I keep a ledger book with all my income and expenses, also keep receipts and separate PayPal and business checking and credit card accounts. We use Turbo Tax Small Business and it is pretty easy - they have a program that walks you through filing a Schedule C (self-employed in the US). Some agencies and clients send me a 1099 but many don't so I keep track of every penny. I also sometimes sell prints which require me to file a state sales tax report once a year, which I can do online with New York State. Even before I started with stock I was self-employed so I needed to keep track of income and expenses carefully. The nice thing about Turbo Tax is it carries over depreciation expenses from year to year for you on large equipment purchases and does all the calculations. I believe you can import from Quicken to Turbo Tax as well.

I don't do video so I'm not sure if this helps. I really like Photoshelter for hosting and licensing my photos. They don't host video but apparently you can imbed links - no idea if that would work for licensing though I'd guess you could send the files to clients. I often get contacted by clients via Photoshelter and sometimes up sending files rather than direct downloads because the client has questions or it's a magazine with a specific budget.

Anyway, here's what they say about video:
"At this time, we do not support the hosting of video files, but it is possible to embed video that is hosted on another site, such as Vimeo; if you're using our Beam platform, you can learn more here. If you're using our Classic Websites platform, simply copy and paste the embed codes into any page of your website that supports the embedding of HTML. "

This could be useless for you or it could work. I'd give them a call on Monday if you think it might work and get more info. They are very helpful and you can talk to a real person if you need to which I always find to be a big plus.

With the pro account you get unlimited space. Again, not sure what you're looking to do in terms of hosting but if the linking works, it might be an option.

I've been with Alamy since 2009 and have seen prices there dip, but this year they seemed to rise again. Despite a handful of sales in the <$10 range, my average download there this year was $75 - with $37.50 to me and best license there this year was $400 (of which I got $200), so despite some micro prices, most of my licenses this year were in $45-85 range, so I'd consider them in the midstock to macrostock range. In 2013 and 2014 my average license there was ~$40, so the improvement was noticeable this year.

Since many of us here are on Alamy, and since many here license images to both the macro and micro markets, it makes sense for Alamy to be in the poll - just as Getty, 500px, and Stocksy are also in here. As the stock photography market has changed, with more overlap between the macro and micro sites, IMHO it makes sense for all those sites to be listed here.

I have 800+ images. 2015 has been my best year to date in terms of revenue with pretty regular monthly sales and a higher RPD than last year.

I'm US based and they sell my concept, travel and editorial stuff.

About 1/3rd of my portfolio there is European travel and I've only sold a handful of those over the years - in contrast, my US images are often licensed by European magazines and the UK press.

CJH, I've done political events like you - I checked out your portfolio on DT - and while I've uploaded my best photos to Alamy, being in the US I've found that my non-similar images uploaded to SS have sold much more. But Alamy is a good place for secondary editorial as a single license can go for much more - though not as much as other types of images - most news images seem to be licensed there for only $35-50.

I was invited into the news channel at Alamy when they first started and have FTP privileges. Some of those photographs have sold later as secondary editorial, so it's not bad, but going forward I would split my images between the two. I see that you are exclusive with DT which I believe means you can only upload RM images to Alamy - I've sold some editorial images on DT as well, but I find the political stuff has done best on SS. If I did more of it, I'd try to get into Getty.

Good luck if you resubmit.

Quote from: anathaya on November 18, 2015, 22:26

Normally, I don't involve in a discussion if it's out of my interests. Sometimes I leave after halfway through if I lose my interest. Then I don't worry what others discuss about. Probably you can try the same. No one is forced to involve in each and every thread. Just a suggestion. 

while we're OT, can anyone recommend the best diaper for incontinence

Really, over 100 innocent people died and you're making jokes like this?

You asked about DT:
I have just a handful from "Assignment" contests on there. They all keep selling even nearly two years after uploading - probably because they are exclusive due to the "Assignment" rules. I may pull them off exclusivity when the two years lapses and try them on the other phone app sites, though then they'll lose their DT rank. DT often does okay for me, so I may just leave them there. For the iPhone pix, I get some $10 credit sales and some $0.42 subs. It's a mix. They get licensed fairly regularly.

I don't think DT has an actual app for phone pix - I'm not on there much but the ones I have on there were from an assignment asking for iPhoneography.

I've toyed with jumping on the band wagon and uploading more mobile pix, but I feel like it's a fad and really wonder how many people who are paying for photos (even if they're paying very little) want to pay for an iPhone photo?

I know one woman at Alamy who sells a lot for good prices on Stockimo but she has hundreds of iPhone pix and she shoots them like studio work and does a lot of post.

Actually, images are either accepted or rejected into the Marketplace (i.e. 500px Prime) and can end up in either the Core or the Prime Collection - I don't know how they decide between the two. I've had two images rejected and they are still in my 500px portfolio but not available for sale even in the Core Collection. All the rest are in the Marketplace and they seem to make a decision very quickly.

I hope they are successful. I really like the look of the site and the feel of the collection.

Is it one of the bricks and mortar shops that Fine Art America has partnered with? Are you on FAA?
I've found my work featured on some of their sites. Hoping they report sales properly but have to assume the business is run properly. My feeling is if my work is featured as part of their program, chances of a sale are better. I think those places are free to set their own prices.

Photoshelter could be more user friendly but I have buyers willing to contact me directly, pay me via PayPal and I email them a file or a download link.  I've made more this year selling stock direct than from all the sites I'm on combined. I've also earned much more from Alamy this year than in the past and a bit from other small traditionally-priced agencies. My microstock income has increased too, but I think that direct licensing and traditionally priced agencies are the way to go.

Small boutique agencies are probably best. I'm with Alamy but their RPI isn't great.

I'd work on getting into places like Stocksy, Trevallion, and places like that. I'd also suggest licensing traditionally-priced images on your own. I'm happy with Photoshelter, despite any shortcomings in their customer interface, they bring in high-end editorial clients, I've licensed images to Smithsonian Magazine, Coastal Living, and many other advertisers and magazines who were searching Photoshelter and found my work, my images there are also found through google searches. 

I'd also suggest getting Photographer's Market - a good way to find direct clients to license your work to - and of course for assignments which pay better than stock, if that interests you.

I went on to check my fotolia/Adobe sales and they just licensed one of my Fotolia Instant iPhone photos today - they also licensed another iPhone image for me a while back - so I've had 2 sales with 7 images on Instant.

With a tiny port (~60 files uploaded since joining in June) even a 100% increase wouldn't be statistically significant, but I have seen steady sales and significant growth since September and am encouraged to put the rest of my microstock portfolio on there. Unfortunately, a subset of my best sellers elsewhere - light blurs and the like - have been rejected because Fotolia has too many similar images in their portfolio so I won't be able to add everything there, but so far growth is encouraging.
I find it hard to believe I could sell more in one week than someone with over 2700 images, but I guess I did.