Does anyone use image banks to sell their photos? If so, which ones are best and what sort of success rate do you have i.e. number of sales and how much do they pay?

Cheers

May I just butt in with a question along the same lines please?

Would they be suitable for selling pictures of MTB events in lieu of your own website? Can you set your own price for instance?

I looked at Getty images but didn't like the exclusivity clause. Sell to them and you can sell to no-one else!

I prefer the autonomy and control of selling them myself, but then again I'm in quite a limited field, cycling, and try to sell directly to the public or for advertising.

Peter- I'd approach magazines or web sites directly if you want pictures published or go through the race organisers or federations. I wouldn't have thought Getty would have much of a market for overweight IT types battling it out in a muddy field, but please, prove me wrong.

Alamy is one that I think is reasonably accessable. Don't think you get much per sale though so you need loads on there to make it worthwhile.

Peter- I'd approach magazines or web sites directly if you want pictures published or go through the race organisers or federations. I wouldn't have thought Getty would have much of a market for overweight IT types battling it out in a muddy field, but please, prove me wrong

No, I'm just talking about selling race pics to the competitors 🙂 I've had some sucess doing this so far, but it's a bloody nightmare doing it all via email without a website.

I've just found photoboxgallery.com which can do this, but it seems they only sell prints and not digital copies which a lot/most people seem to want.

And ideas?

I read it as "pornographic content" 🙁

No, I'm just talking about selling race pics to the competitors I've had some sucess doing this so far, but it's a bloody nightmare doing it all via email without a website.

I think that Getty look for 200€ per photo and pass on 100€ to you!! But not 100% sure.

Photobox looks quite good, but limited.

Try Smugmug.
Or Zenfolio who I use. If you go through Zenfolio I have some sort of discount code!!
I got my money back within the first week so definately worth it from my pov.

simonfbarnes – Member
I read it as "pornographic content"

I think that'll be along later in the week Simon 😀

Try Alamy.com They dont mind if you put your photos anywhere else. They also pay you 60% and they keep 40%. No other agency does it that way round, so they do give you more.

Your sucsess depends on the quality of your photos, their commercial viability and the quality of your keywording. Thats all up to you.

But at the end of the day your better off loading your images on their server where it may sell than leaving them on yours where there is probably no chance of selling.

As a web designer I use Istockphoto and Bigstockphoto the most – think Bigstock don't require exclusivity.. Istock now charge more per photo if they're exclusive, but seem to have some non-exclusive ones as well.

Best ones to sell are boring generic ones.. beautiful receptionist next to a phone and computer, a selection of ethnically diverse office staff around a computer etc etc..

Your best bet IMO is to think of who your target audience is.. most buyers, judging by volume sold, seem to be web / graphic designers looking for generic photos for the "About us", "Our Services" and "Contact us" pages of their client's brochures/websites.

The Mac guy in the studio where I work was going out taking photos of cityscapes and suchlike, often panoramas, and putting them onto istockphoto. He left a year after I started because he was earning enough to live on, bearing in mind he was commuting from Cheltenham to Chippenham and back every day.