Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Failure: Shutterstock

I knew it was only a matter of time. Everything that I have tried online couldnt possibly work out!

I had come across an article from MSN called 10 Creative Ways to Earn Extra Money. One of the suggestions on there was to put your photos on ShutterStock. Well, they said to put your photos on stock agencies like shutterstock.

Jim and I love playing with our camera. We have tons of pictures. Once you load them, there is nothing else to do. Just wait for someone to download the pictures. This sounded perfect!

It took me a little while to actually ask Jim what he thought. Afterall, they are our photos. I finally asked him at the end of last week. He thought it sounded like a great idea. We would earn $0.25 cents for each picture downloaded. But there was definitely some possibility there because who knows how many times each photo would be downloaded?

I signed up. You have to first submit 10 photos. If at least 7 of those photos are approved, your membership is accepted. I went through our photos and picked some of our favorites. I uploaded them, labeled them, and tagged them. Last night they were all submitted. I was confident that I would hear back in a few days that 7 or 8 were accepted.

I logged into my email this morning and found I was dead wrong! I was a bit peeved. First, the email telling me I was rejected was sent at 4:36am. Funny, because the website says they dont work during that hour. Then I scrolled down in the email to see the comments. Not. One. Photo. was accepted. Some of the comments annoyed me. They were generic. "Photo wasnt in focus or wasnt what we thought it should have focused on." Really, because there was nothing else in the photo and it was perfectly in focus! Oh and the "poor or uneven lighting" of the natural bridge? Well um, it was a natural bridge over a canyon. Everything was clearly detailed. What were you looking for? Ok, now that I am done my rant about that. No Im not still bitter...

In the end, I didnt spend much time on this. We took the pictures anyway. It didnt take long to upload them or label them. We love the pictures. We have gotten compliments on them from others. So I would have to say that it just wasnt what they were looking for. I could try again in 30 days. I dont think I will bother.

ShutterStock: Failure.

Feel free to give it a try, but be warned that they are brutal! If you can get your photos accepted, the possibility to earn some passive income is definitely there!

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