I found this tool to track the top sellers stock statistics through Lee at Microstock Diaries.  There’s also a comparison tool on the site.

While a great tool in itself, this is what I noticed for Dreamstime:

2/20/08 it was updated.  On that date:

Yuri had 38729 DL
Andres had 53458 DL
IOFoto had 29053 DL

Today on 3/31/08:

Yuri has 44932 DL
Andres has 57856 DL
IOFoto has 34007 DL

Now I don’t know about you guys - but in my world, I average about $1.25 per DL over the last month at Dreamstime.  these guys have between 4400 and 6200 new DL this MONTH on Dreamstime.   They also have 3 of the top 6 largest portfolios on the site.  Coicidence?  Maybe, maybe not.  I do know that 5000 new DL on Dreamstime per month would get me a lot closer to Mil than Nil!

Congrats to the above-named superstars as well.  It’s great to be able to see exactly what we need to do to reach their level.  I’m coming for you guys!

Motivation comes in all forms - money, fame, fun, competition…

Ten of us on Shutterstock decided to compete on downloads and portfolio growth this month,  calling ourselves (somewhat facetiously) the Magnificent 10.

The Magnificent 10
emililiev 
azinkand
randomway
mantonino (me)
varius
aelius
grandaded
bgsmith0379
massman
yanz

This group has helped me grow my portfolio by ALMOST 100 images on Shutterstock.  Varius also helped me with some video questions, we’ve kept each other motivated all month and will continue this project going forward, with different challenges each month to keep us fresh.

March’s challenge is almost over so I won’t spoil the surprise but here’s a hint - I’m not winning by far.  These guys are great and I am happy we’re competing.  I don’t like losing so I will have to up my game. 

What is your motivation for consistently shooting, editing, keywording, uploading and then starting it again? 

Note: I’ve created a Magnificent 10 category so you can view all posts about our group simply by clicking that category.

On Tuesday I will be able to post all of my end-of-March results.  It’s going to be GREAT!  I thought today I’d give you a sneak peak at what’s coming and see if you can guess my biggest surprise!

• Multiple Best Month Evers (BME)
• Applications approved
• One of my top 4 sites went up in earnings 4x over last month!  Can you guess which? (hint: you have the information to figure this out)
• A portfolio increase across the 10 sites that you simply do NOT want to miss!

When March started I told myself that I would give microstock a legitimate try.  I wanted to stop saying “If I’d uploaded xxx images this month…”  I wanted to say “I did upload” and find out for myself what it got me.  I’m going to keep going.  Add me to your RSS reader, add me to your bookmarks - however you want to find me!  I’m going to make this an INTERESTING run to $1,000,000!

This is going to be a treat I think.  I’m at the beginning of uploading 28 images to every site we use.  Yes, IStock included.  That’s why it’s going to be so much fun.  This is a timed test  and hopefully we can all learn *something* from this. 

The first thing I learned after timing the FTP upload is that all sites were the same - they can accept our images as fast as we can push them.  So about 21 mins for 28 images all around seemed to be almost dead-on for every agency.

123RF
Processing time on site: 3 mins.
Categories & Submission: 2 mins.
Total: 5 mins for submission and 26 minutes for 28 images, start to finish.  Because there are no categories and I used IPTC data, there was really nothing to it.  Adding the two model releases were very simple and would be simple even if I had all 28 images as MR.

BigStockPhoto
Total: “File uploading has been temporarity disabled to allow us to reduce the number of files waiting review in the Approval Queue.”  Unfortunately due to a technical issue and backlog of files, BSP was not available to do this test.  They are normally very quick and I am interested when they come back up to finish this.

CanstockPhoto
Processing time on site: 12 mins.
Categories & Submission: 4 mins.
Total: 16 mins. While it took 16 minutes to process these images, I thought about my affiliation with Canstock.  As anyone who’s read this blog knows, I’m not fond of this site anymore.  I like Duncan.  I think he’s a nice guy.  16 minutes to process is 3 times as long as 123RF took and I make about 1/8th the money on the same images.   This is officially my last upload to Canstock until I have minions uploading for me.

Crestock
Processing time on site: 11 mins.
Categories & Submission: 4 mins.
Total: 15 mins.  The processing time was long at Crestock and I know my approval rate is going to be low compared to other sites.  The process was EASY however and 4 mins to submit is fairly quick.  I don’t mind the upload process here so if I can get fewer rejections and more sales, I’ll be entirely happy with 15 mins per 28 images or roughly 120 per hour.

Dreamstime
Processing time on site: instant! 
Categories & Submission: 12 mins.
Total: 12 mins. Dreamstime was a fairly quick submission process to me.  I dislike categorizing, especially on multiple sites because you need to learn what they each consider categories and there’s no way to embed categories.  Otherwise it’s not bad.  Considering how much income I’ll get from these 28 images compared to something like 123RF, spending 2.5x the time is worth it.  My income on Dreamstime this month is going to be roughly 20x my 123RF income.  So 3x the work is more than adequate although I’d love this to be a 3 minute upload of course.

FeaturePics
Processing time on site: instant!
Categories & Submission: 4 mins.
Total: 4 mins. If my current earnings weren’t $0.00, I’d say wow!  Right now I’ll say it’s simple.  It takes me 5 mins per 30 images to submit including a couple with MRs and all the smoke missing its IPTC data etc.  This is a site that 50 of a single theme could easily be submitted in 10 mins or less.  That’s extremely quick and I’m happy with FP so far this way.

Fotolia
Processing time on site: instant!
Categories & Submission: 9 mins.
Total: 9 mins.  Given my batch of recent rejections, I was actually hoping Fotolia would be a touch quicker.  I also HATE that I can’t figure out how to attach a model release if I forget it during submission.  That basically means I have a rejected photo and I have to reupload it.  It’s SOO infuriating when you WATCH yourself make a mistake and have no way to instantly fix it.  Other than that, doing batches at Fotolia is fast.  Doing a bunch of random stuff is MUCH more time consuming.  I did smoke and textures and then a few random ones - the smoke & textures flew in no time.  The random stuff took most of that 9 mins.

FotoMind
Processing time on site: 1 minute!
Categories & Submission: 7 mins.
Total: 8 mins.  FotoMind’s total is superquick especially when you consider two things: 1) they are getting new servers next week which should make the site move even quicker.  2) I messed up somehow.  My IPTC data was not on title for many of these images and I kept making a mistake of not removing the & keyword here so I had to resubmit the images some times 2-3 times.  I probably could have done the entire submission in 6 total minutes so that is very close to my 123RF time, which is fastest so far.   I’m very happy with the FotoMind upload procedure.  I also read something about we can categorize after acceptance?  I’m not sure how this works but if true, once FotoMind rejects more images, you could save SO MUCH TIME by categorizing only those that were accepted.  I’m amazed that other sites don’t let you do this.  (Chris if you want to comment, I know you’re going to read this - let me know what I’m meaning here…I know there’s something like this.)

Istock
Start to finish on Image Manager: 29 mins. 
Total: 29 mins.  Ok, I’m going to share some honesty here.  I’m happy with 29 minutes for IStock.  I honestly would have guessed it taking at least 45 if not 60.  AND I think I can get faster.  I’m not used to using their system so I’m guessing 28 images could be done in 20 mins.  Given that I make a lot of income with them, I am actually going back on my word here and resuming Istock uploads effective today.  I will get myself a nice long queue going to submit 20 at a time.  I don’t hate Image Manager .5 as much as I did the last one.

LuckyOliver
Processing time on site: instant!
Categories & Submission: 4 mins.
Total: 4 mins. Blazing quickness!  The only reason this wasn’t 100% FASTER even was the same issue with the smoke’s IPTC data.  It must be incorrect as multiple sites have now had issues with it.  If the IPTC data was correct, this would have taken ONE MINUTE to do all 28 images.  LO’s speed is very very VERY hard to beat.

Shutterstock
Processing time on site: instant!
Categories & Submission: 4 mins.
Total: 4 mins.  Considering sales, considering everything else - Shutterstock is definitely one of the best “per hour” moneymakers on microstock.  BY FAR. 

StockXpert
Processing time on site: 1 min.
Categories & Submission: 5 mins.
Total: 6 mins.  I think.  I’m still learning StockXpert’s site - I have 3 images that weren’t reviewed in my last batch.  No clue why.  I just “submitted” the 28 images, I think?  I have had sales there now so I did something right once.  IF I just did it correctly, same series and similar images are SUPER easy and StockXpert and different images are much more difficult.

I will be tracking my acceptance rates at these sites as well for this batch so you’ll know if I uploaded 28 to SS and all get rejected but I sell 10 of them next month at Dreamstime, what we actually make per hour including rejects. 

Most important stuff I learned:

• REALLY check IPTC data before uploading.  I must’ve given myself an extra hour of work all total in fixing my mistakes.
• Istock isn’t as bad as I remember.
• Depending on rejections and income in the future, Crestock may not be the site for me.

Final Times for 28 images:

• Lucky Oliver - 4 mins.
• Shutterstock - 4 mins.
• FeaturePics - 4 mins.
• 123RF - 5 mins.
• StockXpert - 6 mins.
• FotoMind - 8 mins.
• Fotolia - 9 mins. 
• Dreamstime - 12 mins.
• Crestock -  15 mins.
• Canstock - 16 mins.
• Istock - 29 mins.
• Bigstock - pending

Something I want to do is figure out which sites I want to be on.  To do that, I feel like I should get on as much as possible, test them for awhile, then make a rational and educated decision without using someone else’s data.

To further that end, my goal in April is to submit 100 of the same exact photos to 6 new agencies (MostPhotos, SnapVillage, PantherMedia, StockRiot, Zymmetrical, and PhotoLibrary).  At the end of a few months, I’ll check in on the sales at those sites and see which ones I will finish uploading the rest of my library to.  I am not going to constantly check their earnings or add it to the N2M totals until the project is done.  My goal is to find one (MostPhotos? Zymm?) that I will continue to upload to that will replace CanstockPhoto, which I am through with.

What’s your plan for April?

One week to go in March and here are my random thoughts:

* 123RF - way more images (4x) need new sales now.
* Bigstock - 10x the images, need my first sale of the month!
* Canstock - who?
* Crestock - looking for sale #1 to happen this week.  Then I’ll add more images I hope.
* Dreamstime - BME?  Maybe.  Who’s this random referral generating me $10 a month?
* FeaturePics - first sale…looking for first sale.
* Fotolia - need to finish my uploads so April starts off synched across agencies.
* FotoMind - 2 sales in a week.  Can it keep going?
* Istock - Isuck at uploading here.  Maybe I’ll do some… in April.  Not likely though.
* LO - need that first batch reviewed so I can make some mental notes and move on.  Want a folio here.
* Shutterstock - BME.  Yep.
* StockXpert - first reviews, first sale… we hope it goes well.

My 2 biggest agencies - DT and SS - are going to have Best Months Ever.  In fact neither should honestly be close.  My BME on SS is 136 sales and I’m currently at 122 with 8 full days including 6 weekdays left to go.

I can’t wait to post my first update on N2M and see where I am on earnings for March.  I know it’s going to be a great month.

Need more images shot.  I have a lot of “real work” on my desktop right now though so I need to get through that so I can focus on my microstock.  Right now I’m a bit backed up from this massive synch.

Microstock is a fairly new and thus still growing industry, especially on the net.  So right now I’ve found few ways to stay on top of what’s going on, but I wanted to share some with you in case you found me and didn’t know what *else* you needed to be reading.

Forums

• Microstock Group - 1200+ members, lots of forums specifically directed at each agency.
• TalkMicro - 550+ members, simpler forum structure, but basically one big “category dump” for MS.

Blogs

• Microstock Diaries - Lee Torrens - his personal goal to get microstock earnings to $1000 per month and then $2000 per month by the end of 2008.  His blog & goals are very similar to this one - if you like this one, go read his too!
• Microstock Photography - CJ Photo - more advertiserial and news-posty then here or MSD but a good read.  CJ, whoever he is, doesn’t post as often as Lee, but his blog is definitely worth adding to your RSS feeds.
• TheStockBlog - Mike - this is a true “startup” blog - and I want him to succeed.  Mike is trying basically from scratch to get into microstock.  He needs to post much more often and show that he’s going to make a serious run at this stuff but otherwise his blog is a good read for the new microstocker.
• PixelsAway - Marek Uliasz - fun, light blog about stock photography.  Sort of difficult to navigate the archives/older posts.  A good read and worth working at it though.  Marek seems to have a reasonable starter portfolio with about 100 images per site and should pick up the earnings in the coming months if he puts the time in.
• Microstock Junction - Lorraine Swanson - great blog, easy to read, seems to flow very well and makes sense to me.  LOVE the post on Microstock Marriages which is how I found her blog.
• Microstock Experiement - Laurent - fairly newer blog but from a solid contributor who has a lot to offer the MS world.  Can’t wait to see how this one progresses.
• Flemish Dreams - I just started reading Flemish Dreams and can’t tell you much about it other than the author is fairly active on some of the above sites and seems to write very proactive content about making it in the biz.  It’s in my rss feeds and hopefully produces some great content.

Great news abounds today - I’ve crossed the 100 DL threshold of Shutterstock EARLY in the month which means we could be headed toward a Best Month EVER (BME).  My previous BME is 134 DL.  At this rate factoring in the holiday, I should still get there.

The exciting news of the day is that both LuckyOliver AND StockXpert approved our applications, which means we have 12 days to get some folio going on those sites so we can start them up hard in April.  I know some people who are still trying to get on StockXpert and all I can say is KISS.  Not as in “kiss someone’s ass” but as in Keep It Simple Stupid.  Send in some boring, no noise, sharp, good stock imagery.  Don’t try to make sales - send in some technically correct stuff even if it wouldn’t be your best seller.

Ok not many microstockers have even heard of FotoMind let alone use or trust it.  So let me give you a bit of lowdown.  I’ve had 110 images approved out of 110 (VERY GOOD!)  I also just had my first sale today - having only just joined them in the last week to 10 days, that made me happy.  Their site takes some getting used to but it works pretty well as far as uploading.  They do have FTP (yay).  When the sale went through, I only had 80 approved images so I like the odds if I can get 200-300 there and make 5-6 sales a month like this, it’ll pass Canstock for me in like … oh wait, it just did.

Here are the glitches (and I’m going to email these to the support staff as well):

• Doesn’t include plurals yet.  BUMMER.  This has to be fixed.  We can’t submit two sets of keywords to multiple agencies.  Nope. 
• You can’t have keywords with ampersand or quotes.  B&W = no.  Sport & recreation = no.  “Fun” for the family = no.  This also should change.
• Limited images - there are less than 60,000 images and less than 1000 registered users right now.  Obviously they need to get MUCH more well known if they want to succeed.  But they obviously have at least one buyer!

Here’s what bugs me most - this blog is currently ranked #11 on Yahoo and #15 on Google for the term FotoMind.  And surely will be top 10 on both after this post.  They obviously need to make a gigantic push here soon to get name recognition so I’m not the top seller on their site!  I do like the site and I do hope for good things from it.

I’ve finally figured it out - the long-awaited, incredibly fun secret to succeeding in microstock and kicking butt every month with 4 and 5 digit sales!  $xxxxx.00!!!!

The secret is…..

ready?

Work your BUTT off - concept, shoot, edit, backup, keyword, upload, categorize, submit. 

Repeat as often as much as possible.  And you’ll succeed if you learn what makes good stock imagery. 

I know that right now I have about … 4 readers.  Ha!  That’s ok.  I don’t mind - here’s the thing though, there’s no big secret.  No trick, no behind the scenes magic that makes people like Iryna and Yuri and Lise incredibly better than you.  NONE.  Here’s what they do that you don’t - pick up the phone & call a model, pick up the camera, shoot, edit, etc.  And get all the way from concept to submit.  If you can manage that once, you can manage it twice.  And the more you do it, the faster you get.  The more you do it the BETTER you get - until you’re submitting killer images that SS and IS are begging for. 

That’s the secret - sorry to ruin your fun.  I’ve put in a LOT of hours this month and just thought I’d throw that out there.