I’m intrigued by the question of whether Alamy buyers see an image on that site and then search for the same image on cheaper microstock sites and buy it there. If they regularly do that, then you are losing out on a higher priced Alamy license in exchange for potentially sub $1 income from the micro site. I did a detailed analysis last year which didn’t find any evidence that they do that, but I saw a couple of “zooms”...
I received an email via Fine Art America this morning saying: I am a small time book artist based in Mumbai, India. I want to use your Milkweed seeds image in my upcoming website as I have a set of artists’ books made like Milkweed seeds. I request your permission. The image in question is this: I didn’t know which particular image it was at the time, and so, without much thought I replied with a link to my personal...
Microstockr Pro is one of those few applications that I am willing to pay for! And the good news is that it is on sale with a 25% reduction in price until February 6th. You can see the offer here. I find the app invaluable for seeing which of my images are selling, and looking at the thumbs of images that have sold often give me ideas for modifications or different shoots to capitalize on that original idea. It is...
I had a really good discussion with a budding stock photographer yesterday who offered $75 for an hour’s one on one tuition/advice from me. We discussed his portfolio, talked about improvements and had a good debate on how to come up with ideas for new shoots. He asked me if you could “make it” with just travel photography or whether you needed the second of my three main subject areas (places, things, people) to get a reasonable income. Of course,...
There was a question in one of the comments about how many files I upload in a typical month. Of course, there is no such thing as a typical month as two things tend to drive my uploads – either I have been somewhere and come back with a lot of images to process and upload, or I have a spurt of image production in my “studio” when I think of something interesting or topical to photograph! I decided to...
I’ve written about Microstockr Pro before, but it is always difficult to justify spending money on applications for microstock. It seems like we are so conditioned to accepting pennies for our images that we absolutely hate spending money (especially recurring money) on services that might make our lives easier! I know someone who earns more from me from stock photography who will not pay for applications like StockSubmitter and Microstockr Pro even though it is clear that she can easily...
It’s no secret that I’m now a very keen user of Stock Submitter to upload and submit my images and videos to the various stock agencies. But which sites do I currently support via that program? I thought a brief post on that might be useful! My referral links (if available) are in the links provided – hope you don’t mind using them! All images: Shutterstock Adobe Stock/Fotolia Dreamstime 123RF BigstockPhoto DepositPhotos CanStockPhoto Pond5 ColourBox iStock Alamy StoryBlocks CreativeMarket Zoonar...
It is that time again – a review of the year’s earnings from stock photography. First the good news – I ended the year with a record total earnings of $32,732 after a decreasing trend over the past three years ending in 2016 with $28,368. Looking at this on a monthly basis, almost every month this year has been higher than I earned in the same month in previous years, which I think is a very good sign. The last...
I do talk about Stock Submitter quite a lot, but that is because it is now such a key part of my workflow, so much so that I don’t think I could ever go back to visiting each site in turn to fiddle with their categories and model release approaches to do that final piece of submission. I noticed a post from the developer that he is having his annual New Year sale on subscriptions for the software. It only...
We all spend a lot of money on our hobby, so how can you maximize the amount of money you earn from licensing your images via stock agencies? Well, the obvious immediate answer is to take great commercial images that are better than all the ones already out there, but, to be honest, that is easier said than done. There is another way though – maximize your income by making your photos available to as many potential buyers as possible....
