Was I amazed when this email showed up in my inbox! I made my first sale. And shortly after that I sold another shot in a Medium size for $1.50! I wouldn’t consider this a landslide start to a career in microstock but it is encouraging. Here are some details on joining, submitting, and how I sold my first photo at Fotolia:

Joining Fotolia

Joining Fotolia was no problem at all. A link at the top of the page says “Sell Stock Images”. A simple three step process is outlined to get you on your way. Open an account, upload photos, and make money! Sweet. In a matter of minutes I was uploading my prized photographs.

Their upload interface is really straightforward. A number of options are right there on the page. You can use a form, flash, or FTP. I quickly uploaded five pictures I had processed from earlier in the week with my new Canon Rebel. Now the waiting game…

Review Process

A few days go by as I’m eagerly awaiting my photos’ approval.  I bounced around the net to sign up at some other microstock sites (more later).  Finally the reviews come in and three of them get approved! I was excited but a little confused why my other pictures got refused. Turns out I had some fundamental things wrong with my pictures and I didn’t pay attention to the advice that was all over the site.  One of my shots had a depth of field that blurred an important part of the subject and the other had no central point of interest. I also submitted the second shot to an already overflowing category.

I was so curious about the refusals that I decided to seek out as much information as I could about getting shots approved. Turns out there is a lot. The microstock sites are more than willing to help you produce top quality (and marketable) shots. There are a lot of great pictures that just aren’t cut out royalty free stock sites. If I could pass on any advice: just poke around microstock sites and look at their photos, keywords, categories, top photographers, top selling photos, and forums and get to know the market!

Big Bucks!

When you submit files exclusively to Fotolia they happily provide you a 50% commision on your sales. This is a good boost from their normal 33%. For the XS size I got $0.50 and for the medium I got $1.50. For the hours I spent shooting, developing, applying, uploading, keywording, and researching I’ve earned myself $2.00. Well the truth is you just have to keep building your portfolio and the sales will continue to grow and grow. Maintaining a traditional, rights-managed portfolio and pushing my extra shots to the microstock sites look to be a very plausible source of income for some people.  Hopefully we’ll see my revenue grow over the summer months.