I’m so glad it’s the end of May!  I can’t wait until tonight to do earnings for tomorrow’s post!  It’s been a great month and I’m excited for the final total.  I know it’s going to be a BME on several sites - in fact, some of them were BME by the 10th or 12th so they are REALLY good BMEs!! 

Today marked the first “full” wedding of my season - which means I have to focus a bit more on my “real” business and a bit less on this “hobby” of mine for a few months.  We hadn’t actually shot a wedding in FIVE MONTHS!  We try not to shoot Dec/Jan/Feb in Syracuse - it’s too cold!  haha  This season is going to be great - even though it could potentially be one of our last 2 years or 3 years.

Subscriptions for the month:
Shutterstock - meh.
IStock - had one, got $2.39 or something around that.  Could live with that.
Fotolia - .23?!  WTF?!  I hope they are kidding.  I fear they are not. 

I’m not organized in my stock world to be full time yet so I’m glad that I am not there yet.  One major goal for June is getting my head on straight about files & folder structure.  Right now it’s a mess of doing so many images in 3 months and never really grasping from the beginning what I needed.  One example of a workflow change that June will bring is that right now, all our model releases are saved in one folder.  When you have 5 models total, who cares?  That’s a perfectly fine way to arrange it.  When you have 50, you no longer know which releases have been uploaded until you attempt to submit photos and there is no release.  Starting in June we will scan all releases to one folder (unsubmitted) and then whenever we do an upload, Sarah will upload the MRs and move them to (submitted) so that we know they are taken care of.  It’s a simple, subtle change but moving the responsibility from me to Sarah and then moving the files between status’ is going to make all the difference for MR uploading.

We finally got our new model recruitment site up at http://www.SyracuseModeling.com  Very simple, very straight - and we have a gallery online to show agencies, etc. in hopes of scoring some new models.  A lot of the wording we are still working on.  It was “borrowed” from Andres Rodriguez’s site (thanks AND sorry Andres).  I’m going to keep changing what it says until I’m 100% happy with it but for now it’s very simple, very easy and matches our model business card perfectly.

My good friend Todd at Arena Creative is now freelancing some graphic design.  If you need something done up, he’s the man. He’s also a stock photographer so I think that helps him “get” us. Also, Todd may be dragging me back into Alamy (kicking & screaming) - no CD? We’ll see about that! I could handle that - except the upsizing.

I’ve been having some fun with fractal images lately - and the sales are “ok” on them.  As I get better, I hope sales improve as well!  I’ve only sent them to Shutterstock so far - they approved most of these.  I hope the other agencies like fracs!  (These were all made in APO 3d Hack which ROCKS! Download here)

 In all, I’ve probably made 30 of these in the last 2 days.  I figured out the difference between a 5 hour render (yuck!) and a 5 minute render (woohooty!) and I’m spending most of my time doing the 5 minute variety so I can get better at these much quicker.

So what happened?  Did I fail?  Why am I back already?

Well the answers are long & complex - I learned a lot the last 4 days though.  I  have submitted just over 400 images in 4 days.  If I kept going, I would have made a serious run at 1k in 7 days so why stop?

The answer lies in my beliefs going into the challenge.  I believed that it was easier to shoot 1000 images than to take them from the camera to the stock agency.  I was wrong.  The single most difficult and time consuming part of the microstock process is to shoot stock worthy images.  Period.

The second reason we ‘quit’ our challenge early is that my computer bit it.  I spent 11 hours on the FIRST DAY changing over to a brand new 4 gig RAM Vista machine.  I’m not familiar with Vista so there was a learning curve.  Add in the 11 hours out and I was already behind.  When I realized I had to start shooting, it was over.

I gave up the challenge because Sarah & I simply could not *together* shoot fast enough to keep images coming.  As of right now, I have under 50 images left to process.  I thought that we could add shoots this week, we’d have plenty of images.  It simply wasn’t true.  If you are going to “add 1000 images” in 7 days, you need to have a backlog.  You can’t add 1000 AND shoot 1000 in one week.  I don’t believe it’s possible.

Here’s more of what I learned:

* I can edit, keyword, upload and submit about 10 pictures per hour.  This meant during my 12 hour days, I would put between 110 and 150 images online.  If I did longer days, I could easily hit 200 images in one day.

* No matter how tireless a worker you are, you will get tired at the end of 16 hours of editing, keywording and uploading.  If you do it for 4 days in a row, you will be exhausted. 

* If you shoot 40-70 useable images per model session, over 1-2 hours, you can upload 500 images per week (10 hrs of shooting, 50 hrs of editing, kw, upload & submitting).  You could * with difficulty* do about 600.  At my speeds, you’d average a 12 hour day everyday 7 days a week though.  The most you can reasonably add is 400-600 per week.  Anything more is blitzing and it’s less likely you can keep that up for a long time.  Of course at 600 per week for 6 months, you’d be retired or very close!

In June, I’m doing this again but with a much different plan.  I will evaluate more and figure out what needs to be done - needless to say, however, records are made to be broken. If I disappointed anyone by not making the goal, sorry.  Once the lessons from this first time had been learned and learned, there was no real reason to keep myself offline.

I’m a chronic measurer.  I need to know how much, how long, how many, how can I?  I measure my speed editing weddings, I measure my speed editing a portrait shoot, I measure how many images we take vs. keep, how many we shoot at a portrait session vs. a stock session.  I measure EVERYTHING.  How long my cards take to DL, how long it takes LR to import them.  I can make better decisions if I have more information.

SO - one thing I have no information on is the question “How many stock images can be edited, keyworded, uploaded & submitted in one 7 day period?” 

I’m going to find out.

In my ongoing research, I could not find a submitter who had contributed more than 1023 images in one month to Dreamstime (without having a preexisting large collection offline).  (IOFoto did 1023)  My goal is to come AS CLOSE to 1023 new images in the next 7 days as possible.  Keep in mind that there’s 2 of us - Sarah shoots.  I shoot, edit, keyword, upload & submit.  So I do have new images coming in everyday.  She shot some today, she has a 3 hour model shoot tomorrow & other ideas lined up all week.

The rules: Sunday May 25th, 12:00am until Saturday May 31st, 11:59pm.  No forums, no blogs, no IM, no email except twice a day (need to check on my clients), no anything but stock for 7 days.  Just to see what can be accomplished.  The goal: 1024 of course. *laugh* 

Serious goals:

under 200 = failure.
201 to 400 = acceptable range.
400-500 = great!
500+ = stunning & excellent!

Wish me luck - although unless you write in email or within the next 40 minutes, I won’t see it for a week!

My starting point.

Ok, I’ve had exactly zero sales on FeaturePics in 3 months so I finally decided to have a “sale” and lower prices.  The problem is, some of my images were $20, some were $12, some were $10 and some were $8 and I wanted them all to be one price (lower).  FeaturePics only lets you arrange pricing by % changes - so a 50% change still left me with 10, 6, 5, 4.

Here’s the trick:

Go in & set your pricing to 10%.  This should reduce everything pretty well.  Do that same thing one more time - recalculate with 10% AGAIN. 

The minimum on FP is $1 so ALL of your images will now be $1  (20-2-.20=1)

Now that they’re all $1, adjust UP however high you want (400% = $4).

Done!  Sweet, fast trick!

When I announced my earnings last month, I heard a lot of feedback about my IStock performance and how it should be MUCH MUCH better.  I agree, but I still can’t get them to accept any of my images!  I have 700+ images on multiple sites.  I have 89 on IStock and have submitted 40 this month.  They took 8.  I’ve done my part for the last 3 weeks - 60 submissions (MAXED OUT) and 21 new images online.  That basically stinks.  It de-motivates me. 

So I’m asking for help.  I know they like less processed, I know they like less saturated.  But short of editing everything twice, what’s the trick?  I would love to get my IStock gallery going - but at this rate, it never will.

Right now my motivation is dimly lit.  Not because I don’t want to do stock but because I have a full time photography job that takes up quite a bit of time.  We’re ending the offseason & starting to shoot more which means that my time is even more limited.

What have I done this month: I’ve shot a TON.  I have at least another 700 images to edit, keyword, upload, etc.  but haven’t been able to open a single stock image in the last 7 days.  I’ve edited three newborn sessions, 1 engagement session, and shot over 600 client images.  Unfortunately that doesn’t mean much for my microstock goals.

My goal this coming week is to schedule more models and start hammering this pile of images I already have.  My queues are actually quite low right now (123RF, SS, FM, SXP, FT and IS have none in queue, BSP and DT have under 50 each) so I should be able to really get to gettin!

As far as income at the halfway mark, I’ve already surpassed several agency BMEs in half a month.  I’m well on my way to a record month income-wise and can’t wait to put the final numbers together.  I hope some work in the next few weeks really pays off as well.

There are so many ways to put this raise into different “perspectives” and all seem legitimate.  Before we do, let’s review the original announcement:

“Dear Submitters:

We wanted to let you know that we’ve been working hard on the details of your 2008 commission increase, and we think you’ll be very pleased with the new terms. … We expect to be able to announce the raise to you during the first two weeks of May. It will be effective immediately.”

Now, the ways to view this:

* “very pleased” does not equal = no raise for under $500 and .03 for under $3000.
* “Dear Submitters…your commission increase” = all submitters, not just those over $3000 in earnings.
* “during the first two weeks of May” = sometime on the 13th or 14th of course.
* 10% raise for all “real” submitters (over $500 earnings) is more than your “real job” gives.
* 27% raise for top tier submitters is fantastic/27% raise for top tier is subpar to all other sites.
* No raises were promised, be happy with what you get.
* If .30 was worth it yesterday, .33 is better tomorrow.
* SS raised their rates across the board but not everyone gets more money now.

My way of viewing the raise has evolved over the last 12 hours.  My immediate reactions were anger, disgust, sadness, and ultimately concern over my business plan.  Now? 

I think I feel like this - yesterday, I submitted to SS for .30 and was “happy enough” with it to put in the work.  Why would I stop at .33?  Add in the fact that I’ll be making .36 in a couple months and my raise will be 20%.  Honestly, that satisfies me personally. 

I’m still sad for the <$500 earners.  Their images sell for just as much as mine do and they get a much smaller piece of the pie.  I still think Shutterstock went about this entire process the wrong way.  Expectation management is a huge part of business and doing things like “the first two weeks” ending up being the 13th and “very pleased” ending with half or more people “very pissed” instead - it just doesn’t add up to good customer/client service management.  They botched it, whether you like the raise or not.

And if you made less than $500 all time, you don’t get one.

Well, it’s somewhat of a raise.  I’m in the .03 category for another couple months.  Can’t say I’m happy.  Could say I’m disappointed.  Will most definitely not be submitting 100% of my best images to SS anymore.  I’ll probably send 95% to SS and keep the other 5% exclusive to DT and see how that works out.  I think it doesn’t matter if they’re my best images or not, if they’re new they will sell on SS.

A lot of people will have reactions to this - good, bad or otherwise.  For now, I’m going to try to just bite my tongue & take my “raise.”  I’ll voice my concerns in a letter.

Dear Shutterstock,

Please learn expectation management.

Love,

Matt

—-

Dear Istock,

You’re welcome.

Love,

Shutterstock

There are only a few steps to microstock photography - that’s what makes it so simple, so blessedly wonderful.  It’s not this complex maze of vendors and production.  It’s a simple process that goes like this:

1) Conceptualize & schedule model for shoot.
2) Shoot
3) Edit the images from the shoot.
4) Keyword & IPTC for the images you edited.
5) Upload images to various sites.
6) Submit images once FTP’d.

That’s it.  Realistically there are more steps (backing up, prep for the shoot, follow up) but we’ll do a full workflow post at some other time.  Today’s thoughts revolve around getting hung up on any one step.   Let’s be serious - while you could get hung up on 1, 2. 5 and 6, you aren’t likely to.  The only time I ever get hung up on #6 is when I submit to Fotolia or Dreamstime, which takes much much longer to #6 than all the others.  Aside from those, 1, 2, 5 and 6 are fairly reasonable steps.  (Note: #5 would be much worse if I used any sites that didn’t take FTP, such as SnapVillage.)

So our focus is on the meat of the process - edit and IPTC.  I was speaking with Bobby Deal (Vegas Visions Studios) on Shutterstock forums about this and he said “Simply finding the time to develop the RAW images, retouch keyword upload and finish is a full time job … when you are producing 100+ gigs of raw image data per month.”

Sean Nel is also trying to do this same project - 900 images in a month.  He says the same thing “I struggle to do more than 30 or so nice clean edits on a day… but that is if I spend the day on it, selecting converting, editing and keywording.”

So the main question is - how can you speed up the editing process and the IPTC step?  I’ll save IPTC for a “Part 2″ of this discussion.  Let’s think about editing today.

The most basic solution to all editing problems is self explanatory - take better photos in the camera.  So one area to focus your energy on is improving the image you capture and give yourself less editing time later.  I could do far more isolations in far less time if I had a proper isolation studio setup & it was properly lit.  One of my goals is to get a setup perfected that knocks the background out *without* any help from me at all.  If you can do that, you save a lot of detailed editing.

Another area to focus on is learning Photoshop and hotkeys.  If you’re editing as an amateur or hobbyist, 100 photos a month, you can afford to press the menu for everything you need.  If you’re trying to edit 200, 300, 500, 900, 1500 a month - you can’t!  You simply need to learn hotkeys and shortcuts, actions and scripts.  If there’s an easy way to “fix” your images, do it.

Third - figure out which step of editing is killing your speed.  Is it levels/exposure?  Saturation & contrast?  Sharpening?  Are you fixing your model’s hair everytime?  Hand tilts?  Background dirt, sensor dust?  What exactly are you spending your precious moments on?  If it is something you can fix in the camera, do it.  If it’s something you’re consistently *not* doing with the model, remember that & change.

You probably won’t save 15 minutes per image ever. Because you simply aren’t spending 15 minutes per image (if you are, you really need an editor).  You need to shave time wherever possible.  Over the course of 5000 images submitted, 10 seconds per image = 833 minutes of time or roughly 14 HOURS of saved time.  If you can save one minute per image, that’s 64 hours per 5k photos.  If you take 8 minutes to edit an image now but save 4 minutes in the future, you’ll spend half as much time editing.  So the moral of the story is - save time wherever & whenever possible.  It adds up!