Slow Month

So I just uploaded the few (and only) December images tonight. I doubt I'll get around to doing any more this year.

In terms of sales, I'm doing decent. I've almost met my total downloads from November, but the numbers aren't as high due to a lot of my sales coming from non-iStock agencies. ($.30 per download instead of $1.50+) I'm happy that my other agencies are starting to pick up. Still nothing on CanStock, so we'll see how they do after the new year.

How's your month going?

Slow...

December is a difficult month. Not only am I busy with all of the holiday preparations, but I barely have time to shoot any new pictures. Sales have been slow as well (although this was expected since most people say that microstock slows down in December). So, I think I'm going to have only two goals for this month:

1) Apply to Shutterstock
2) Take/upload one shoot to my portfolio

Not the most ambitious goals, but it will have to do until 2010. I plan on doing some major thinking this month about my microstock future and determining what types of photographs I want to focus on. I hope that things will be back and running come January.

December

Well, I can already tell that this month is going to be really busy (with the holidays, not picture taking) so I'm going to try really hard to get a few good submissions in before it gets too crazy. But on the other hand, I've read that microstock is pretty quiet this month anyways.

The one thing I'm really looking forward to is my next Shutterstock application (in 6 days). Hopefully this month is the month, but if not, there's always next year! :-)

I enjoy reading all of the other microstock blogs out there and some of you have come a long way in just a few short months. Certainly shows me that I have to really grow my portfolio (by about 1000 - haha)!

Have a great week!

P.S. For those photographers out there, when you do a model shoot, do you have one universal model release that you use for all of your agencies, or do you use a separate one for each agency? I see that Yuri Arcurs has a universal release on his site, but I have not used it yet. But it would be easier to use one form versus 6 or 7.

Editing Tips for Microstock Photographers

Here's a helpful link that I found through Twitter that gives a few helpful tips for editing microstock photos:

http://photofocus.com/2009/10/20/editing-tips-for-microstock-photographers/

picNiche.com - Firefox Add-On for Microstock Buyers and Contributors

After posting on www.microstockgroup.com about the length of time it takes me to upload images, one of the contributors suggested that I look into the picNiche Firefox add-on. I went ahead an added this program and already I'm pleased with what I see. Taken from the website, www.picniche.com (and clicking on the toolbar link at the top), the picNiche add-on offers the following:

FOR BUYERS:

The Microstock Image Search toolbar is built for image buyers. It'll help you find images. It also has features to:

• Send image-requests direct to contributors
• Search across many agencies
• Notifications when contributors add new images you may interested in
• Simple image-log for tracking projects
• Built-in global Upcoming Events calendar
• Keep informed about news, events, and promotions from microstock agencies

FOR CONTRIBUTORS:

The Microstock Contributors toolbar is built for image creators. It'll help you find images for research, but it also has a lot of other features too:

• Get notified when you make a sale on each agency
• Get notified when images you've submitted are approved
• Announce approved images direct to buyers
• See your current earnings for each agency at-a-glance
• Quick associative keywording tool
• Workflow improvements through the image submission process
• FTP-Upload drop-box for six agencies
• Built-in global Upcoming Events calendar
• Keep informed about news, events, and promotions from microstock agencies and community websites

As I type this blog, all I have to do is look up and all of my earnings are there in real-time. If I get a new sale, I should receive a pop up notification telling me about it. I'm not too sure about the other capabilities (FTP, notifications when images are approved/rejected, keywording, etc) since I have not had a chance to try them out, but this may really save me some time.

45 minutes later....

....and I am finished uploading 4 images.

OK, I shouldn't say that. I had to catch up and upload 16 images to CSP, but on all of my other sites it was 4. It takes me forever to pick the correct categories. To save time, I have a spreadsheet and I type my keywords on that so that all I have to do is copy/paste into the web applications. But for some reason this entire process is taking forever. Then, I noticed that some photographers don't even bother with the categories and they are all getting sales. So maybe I'm spending too much time on it. I should also mention that I upload to 6 sites at the same time.

In other news, I re-submitted my application to IS today. Crossing my fingers!

Microstock websites

Currently, I submit images to 6 microstock companies. Links to my portfolios can be seen below:

1. 123RF
   
2. BigStockPhoto
3. CanStockPhoto
4. Dreamstime
5. Fotolia
6. Stockxpert

I am also trying to gain acceptance into iStockPhoto and Shutterstock; however, my applications have been denied and I am working to better my portfolio before applying again.

Here we go!

Hello and welcome to my journey! Photography has always been a hobby of mine, and recently I was approached with the idea of submitting images to microstock websites. I was enticed by the challenge of constantly improving my work, and also motivated by the potential income. I plan to utilize this blog to document my journey from a beginner to a (hopefully) successful stock photographer.