Quote from: Andrej.S. on March 13, 2025, 13:55

I would say you can rather be successful, or let's better say increasing your chances by analyzing demanded niches, which you can't get from analyzing your own or some one's portfolio. But that's not hard work, rather smart work.

Thank You!



Sometimes, analyzing from what sells on my own, from testing niches, does lead me to making more of the similar kind of content. But still you said the magic answer. Work smarter, not harder. Find not only demand niches but also areas that are not represented with enough good quality or enough variation, that can be fulling a need.

Reading Alamy search results, is like checking a schedule, after after the train already left the station. Go look at recent sales, and see how many are specialty subjects or locations, which someone needed for a project. They won't be searching for those again. Like a dog chasing it's own tail, following what was searched and sold, sometimes, is just running in circles for no good reason.

Yes it's about efficiency. There are two possibilities: either I pursue microstock as a pure hobby and simply upload my vacation or everyday photos from my own work/family life, then I don't need all the analyses and statistics.
Or I pursue microstock more or less professionally. The problem is that, due to the high flood of images, I'm now forced to take the second route.

As you correctly said, analyzing my own portfolio doesn't make sense. Yes, I can see which photos aren't selling, and I simply leave out those categories. That's a no-brainer. For me, it's specifically architecture and food.

Analyzing niches and trends is very difficult. I can recognize through keyword searches where there's little supply, but I can't recognize how much demand there is and whether the demand is still current.
Ultimately, I have to become the customer myself and specialize in several in-demand categories to recognize the current demand, or I need to build a network to the customer base.

Otherwise the cat will bite its own tail as you correctly wrote.