Personally, I think it is the competitive landscape. When I do google searches for stock photos, I hardly ever notice personal sites showing up, it is mostly the top five agencies. (Except for the images that people post on their blogs at large resolutions.) I believe those multi-million dollar agencies have $$ to buy their way to the top of the search, and the average joe photographer doesn't stand a chance. Not saying it's impossible, just a difficult road.

QuoteCould we please get off Shelma's back. Good on you for doing so great in your other career. Sometimes it just feels like whenever anyone posts even hinting at any success inside or outside the industry they get pounced on, come on now.

I found it astonishing that anyone making that kind of money would even be worrying about microstock. As far as pouncing, I just think human nature is "misery loves company" and most of us are just downright envious of her. :-)

There are many reasons I'm trying to leave my industry. I started doing stock for fun, then when I started making a nice "Christmas bonus" from it, I started to see it as a viable way out. Still trying.

Quote from: Shelma1 on May 22, 2015, 15:52
There are many reasons I'm trying to leave my industry. I started doing stock for fun, then when I started making a nice "Christmas bonus" from it, I started to see it as a viable way out. Still trying.

right, I wasn't surprised when you said marketing your own site was harder than your daytime marketing job -- I don't think anyone has figured out yet who the audience might be for independent sites -- even with the symbio network collection of 250,000 images, we were dwarfed by the agencies that add that many images each week.  the odds of a search finding a personal site many times a week are tiny. 

my symbio site will never approach what I make from selling collectibles on amazon & ebay, even though I might spend hrs on seo for Cascoly and no time at all marketing for amazon

Even if one can make a few sales a month from an indie site, which helps pay the bills, replacing a six figure income seems daunting, if not improbable.

Best platform for selling direct - any street corner.

I think the only reason that I make a profit via Photoshelter is that I'm licensing stock at traditional prices so I don't need to make thousands of sales - there's no way even the best marketer in the world could compete with the big sites - traditional or micro - even Yuri couldn't do it. And it's just a small part of my photo income, but it helps pays the bills.  I use my site for more than just licensing stock, and since it's so easy to make my images searchable as I upload them, the effort involved is worth it for me.

I'm not sure my marketing efforts have made any difference except that getting my work on Lattice seems to coincide with greater interest in my images, but that could be coincidental. Most of my clients find me because they are searching Photoshelter, with a few finding me via google.

Shelma, I totally get what you're saying, doing something in your day job with a big team and resources behind you for a well-funded company is not the same as the frustration of trying to market yourself when the competition is so huge and well funded. I've devoted countless hours this past year to marketing my prints on FAA and Crated and have only a few hundred dollars and 2,000 new twitter followers to show for the effort - time that I could have spent shooting and processing images, sending out queries to potential clients, or writing articles.

I think Photoshelter is an excellent platform, but I don't expect to make a full time income licensing stock directly. People sign with the agencies because they have the clout, and small agencies sign up with large distributors because they have the clients. That doesn't mean licensing direct isn't worth the effort, but for me at least, it's just one avenue.

double post

Although I have been doing stock photography for years and years I have no experience in building your own platform as a stock outlet.

My homepage and photoshelter, not a stock agency as such bring in good sales and for proper royalty-free pricing. I aimed my photoshelter pages at two specific markets and its paid off very well.

one way of doing it I suppose.

hello ... i just need to know about the type of stocks will be sold, have my own vector design and wanted to know the best way for selling them ...i have more than 300 designs if it dosent matter the type of stock what is the best site for my work