MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: ribtoks on April 26, 2023, 03:30
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Very curious about the collective wisdom!
Please, no doomsday, just the actual tips.
UPD. Collected tips are published here: https://xpiksapp.com/blog/microstock-tips/ (https://xpiksapp.com/blog/microstock-tips/)
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Not uploading the complete series all at once.
I only upload a few files from a new production, then wait and see how it takes up and sells.
If it sells well, I will very gradually add more content and also might post process some files with a different look (strong vignette, neutral colors, vibrant colors…) to get more visual options from the same series.
I save a lot of time by only uploading the few best files and have more time for shooting (and prompting)
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Invested in a drone. Letting the machine do the legwork for me!
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Invested in a drone. Letting the machine do the legwork for me!
What do you think your return on investiment on the drone is? $/ hour spent with it? (not so much the learning to fly, but actual set up, flight, processing time). You got some good stuff - but I don't know if the return is there anymore.
I have played a bit with a little drone, but haven't really tried much stock stuff - mostly because I am lazy and also they are not allowed at a lot of the most scenic places I'd like to use for stock (national parks / wilderness). It also doesn't help that I live very close to a small airport so there are some restrictions within walking distance.
Probably the best return for me is keeping my eyes and mind open for "plop and shoot" opportunities - especially things that aren't all that common but might be sellers as well as backgrounds - stuff I can just shoot, minimally process and keyword and upload. Sure, most are very poor sellers, but they don't take much work compared to my other minimal sellers, and a few sell ok over time. - so take your camera with you and keep an open mind to photo ops. - you can't make a living doing that, but I am dubious about making a living these days without more work than it would take to make a living doing lots of other things.
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Invested in a drone. Letting the machine do the legwork for me!
What do you think your return on investiment on the drone is? $/ hour spent with it? (not so much the learning to fly, but actual set up, flight, processing time). You got some good stuff - but I don't know if the return is there anymore.
That's a good question and would make for a good blog post.
Since I started I've had 65 hours of actual flight time.
Then supposing that for every hour flying I have another 3 hours of post-processing, so that's around 200 hours.
Then let's add the time of studying for the courses, which let's say was about 20 and another 15 watching videos/reading/research.
Comes to around 300 hours.
How much I've earned in the past year with only drone stuff (roughly)?
- Commissioned jobs: $300
- Book cover: $1000
- Stock photos: $110
- Stock videos: $155
Total: $1,565
Divided by 300 hours = $5.21/hour. Is it worth it? I still think so.
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That is actually a good result, considering you are still in the learning stage. About how to use the drone, but also what the customers like to buy from you.
I am sure that in time your returns will go up a lot.
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That is better than I would have expected - Yay for book covers. I guess you also need to take the cost of the drone into account and so on, but there is a value to learning new skills and so on too. For the last 10 years or more I don't think this has been a particularly wise way to make money - it can be done, but probably there are easier ways.
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In marketing there are recommended ways to do well in a saturated market. Here are some of them (summarised from a blog article I recently wrote for those in ecommerce sites/direct selling, but they still may be applied to stock photography in some instances):
1. Niche Down. The more you can niche down, the better. A good niche is obviously one where your competition has not entered or over-supplied to, and there is still a gap between the buyers’ needs and the products available for sale.
2. Innovation. Innovation solves buyers' problems. One of the most important things you can do, especially as the market becomes more and more saturated, is to become more creative. Your product needs to be more innovative than your competition.
3. Trends. Trends used to come from places like fashion houses, but now its more social media driven. Some trends are short-lived, and some stay around for much longer. The secret is to find trends that are innovative but have a classic feature, that people will want for a longer period of time.
4. Identify buyers' pain points. "Sell the problem you solve, not the product you have." Find out what your customers need, what they are complaining about, and what motivates them most to spend money to buy a product. And then produce what your competitors are producing but better.
There are other ways like, market placement, effective pricing, and innovative marketing, but they apply more for selling direct.
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Very curious about the collective wisdom!
Please, no doomsday, just the actual tips.
If you have problems with income, or you do not know what is the best way to shoot. Shoot models, different ages, different skin colors, and that's it.
Yes, models need to be paid, but the same drone also costs money. So there will always be costs in this business.
Well, the most profitable stocks are subscription stocks, upload videos there too.
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- Book cover: $1000
What is a book cover? How did you know it was a Book cover? This photo or video from a drone was bought from you, and where?
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I would agree with the drone option, the majority of my sales are aerial views. I would say that you dont want a cheap drone, I have a mavic pro and even that the images are very soft at the corners and can range from very noisey to noisey, with keeping ISO at 100, also tend to only use F5.6 or F5.0.......DXO raw convertor does a good job at removing the noise.....I only use it for still images.
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I would agree with the drone option, the majority of my sales are aerial views. I would say that you dont want a cheap drone, I have a mavic pro and even that the images are very soft at the corners and can range from very noisey to noisey, with keeping ISO at 100, also tend to only use F5.6 or F5.0.......DXO raw convertor does a good job at removing the noise.....I only use it for still images.
Is this thread about photos or videos? As I understand it, you take photos from the drone.
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- Book cover: $1000
What is a book cover? How did you know it was a Book cover? This photo or video from a drone was bought from you, and where?
Was for this cover taken from my drone, licensed via Arcangel.
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- Book cover: $1000
What is a book cover? How did you know it was a Book cover? This photo or video from a drone was bought from you, and where?
Was for this cover taken from my drone, licensed via Arcangel.
Do you only shoot photos with a drone? Are you filming a video?
This site is Arcangel, do you upload only exclusive photos?
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- Book cover: $1000
What is a book cover? How did you know it was a Book cover? This photo or video from a drone was bought from you, and where?
Was for this cover taken from my drone, licensed via Arcangel.
Do you only shoot photos with a drone? Are you filming a video?
This site is Arcangel, do you upload only exclusive photos?
I also shoot footage that goes everywhere.
AC are Rights-Managed exclusive.
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- Book cover: $1000
What is a book cover? How did you know it was a Book cover? This photo or video from a drone was bought from you, and where?
Was for this cover taken from my drone, licensed via Arcangel.
Do you only shoot photos with a drone? Are you filming a video?
This site is Arcangel, do you upload only exclusive photos?
I also shoot footage that goes everywhere.
AC are Rights-Managed exclusive.
How did you pass the Arcangel exam? It was easy? Did you link to your stock portfolio?
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- Book cover: $1000
What is a book cover? How did you know it was a Book cover? This photo or video from a drone was bought from you, and where?
Was for this cover taken from my drone, licensed via Arcangel.
Do you only shoot photos with a drone? Are you filming a video?
This site is Arcangel, do you upload only exclusive photos?
I also shoot footage that goes everywhere.
AC are Rights-Managed exclusive.
How did you pass the Arcangel exam? It was easy? Did you link to your stock portfolio?
Would love to know this as well.
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^^
I was accepted back in 2016 but didn't upload much until around 2021. Back then it was different (submitted a batch of 40 images, similar to Stocksy), nowadays need to include a link to a portfolio.
I published an interview with Nash Mascaro, Sales Director for my blog and he gives a lot of tips on getting accepted -> sales. He insists that successful applicants possess already a style and upload images that include "quality, saleability, and relevance"
https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2023/04/23/interview-with-ignacio-mascaro-sales-director-at-arcangel-images/
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nowadays need to include a link to a portfolio.
And then the question is where to create it, on which site. After all, everything that has already been uploaded to microstocks is not suitable for them, because. it's no longer exclusive.
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Stop working on Microstock and doing something else...
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Stop working on Microstock and doing something else...
I quadrupled my income by ditching the microstock treadmill of "exciting news" and keeping shitterstock in their Empire State pad.
Simple I got a proper job. ;D
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Brasilnut, I see there is another similar site - trevillion. Where is the best income?
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Published the collected tips here: https://xpiksapp.com/blog/microstock-tips/ (https://xpiksapp.com/blog/microstock-tips/). Thank you for everybody involved! You know who you are.
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I admit, that is a pretty cool drone shot. Did they ask for a property release for that?
- Book cover: $1000
What is a book cover? How did you know it was a Book cover? This photo or video from a drone was bought from you, and where?
Was for this cover taken from my drone, licensed via Arcangel.
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Oh I don't intend to hijack the thread with my book cover stuff :)
@stroker
I've been rejected twice at Trevillion and have never had an opportunity to ask an existing contributor there about their experience. So can't really compare. They are much much smaller than AC and seem to do more "finished product" type work, whereas AC works more with designers on a more generic book cover. Trevillion contributors also appear to work more with models. No idea about difference in license prices.
@SuperPhoto
I don't have a property release for the pool and house. The house is barely noticeable.
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My goto for this has always been using stocksubmitter. However the last few months have been a mess with errors in Pond5
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i started using visualmind.ai to add meta data - it used to take me an h our to process 50-100 images. with much more detail & only a few mistakes - it even distinguishes among various mosques in Istanbul
now i can process 100-200+ in about 10' - 1' setup. the rest to copy csv to captions & workflow spreadsheets & unzip to an upload folder
anecdotally i seem to be getting more D L of recent uploads (w better tags, desc)
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i started using visualmind.ai
Are you using the paid service or is this free? My attempts with chatGTP have not been too accurate
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i started using visualmind.ai
Are you using the paid service or is this free? My attempts with chatGTP have not been too accurate
ChatGPT requires you to enter a descriptions - VM takes the image & generates title, description and tags. for simitars they actually write different descriptions. they're able to recognize many features - eg rhine river based on a caste picture. Even translates from Greek name on floor mosaics. you can also prepend/append text or tags (eg country or city where it's not obvious, or byline for SS editorial)
error rate about 1-2%
there's a small number of free submits you can try, but the credits only cost about 2-3 cents/image. i just bought 2000 credits for euro 30