Cool and unique shots. I'm certainly not allowed in Mecca

One advice would be to get closer to the worshipers, if possible. I see a lot of wide angle stuff which is great but to tell a more complete story you may need to focus on the individuals more.

OK there is some processing/keywording cost of my time but I go there anyway and take pictures. I don't aim for a perfect beach shot but one that will make a few $.

Yes, I agree and would add that if you're at special beach location, show the beach PLUS something typical of that location.

Here's an example of one I did in Rio at a rooftop bar. The number of downloads has paid for the cost of the kiwi caipirinha 50x.

If you're in the Italian northern lakes, grab that aperol spritz, in Thailand a coconut, etc, etc.

It's the first time I will be doing some street photography.

Ah cool! Just understand that some people don't like getting their pictures taken, which is fair enough. Sometimes you may have to ask someone to get their picture taken and most of the time it will be OK. The foods and spices in Morocco are amazing with all the vibrant colours. I'm sure you'll get amazing shots! Here's another one I got in Israel and easy to replicate.

The 6 hours with the photo journalist sounds expensive, I think you can just experiment yourself and check out videos on youtube before you go.

but it will take me one year to earn that sort of money with microstock.

Perhaps even longer!

I agree, touring with 30 people is no fun but I would not want to tour Morocco on my own. I don't know what to do regarding model release. I am doing a half day photography tour organised by photographers who live in Marrakech. They are paying these people. There might be 5 other photographers on the tour. I have not used Easyrelease yet. Would there be even time for model releases? The 10 day tour will take us into the Atlas mountains, also to Fez, Casablanca, Rabat...

In this case, don't worry so much about model releases and shoot editorial. You may still be able to sneak in some shots without requiring a MR, such as the one attached.

I've never used Easyrelease so can't comment.

I bet there are a dozen of copycats already uploading the same concept as we speak, another dozen making the same picture as we speak and another dozen thinking about doing it!

is imitation is the greatest form of flattery? 

you earn 400 dollar and you are happy....it seems so strange with such portfolio you can be happy of sales...

Yes, it depends on your expectations. Many come into this game expecting to make $10 RPI/year and this is just not possible anymore in Micros for 99% of cases.

I'll take $400 a month from 2700 portfolio but it still isn't enough to cover all my expenses, but it helps offset some costs.

Meanwhile, I'll look to milk what I can from my premium images (so far not happening but I'm optimistic).

Bulgaria must be a nice place, I would love to visit some of the resorts on the Black Sea and try out the beluga caviar!   

It's pretty tough out there but there's also new and interesting opportunities that were not available a few years ago, notably:

1. Drones: if you become an expert now you will be way ahead of the game and produce stunning and unique images;
2. Photo request sites like Imagebrief that pay well if you have the right (RM) shot;
3. Sites that allow mobile phone images - see attachment of such sites. This is quite exciting to get those sneaky street photography shots as well as candid lifestyle images.

It's not all doom and gloom, there's opportunities out there.

I upload to 5-7 agencies, in December mostly holiday pictures from Nice, France and since January photos from my world tour (I travel for 8 months). I used this guide as orientation

I visit Nice and Cote D'Azur a few times a summer and often takes images there. Unfortunately, most of the images don't do so well. I think there's just too much competition.

Perhaps if you go during the Cannes film festival and snap at celebrities it would be more interesting but generic marina and promenade-type shots are dime a dozen. Otherwise during the F1 in Monaco.

Here's one I took in Cannes that is licensed quite regularly even though it's an average editorial.

Keep going, this is a marathon, not a sprint.

I had a $5.73 sale today, the first this year�
30% for Alamy, 40% as Distributor commission and 30% ($1.72) for me!

Yeah, Alamy is great!!

I'll take $1.72 over 25 cents any day!

Alamy vs Microstock

Pros:
- Alamy live news
- Accepts almost everything
- RM = usually higher commission and more control over your images
- Also higher commissions with RF, generally
- First step up into Midstock

Cons:
- Takes ages for images to start getting noticed, which can be discouraging
- Need large portfolio
- Confusing as to which types of images will do well (stay aware of trends)

Verdict:
Depends on your types of images. If you're shooting generic potato on white background stuff stick with Micros, but if your images are becoming more "premium", please don't license them as RF at Micros (imo). In addition, if you're venturing into editorials, it's worth checking out Alamy's Live News feed (images must be taken within a 48 hour period).

Overall, personally, I'm sticking with Alamy even if it's taking a while to get some momentum. The short-term subs download at a Micro is deceiving since it's so little, but better than nothing. However, I rather ignore those short-term subs for real commissions in the longer-term but this requires patience and discipline.

I wrote about this recently and made a parallel with the marshmallow test:

"Take the Marshmallow test

This test was devised in the 1960s by researchers at Stanford University, who gave children the choice between one reward (such as a marshmallow) they could eat immediately, and a larger reward (two marshmallows) for which they would have to wait for up to 20 minutes. Years later, researchers found that the children who had waited to get two marshmallows in the initial experiment generally fared better in life.  They concluded that the children who win the marshmallow test are those best able to make the leap into abstract symbolic thinking and actually �picture� the benefits brought on by delayed gratification.

Under RF at Microstock, it should begin to license almost immediately, but your commission would be relatively small (usually only subscription licenses at 25cents). However, if you delay gratification by uploading the image into a Macrostock RM Agency, you may wait  a while, but you will earn considerably more commission when it is finally licensed. This is certainly true of my experience at Alamy where it generally takes about one year and at least a 1,000 quality-image portfolio before images are finally licensed."

Do you get worthwhile sales with Robert Harding? I know they've been around for a long time. about 90% of my portfolio is travel - from the US and Europe - and it sells for me via my site, direct to clients and via Alamy, and more generic on the micros, but I'd like to see better revenues per photo. With that in mind, are they worth applying to? I have a large volume of travel that is currently RM, which I could pull, and other work not yet on any sites.

I've joined with them 2 months ago and have only got 53 images accepted there. No earnings as of yet. I have to say that they are extremely picky with what they accept into the collection (53 images out of 160 submitted for 33% acceptance rate). Perhaps you would have a better return.

I'm not thrilled about the exclusivity and only 30% earnings but let's see...

I'd say, try them out and aim to have at least 300 images and after a year to see how you're doing.

Here's my portfolio there:

https://www.robertharding.com/alexandrerotenberg

I'll bite.

Photography is one of the easiest hobbies to get into right now. Everyone and their grandma has a camera with a phone. There are 600 million Instagram users and many of them consider themselves photographers. The stock photography market is one of the most saturated markets in existence and the value of photos are dropping by the day. There is nothing anyone can do about it. Everyone already knows the laws of supply of demand, so it speaks for itself.

So what is the solution? There is no one solution that fits all. There are a number of solutions and whether it works or not depends on the talent and determination of the contributor. So what are possible solutions?

1. Diversity. Photos, vectors and videos. A pure photography portfolio is going the see faster continued decline than a diverse one.

2. Think commercially. Original ideas doesn't mean anything unless it's something the buyers need. I've seen some of my original ideas getting outperformed by non-original ideas by 100-1.

3. Stop going after niches. Pebble watch tried to fill a niche and now it's dead, got destroyed by Apple and Android watches. Niches always get filled in by the big guys sooner or later.

4. Learn some SEO and keywordings. With 100 million images on SS, top-notch keywording is super important if you want your work to be found. An image with good keywording is more resistant to search engine changes. Native English speakers have an advantage over foreign contributors and I rarely see them take advantage of it.

5. Learn to compete with the best of them. Contributors are not entitled to get sales because they uploading some images, just like how college students are not entitled to a job just because they have a degree. Buyers only need a few images and if what you're offering is not up there with best of them, then the buyer will pass your image over. That's just reality.

6. Learn a new trade. Microstock was my 2nd passive income trade, right after developing apps. The App market has gone to **** and Microstock is heaven compared to that madness. Less work and much higher returns. I'm now working on my 3rd passive income stream and it's starting to gain traction.

7. Accept that the market is never going backwards. No nuclear bomb will be going off destroying everything and rebirthing the market. Even if does happen, all the contributors will fill it back up in a matter of weeks. The market will continue to saturate, just like every other industry in existence. This makes point #5 super important.

So go ahead, bltch, moan and complain. It won't solve problems. Meanwhile, some optimistic upstart somewhere is determined to create and upload high valued content and start eating other people's lunches.

I like the list and can agree with pretty much everything but point 3 really bothers me.

Granted some niches are easily to replicate, but i think overall it's better to be a specialist in a few areas of photography than a generalist in many. In my opinion, more than niche it's about identifying trends that will be popular in the near future.