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Microstock Photography Forum - General => Newbie Discussion => Topic started by: leaf on March 10, 2010, 04:11
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I thought Arena Creative had a realistic view of the microstock industry in this blog post - so thought I would give it a link from here.
http://www.arenacreative.com/blog/microstock-related/can-you-really-make-a-living-selling-microstock-photography/ (http://www.arenacreative.com/blog/microstock-related/can-you-really-make-a-living-selling-microstock-photography/)
My opinion is that for dabblers and hobbyists - I still think they can make a few bucks a month and have fun, if that's all they want. For those who want to have it as a profession - it is an uphill battle. Yes, I do think it is possible as there is never enough of the best of anything in any field - but even then it won't be easy.
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I thought Arena Creative had a realistic view of the microstock industry in this blog post - so thought I would give it a link from here.
[url]http://www.arenacreative.com/blog/microstock-related/can-you-really-make-a-living-selling-microstock-photography/[/url] ([url]http://www.arenacreative.com/blog/microstock-related/can-you-really-make-a-living-selling-microstock-photography/[/url])
My opinion is that for dabblers and hobbyists - I still think they can make a few bucks a month and have fun, if that's all they want. For those who want to have it as a profession - it is an uphill battle. Yes, I do think it is possible as there is never enough of the best of anything in any field - but even then it won't be easy.
Thanks for the link Leaf....excellent reading. I totally agree. 500 microstockers making it full time is about what I though too. I am not there yet, although I made $19,000 in 2009 it is my best year yet with 1200 images. Maybe if I had quitted my full time job I would have made much more but I did not like the risk. Denis
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I think even 500 is a pretty high estimate. Once I review the 2009 poll results perhaps we can make a more educated guess.
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I think even 500 is a pretty high estimate. Once I review the 2009 poll results perhaps we can make a more educated guess.
the definition of "full time" hugely depends on the place of living. In many places making $300/month is a normal full-time income...
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However worldwide... my guess is that there is no more then 100 making more then 50K a year.
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That was a really insightful blog post. I agree with almost everything he's said.
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And my name to the chorus... fantastic article. I especially like how he summarizes the challenges a new microstocker faces, while still acknowledges that it's possible for someone to earn a living if they do everything right. This is the article I want every rookie to read, rather than the ones that say, "No way! Forget it! You're too late!" There are certainly MANY obstacles to success for someone just starting today, but for someone with unique creative vision and business/marketing sense in substantial and equal doses, there's still money to be made here.
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I'd say this is a pretty realistic look at microstock.
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Thanks, leaf!!
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However worldwide... my guess is that there is no more then 100 making more then 50K a year.
I make a good living. I live in Western Europe and although I'm reluctant to divulge my income, which is all earned from microstock, I was not a million miles from a 6 figure dollar income last year. There are plenty of microstockers pulling in good money, and I'm nearer the bottom of the top 150 sellers at my agency of choice.
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Count me in as making a fulltime income from microstock all be it on the video side. I have put a ton of effort and put alot of money into equipment to handle HD at the bulk level. I still hold my current fulltime job in the medical field but it sure is nice to have stock income to fall back on if anything goes wrong. The article is dead on as far as work practices go. Nothing has come easy to me, I do have a niche in the medical field but I shoot all kinds of stuff every week. Between both jobs I work 60 plus hours a week. I might one day pull the plug on the day job and just work 40hrs a week on the stock job. Going fulltime is not for the faint of heart but working for one's self has a whole positive side to itself!
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However worldwide... my guess is that there is no more then 100 making more then 50K a year.
I make a good living. I live in Western Europe and although I'm reluctant to divulge my income, which is all earned from microstock, I was not a million miles from a 6 figure dollar income last year. There are plenty of microstockers pulling in good money, and I'm nearer the bottom of the top 150 sellers at my agency of choice.
In my case, if it is the agency I think you are talking about, I am at the bottom of the top 440 sellers. Thank you for your insight.
Count me in as making a fulltime income from microstock all be it on the video side. I have put a ton of effort and put alot of money into equipment to handle HD at the bulk level. I still hold my current fulltime job in the medical field but it sure is nice to have stock income to fall back on if anything goes wrong. The article is dead on as far as work practices go. Nothing has come easy to me, I do have a niche in the medical field but I shoot all kinds of stuff every week. Between both jobs I work 60 plus hours a week. I might one day pull the plug on the day job and just work 40hrs a week on the stock job. Going fulltime is not for the faint of heart but working for one's self has a whole positive side to itself!
We have lots of financial information about the number one seller, however not too many of the top 200 sellers that will come forward like yourselves to divulge such information. Your little bits of information certainly give us a better perspective of what can be accomplished. Thank you vlad_the_imp and jjneff. Denis
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Nice article. I like the sentence about some people getting it and others not. For me, it was like a light bulb went on after I uploaded my first 10 images. It seemed so obvious, but I've had a few friends that I went to college with that seemed to have no interest in it.
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Nice article. I like the sentence about some people getting it and others not. For me, it was like a light bulb went on after I uploaded my first 10 images. It seemed so obvious, but I've had a few friends that I went to college with that seemed to have no interest in it.
I think the turn-off for may "artistic" types is that the images that you're most proud of from a creative standpoint don't often sell.
Many times, I've been proud of a new pic, spending many hours getting it just right, only to see it fail miserably in downloads. Meanwhile, pics that I think are very uninspired, and require just minutes of my time, sell like gangbusters. This encourages me to submit more of those, and less of the artistically fulfilling ones. For people who think of themselves as artists, this could be soul-crushing. The trick is finding a balance... what type of pics give you a jolt of creative passion while also serve the needs of buyers.
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However worldwide... my guess is that there is no more then 100 making more then 50K a year.
No more than 100 making $50k+? You are way, way off with this guess - arenacreative is much closer to the mark at 500, but I think even he's a little low.
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Great article. So far best I have seen on this subject. Not trying to just lure more people and earn money out of newbies :-) I guess realistic for most of the parts.
100,500 or 1000 it's still very low number in comparison to number of contributors worldwide.
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100,500 or 1000 it's still very low number in comparison to number of contributors worldwide.
True enough.
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Great article. So far best I have seen on this subject. Not trying to just lure more people and earn money out of newbies :-) I guess realistic for most of the parts.
100,500 or 1000 it's still very low number in comparison to number of contributors worldwide.
My feeling as well. Even 5,000 full time >$50k would make it a real crapshoot of a career choice.
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However worldwide... my guess is that there is no more then 100 making more then 50K a year.
No more than 100 making $50k+? You are way, way off with this guess - arenacreative is much closer to the mark at 500, but I think even he's a little low.
Good to know Thanks
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Great article. So far best I have seen on this subject. Not trying to just lure more people and earn money out of newbies :-) I guess realistic for most of the parts.
100,500 or 1000 it's still very low number in comparison to number of contributors worldwide.
My feeling as well. Even 5,000 full time >$50k would make it a real crapshoot of a career choice.
Doesn't really matter what the number is. Yes, it's a small minority.
What matters to the rest of us: is it possible to join the ranks of top-earners?
I think yes, if someone does ALL the following things:
- Carefully study the market to learn what sells
- Develop a unique style that isn't easily copied
- Target not just one underserved niche, but multiple (otherwise you will end up cannibalizing yourself and growth will stop)
- Upload regularly (not "feed the beast" approach, but focus on quality over quantity)
Those are the steps I follow every day, and if my data trend lines hold, I should be in that top earners club in a few months. I've been in microstock for about a year and a half, so success IS still within reach for rookies, but they should still start by reading the article referenced in this thread to keep realistic expectations and understand the work it will take.
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Thanks for the link Leaf, great reading. It's fun to hear people say it like it is really.
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Forgot to mention this thought...
Leaf's ranking system for members of this forum is an invaluable tool to tell you if you're on the right track to financial success in microstock.
It clearly tells you if you are meeting the market's needs for images in relation to other microstockers. If you have a low number of images in relation to the group, but a high number of sales in relation to the group, this is evidence that your approach is working. If the reverse is true, some research may be required to help you better target the needs of buyers.
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Do people still fall for the "get rich quick"-theme?
What a big surprise that someone said (again) that you can only succeed by working hard for it.
Haven't met (or heard) of anyone just being successful "by accident"...
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What a big surprise that someone said (again) that you can only succeed by working hard for it.
"Working hard for it" will get you nowhere if you're doing the wrong things. That's called banging your head against the wall.
You could do much LESS work, but work smarter, and get much further than those toiling away in the wrong direction.
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What a big surprise that someone said (again) that you can only succeed by working hard for it.
"Working hard for it" will get you nowhere if you're doing the wrong things. That's called banging your head against the wall.
You could do much LESS work, but work smarter, and get much further than those toiling away in the wrong direction.
There are very, very, very few contributors that have a portfolio of less than 400 images over the course of 5 or 6 years that make a living off of it - that's how I understand you statement about You could do much LESS work, but work smarter, and get much further than those toiling away in the wrong direction.
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I'm talking about the common sense of doing what you love to do and doing it RIGHT (as in: knowing what you do)!
Additionally, you will have to invest a lot of time to get off the ground.
Just because somebody "works smarter" doesn't mean that they do this 3 hours a week.
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No more than 100 making $50k+? You are way, way off with this guess - arenacreative is much closer to the mark at 500, but I think even he's a little low.
From my own earnings, which aren't a million miles from that figure, and in conjunction with the IS Contributor Chart I'd say there's probably fewer than 250 making $50K+. You'd need to be averaging about 1400 standard photo sales per month on IS to do so, either as an exclusive or an independent. Of course there are some contributors currently below the radar and rising rapidly on the Chart but there are also plenty of others that are slipping backwards too.
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Really good article. Most realistic thing I have read on the subject.
It will be interesting over the next few years to see if the number of people able to make a living at micro grows or shrinks.
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It will be interesting over the next few years to see if the number of people able to make a living at micro grows or shrinks.
It will. Of course 6 years ago virtually nobody was earning 'a living' from microstock.
When you consider how many photographers there are worldwide earning a living from weddings, portraits, schools, commercial, journalism, etc it really is a tiny number in comparison.
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i'll be going fulltime on stock in a few months time ,although my income is not as great. and yes, i'm from asia everything i earned is 3.5 times better.the reasons ? im being paid merely 1500 usd monthly but i'm working weekends and till early in the morning ,once a while they will cancel my leave and ask me work. we have no rights here. but we have no choice
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I just want to thank everyone for checking out my article, and for all the kind words. I'm a little surprised I haven't started getting bashed, because usually when you post anything opinionated like this, there is at least one guy in the bunch that disagrees ;D
I originally was responding to a post in a Microstock discussion group on facebook, but my rant got so long that I figured I would turn it into a blog post :) Thanks again for all your responses. I'll link back to this thread in the post's comments section.
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If your counting vector artists on microstock, the numbers jump substantially imo. I believe there are quite a number of vector contributors that make over 50k a year just on istock.
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I just want to thank everyone for checking out my article, and for all the kind words. I'm a little surprised I haven't started getting bashed, because usually when you post anything opinionated like this, there is at least one guy in the bunch that disagrees ;D
I originally was responding to a post in a Microstock discussion group on facebook, but my rant got so long that I figured I would turn it into a blog post :) Thanks again for all your responses. I'll link back to this thread in the post's comments section.
It is indeed a well written blog post. And it cannot be emphasized enough that a certain amount of work is involved if it becomes your main business.
I have no life and do this 10 hrs/day 7 days a week but I hope that I can retire before you do ;D
Hopefully I'm not going to be burnt out by then... :P
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Hopefully I'm not going to be burnt out by then... :P
^^ That's the tough part. Doing this FT for 5+ years can be exhausting. It's hard to keep the creative juices going.
I had originally thought when I started this that in a couple of years, with a portfolio of a couple thousand images I could relax and ease up on production. Instead the competition just got fiercer and I have to work harder than ever.
Burn out is a definite possibility.
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I just want to thank everyone for checking out my article, and for all the kind words. I'm a little surprised I haven't started getting bashed, because usually when you post anything opinionated like this, there is at least one guy in the bunch that disagrees ;D
Well, it isn't really that opinionated. Or at least it's mostly factual and reasonable, and not silly woo-yay, quit your job or plunge off a cliff stuff. :)
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If your counting vector artists on microstock, the numbers jump substantially imo. I believe there are quite a number of vector contributors that make over 50k a year just on istock.
Vector art? What's that? ;)
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It will be interesting over the next few years to see if the number of people able to make a living at micro grows or shrinks.
It will. Of course 6 years ago virtually nobody was earning 'a living' from microstock.
True, and just a few years before that no one was earning anything at all. It's been quite amazing to watch this evolve over the years, as things changed from simple image sharing to an increasing number of 4-6 figure incomes.
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...I'd say there's probably fewer than 250 making $50K+. You'd need to be averaging about 1400 standard photo sales per month on IS to do so...
But what about all the other sites? I can tell you I fall well under 1400 image sales a month at IS (should be around 1000 for March), but sales are strong at SS, DT and FT, which puts me within striking distance of the magic number.
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I thought Arena Creative had a realistic view of the microstock industry in this blog post - so thought I would give it a link from here.
[url]http://www.arenacreative.com/blog/microstock-related/can-you-really-make-a-living-selling-microstock-photography/[/url] ([url]http://www.arenacreative.com/blog/microstock-related/can-you-really-make-a-living-selling-microstock-photography/[/url])
My opinion is that for dabblers and hobbyists - I still think they can make a few bucks a month and have fun, if that's all they want. For those who want to have it as a profession - it is an uphill battle. Yes, I do think it is possible as there is never enough of the best of anything in any field - but even then it won't be easy.
Thanks for the link Leaf....excellent reading. I totally agree. 500 microstockers making it full time is about what I though too. I am not there yet, although I made $19,000 in 2009 it is my best year yet with 1200 images. Maybe if I had quitted my full time job I would have made much more but I did not like the risk. Denis
Don't quit your full time job Denis
Kone
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It seems like a classic 'bubble' to me except that rather than investing money, we're investing time.
We're just passing the peak, and new 'investors' are still piling on - and in doing so, steadily devaluing each other's investements. This bubble will end with a slow, drawn-out crash as - one by one - contributors decide they're not making enough to justify the time spent and cease production, but without pulling their portfolios.
In the end, at the conclusion of the cycle, the agencies will be in posession of huge archives of images no longer having much value - completely amortized assets - with the contributors no longer expecting anything but token payment for future sales or uses.
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I just want to thank everyone for checking out my article, and for all the kind words. I'm a little surprised I haven't started getting bashed, because usually when you post anything opinionated like this, there is at least one guy in the bunch that disagrees ;D
I originally was responding to a post in a Microstock discussion group on facebook, but my rant got so long that I figured I would turn it into a blog post :) Thanks again for all your responses. I'll link back to this thread in the post's comments section.
I disagree (there I wanted to make you happy) I don't really... :)
Would you trust this man to blog about the future of Microstock and getting started? Hmmm?
(http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs047.snc1/2842_172339230456_897700456_6503799_6042347_n.jpg)
I remember when Todd went full time. Keep in mind that he does a have a BA in design. This is a jump start for someone to have training and a good eye. Nothing beats a sense of humor and a big 50 pound bag of creativity sitting in the corner, to cook up something. Also having a spouse with a full time job, energy, dedication and more hard work, it is possible to build a good solid portfolio with residual income for a long time.
Yes, full time in the USA or Europe may not pay the rent until you have a few thousand images accepted. Some people started as a hobby and worked hard (there's that phrase again?) and built something. Others have made it a hobby and maybe upload 10-20 photos a month. Maybe living someplace else, where the economy allows, making $300 a month, is "making a good living". Don't forget, that this is some of the competition and getting 25c subs for a person in that position, is a good sale.
I think that's important to consider when people speak of making a living, that yes, there are different playing fields. Considering Todd's assessment of under 500 worldwide, I would agree if that includes the industrialized higher economic areas. When someone in Indonesia can feed a family on $2 a week, it's not a fair to compare impoverished economic areas as "making a living" with some cost of living index and all kinds of complicated adjustments.
Full time and making a living are not necessarily bonded together for success. I'm sure there are some who work part time and make a good income. Some may work full time and it's just not enough. Something else that Todd writes but doesn't exactly say, in short, is Working Smarter is more important than working harder. Time does not always equal income. Producing marketable images is the key to the whole process, not producing just a high volume of images. It may have been a good plan five years ago, but now the goal is good images that sell.
There are people on IS if you look at the survey, who had well under 400 images and make more sales year after year, than people with 2-3000 images. They are probably making higher priced sales as well. The numbers game is history.
Maybe someone needs to come up with something that designates the different areas of stock better, because all micro isn't the same "Micro" anymore. There are sites that are called Microstock that don't have subs, sell for higher prices, pay higher commissions. There are some that are only subs and pay a flat rate per download. Then there's the large middle with various types of licenses. Yet if one is honest with them self, there are only two sites that make sales and pay back on a consistent basis for the biggest portion of artists.
The sales return for a site needs to come into the picture at some time. You can put 3000 images on "Crapstock" the latest 2 year wonder site and never make $100, or you can put the same images on the top four to six sites and forget about the little ones. Or go exclusive somewhere. Back to, time is not always money. If a site makes $2 a month, what's the reasoning behind wasting time with them. "Oh they might pick up some day." More likely, they will shut down some day soon. :D
Directing energy and effort towards places that have good returns makes more sense than spending time throwing your work down a bottomless dry well of mediocrity.
Good article Todd, it's fair and honest. Time that people understand that there's no free lunch and creating a big collection of shots that don't sell, won't make anyone any money.
I won't bring this down by arguing the issue of real profit when it takes a few thousand dollars to get serious, and a few years to make that investment back. I'll concede that most of us would have had a camera, editing software and flash anyway, the equipment costs are not a point of contention. Kind of like saying if you start delivering pizza, the car is an expense and it's $6000. Maybe? But if I already have a car, it's not a specific new expense, that was necessary to work that job. Same for microstock. Many people already have a camera and everything they need, except what the market is looking for. If someone is thinking of going out and buying the equipment needed to make it rich in Micro, they need to stop and reconsider.
Nice going Pickle Boy! ;)
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This bubble will end with a slow, drawn-out crash ...
Wow __ love all those mixed metaphors.
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Nice points Pete - I know I personally "used what I had" when I started, as well. I had decent (now considered crappy) point and shoot camera, an older pc full of the software I needed, and a little bit of time. You just had to go and bring up the pickle billboard again though - Hahhahah! The joke about that billboard is that I probably made .38-.50 cents off the sale of that silly photo of my face.
Stockastic paints a nice picture about what might be to come with his 'bubble' comment. I hope that if it does happen, it happens later (not sooner) so that we can all ride this little wave a bit longer.
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I remember when Todd went full time. Keep in mind that he does a have a BA in design. This is a jump start for someone to have training and a good eye. Nothing beats a sense of humor and a big 50 pound bag of creativity sitting in the corner, to cook up something. Also having a spouse with a full time job, energy, dedication and more hard work, it is possible to build a good solid portfolio with residual income for a long time.
Hah! Prior to last fall she didn't work more than a few hours a week and didn't pay for anything at all. Don't think I had it easy financially during my transition, Petey. I Wish I did... sometimes I'd rather she just stayed home to be a housewife / shoot assistant ;) School systems don't pay well at all, plus she only gets paid for about 9 months out of the year. I wish I could afford to take off all the time she has off :) What motivated me the most to do stock full time was the desire to exit the stressful corporate world, and wanting to work from home.
That's another good point, though. Are you a spender, or a saver? Many microstockers only request payments once or twice a month, so if you normally live week to week or piss your money away at the bar as soon as you earn it, this probably isn't the business you want to be in. You also can't forget about paying your quarterly taxes.
Yes, full time in the USA or Europe may not pay the rent until you have a few thousand images accepted. Some people started as a hobby and worked hard (there's that phrase again?) and built something. Others have made it a hobby and maybe upload 10-20 photos a month. Maybe living someplace else, where the economy allows, making $300 a month, is "making a good living". Don't forget, that this is some of the competition and getting 25c subs for a person in that position, is a good sale.
That's exactly the thing about "making a living" - it all depends on your area, and the cost of living there. There are some I'm sure with portfolios of 500 that are making over $1000 a month, others with that size that can't even hit the monthly payout minimum. There are many things to factor in.
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... sometimes I'd rather she just stayed home to be a housewife / shoot assistant ;) School systems don't pay well at all, plus she only gets paid for about 9 months out of the year. I wish I could afford to take off all the time she has off :) What motivated me the most to do stock full time was the desire to exit the stressful corporate world, and wanting to work from home.
I assume your wife is a teacher then? My husband is a teacher too. True, he will never get rich doing it, but OTOH it is steady income and he will continue to make it long after this "bubble comes crashing down" (keeping those metaphors mixed for you Gostwyck ;) )
Not to mention that the school board provides a good retirement program and excellent medical insurance for our whole family, which here in the US would severely eat into my profits if I had to pay for it.
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What motivated me the most to do stock full time was the desire to exit the stressful corporate world, and wanting to work from home.
So is life better without the stressfull corporate world? Or do you now just have a different kind of stress?
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All I need to know is that it CAN BE DONE. I haven't done it, I'm not saying I will do it, but I'm going to have a crack at it......and I'll find a level, or not - at which point I'll look for something else. That's the way I live my life.
Think I've just written my epitath.
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Kind of off topic but do you find yourself not being able to stay on task as much when your other half is home?
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Yeah Lisa, she is a paraprofessional / teachers aide. Kind of off topic but do you find yourself not being able to stay on task as much when your other half is home, like when they have school vacation? hahahah I'm going to have to hamper down on myself and make sure I continue working diligently this upcoming summer. Sometimes when she's on vacation, I feel like I'm on vacation too :) especially when there are "snow days" here in New England.
Absolutely! I can't get anything done when my hubby's around. I don't even try to edit or upload when he's off work ;).
Fortunately he teaches year 'round and only gets breaks in two week stretches between semesters. But on those two week periods if we aren't gong on vacation I try to schedule photo shoots, which he helps with by doing lighting and/or modeling.
I love when he's off but I am always happy to send him back to work again, LOL.
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I think that's important to consider when people speak of making a living, that yes, there are different playing fields. Considering Todd's assessment of under 500 worldwide, I would agree if that includes the industrialized higher economic areas. When someone in Indonesia can feed a family on $2 a week, it's not a fair to compare impoverished economic areas as "making a living" with some cost of living index and all kinds of complicated adjustments.
Not to get too far off subject, but my wife is from Indonesia and I have been there numerous times.
You cannot live there on $2 a week. Cigarette factory workers who are uneducated villagers that can neither read nor write, make about $11US a day.
That is just a bit better than a subsistence living there.
Now, how would a person barely scratching by, make enough money to purchase the photography gear needed too start shooting quality stock?
No, the people living in the third world that can even begin to think about making a living from micro, are either expats using the impoverished country as home base or natives that were already doing OK at something else.
Having said that, I may one day join the ranks of these expats that are making a 'comfortable living' from stock, but I am hoping for more than a $300 per month subsistence income ;D
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In my country, $300 a month is full time salary for many people, so, it's very achievable. But if you live in western Europe or America.....
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I am with Racephoto in this discussion.
Minimum (legal) wage in Brazil is about US$250. What doesnt mean people can really make a living out of it, especially one with photography skills and equipment. And photo equipment is very expensive here - about 80-100% more expensive than in the USA. So it is not someone who is ok with the minimum wage that will become a photographer.
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In my country, $300 a month is full time salary for many people, so, it's very achievable. But if you live in western Europe or America.....
But if you live in America..... $300 is a monthly car payment.
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In my country, $300 a month is full time salary for many people, so, it's very achievable. But if you live in western Europe or America.....
But if you live in America..... $300 is a monthly car payment.
Yes, exactly.
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In my country, $300 a month is full time salary for many people, so, it's very achievable. But if you live in western Europe or America.....
But if you live in America..... $300 is a monthly car payment.
Hey, how did you know my car payment is $300 per month!?
Have you been spying on me again?? ;D
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I live in Croatia...
I need min 1500 $ per month to live, for normal middle class... But solo...
Double it if you have a family...
Living things are more expensive, much more than in EU or USA...
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I live in Croatia...
I need min 1500 $ per month to live, for normal middle class... But solo...
Double it if you have a family...
Living things are more expensive, much more than in EU or USA...
Well, of course for middle class living you need more than $300 a month, but huge percent of people is not even middle class. Food and clothes are more expensive than in USA. So, people don't buy clothes so often, and they are used to save as much as they can. Almost no one is spending money on things that are not necessary. (Hanging all night in clubs and restaurants every weekend and paying music bands in clubs and restaurants to hear your song counts as necessary tho ;-D).
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I haven´t read the whole thread.
Not many jobs keep paying you after you quit. That´s a positive thing about this.
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I'm anticipating retiring from my teaching job in about 10 years. Currently I have no assets apart from a modest amount of super. When I retire I'll have some government pension (and a bit more super), but istock will be my only other income then. I'm hoping it will at least pay the rent.
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In my country, $300 a month is full time salary for many people, so, it's very achievable. But if you live in western Europe or America.....
But if you live in America..... $300 is a monthly car payment.
Or monthly payment for car insurance (my friend is paying $530 a month for his car Toyota Camry)
Kone
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Of course that many people live below of standards...
I just want to tell what income can be enough for normal living in my region...
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In my country, $300 a month is full time salary for many people, so, it's very achievable. But if you live in western Europe or America.....
But if you live in America..... $300 is a monthly car payment.
People with $300 salary don't have a car. They don't have photo equipment neither. So, as Madelaide said - they don't become photographers. And to get back to the topic - people from third world countries, or however you call the ones with $300 or less salary, are not your competition.
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In my country, $300 a month is full time salary for many people, so, it's very achievable. But if you live in western Europe or America.....
But if you live in America..... $300 is a monthly car payment.
People with $300 salary don't have a car. They don't have photo equipment neither. So, as Madelaide said - they don't become photographers. And to get back to the topic - people from third world countries, or however you call the ones with $300 or less salary, are not your competition.
Oh pardon me. I thought the topic was "Can I really earn a full time income from microstock?". I didn't know this excluded people under certain income levels. ::)
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People with $300 salary don't have a car. They don't have photo equipment neither. So, as Madelaide said - they don't become photographers.
You need a car to be a photographer? I must have missed that chapter in all these photo books and magazines I thought I'd read.
H*ck, there goes my 'planning for the future' in one fell swoop. (Step one: get early retirement; Step two: sell the car ... ) :'(
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The car part has nothing to do with the photo equipment thing. You take part of my post and make fun of me. But if that makes you happy, go on!
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No Dook, no one is trying to make a fun of you. I am just saying that as a photographer, who already has photo equipment, you can make living out of microstock in a country where people can survive whole month on $300. This has nothing with competition. It's simply a fact.
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The car part has nothing to do with the photo equipment thing. You take part of my post and make fun of me. But if that makes you happy, go on!
Uhhh. I was originally responding to Whitechild when you decided to step in and make yourself the topic-police. If you don't like my response to you, oh well. Your initial response to me wasn't exactly friendly.
The car part is comparing the differences in costs between different parts of the world. Here, how's this for you? But if you live in America..... $300 is a camera.
Someone in a country who can live on $300 per month salary absolutely is competition because they have the most to gain from this. If they can pick up a $200 used DSLR and double/triple/etc their monthly salary over their day job I bet they're more motivated than someone who's in a higher cost of living area who's living on $3,000 per month at their day job and treats this as a spare change hobby.
Additionaly, for someone who is in a lower cost of living area it may take them less time to earn a living from this than someone is the US who needs to make $50,000 per year just to break even.
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I was responding to ShadySue, not you guys. No big deal, no one is hurt :).
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I'd imagine that if some entrepreneur wanted to equip and train an image factory in a developing country, in the same way as many companies already outsource their customer relations, they could become serious players in microstock, subject only to them having access to multi-ethnic models.
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I would say: the topic is wrong or the constributions. The author asked if "he" can make a living out of microstock.
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I've just checked our local e-Bay for used DSLRs.
Canon XTi/400D with kit lens: US$700-900
Canon 20D with kit lens: US$900
Yes, I believe people in Brazil can make a living solely out of microstock, but the initial investment is high (equipment and training), and people who can afford that possibly will not be happy with US$300/mo only. If they can mix that with other work, such as wedding photography, he will possibly reach another level, so that microstock can become his "stable" earning source. But with US$300/mo, he will not be able to buy a decent apartment/house, nor give his family a decent lifestyle (school, medical plan, etc). If he is single living with his family and does not need to help in the family budget, then US$300/mo is not bad.
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I would say: the topic is wrong or the constributions. The author asked if "he" can make a living out of microstock.
Which author? The OP in this thread was opening discussion about a linked article asking if "you" (in general) can now make a living out of microstock. The discussion has taken up various aspects leading from that article. With a bit of 'thread drift'.
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I would say: the topic is wrong or the constributions. The author asked if "he" can make a living out of microstock.
No? Oh wait he's doing very well, thank you, so maybe yes. ;D
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so, let me ask: can I make a living from selling used cars, can I make a living out of selling insurances, can I make a living out of selling everything...maybe the question should be...can i make me a living?
As allways there's one answer, you can...if you want, if you try and if you agree to learn, fight, struggle, stand up and target. Selling insurances is easier for one who have talent on this. But some haven't the choise.
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so, let me ask: can I make a living from selling used cars, can I make a living out of selling insurances, can I make a living out of selling everything...maybe the question should be...can i make me a living?
As allways there's one answer, you can...if you want, if you try and if you agree to learn, fight, struggle, stand up and target. Selling insurances is easier for one who have talent on this. But some haven't the choise.
I don't think the comparison is relevant. It's common knowledge that selling cars and insurance have the potential to earn full time income. Microstock's earning potential is unclear. A very small percentage of total contributors live from it.
The OP is saying it's possible but not easy. And I'd agree. For most people even if they learned, fought, struggled, stood up and targeted, they probably wouldn't earn a full time income from microstock. To be successful in this takes a very specific combination of skills that most people don't possess all of.
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I'd like to add a few thoughts from a relative newbie, Ive been doing this since march last year so pretty much 12 months, I do both vectors and photography, the latter has been a huge huge learning curve. I live in London where the cost of living is high and I earn a good wage as a freelance designer and lecturer. I actually started stock after some of my students started asking about iStock and how to contribute and thought I'd have a go myself. What I'd say is that after a year I earn a third of my income from stock which isnt bad and above what I'd expected. In terms of earning a living I think that it is definitely possible even for a newbie living in London but its a few years work, however the biggest drawback for me is iStock, with there low upload limits and there very strict policy on vectors (it seems they want very detailed work largely, though photo acceptance i've found relatively easy) it would take a very long time to build a substantial saleable portfolio. Most of iStocks consistently big seller categories are simply not accepted, maps and globes and silhouettes would be a good example but there are many more, I should think for those who got in there earlier with the simpler stuff its a walk in the park! I think for those that have already established a larger portfolio on iStock things should be somewhat easier in terms of income as I know the RPI is great. Would love to hear from any iStockers who feel otherwise...
I appreciate my view is only based on a years work and I wasn't around when it appears some of you were earning much more, but I dont see things as negatively as many here and would actively encourage good photographers and illustrators to have a go, at the moment I spend about 8 hours a week on this as i have a young family and my normal work...
Jo
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As another relative newbie (microstocking just under 1.5 years) my experience matches joingate's. About 8 to 10 hours a week, due to family and the full time job, and microstock is now about 1/3 of my income. Having the same difficulty building up a decent iStock port due to the upload limits and their strictness. But in answer to the question in the title of this thread, count me in the YES column.
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... I spend about 8 hours a week on this as i have a young family and my normal work...
Eight hours a week __ are you sure? You must be knocking out your illustrations (and uploading them to several sites) at the rate of 3 per hour which is amazing. I do basic photography but even so I reckon each image, from the planning, preparation, shooting, processing and uploading averages out at least one hour per image.
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I know it doesn't seem much does it!... I do however plan thoroughly and know exactly what Im going to do before jumping on the mac or behind the camera. I have a big sketchbook stuffed full of projects and ideas I want to do and follow it quite strictly.
In addition with vectors there is the infinite possibility that many elements can be re-used, an obvious example is button types or backgrounds, so for one original file I can probably get about 3 or 4 iterations from that time spent (though not at the same time or even the same project, so I wouldn't for instance do a black version and a coloured version!)
I am hoping to double my time from this summer as I want to prepare a portfolio for submission to getty or one of the other midstock/macro guys as some of the more conceptual/original ideas i have in my sketchbook will be a heavy investment in time and I just don't see microstock ever returning that investment, though i'm happy to be proved wrong!
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^^^ You're doing very well, nice portfolio. Earning a living from this should be easy for you given the time to build your port.
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Earning enough here, after several years and a consistent portfolio. But some friends of mine that were spirited by my success have, one or two years after, red numbers, after investing in cameras, lenses and strobes, and not selling enough.
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In my country, $300 a month is full time salary for many people, so, it's very achievable. But if you live in western Europe or America.....
But if you live in America..... $300 is a monthly car payment.
People with $300 salary don't have a car. They don't have photo equipment neither. So, as Madelaide said - they don't become photographers. And to get back to the topic - people from third world countries, or however you call the ones with $300 or less salary, are not your competition.
Of course....Hehe!
One story about this:
One microstock agency was "switched off "a few months ago ...
And I had about $ 19 on my account and agency support wanted to make payout to me.
But I can not receive money from PayPal (remain as only option), and support decided to make a bank wire transfer to me ...
I refuse that because the wire transfer payments will cost probably more than the amount of payment, for me or for them,isn't matter...
I explained this to them, but they (support) were VEEERY surprised with my decision to forget that amount, because they know that in Croatia this amount means MUCH MUUUCH more than in America,(probably we are starving here ;-)) ...
What was funny to me, because ALL, but absolutely everything is MUUUCH more expensive in Croatia than in the U.S. ... From food to gasoline to photographic equipment ...
Too many Hollywood movies changing perception of reality , especially that 100$ is haven for us in this part of Europe ...
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For me in the microstock industry it's been an uphill battle. I've been wondering to myself all week what do buyers want? I apparently haven't hit on the right thing yet. I'm still a relative newbie with a small port and being offline for 8 months when the computer had a coronary didn't help either. I started with my first site back in April/May 2009 but have only really been doing this for maybe 4 months due to the computer problem.
I myself am not looking to get rich with this just enough to pay our internet bill every month would make me happy. I do vectors only at the moment and am still learning Illustrator but I've been consistently creating an average of about 10 new images per week (it probably would be more if I wasn't running our business at the same time while the bf works his full time job ;).
You definitely have to stay focused on what you're doing. I too have a list of images in a notebook that I'd like to create (it stands right now with a list of 58) and have been trying to stick too it although I'll get distracted and make other things that aren't on my list. I do hear from a lot of people that your port should be varied and cover a wide range of subjects but I also hear from others that if you find something that sells well, stick with that. So who really knows which is right...my guess probably both.
I also believe that your only competition is really just with yourself. I fight with my inner me all the time going "Man! My stuff must suck badly because it's not selling at all" as well as..."Man! Why can't I create something like that! I must suck at this royally!" And I'm probably not the only one that this happens to either. I have sales at all but 1 of the agencies that I belong to and hope that this year I can actually build a decent port and make payout. That would be nice :)
And I realize that I don't think my post has a point but I felt the need to say something even if it was nothing at all ;)
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Yes, you can.
But it requires lots of work and constance: results will come in the end.
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Anita Potter: I read someone who said that it is like climbing a mountain, not doing a sprint.
When first climbing a mountain the only thing you need is good shoes. Then start training yourself. All the other things comes later eventually.
So in Microstock. When starting: don't set your goals to high. Don't get crazy about the stories of others. Don't invest to much in equipment. Having red numbers is not a good idea. Don't expect too much in the beginning. Try uploading to different stocksites. There's a lot of difference between them. Read and learn and let it grow. And go forward. Step by step. See how high you can climb over time. One day you will turn around, look back and see a nice view to the landscape below!
Seeing this as an uphill battle next to doing a fulltime job seems bringing too much stress! Not a good idea!
Over time it will pay you more than your monthly internet bill and in this way you love what you do and that is worth the most!
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Great analogy Colette and I can only concur. The only thing I'd say is as you climb the mountain it gets more stressful as you get used to certain figures and aim to improve constantly. Great though not like a
normal job eh?!
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I also believe that your only competition is really just with yourself.
Yourself, and the 300,000 other contributors that would prefer buyers license from them.
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Yes, you can.
But it requires lots of work and constance: results will come in the end.
Truth.
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I totally agree with the mountain analogy too. I'd say several mountains actually (as - at least in the early stages - things like changes in agency acceptance criteria sometimes create a whole new mountain, just when you thought you'd reached the apex).
The most important mountain to climb though, is the learning mountain... I never stop climbing that one ;)
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This sort of articles is misleading.
You can be a full time professional in anything, even selling 16x16px icons or mousepad on Zazzle or DeviantArt.
It's all about numbers and production costs, and selling in the right channels.
Of course you can be a Pro microstockers, as you still can be a Pro RM shooter, wedding, sport,
food, etc
But you can't pretend to make a living shooting a few good pic here and there.
Even if you are a top seller, how long will it last ?
Do you really see yourself living off a few hundred top selling images in 20 years from now ?
People who are unable to make huge numbers of images will sink before or later, blaming
competition or whatever other new buzzword in the industry.
But let's face it, stock is and always remain a numbers' game.
Claiming that all you need is quality is BS as that's only a small part of the game
and not even the most important factor if we really look at the full scenario.
Slow photographers should just leave any hope in stock and microstock, of course there are exceptions,
but without a couple thousand good photos you're simply going nowhere nor in RF and certainly less
in RM, there's people in RM with a portfolio of 70K images and yet they're not making millions, others
with 500 pics on iStock making a living, one thing is sure nobody will teach you their "magic recipe"
to live with stock.
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But let's face it, stock is and always remain a numbers' game.
Claiming that all you need is quality is BS as that's only a small part of the game
and not even the most important factor if we really look at the full scenario.
Slow photographers should just leave any hope in stock and microstock, of course there are exceptions,
but without a couple thousand good photos you're simply going nowhere nor in RF and certainly less
in RM, there's people in RM with a portfolio of 70K images and yet they're not making millions, others
with 500 pics on iStock making a living, one thing is sure nobody will teach you their "magic recipe"
to live with stock.
I've lost count just how many times you have contradicted yourself in the above.
Microstock nowadays is almost entirely about quality and is most definitely not a numbers game anymore. If your images are below par then they simply won't sell in the volumes required to make it worthwhile, irrespective of how many images you have. I can show you plenty of portfolios of 5000+ images with absurdly few sales (and of course small portfolios that do generate a good income). Quantity without quality is already a pointless exercise and the bar will continue to be raised ever higher as the 100K+ new images are added each week.
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...
Microstock nowadays is almost entirely about quality and is most definitely not a numbers game anymore. ...
This is one of the few industries where success depends on what you know, and not who. I think that the scope of the what is evolving so that concentrating on quality while keeping an eye on quantity will return increasingly smaller rewards - many successful people are already seeing this. While it's true that quality is important, to get the most out of your efforts it's becoming more important to work smarter; staying on top of what you know may become the key to success.
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It's definitely a balance of quality, quantity and usefulness. I'm sure everyone has their sweet spot for those 3 qualities. I know I have a set of guidelines that I try to follow when making images, but some of my more successful images come when I break all those rules. ;D
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I live in Croatia...
I need min 1500 $ per month to live, for normal middle class... But solo...
Double it if you have a family...
Living things are more expensive, much more than in EU or USA...
Off topic, but I'm surprised. Last year I visited several EU countries and Croatia and I found that the things I bought were cheaper (and nicer) in Croatia. You have a beautiful country. Good luck with your business.
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This is one of the few industries where success depends on what you know, and not who.
Yeah, I think that annoys some people :) .
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This is one of the few industries where success depends on what you know, and not who. I think that the scope of the what is evolving so that concentrating on quality while keeping an eye on quantity will return increasingly smaller rewards - many successful people are already seeing this. While it's true that quality is important, to get the most out of your efforts it's becoming more important to work smarter; staying on top of what you know may become the key to success.
Yes __ by 'quality' I mean a combination of composition, usefulness, subject matter, etc (technical quality issues are filtered out via the inspection process and anyway are not much of a hurdle for anyone doing microstock for a living).
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Quantity vs. quality? I think you're missing the point (but cthoman gets it as usual).
A keen understanding of the principles of marketing will get you further in microstock than either professional training as a photographer/artist... or endless hours of "feeding the beast" nonsense.
Adequate skills + the ability to study a market, figure out what sells or doesn't, areas being underserved or oversaturated, and a unique selling proposition (what will make you stand out?) = the formula for success.
There are far, far more talented artists in this business than me, but one of the first things I did was accept my limitations, and focus my efforts in areas where I saw opportunity and where my limited skills were good enough to do the job. So far I'm more than happy with the results.
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Yes __ by 'quality' I mean a combination of composition, usefulness, subject matter, etc (technical quality issues are filtered out via the inspection process and anyway are not much of a hurdle for anyone doing microstock for a living).
Yes, and by "what you know" I don't mean blogging, Facebook, or Twitter. Those are a complete waste of time in advancing your career in stock photography.
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Yes __ by 'quality' I mean a combination of composition, usefulness, subject matter, etc (technical quality issues are filtered out via the inspection process and anyway are not much of a hurdle for anyone doing microstock for a living).
Yes, and by "what you know" I don't mean blogging, Facebook, or Twitter. Those are a complete waste of time in advancing your career in stock photography.
Let 'em waste their time ;).
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Yep I've come to grips with my limitations although I don't like it, it's there anyway. That mountain analogy is really how I feel especially the early climb. I'm still trying to figure out what sells, what doesn't and what buyers are really after. I don't even know if there's a proper way to study that effectively aside from what I do that sells/don't sell. I could look at the top images on the sites but I don't know how I could work that to my advantage or do something similar and make it better cept for me that feels like cheating.
I know I'm still learning and that will never stop.
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Eight hours a week __ are you sure? You must be knocking out your illustrations (and uploading them to several sites) at the rate of 3 per hour which is amazing. I do basic photography but even so I reckon each image, from the planning, preparation, shooting, processing and uploading averages out at least one hour per image.
based on that analyss i find it difficult to believe ms could ever be profitable -- at 1 image per hour you'd need an RPI of $10 for EVERY image just to make minimum wage!
sounds more like your workflow could use some streamlinng - for me currently, captioning & keywording is the most labor intensive, but i still can do 50-100 per hour; all other aspects [other than shooting itself] are highly automated - eg upl to all agencies takes only a few minutes
s
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based on that analyss i find it difficult to believe ms could ever be profitable -- at 1 image per hour you'd need an RPI of $10 for EVERY image just to make minimum wage!
sounds more like your workflow could use some streamlinng - for me currently, captioning & keywording is the most labor intensive, but i still can do 50-100 per hour; all other aspects [other than shooting itself] are highly automated - eg upl to all agencies takes only a few minutes
s
If you can produce 100 images per hour how come you only have 700 images on Istock after 4 years? Did you just work for 7 hours then?
RPI over what period anyway? Your statement doesn't make sense as it is. It's like saying "my car can do 40 miles" __ per hour, per gallon, per apple????
Probably the most productive individual microstocker in the early days was Hidesy. In an interview she admitted to busting a gut for pretty much 12 hours a day, 7 days per week. That enabled her to average just under 7 new images per day accepted on IS during her first 3 years. That was way ahead of anyone else at the time and, despite starting a family, she still has the 4th largest portfolio on IS. Even if she only really averaged 60 hours per week it still meant that each image took her well over an hour to produce. I guess on your figures you should be able to exceed Hidesy's last 6 years work inside of a month if you pulled your finger out!
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I see an awful lot of low performance meters here saying stuff like "sure you can, hard work will pay off, etc."
I think it's safe to say the majority of people here aren't making a living just on microstock.
So, for those who aren't, how do you know you can making a living with this?
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I "work full time" at MicroStock (50-60 hours a week), but I definitely do not make a full time living from it... yet. I do keep drawing closer. If my numbers are consistent, I'll be there by the end of the year, but just barely enough to cover all my bills (mortgage, 2 car payments, children, etc...). And I live in Kansas, so my cost of living is not as high as someone in New York or California.
Actually, I'd be there now if I could just blow off the IRS... the taxes for being self-employed are so * high.
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I "work full time" at MicroStock (50-60 hours a week), but I definitely do not make a full time living from it... yet. I do keep drawing closer. If my numbers are consistent, I'll be there by the end of the year, but just barely enough to cover all my bills (mortgage, 2 car payments, children, etc...). And I live in Kansas, so my cost of living is not as high as someone in New York or California.
Actually, I'd be there now if I could just blow off the IRS... the taxes for being self-employed are so high.
You have 1 download on IS, 32 on DT, and SS shows an error. The cost of living in Kansas must be really really low.
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The most funniest thing on this mountain analogy is - if reaching the top of the everest would be paid by monthly living costs....tibet would be full of barefooted, frostbitten idiots.
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I "work full time" at MicroStock (50-60 hours a week), but I definitely do not make a full time living from it... yet. I do keep drawing closer. If my numbers are consistent, I'll be there by the end of the year, but just barely enough to cover all my bills (mortgage, 2 car payments, children, etc...). And I live in Kansas, so my cost of living is not as high as someone in New York or California.
Actually, I'd be there now if I could just blow off the IRS... the taxes for being self-employed are so high.
You have 1 download on IS, 32 on DT, and SS shows an error. The cost of living in Kansas must be really really low.
Lol,
I guess I should have qualified that as primarily footage. And I have still portfolios on FT, CanStock, BigStock, DepositPhotos, and a few nonames. I used to do pretty well on StockXpert, but nothing since it closed. I am also counting my sales from Flickr which are a couple "ELs" for a few thousand dollars each.
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I would think $10 per image would be about right over the course of a year, say 2000 images online (across the top sites) should make $20,000 a year without too much stress (aslong as you're not just uploading your holiday pics) and I would say those who are researching and producing 'stocky' images would easily beat that, this is more about the longer term view than an instant money back at the end of the month.... I think gostwyck is right you have to put it into context.
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I would think $10 per image would be about right over the course of a year, say 2000 images online (across the top sites) should make $20,000 a year without too much stress (aslong as you're not just uploading your holiday pics) and I would say those who are researching and producing 'stocky' images would easily beat that, this is more about the longer term view than an instant money back at the end of the month.... I think gostwyck is right you have to put it into context.
You can live on $20k after taxes, insurance, business expenses and everything else?
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I wish! But my personal targets are a little more amitious!
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As always it depends where you live!
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Just to clarify my statement but heres a reasonably educated guess, I think its time to but some figures to this thread...
1. Someone shooting photographs only as a good hobbyist with no stock research, approx 2000 images online, 8/16 hrs a week £20k
2. Someone shooting photos, or/and creating 3d/vectors as a good hobbyist and researching and creating saleable images, approx 2000 images online, 8/16 hrs a week £40k
3. A full timer, either a good photographer with good lights and probably a full frame camera and good lenses (or a longer time spent in photoshop!). Or a good 3d/vector artist fulltimer, 80k plus a year.
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As always it depends where you live!
there's plenty of super cheap countries to live.
vietnam, laos, cambodia, as well as china, india, philippines, and indonesia.
it's not easy to get a permanent residence there as photographer but
it's fairly easy to get 6-months visas and rent a nice apartment with a decent
internet connection.
living there can be as cheap as 3-400$/month all inclusive, central location,
fairly big apartment, taxi, eventual western food, etc
otherwise there are many serviced apartments providing monthly rates,
you have a 30-40sqm apartment with seaview, fridge, table, double bed,
toilet, balcony, kitchenette, ADSL or wi-fi, etc, last year i stayed in Bangkok for just 200 euro/month
for instance and had no problem uploading and keywording.
eastern europe is another option : Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania, Serbia,
but they're getting more and more expensive nowadays.
argentina and brazil are also interesting destinations and cheaper than eastern europe.
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Just to clarify my statement but heres a reasonably educated guess, I think its time to but some figures to this thread...
1. Someone shooting photographs only as a good hobbyist with no stock research, approx 2000 images online, 8/16 hrs a week £20k
2. Someone shooting photos, or/and creating 3d/vectors as a good hobbyist and researching and creating saleable images, approx 2000 images online, 8/16 hrs a week £40k
3. A full timer, either a good photographer with good lights and probably a full frame camera and good lenses (or a longer time spent in photoshop!). Or a good 3d/vector artist fulltimer, 80k plus a year.
anyone with 4-5000 pics on iStock alone can make a living in western europe.
same for anyone having 20-30.000 unedited pics on Alamy RM or 3-4000 on Getty RM.
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You can live on $20k after taxes, insurance, business expenses and everything else?
NOT in america and not in western europe but you can do it in many many other countries.
years ago i spent one year in Beijing with a budget of just 6000 euros all inclusive including
trips to Tibet, XinJiang, Sichuan, and other interesting areas and yet i felt rich compared
to the chinese standards.
my conclusion ?
it's not the third world being cheap, it's the west being overpriced !
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Just to clarify my statement but heres a reasonably educated guess, I think its time to but some figures to this thread...
1. Someone shooting photographs only as a good hobbyist with no stock research, approx 2000 images online, 8/16 hrs a week £20k
2. Someone shooting photos, or/and creating 3d/vectors as a good hobbyist and researching and creating saleable images, approx 2000 images online, 8/16 hrs a week £40k
3. A full timer, either a good photographer with good lights and probably a full frame camera and good lenses (or a longer time spent in photoshop!). Or a good 3d/vector artist fulltimer, 80k plus a year.
I think your figure for a good 3d/vector artist fulltimer at £80k is totally pie in the sky. You are probably extrapolating from a small not very old portfolio and not taking into account the level out that will come way before you reach that figure. At some point your % increase in new images per month is going to be way too small to offset the growth in competition from new contributors or new images from existing contributors. You'd be lucky to peak at $80 let alone £80k
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I think your figure for a good 3d/vector artist fulltimer at £80k is totally pie in the sky. You are probably extrapolating from a small not very old portfolio and not taking into account the level out that will come way before you reach that figure. At some point your % increase in new images per month is going to be way too small to offset the growth in competition from new contributors or new images from existing contributors. You'd be lucky to peak at $80 let alone £80k
Yeah, I wasn't sure why your figure was double for Illustrations either. I mean everybody knows illustrators are twice as awesome as photographers on the awesomesness scale. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean we are paid twice as much for being that awesome. ;D
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I think your figure for a good 3d/vector artist fulltimer at £80k is totally pie in the sky.
I'd say it depends on the artist's ability to read the market and create images that are in demand... creating a unique style and consistently staying a few steps ahead of the competition. If the artist is doing rainbows and flowers, 10k is probably a stretch... but if the artist focuses on things with real commercial value, something several multiples of that should be very doable.
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Sorry no if you read the post the salient issue isnt so much the vector/illustration issue so much as the researching the market and creating saleable images scenario, that is when you can make a dramatic jump in income. I only know 3 other people doing this bar myself and that scenario pans out for us all, albeit I am at the bottom right now!
I think there is less competition with vectors, a lot of the very good vector artists are exclusive at istock, I would say there are far more good photographers than good illustrators and thus competition is less. If you look through the vector collections on all sites other than istock I firmly believe that this is the case.
As for 80k full time, no sweat, I'll get back to you on that when I get there. I can only speak for myself but when i read all these posts that a full time income is impossible I find it truly unbelievable. My 3 full timemicrostock friends are all vector artists exclusive to istock and have been full time for quite some years, though 2 have slowed down now as they have young babies.
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Sorry no if you read the post the salient issue isnt so much the vector/illustration issue so much as the researching the market and creating saleable images scenario, that is when you can make a dramatic jump in income. I only know 3 other people doing this bar myself and that scenario pans out for us all, albeit I am at the bottom right now!
I think there is less competition with vectors, a lot of the very good vector artists are exclusive at istock, I would say there are far more good photographers than good illustrators and thus competition is less. If you look through the vector collections on all sites other than istock I firmly believe that this is the case.
As for 80k full time, no sweat, I'll get back to you on that when I get there. I can only speak for myself but when i read all these posts that a full time income is impossible I find it truly unbelievable. My 3 full timemicrostock friends are all vector artists exclusive to istock and have been full time for quite some years, though 2 have slowed down now as they have young babies.
I believe you. There's always an opportunity where others believe there are none. I worked in sales for nearly eight years and there were four of us in the department who were always "parachuted" in to so-called dead markets and turned them around. Hoping I can bring that ethos to microstock...having just started out though, the only place I could probably live on my income is somewhere in Papua New Guinea.
I'm not looking to buy a Ferrari, just earn enough to be comfortable and not be a number on some bean counter's spreadsheet.
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80k sounds nice. I guess I'll have to work on my bubbly icons and swirly Christmas trees. Ah, who am I kidding? I just don't have the patience to make those. :D
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very realistic view and well written article.
same goes for some of the comments made here , without naming them,
eg. the points made re:
- knowing where to promote your portfolio (quote: not facebook,twitter,etc.. as they're a waste of time)
- being objective to acknowledge that you may be a hotshot shooting weddings, commercial work, sell tons of art gallery ..(whisper: with fully framed images with noise rhe size of golf balls... not a comment, but my own observations from my visits to the locals for their exhibitions, lol)..
yet you may be a total dud to the extreme and perharps overly high standards of micro stock reviewers.
- be able to separate your subjective photography school and artistic idea
as to what is an awesome work and what the micro buyers are looking for.
as the two do not necessarily coincide, and most times do not.
finally a question, in ref to "knowing where to promote your portfolio"..
Question:
Do COLLECTIONS and LIGHTBOXES , like those created by other contributors of IS and DT,etc.. really make a diff to increase sales?
or is this just another way for contributors to that ..."you scratch my back and i scratch yours. i rate and review you 5 times, when are you going to come back to give me a good review?" ... syndrome.
i suppose the same applies to writing blogs eg. on DT, as they seem to be the same dudes being selected as :most informative blogs: although that may not always seem :informative:.
appreciate a full blown objective insight from any of you .
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... I spend about 8 hours a week on this as i have a young family and my normal work...
Eight hours a week __ are you sure? You must be knocking out your illustrations (and uploading them to several sites) at the rate of 3 per hour which is amazing. I do basic photography but even so I reckon each image, from the planning, preparation, shooting, processing and uploading averages out at least one hour per image.
Dude you are under-productive... You should think about how to speed up your production. My average was 5-10 a day for macro... Nowdays it is 20-40 a day... But I am not producing so much lately... I am cracking my earnings on a bit of joy ;-)
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If you can produce 100 images per hour how come you only have 700 images on Istock after 4 years? Did you just work for 7 hours then?
please READ my comment before replying, and tone down your personal remarks and insults...
i said i can CAPTION & TAG 100/hr, not produce them - not that it's really your business, but istock has never been a good earner for me, so i rarely bother to go thru their submission process. thus it's no inidcator for me
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I have previously been employed captioning images - five minutes per picture, and I was considered fast and accurate. After four hour's I could see double. Slighly different with sequences of similar subjects for macro, I could get through 100 in an hour with no problem, (all slight variations of the theme - XXX on the ball for Manchester United during their game against Arsena, YYY on the ball for Manchester United etc, etc) but the parameters were different and not so exacting. Also I used Fotostation as a captioning tool, which works very well for that time of subject. For my macro work now I don't use keywords, except for Alamy which has a similar submission and search method like micro. I just have title, caption and photographer date info.
Having spent three years keywording macro pics for an agency which were supplied as stock to various newspapers, I visited their picture library. First thing they did was strip them all out of their files as they had their own specific set of key terms. In my own way I was probably the first ever (unintentional) spammer.
Everyone works in a different way. I could produce an image for micro with keywords in 10 minutes. It would probably pass inspection, except at Istock where I need to take considerably more time. Wether it sells or not is a moot point. The key for me is having good images to submit, that's what I find is the most challenging and hard work.
Rgds
Oldhand
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Oh, and to answer the original thread, yes you can, but it is beyond most one man mortal bands in Western countries without significant additional revenue from macro.
Oldhand (who should really have paid more attention at school and got a proper job where you wear a suit for work)
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@joingate
Could I just check what you mean by "that scenario pans out for us all" That you are all making 80,000 UK pounds per year or that from your experience you deduce that that is where your income is heading?
I also have to disagree that there are only three other people bar you “researching the market and creating saleable images". The reason there are so many derivative images out there on the stock sites is that most micro vector artists spend a lot of time "researching" what sells then copying it (don’t make me go through your folio pointing out the best selling IStock icon sets that most resemble your SS top sellers ;))
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Bayern vs Manchester United : 2-1
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Sorry, couldn't resist :)
After all this discussion is a bit improductive : there's a physical limit on how many images you can produce, upload, and keyword in a day or a week or a month.
The bottleneck in microstock is certainly the upload limit, correct me if i'm wrong but it's ridicolous that an exclusive on iStock is limited to 50 files/week.
It's a dirty trick to avoid being flooded by contributors and to avoid letting them realize that the life of a RF photo in microstock is much more short than in RM.
No wonder it takes years for people to make a 5000 pics portfolio on iStock when you can do it in a month on Alamy or Getty RM (well, not really).
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@joingate
Could I just check what you mean by "that scenario pans out for us all" That you are all making 80,000 UK pounds per year or that from your experience you deduce that that is where your income is heading?
I also have to disagree that there are only three other people bar you “researching the market and creating saleable images". The reason there are so many derivative images out there on the stock sites is that most micro vector artists spend a lot of time "researching" what sells then copying it (don’t make me go through your folio pointing out the best selling IStock icon sets that most resemble your SS top sellers ;))
sorry for interrupting Microbius and @joingate.
re: blocked letter.
when you say derivative, does that mean that it's "legal" to creat vectors from IS photographs and creating 3D from IS photographs,etc..
and the reviewers do not reject you, or ask for verification as they do us when we do a silhouette photograph to ask us to prove we used our own copyright image to create that silhouette.
i am not good at these legalese stuff, but i too tend to agree that i see a lot of "derivatives" in the illustration, vector, 3d section
many of which i too as a lame brain old bugger could recognize the originals it "ripped off".
@joingate, this is not implying nothing that you do this.
that's strictly between you and Microbius.
Ta
;)
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No wonder it takes years for people to make a 5000 pics portfolio on iStock when you can do it in a month on Alamy or Getty RM (well, not really).
Maybe that's why Alamy contributors talk about earning an average of $1 per image per year where micro is closer to $1 per image per month. Because you can dump an entire series of hundreds of pretty much the same image on Alamy where on sites with restrictions you're forced to be more selective.
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No wonder it takes years for people to make a 5000 pics portfolio on iStock when you can do it in a month on Alamy or Getty RM (well, not really).
Maybe that's why Alamy contributors talk about earning an average of $1 per image per year where micro is closer to $1 per image per month. Because you can dump an entire series of hundreds of pretty much the same image on Alamy where on sites with restrictions you're forced to be more selective.
it depends.
yes, generic and crappy images will get a 1euro/year payout but you've the freedom of shooting even 100 saleable pics
a day if you want.
the problem is they'll never sell as it's so random today that you can't really know what's going to sell or not on RM.
the last i sold was complete rubbish, good luck trying to figure out what buyers need.
on the other side Getty RM is king of the hill but being edited they use to accept only 1/10th of what Alamy takes.
it's amazing what's selling on Alamy, it would be interesting to see a unedited RF microstock agency and see how it goes
as what Alamy is showing is that there's indeed demand for obscure and hard to find subjects, no matter if they don't
look as corny as microstock.
back on the subject, there's many on Alamy making a living out of these 10Ks generic and editorial images, every venue
should be valued for business, and nobody forbid us to sell on both RF and RM.
i think nowadays is easier to get into RM than microstock.
the issue is micro pays quickly while RM takes ages to warm up, so it's not surprising all the newbies go on iStock.
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@joingate
Could I just check what you mean by "that scenario pans out for us all" That you are all making 80,000 UK pounds per year or that from your experience you deduce that that is where your income is heading?
I also have to disagree that there are only three other people bar you “researching the market and creating saleable images". The reason there are so many derivative images out there on the stock sites is that most micro vector artists spend a lot of time "researching" what sells then copying it (don’t make me go through your folio pointing out the best selling IStock icon sets that most resemble your SS top sellers ;))
I complained to both IS and SS recently about another contributor who had copied some of my vectors - his portfolio was removed from both sites but a week or so later they were back up but with out the copied work.
oh yes, back on topic, the vectors he copied were very high sellers so for those who do want to make a living out of this I think its worth protecting your product/profits!
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Eight hours a week __ are you sure? You must be knocking out your illustrations (and uploading them to several sites) at the rate of 3 per hour which is amazing. I do basic photography but even so I reckon each image, from the planning, preparation, shooting, processing and uploading averages out at least one hour per image.
Dude you are under-productive... You should think about how to speed up your production. My average was 5-10 a day for macro... Nowdays it is 20-40 a day... But I am not producing so much lately... I am cracking my earnings on a bit of joy ;-)
I guess I am under-productive too. I average more like 30 images a week. I usually end up adding between 1,000 and 1,200 images a year to my port.
From Gostwycks post it appears he is quite rightly including the research and prep work in his estimate (cooking and presenting food, storyboarding concepts, buying buying props, scouting and preparing locations or creating studio "sets", hiring and posing models, etc.) as well as the shooting, editing and uploading time. If you treat this as a business you need to include those things in your calculations of time spent.
If you are doing mostly shots of found objects or landscapes and nature, then obviously you will have little to no prep work other than minor editing, keywording, and uploading.
However, if you are doing this for a FT job you need to produce consistently, week in and week out. I know a lot of people that will upload large bursts of hundreds of images one week, but then not upload anything else for weeks or months.
To each their own, but the workflow that has been best for me is one I can sustain week in, week out, over time. I am a lot more comfortable being the tortoise than the hare ;)
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To each their own, but the workflow that has been best for me is one I can sustain week in, week out, over time. I am a lot more comfortable being the tortoise than the hare ;)
I'm not a fulltime microstocker but I am a graphic designer and I struggle to create 1 good quality vector a week :)
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To each their own, but the workflow that has been best for me is one I can sustain week in, week out, over time. I am a lot more comfortable being the tortoise than the hare ;)
I'm not a fulltime microstocker but I am a graphic designer and I struggle to create 1 good quality vector a week :)
I bet those are some gorgeous vectors if you are taking your time like that!
(us slowpokes have to stick together ;D)
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Hey microbius
I'm not copying anyone. And what do you mean only 3 people researching the Market. You obviously misread my post. I research what sells and create my own. When it comes to icons everything has been covered but I can still design my own set for that sector in my styles. What a silly comment to make who would I copy? You hide behind anonymity so I can't go trudging through your completely original and bespoke portfolio right? I have a life so wouldn't do so nor would I accuse people of plagiarism.
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i always wondered the same thing ... everybody is saying vectors pay twice or thrice than photos but what if it takes a week to make a single vector ?
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i always wondered the same thing ... everybody is saying vectors pay twice or thrice than photos but what if it takes a week to make a single vector ?
Then it better sell well. ;D
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.......
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......
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the last i sold was complete rubbish, good luck trying to figure out what buyers need.
No, it's easy to see what "buyers" need. It's hard to know what "a buyer" will need. Eventually, every crappy image will sell at least once. It's just a question of whether you have the patience to wait 50 years for the right buyer to come along. If you're shooting for what a majority of buyers will want, you'll have better luck.
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.......
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,,,,,,,
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The End of Stock Photography: http://blog.johnlund.com/2010/03/jim-pickerell-interviewed-end-of-stock.html (http://blog.johnlund.com/2010/03/jim-pickerell-interviewed-end-of-stock.html)
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Sorry, couldn't resist :)
After all this discussion is a bit improductive : there's a physical limit on how many images you can produce, upload, and keyword in a day or a week or a month.
The bottleneck in microstock is certainly the upload limit, correct me if i'm wrong but it's ridicolous that an exclusive on iStock is limited to 50 files/week.
It's a dirty trick to avoid being flooded by contributors and to avoid letting them realize that the life of a RF photo in microstock is much more short than in RM.
No wonder it takes years for people to make a 5000 pics portfolio on iStock when you can do it in a month on Alamy or Getty RM (well, not really).
You're wrong.
Current upload limits for Exclusives are:
Bronze: 50
Silver: 75
Gold: 100
Diamond: 125
Black Diamond: 150
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the last i sold was complete rubbish, good luck trying to figure out what buyers need.
No, it's easy to see what "buyers" need. It's hard to know what "a buyer" will need. Eventually, every crappy image will sell at least once. It's just a question of whether you have the patience to wait 50 years for the right buyer to come along. If you're shooting for what a majority of buyers will want, you'll have better luck.
Yes of course you can't know what the single buyer needs, but in general i can tell you what's selling or not, the problem
is it's a quite big perimeter if you generically say "pictures of London/Paris/NewYork" ... or "young female portraits".
What i'm saying is that it's pretty straightforward to analyze what's selling like hot cakes on iStock as the offering is
limited by categories and strict editing, but it's not that easy with unedited collections.
If i go on iStock i can see in few minutes what's selling about my city for instance, and get out of the door shooting
a set about the same locations, you just can't do that with RM unless we talk about Tour Eiffel and other overinflated
subjects.
I've the impression RM still exists only to provide the "hard to find" imagery because anything else is already
on the micros at discount price.
Are you still selling on Alamy ? How is it going ? RF or RM ?
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The End of Stock Photography: [url]http://blog.johnlund.com/2010/03/jim-pickerell-interviewed-end-of-stock.html[/url] ([url]http://blog.johnlund.com/2010/03/jim-pickerell-interviewed-end-of-stock.html[/url])
I completely disagree with that article, it's just a marketing spin to sell subscriptions to his "Selling Stock" website.
Not to mention he's more famous about what he writes about the stock industry rather than the photos he's
actually selling.
Would you trust an analyst who's not doing stock full time ?
It's complete rubbish, he also claims the iPad is the future and that "paper is dead".
I'll say again, anyone exclusive with 4-5000 images on iStock can make a living with it
in western countries.
Stock is dead only for those with small portfolios.
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I completely disagree with that article, it's just a marketing spin to sell subscriptions to his "Selling Stock" website.
Not to mention he's more famous about what he writes about the stock industry rather than the photos he's
actually selling.
Unfortunately there seems to be more and more people every day that are trying to make money by selling their "expertise" rather than actually doing it.
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Hey microbius
I'm not copying anyone. And what do you mean only 3 people researching the Market. You obviously misread my post. I research what sells and create my own. When it comes to icons everything has been covered but I can still design my own set for that sector in my styles. What a silly comment to make who would I copy? You hide behind anonymity so I can't go trudging through your completely original and bespoke portfolio right? I have a life so wouldn't do so nor would I accuse people of plagiarism.
With regards to the three people sorry if I misunderstood this section of your previous post:
"the salient issue isn't so much the vector/illustration issue so much as the researching the market and creating saleable images scenario, that is when you can make a dramatic jump in income. I only know 3 other people doing this bar myself"
I notice that you haven't responded about the earnings please feel free to let me know if any of you are actually earning 80K £/year. I noticed that you didn't actually address this.
With regards to the "market research" section I was not saying you were actually uploading other people's work, but that your "market research" seems to have led to producing images that closely resemble best sellers from other contributors. If I have misunderstood this too, please feel free to let me know what form your market research takes. Again, I am not saying there is anything illegal about this, but if your work resembles the style of other people's work you're going to get called out for it, just like the top selling Yuri clone Photogs do. I will let your removal of any links to your portfolio speak for itself.
It is true that I am anonymous on this form like many other people. I am also not making outrageous claims about how much I earn or about being one of the only people out there that understands the Micro market.
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Eight hours a week __ are you sure? You must be knocking out your illustrations (and uploading them to several sites) at the rate of 3 per hour which is amazing. I do basic photography but even so I reckon each image, from the planning, preparation, shooting, processing and uploading averages out at least one hour per image.
Dude you are under-productive... You should think about how to speed up your production. My average was 5-10 a day for macro... Nowdays it is 20-40 a day... But I am not producing so much lately... I am cracking my earnings on a bit of joy ;-)
I guess I am under-productive too. I average more like 30 images a week. I usually end up adding between 1,000 and 1,200 images a year to my port.
From Gostwycks post it appears he is quite rightly including the research and prep work in his estimate (cooking and presenting food, storyboarding concepts, buying buying props, scouting and preparing locations or creating studio "sets", hiring and posing models, etc.) as well as the shooting, editing and uploading time. If you treat this as a business you need to include those things in your calculations of time spent.
If you are doing mostly shots of found objects or landscapes and nature, then obviously you will have little to no prep work other than minor editing, keywording, and uploading.
However, if you are doing this for a FT job you need to produce consistently, week in and week out. I know a lot of people that will upload large bursts of hundreds of images one week, but then not upload anything else for weeks or months.
To each their own, but the workflow that has been best for me is one I can sustain week in, week out, over time. I am a lot more comfortable being the tortoise than the hare ;)
Taking all things into consideration I'd say a return of one image per hour based on an average single person 40hr working week is about the sort of production numbers most people who make a living in stock aim for, I'm averaging 25-30 and I work a lot longer than 40hrs per week. I do know of some on macro agencies that take the 'machine gun' approach to stock shooting, a lot of them have to shoot weddings and portraits at the weekend - wonder why!
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I completely disagree with that article, it's just a marketing spin to sell subscriptions to his "Selling Stock" website.
Not to mention he's more famous about what he writes about the stock industry rather than the photos he's
actually selling.
Unfortunately there seems to be more and more people every day that are trying to make money by selling their "expertise" rather than actually doing it.
i've always been skeptic about workshops : why someone would teach you his secrets instead of being in the field shooting
more photos ?
photojournalists are doint this more and more nowadays but at least it's understandable as their profession is sinking
and they make more money with expensive workshops.
the last i've read about was a workshop for 20 students in my city with a well known MAGNUM photographer
asking 250 euro/person for 2 or 3 hours, that's a whopping 5000 euro in an afternoon, not bad !
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I completely disagree with that article, it's just a marketing spin to sell subscriptions to his "Selling Stock" website.
Not to mention he's more famous about what he writes about the stock industry rather than the photos he's
actually selling.
Unfortunately there seems to be more and more people every day that are trying to make money by selling their "expertise" rather than actually doing it.
And some of the people selling expertise don't really have that great of a track record with selling stock images. Why would I buy their expertise? It's like hiring an investment advisor who's broke.
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i've always been skeptic about workshops : why someone would teach you his secrets instead of being in the field shooting
more photos ?
Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog).
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I completely disagree with that article, it's just a marketing spin to sell subscriptions to his "Selling Stock" website.
Not to mention he's more famous about what he writes about the stock industry rather than the photos he's
actually selling.
Unfortunately there seems to be more and more people every day that are trying to make money by selling their "expertise" rather than actually doing it.
And some of the people selling expertise don't really have that great of a track record with selling stock images. Why would I buy their expertise? It's like hiring an investment advisor who's broke.
Because you can write whatever you like about yourself on the internet, and the internet attracts lots of very stupid people who believe anything they read.
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i've always been skeptic about workshops : why someone would teach you his secrets instead of being in the field shooting
more photos ?
Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog).
exactly what i think !
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Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog).
Hey! You stole my line! :P
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Microbius
I think we are at cross hairs here, my point was that I only know of 3 people personally in the microstock market that research and create imagery for specific sectors (of course i know hundreds and maybe thousands do, and the pro's undoubtedly). My point was that the 3 people I know personally are all exclusive artists (vector) on istock, they have been for a few years and they do all earn over $80k per annum, 2 are uk based and the other in the states. That is where that figure came from (apologies if I put £'s I wish!)
No I dont earn 80k, if you read back a few posts you will see that that is my aspiration and I know it can be done. I do ok financially and have only been doing this a year part time, (apart from istock where I have been since 2006 just going icons sets, it was in part because the icons sold well on istock that I decided to give this a serious try), I have a young family and full time design job to contend with.
I have removed my links from the post due to some emails I got from other members who said its best to do so to avoid personal attacks re my work and that anonymity would be a good thing, I am proud of my work and yes agree some of it particularly icons and globes are going to be similar in content to what you would call the big sellers, but I do not copy, I work using a sketchbook and research different topics, I think the icons you are probably referring to are typical website icons, eg search, print, rss etc, and actually I wouldn't say they sell that well actually. But i do try to cover off the basics as well as creating more involved/conceptual work. Unfortunately I agree microstock is full of 'the same done differently', I think RM is the place for the much more involved/time consuming conceptual work and that is something Im currently exploring too.
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^^^ Very good, clear and honest answer.
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i've always been skeptic about workshops : why someone would teach you his secrets instead of being in the field shooting
more photos ?
Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog).
So you are saying you are not good photographer?
I know you are. Just joking.
Kone
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@ Joingate
Sorry if I got too personal.
80k dollars is doable and I know of at least one excellent artist, in fact one of the guys that did some of the original blue globes and business style images before they were done to death, that used to break $100k in his hay day.
Though I suspect those days are long gone. Best of luck, and I hope you do let us know if you and your friends ever to make 80k a year, even if it is dollars. I remain sceptical.
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Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog).
Hey! You stole my line! :P
Those who "can't teach. teach Gym" - Jack Black in School of Rock :D
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"they do all earn over $80k per annum, 2 are uk based and the other in the states."
I'm reluctant to give my exact earnings but it's well over $80k. I'm in Europe, I'm photo's and vectors. I'm in the top 200 iStock sellers, I won't be any more specific than that. I know of a number of people earning more than me.
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Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog).
Hey! You stole my line! :P
Those who "can't teach. teach Gym" - Jack Black in School of Rock :D
and if you can't rock you can still roll...
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"they do all earn over $80k per annum, 2 are uk based and the other in the states."
I'm reluctant to give my exact earnings but it's well over $80k. I'm in Europe, I'm photo's and vectors. I'm in the top 200 iStock sellers, I won't be any more specific than that. I know of a number of people earning more than me.
i'm not surprised.
vectors are in huge demand nowadays.
what i've never knew exactly was how many vectors one can produce in a week or a day.
are they all from scratch or most are variants or old vectors ?
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I have had days when I've produced 5 or 6 simple images in a day, I was involved in an upload race a year or two back and that spurred me on. iStock have cracked down on simpler images too so I tend to take a bit longer now. Some are completely new , some are variations. I'm currently slowed down a lot because I'm either doing more complex ones or I've just run out of inspiration ( as at the moment) The good thing about microstock is that you keep earning so a few days off costs nothing if images are still selling.
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Yeah, it really depends on complexity. If it is something complex, then I might just do one in a day. If it is something simple, then I might do a few. If it is a variant or series, then I might do a dozen in a day. Although my brain starts to turn to mush after several hours, so I have to take breaks.
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I've been trying to get 10 vectors produced in a week before uploading. Most of what I've been doing has been rather simple and will be getting into more complex starting real soon. I finished one today that took me 3 days to do but it's not complex at all just time consuming with lining things up properly. My 10 probably won't happen this week working on building skills in the areas I need to improve on (i.e. pen tool, gradient mesh tool) and learning to use Blender. It depends on the artist and how well you know your vector software which I'm still learning to use.
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i've always been skeptic about workshops : why someone would teach you his secrets instead of being in the field shooting
more photos ?
Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog).
They might try to, but I assure you plenty of people can't teach. Even successful experts in their fields are rarely good teachers.
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i've always been skeptic about workshops : why someone would teach you his secrets instead of being in the field shooting
more photos ?
Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog).
They might try to, but I assure you plenty of people can't teach. Even successful experts in their fields are rarely good teachers.
exactly.
to teach effectively you need a lot of human and social skills.
and in public schools it's a mission/vocation, rather than a job...
but back to workshops : is your voice loud enough to be heard ? can you "sell" your vision about technicaland artistic aspects ?
are you updated or you still talk about film cameras ? how do you deal
with "slow" students ? how do you deal with "rebels" and trolls ? and the list can go on and on ...
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And some of the people selling expertise don't really have that great of a track record with selling stock images. Why would I buy their expertise? It's like hiring an investment advisor who's broke.
well, in fact, many of these investment advisors ARE broke. they lost all their investors money... and their own
in the last market corrections. I also remember one such establishment way back in the 80's 90's that was teaching Investment Strategy, and each of them were "Investment Experts". They started a mutual fund, and it got broke with the following crash.
I am sure these dudes are back somewhere being part of some brokerage firm handling our investment portfolios.
back to topic, the dudes who is conducting clinics could always buy images from IS of yours, SJLocke,etc..
and use them in their slide presentation, and no one could be the wiser , though !
;)
like those wedding photographers who ripped off wedding portraits while moonlighting as lab assistants in some custom labs. (this one is actually what someone in the stores tell me some years back).
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I completely disagree with that article, it's just a marketing spin to sell subscriptions to his "Selling Stock" website.
Not to mention he's more famous about what he writes about the stock industry rather than the photos he's
actually selling.
Unfortunately there seems to be more and more people every day that are trying to make money by selling their "expertise" rather than actually doing it.
And some of the people selling expertise don't really have that great of a track record with selling stock images. Why would I buy their expertise? It's like hiring an investment advisor who's broke.
Because you can write whatever you like about yourself on the internet, and the internet attracts lots of very stupid people who believe anything they read.
I am surprised at how many actually believe everything they read. But I am even more astounded at how many go along with the smoke and mirrors when they know better.
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I am surprised at how many actually believe everything they read. But I am even more astounded at how many go along with the smoke and mirrors when they know better.
Agreed^^
I never realized how naive a lot of people are until I started selling stock. Apparently the vast majority believe the people in advertisements they see actually USE the products! They are shocked to learn what stock is and that it is in so many advertisements.
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Apparently the vast majority believe the people in advertisements they see actually USE the products! They are shocked to learn what stock is and that it is in so many advertisements.
I used to assume that adverts/websites that feature a pretty girl wearing a headset , usually with the tagline "Phone us on ... " was actually who I was going to speak to.
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Sorta related - I used to think that human interest and soft news stories in the newspaper were the ideas of editors and writers.
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I used to assume that adverts/websites that feature a pretty girl wearing a headset , usually with the tagline "Phone us on ... " was actually who I was going to speak to.
Stop reading the adverts on cards in phone boxes :D
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I used to assume that adverts/websites that feature a pretty girl wearing a headset , usually with the tagline "Phone us on ... " was actually who I was going to speak to.
LOL! So who you thought you were talking to was this:
(http://www.pbase.com/lisafx/image/123220994.jpg)
But who you were actually talking to was this:
(http://www.pbase.com/lisafx/image/123220996.jpg)
:-* :o ;D
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back to topic, the dudes who is conducting clinics could always buy images from IS of yours, SJLocke,etc..
and use them in their slide presentation, and no one could be the wiser , though !
One of my bride images is on the cover of a digital wedding photography book.
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back to topic, the dudes who is conducting clinics could always buy images from IS of yours, SJLocke,etc..
and use them in their slide presentation, and no one could be the wiser , though !
One of my bride images is on the cover of a digital wedding photography book.
voila, I rest my case, Mr. Locke !
not everyone will turn to the back of the page to read the fine print who took the image. the general perception will be the author is the photographer of all the images . thus, same perception at a seminar of how to make $$$ selling stock photos.
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back to topic, the dudes who is conducting clinics could always buy images from IS of yours, SJLocke,etc..
and use them in their slide presentation, and no one could be the wiser , though !
One of my bride images is on the cover of a digital wedding photography book.
One of my images was on the front cover of a 'how to improve your snaps in Photoshop' magazine as the "after correction image". The before image was a desaturated/contrast reduced version of the uploaded one (which did in fact look scarily like my out of the camera image!)
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back to topic, the dudes who is conducting clinics could always buy images from IS of yours, SJLocke,etc..
and use them in their slide presentation, and no one could be the wiser , though !
One of my bride images is on the cover of a digital wedding photography book.
One of my images was on the front cover of a 'how to improve your snaps in Photoshop' magazine as the "after correction image". The before image was a desaturated/contrast reduced version of the uploaded one (which did in fact look scarily like my out of the camera image!)
slightly OT,
Sean, Sue,..
would such a usage be considered Editorial?
eg. if you have a shot of a wedding or a bride , but you were not able to get a MR ...
because the bride is a foreign bride or whatever the reasons.
and say you give it to stock as Editorial. and someone used it on the cover of his book like this .
Is it possible?
My asking is, actually , are book covers also considered Editorials?
Do such images have sale potential ?
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Funny this! back in the 80s, with agencies like Tony-Stone and The-Image-Bank ( nowdays owned by Getty), there used to be a whole heap of photographers earning well over 100K per year. That was regarded as "pretty good" because there were som top names that even clocking up earnings of betwwen 300-400K per year. Not bad, hey?
This was in the Trad-agencies hey-day, good old days.
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Funny this! back in the 80s, with agencies like Tony-Stone and The-Image-Bank ( nowdays owned by Getty), there used to be a whole heap of photographers earning well over 100K per year. That was regarded as "pretty good" because there were som top names that even clocking up earnings of betwwen 300-400K per year. Not bad, hey?
This was in the Trad-agencies hey-day, good old days.
ah yes, lagereek, but those were the good ole days.
in those days, I was a bloody green horn beginning, new to the business, yet I was earning far more than I am earning now as a retired.
I remember my first photo essay earning me $150 per page of 5 photos and a short essay. Today, the editors offer a tearsheet and credit...
not even a danish and coffee.
in those days, not everyone can afford a view camera, or a Nikon F, and even if they did, not everyone knows how to use anything
other than the Instamatic.
Today, a chimp could take better images with any DSLR if you give them enough bananas to eat. :D
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Can I really earn a full time income from microstock?
I think its possible but not very easy.
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i've always been skeptic about workshops : why someone would teach you his secrets instead of being in the field shooting
more photos ?
Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog).
Completely agree, and thanks for separating "teach *or* blog". Not all blogs pretend to teach. ;)
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My asking is, actually , are book covers also considered Editorials?
Do such images have sale potential ?
Book covers apparently are not necessarily considered Editorial.
I had one on the cover of a biography with no credit, and when I asked (only on the forums, mind), the consensus was that this is not editorial use. Whereas I tend to think that editorial is sort-of equivalent to non-fiction, not just confined to the opinion column of a newspaper.
If only interpreted in the latter narrow way, what sense does it make for e.g. iStock to insist on credits only in editorial usage?
(Maybe everyone should be required to give credits, which would help transparency in advertising. Double whammy. ;D
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So you are saying you are not good photographer?
I know you are. Just joking.
Well I'm a bad poster here since Leaf keeps censoring me all the time. ;D
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My asking is, actually , are book covers also considered Editorials?
Do such images have sale potential ?
Book covers apparently are not necessarily considered Editorial.
I had one on the cover of a biography with no credit, and when I asked (only on the forums, mind), the consensus was that this is not editorial use. Whereas I tend to think that editorial is sort-of equivalent to non-fiction, not just confined to the opinion column of a newspaper.
If only interpreted in the latter narrow way, what sense does it make for e.g. iStock to insist on credits only in editorial usage?
(Maybe everyone should be required to give credits, which would help transparency in advertising. Double whammy. ;D
it's more a question of whether the use is on a commercial product [selling a book], or used to illustrate an editorial position [textbook,magazine article. thus you'd need to license a picture of a movie star to put on a book cover, but not for an artice in a newspaper
steve
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I wouldn't mind betting that there are quite a few earning these figures just with micro stock.
Funny this! back in the 80s, with agencies like Tony-Stone and The-Image-Bank ( nowdays owned by Getty), there used to be a whole heap of photographers earning well over 100K per year. That was regarded as "pretty good" because there were som top names that even clocking up earnings of betwwen 300-400K per year. Not bad, hey?
This was in the Trad-agencies hey-day, good old days.
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Agreed^^
I never realized how naive a lot of people are until I started selling stock. Apparently the vast majority believe the people in advertisements they see actually USE the products! They are shocked to learn what stock is and that it is in so many advertisements.
it should be mandatory to teach in schools how advertisement works and i would add also cinema
and music to top it off.
but i learnt the hard way that people eats anything they see on TV exactly because they lack
the minimum required skepticism and analytical skills needed to "reverse engineer" the crap
they see on ADS and propaganda of any sort.
they simply have no f... clue of how this world works nor they're the least interested
in reading a user's manual or whatever technical or anything that takes more than
their average attention span of 3-4 seconds.
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Funny this! back in the 80s, with agencies like Tony-Stone and The-Image-Bank ( nowdays owned by Getty), there used to be a whole heap of photographers earning well over 100K per year. That was regarded as "pretty good" because there were som top names that even clocking up earnings of betwwen 300-400K per year. Not bad, hey?
This was in the Trad-agencies hey-day, good old days.
I should think that should equate to $300k in todays money
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it should be mandatory to teach in schools how advertisement works and i would add also cinema
and music to top it off.
but i learnt the hard way that people eats anything they see on TV exactly because they lack
the minimum required skepticism and analytical skills needed to "reverse engineer" the crap
they see on ADS and propaganda of any sort.
ads are the best thing on TV - so bad they are interrupted by stupid shows
I particularly like the good old ads of the 60s which were promoting an irrealistic way of life full of parties and pretty girls and alcohol; nowadays unfortunately ads are talking about cheap products and special offers, and adjusted their style accordingly, way less cool - so I stopped watching TV
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Great Reading! Thanks for the link :)