Stock photography?

[KmH]

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I used to make some nice money from stock.

The stock photography industry back then was lots of stock photography agencies that sold Rights Managed (RM) use licensing of stock photographs. RM licensing has very specific terms that define how, where, and for how long an image can be used.
Getty Images (Mark Getty, son of Billionaire J Paul Getty Jr. & Jonathan Klein) and Corbis (privately owned by Microsoft founder & Billionaire Bill Gates) started buying up stock houses and consolidated the industry. Alamy was started in 1999 and is privately owned by James West and Mike Fisher CBE.
In 2009 Jupiterimages, about the last of the independent big stock agencies at that time, was sold to Getty Images.

With the emergence of the Internet microstock photography agencies began to appear.
Microstock agencies sell Royalty-Free (RF) use licensing which is not only way less expensive than RM licensing, the use licensing terms are very much broader for non-commercial usage and usually allow high volume perpetual use.
Being way less expensive, once the microstock agencies takes their cut, little money is left for the copyright owner - the photographer.

In the mean time the big boys - Getty, Corbis, Alamy - have been buying up microstock agencies continuing their consolidation and dominance of the stock photography market.

At any rate, getting a check for $100 once a year won't buy much photography gear.
BTW - $100 a year is an average of $8.33 a month.
Eliminate 2 lattes or 3 Red Bulls a month and you can save as much as what stock photography pays.

By submitting your photos to stock agencies you're just helping the rich guys get richer while they pay you pennies (litterally) for your time and talent that lines their pockets with $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

 

[imagemaker46]

Ok sweet thanks!

My main goal I guess is I would like to make $$ with my camera just as an additional income (expecting our first child March 2016 )

would I be more profitable with stock? Or selling prints on etsy.com or ebay or locally?

It's been a hobby that I would like to see a return on

Be more profit in selling the camera than trying to sell stock or on ebay. Sad truth

 

[Derrel]

Images "selling" for 29 cents from a library of 10 million images, or $5 for a high-res downloadable file....pfft...you'll make more money going can and bottle collecting by the side of the g*******d road for an hour on Sunday morning.

 

[osumisan]

Here's my take on this thread. I think stock can be a source of income but it's definitely a numbers game. My goal is to get at least 10,000 images on 10-20 stock sites over the next few years. Currently, I have galleries on iStock, Fotolia, Pond5, Dreamstime, Big Stock, Depositphoto, Shutterstock, and 123RF. Can anyone suggest to me other good stock sites as well?

 

[desertrattm2r12]

If I knew any easy way to make money in photography I'd be doing it and I have been selling photographs since the 1960s. It's getting harder and harder. If you are okay with a small return there is your circle of friends and people in your home town. Having a specialty or two or three helps. Be the local "go to" dude for this and that kind of photo. What kind of photo can you take that is better than Joe Lunchpail or Mom Lunchbox can come up with? And will they know your photos are better?