If you want to make a million dollars in microstock photography, you need to have a plan. You need to know what it will take to get you there and then you need to do the work that you planned.
The “issue” we have most frequently is lack of images to edit & submit. I can edit & submit quickly. My issue is always with having enough to edit. So the one issue we’ve struggled to address lately is how to create *many* more images - enough that I would never again worry about our lack. We created a plan - one I’ll be drawing out over the next few months - that will give us enough images to change where we are in stock photography.
Currently we have just over 1k images up at most stock sites. By January 31st, 2009, we expect to have 7500 images online with our plan. According to most major lists we’ve seen (StockXpert, Dreamstime, Istock) that would put us in the top 20 of all microstock portfolios, behind only megastars in our industry. That would be a start.
Our plan is repeatable. If it works the way we envision in the fall, we’ll repeat it in the spring, then again after next wedding season. By the end of 09, we believe it feasible to have 15-17k images online. At that point, we’d be top 5 largest microstock galleries behind IOFoto, Andres and perhaps a few others by then.
Again, I’ll be sharing more details as we go along - be sure to check the comments too as I’ll drop hints along the way there too. It’s going to be the autumn of a lifetime.
Well, there may be something good to come of all this for June anyways. Even though I’ve been too busy to upload, the good is that I can examine what happens if I stop working for a month - and so far there are some surprising results. Shutterstock, for example, is a site where you must “feed the beast” and always upload. Yesterday was my best Saturday in 6 weeks even though I haven’t uploaded a new shot in awhile.
Another benefit - all of my Qs are caught up except Fotolia. DT, BSP, SXP - all at 0 pending. So as of June 30, I should have a very accurate count of my “going into summer” portfolios!
Are there more benefits to not having uploaded in a couple weeks? I’m not sure. I haven’t had enough time to contemplate it. I hope to actually get some images edited this coming week and then uploaded asap.
Very cool - I am one of the Featured Photographers of the week at BigStockPhoto.com
Click here to view the image or go to their site to see it live.
I just passed 1000 images accepted there and this is fantastic for us - we’re very excited to have a feature. This is our very first time we’ve been featured by one of the microstock agencies.
Wedding season here last from May through October. For those 6 months, my life changes from full time stock mode, part time photo business to full time wedding photographer, part time stock guy.
- Are we still setting up model shoots: yes.
- Am I uploading everyday: no.
- How many weddings by month:
* May 2
* June 4
* July 4
* August 6
* September 5
* October 3
- How many images in the edit queue: 216 to edit, 881 new to sort through
- How many model shoots in June: 4 so far. Hopefully 10.
The big question you wonder is - is it worth checking N2M over the summer then? I think the answer is yes. This is my first season trying to balance our wedding business with stock so if you enjoy the challenges I give myself, the goals I’m trying to reach, and my attempts to get there, you’ll enjoy N2M this summer.
If you have other questions about N2M or my summer, let me know in the comments - I’ll answer there within a day or so.
Uploading is going very well so far in June - much faster than expected. I realized last week that we were about $560 from our next Shutterstock raise on June 1st. $557.38 exactly. So my goal is to make a real Shutterstock increase and go from $300s to $500s in one month there.
To reach goal, I needed: $557.38 in 30 days or 18.75 per day.
After 4.5 days, I have $76.95 and now need $489.80 to make the next level, or $19.20 per day. I have a new batch of images in the queue and a good push coming but obviously I’ve never made more than $10 per day average so $18 and $19 are hard goals. Last month we averaged $9.99 per day. That’s the record for us. We need to about double it in one month.
I *will* hit this goal. 150 new in queue, more coming - we’ll get there. I want the raise to kick in July 1st or before.
Every industry has what I like to call a v.2 player. Who are some v.2s?
Google, MySpace, Apple’s Ipod, Ebay, IPhone.
A v.2 player is a business (or product) that didn’t exist until later in the relevant cycle than other players. Google came much later than Yahoo, Altavista and Go.com Myspace followed Friendster and the IPod followed many failed MP3 players. IPhone success blows away even the Blackberry, not to mention other cell competitors.
The main feature of a v.2 is their education came free. They are able to learn from the predecessors and do something unique, something different, something essential - right from the start. They gather the type of momentum that simply devours the competition and blow them off the board (How’s auction.com doing?)
If we were to have anything resembling that right now in microstock, it would be YayMicro. Yay has come out of the gate strong. They have the most essential pieces of the puzzle already in place - a fantastic site that everyone raves about; a clean, simple brand; a memorable name; and most importantly - a strong starting collection of images. Images of McCain, Obama. Images from top contributors such as Lev Dolgachov and IOFoto.
I recently joined the YayMicro site and love everything about it so far. They seem to have a plan (editorial=big market, creative=another big market, ease of use all around=more people using it). We’ll see if it plays out that YayMicro is the v.2 of the microstock industry. Someone must be. It’s about the time we see someone emerge to absolutely destroy the competition - maybe it’s YayMicro.
Check out YayMicro here and let me know what you think of them!
We are starting a new website with the goal of having another portral for people to find our images and hopefully buy pictures from us. One feature of the site is going to be links to our images for buyers to click the image & buy the photo.
My question - or dilemma - is which site to link them to. IOFoto has a similar site and has decided to link to Dreamstime, perhaps because they are able to set higher prices per image than we currently are. So here’s the first bit of my research and we’ll see where this goes. One thought - FeaturePics lets us set our own pricing so we can sell that way.
If you had to promote your own images on just one site, which site would you choose & why?
Well, the overall did not increase as much as I would have liked, mainly in part to having an amazing Shutterstock last month with one video sale AND one EL in the same month. That was an extra $26 to catch up just to make the same money with the same DLs. Best Month Ever on 7 of the 9 (Istock & Dreamstime with no BME but both up from last month.)
Overall feeling this month was fantastic on the slower sites but the words of the day are “wasted opportunity.” We had a chance to make a REAL push in May and didn’t push up to $500. We now need to clear $600 next month to be even remotely on track. That is going to be difficult, but I have hope! We are crossing the 1k image mark at a few sites - and June should be our biggest portfolio increase EVER.
Best Month Ever - Shutterstock, Fotolia, Bigstockphoto, 123RF, StockXpert, FotoMind, FeaturePics.
Month Total - $448.85
Gross Nil to Mil total - $3715.47
(gain - $98.28, 28%)
March’s portfolio size - 1559
April’s portfolio size - 3839
May’s portfolio size - 5777
May 2008 Earnings
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings
