Author Topic: What does it take to make a living from selling stock (Read 21071 times)

gbalex · « **Reply #25 on:** May 25, 2013, 17:35 »

Quote from: alberto on May 25, 2013, 09:00

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 25, 2013, 03:45
Quote from: Beppe Grillo on May 25, 2013, 03:40
Quote from: tab62 on May 25, 2013, 01:07
2000 usd isn't too much thus 5k+ in your portfolio should produce this amount or more...

Where I live $ 2000 is 10 times the average salary and more than 20 times the minimum salary…

Times are tough in Italy

I doubt that Bebbe Grillo live in Italy, not this Bebbe Grillo. 2000/10 means 200$ and no one gain this amount it's a joke. And 200$ are less than 155€ so I think that Bebbe Grillo are kidding us, or maybe is only a nickname but he live in another country.

Nothing like the perspective which our life experiences offer us. We often forget when we are talking to each other that we are comparing apples to oranges as we report how well or poor our ports are doing. The the Average Monthly Wage of $227 for someone living in a Tajikistan is very different than someone living in Luxembourg where the Average Monthly Wage is $4,089.

Also supporting a large family in in a country where the average for number of children in each family is 7–8 children would be very different than the income it would take to support what is considered to be a large family in a country where the average number in each family is only 0–1 children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Countriesbyfertilityrate.svg

United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO) published the average monthly salary or wage for the whole world & the average for 72 countries. For the whole world, the average is USD1,480 per month.

Rank Country    Average Monthly Wage (USD)
1    Luxembourg    4,089
2    Norway    3,678
3    Austria    3,437
4    United States    3,263
5    United Kingdom    3,065
6    Belgium    3,035
7    Sweden    3,023
8    Ireland    2,997
9    Finland    2,925
10    Korea (Republic of)    2,903
11    France    2,886
12    Canada    2,724
13    Germany    2,720
14    Singapore    2,616
15    Australia    2,610
16    Cyprus    2,605
17    Japan    2,522
18    Italy    2,445
19    Iceland    2,431
20    Spain    2,352
21    Greece    2,300
22    New Zealand    2,283
23    South Africa    1,838
24    Malta    1,808
25    Israel    1,804
26    Czech Republic    1,786
27    Croatia    1,756
28    Turkey    1,731
29    Qatar    1,690
30    Hong Kong (China)    1,545
31    Poland    1,536
32    Slovakia    1,385
33    Hungary    1,374
34    Macedonia    1,345
35    Bosnia & Herzegovina    1,338
36    Estonia    1,267
37    Russian Federation    1,215
38    Jamaica    1,135
39    Lithuania    1,109
40    Argentina    1,108
41    Latvia    1,098
42    Serbia    1,058
43    Chile    1,021
44    Botswana    996
45    Malaysia    961
46    Belarus    959
47    Romania    954
48    Bahrain    917
49    Panama    831
50    Mauritius    783
51    Brazil    778
52    Macau (China)    758
53    Kazakhstan    753
54    Bulgaria    750
55    Colombia    692
56    Ukraine    686
57    China    656
58    Mexico    609
59    Georgia    603
60    Azerbaijan    596
61    Egypt    548
62    Thailand    489
63    Armenia    471
64    Dominican Republic    462
65    Moldova (Republic of)    438
66    Mongolia    415
67    Syrian Arab Republic    364
68    Kyrgyzstan Republic    336
69    India    295
70    Philippines    279
71    Pakistan    255
72    Tajikistan    227

cthoman · « **Reply #26 on:** May 25, 2013, 17:50 »

Interesting list. I'm assuming they didn't take population into account with their average.

gbalex · « **Reply #27 on:** May 25, 2013, 18:48 »

Quote from: cthoman on May 25, 2013, 17:50

Interesting list. I'm assuming they didn't take population into account with their average.

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_194843.pdf

Did not have time to read the entire document above but according to US Stock Market News it is calculated the following way.

"ILO economist calculated as follows: First, collect the average wage of all fields included in the statistics of each country, and then multiplied by the number of workers in the country, obtained the total amount of revenue, all included in the statistics the country's total income added together, divided by the number of global workers, in order to calculate the world's per capita monthly income of $1,480 U.S. dollars, which is close to $ 18,000 a year."

Poncke v2 · « **Reply #28 on:** May 25, 2013, 19:22 »

Netherlands is missing from that list, which is weird

grsphoto · « **Reply #29 on:** May 25, 2013, 19:33 »

Quote from: Poncke v2 on May 25, 2013, 19:22

Netherlands is missing from that list, which is weird

A lot of countries are missing from the list... I think the idea is to give an idea or sample

tab62 · « **Reply #30 on:** May 25, 2013, 21:15 »

Try these links for more FYI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_Europe_by_monthly_average_wage

http://www.therichest.org/business/the-top-10-highest-average-salary-per-country/

T

gbalex · « **Reply #31 on:** May 25, 2013, 21:28 »

Quote from: grsphoto on May 25, 2013, 19:33

Quote from: Poncke v2 on May 25, 2013, 19:22
Netherlands is missing from that list, which is weird

A lot of countries are missing from the list... I think the idea is to give an idea or sample

Exactly, I provided the info as proof of concept after coming across the doc while researching some stock.

If you want more in depth info you can find it in this excel spreadsheet.

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/download/global-wage-report-2012/ilo-global-wage-database-2012.xls

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #32 on:** May 25, 2013, 21:35 »

Also something to ease the pain of certain aspects of this business (monetary, ignorant rejections, bad agent deals resulting in your images being distributed for free, seasonal downtimes, changes in search, etc) is to have your own self-hosted image site where you keep %100 your earnings and get clients from the net.

I've been direct selling for a few years and its definitely a good advantage to have and gives a level of security. http://www.symbiostock.com/ ...is an experiment to bring this advantage to the microstock masses, though its still young.

Ok, guys, you can slap me now for the little advert.

cascoly · « **Reply #33 on:** May 25, 2013, 22:38 »

Quote from: cthoman on May 25, 2013, 10:15

Calculate your RPI (royalty per image) for each agency per month by dividing your income by the number of images online. You might want to take an average over several months to get a more accurate number. Add all the agencies together, then divide that by your financial goal. That will be the number of images you need. That number may change along the way, so reevaluate occasionally.

And try to have some fun too.

unfortunately, such calculations rely on the completely unsupported assumption that all the images in your current portfolios produce the same income and all the images you later submit produce the same RPI -- instead, say, your portfolio at SS is 1000 but 20 of those images produce 50% (or 70, or 90%) of your income. so any predictions based on volume alone are meaningless - you could double your income with just another 50 images, and might not double it with another 2000

gbalex · « **Reply #34 on:** May 25, 2013, 23:01 »

Quote from: cascoly on May 25, 2013, 22:38

Quote from: cthoman on May 25, 2013, 10:15
Calculate your RPI (royalty per image) for each agency per month by dividing your income by the number of images online. You might want to take an average over several months to get a more accurate number. Add all the agencies together, then divide that by your financial goal. That will be the number of images you need. That number may change along the way, so reevaluate occasionally.

And try to have some fun too.

unfortunately, such calculations rely on the completely unsupported assumption that all the images in your current portfolios produce the same income and all the images you later submit produce the same RPI -- instead, say, your portfolio at SS is 1000 but 20 of those images produce 50% (or 70, or 90%) of your income. so any predictions based on volume alone are meaningless - you could double your income with just another 50 images, and might not double it with another 2000

Other sites and recently SS have demonstrated that they have the means to easily change the search results and in a matter of one day; permanently kill all of our top 20 images to enhance their bottom line.

Donvanstaden · « **Reply #35 on:** May 26, 2013, 00:56 »

Quote from: Mantis on May 25, 2013, 08:07

Quote from: stockmarketer on May 25, 2013, 06:45
Unfortunately, your living situation in a national park is tempting you to focus on wildlife shots. Think like a buyer. How often will those tree or animal shots be needed? Doubling your challenge is the matter of over saturation. What will make yours stand out from the thousands of others just like them. The demand is not there and the supply is too overabundant for you to hit your target in wildlife photography.

My top 10 wildlife earners are giving me a RPI of $10.29. and my best is giving me an RPI of $21.69. Most of them have been selling for a few years now. I do not know whether this is good or bad for 1 specific genre but I do know that what I am uploading now is of better quality than what is on my portfolio so I am hoping to get more images giving these returns

400 images at an RPI of $5.00 will give me my target. Rather that than 2000 with RPI of $1.00 - well that's the dream anyway

My thought process so far has been that I should build a high quality portfolio of wildlife images while living in this unique environment and then when I move to a town (which will be soon) I will branch into other subject matters. I do agree that I would not be able to earn a living on a wildlife portfolio but it is an area where i am an expert (and passionate) at so i wanted to take advantage of that.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #36 on:** May 26, 2013, 00:59 »

Off topic, but it is interesting how per capita GDP vs average annual wages seems to be a measure of inequality. In the UK the per capita GDP looks to be about 0.8x the annual wage, whereas in Qatar it is roughly 10x the annual wage.

Beppe Grillo · « **Reply #37 on:** May 26, 2013, 02:10 »

About the list from wikipedia, published by gbalex:
I would like to add that for some countries, like Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan (but not only - I can tell only about those that I know), if you don't consider the 10 richest people of the country the average income is less than half…… In these countries the middle class is almost inexistent.
(BTW I think that the link provided by Tab62 is closer to reality)

Actually in Ukraine the minimum legal salary is 1147 grivna/ month = $ 141.70 (enough far from the $686 of the "gbalex list").
But a lot of people, mainly those not living in the capitol Kiev, get even less…

Beppe Grillo · « **Reply #38 on:** May 26, 2013, 02:16 »

removed

Poncke v2 · « **Reply #39 on:** May 26, 2013, 02:17 »

Quote from: grsphoto on May 25, 2013, 19:33

Quote from: Poncke v2 on May 25, 2013, 19:22
Netherlands is missing from that list, which is weird

A lot of countries are missing from the list... I think the idea is to give an idea or sample

Thats fine, but they should be in the top 10 somewhere...why would the UN leave them out? They are not country 73. Doesnt matter though, I was just wondering.

ShadySue · « **Reply #40 on:** May 26, 2013, 06:10 »

Quote from: Donvanstaden on May 26, 2013, 00:56

Quote from: Mantis on May 25, 2013, 08:07
Quote from: stockmarketer on May 25, 2013, 06:45
Unfortunately, your living situation in a national park is tempting you to focus on wildlife shots. Think like a buyer. How often will those tree or animal shots be needed? Doubling your challenge is the matter of over saturation. What will make yours stand out from the thousands of others just like them. The demand is not there and the supply is too overabundant for you to hit your target in wildlife photography.

My top 10 wildlife earners are giving me a RPI of $10.29. and my best is giving me an RPI of $21.69. Most of them have been selling for a few years now. I do not know whether this is good or bad for 1 specific genre but I do know that what I am uploading now is of better quality than what is on my portfolio so I am hoping to get more images giving these returns

400 images at an RPI of $5.00 will give me my target. Rather that than 2000 with RPI of $1.00 - well that's the dream anyway

My thought process so far has been that I should build a high quality portfolio of wildlife images while living in this unique environment and then when I move to a town (which will be soon) I will branch into other subject matters. I do agree that I would not be able to earn a living on a wildlife portfolio but it is an area where i am an expert (and passionate) at so i wanted to take advantage of that.

Will you be a beginner in the other genres? Moving from wildlife to studio 'lifestyle' is an enormous change, and you'll be up against all the established experts. Do you even know if you'd enjoy doing it? And it's a considerable outlay.
If it's any consolation, the vice is also versa and I've seen a couple of high diamonds (lifestyle) at iStock go on safari and produce 'OK' photos, often wrongly identified.
For serious wildlife, particuarly unusual species that you have regular access to in a national park, a macro agency would be worth investigating, as serious wildlife buyers don't buy from general sites.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #41 on:** May 26, 2013, 07:24 »

What does it take to make a living from selling stock?

A day job

falstafff · « **Reply #42 on:** May 26, 2013, 08:22 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 25, 2013, 05:06

Interesting thought, Jasmine. I've said for seven or eight years now that at some point the falling returns and the rising standards must result in microstock becoming completely unattractive to new entrants. Maybe that time has arrived. The last person I referred to SS was a retired studio photographer who gave me useful lessons in lighting glassware - and he failed the entrance test. Without SS, a newbie is pretty much scuppered. In any case, in every area of stock today you are competing with some people who are expert at the genre and you need to be able to match their skills (often acquired over several years) in order to have a chance of selling.

I know I've felt a lack of incentive to keep going in the last couple of months. I'm pushing myself to get back into it now.

I think this is dangerously true of micro. Many, many high end buyers use micro because its a fact that many professionals are members and these type of buyers want to feel they get their monies worth. I know quite a few of them myself.

Should rumors leak that these kind of members are leaving and worse taking their pictures with them that would just squeeze the final air out of micro. Not now but in a few years perhaps.

ShadySue · « **Reply #43 on:** May 26, 2013, 10:14 »

Quote from: falstafff on May 26, 2013, 08:22

I think this is dangerously true of micro. Many, many high end buyers use micro because its a fact that many professionals are members and these type of buyers want to feel they get their monies worth. I know quite a few of them myself.

Should rumors leak that these kind of members are leaving and worse taking their pictures with them that would just squeeze the final air out of micro. Not now but in a few years perhaps.

From which we can deduce that:

these buyers you know would be perfectly happy paying macro prices, and only shifted for the undercut price
macro shot themselves in the foot by not accepting these pro photographers,
and these pros supplying micros are in turn shooting themselves in the foot by supplying micro (if they could have got in to macro, with their 'old school tie' acceptance system).

Donvanstaden · « **Reply #44 on:** May 26, 2013, 11:47 »

Quote from: ShadySue on May 26, 2013, 06:10

Quote from: Donvanstaden on May 26, 2013, 00:56
Quote from: Mantis on May 25, 2013, 08:07
Quote from: stockmarketer on May 25, 2013, 06:45
Unfortunately, your living situation in a national park is tempting you to focus on wildlife shots. Think like a buyer. How often will those tree or animal shots be needed? Doubling your challenge is the matter of over saturation. What will make yours stand out from the thousands of others just like them. The demand is not there and the supply is too overabundant for you to hit your target in wildlife photography.

My top 10 wildlife earners are giving me a RPI of $10.29. and my best is giving me an RPI of $21.69. Most of them have been selling for a few years now. I do not know whether this is good or bad for 1 specific genre but I do know that what I am uploading now is of better quality than what is on my portfolio so I am hoping to get more images giving these returns

400 images at an RPI of $5.00 will give me my target. Rather that than 2000 with RPI of $1.00 - well that's the dream anyway

My thought process so far has been that I should build a high quality portfolio of wildlife images while living in this unique environment and then when I move to a town (which will be soon) I will branch into other subject matters. I do agree that I would not be able to earn a living on a wildlife portfolio but it is an area where i am an expert (and passionate) at so i wanted to take advantage of that.

Will you be a beginner in the other genres? Moving from wildlife to studio 'lifestyle' is an enormous change, and you'll be up against all the established experts. Do you even know if you'd enjoy doing it? And it's a considerable outlay.
If it's any consolation, the vice is also versa and I've seen a couple of high diamonds (lifestyle) at iStock go on safari and produce 'OK' photos, often wrongly identified.
For serious wildlife, particuarly unusual species that you have regular access to in a national park, a macro agency would be worth investigating, as serious wildlife buyers don't buy from general sites.

I also do food photography but have been saving all my food shots for a different project which will require exclusive use. As soon is that project is complete I will start uploading f & b images as well. I hope this will help give my earning a boost. The project was a cook book for a group of hotels and also involved candid portraits of staff and property and I had had the time of my life working on it.

I am going to give it my best shot and hope for the best. Worst case I end up with some extra income to pay for a very expensive hobby. Best case I get paid to take photos

aspp · « **Reply #45 on:** May 26, 2013, 15:00 »

Quote from: Donvanstaden on May 26, 2013, 11:47

I also do food photography but have been saving all my food shots for a different project which will require exclusive use. As soon is that project is complete I will start uploading f & b images as well. I hope this will help give my earning a boost. The project was a cook book for a group of hotels and also involved candid portraits of staff and property and I had had the time of my life working on it.

You should definitely try to stay in with the people you have met whilst shooting food professionally and see if you cannot shoot some more with them for stock. Perhaps in exchange for doing free work for them if necessary. If you have been working in a bigger kitchen then maybe the line chefs or the commis would be willing to work with you. Even the kitchen assistants if, say, they are great at chopping. Micro stock has a lack of content shot in professional kitchens. If you can get a foot in the door in those sorts of places it could be a good opportunity.

Donvanstaden · « **Reply #46 on:** May 26, 2013, 15:19 »

Quote from: aspp on May 26, 2013, 15:00

Quote from: Donvanstaden on May 26, 2013, 11:47
I also do food photography but have been saving all my food shots for a different project which will require exclusive use. As soon is that project is complete I will start uploading f & b images as well. I hope this will help give my earning a boost. The project was a cook book for a group of hotels and also involved candid portraits of staff and property and I had had the time of my life working on it.

You should definitely try to stay in with the people you have met whilst shooting food professionally and see if you cannot shoot some more with them for stock. Perhaps in exchange for doing free work for them if necessary. If you have been working in a bigger kitchen then maybe the line chefs or the commis would be willing to work with you. Even the kitchen assistants if, say, they are great at chopping. Micro stock has a lack of content shot in professional kitchens. If you can get a foot in the door in those sorts of places it could be a good opportunity.

Hmmm... that is interesting. I do have access to kitchens on a daily basis as I work in hospitality. I had never thought of 'back of house' as an area of need for microstock. Thank you.

morning.light · « **Reply #47 on:** May 26, 2013, 18:32 »

I'm kinda aiming the same thing, and I hope it's not going to be too hard. Even though my sales are drastically down lately, I'll do my best and keep on working.

In my country, if you don't have rent to pay, even 500 dollars a month means a great income. I have a friend that had a normal job and worked until exhaustion for 200 dollars a month. And that wasn't a small salary for this country's standards...could be even worse!

Before my sales went to hell, I was at around 150 dollars a month from microstock + a side job that I got thanks to microstock. That's close to how much my friend was making and I don't have to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. And also don't have to follow a schedule or deal with weird coworkers ( well, if we ignore stupid rejections at various websites ^^ ). Anyway, I consider those 150 dollars a month to have even more value, because I don't have to go through a lot of hardships to get them.

gemmy12 · « **Reply #48 on:** May 27, 2013, 02:36 »

i was not entering into this thread as i neither depends on micro for my earning nor do i have any plan to make it as sole income source but after entering into this thread, found some interesting and contrasting but helpful replies and tips. Thanks guys for your frank and genuine suggestions. I have access to some niche images and i used to give them priority to sell but they get sold certain months of the year but when they do, they compensate for rest of the years as well (taking micro and macro sites both) then i uploaded some very cliche images what i never fond of but they also started selling, not as well as my niche images but more frequently. The best thing is they get sale through a year and not in some specific months. And now i find shooting those cliche images also as they give me money. And now i included some videos as well. And now its even better.

Microbius · « **Reply #49 on:** May 27, 2013, 05:05 »

Bob Davies did some interesting analysis of the industry, track down the videos on YouTube. I operate mainly in the tail so a lot of this thread doesn't apply to my business model. I tend to illustrate mainly niche concepts (with a few bigger sellers in there). I find my sort of illustrations get used more editorially; say in place of a photo to illustrate a concept than as general design elements. They have a longer shelf life, with a smaller RPI/month. They also lead to more commission work.

It also means I fly under the radar; most of my more niche conceptual images don't sell enough to get imitated, but enough to pay me back for time invested.

ETA yeah Bob not Rob

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Author Topic: What does it take to make a living from selling stock (Read 21071 times)

gbalex

cthoman

gbalex

Poncke v2

grsphoto

tab62

gbalex

Leo Blanchette

cascoly

gbalex

Donvanstaden

BaldricksTrousers

Beppe Grillo

Beppe Grillo

Poncke v2

ShadySue

PaulieWalnuts

falstafff

ShadySue

Donvanstaden

aspp

Donvanstaden

morning.light

gemmy12

Microbius

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