Author Topic: Diminishing Returns (Read 3780 times)

beisea · « **on:** July 14, 2006, 23:04 »

I am a newbie in stock photo, just joined FT, DT, Image Vortex, Bigstock, now when I look at the top websites here, almost all of them started in less than a year, and lots of them last year this time almost no image bank to talk about, now 6 months later, the top 3 all close to 1m images, that's quite a growth!

Image 5 years from now, each will have a portfolio of over 5 million, and your 200 or 2000 images will totally bury in such a large collection of images, how do you expect to make the same amount of money you make right now, besides most of you here not really making any serious money anyway.

so this is just my concern, I don't like the idea of uploading a couple of thousand of images within a year or two, only find that I am making less and less over time.

leaf · « **Reply #1 on:** July 15, 2006, 00:37 »

I would really doubt that in five years a site will have 5 millions photos. Istock has been around for I amn ot sure how long.. at least 2 years probably 3 or 4, and shutterstock is nudging 2 years. fotolia is the one with the fast growth. Dreamstime which is older that shutterstock still only has 500,000 images.

Despite this your point still remains.

I think good images will sell a long time though... I think there is a pretty huge customer base that isn't reached yet, which will compensate for quite a bit of growth. This is a problem though with any stock agency. Take Alamy for example they save several million photos (i tried to find out now, but i don't think they say).. i woudln't be surprised if it is up in the 20 millions.

so the conclusion. I am not sure how it is going to work out in the end, but I think we are allright for a while.
I have been submitting to shutterstock from the beginning. My sales have gone up not down. At the start there was only 10,000 other images to compete with, now there are 1,000,000

jlye · « **Reply #2 on:** July 15, 2006, 10:31 »

Agree with leaf on this. So far all the sites, sales is either stable or on the rise despite increase in the number of photos on each site.

The money that comes from the sales are all bonuses to me. The more the merrier. Not too worried about what will happen to the future, but i will still be taking photo for sure.

Greg Boiarsky · « **Reply #3 on:** July 15, 2006, 10:42 »

I agree that good photos will always sell. However, as time goes by they will sell less--unless you're lucky enough to have a top 50 image.

What I would like to have is a portfolio of several hundred, high quality images that sell regularly.

With luck, I can continue making money in microstock, while building a local practice (if that's even possible any more).

rjmiz · « **Reply #4 on:** July 15, 2006, 14:41 »

Trends being what they are:
New images being added each day (more competition)
Technology changing
Seasonal changes

My best selling image(s) has this many downloads
SS 240
DT 240 (different image)
IS 287

I try to stay ahead of the trendy download curve by changing themes.
Shooting in a grouped series all with a common theme
Watching the competition
Watching commercials
looking in magazines

The MIZ

madelaide · « **Reply #5 on:** July 15, 2006, 17:05 »

I suppose that, as portfolios grow, they will begin to delete older unselling images, like iStock do.

Regards,
Adelaide

beisea · « **Reply #6 on:** July 18, 2006, 11:32 »

Thanks for all the input, certainly good photos do sell themselves, now my concern is that with over a million pictures ( pretty soon) on each site, it is very difficult to find your own, I have to search serval times to find mine, granted I only have 30 on FT, still pending on DT(6 days), BST(11days), and this morning got my first two accepted by Istock ( Yeah!), but the other 6 on the same batch still pending:(.

Anyway since most of you have done this for a while, how many key words do you put? I guess this becomes increasingly important since you want the buyers to find your images among millions of them? ( I only put 10, is it too little? could not think of too many)

madelaide · « **Reply #7 on:** July 18, 2006, 16:18 »

I believe on average I use 20 keywords per image.

A good way to learn is to look for similar images to yours and check the keywords used, but be careful about keyword spamming. I've seen images of a baby with "father" and "mother" in which neither were seen. But then of course you must think of synonims, so "baby", "kid", "child", "infant" would be good.

Regards,
Adelaide

beisea · « **Reply #8 on:** July 18, 2006, 17:35 »

thanks for the advice, madelaide, as I am still trying to figure out the best way to add more pictures to my portfolio efficiently.

Started on July 8th,
Currently I only have 30 approved at FT, another 23 pending..( maybe this site grow too fast, I did not see any one has big viewerships or sales )
2 approved at Istock, 6 pending....( of the same first batch )
20 pending at DT....
35 pending at BSF... 11days later still no answer...

with very limited viewerships, ( almost none ), still looking for my first sale.....

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Author Topic: Diminishing Returns (Read 3780 times)

beisea

leaf

jlye

Greg Boiarsky

rjmiz

madelaide

beisea

madelaide

beisea

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