I make money online. I have tried over 15 microstock photography webites, and only a select few have yielded results in the form of quality residual income. I will only be listing the microstock websites that I have actually had success with.

This is Stockxpert�??s website: Stockxpert

Let us know what you think about this review of Stockxpert, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties