If you are a freelance designer, illustrator or photographer, you may have gotten to the stage where you are a bit fed up with swapping all your time for money. If that's the case, then how do you supplement your income from work with extra 'passive' income
The answer you're looking for may be Microstock.
Microwhat?
Microstock organizations (such as iStockphoto) were created to provide a way for people to buy and sell photos at a very cheap price. I remember when I used to design brochures 10 years ago and the clients used to spend over $ 100 per photo. Now it is more like $ 1 per photo.
Photographers and designers of all kinds of standards can resell their photographs and vector illustrations in a royalty free format for a small commission.
The concept is based around small price high volume, so your work has to be popular for you to make this worthwhile. In theory you'll have a lot more sales from a lot more customers.
How Do You Get Started?
iStockphoto and other Microstock sites have no cost to join up and become a member. There is usually a vetting process though where you need to submit various samples from your portfolio for initial approval to become a sponsor. This process time varies depending on the quality of the Microstock agency.
From that point on it is pretty self explanatory. You upload your fi work, people download your best work. You get some nice royalty for each downloaded.
Can You Earn Much Money?
Here's the killer question, and your probably wondering whether it's worth investing your time to make it work for you.
Well, responsibilities vary from site to site, some people get some quick results, some people take a while to get going.
After a bit of investigation, I've found that there are a few 'Microstock Celebrities' emerging such as Lise Gagne and Yuri Arcurs. They make a full time income from Microstock sales.
In Conclusion
In my opinion, Microstock should be part of your passive income strategy. It's going to be hard work in the beginning, but you will reap the rewards if you keep at it.