Mircostocks April Results

Alexandr Denisenko My Money - Free Image from Dreamstime



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I had a best ever month at Dreamstime; Shutterstock returned to normal after a couple months that included extended license downloads; Fotolia and 123RF were disappointing.

The results

Dreamstime Portfolio 546, New photos 31, Sales 28, Earnings $23.71
Shutterstock Portfolio 238, New photos 14, Sales 57, Earnings $15.88
Fotolia Portfolio 236, New photos 11, Sales 10, Earnings $ 4.06
123RF Portfolio 434, New photos 5, Sales 5, Earnings $ 2.08

Notes

BME at Dreamstime for earnings and downloads
Worst month at 123RF for a long time. First time in seven months to have less than 10 downloads
New referral at Dreamstime (though both referrals haven't started building a portfolio).
The month had the slowest start that I can remember. By the 6th April, I had only one download and my earnings were just 25 cents.

I hope the next month will be better. I intent to add more pictures and really want to add some people pictures. That's the month's main aim.

To do more people's shots, I've started a new blog called 100 strangers to friends.


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Getting Started in Microstocks - Dreamstime

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Dreamstime was the first microstock agency to accept my photos way back in October 2008. It has an active and inclusive community and many of the photographers with the agent are very loyal to it.

It was one of the easier microstocks to start with too and from reviewing the current literature it still is.

Many agencies require you to submit a set of photos i.e. Shutterstock, of which you must have 7 acceptable photos before they will start selling your photos. On Shutterstock, if you don't get accepted, you have to wait a month before submitting 10 more photos for review.

Dreamstime is different, after registering for free, you can start uploading photos for review. Even if they are rejected, you can still upload more.

Why join Dreamstime?

• Helpful online community, with active forums and blogs.
• Good exclusive offer for photographer short of time. You get 20 cents for each accepted file and 60% of the sale price (compared to only 30% for most images by non-exclusive photographers).
• Fair easy to build up a portfolio.
• Make money - Dreamstime is my second largest earner, for most photographer, it is in the top four.
• Helpful feedback on rejected images.

I've enjoyed being with Dreamstime. It's the community I'm most involved with as I've found the forums and blogs useful. If you haven't started yet with microstocks, I believe this is a great agency to start and sell photos. Whilst you might not make a lot of money, (some do, especially if you view it as a business) you will start making some money from photography and maybe cover the cost of it.

Good luck!!!

For a general overall of the main microstock agencies see my previous article Getting Started in Microstocks

March Microstocks Results

Make Money from Photography by Digitalphotonut - Dreamstime


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It's been an exciting month, with BME for both Fotolia and Shutterstock in revenue and the most downloads for Dreamstime and 123RF (Shutterstock matched it's best ever downloads for a month). The cherry on top of the cake was another extended license from Shutterstock.

The results.

Dreamstime - Portfolio 515, New Photos 27, Sales 25 at $17:03
Fotolia - Portfolio 225, New Photos 10, Sales ?? at $17:36
Shutterstock Portfolio 224, New Photos 19, Sales 64 at $46:50
123RF - Portfolio 429, New Photos 18, Sales 15 at $ 8:94

Overall income for the month $89:84

Notes

• BME revenue - Shutterstock, Fotolia
• BME for sales - Dreamstime and 123RF
• The first time that Fotolia has beaten Dreamstime
• 123RF - I had four editorial pictures accepted though they don't seen to be listed in the main portfolio. I guess they will have their own portfolio, though I'm not sure about this.
• 123RF - had a lot of pictures rejected, even ones accepted by Fotolia were rejected here.
• Fotolia - need to verify final result as I'm unable to log in at the moment.
• Extended License at Shutterstock - $28.


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It's done it again! Second Extended License.


Photographers start earning too, click here and register at Shutterstock!!!




Celebration Time Again!


After waiting more than 15 months in the microstock game for my first extended licence, I've got my second one within a month and with the same image. It's on Shutterstock again - 28 sweet dollars!.

So far, this picture has earned me more than $80 on Shutterstock alone.

It certainly put a smile on my face yesterday. Enjoy your day too!

Join the Microstock game today!!!

Getting Started in Microstocks

Stock Image - Finance and China









If you have a DSLR camera, a passion for photography (and video) and an appetite for learning then microstocks could be for you. Treat it as an experiment and the very least it will do for you is to broaden your photographic horizons.

I’ve spent time on Flickr, which is great for learning photographic style and getting inspiration.

Microstocks are great for learning those softer technical skills that could help you earn some money from your photography like; why ISO is important, how to deal with noise, how to make isolated images and what kind of pictures sell.

You have a choice of agencies to start with but some require that you qualify for photographer status first before you can submit i.e. Shutterstock and 123RF.

I’d suggest that you first try Dreamstime and Fotolia because;

• You can summit photographs once you have registered.
• If your photographs get rejected, you will get feedback.
• You will learn from rejections and be in a better position to submit more photos.

Fotolia, despite not requiring you submit photographs for inspection before accepting you as a photographer, are very fussy over what they accept.

You can build up a portfolio and also understand which photos are the most suitable to use to gain qualified status at 123RF and Shutterstock.

Shutterstock is now considered to be the number one in microstocks. It certainly is in my experience but it’s also notoriously hard to get accepted. It took me three goes.

Here are some tips for submitting to Shutterstock (also for 123RF).

• Only submit photos that were taken at ISO 100 or less.
• Submitted photos should be different from one another.
• Use the Shutterstock forums to help. They have one specifically for critiquing new submitters.


And good luck. I’ve found that once you have been accepted by Shutterstock that they are fairly constistent with what they accept and reject. It’s now my favourite site.

There are other microstock agencies but these ones are in the top 6 and they provide some income and a lot of fun. Good luck in your microstock adventures and be careful - it's very addictive!



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February Round Up

Graph Dreamstime Free Photo



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It's been a busy month, despite having no work, I haven't got as much done as I'd hope but I did a lot anyway. Including doing my first bungee jump, a 4 day trip to Macau, a 6 day trip to South Taiwan, more exercise and lots of reading.

Photography

The Extended License at Shutterstock is the obviously highlight and this has resulted in a Best Month Ever (BME). Shutterstock also brought in the most dollars. On the downside, I haven't produced many new pictures and didn't increase my portfolio size much, this despite having more time. I expected to increase my portfolio size easily but it didn't happened, partly I hampered by bad weather. Both trips had mostly bad weather, which isn't ideal for stock photography.


Dreamstime Total Portfolio 488 New Photos 18 Feb $10.65
Shutterstock Total Portfolio 205 New Photos 10 Feb $43.63
Fotolia Total Portfolio 215 New Photos 2 Feb $6.26
123RF Total Portfolio 411 New Photos 0 Feb $8.05

Total Earnings $68.59

Highlights

• Extended licence at Shutterstock
• BME - Shutterstock - $43.63
• Started taking 'people' pictures and got a friend involved in one photo session.


Other photography highlights of the month.

• I might have found a studio that I could use for photography.
• After seeing my flickr a/c, a woman with three shops and sells on-line wants me to make some designs for T-shirts aimed at teenage girls.

Writing

I've written some stuff and have gather the bulk on two subjects that could be made into a few articles. I've found a new topic, the health of teeth, that I'm interested in and if I make contact with some 'experts' it should be easy to get stuff published.

Generally though, I'm behind where I would like to be though.

I only contacted one editor. This was disappointing.

Chinese

I feel that my Chinese is progressing, it's going forward and I can understand more and more. My speaking is still clumsy though.
Started to learn characters again. This is something I'm good at. I don't know why, but I find learning characters enjoyable and easy, relative to speaking.

Comfort Challenges

I did the physical ones I set out to do. The bungee jump and getting my hair shaved were very easy (fighting but only take a short time to do). The ones I still need to do are 'contacting editors and Chinese from the streets (taking audio recordings of people on the street, reading local signs around were I live).



Click here to see The Bungee Jump

First Extended Licence - YEAH!

First Extended License.


To buy stock images from 25 cents an image







It's finally happened! After more than 15 months in the microstock game, I've got my first 'BIG' sale. Yeah! It's was on Shutterstock and I've got $28 for it. That's worth the same as 112 subscription downloads.

This has been my best selling picture to date. It's a number one on Shutterstock (55 downloads and counting), 123RF and Fotolia. It wasn't accepted at Dreamstime.

If you're a photographer start earning dollars for your pictures!!!

I don't know why this picture is so popular but it is. Perhaps, this is ideal stock and I should learn more from it. Perhaps, look to reproduce a similar image but with cars.



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Escaped the Race - February

I've escaped the race, well, at least for now. Currently I'm in Macau, hence, no photo. The place is very photogenic but the weather has been miserable so far and seemingly getting worse by the day.

Yesterday was a great day as I did something that I thought I'd never do. I'll put the video up and some photos when I get back to Taiwan but I won't spoil the surprise just yet.

February targets

Writing

Contact 10 editors about stories I'm developing
Visit the Taiwan Tourist Board and develop an article for them.
Develop some articles so by the end of the month I have 4-5 complete-ist articles and another 4-5 developing.

Blog

Overall, I want to get more professional in my blogging.

Learn how to do internal links in a post.
Use Luis's suggest on how to insert tables - print screen
Follow some more relevant blogs
Link up with Youtube

Videoing

Get more familiar with the technology
Download video on to the computer
Check out video submission requirements for Shutterstock
Make some Language orientated videos.

Photography

This should be easily accomplished

Upload 40 new photos for 123Rf, Shutterstock and Dreamstime.
Do some involving people.

January Round Up

Freedom in Life

Dreamstime Free Photos Here









Considering I escape the race at the end of tomorrow, my alternative income looks inadequate. This month I earned $39.38 from stock photography and about $27 for writing an article for the company's newsletter.

Stock Photography Report


Dreamstime - Total Portfolio - 470 New Photos - 41 Jan earnings - 13.82
Shutterstock Total Portfolio - 195 New Photos - 40 Jan earnings - 15.38
123RF Total Portfolio - 411 New Photos - 16 Jan earnings - 4.79
Fotolia Total Portfolio - 213 New Photos - 10 Jan earnings - 5.39

Highlights

Shutterstock was the number one agent for the second month running. Only had one 'on-demand' download. Sales were up over the previous month and 40 new photos is the biggest portfolio expansion ever.

Dreamstime - I had 23 downloads but rates per photo were low. I had my first referral (no income and very mysterious). Added 41 photos, this was the biggest expansion of the portfolio since Jan 09.

Fotolia - Not a highlight, but they have started to deducted tax. My British status has been established but tax still seems to be deducted. I'm finding it hard to expand my portfolio with this agency.

Writing

I had an 'advice article' for teachers in Taiwan published in my teaching company's newsletter. This is the third article published with them.








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Microstocks Goals for 2010

Dreastime free photo

















Just eight days to go and then freedom. Well, freedom for a while, how long I don't know yet but it'll be for months.

I see this as an opportunities to do more with photography and I see microstocks as a helpful tool in this process.

So during this time, I want to dramatically increase the number of photos I have with each agency, whilst at the same time improve the saleability of the photos I submit.

• I'll study good selling portfolios - start in February
• I'll search through flickr, the web and bookstores for photographers and designers I like. I'll note down ideas that excite me and see how I could encorperate these ideas into my photography.
• The conceptual ideas I have at the moment. I'll develop into photos. I'll start this in February.
• If I go travelling, I'll do more research to find out what's interesting in that place.
• I'll do people photography. I plan to start this at the end of February. Before that I'll study what people are doing with hands, feet and body part shots.
• I'll learn illustrator.

Uploading to various agencies

Dreastime

Numbers are for the end of the month

Jan - 460
Feb - 500
Mar - 600
Jun - 800
Sep - 1100
Dec - 1400

Shutterstock

Jan - 185
Feb - 220
Mar - 310
Jun - 500
Sep - 800
Dec - 1100

Fotolia (I'm having real problems increasing the portfolio with this one)

Jan - 215
Feb - 230
Mar - 280
Jun - 400
Sep - 600
Dec - 750

123RF

Jan - 420
Feb - 465
Mar - 570
Jun - 800
Sep - 1100
Dec - 1400





It's a race against time

2010 Update

My current escape plans haven't gone to plan. Soon I'll have no work and very little income. What to do?







It's been a long time since I last wrote and things have certainly changed.

I'll escape the race on Feb 4th. This will be my last day at work.

I've started a new blog called Health for the Middle Ages.

Meanwhite, my alternative income from photography has raisen from $40 to $50 per month. This is hardly enough to survive on but it is a start.

My Chinese has improved, especially listening. I'm starting to understand longer strings of words on TV. I find children's programmes easy to follow and usually I understand new words that are the focus of that episode. My speaking is still poor though.

I will revive this blog. The focus will be on 'being more business like' and developing alternative sources of income. I want to transform myself from a person with little business sense to a focus person who makes it doing what he wants to do. It's a tall order but it's what I want.

In February, I'll make 'being more business like' the focus of the month. I want to change my approach to life, so that it's obvious to other people where I'm going in life and hopefully more obvious to myself too.









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Update

Update

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past month researching ‘language learning’. There are definitely many camps out there but the one that’s got my attention is the ‘acquisition approach’. This approach requires a ‘silent’ period that can last for up to a 1,000 hours and massive input of the target language. It doesn’t require books, study or even thinking, as these practices will ultimately restrict your ability in your chosen language.

Advocates of this approach include;


Though I haven’t researched it thoroughly, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of products for this approach to language learning. The advocates would say that in this age of technology you can source many of the things yourself but this is time consuming and if you’re not familiar with your target language you might end up getting stuff in the wrong language i.e. Mandarin and Cantonese.

I want over the next few months to develop a proto product designed to meet the requirement of the ‘acquisition approach’. I will use it myself to learn Chinese and I’ll share with friends to see what they think.

Chinese – this is slowly improving. I can understand many more words now and sometimes I get the gist of what they’re talking about on TV. There hasn’t been any jumps in my comprehension though.

Photography – my income for July was down to $36 from $41 in June. Currently I’m likely to get around $30 for August. The summer months are suppose to be slower than most other months and I hope this turns out to be true. My aim is now to earn a $100 per month by the end of the year. To achieve this I really need to increase my uploads. I also need to upload people pictures as they’re more in demand than objects and scenery.

Writing – I haven’t done much on this for some time.

Videoing - despite getting a brand new video camera I haven’t done much with it. I have a plan to make a language video as well as to record different techniques that could be used to ‘acquire language’.

Overall, I don't think I'm making much progress towards being free from work. There are ideas bubbling but I really need to take the next step with them.

Getting started in microstocks

If you have a DSLR camera, a passion for photography and an appetite for learning then microstocks could be for you. Treat it as an experiment and the very least it will do for you is to broaden your photographic horizons.

You have a choice of agencies to start with but some require that you qualify for photography status first before you can submit i.e. Shutterstock, Istockphotos and Stockxpert.

I’d suggest that you first try Dreamstime, Fotolia and 123RF because;
• You can summit photographs straight away.
• If your photographs get rejected, you can still submit more.
• You will learn from rejections and be in a better position to submit more photos.

You can build up a portfolio and also understand which photos are the most suitable to use to gain qualified status at Shutterstock, Istockphotos and Stockxpert.

Shutterstock is now considered to be the number one in microstocks. It certainly is in my experience but it’s also notoriously hard to get accepted. It took me three goes and knocked my confidence. After my first rejection, I didn’t try microstocks for another year and Shutterstock for another 15 months.

Here are some tips for submitting to Shutterstock.

Only submit photos that were taken at ISO 100 or less.
Submitted photos should be different from one another.
Use the Shutterstock forums to help. They have (http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4) one specifically for critiquing new submitters.

And good luck. I’ve found that once you have been accepted by Shutterstock that they are fairly constant with what they accept and reject. It’s now my favourite site.

A similar approach with Stockxpert will get you accepted though I haven’t really summitted many more as I found their keyword requirements complicated.

Don’t ask me about Istockphotos; I’m still to be accepted there. They have an artistic qualification system where you submit three photos and they accept you depending on ‘artistic’ quality. I think if you have good stock photos of people then you’ll get accepted.


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Why Travel?

Why eat? Because it’s essential to your body! So why travel, because it’s essential to living, to growing, to your mind. It can give you insights to the world, to other people as well as yourself that sitting in a cubicle or reading a book won’t give you.

If life is all about experiences then travel is the ultimate experience rich medium. Exotic locations, different people, continuously changing situations and challenges face you.

You learn, or is it, relearn to appreciate things. Simple things start giving you pleasure again; like eating a new fruit, seeing a waterfall, walking through a forest, hearing a foreign language and getting up for sunrise.

In truth you can have many of these pleasures at home but the business of life and time has the effect of closing ourselves and our senses to these things. When you travel many of these senses reawake. You feel alive, you start to be creative, you deal with problems and you get along with people, most of them anyway.

There are some experiences that you can’t have at home or are just simple better when you go traveling. These include exploring other cultures, learning a foreign language, studying meditation with an Indian guru (maybe in New York or London) and this is just the tip of one gigantic iceberg.

Some experiences I had so far whilst traveling.

• 17 day trek in Nepal – changed my view of trekking and reconnected me with my inner child that fantasized about climbing icy peaks and walking across the Antarctic.
• Disastrous climb of Adam’s peak – taught me many valuable lessons about getting prepared for trekking and big challenges.
• 2 day white water rafting in Nepal
• Teaching English in a Jungle Refugee camp in Thailand – an amazing experience that taught me how resilient people can be.
• Climbing Santa Maria, Guatemala, to witness a mini explosion of her side cone, which sent a plume of smoke about a kilometer into the air – simply awesome!
• Gate crashing a Halloween Party at an Intercontinental in Columbia, when we weren’t even suppose to be in the country
• Being freaked out in Burma (Myanmar) by the terrible political situation there.
• Two weeks of hedonistic indulgence in Goa

This is why I want to break free from work and go traveling again. This time with a view of making money to sustain it and to experiment with different styles of traveling.

A New Reality

I find myself in a brand new siutation. Last week I had the hours to build up my savings for travel. This week I don't. I've lost 8 teaching hours and have gone from being able to save a lot to just covering my costs.

When I heard the news, I felt depressed and panicky. I feared that I wouldn't make my saving targets and that either I would have to work longer to get there or I'll end up teaching English again after my travels.

Since then, I've reviewed the situation and am now happy that I have the extra time. I can still break even from teaching English and now I have more time to build up other sources of income. Despite having just 8 hours less, I figured that this reduction gives me an extra 12 hours per week (preparation time and gaps between classes). This is excellent.

I plan to use the extra time for;

Travel Writing - aim to do writing related work for two hours per day.
Photography - to increase my microstock portfolio and improve my images.
Photoshop - to see how I can use this to improve the performance of my photo stock.
Chinese - to do at least one listening exercise a day and be more outgoing with my Chinese.

I'm glad that I dealt with my fear and that my 'child' of an entrepreneur is growing up. Yes, there are problems in life but there are plenty more solutions to them. It's all part of growing.

Passive earnings from Microstocks (Photography)




I’ve been doing this for about 7 months and have got my earnings up to $35 a month. Whilst the income is a bit disappointing, I would still recommend that keen amateurs still try microstocks.









Benefits for the amateur photographer;




· Feel accomplishment by getting your work accepted by stock agencies.
· Feel accomplishment by selling pictures. I know that money shouldn’t validate your photography but it’s still very gratifying to know that someone is willing to pay money for your photographs.
· It’s less complicated then applying to traditional agencies and some of the feedback you get on rejections is very useful.
· You will learn soft skills that you might not learn otherwise. All the microstocks agencies I’m with review the photographs you upload. Therefore you will get rejections and it’s from these rejections that you learn. For example; I now use ISO 100 most of the time because there less noise and more detail. This has forced me to use my tripod more and I also use my fast lens more.
· Try new types of photography.
· Increase motivation
· Ask more questions about how to commercialize your photography
· Join in with some active forums
· It’s a very low cost why to start a second income
· To learn from other photographers




These are some of the benefits. There are many more I’m sure.




Signing up is easy and free. Just click on the links below and start turning your photography into cash. You never know perhaps you’ll be the next microstock star!





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