MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - StockbyNumbers

Pages: [1] 2 3 4
1
Shutterstock.com / Re: Anyone have sales today?
« on: March 11, 2018, 13:49 »
Just showed the earnings again. Seems back to normal.

2
Shutterstock.com / Re: Anyone have sales today?
« on: March 10, 2018, 10:00 »
I think there is some kind of reporting glitch. I got a clip sold for first time notification and the earning doesnt show up in the app or online portal.

3
I am currently averaging almost $40 / day from footage on SS with a port of around 750 clips.

On pace to be my best month ever by far. Definitely a huge jump in sales for some reason. Haven't really grown the port for a few months too. Seems like there may be something causing it. Maybe a big marketing push?

4
General - Stock Video / Re: February Footage Income Report
« on: March 09, 2018, 16:50 »
Thanks for sharing Cobalt.

It never actually occurred to me to create tiered pricing, but makes total sense.

I am going to keep my current pricing for a few months to see if I can spot a really radical trend based on my last pricing change, but will then try what you've suggested.

Glad you found this info useful as well!

5
General - Stock Video / Re: February Footage Income Report
« on: March 09, 2018, 15:56 »
Have you done much experimenting with lowering or raising your pricing?...any insights?

Hey wds - I'm in the process of testing pricing right now at P5. I don't have a huge portfolio, so it might not come up with any real concrete conclusions, but could be helpful.

I lowered my prices a few weeks ago after keeping them steady for about a year and saw sales volume increase almost immediately, but this could have just been a coincidence.

I did actually write about this on my site a few weeks ago, since you ask. Although it seems like there might be some sensitivity here about mentioning that...

6
General - Stock Video / Re: February Footage Income Report
« on: March 09, 2018, 15:52 »
Do you have a question? I dont get it. Is this to draw us to your blog or something?

When I started out in stock I found James Orlowski's updates and those of contributors like backyardsilver really valuable. Don't think I would have earned what I have without them.

Not sure I see what the issue is, but open to feedback.

7
General - Stock Video / Re: Worried because sales have stoped
« on: March 05, 2018, 22:42 »
StockbyNumbers, your website is great!  Very helpful and detailed info on sales etc.

It's great to hear that people are enjoying the writing! It's been a lot of fun and really helpful for me to try to track my own progress and stay honest about what I am really getting done / how much I am making for the time I'm spending. Don't want to take the thread off-topic, but appreciate the kind words.

8
General - Stock Video / Re: Worried because sales have stoped
« on: March 05, 2018, 22:40 »
StockNumbers, how many clips do you have now?

I have around 800 on P5, SS, and VB. Just getting my port onto Dissolve, Videohive and Adobe now.

9
General - Stock Video / February Footage Income Report
« on: March 05, 2018, 12:09 »
Hi all - wrote up a quick report on my progress in February.

$575 from just P5 and SS.

More info can be found in my signature link if youre interested.

Would appreciate any advice, insights, critique, etc.

10
General - Stock Video / Re: Worried because sales have stoped
« on: March 04, 2018, 16:17 »

Thank you, yes it is not a total stop because I sold in SS, but just 1 video, when the previus month I sold 5, in AS and pond it is a stop :(

But, yes I know and you said me in the other thread that is normal to have to wait 6 or more months to the incomes get up, but as I stareted to sell I thought that the selling had stareted to grow... anyway I will wait hoping to take off.

By the way: nice web, thanks for sharing your experience, and very nice work!!

Thanks for the kind words about the site and my work - I hope your sales pick back up soon and thanks again for keeping us posted.

P5 has been taking off for me lately since I adjusted my prices down a bit, but I think yours are even more competitive price wise, so not sure that would be the reason. For some reason it does seem to go in waves, some really great months, then almost nothing. I'm not sure if it is luck, season, or maybe something to do with their search algorithms. Hoping to know more as time goes on and my portfolio grows.

11
Pond5 / Re: Is POND5 still active?
« on: March 03, 2018, 16:58 »
Sure is - glad you found it helpful! Hopefully P5 gets back to you at some point soon.

12
Pond5 / Re: Is POND5 still active?
« on: March 02, 2018, 17:43 »
Have you contacted them? At one point my entire account went offline, all clips wouldnt show up in search for about three weeks. Contacted them and they said it was just a glitch, restored everything the next day.

Something similar might be going on...

13
Microstockrs ux is miles ahead. But jury is still out for me. Using both currently to see which I gravitate to more often. Lately its been Microstockr.

14
General Stock Discussion / Re: Addictive Stock Creatives
« on: March 02, 2018, 17:36 »
Exclusive for footage as well?? Seems like a tough sell...

15
General - Stock Video / Re: Worried because sales have stoped
« on: February 27, 2018, 21:12 »
Ive had long spells without a sale at various agencies. Not a stop at all of them at once. If that is the case it might just be the wrong season for your content.

I wouldnt worry too much though. It could be that your clips got exposure in the newest feed and have fallen off since. Ive found it takes six - 12 months for a shoots clips to sell well, as discussed in your other thread.

Thanks for keeping us posted on your progress.

16
No problem! Good luck and let us know how it goes!

17
General Stock Discussion / Re: Addictive Stock Creatives
« on: February 25, 2018, 15:42 »
Hi Soma - just to clarify, we would be getting 60% of the 35% commission from the agency, say if a clip sells on Adobe Stock, correct?

Not 60% of the actual price paid by the customer?

18
It looks like your source recording frame rate is 23.976, so you would probably want to change the TV standard to NTSC and output frame rate to 23.976 as well.

Unless you were changing the original speed of the clip, you can leave time interpolation blank. Otherwise optical flow is fine.

CBR bitrate encoding just means that you are using a constant bit rate for each from of video, which isn't really necessary, depending on how fast your machine is, you'll achieve very similar quality with smaller file sizes if you change it VBR 2 pass.

For h.264 Shutterstock does ask for "best" encode quality, which would probably mean 300mbps, but unless you were recording RAW files with an Inspire 1, that is a higher original bit-rate than your source footage, so it's overkill and just going to lead larger file sizes. If this was a Phantom 3 or 4, you can set the target bit rate to 200mbps and that would be plenty high.

Square pixels and progressive field order are both correct.

19

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. When you say you earn outside of subscription markets - do you mean you work 'in person'? Or do you just mean you are still selling footage 'online', but just outside of the subscription model?

Just that I have not sold any clips into a subscription platform outright, like to videoblocks. Not that I wouldn't, just haven't been approached.

20
I've found that trading in-kind services has been really appealing for actors as well as models. I think it gives them a kind of moving headshot reel. I was approached by several newer actors recently about doing in lieu of payment altogether, looking for something just to show potential agents and casting directors until they had more roles under their belts. A few of them were coming from a theater background, so they could act well but didn't have a lot on camera yet.

I think the model vs. actor distinction is an important one though. Working with actual actors vs. models has been my preference as I don't shoot anything that is focused specifically around fashion or needing a professional model. Having someone that can act naturally, take direction openly, and adjust quickly has been really valuable - in my experience those who market themselves as actors specifically have been much better at all of the above.

21
Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I think there are a couple of things that will keep us in business as producers. I could see this becoming less "passive" income though over the long run.

I think that right now subscription agencies have a huge pool of stock media to purchase from since the model is fairly new, but stock footage has been produced and available for a long time. Since there is so much older content that footage producers have already seen a return on, we might be willing to sell it off for a one-time fee. As this pool decreases though the value for new footage would go up and subscription services will have to pay more for new content. Demand for 4K and maybe even 6K, 8K will increase as well. If too many producers stop producing and footage production drops too much they'll be in a tight spot, as their libraries won't stay current.

I think the result of all of this would be that we would be working more on a fixed fee basis, or more and more of a mixed basis. If I know that an agency will buy 100 clips of mine for $30 each, that would probably make a one day stock shoot worth doing. The tricky part is that if it remains speculative, where there is no guarantee they will want your footage, it would be harder to stay in the game as the risk would be so high.

I think a mix of subscription and market still makes the most sense for agencies (in relation to their bottom line, not necessarily ours...). It gives them the ability to see what content sells best before buying it. This would also still give us producers an incentive to list in marketplaces, knowing that we would see some return before the content was purchased for subscription.

That's a long thought, getting back to your first question - I would try to keep producing the highest quality, in-demand, footage as possible for as little time and money as possible. That simple. If the prices drop too much, I'd move on, but considering that my earnings outside of subscription markets over the last year and a half have been growing really quickly, I don't see day zero coming anytime soon.

22
I usually do some combination of pay and in kind services as well. Usually around minimum wage wherever Im shooting, all meals and transportation, and frame grabs from footage along with a few clips included.

In total the value of all of this for talent can be north of $500 per day. The cost / time for me to produce materials for them is less than this I figure.

Ive had some great talent be excited for this agreement.

Ive paid higher when needing a specific look or for more experienced actors. Or if I dont want to take the time to correspond and deliver extra materials. In that case usually between $20 - $50 / hour.

Id recommend doing at least a Skype introduction / audition beforehand and asking the talent to actually act some thugs out. While this may seem awkward, I think its really important to determine how comfortable they are being on the spot and on camera.

Ive had an experience where I hired talent who had great headshots and a good reel, but was more of a model, so when we started shooting they were really rigid and unnatural. Made me appreciate someone with more experience.

23
Potentially more for footage as being able to act well can speed things up and give better results. But overall I dont think so.

25
I didnt get started until mid 2016, but I still made around $1,000 by the end of the year. My return per download nearly tripled  in 2017 though.

I doubled the size of my port but my earnings went up to around $6,500. Almost at $1,000 this year as well so off to a faster start.

Some of this growth is probably due to the time it took for my port to become established, so hard to know whether things are getting better yet.

Should have some idea at the end of this year though.

Pages: [1] 2 3 4

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors