How to sell stock photos when living in Japan

I bought a DSLR in march and started to get into photography as a hobby. I found videos of photographers on youtube talking about how they were selling photos on stock photo sites and decided to try it out for myself. Here is my experience so far.

I am currently using the site Shutterstock to upload my photos. I started uploading in April and made 39,34 USD so far with slightly over 500 photos. That is not much but once uploaded photos can keep creating passive income. To be able to upload on Shutterstock you need to first submit a few samples. My samples were accepted without any issues and I am still very far from being a good photographer. 

You will also need a Paypal account to receive payments once your income is over the 35 USD threshold.

On Shutterstock, you can submit editorial and commercial pictures. For commercial pictures you will need a model release if you work with models or property releases if you take photos of somebody`s (intellectual) property. For editorial pictures you do not need any releases. Once you submit a photo it will be reviewed within a few days. If it gets accepted it will be available for download. If your photo did not get accepted you can resubmit it. I had several photos rejected first and accepted later. 

For editorial pictures, in general, the reviewers are less strict so it is easier to get photos accepted when you are still a beginner. Also, I found that there are not so many photographers submitting Japan-related editorial content on Shutterstock. Less competition means higher chances for sales so I found that Japan-related editorial content is selling best for me. As you can imagine there are already many pictures of Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Station and other famous places but if you visit lesser know spots or spots that just recently opened chances are good that the market is not yet saturated. My best selling editorial picture so far is this photo I took in the Pokémon Café. 

As for commercial pictures, I found that it is quite difficult to get sales if you do not have the skill and equipment of a professional photographer. There are many good pictures for the most popular themes out there already so I can not really compete with my budget camera and no studio. 

Therefore I think I will stick to mostly taking editorial pictures of Japan content.