iStock Contributor?

Flora Manson

New Member
Hi!

I recently uploaded some work to iStock (digital illustrations) and I just received an email from iStock letting me know that they'd like me to become a contributor. I was wondering if anyone has experience of being a contributor and could tell me if I should/shouldn't become one? Is it worth it? What are the constraints with your work that is uploaded and how much do you get paid?

Thank you!
 
I know a few photographers that are on a similar stock imagery site. Apparently, they get a pittance from each photo downloaded so have to shift some serious numbers to make it worthwhile. That's why you will see so many variants with the vector imagery. Contributors will spend time doing one design and then make small adjustments to the colours and layout to turn one design into 20.

I too would be interested to know what sort of numbers are involved specifically.
 
Due to downgrading of contributor payouts (royalties) to very low sums and the painful time it takes to keyword new files, I no longer recommend iStock.
 
I don't know about iStock personally, but I have a few images on another similar site. I mostly use it for a little bit
of extra income and only submit existing illustrations that I've been paid to produce originally (and am allowed t0
sell on again).

Quality is better than quantity, but you need to have literally hundreds of images to make a living from it due to royalties being
so small these days, sometimes as low as 50p per image sold, or even less due to low subscription rates.

If you do have a go, and it can be fun although time-consuming, make sure your images are sellable, i.e. business or editorial-related etc.
If you're only just starting out as an illustrator, I would concentrate on getting paid work first.
 
50p per image sold, or even less due to low subscription


Yes, I would imagine that it's much less in most cases. A subscription to Shutterstock makes image downloads work out at about 20p each, and you know that only a small portion of that will be going to the creator.
 
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