Are you trying to make the whole panel that normally includes the pricing and download link disappear from the image page? I've been following Symbio for a long time and don't recall anyone trying to do that. There are ways to not show pricing - here is one example: http://www.backyardstockphotos.com/image/basilica-of-mongomo-in-equatorial-guinea-2/?r=www.backyardstockphotos.com

Here I set a license called Rights Managed and I think disabled all the price steps. But it still shows the pricing panel.

Symbiostock is quite a complex system if you simply want to display your portfolio without trying to license the images.

Steve

Hi - firstly, don't expect much luck in selling flowers. They may be really artistic, but there is massive oversupply and not much demand. This forum will help you a bit, but also consider reading some good (ie realistic) books about microstock - I'm one such author but there are others!

Anyway, to your question. I generally put single words with commas between them unless they really go together to better describe the subject. So I put White House as one keyword rather than white, house, as some (not all by any means) stock agencies use the compound keyword higher in the results if someone searches for White House. Capitalization doesn't matter, by the way, I just did it to help explain. So the full latin name for your flower should be one keyword even though it is usually two or more words.

Hope that helps. Big thing - keep your expectations for financial reward low and you will end up happier!

Steve

As the original poster, I thought I should update my experience as well. I've sold four prints this year in June, August, September and now October. Last year, it was definitely better towards the end of the year. I've just updated my blog with the latest sales.

Steve
http://www.backyardsilver.com/2014/10/fine-art-america-still-good/

I've been submitting to Image Brief for some time and recently won one brief for this:

for which I was awarded about $220. I've written a fuller explanation on my blog, but I find it really intriguing - partly as a way to make extra cash for my images, but mainly as a source of inspiration. If you are interested and want to use my referral link to be considered, here it is: www.imagebrief.com/r/M29T3q

The blog article is at: http://www.backyardsilver.com/2014/07/image-brief-get-real-money-images/

Good luck

Steve

Well, although this is a shameless plug, I do work out, for each of the main agencies I upload to, how much I earn per month per online image. With that information, you would be able to calculate your $100 income....

Just check out my book on my blog or on Amazon.

Steve

I've got a Symbiostock site (and have had for about 12 months now) and have uploaded some of my portfolio to it so I now have 3000 images for sale direct to the public. I don't particularly market it besides announcing sales on Twitter, and it is linked to from my own stock blog. Sales have been steady, but not fantastic this year - around $30 a month, but this month I have already sold 4 for a total of $44. Ok - nothing earth shattering.

I was writing a blog post this morning about the sales history and which images sold, when I realized that the same few images sell multiple times. The photos are OK - nothing unique - but one has sold 3 times, one twice, and a couple of others have sold very similar versions of each other. I'm struggling to work out why that should be - unless my twitter posts of sold images are making a big difference, you would have expected that with 3000 images to choose from (via a google search I'm assuming), I would have more variability.

Ideas? If I knew what I was doing right about these images, I could repeat it for some others!

The images are shown in this post: http://www.backyardsilver.com/2014/07/adventures-stock-agency-site/

Steve

Steve
Thanks for the info about FAA, I am just starting to upload images as another way of getting my images seen and hopefully create some extra revenue.
I was most interested in the link to your blog and the discussion about how you price your images on FAA and I thought I would look you up on FAA, to see the sort of images you sell etc. I also looked at your pricing and got the site to show a breakdown of the costs and I could not find any realtionship to the prices you say you sell your images for and what they are selling for on FAA, have you done this on purpose or and do you price your images individually.
I'm a little confused, can you please clarify?

Tahnks

David May

Sorry I missed this question. I went back to my default pricing and it is the same as I originally showed on my blog post http://www.backyardsilver.com/2013/12/fine-art-america-increasing-sales-photo-prints/.

However, when I look at the site for a standard print, I see the price is higher. Although I haven't spent much time on FAA recently, I think the approach was that I was setting the mark-up over and above the price of the printing itself. So for a 14inch print, I set the markup at 45.00. The site show that same size print as $57.00 - $50 for the print and $7.00 for the type of paper. However, there is no cheaper paper option than this $7 one. I suppose they are saying that the print costs $12.00 for glossy or luster at that size.

Is that the discrepancy you are seeing?

I would have to dig some more to come up with a better answer.

This is one I uploaded most recently and it seems to have followed the same pricing logic as my earlier ones, so nothing seems to have changed. I tried to make this one more painterly to attract the FAA audience, but no luck so far!
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/beautiful-early-morning-jefferson-memorial-steve-heap.html

I did get one sale earlier this month from FAA - so although my best period was December/January, I still get occasional sales.

Steve

Quote from: steheap on Today at 10:17
If you are using them in a way that looks like the model or property is representing your point of view or product, then you need those releases.

Is that the same for all the Symbio sites?
I just ask because iS and probably several others don't allow uses which suggest a model is endorsing a view or product. Is there one central 'conditions of use' for symbiostock?
Before you ask, I did try to find out for myself by going to www.symbiostock.com, as though I was a buyer, and couldn't see any easy way of finding that out. Or, indeed, how to find an image, far less buy one.

Yes, I meant that a commercial image with releases can be used to promote a product or a position - not that the specific person likes that product. There is no central set of Terms and Conditions for the Symbio sites - but the above comment is common across all images with releases - that is the whole point of a commercial stock image.  The images can be searched at http://symbiostock.info/ not at the site you referenced, which is more about the project itself.

Steve

same for me

Steve

Eric

As Sean says, if that is the full extent of your portfolio, then your earnings will be low. I tend to take a similar type of image (but have 5000+ now) so it might be worth reading my blog where I regularly talk about the sites that work for me and the ones that don't. I've been revisiting my own strategy now that I have a solid batch of images on micro sites - all my new ones that are interesting, unusual or difficult to find go on my Symbio site, Alamy and Corbis. Only the generic shots now go on the micros. Still too early to say if that is a great strategy, but I'll let it run its course and try to keep as many different routes to market available.

Steve

I meant to post this graph in this thread, but put it in the main Dollar Photo Club one instead. Here is the link to the full post.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/fotolia-d-day-(deactivation-day)-may-1/msg380004/#msg380004


Sorry... Steve

If you are members of NAPP or Kelby One as it now is, I suggest you send a message to Member Services on this page: http://members.photoshopuser.com/contact-us/

I've sent them a message saying how disappointed I am in them supporting this terrible business model and surely they must have known that a significant proportion of their members and readers must be working photographers and illustrators for whom this is a disaster in the making. I'll see if they reply, but it will be hard for them to ignore hundreds of messages from disappointed members.

Steve