24 How to Make Dollars from Cents
extends the number of copies, such as a print run, from 500,000
to 2,500,000; the “W-EL” extended license allows your images to
be used in Web templates, screen savers, e-cards, PowerPoint
presentations, and cell phones; and the “P-EL” extended license
covers physical items for resale, such as t-shirt graphics, greeting
cards, and mugs. Finally, there is the option to sell all rights
(“SR-EL”).
These extended licenses are relatively expensive for buyers, particu-
larly the SR-EL option—but think carefully before you opt for the SR-EL
option as this is a complete buyout of all your rights, not something
I’d recommend without contemplation. You, the photographer, set the
buyout price.
FTP upload is available but is rationed so that those photographers
with low acceptance ratios are excluded.
Dreamstime has recently undergone a facelift, greatly improving the
appearance of the site. It is now one of the nicest around, in my view.
It has some neat features, including an “In the News” section and
blogs, which Serban hopes will help increase the sense of community
at Dreamstime. Dreamstime certainly deserves its place at the micro-
stocks’ top table.SHUTTERSTOCK
Shutterstock likes to keep things simple (simple sells in more ways
than one), and that applies to its commission structure. The standard
commission paid for each sale is $0.25, but from May 1, 2007, Shut-
terstock increased royalties to $0.30 per sale if you have at least $500
in earnings. That’s pretty much it for photos.
Shutterstock offers standard and “enhanced” licenses, with the
former being perhaps a tad more restrictive than that at Dreamstime,
with a 250,000 print run restriction. Shutterstock conveniently has a
comparison page to show the differences between its standard and en-
hanced licenses at http://www.shutterstock.com/license_comparison
.mhtml. There is, at the time of this writing, no complete rights buyout
option advertised.
It is diffi cult to audit value with Shutterstock because there are no
statistics as to the average number of images downloaded by subscrib-
ers. Consider as an example someone who purchases a subscription
with Shutterstock for, say, 3 months at $600, with a total daily down-
load limit of 25 and a monthly limit of 750; how many images does
that subscriber actually download? I doubt it’s the maximum of 2,250
over 3 months, which would equate to $675 in commission payable
at the top $0.30 rate. More likely, it is around half that number or
less—so an educated guess is that you, the photographer on top rate,
would receive around 50% commission. If correct (and I make no