Hi eveyone. Im new here and pretty new to microstock as an illustrator.

I was wondering how many of you upload to multiple stock sites? Im on 6 now and cant beleive how time consuming it is just uploading and organising. Just dont know if it is worth it. It takes time away from my hobby.

How do you guys/girls feel about it? Or is there an easier way of managing it?

The name is chris btw.

Use filezilla for FTP.
Use IPTC.
Do not upload all files at one day. For example dreamstime will reject all your isolated files maybe with the reason to combine them (happened to me). So you maybe will waste a lot of time.

Think twice before uploading. SS is very easy to upload. Bigstock is a shame.
Stockfresh has a daily uploadlimit. Do you need this agency? Is it worth to upload daily? You have to check that for yourself. Some agencys are very easy. At a few you just need to upload your images and not more.
Some guys use software to upload to multiple agencys. Maybe this is a solution.
Good Luck.

Agreed.

Using ftp for the sites that allow it and filling in your IPTC data before hand is a huge time saver. Usually I just start the upload on every site, go shower or eat or whatever ... come back and finish and submit them.

Hi Chris
I have photos on 17 sites, and I'm thinking of joining some more. At some sites I do well, at other's I hardly sell anything. Shutterstock is by for the best, I make about 70% of all my money there. I've been with them for 8 years now. iStock used to do very well, but lately almost all the sales with them are subs. Dreamstime also used to do good, but there has been a huge drop in sales lately.
As for uploads, I use FileZilla, after I added keywords in Photoshop. I used to hop from site to site, but at this stage I upload to one site for a month, and then next month another site. That also have its negatives. With some sites it seems to have an influence on where your files show in the search. November I did Shutterstock, December iStock and this month I'm uploading to Bigstock. (I actually find uploading to Bigstock very fast and easy). I can already see a slump at Shutterstock because I haven't uploaded there for almost two months. Some images also do better at some sites than other. At Yaymicro, where I have a very small portfolio, editorials sell much much better than other photos.

Hi thanks for all yhe replies. I have my 10 vectors submitted to ss so hopefully i will get at least 7 accepted fingers crossed. Ive mainly been using istock untill now but havnt had much luck there  lately.

When you started driving, this was the car of the year. Things change.



You wouldn't go out and want to drive one of these would you? Microstock has changed too. It's not 2005 anymore.

While you are correct in the high quality you are also right with your other point that common images are also needed by the regular buyers, small users.

We just have 50 million competing images now and agencies pop up like mushrooms, claiming lower and lower prices, pay us lower and lower.

I wouldn't tell anyone new, that Microstock is a viable way to make extra money anymore. And I never would have said it was a good way to earn a living wage. Very few people made good money and even less do now.

Honestly if this is going to be just a hobby then who cares and have fun. If ya wanna make money with 50 Million Images as your competition Ya better get real Busy , Real quick. ya need thousands of High Commercial value Images to even make a dent. When i joined Microstock 10/11 Years ago there were 250,000 Total Images. Now almost that many get accepted every week Just at SS. And, That Number is killing the business as per individual Sales.

When you started driving, this was the car of the year. Things change.



You wouldn't go out and want to drive one of these would you? Microstock has changed too. It's not 2005 anymore.

While you are correct in the high quality you are also right with your other point that common images are also needed by the regular buyers, small users.

We just have 50 million competing images now and agencies pop up like mushrooms, claiming lower and lower prices, pay us lower and lower.

I wouldn't tell anyone new, that Microstock is a viable way to make extra money anymore. And I never would have said it was a good way to earn a living wage. Very few people made good money and even less do now.

Quote from: Rinderart on January 25, 2015, 16:12

Honestly if this is going to be just a hobby then who cares and have fun. If ya wanna make money with 50 Million Images as your competition Ya better get real Busy , Real quick. ya need thousands of High Commercial value Images to even make a dent. When i joined Microstock 10/11 Years ago there were 250,000 Total Images. Now almost that many get accepted every week Just at SS. And, That Number is killing the business as per individual Sales.

Completely agree!