Yes, those Canadian landscapes are pretty impressive! The viewer count seems very low though - 18 for the one with the snow-covered bench with lake beyond.

I always think that if I have gone to the trouble to process an image to put it somewhere (to sell as a print perhaps), I might as well upload it to the stock agencies as that step is not much effort these days. I know there is always a risk that someone wanting a print will buy a stock photo instead, but I doubt if that happens very often and if they are so keen to save money, they might just download one of my images for free and print that in Walmart.

But good luck with Alamy!

Steve

I finally got round to writing my end of December 2024 earnings report. It was a great month overall, but mainly because of almost as many print on demand sales as stock image licensing! December was really poor in terms of pure stock income with just $1900 coming from the stock agencies. As I mentioned in another post here, the sales of my prints rocketed to $1600 for the month in profit. I also looked at the annual income from stock and fine art over the year. This shows what most people are seeing - I peaked in 2021 (mainly because I created some really popular covid type images in 2020), but it has been a steady decline after that. Here is that graph


And the full report is here: https://backyardsilver.com/december-2024-stock-photo-earnings-report/

Steve

I use both Pictorem and Easy Canvas Prints depending on what is bought. And sometimes print and ship paper prints up to 13x19 myself. Pictorem does have a drop ship approach where they include my certificate and don't include any invoice or other details. I think you can modify this to make your own brand, but I haven't bothered so far. I'm only offering to send prints to the USA and Canada at present, so I don't have to bother with international shipping or getting them printed in other countries. I may do, but not yet.

Steve

Thanks for mentioning my recent post. My actual stock sales for December are very poor and the overall earnings total is unlikely to be great, but my "fine art" stuff has sold very well this month which has driven my annual sales in that area to a new record of almost $8000. I don't claim to have some secret knowledge on how to sell your images as prints - just a lot of small practices that over time have made the difference!

Steve

I'm not sure I know what you mean about linking product on Etsy. This is one of my products - https://www.etsy.com/listing/1686435258/alaska-sunset-metal-print-alaska - just a normal link? If you mean, how do you list a product, I have written an article about it: https://backyardsilver.com/selling-physical-prints-in-an-etsy-shop/

FAA uploads are the same regardless of whether you pay or not. Slow and time consuming!

Steve

Yes, FAA do advertising for you on Google, and if you search for a piece of wall art of a particular location, you will often see some FAA images that match that search. I occasionally have seen sales that way. I also have a website aimed at potential buyers but I do not use it as a place to host lots of images. I can't imagine anyone going to my website to browse through hundreds or thousands of potential images. So self-hosting a portfolio is a waste of time in my view. Instead, I have created one website for potential buyers, which is not linked in any way to my blog about stock photography and making money from photos.

I use this website to write articles about places I have photographed and I tell the story of the place and illustrate it with my best images. I add a link to the Print on Demand site under each of these photos so that if someone likes the photo and is interested in buying it, they can click through and see the options for framing and sizing etc. So all my social media efforts are often linked to promoting this website and articles and I have found that if you search for something like "Coopers Rock Snow" on Google, my article about a recent visit (last month) to a local beauty spot comes up in the top position and I hope someone will visit that and enjoy the photographs. It would be very hard to do that with a portfolio of photos I believe.

I've written articles about some cruises and I publicize them on Facebook groups about that cruise line and I get lots of views and great comments about the photographs that way. It seems a good way to build an audience and get visibility to my work.

Its at https://www.backyardimage.com/ if you are interested.

So, to answer the question - FAA is worth it if you are willing to put the effort into marketing.

Steve

Best month for a long time - $4433 all told. More details on my blog: https://backyardsilver.com/earnings-from-photography-in-june-2023/

Steve

A friend gave me the answer (I think!). I use Stock Submitter and in the "Other Parameters/Other Metadata" section is a setting for location. I never really use that, and it is set as a default to United States.

In future I need to either set that to the country in question or set it to Unspecified. Looks like SS has started comparing this setting in the metadata with the keywords or description.

Steve

Yes, I'm here! I don't come here anything like as often as I used to. I've got photos to work on and social media stuff to do!

Steve

Last year was my BYE in terms of total income (been here since 2006). I don't give my work to these sorts of sites at all and the lower paying micros get none of my new work.

That's great and a very valid point. What none of us know is what would have happened if we had made a different decision. I may have earned more from fewer agencies or you may have lost income that otherwise you would have received. It is one of those unknowable questions I'm afraid.

I've spent most of the past year trying to boost my fine art sales with perhaps a little success. Not great, but there are signs of progress, especially since I moved my efforts to my new Pictorem site rather that Fine Art America. I've sold three metal prints there in the past month.

I've written numerous articles about what I have tried, and these are two of the latest ones:

https://backyardsilver.com/boosting-print-sales-using-social-media/
https://backyardsilver.com/new-activity-on-twitter-for-promoting-our-portfolios/

Happy to explain more if needed, but I think these and the earlier ones cover most of my results.

Steve

If I search for something with fewer results - such as Cheat Lake print - my images appear in the top row of organic results and Pictorem in there alongside FineArtAmerica and Pixels. The latter ones have been online for much longer. So they do get there, but there will be many fewer in a popular place like New York?

I've been impressed so far. This is the article where I mentioned my sales:

https://backyardsilver.com/say-again-earnings-from-stock-photography-have-increased/

You can choose your pricing (although in simpler ways than FAA) and I have chosen a margin of $20 per square inch of print. I have a feeling that people buy larger prints because it is not as expensive as I had on FAA and the shipping is free. You also get to know the email and name of the buyers so you could add them to your mailing list (perhaps!)

So far, so good.

Steve