Microstock Photography Forum - General > Selling Stock Direct

Photoshelter

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wordplanet:
I have my site set up with Photoshelter mostly for my commercial and editorial clients, but I also keyworded some photos and made them available as stock under full-priced RM licenses. I haven't tried marketing my site, but have used Photoshelter's SEO guidelines and I just licensed a photo to a major magazine publisher who found a photo she needed on my site.
This sale out of the blue has made me start considering how I can really market my site once I have a larger collection of stock images. Any suggestions other than SEO?
Here's my site: www.campyphotos.com
Many of my images also come up very high in a google search, so I think SEO is an important factor but I can't imagine that alone will generate enough traffic. I'd love to be able to license a lot from my site but for now I license most of my images through the various online agencies. I hope that as my stock library grows, I'll be able to generate more direct sales rather than paying 40-85% to an agency, but I'm not in a position to get my photos seen by thousands of viewers a month- yet.
Cooperatives seem like a good idea but I imagine it would be tough to vet everyone and make sure that they were all equally committed to the business.
Does anyone have work on a virtual agency at Photoshelter? I'd be curious to see how well that works out.  I'd also be curious to see how well others are doing selling direct from Photoshelter.
I haven't tried seeling microstock via Photoshelter. Has that worked well for anyone? My thought would be that you can't get the kind of volume you need on your own to make that worthwhile.
Glad to see this thread started. Direct sales have been touted as the way to go and it will be interesting to see where this all leads. 

ann:
Wordplanet, I'm thrilled I saw your post, not only because, as of 5/12, PhotoSelter hosts my new domain (for photojournalism and fine art) but also because of your Chappaqua editorial photos.

When I read Hillary Clinton's quote on mag cover about how she wished all children could go to school like those on Chappaqua, I had the biggest smile.

Chappaqua's Bell Middle School is where I did my student teaching in Secondary English, and what an amazing school and community!  A fellow student teacher and I were lucky enough to be guests at a home along a stream, and we could walk to and from school. Very fond memories.

The only editorials I've had of HC were ones I took when my daughters and I went to her NYC events during Presidential race. One of my dreams is to photograph her with my Nikon D700, rather than the P&S security allowed back then.      

Your photos are fabulous.  Smiles - Ann

wordplanet:
Hi Ann:
What a small world!
Wish I had shot those with my D700 rather than my old D70 too!
Thanks for taking a look at my site. Couldn't find a link to yours. Send me a PM with the link if you'd like. I'd love to take a look at your work.

ann:
wordplanet - so you have a D700, too! (Reviews of D3x indicate that D700 is better for photojournalism, so I'm waiting to see what D4 will be and cost  :D)

Thanks for asking for URL of my photoshelter home - will do that as soon as I'm sure that site is doing what I think it is. I've been focusing on one gallery of a few dozen photos and a few galleries of 1 to a handful of photos, so I can learn, try out how things work, so I don't have too much to undo when I mess up.

I'm still getting a few basic things straight (like difference between deleting photo from archives and from a specific gallery, and how changing photo descrip one place (archive, gallery) doesn't change it in another. It's both a help and hindrance that I've had my smugmug site for years.

For ex, in smugmug there's more of a flow between places to do administrative things and things any visitor can do, esp on public galleries of your site.  

Whereas, on PhotoShelter - which gives account holder a greater range of options and features for RF and RM licensing... - there seem to basically be 2 different sites - my site - where I can't do anything more on it than any visitor can (on the public galleries), and the Photoshelter Account site, where I upload, make folders, galleries, prices, descriptions.
***If I'm wrong about this, I hope someone tells me.***

wordplanet:
Hi Ann:
There's a bit of a learning curve and I still find I forget which view allows which options, but it does allow a lot of things that smugmug didn't seem to when I initially compared the two.
The people at Photoshelter are very nice and very helpful too. They get back to you pretty quickly and will point you in the right direction if you get lost. And their SEO
I try to make changes to the original photo in my archive if I'm changing keywords, etc. so I don't end up with competing versions of the same photo. Good luck. Look forward to seeing your site when you're ready!

Anyone else out there with a site on Photoshelter? Sure Ann and I would both like to hear your thoughts.

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