A TV news article reports on a Canadian photographer who didn’t bother to read the contract when submitting one of his favourite photos to a cheap, royalty-free, stock agency. Apparently he was only thinking about the easy money.
His photo was used on 500,000 calendars and greeting cards.
He earned US$1.88.
Other photographers would probably laugh at this person because this is not news. It’s well known that cheap stock photo agencies have been taking advantage of unsuspecting photographers for 20 years.
If you want to claim that you’re a “professional” photographer, then learn about your business. You can’t blame other people for your lack of business acumen and you can’t ask a customer to give you more money because you undercharged them. Do-overs are for children.
The final sentences in that news article quote the photographer as saying that he might submit more pictures to the stock agency but probably not his best work. [Insert facepalm here]
One More Thing
There’s no money in calendars anymore. Cheap stock pictures have killed paper product photography (calendars, greeting cards, posters, etc.).
The exceptions might be celebrity calendars/posters where the photographer has access to the celebrity, promotional calendars where a corporate sponsor pays for everything, or a calendar/poster with a niche subject matter which has no stock pictures available.
From the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, I got paid $500 to $2,500 per calendar photo and that was considered somewhat low at the time. The $500/photo was from a tiny, two-person calendar company with print runs under 25,000. The $2,500/photo was from a large publishing company with calendar print runs up to 200,000. The tiny company went bankrupt in 1998 due to lack of business. The large company was by then offering $250/photo with print runs up to 50,000. It shut down five years later due to poor sales.
Ten years ago, I was thinking about doing a self-produced calendar. Before doing any photography, I spoke with an executive at Chapters-Indigo, the country’s largest bookstore chain. I asked if the store would stock my calendar.
The executive who knew my photography said they’d gladly sell my calendar and asked for 100 copies.
“A hundred copies per store?” I asked while imagining my vast profit because they had over 200 stores across the country.
“No, 100 copies in total,” she replied, “and don’t expect all of them to sell.”
Warren, I think so much of your work and agree with many of your points of view. But your derision of stock photo agencies and photographers is pretty off-base. As someone who literally made a full-time income from stock agencies (as just one of the paths through which I worked…and I was far from one of the better-selling photographers), I’d be happy to speak to you sometime about my experiences. You’ve got a lot of it wrong, with respect.
Cheers,
Stacey
Hi Stacey,
Extremely long-winded reply:
As of 2004, there were over 900 online stock/picture agencies. I don’t know how many there are today and I certainly can’t comment on all of them. I’m referring to stock agencies that pay peanuts. Although, in the post above, I’m writing mostly about the photographer.
Some folks confuse a picture agency with a stock photo agency. The confusion is understandable because some picture agencies are also stock agencies (eg. Getty) and some stock agencies are trying to become picture agencies (eg. Shutterstock).
Many picture agencies are quite good for photographers (although most pay too low). Many such agencies have been around for many decades. Stock agencies that started as a bricks-and-mortar business many decades ago are usually pretty good, too. The problem is the so-called micro-stock sites and other stock agencies that pay peanuts because they expect photographers to subsidize their business.
Remember that a stock agency works for you, not the only way around. You are paying them a large commission to sell your work.
(And while I’m on this rant: another blight on photography are event photo companies that pay photographers $150/day to shoot and upload hundreds or thousands of pictures so that the company can resell the photos to the event participants or organizer.)
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From 1985 to 2001, I had photos sold through a bricks-and-mortar agent for which I received a 50% commission. Back then, images were shot on film and the agent had a bit of work to do: researching pictures, pulling film, making prints if necessary, and sending out and tracking images. They did a fair amount of work so a 50:50 split was okay.
In the late 1990s, I started with an online agency that paid photographers 70% to 90% commission. After all, the web site ran itself and much of the process was automated. But it’s completely reversed today where agencies often get at least 60%. What exactly do they do for you to earn that money?
Remember you are paying them a 60% (?) commission to sell your images. In what other industry do salespeople get a 60%, or higher, commission?
I also had pictures sold briefly through Newscom and Corbis in the early 2000s but it wasn’t worth the effort. Why bother when you’re getting $35/photo or less? In what other industry does the product manufacturer (ie. the photographer) have no say in the selling price?
The stock image business has fallen through the floor. (There’s a reason why the big stock agencies are branching into other businesses.) Too many photographers, too many pictures.
Until 2002(?), my lowest online commission was $250/photo. But when I started getting cheques for $7.50/photo, I stopped with these volume-based agencies.
Now on my own, my lowest payment has been $200/photo and my average sale is just over $500/photo.
From Shutterstock’s financial reports: Its average 2017 download was US $3.13. In third quarter 2018, its average download was US $3.40. That’s gross revenue per download and not what the photographer is paid.
I will assume that Shutterstock’s cheap, royalty-free images sell in very high volumes and that brings down the average because I know photographers who get much more than $3.40 per image. Nevertheless, Shutterstock and other similar companies should be ashamed of having such a low average. Why brag about how little you pay your business partners?
I choose not to sell to cheap customers :–) I have sold stock pictures to electronic encyclopedias, book publishers, magazines, governments, private companies, non-profits, etc.
Maybe it’s just me but I think it’s wrong to sell pictures like potatoes. That is to say, it’s wrong to sell your images at a one-size-fits-all price which is what most stock agencies do. Yes, I know royalty-free sells for different prices than rights managed but within a group most images are sold for the same price. Good for the customer, bad for the photographer.
Some photographers can negotiate their own private deal with an agency and good for them.
Similarly some customers can negotiate their own all-you-can-eat deal with some stock agencies. They get as many images as they want each month for a fixed low price. Guess who subsidizes this?
While some photographers can earn decent money through some agencies, most do not. Shutterstock’s own numbers show this.
My beef is that, in general, many photographers will accept peanuts (or just the thrill of being published) while blissfully ignoring the money left on the table; money not left by the stock agency but by the customer. Photographers need to be smarter.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Warren. There is a lot to say, so I’ll set it out properly and post after the holidays.
I agree with you, fwiw, about value. I’ve always fought for proper valuation of our work and I preach this to new photographers too. So we’re on the same page there…
A few times, when doing pictures for a small stock agency, I’ve been able to get a guaranteed minimum. For example, for a music event I got a 60% commission with a $250 minimum. I was paid $250 within a couple weeks and then I got a 60% commission *after* the agency made $250 in sales.
If I thought the pictures would sell well, I asked for a low minimum or none at all with a higher commission. But if I felt sales would be poor or I needed money right away then I asked for a higher minimum or a lump sum with no commission.
Some large stock agencies (*cough* Getty *cough*) “hire” freelancers to shoot events and they work totally on spec. This means that if their pictures don’t sell, they don’t get paid, not even for expenses. This is crazy and should be illegal but labour laws do not apply to freelancers.
All stock agencies should provide guaranteed minimums. If the agency doesn’t think that photo sales will recoup the money then why bother shooting the event?