http://niltomil.com Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:43:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en If you're following our microstock TRIPS at http://www.wewillexplore.com you may already know this but we secured our first sponsor for the trip today.  Pro Photo Rental has agreed to sponsor us with some gear for our trip in exchange for some images from their lenses and telling you & them ... http://niltomil.com/2008/09/04/our-trip-has-a-sponsor/ Shutterstock 1247 252.80 IstockPhoto 89 11.83 Dreamstime 1135 74.69 Fotolia 631 18.51 Bigstockphoto 1256 22 123RF 1396 27.87 StockXpert 1084 10.90 FotoMind 1445 0.08 FeaturePics 1209 0 YayMicro 1452 0 Ok, so August was exactly what I expected - our busiest month and the least likely to result in any new stock. Other than a couple of trial images to show people how stock works, I didn't upload one image this month for the first time since March. ... http://niltomil.com/2008/09/01/august-2008-earnings-report/ yeah, so August is really busy here at the studio.  Sorry for the lack of updates. :(  We're doing: 2008 weddings (7 in one month), 2009 pricing, september bridal show prep, october trip planning, and trying to do anything regarding stock. well i just checked stats (thanks for still reading!) and ... http://niltomil.com/2008/08/19/ummmm-houston/ As some of you know, over the next 2-3 years, Sarah and I are going to become traveling photographers, doing 3-5 major trips per year. We're going to try and meet up with as many friends & new friends as we can along the way. To help us out, if ... http://niltomil.com/2008/08/12/add-yourself-to-our-map/ So here are those delayed results - July was a BME! Crazily, Dreamstime was amazingly good. 123RF also had a BME. Not bad for as little work as I did. August is worse for my schedule. I can't WAIT until October. Shutterstock 1247 384.49 IstockPhoto 89 7.48 Dreamstime 1133 82.55 Fotolia 629 14.67 Bigstockphoto 1256 22 123RF 1396 33.64 StockXpert 1084 9.60 FotoMind 1445 3.19 FeaturePics 1209 5.34 MostPhotos 1320 12.50 YayMicro 1452 0 Total - $575.46 So ... http://niltomil.com/2008/08/09/july-2008-earnings-report/ My hand is rested (mostly) and feeling much better. I'm getting back to work but just threw up a quick post on our travel blog. I thought I'd share some of the images here as well. I'll post July's final totals tomorrow. This had to come first. Moose hunting: Emma, ... http://niltomil.com/2008/08/07/july-stats-and-the-trip/ http://niltomil.com/2008/08/02/a-minimap/ This post was scheduled to unveil on Monday but Steven has guessed one of the stats and tried to guess a few more so I'm going to reveal it now. It's always more fun when someone plays along so thanks! Statistics for November 19 days 12 cities 110 hours of shooting 200 models 5000 submittable ... http://niltomil.com/2008/07/26/stats-revealed/ Statistics for November 19 12 110 200 5000 48 3150 4000 Any guesses on what each stat goes with? http://niltomil.com/2008/07/24/november-statistics/ Ideas can come from anywhere.  As a stock photographer, your job is to make them come from everywhere.  There are 2 steps to coming up with great stock ideas: 1) Create or visualize the concept. 2) Record the idea in a medium other than your brain. Create or visualize the concept The area most ... http://niltomil.com/2008/07/23/coming-up-with-ideas/ Leaf had an interesting question in the Microstock Group Forum - What are your lifetime microstock goals? Like many photographers, my goal would be to travel all over the world. I would love to have the resources to drop everything, fly to Europe and shoot for a month. I ... http://niltomil.com/2008/07/15/lifetime-goals-what-are-yours/ Sorry if any of these photos are yours - I didn't write the site, I just find it amusing! http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=stock_photos http://niltomil.com/2008/07/05/a-good-laugh-about-stock/ I read a lot of microstock blogs - every one that I know about. I hear a LOT about RPI, return per image. This stat has no value, month to month. I'm sorry, but it's true. It's an interesting stat, but has no value. Sort of like innings pitched for baseball ... http://niltomil.com/2008/07/01/rpi-the-valueless-statistic/ Shutterstock 1015 398.59 IstockPhoto 89 4.2 Dreamstime 1006 45.57 Fotolia 610 18.43 Bigstockphoto 1065 25 123RF 1133 22.65 StockXpert 791 9.6 FotoMind 1158 0.8 FeaturePics 1024 0 YayMicro 1161 0 Simple and to the point this month, like my month of work. Overall gallery increased from 5777 to 9052 but that was mostly the result of adding YayMicro and 1100 images as well as pending May images finally being reviewed. Overall income increased to a record $524.84 and 5 agencies had a ... http://niltomil.com/2008/07/01/june-2008-earnings-report/ 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 ... http://niltomil.com/2008/06/28/charting-the-course/ 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, ... http://niltomil.com/2008/06/22/the-june-that-is/ 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. ... http://niltomil.com/2008/06/20/featured-at-bigstockphoto/ 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 ... http://niltomil.com/2008/06/11/what-wedding-season-means/ 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 ... http://niltomil.com/2008/06/05/short-term-june-goal/ 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 ... http://niltomil.com/2008/06/02/yaymicro-the-next-big-player/