Author Topic: Journey of selling stock images on your own website (Read 5261 times)

ribtoks · « **on:** November 01, 2023, 08:03 »

Hi folks

Luisa Fumi (aka gameover) wrote an interesting story about her experience with self-hosting here: https://xpiksapp.com/blog/selling-images-on-your-website/

Please let us know what do you think and maybe you also have a story to share? Will be definitely useful for others!

Cheers,
Taras

Evaristo tenscadisto · « **Reply #1 on:** November 01, 2023, 09:25 »

Quote from: ribtoks on November 01, 2023, 08:03

Hi folks

Luisa Fumi (aka gameover) wrote an interesting story about her experience with self-hosting here: https://xpiksapp.com/blog/selling-images-on-your-website/

Please let us know what do you think and maybe you also have a story to share? Will be definitely useful for others!

Cheers,
Taras

Lumi's journey through the various websites that she created to explore self-hosting in the microstock market is very interesting. Thank you for sharing the link.
My case is different.
I only stayed for one (wix) and it works as a kind of presentation of who I am with some promotional videos showing the diversity of work i can do. In the videos I leave a link where you can buy those and other clips or 2d/3d animations. Probably I am even more lazy and prefer not to have to deal with marketing, web design and self hosting. Instead i like invest my time in being creative - after all, it's what I enjoy most.

ribtoks · « **Reply #2 on:** November 01, 2023, 09:31 »

Quote from: Evaristo tenscadisto on November 01, 2023, 09:25

I only stayed for one (wix) and it works as a kind of presentation of who I am with some promotional videos showing the diversity of work i can do. In the videos I leave a link where you can buy those and other clips or 2d/3d animations.

Could you share your website? Where those links point to? Microstocks?

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #3 on:** November 01, 2023, 11:34 »

"the sales rate is almost negligible" says it all. Plus, $300 a year for hosting?

I recognize Gameovers fine work and the site. She has also left out that the only way to get the free software working was for someone to write special checkout code, to make the site able to make transactions. And then the part about taxes too.

Yes, I'd love to have a self hosted site, even if it doesn't make me wealthy. Just the fact that I can post and offer my images, for download, on my own site, and make something, would be impressive.

I looked into ecommerce solutions, and most (I didn't find one that doesn't but that doesn't mean there isn't something out there) want to host the site and charge a fee on their fast servers. No software exists that would allow people to view, search and process checkout downloads of images, from my self hosted site. They wanted me to pay for storage as well.

K-Tools Photostore was an answer in the past. It's dead now. php changed, the software doesn't work. There's no support, it has been abandoned since about 2017. Too bad, because it actually worked. LISAFX used it for her site, with some modifications.

I'd ask anyone else who's running Woocommerce or Easy Digital Download, for their experiences. I'm sure there are more people who have had success with these. Personally WordPress and me just haven't had a good relationship. They update and the site crashes. I removed all traces from my websites.

Oops I forgot this one: https://www.cmsaccount.com/ CMSaccount

gameover · « **Reply #4 on:** November 01, 2023, 13:03 »

Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 01, 2023, 11:34

"the sales rate is almost negligible" says it all. Plus, $300 a year for hosting?

Hi Uncle Pete!

the point is, through the agencies I sell pretty well; thus my "almost negligible" (compared to that) is enough to pay for the hosting and leaves me something for a cup of coffee too ;-)
Not to mention that my huuuge options come in very handy to develop and test my customers' websites before delivering them, and to host there a few E-mail accounts for friends and relatives.
Thus all in all, though paradoxically, it's still convenient - or at least no waste :-)

mike123 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 01, 2023, 15:58 »

Great article, thanks for sharing!

Just to share my own experience with an online shop: I also use Wordpress and Woocommerce for a self-hosted POD shop (all free, no paid plugins), with an option to license images by contacting me (doesn't happen often

. Of course it would be much better to give customers the option to license images directly in the shop, but I'm still not sure whether I want to invest my time into that. And by the way, my hosting is much cheaper (8 euro per month), but I suspect it's not as fast as it could be with a more expensive hoster.

Annie2022 · « **Reply #6 on:** November 02, 2023, 00:15 »

Quote from: Evaristo tenscadisto on November 01, 2023, 09:25

Quote from: ribtoks on November 01, 2023, 08:03
Hi folks

Luisa Fumi (aka gameover) wrote an interesting story about her experience with self-hosting here: https://xpiksapp.com/blog/selling-images-on-your-website/

Please let us know what do you think and maybe you also have a story to share? Will be definitely useful for others!

Cheers,
Taras

Lumi's journey through the various websites that she created to explore self-hosting in the microstock market is very interesting. Thank you for sharing the link.
My case is different.
I only stayed for one (wix) and it works as a kind of presentation of who I am with some promotional videos showing the diversity of work i can do. In the videos I leave a link where you can buy those and other clips or 2d/3d animations. Probably I am even more lazy and prefer not to have to deal with marketing, web design and self hosting. Instead i like invest my time in being creative - after all, it's what I enjoy most.

I'm exactly the same as you. Also, its good to have a central place to showcase your work for links when applying to new agencies, new work prospects, or for social media. But direct selling is too time-consuming for me at the moment - and I prefer the creative side too.

wordplanet · « **Reply #7 on:** November 02, 2023, 03:42 »

I never tried licensing microstock on my own but I licensed full priced stock back in the day to magazines & web designers who'd find me via searches. These days, however, I usually only license photos to clients with whom I already have a relationship, such as local magazines & various calendar companies I work with.

Even when I licensed stock regularly to non-clients, while they sometimes found my work via Google, they mostly found it because Photoshelter (my site host since 2008) hosted the URLs of thousands of photographers and search was built into both individual websites and also art directors could go to Photoshelter directly and search all keyworded images that all the photographers' sites they hosted had available to license. So I had that working for me ... the effort to market on my own would have been daunting.

It's a shame that it's no longer viable because Photoshelter has easy stock & print pricing & ecommerce built in, and even lets you do image packages. It's still worthwhile since it also provides unlimited storage of RAW, PSD, etc, excellent organization & search, client sharing tools, private galleries, and numerous templates so even this 65-year-old grandma can build & change my site with ease.

I never had the volume I'd need to make licensing microstock worthwhile but IMHO, even when the market was strong, it only ever made sense to license full priced stock because I could provide unique RM images that weren't on other sites. Today, the microstock model has mostly supplanted RM. My only licenses these days are to clients with whom I already have a relationship, done via private (hidden) galleries set up each of them, a far cry from random Google searches.

Hard to believe how much has changed in 15 years.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

P.S. I love that you are making antique looking images like the books and some Halloween images with the latest AI tech. Beautiful stuff! Great idea licensing as image packs too.

gameover · « **Reply #8 on:** November 02, 2023, 05:20 »

Quote from: wordplanet on November 02, 2023, 03:42

I never tried licensing microstock on my own but I licensed full priced stock back in the day to magazines & web designers who'd find me via searches. These days, however, I usually only license photos to clients with whom I already have a relationship, such as local magazines & various calendar companies I work with.

Even when I licensed stock regularly to non-clients, while they sometimes found my work via Google, they mostly found it because Photoshelter (my site host since 2008) hosted the URLs of thousands of photographers and search was built into both individual websites and also art directors could go to Photoshelter directly and search all keyworded images that all the photographers' sites they hosted had available to license. So I had that working for me ... the effort to market on my own would have been daunting.

It's a shame that it's no longer viable because Photoshelter has easy stock & print pricing & ecommerce built in, and even lets you do image packages. It's still worthwhile since it also provides unlimited storage of RAW, PSD, etc, excellent organization & search, client sharing tools, private galleries, and numerous templates so even this 65-year-old grandma can build & change my site with ease.

I never had the volume I'd need to make licensing microstock worthwhile but IMHO, even when the market was strong, it only ever made sense to license full priced stock because I could provide unique RM images that weren't on other sites. Today, the microstock model has mostly supplanted RM. My only licenses these days are to clients with whom I already have a relationship, done via private (hidden) galleries set up each of them, a far cry from random Google searches.

Hard to believe how much has changed in 15 years.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

P.S. I love that you are making antique looking images like the books and some Halloween images with the latest AI tech. Beautiful stuff! Great idea licensing as image packs too.

Thank you for sharing your story, I found it quite interesting!
IMHO images like yours are way too beautiful, classy and soulful to be wasted on the microstock market amid those billions of 'click-and-upload' hasty amateurish snapshots. I agree that licensing them individually to people you know and respect is the right way of selling them.

Yes, I'd like to expand the notion of licensing my images as bundles.
Thank you for your kind words!

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #9 on:** November 02, 2023, 11:26 »

Quote from: gameover on November 01, 2023, 13:03

Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 01, 2023, 11:34
"the sales rate is almost negligible" says it all. Plus, $300 a year for hosting?

Hi Uncle Pete!

the point is, through the agencies I sell pretty well; thus my "almost negligible" (compared to that) is enough to pay for the hosting and leaves me something for a cup of coffee too ;-)
Not to mention that my huuuge options come in very handy to develop and test my customers' websites before delivering them, and to host there a few E-mail accounts for friends and relatives.
Thus all in all, though paradoxically, it's still convenient - or at least no waste :-)

And in case anyone else or you think I'm being at all critical, I admire your effort and the work that went into the site, making it function as it should, and wish you continued success.

gameover · « **Reply #10 on:** November 02, 2023, 12:24 »

Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 02, 2023, 11:26

Quote from: gameover on November 01, 2023, 13:03
Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 01, 2023, 11:34
"the sales rate is almost negligible" says it all. Plus, $300 a year for hosting?

Hi Uncle Pete!

the point is, through the agencies I sell pretty well; thus my "almost negligible" (compared to that) is enough to pay for the hosting and leaves me something for a cup of coffee too ;-)
Not to mention that my huuuge options come in very handy to develop and test my customers' websites before delivering them, and to host there a few E-mail accounts for friends and relatives.
Thus all in all, though paradoxically, it's still convenient - or at least no waste :-)

And in case anyone else or you think I'm being at all critical, I admire your effort and the work that went into the site, making it function as it should, and wish you continued success.

❤️

wordplanet · « **Reply #11 on:** November 02, 2023, 12:33 »

Quote from: gameover on November 02, 2023, 05:20

Quote from: wordplanet on November 02, 2023, 03:42
I never tried licensing microstock on my own but I licensed full priced stock back in the day to magazines & web designers who'd find me via searches. These days, however, I usually only license photos to clients with whom I already have a relationship, such as local magazines & various calendar companies I work with.

Even when I licensed stock regularly to non-clients, while they sometimes found my work via Google, they mostly found it because Photoshelter (my site host since 2008) hosted the URLs of thousands of photographers and search was built into both individual websites and also art directors could go to Photoshelter directly and search all keyworded images that all the photographers' sites they hosted had available to license. So I had that working for me ... the effort to market on my own would have been daunting.

It's a shame that it's no longer viable because Photoshelter has easy stock & print pricing & ecommerce built in, and even lets you do image packages. It's still worthwhile since it also provides unlimited storage of RAW, PSD, etc, excellent organization & search, client sharing tools, private galleries, and numerous templates so even this 65-year-old grandma can build & change my site with ease.

I never had the volume I'd need to make licensing microstock worthwhile but IMHO, even when the market was strong, it only ever made sense to license full priced stock because I could provide unique RM images that weren't on other sites. Today, the microstock model has mostly supplanted RM. My only licenses these days are to clients with whom I already have a relationship, done via private (hidden) galleries set up each of them, a far cry from random Google searches.

Hard to believe how much has changed in 15 years.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

P.S. I love that you are making antique looking images like the books and some Halloween images with the latest AI tech. Beautiful stuff! Great idea licensing as image packs too.

Thank you for sharing your story, I found it quite interesting!
IMHO images like yours are way too beautiful, classy and soulful to be wasted on the microstock market amid those billions of 'click-and-upload' hasty amateurish snapshots. I agree that licensing them individually to people you know and respect is the right way of selling them.

Yes, I'd like to expand the notion of licensing my images as bundles.
Thank you for your kind words!

Thank you for yours.

I'm on here because I have been licensing many photos via the agencies, although I have kept my fine art work separate for the most part, though with travel there is some overlap with certain images that do well as stock and prints - if I lived by the sea and photographed lighthouses frequently, I wouldn't need to photograph anything else LOL but I'd be bored. I still love traditional black and white photography best, however, though it may get me into shows, it would never pay the bills. It's always tricky finding the right balance between commercial work, editorial, and art but I've stopped worrying about which is which since I enjoy all three.

I have learned to be a much better photographer thanks to learning to shoot stock, so I would never put it down

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #12 on:** November 03, 2023, 10:44 »

No one has tried or uses this one? https://www.cmsaccount.com/ CMSaccount

Evaristo tenscadisto · « **Reply #13 on:** November 04, 2023, 13:12 »

Quote from: ribtoks on November 01, 2023, 09:31

Quote from: Evaristo tenscadisto on November 01, 2023, 09:25
I only stayed for one (wix) and it works as a kind of presentation of who I am with some promotional videos showing the diversity of work i can do. In the videos I leave a link where you can buy those and other clips or 2d/3d animations.

Could you share your website? Where those links point to? Microstocks?

On the website I only promote microstock work videos with buttons linked to microstock sites. And I only have a small bio, which in this case is more focused on work done solely in the visual arts. Everything is more or less linked between the website, microstock sites and social networks

I kind of structured it this way:

.promotional videos of some of my work on a Vimeo account linked to my website;
.promotional videos of microstock work on another Vimeo and YouTube account linked to my website
.social networks* where I promote some AI work or animations linked to my website
.Opensea account (Nft's) linked to the website and vice versa

. Microstock sites also linked to the website and social networks

*Note:linkedin, insta, x, tiktok and FB are the ones I use more...

poco_bw · « **Reply #14 on:** November 29, 2024, 13:37 »

Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 03, 2023, 10:44

No one has tried or uses this one? https://www.cmsaccount.com/ CMSaccount

i use it, the russian guy is ok, helps when needed.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #15 on:** November 30, 2024, 12:31 »

Quote from: poco_bw on November 29, 2024, 13:37

Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 03, 2023, 10:44
No one has tried or uses this one? https://www.cmsaccount.com/ CMSaccount

i use it, the russian guy is ok, helps when needed.

Thanks, how much trouble was it, to get a working version, that actually took payments and allowed people to download images?

zeljkok · « **Reply #16 on:** November 30, 2024, 13:11 »

I host personal site on Zenfolio, not classic photographer type but more oriented towards hiking and outdoors / travel. Maintaining the blog gives me lot of pleasure. But I did gather some direct photo sales over the years. They found me via Google Search. Notable ones: Poway church in San Diego CA licensed whole bunch they wanted for their site, and then iconic Canadian Rockies Trail Guide for 10th edition printed edition, which really made me happy.

Got a free copy of the book in addition to fairly decent dollar amount per image, I use the book anyways but now it has my own photos in it, really neat. One of hikes described in the guide with my own image

Faustvasea · « **Reply #17 on:** November 30, 2024, 16:29 »

Quote from: poco_bw on November 29, 2024, 13:37

Quote from: Uncle Pete on November 03, 2023, 10:44
No one has tried or uses this one? https://www.cmsaccount.com/ CMSaccount

i use it, the russian guy is ok, helps when needed.

I am seriously thinking to build my own stock footage site using that plugin. Ofc if it works. Might get in touch with developer to see what he says.

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Author Topic: Journey of selling stock images on your own website (Read 5261 times)

ribtoks

Evaristo tenscadisto

ribtoks

Uncle Pete

gameover

mike123

Annie2022

wordplanet

gameover

Uncle Pete

gameover

wordplanet

Uncle Pete

Evaristo tenscadisto

poco_bw

Uncle Pete

zeljkok

Faustvasea

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