Microstock Photography

Microstock results for March 2009

2009-04-01T19:13:00.000+01:00

Sales jumped up significantly to levels not seen since March 2008. Istock has changed their search algorithm again and it seems to have helped me. A big jump at stockxpert as well as I think they now license through an additional site. All the others keep providing which is nice considering it over 18 months since I last contributed (literally all I do is check my earnings once a month to request payouts and write this blog (and I dont do this half the time)).

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:
14% shutterstock
12% dreamtime
19% Fotolia
14% istockphoto
3% bigstockphoto
6% 123RF
32% StockXpert
0% Featurepics

Previous 12 months results:

February 2009 Results
January 2009 Results
December 2008 Results
November 2008 Results
October 2008 Results
September 2008 Earnings
August 2008 Earnings
July 2008 Earnings
June 2008 Earnings
May 2008 Earnings
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings

Microstock results for February 2009

2009-02-28T18:04:00.000Z

Results were up a bit on the Dec/Jan low which is expected.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:
18% shutterstock
14% dreamtime
28% Fotolia
11% istockphoto
5% bigstockphoto
6% 123RF
18% StockXpert
0% Featurepics

Previous 12 months results:

January 2009 Results

December 2008 Results

November 2008 Results
October 2008 Results
September 2008 Earnings
August 2008 Earnings
July 2008 Earnings
June 2008 Earnings
May 2008 Earnings
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings
Feb 2008 Earnings

Microstock results for January 2009

2009-01-31T18:05:00.000Z

It has been a busy three months for me so a bit of a catchup post. Results were about the same as December so not great but better than nothing.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:
19% shutterstock
11% dreamtime
24% Fotolia
19% istockphoto
5% bigstockphoto
5% 123RF
17% StockXpert
0% Featurepics

Previous results for 2008:

December 2008 Results

Microstock results for December 2008

2009-01-01T22:57:00.000Z

Results were down for December which is expected due to the number of public holiday during the month. Shutterstock slowed down majorly but istock was only down a little. Fotolia actually increased. I have started to here good things about Fotolia and it is definately one of the top earning sites now. They do however seem to piss of their contributors regularly which changes, though iStock has a history of this as well.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:
16% shutterstock
12% dreamtime
18% Fotolia
23% istockphoto
2% bigstockphoto
7% 123RF
23% StockXpert
0% Featurepics

Dont forget to check out my other blog: http://cj-photography.blogspot.com/. I have been a bit quite there but hope to pick up the posts once I get into a routine for the new year.

Previous results for 2008:

Microstock results for November 2008

2008-12-04T07:50:00.001Z

I had quite a good month this month with a couple of EL sales at Shutterstock and a BME at Bigstock.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:
37% shutterstock
5% dreamtime
9% Fotolia
18% istockphoto
10% bigstockphoto
5% 123RF
16% StockXpert
0% Featurepics

Dont forget to check out my other blog: http://cj-photography.blogspot.com/

Previous results for 2008:

October 2008 Results
September 2008 Earnings
August 2008 Earnings
July 2008 Earnings
June 2008 Earnings
May 2008 Earnings
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings
Feb 2008 Earnings
Jan 2008 Earnings

Microstock results for October 2008

2008-11-02T08:41:00.001Z

It was an interesting month – Getty (owner of istock) bought out Jupiter (owner of Stockxpert). Fotolia changed its affilate program and didn’t tell anyone and StockXpert hasn’t being paying out on some sales (from affilate sites).

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

20% shutterstock
11% dreamtime

11% Fotolia
20% istockphoto
6% bigstockphoto
14% 123RF
18% StockXpert
0% Featurepics

Dont forget to check out my other blog: http://cj-photography.blogspot.com/

Previous results for 2008:

September 2008 Earnings

August 2008 Earnings

July 2008 Earnings

June 2008 Earnings
May 2008 Earnings
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings
Feb 2008 Earnings
Jan 2008 Earnings

Microstock results for September 2008

2008-10-02T08:29:00.001+01:00

Another good result with constant results despite no uploads.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

28% shutterstock
7% dreamtime
9% Fotolia
14% istockphoto
5% bigstockphoto
17% 123RF
18% StockXpert
3% Featurepics

Dont forget to check out my other blog: http://cj-photography.blogspot.com/

Previous results for 2008:

August 2008 Earnings

July 2008 Earnings

June 2008 Earnings
May 2008 Earnings
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings
Feb 2008 Earnings
Jan 2008 Earnings

Microstock Photography results for August 2008

2008-09-01T08:32:00.001+01:00

Not a bad month considering. I was lucky with a couple of Extended licenses at Shutterstock and Fotolia , otherwise it could have been a disaster. Shutterstock is trending down and I dont think this is just me. My referrees are down about 50% this month on the average for 2008. Other sites are ticking along nicely but slowly. I really need to start editing photos and getting them online.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

26% shutterstock
10% dreamtime
14% Fotolia
17% istockphoto
5% bigstockphoto
9% 123RF
19% StockXpert
0% Featurepics

I have decided I am not doing this Blog proud. I am not keeping up with market news. If you want news about the microstock industry, the best source is on Lee Torrens Blog who is making a very good job of publicising what is happening in the Microstock world. I will keep publishing my monthly results but my main focus will be on my personal blog and to get through the 10,000 photos I took on my last holiday (while keeping my day job). So add my personal blog to your RSS feed - http://cj-photography.blogspot.com/- and have a look at Lee’s for Microstock news.

Previous results for 2008:

July 2008 Earnings

June 2008 Earnings
May 2008 Earnings
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings
Feb 2008 Earnings
Jan 2008 Earnings

NIkon’s new D 90

2008-08-30T22:53:00.000+01:00

Just days after Canon announced it’s new 50D with a huge 15MP sensor (thats big for a cropped sensor), Nikon has announced its new D90. The big news here is that is shots HD video - a first on a SLR camera. Otehr spec’s are:

Newly designed Nikon DX-format CMOS image sensor with 12.3 effective megapixels and Integrated Dust Reduction System
Incredibly low-noise performance throughout a wide sensitivity range of ISO 200 to 3200; can be set to ISO 6400 equivalent
Incorporates Nikon's comprehensive digital image-processing EXPEED concept
The world's first D-SLR movie function: D-Movie, selectable from 320 x 216 pixels, 640 x 424 pixels or 1,280 x 720 pixels in AVI format
Scene Recognition System, utilizing 420-pixel RGB sensor, improves autofocus, auto exposure and auto white balance performance and is also integrated with the new Face Detection System
Live View enables face priority AF with the 3-in., approx. 920k-dot, high-density color LCD featuring 170° ultra-wide viewing angle
Picture Control System offers new Portrait and Landscape options for more vibrant customized colors
Active D-Lighting for smooth tone reproduction in high-contrast lighting
Multi-CAM 1000 autofocus sensor module featuring 11 AF points offers fast and precise autofocus coverage across the frame
Viewfinder with approx. 96% frame coverage and an easy-to-view 19.5 mm eyepoint (at -1.0 m^-1)
Advanced Scene Modes that automatically adjust exposure, image processing, Active D-Lighting and Picture Control settings for superior image quality
Extensive palette of in-camera Retouch Menus including several new retouch options such as Distortion Control, Straighten and Fisheye
4.5 fps continuous shooting and quick response of 0.15-second start-up and 65-ms shutter release time lag (CIPA standard)
Built-in flash with 18mm lens coverage and Nikon's original i-TTL flash control that commands Advanced Wireless Lighting
Highly efficient energy-saving design that allows approx. 850 images on a single charge of the Rechargeable Li-ion Battery EN-EL3e (CIPA standard, with AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR, with 50% of pictures taken with flash)
Versatile Pictmotion menu that creates slideshows combining five choices of both background music and image effects
Compatible with HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) output
Optional Multi-Power Battery Pack MB-D80 extends shooting capability and enables use of six R6/AA-size batteries
Included Nikon ViewNX software makes browsing and organizing your images easy
Optional photo-editing software, Capture NX 2 allows users quick and easy photo editing
Lightweight compact body

SLR purists must be turning over in there grave (unless they are still alive of course). First DSLR get live view (thats what the view finder is for), now it gets video!

If I was to be choosing a new camera out of the Canon 50D or the Nikon D90, I am not sure which one I would choose (larger sensor v video). However, since I already have Canon Lens, I will stick with this system. By the time I upgrade, Canon will probably offer video as well.

Canon to release new 50D?

2008-08-23T00:37:00.001+01:00

News broke on the Internet that Canon China put the specs of the new 50D up on their website for a brief period. Some one spotted it and the specs have been leaked.

When the story first broke, people though it had in body IS which would have been a giveaway that it was fake (Canon makes great IS lens and have said they wont do in body). Apparently people just misread the Chinese – it actually said it works well with in lens IS.

The specs are as follows:

15.1 megapixel CMOS sensor
DIGIC 4
1.6x crop
Dust Reduction
Auto Brightness Processing
95% viewfinder .97 magnification
9 point af (All Cross Type)
35 meter area equipped with high-precision sensors AF Fine Tuning
ISO 100-12800
6.3 fps (high speed) 3fps (low speed)
Buffer: 16 RAW - 60 JPG - 10 RAW+JPG
920,000 points VGA 3.0-inch LCD monitor
100,000 cycle shutter
Rugged magnesium alloy body

I don’t think it justifies a body upgrade for me (I am using a 20D) – I can justify the money at the moment. For me 8mp is more than enough and the rest is incremental improvements. A better autofocus and less noise at higher ISO would be the main reason for me to upgrade.

People are also expect the full frame 5D to be upgraded. It will be interesting to see what the specs on that camera are.

Go to Photographybay for a more detailed spec list.

Microstock photography results for July 2008

2008-08-01T22:20:00.001+01:00

Sales picked up which is great as they had been going down for the past few months (total earnings up 25% this month). I still haven’t got round to upload which is very disappointing. I have some ready to upload and have another batch ready for editing. StockXpert had a great month and iStock picked up a bit after a couple of disappointing months. Shutterstock put in another solid effort but is still way of its highs.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

22% shutterstock
15% dreamtime
7% Fotolia
22% istockphoto
3% bigstockphoto
7% 123RF
23% StockXpert
1% Featurepics

Since I have been doing this for about 2 1/2 years now, I thought it would be interesting to see annual trends. Ignoring the fact that I was constantly upload until about August 2007 ( I have uploaded very few since then), you can see that we have just gone though a slow patch and things should increase now till about November. Most of my photos are travel shots (not a Christmas one amongst them) so my trends may be different to those which different photo mixes.

Previous results for 2008:

June 2008 Earnings
May 2008 Earnings
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings
Feb 2008 Earnings
Jan 2008 Earnings

Getty to sell images from Flickr

2008-07-11T23:13:00.001+01:00

Earlier this week, it was announced that Getty was going to sell photos from Flickr. From the reports, it seems that the Flickr photos will form part of a new portfolio which will be in the macrostock pricing area. It has been ruled out that these will be sold through iStock or be sold at microstock prices.

Commission is to be standard commissions rates for Getty photographers which is apparently between 20 and 40% depending on the type of licence etc.

The scheme is to be by invitation and from what I understand, it is on a photo by photo basis, not a photographer by photographer basis. Many have said that this is going to be an issue because of jealousy at Flickr and it may change the community feel there.

I see it as a problem but for another reason. This is based on my experience at iStock. They want large photos of high quality and if required are model released.

At Flickr, people don’t always upload their largest size as most photos aren’t even viewed as full screen size let alone 100%.

Quality may be as high if not better than iStock but I don’t see an easy way form them to check unlike the the iStock approval process (I will leave them to figure out the technology to do this, but a photo with 100+ faves may actually have noise at 100% or have a sensor spots or a persons face in the background).

This brings me to my last point which is this new portfolio wont have people shots. Flickr is a community site so photographers will upload photos of people – however, they wont get model releases for them as they have no current need to. And since this is an invite only scheme, you are not going to go to the hassle of getting model releases, removing noise etc if the chance of your photo being noticed and invited in is small.

The real benefit in this scheme is for Getty. If they have buyers for a type of photo, but don't have that type of photo, they will search Flickr on the buyers behalf and then take a 60%-80% commission for selling it where as currently, the buyer doesn’t find it on Getty so goes to Flickr and buys it direct from the photographer.

For more commentary from difference perspectives see:

Lee Torens (microstock photographer) here

Thomas Hawk (Flickr power users) here and here

PDN Pulse (photography news) here

Techcrunch (Tech news) here

Plagiarised photos

2008-07-05T04:46:00.000+01:00

I found an interesting post at PDNpulse about Blog readers catch Plagerizing Photographer.

It was quite interesting as the readers of the blog identified that a photographer was copying photos taken by other photographers. there was an uproar (maybe an overstatement) and the photographer has taken the photos down.

Makes you wonder about microstock. Do a search for jumping fish and you will find photos taken by Yuri, G Cohen, khz, velychko, K Brown, mikdam, lisagagne (I stopped looking but I am sure there were more and that was only searching shutterstock and istock). Did anyone notice two of the biggest names in microstock in that list.

None of microstock versions that I linked to above are exact copies like the ones listed in blog above, but they are very close. So how far can you go with derivative works?

Do professional photographers struggle with microstock?

2008-07-04T22:29:00.002+01:00

Lee Torrens has posted a great blog on the 10 reasons why professional photographers often struggle with microstock. Lee makes some great points so go have a read. It is getting some good comments as well.

I think the biggest one is #10 They want microstock to fail. Of course they do. They have gone from selling photos for $100s if not $1000s of dollars and are now getting 30c. But in some cases the photos isn’t worth $100. A picture of an apple is not worth that much and that has stopped small businesses using photography in their publications (see here)

Lees article was also picked up at PDNPulse with their blog “Do professionals want microstock to fail” which despite the title, focuses on reason #4 Do you know who I am? and discusses the point that all the reputation and respect they have built up in the industry disappears when they have to compete on an equal footing with amateurs with point and shoot cameras (my words not the articles).

Microstock Photography results for June 2008

2008-07-01T20:21:00.001+01:00

Another slow month – slower than last month. I uploaded about 10 photos at all sites which seemed to pick Shutterstock up but the rest are just falling into the mid year slow down. Have got some more photos ready to upload so will see if I can get some more up in July.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

28% shutterstock
14% dreamtime
9% Fotolia
18% istockphoto
4% bigstockphoto
9% 123RF
16% StockXpert
2% Featurepics

Previous results for 2008:

May 2008 Earnings
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings
Feb 2008 Earnings
Jan 2008 Earnings

Survey says stock photos to cheesy

2008-06-24T09:19:00.000+01:00

Photoshelter has recently conducted a survey of 700 stock photo buyers.

The result, “The majority are cheesy, too staged, too stocky and not authentic.” When asked, "When it comes to the images I search for most often, I think I've seen all of the content available within the major stock houses” 74% agreed or strongly agreed. Basically this means designers want new, fresh content.

Follow the link below to see the areas which areas need more attention (eg. “The friendly guy with the headset isn't cutting it anymore!”, “It's difficult to find images that don't paint obese subjects unfavorably.” and "People with flaws" was another repeated request.)

Link (via Photopreneur)

Find your photos online with Tineye

2008-06-23T06:51:00.000+01:00

Want to know where you photos are online? Well you could try searching the net yourself, or you could use TinEye.

Tineye is still in private beta but you can apply for an invite (mine came through in a few days). Once logged in, you can give TinEye your photo, and it will search the web for it. A couple of points to note:

They have only indexed a small portion of the web so far (about 750 million images - compare that to over 4 billion indexed by Google). I did a few searches on my photos and found they didn’t pick up all instances where I knew it was online.
It doesn’t require an exact match. This can be good in that it will find photos where they are slightly different (ie. with or without watermarks) or images manipulated (ie. Photoshopped, cropped, converted to B&W etc).

While it isn’t perfect at the moment, it is a great tool to have in the toolbox.

It would also be very help for designers - Going to buy a photo but don’t know where else it has turned up? Do a search to avoid situations like this and this. There is also a Firefox extension (and IE) so that you can right click on a photo on any website, select search and it will find all other indexed matches.

Check out their video:

Other commentary:

Techcrunch

Microstockdiaries

JMG galleries

Microstock’s main market don’t use photos

2008-06-22T06:23:00.001+01:00

iStock commissioned a survey of small and medium businesses in the UK to determine how they use images in their marketing. The key finding are:

27% of SMBs don’t use imagery in their business at all
Of organisations who use imagery, 51% use imagery on their website, 40% use imagery in presentations, 31% use imagery in marketing & advertising collateral and 14% use imagery in the office interior design
71% of SMBs use photography more than other types of imagery
The majority of SMBs, still go in-house to source images, with 59% taking photos with their own camera, compared with 40% using online stock photography and 31% commissioning photography

See here for more detail

New Article on Getty and iStock

2008-06-11T20:36:00.001+01:00

As part of filings made with the SEC, Getty has had to disclose some information which it would normally keep secret.

One interesting quote is:

"The introduction of microstock has significantly increased the availability and usage of stock imagery. The advent of affordable high-end digital cameras and broadband Internet access has enabled semi-professional and hobbyist photographers to greatly expand the supply of digital stock imagery, and low microstock prices have put stock images within reach of far more potential customers. The primary consequence of the introduction of microstock has been to open the creative stock imagery market to new segments of users. Small and medium-sized businesses represent a large customer segment for which stock imagery was previously too expensive. For example, a dental practice might now include a microstock image of a boy brushing his teeth on its mailers to patients, whereas before it might have only shown a drawing of a tooth and toothbrush (or perhaps just a message in formatted text) on its appointment reminders because of the relatively high cost of stock imagery. Microstock also enables traditional stock image users to cost-effectively use stock images for interim uses such as storyboarding, customer pitches and internal presentations. Previously these applications would have contained lower quality, freely available images, or hand-drawn sketches. Customer research suggests that approximately 40-50% of microstock demand is comprised of entirely new end-uses, such as those described above. As a result of the combination of new customer segments and new end uses, volumes of microstock images are 15-20x greater than traditional stills.

Another interesting part is a comparison of sales volume between Getty and iStock, the market leader of macrostock and microstock respectively:

The average American/Kiwi/Australian family

2008-06-11T10:37:00.002+01:00

The NZ government put out a brochure today setting out the benefits of its latest budget.

It was discovered however that the picture used (left) was bought from from iStock. To me that isn’t a problem. If the government decides to spend $20 for a photo rather than over $1,000 for a custom photoshoot that is a good idea.

The problem is that the photo is of an American family, not a New Zealand family.

To make matters worse for the NZ government, the photo has already been used by the Australian government to advertise their affordable homes program (right).

To things to take out of this:

the perfect stock photo is one that can be used in a variety of circumstances and by a variety of buyers. This photo has been sold over 2,000 times and can be used in any western country.
microstock photography can create problems from a buyers perspective when the photo is recognisable in other peoples campaigns.

Link to article

[EDIT - it has even been used as an irish family]

Another site dies

2008-06-03T20:13:00.004+01:00

Following on from Luckyolivers demise, Geckostock have announced that they are closing down:

It is with great regret that i shall have to close Geckostock.
All images will be deleted from disk this week.
Any payments due will be paid over the next few weeks.

The site went down yesterday and i decided not to try and get things running due to low sales.
I can't see any future in the site.
.......

I never joined this site as I never saw a good reason. It always pays to monitor new sites but this one never had the sales to warrant uploading to.

In other news, Snapvillage has been down since Friday as they upgrade their site. It is taking longer than expected (why do all websites underestimate the time to migrate servers??). This is one I have trialed. Haven't got all my photos onto it yet and it isn't showing the sales for we to warrant uploading the rest. Hopefully this upgrade will attract the buyers to make it another leading site (without stealing sales from other sites).

New subscriptions at Fotolia

2008-06-03T08:03:00.000+01:00

Fotolia has just announced a new subscription plan where you got as low as 23c for each download. After outrage on the forums, both on Fotolia and on independent ones, the price was increased to ... wait for it:

The new commission structure will be as follows.

Ranking Payment / Download
White 0.25 Credit
Bronze 0.26 Credit
Silver 0.27 Credit
Gold 0.28 Credit
Emerald 0.29 Credit
Ruby 0.30 Credit
Sapphire 0.31 Credit
Diamond 0.32 Credit

Thats right 25c to 32c. Compare this to Shutterstock's latest pay rise (33c to 38c except for the smallest users) and you see this isn't a great offer to the photographer.

I am not happy about this, but will see how the sales go.

Microstock photography results for May 2008

2008-06-02T07:21:00.003+01:00

Another slow month. Earnings down again but still tracking ahead of last year. Interestingly, last year, sales dropped in the period from March to May and then rose month on month all the way through to October. It will be interesting to see if this happens again though it does look line the trend in 2007 was caused by no uploads during the March to May period followed by a couple of big upload sessions.

I could replicate this as I have a few shots ready for upload so it is just a matter of prioritising microstock which I haven't been doing since my big trip (Basically I have too many photos that I am just overwhelmed of where to start). Winter is here now so hopefully I will get some time to do it.

The other thing that is interesting is how different sites do better for no apparent reason. I have done nothing in the past year yet StockXpert had a great month last month and dreamtime had a great month this month. As long as each month a few sites do well, I dont complain if it isn't the same ones.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

15% shutterstock
21% dreamtime
9% Fotolia
27% istockphoto
6% bigstockphoto
8% 123RF
14% StockXpert
0% Featurepics

Previous results for 2008:
April 2008 Earnings
March 2008 Earnings
Feb 2008 Earnings
Jan 2008 Earnings

A problem with Royalty free - buyers perspective

2008-05-25T01:15:00.003+01:00

Anyone see the problem with the two photographs?

That's right, two competing computer companies bought the same photo from Getty, doctored out the original computer and inserted their own low cost PC.

Even the photoshopping isn't that good. The arm of the kid on the left is blurry where they had to make up pixels, the computer int he photo on the right seems to hover in mid air. This is because the original photo featured a apple computer.

Note: this is not a "microstock" issue but an issue with royalty free photos in general as apparently the photo came from Getty, not its low cost son, iStock.

This is very similar to when Dell and Gateway sent the same girl back to school (different photo but from the same series with a model). More detail on royalty free vs rights managed here (with more examples of duplicates)

Original story

iStock - now waiting for my third flame.

2008-05-18T06:30:00.005+01:00

The race may be over, but now the vine yard shot is a flame, so next in line is this shot of Rangitoto - a volcanic Island in the middle of the Hauraki Gulf, Auckland.

This shot was taken as I was going for a walk on the beach. It is the cloud formation that really took my fancy, how it was just hovering above Rangitoto, but the rest of the sky was bright blue.

Reaction to Shutterstocks raise

2008-05-17T05:39:00.004+01:00

There has been a big reaction to Shutterstocks latest raise, the majority of it not good. The common view is that Shutterstock doubled their price to buyers so the payout to photographers should have gone up more than it did. Add that to the fact the photographers with less than $500 don't get a pay rise seems to have upset a lot of other people, judging on the discussions that when on at the Yahoo microstock group.

My view is that it is a 10% pay rise for all but the news contributors, and 20%+ for some. This is an annual pay rise in that they have given at least a 10% pay rise for the last 3 years. I look forward to another 20% increase next year as well.

See the reaction for some of the other microstock bloggers:

Lee Torrens
MangiaPhoto
NiltoMil 1 NiltoMil 2

Shutterstock announces payrise

2008-05-13T20:07:00.005+01:00

Shutterstock has just announced their annual payrise. Shutterstock started off at a flat rate for everyone. Last year, only those above $500 got a payrise (from 25c to 30c)and now this year, they have gone to a multiple levels which rewards their bigger earners more. The new scale is as follows:

Your pay per download is determined by your total lifetime earnings:
Earnings per Download Lifetime Earnings
$0.25 Less than $500
$0.33 $500 to $3,000
$0.36 $3,000 to $10,000
$0.38 Over $10,000

I am in the 3rd band ($3,000 - $10,000)so this is a 20% payrise for me.

It is hard to complain at a 20% payrise but I still think they should change their charging structure more. Currently buyers can download any any size image for the same cost. I think that different sizes should cost different amounts of credits. For example, from their 30 credits per day, if they decide to buy a small photo, it costs them 1 credit but if they download a large file, it should cost them (say) 3-5 credits.

US Dept of Statistics report on Photographers

2008-05-05T07:18:00.001+01:00

The link below is a report by the US Depratment of Labour who did a survey of over 120,000 photographers. the results:

- Photographers held about 122,000 jobs in 2006. More than half were self-employed, a much higher proportion than for most occupations. Some self-employed photographers have contracts with advertising agencies, magazine publishers, or other businesses to do individual projects for a set fee, while others operate portrait studios or provide photographs to stock-photo agencies.

- Median annual earnings of salaried photographers were $26,170 in May 2006. The middle 50 percent earned between $18,680 and $38,730. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $15,540, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $56,640. Median annual earnings in the industry employing the largest numbers of salaried photographers were $22,860 in the photographic services industry.

- Salaried photographers—more of whom work full time—tend to earn more than those who are self-employed. Because most freelance and portrait photographers purchase their own equipment, they incur considerable expense acquiring and maintaining cameras and accessories. Unlike news and commercial photographers, few fine arts photographers are successful enough to support themselves solely through their art.

These low numbers surprise me. I would have thought that by the time any photography student finished there education, they could have a portfolio of over 1000 photos earning good money on microstock. I would have through that lower quartile number of $18,680 could be very do- able for anyone doing this full time.

Remember this microstocker who earns over $300 per day. Having said that, the average microstock earnings are only $3,900 but that is because most microstockers only do it part time like me.

Link

Microstock photography results for April 2008

2008-05-04T06:48:00.005+01:00

A bit down on last month as I didn't get any extended licenses sales but still averaging up after the slower Christmas period. It is coming into our winter know so I may be spending a bit more time in doors to get through my backlog of photos. This should pick up the earnings at shutterstock which always happens when I upload more.

Finally had my first flame at istockphoto which you can read about here.

Disappointing news is that Luckyoliver is closing its doors, and I am just shore of a payout. I cant use any of the credits I have, as they have locked all credits which they gave away for free. Not happy but as they say, nothing in life is free.

Good news is that StockXpert seems to be picking up. Hopefully this trend continues.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

17% shutterstock
11% dreamtime
6% Fotolia
19% istockphoto
9% bigstockphoto
5% 123RF
28% StockXpert
4% Featurepics

Previous results for 2008:

March 2008 Earnings

Feb 2008 Earnings

Jan 2008 Earnings

We have a winner - race for my first flame

2008-04-17T07:19:00.002+01:00

As a follow up to my previous post, we have a winner for the race to my first flame. And the winner is ......

the picture of the morrocan entrance.

By way of comparison, the morocan entrance is also my top seller at Shuterstock with 149 sales. The vineyard shot isn't even in the top 20 but a similar shot (shot in landscape rather than portrait about 10 seconds apart) is my 4th top seller at shutterstock with just over 90 sales.

Shutterstock launches footage subscriptions

2008-04-16T20:16:00.003+01:00

I dont do footage so not of interest to me, but it may be for you. Have a look at their press release for details.

Shutterstock Footage® to Introduce Subscription Product.
Launch is natural step for Shutterstock®, the industry leader in subscription-based access to premium visual content.
New York, NY-- April 16, 200 -- Shutterstock, a leader in the stock image industry, announced today that it will be adding a subscription product to its stock video library at Shutterstock Footage. Previously, video clips from the ever-expanding collection had been available only on a per-clip basis. With this launch, Shutterstock will offer customers the freedom provided by the subscription model, with the refreshing ease-of-use for which Shutterstock is known in the creative community. With a subscription to Shutterstock Footage, customers can download more material to inspire and fuel their creative projects without concerning themselves with per-clip charges and administration. Shutterstock Footage by subscription will be available starting April 16, 2008.

"We understand subscription, and why it works well for creative professionals," said Jon Oringer, Shutterstock's Founder & CEO. Adam Riggs, company President, added: "Shutterstock's image subscriptions provide immediate and unconstrained access to our library of photos, illustrations, and vectors; this new product will do the same for our video clip collection at Shutterstock Footage."

Subscriptions to Shutterstock Footage are available in two main types, one that entitles the subscriber to download clips in all formats including High-Definition (HD) and one that permits all formats except for HD. All subscription periods are 30 days, and subscribers choose which plan is best for them based on the quantity of footage they anticipate downloading during that period. This model gives maximum flexibility and value to subscribers: there is a plan here for someone seeking a modest number of non-HD footage over the course of a month and one that provides for more heavy usage, up to 50 clips at the highest resolution. The plans are as follows:

Shutterstock Footage's collection now contains almost 50,000 video clips in categories such as People, Animals/Wildlife, Transportation and Technology. Easily searchable by keyword, the footage library grows every day -- hundreds of clips are added each week -- meaning that subscriber searches constantly turn up fresh material.

Number of clips per 30-day subscription period
HD Included?
Cost per 30-day subscription
10 NO $269
25 NO $639
50 NO $1,199
10 YES $449
25 YES $1,059
50 YES $1,999

LuckyOliver to close its doors

2008-04-16T19:50:00.003+01:00

It looks like Luckyoliver will be closing its doors. This is a shame as this is one of the newer agencies that was trying to do something slightly different, breaking the mould, experimenting, and having fun while doing it. Appologies for anyone I referred but I had high hopes for these guys

If anyone has spare credits that they wont be using, feel free to use them on my photos - http://www.luckyoliver.com/portfolio/CJPhoto - I will repay the favour (contact me by commment - if it is a private message, I wont publish it).

A short extract from their press release:

It's with great disappointment that we have decided to shut down LuckyOliver on May 15th. All Olivers who purchased tokens must use them to license images before May 15th, 2008. Please note that the user agreement will continue to be valid. Any Carny images that are waiting in the queue for Bouncers will not be reviewed. Carnies who have reached the minimum payout must request payout by May 15th. Carnies who have not reached the minimum payout can convert their earnings to tokens by contacting support.

Crestock - any one submit there?

2008-04-15T20:08:00.004+01:00

I have just seen that Crestock has launched an affiliate program. I dont submit to Crestock but wonder whether I should be. An affiliate program shows one of two things to me - either desparation to get new photos or a desire to grow quickly into a top site. As Crestock has been around for a while it is my guess they are finally taking a stab at making it big. It might be time to join up?

Does anyone submit to Crestock?
How does it compare to other sites?
Has it been picking up recently?

If your not submitting to Crestock clilck one of the links or ads to join up.

Article on iStock

2008-04-10T19:54:00.003+01:00

An interetting article from the British Journal of Photography. It talks briefly about what istockphoto earns, the top earners and what the "average" contributor can expect. Extract below or click the link above for the full article:

[ istockphoto has] 4000 contributors, and if that figure remained even, they would be earning an average more like $5225 last year. Then you have to calculate that against the costs of the shoots, factoring in how many images you need to hit a premium and how often you need to refresh your portfolio. Lee Torrens, who runs a blog called Microstock Diaries, calculates that each of his images at iStockphoto generates just 30 cents a year. Compared against nine other micro-stock agencies he has images with, iStockphoto paid the best return. The worst, CanStockPhoto, delivered just one cent per image.

iStock - the race for my first flame

2008-04-05T23:01:00.003+01:00

I currently have 2 photos sitting on 98 downloads so only 2 downloads away from getting flame status (ie 100DL). They really are two completely different stories about how I get my photos for microstock.

The first (Moroccoan Entrance) was taken in Morroco in Christmas 2005 when I was doing a tour there. It wasn't taken specifically for stock as I hadn't started that yet as I had only just got my DSLR and was still learning how everything worked. I got around to uploading it in October 2006 (I only started half way through 2006) and it has sold 5.2 times per month.

The second photo (Vineyard)was taken when I was back in New Zealand on holiday (NZ is my home but I was living in London at the time. I had driven past this vineyard so many times when I was younger - it has an amazing position where it rises up a hill away from an intersection (hard to describe but it looks amazing). Anyway, I was driving past there and thought it would make a great stock photo. So I jumped out, rattled off a few shots and eventually uploaded it at the end of June 07 - it now sells about 10 times per month.

So the race is on. For the past two months I have kept my eye on them because based on averages, they should both reach 100Dl in the same month. Hopefully it will be soon.

iStock goes for subscription service

2008-04-05T22:52:00.002+01:00

A new feture to the microstock landscape - istock , the biggest agency has decided to offer a subscription service. While I dont think it is a good as the subscription service offered by shutterstock I am sure it will be a great success because they already have such a big slice of the market, this can only increase it.

FAQ for Contributors on Subscription
kkthompson Apr 04/08, 11:54
Is there a minimum payout? Yes. We'll guarantee the same minimum payout as we do today on the Pay-as-you-go side. … more Is there a minimum payout?
Yes. We'll guarantee the same minimum payout as we do today on the Pay-as-you-go side. So right now, the lowest priced (non-sale) credit is 96¢. You receive 20 to 40% of that. Clear canisters will receive a minimum 19¢ and Diamonds will receive a minimum 38¢. And yes, this means that sometimes iStock will be paying out more than we take in per credit.

What's the maximum payout available?
Contributors stand to make more per file than they've ever made before from iStock. Here are two examples of what a non-exclusive can make off subscriptions:
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 480 uses only 10 credits that day, all on one of your files, you'd earn 480 × 20% × $130*. That means a payout of about $26 for your single file.
- If a subscriber with a daily credit limit of 30 uses only 10 credits that day, including 5 credits on your image, you'd earn (30/2) × 20% × $10*. A payout of about $1.

* These values are 'Credit Package Value per Day', and have not been set yet. They are for illustrative purposes only.

Who gets the money when no credits are used on a day?
iStock does. This will offset the times where iStock will be paying out more in royalties than was paid for the credit, because of the guaranteed minimum on these days.

Why are you doing it this way?
This way we share in the risk and reward with the contributors, and still guarantee no less than what's currently paid out.

Will there be cannibalization of Pay-as-you-go?
Some clients will migrate to the new model, but we think we'll have lots of new customers that couldn't use our services before. Remember, this was one of the most requested features by people who wanted to become customers.

How often will stats be udpated?
Because Subscription credits expire daily, we'll update them once per day after everything has been tallied (i.e. after midnight for the day before).

Is this royalty structure set in stone?
We've modeled the subscription plan on a number of assumptions. If after we have a few months data, we find we were off on our assumptions, we'll revisit the royalty structure.

Istock sales expected to double by 2012

2008-04-05T03:16:00.003+01:00

Interesting article about Getties results and how they expect the microstock market to expand and traditional stock houses to shrink. Click the link below for the full article.

Getty: iStockphoto Sales Could Total $262M In 2012

March 28, 2008

By Daryl Lang

Getty Images projects that its iStockphoto division will more than double in size by 2012, reaching $262 million in annual sales.

At the same time, traditional royalty-free and rights-managed stock licensing is expected to shrink by a quarter, down from more than half of Getty's revenues to just 29 percent in 2012.

IStockphoto earned $22 million in 2006 and $72 million in 2007, according to figures in a document dated February 7.

A November 2007 report projected that iStockphoto will earn $122 million this year and $262 in 2012.

If counted separately from Getty Images, iStockphoto would probably be the world's third-largest stock agency this year. (The top two agencies, Getty and Corbis, each generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues. Jupiterimages, generally regarded as third place, reported $108 in annual revenues for 2007.)

Link

Microstock photography results for March 2008

2008-04-04T06:39:00.003+01:00

Sales are up this month and getting back to the highs of last year. However, this was due to a few Extended License sales at shutterstock which helped out alot. A disappointing month at a few sites, istockphoto especially which had been a top earner in the new year and I had great hopes for sales to surge forward in 2008.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

25% shutterstock
17% dreamtime
3% Fotolia
11% istockphoto
9% bigstockphoto
5% 123RF
17% StockXpert
1% Featurepics
2% LuckyOliver

Previous results for 2008:

Feb 2008 Earnings

Jan 2008 Earnings

Book: How to make money from your digital images

2008-03-24T04:49:00.004Z

Microstock Photography: How to make money from your digital images by Douglas Freer

It has taken a while but someone has finally published a book on how to make money from microstock. I haven't read it yet as I don't think it has actually hit the shelves yet, but it looks like it is targeted at the new entrant. It covers the basics from what sells and what doesn't, technical issues, equipment, setting up a studio and 20 top tips and tricks to winning on microstocks. It also has a few appendices with useful links which I assume are web links to the microstock sites and helpful tutorial websites.

Apart from the cheesy "stock" photo on the cover, the photos inside appear to be of very high quality.

It should be a worthwhile book for new entrants. I will try and get my hands on it to do a review but until then, the description below is the official blurb:

Be a part of one of the worlds fastest growing imaging phenomenons: microstock photography. Microstock photography provides both professional and amateur photographers an opportunity to diversify their income and expand their artistic visibility by turning day trip photos or photography portfolios into viable business investments.

Douglas Freer has written a comprehensive book that details the technical and commercial processes of the microstock industry. A must read for entrants into the microstock photography field, Microstock Photography shows you how to:
Choose the right microstock agency
Shoot work that will sell
Navigate the strict technical requirements
Understand the likely financial returns
Review licensing models
Understand copyright issues
Over 60 illustrations and photographs help you improve your skills, learn new techniques specific to shooting stock photography and better understand what the microstock market demands. Anyone can shoot digital stock photography, but in order to make money and be successful, you need the practical advice that can only be found in this book.
Learn how to start earning money fast from your personal photos or professional portfolio
Contains invaluable information on the crucial technical and commercial requirements you'll need to meet to be successful in the microstock industry
Over 60 full color images show you what sells and what doesn't

About the Author: Douglas Freer is the former principal of a niche online rights managed stock photo library, a semi-professional photographer and the London based senior partner of the law firm he founded in 2004. He is highly regarded in the industry of microstock photography and has founded one of the largest microstock forums. He is a contributing photographer for IStock, Shutterstock, Dreamstime, 123Royaltyfree and Fotolia and a member of the Royal Photographic Society.

Snapvillage update

2008-03-15T03:11:00.003Z

A short update on snapvillage. It appears they will soon be out of beta and have already started to increase their marketing. I have always said this is one to watch. It is owned by Corbis so has the backing of the second biggest stock house (after Getty which backs iStock, the biggest microstock site), and Corbis is owned by Bill Gates so the possibility of a Microsoft tie in is a possibility.

Note: I currently have a grand total of 1 photo on the site so I cant really comment on them from experience. I haven't uploaded anymore on the basis that they were originally only for sale in the USA (I understand they have now gone global) and the fact they weren't doing marketing until out of beta. I am now considering upload all my photos.

News from SnapVillage: site improvements and new ads March 14, 2008
Posted by SnapVillage Team

Say Goodbye to Beta Soon
We’re doing some spring cleaning at SnapVillage. Our web team has been working hard to fix the last few bugs in the site so we can get out of beta soon. You should notice an increase in performance right away as we release these improvements. Many of you sent in suggestions for new features and reported problem spots on the site. Thanks for sending us your ideas and reporting bugs when you found them. We need everyone’s help to keep the Village running smoothly.

SnapVillage hits Newsstands Everywhere
In January, we announced that we’re ramping up our marketing efforts. We’re primarily targeting graphic designers, art directors and other creative professionals. You can find our first print ad in the February issue of Creativity Magazine, introducing SnapVillage to future buyers (check out the ad below). You’ll see more ads in the March issue of Creativity, GD USA and the April/May issue of Photoshop User. Watch for ads in even more magazines coming out in May and June.

Coming Soon to a Mailbox Near You!
We’re not just reaching out with magazine ads, we’re also contacting buyers directly with our direct mail campaign. It will include a special feature to bring graphic designers into our community. We don’t want to give away the surprise, so stay tuned for more details!

Get ready to welcome some new neighbors to SnapVillage. Keep your ideas and images coming!

Link to full post

Microstock photography results for Feb 2008

2008-03-03T07:59:00.003Z

Well it has been another month on non-action on my part at the micro sites, the reason (a relatively lame one) is that the Hard disk on my laptop is overflowing and my external harddrives are safely stored at my parents house.

Sales are up slight on last month, another great month of passive earnings. With the increase in payouts at shutterstock expected in May, and more photos that are ready to be edited, hopefully I will be able to increase my earnings once I actually start putting some work into microstock again.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

20% shutterstock
15% dreamtime
8% Fotolia
23% istockphoto
6% bigstockphoto
12% 123RF
14% StockXpert
1% Featurepics
1% LuckyOliver

Previous results for 2008:
Jan 2008 Earnings

Shutterstock to increase payouts

2008-02-26T09:59:00.002Z

Shutterstock has announced that there is a payrise on the way. The announcement was just a teaster though so I wont link to it as it provides no details on the amount or the exact timing. Look forward for the payrise to apply from May.

I will keep you posted once details are "actually" announced.

New Pricing at Fotolia

2008-02-02T20:15:00.000Z

Fotolia has just announced new sizing and new pricing. There is now an XS (extra small) size which is priced at 1 credit which means that all the previous sized move up a credit in price. There is also a new XL size.

If you have a ranking of bronze or above, you can also set the XS price higher which means all other sizess earn you even more.

Sales for me have been slow there but hopefully this will increase earnings. Let hope.

Microstock photography results for Janurary

2008-02-01T09:16:00.000Z

Sorry about the no updates in January but I am struggling with incredibly slow internet. I move into my new place later this month and will hopefully be able to get full speed broadband (no guarantees though).

Anyway, January was slow as expected but slightly up on December. If previous years are anything to go by, sales should increase through to March/April, then slow down abit and then take off for the later part of the year only slowing down for December.

I also have some photos to upload which should kickstart my shutterstock earnings.

So January was slow but istockphoto had a great month. Hopefully they will keep going up from this good base. dreamtime and StockXpert were also quite strong.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

20% shutterstock
16% dreamtime
4% Fotolia
29% istockphoto
2% bigstockphoto
8% 123RF
20% StockXpert
2% Featurepics
0% LuckyOliver

Back from travels

2008-01-03T22:35:00.000Z

I am back from my travels and enjoying a bit of R&R before I start my new job later this month.

I am currently staying at a beach house that doesn't have a phone line, let alone internet so I haven't had a chance to look at how things have gone over the past couple of months. Hopefully I will get to do that shortly.

In the past 5 months, I have travelled to 4 continents, 20 countries, crossed the artic circle, crossed the equator a multitude of times by various forms of transport (plane, boat, truck) and taken over 7,600 photos and seen many more millions of amazing things.

Over the next few months, I plan to start editing photos to get up online with the hope of doubling my Microstock earnings. After that, and with little prospect of travel in the next few years (have to settle down at some point) I will slow down on microstock,just focusing on NZ scenery and icons (though I dont think there is much of a market for this stuff).

I will get up my performance figures for November and December shortly. Then once I get back into regular life, I will resume regular posts with news and opinions on what is happen in Microstock.

December Microstock Results

2008-01-01T09:49:00.000Z

A combination of the Christmas holidays and a lack of Christmas photos has resulted in my worst month Janurary. As I have been away I haven't been in contact with others but I assume it is common for a drop off to be felt during the Christmas period. It will be interesting to see what happens in Janurary.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

24% shutterstock
16% dreamtime
8% Fotolia
18% istockphoto
5% bigstockphoto
10% 123RF
18% StockXpert
2% Featurepics
0% LuckyOliver

Hopefully over the next few months I will start uploading photos again. I have noticed shutterstock has dropped of a bit which is a common occurance since new photos tend to feature higher in search ratings.

November Microstock Results

2007-12-01T09:45:00.000Z

Earnings are a bit down on last months best ever earnings but I did have best ever months (BEM) for StockXpert and dreamtime . I dont have any Christmas style photos so a drop off is expected.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

18% shutterstock
16% dreamtime BEM
10% Fotolia
18% istockphoto
5% bigstockphoto
8% 123RF
24% StockXpert BEM
1% Featurepics
0% LuckyOliver

With the Christmas holidays over the next couple of months, I am expecting a big drop off in earnings.

Microstock Photography results for October

2007-11-01T10:24:00.000Z

I am still travelling so still haven't had any time to edit or upload any photos. My guess is that at the end of my travels, i will have over 10,000 photos, though probably only 500-1000 will be good enough for stock. When travelling, I constantly have to remind my self to take a photo that while not necessarily perfect, is important as a momento rather than just a stock photograph.

Even though I have done nothing, it has been another record month. istockphoto continues to grow and I had an Extended License from LuckyOliver which distorts the percentages a bit. This EL now means that I qualify for a payment from LuckyOliver (at long last) which means taht I have finally received a payment from all sites I submit to (and haven't given up on).

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

28% shutterstock
9% dreamtime
6% Fotolia
25% istockphoto BEM
4% bigstockphoto
7% 123RF
13% StockXpert
0% Featurepics
7% LuckyOliver

Off to Africa for the next 50 days so wont be updating till after Christmas now.

Microstock Photograhy results for September

2007-10-10T16:28:00.000+01:00

I have been on an extended holiday so haven't had a chance to update the blog recently. I have had two record months in a row even though I have done absolutely nothing. This is good news as I wont be able to do any for the next 3 months either (other than take photo).

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

25% shutterstock
10% dreamtime
4% Fotolia
23% istockphoto BEM
7% bigstockphoto
8% 123RF
17% StockXpert
2% Featurepics
2% LuckyOliver

I think this is one of the real advantages of the stock industry (not just mircostock put macrostock aswell). You have to put a bit of effort into it but it keeps paying dividends after you stop putting the effort in (or take a break).

Microstock Photography results for August

2007-09-09T16:21:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the delay but I have been overseas.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

39% shutterstock BEM
11% dreamtime
3% Fotolia
21% istockphoto BEM
4% bigstockphoto
10% 123RF
10% StockXpert BEM
1% Featurepics
1% LuckyOliver

Microstock photo results for July

2007-08-01T10:09:00.000+01:00

July was a best ever month for me thanks to great sales at shutterstock , istockphoto , StockXpert. The increase at shutterstock was expected as I have uploaded a number of new images there over the past two months and have really felt the benefit of the "new photo" effect. istockphoto was a supprise as it really took of this month for no apparent reason. This has happened before (in March) and wasn't sustained but hopefully it will be this time. All the other sites were a bit disappointing but the season pros were expecting the "normal July slow down" (caused by holidays in the US??) so maybe it was effected by this. August is quite a popular holiday time in Europe but hopefully there wont be an August slowdown as well as I have no Christmas shots to enjoy the Christmas rush which lots of people enjoy.

Sales are creaping back at Fotolia following the relaunch of its site. Sales dropped of considerably but in the second half of July, they were almost back to normal. They are still experiencing issues with there search engine so hopefully they will get this fixed shortly, or even better, the buyers find my photos at sites with a higher commission like StockXpert.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

34% shutterstock BEM
12% dreamtime
5% Fotolia
23% istockphoto BEM
3% bigstockphoto
4% 123RF
16% StockXpert BEM
1% Featurepics
2% LuckyOliver

I am off on holiday shortly for a few month so posts will be very intermittent if at all. Hopefully i will get some great shots.

Albumo over 100,000 images

2007-07-23T16:43:00.000+01:00

Rumour has it that Albumo is now over 100,000 images and the marketing campaign for buyers is going to start once they have reached 200,000.

This company that has come from nowhere appears to be making all the right moves. They offered a great upload facillity (ftp and iptc). they offer a good commission (50%). they are offering incentives to get photogs in when there is no buyers as yet (incentive of $25 for first 250 images and more incentives for those who make the 100 club - the first 100 to have 1000 images).

Basically Albumo is doing everything right wereas Corbis has done everything wrong with Snapvillage.

In the long term, sales are what matter so it will be interesting to compare these two sites in 6 months, 1 year, etc since they both started at the exactly the same time with differing strategies.

Dreamstime hits 1,500,000 images

2007-07-18T21:32:00.000+01:00

Dreamstime has just announces they have hit the 1,500,000 image mark. Unfortunately I didn't win the ipod they had on offer for being the lucky person to upload that image. Think about it - not only do you get an ipod but you get alot of publicity on that image too.

Oh well. I will just have to try harder for Dreamstimes next milestone.

[mid month update: Sales appear to be a bit down at Dreamstime this month. mmm. Not sure why?]

Update on some sites - Fotolia, Snapvillage, Albumo

2007-07-17T19:31:00.000+01:00

I thought I would give a mid month update on a few sites:

Fotolia:

Their site is still a mess after their V2 upgrade. The search function for buyers is having major issues and pulling up zero results in popular searchs. Many people, including myself have seen significantly less sales than pre v2. However, uploads seem to be working again. Whether it is worth it or whether the site is destined for the scrap heap is a different matter.

Recommendation: I am uploading again. Fotolia was one of my first sites so has a special pull. I am also going on a long holiday soon so want my photos on line before I go.

Fotolia link

Snapvillage:

Progress is very slow on their site and they are still very much a Beta (if not an Alpha). They still have no IPTC and no FTP which are crutial. They have advised in their blog that they are they will have IPTC (when they launch it (very helpful thank you)) soon.

Recommendation: Hold back until they offer both FTP and IPTC. Before that it is a waste of time as once they offer these, everyone will upload and all the time you spent will seem like a waste of time. Many people are taking this approach so you wont miss out.

Snapvillage link

Albumo:

Well I haven't heard much that is happening here. However, people are uploading and they are already at over 70,000 images. They have done this very quick and is no doubt due to them paying $25 for your first 250 photos uploading (and more if you upload more than 1000). They also have a "100 club" which means that when you get when you upload 1000 photos (called 100 because only 100 are going to be given this status) you earn 10c per upload and a higher commission (60% rather than 50%). A few big names including AndreR have joined this club so that is has some support. Still no reports of sales though.

Recommendation: Personally I would still hold off - but (to go against my own recommendation) I have started uploading. Why, I want the $25 for uploading and since I am going on holiday shortly, I might miss out on this offer by the time I get back. I assume they will offer this deal until the 100club is full and since they only have about 30-40 members at the moment, you still have a bit of time to uplaod and still get the deal. If you want to go for the 100Club though,I would start now.

Albumo link

PDN news

2007-07-06T10:38:00.001+01:00

The lastest stock news from PDN. I have extracted the microstock news and a full link is at the bottom:

Stock Tips: News From Photo Agencies
The latest on the stock photo business

ShutterStock CEO Not Sweating SnapVillage Pricing
In the crowded arena of micropayment stock photography,Shutterstock has differentiated itself – and won some respect, in fact – by standing by its unique pricing scheme. Rather than selling images one at a time, ShutterStock uses a subscription model. A one-month subscription costs $199 for 25 downloads a day, up to 750 images total.

So when Corbis's micropayment site SnapVillage went live last week, it was obvious where it looked for inspiration for its subscription pricing. Its monthly subscription is identical to Shutterstock in every detail: $199 for 30 days, 25 downloads a day, up to 750 images totalShutterstock CEO Jon Oringer sounds diplomatic about his rival's lack of originality in their subscription pricing model. "I guess they realize it was a successful one," Oringer says.

Transparency Cuts Both Ways For Fotolia
Mircopayment stock sites pride themselves on having open community forums where contributors can talk about their work and the site. It's great when things are running well, but when things go wrong...

Take a look at Fotolia. On June 18 Fotolia;relaunched its Web site as FotoliaV2, sprucing up the site to improve performance and user experience.

Unfortunately, the upgrade was marred by serious bugs. One problem disabled the site's image upload feature for several days (as detailed on the Fotolia blog). Another problem shut down the site's system of paying photographers.

The whole ugly ordeal played out on the company's own publicly accessible message boards. Photographers took to the boards en masse to vent their frustrations. Fotolia staff tried to keep order. It was clear nerves were fraying.

"I have probably deleted around 300 posts from this thread," wrote one Fotolia moderator, referring to duplicate or irrelevant posts. "If I have deleted this many, just think how many more posts Support are getting and having to try to deal with every day on top of their usual workloads and please try and be patient whilst you wait for a response."

Sounds like a headache for all involved.

More deals, launches and upgrades

Getty Images's iStockphoto undertook a significant site upgrade this month, adding support for additional video formats and six new languages: Japanese, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Polish and Russian. The site also improved its advanced search tool.

Fotolia announced a partnership with everystockphoto.com, a search engine that searches free images. Fotolia's paid images will now be available through the site. Fotolia says it hopes to forge more partnerships through its public Application Programming Interface

Link

New Sites: Snapvillage, Geckostock and albumo

2007-07-01T15:29:00.000+01:00

I am not sure why but there has been a few new entries into the market in the past month:

I have already blogged about Snapvillage here and here. It is definately most anticipated of the new entries but also the most disappointing. No FTP, No IPTC and only 30% commission. It is only Beta so expect things to get better there.

Recommedation: Hold off for now till they at least offer FTP and IPTC.

Albumu: Weird name (better than Snapvillage though) but they do have FTP, IPTC and commissions of 50% or more.

In addition, they are trying to get critical mass of photos so they are giving contributors $25 if they upload 250 or more photos.

Recommendation: Uncertain but the initial offering of $25 for 250 makes it tempt it.
Link

Geckostock: This technically isn't a new site as it is a rebranding of Raw Stock Images (RSI) which never really started. They also offer FTP, IPTC and 50% commission.

Recommendation: Uncertain but they are offering 50% so may be worth supporting.
Link

Microstock photo results for June 2007

2007-07-01T10:06:00.000+01:00

June was a good month and an interesting month. First of all Fotolia relaunched a new version of its site which has had major issues (this is why I haven't reviewed the new version yet). Sales are down significnatly since the change over but just prior, I had an Extended License sale which means it was a better than average month there. I also uploaded a few photos finally starting onthe backlog of photos to edit. This has has positive results for shutterstock which always does well after new photos go online. It has also seen the launch of SnapVillage, Corbis new entry into the microstock market. Have a lot at my previous blogs to see why I am not that happy with it.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

32% shutterstock BEM
15% dreamtime
12% Fotolia
13% istockphoto
7% bigstockphoto
7% 123RF
11% StockXpert
3% Featurepics
0% Canstock
0% Galastock
2% LuckyOliver

I am looking forward to another good month as I continue to get more photos on line. Then I am gonig on holiday for a while which means that uploads will stop completely for a few months.

Thomas Hawk's view of the new Corbis site - Snap village - and microstock in general

2007-06-28T13:17:00.000+01:00

I have been following Thomas Hawk’s blog for a while and in his recent post, he talks about why he believes Corbis new microstock site, Snapvillage (and all microstock sites such as iStock), are a rip of to photographers. I normally don’t get into the microstock/macrostock debate but this is a new and interesting take on the matter that I thought was interesting.

Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection: Why Corbis' New SnapVillage Stock Photography Agency is a Bad Deal for Photographers

My own view is that there is artificial price control going on between Getty and Corbis' microstock offerings and their far more lucrative traditional stock photography business. While I applaud Corbis for letting photographers set a price between $1 and $50. Why not let the photographer set the price between $1 and $1,000? If there really is no market for these images at higher than $50, the market is efficient and these photos would quickly price downward. If Corbis President Gary Shenk is *really* serious about being willing to cannibalize Corbis' business as he is quoted in the New York Times above, why set the $50 upper price limit?

You won't see Corbis and Getty allowing images by you and I to be priced greater than $50 for one simple reason. They understand that our images are just as good as their Pro images and they do not want to cannibalize this far more lucrative business. They want to keep the myth alive that their images are so much better than our images and to create a wide valley between the two to continue reaping in the millions that they do each year.

I don’t really agree with this view. The reason being is that if Corbis and Getty were afraid of cannibalising their macrostock collection, they would allow the prices to be higher, not kept at an artificially low amount. Why? Because if Getty can sell an iStock picture at a higher price, say the same price as it gets from its normal collection, it would actually make more money as the commission it pays its microstock contributors is lower than what it pays its macrostock contributors.

So why has corbis limited the maximum price to $50? I am not sure but I don’t think this is the reason.

Regardless, at this point in time, both Thomas and I (for completely different reasons) believe Corbis new Snapvillage site is not a good deal for photographers.

Corbis has entered microstock - snapvillage

2007-06-25T19:47:00.000+01:00

As I blogged about here, corbis has finally entered the microstock market and from my initial impressions, it is highly disappointing.

First of all the name - Snapvillage. The "snap" makes it sound amateurish and not like a professional stock agency that is targeting design firms to be clients.

Second, in the initial stage the focus is on getting contributors. They have not done anything to attract photographers to upload (special deals - ie. Fotolia offered 20c for every accepted photo). In addition, they do not offer FTP uploading (yet) and the upload (maximum 5 at a time) does not read IPTC data (such as title and keywords) embedded into the photo (apparently if you dont input anything, they will fill it in for you - not sure if I trust them though).

Third, there doesn't appear to be much quality control. From the few photos I have looked at, the quality isn't always there and the photos would have been rejected at all the other agencies. There is also keyword spaming as well!

Forth, from the one photo I have uploaded, they appear to be resizing photos down if they don't meet the next size up (rather than offering original size).

Fifth, commission is only 30%. Compared to StockXpert and 123RF that both offer 50%, it isn't that great. Others like iStock , which only offer 20% are well established and bring in the sales volume that the low commission isn't that bad.

Good points??

Well, they have the corbis name behind them which should attract buyers.

They also let you set the price at either $1,5,10,25 or 50. This seems ok (you can choose higher prices) but there is also the problem of people offering photos at $1 which is far to low for a large image.

Conclusion:

They are still in Beta so hopefully they will improve things significantly. I still wont like the site name but hopefully uploads will be easier and sales volumes high.

At this point though, I wouldn't recommend joining up. They just don't seem to be offering anything that isn't already available. They don't have the number (or quality) of photos to attract buyers and without that, there isn't much point.

6 sites with over 1 million images

2007-06-18T16:35:00.000+01:00

There are now 6 sites that have over 1 million images. New entries are bigstockphoto and 123RF . bigstockphoto gave a prize but 123RF did it on the quiet so I am not exactly sure when they passed the mark.

These sites are “the big six” but it is interesting that most people (including myself) rate StockXpert within this crowd, even though they have fewer photos.

I guess the key statistic is number of buyers to photos but no site will ever release this info so we must judge attractiveness to buyers by the number of photos. As far as attractiveness to seller goes, site ratings (ie alexa) and users experiences (such as my month stats) are a better indication.

It is also interesting to note that Fotolia has reduced the number of photos it has from over 3 million to 1.9 with the release of v2 of its site. I am not sure whether this is due to a more accurate count (lots of people disputed its previous number) or whether they deleted over 1 million photos as part of their clean up (they were to delete photos with no sales in 18m). By sales though, I still believe it warrants its top 4 status but definitely not the number 1 spot.

The latest photos numbers are:

Fotolia 1,961,129
shutterstock 1,971,332
istockphoto 1,813,000
dreamtime 1,300,000+
bigstockphoto 1,179,000
123RF 1,000,000+
StockXpert 569,397+
Featurepics 301,275

Fotolia pricing changes

2007-06-12T09:51:00.000+01:00

Fotolia pricing changes

Well I don’t think v2 of Fotolia has even gone live yet (v2 changes previously discussed here)but they have already made pricing changes. This is actually a good thing as the changes seem to make sence. That is, they are keeping 1 credit as $1. This is a very good move as it would have been very confusing to work out how much anything was costing.

The second change is to put in a new Small level which is blog sized. The previous smallest image (called medium) is now worth twice as much so this is effectively still a payrise with each image size now worth an extra credit.

A blog size is also good as this is a growth area for microstock in my opinion (depending on whether “free stock” or creative commons take off).

Lets hope this increases sales or at least sales values.

Since that time we have had a lot of feedback from photographers and buyers and have decided to adjust our pricing changes a little.
• The first change is to introduce a new license called the Small Standard RF License. This license will offer images at 600x800 pixels, specifically targeted for web usage.
• The second change is to keep the credit price the same. 1 credit will still equal $1.
• The last change is that our pricing chart will be altered with the introduction of the small standard license.

Gagne has sold 500,000 images at iStock!!

2007-06-08T14:03:00.000+01:00

Lise Gagne, recently sold her 500,000 image at istock. I was going to post on this anyway but found this article celebrating her achievement (as always extracts are below and a link to the full article at the bottom).

iStock is no doubt the most successful microstock site at the moment. It treats its exlusives really well and it puts money into advertising which drives sales (I have my least amount of photos on line there but they are one of the top 3 earners).

Bruce Livingstone comment that she may be the most prolific stock photographer on the planet appears to be a bit of the mark however, based on the comments of Yuri (see here).

Anyway, an interesting article to celebrate an amazing achievement.

Extract:

World's Most Successful ''Crowdsourcing'' Stock Photographer Reaches Half a Million Images Sold on iStockphoto
CALGARY, ALBERTA,
June 5 2007
CNW

Lise Gagne, a freelance photographer who sells stock images online, just sold her 500,000th image on iStockphoto.

Gagne, from Quebec City, Quebec, was the first to become a full-time iStock photographer and has almost 5,000 files on the site, which have been downloaded an average 100 times each. She has quickly risen to become iStockphoto's most in-demand artist, making a six-figure income.

iStockphoto pioneered the concept of micropayment stock imagery and was one of the first social networks in the world to actually pay contributors for the sale of their work. It remains the world leader in micropayment stock and is now the global volume leader in all stock photography sales, whether user-generated or traditional. iStock has more than 1.8 million members and an image or video is downloaded from the site every 2.5 seconds.

"Lise is a great friend, a true artist, and has really set the bar high for the members of our community," said Bruce Livingstone, CEO of iStockphoto. "We work very hard to promote our artists, providing training, business cards, partnerships, and advertising that give all our exclusive contributors maximum worldwide exposure. I believe Lise is the first of many who will achieve this milestone, as we have just barely scratched the surface of the worldwide appetite for imagery. What may be her most astounding accomplishment is that by our calculations, she just may be the most prolific stock photographer on the planet."

iStock artists are paid instantly every time one of their images is downloaded. Exclusive photographers can make 40 percent royalties on each image sold, and 50 percent on extended license agreements. iStock promotes its collection and photographers through aggressive marketing and advertising campaigns worldwide, and has many partnerships internationally that increase channel sales potential for its artists.

"I fell in love with iStock right away, but never would have dreamt that someday it would be my career. But things have a way of working out: I got fired from my old design agency for spending too much time on iStock, and suddenly found myself with all the time in the world to give to photography”. said Lise Gagne. “Now I hope to hit a million downloads in half the time it took to reach 500,000."

Link

Microstock article in the Seattle Times

2007-06-06T11:56:00.000+01:00

Another day, another article. Microstock must be one of the hot topics for technology writers as here is another article that has featured in a major US newspaper.

This article follows Kelly Cline, a photographer exclusive with iStock.

What this article misses out is that while making good money is possible, it is not easy. Getting 1,400 images onto iStock takes time (they don’t accept all photos) and some photos sell better than others.

Extracts from the article (full link below)

Microstock photography represents a new business model
By Kim Peterson
Seattle Times technology reporter
Monday, May 28, 2007
Kelly Cline's photographs pop up all over the place — in grocery stores, on Web sites, even splashed on the wall of a supermarket in Serbia.

Cline, who lives in West Seattle, takes pictures of food and sells them online through iStockphoto, a division of Seattle-based Getty Images. Her shots of hand-pressed olive oils, cheeses and California strawberries are available for anyone to purchase, and the response is so strong that Cline said she expects to make about $70,000 this year. She has nearly 1,400 images on iStockphoto and has sold about 69,000 downloads.

"I've never made this much money before," said Cline, 38.

A handful make enough to quit their day jobs. IStockphoto's top-selling photographer expects to make at least $100,000 this year.

"It's the most satisfying job I had ever had in my life," said Cline, who used to work at a printing company. "I can't imagine going back to an office. I think it would probably kill me."

With sophisticated digital cameras now less than $1,000, even amateur photographers can break into the business, submitting their pictures to microstock photography Web sites and collecting a small commission for each image sold.

"We're just now seeing people look at the model and say, 'Hey, this is really successful,' " said Bruce Livingstone, iStockphoto's founder.

IStockphoto's big break came last year, when it was acquired by Getty for $50 million. Getty zeroed in on iStockphoto in 2005 when it began researching microstock photography. By the fall of that year, Livingstone was talking acquisition over breakfast in Madison Park with Getty Chief Executive Jonathan Klein.

Still, Getty was known for high-quality, high-end images, not the cheap photographs iStockphoto specialized in. So instead of integrating the company into Getty, Klein opted to keep iStockphoto separate and allow it to grow in Calgary; it now has 56 employees.

Some estimates place the entire stock-photography market at about $2 billion worldwide. There's little chance of the microstock segment taking over the market, said Andy Goetze, an independent analyst tracking the industry.

"It is still a long, long way to go until iStockphoto will count for $100 million of Getty Images' overall revenues, if ever," he said.

But there's no question that iStockphoto is eating into Getty's business. Customers who were once willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a Getty image are now finding a decent image on iStockphoto for much less.

But Klein estimates that the customer overlap is only about 15 percent. In other words, he thinks that 85 percent of iStockphoto customers would never have ordered from Getty Images. And Getty can seize that opportunity to sell more expensive images to the customer.

Sites like Google Images also present a challenge to the entire industry. If you wanted a picture of a rose, for example, you could find dozens of nice shots on Google's image site.

Using those images without permission from owners could amount to copyright infringement, but it's done anyway.

"Ninety percent of people who use images are stealing them every day."

Link

PDN releases its stock guide

2007-06-06T10:07:00.000+01:00

Hot on the heels of releasing its annual stock income survey, PDN has now released its stock guide. it is a collection of interesting articles which cover the industry, both micro and macro. Worht a read. The article is too long to summarise or show extracts from so take a look:

PDN Stock Guide

Microstock article in the NY Times

2007-06-05T16:58:00.000+01:00

The New York times has just published an acticle on microstock. It is just a puff piece and doesn’t offer up to much info. However, it does provide some interesting info on a few of the pro’s who do Microstock – Lisa Gayne, Kelly Cline and Stephen Coburn.

Extracts from the article (link to full articel below)

When Are Photos Like Penny Stocks? When They Sell.
By ERIC A. TAUB
Published: June 5, 2007
It sounds like a late-night TV come-on for a phony get-rich-quick scheme. But in this case, it might just be true.

Thanks to the Internet and digital cameras, thousands of semiprofessional photographers are now selling their shots through so-called microstock Web sites to customers around the world.

Traditional photographic stock companies charge several hundred to several thousand dollars per image. Microstock prices can be as low as 25 cents, and payments to photographers are even lower, often not much more than pennies per sale.

But some photographers are making significant incomes from their pictures, making up in volume what they have lost in per-shot commissions. And that, in turn, is affecting the business of some mainstream professional photographers.

“Maybe a $300 photo for a pamphlet distributed to 300 people is not worth $300,” said Jon Oringer, the founder of Shutterstock, a four-year-old microstock agency.

Shots of dogs and cats are generally not welcome, while “lifestyle” photographs — pictures of people at work and play — are usually top sellers. Other subjects of interest include food, sports and fashion.

Keeping one’s pictures confined to one site may not be a good idea, if the site attracts few customers, or becomes known for specializing in pictures of sheep while you are hoping to sell shots of toothpaste.

“We did not want to limit the ability of photographers to earn money,” said Tim Donahue, the founder of Big Stock Photo, which does not offer exclusivity.

Some photographers say exclusivity works. The same picture on multiple sites may have different prices. By being exclusive photographers can more easily trace those who might be misusing their work, either by using an image — on, say, a coffee mug — without buying rights to it or by stealing a concept they like, recreating a photograph and selling it as their own.

Those who are doing well selling their work on microstock sites have done their homework: they have figured out what type of photographs a site specializes in, what types of pictures sell and whether the commission is sufficient.

Lise Gagné of Quebec specializes in business shots, one of the most popular genres. Ms. Gagné, who has been shooting commercially for five years, earns more than $100,000 a year selling her work exclusively through iStockphoto.
“I like iStock’s sharing spirit,” Ms. Gagné said, referring to the extensive discussion groups and other client aides the site provides. “It’s a matter of being fair. You don’t have to go elsewhere.”

Because volume matters in microstock sales, a large number of shots must be uploaded. Ms. Gagné currently has 4,900 photographs available for sale on the site and adds 5 to 20 more each week.

Kelly Cline, a Seattle-based food photographer, has uploaded 1,363 images to iStockphoto, and her work has been bought 68,215 times. Significant payments began to arrive once she had 500 to 600 images in her portfolio, Ms. Cline said, adding, “If you upload more, it’s like shooting arrows in the air.”

Today, she said, she earns about $70,000 a year, 60 percent of her income, from microstock sales, and she remains an exclusive provider to iStockphoto.

But Stephen Coburn, a Web designer at Adobe Systems who began photography a few years ago as a hobby, said he would never use one microstock site exclusively. “I’d feel nervous about putting all my eggs in one basket,” he said.

Mr. Coburn supplies shots to five microstock sites, shooting people, objects and interiors. With 3,500 photos posted to the sites, he earns, on average, $6,000 per month.

Michael Shake, a tool-and-die maker in Toledo, Ohio, uploads pictures to 10 sites and earns $1,000 a month for his work. Specializing in shots of houses and new cars, he sells his work to real estate agents and car dealers looking for appropriate illustrations.

Not everyone is enamored with microstock Web sites. Professional photographers see the sites’ growth as diluting their own incomes.

“This is the death of beautiful photography,” said David Skernick, a professional photographer in Los Angeles who does not use the sites. Because of the low prices and large volumes of material, “now clients accept anything.”

Still, railing against the sites is about as useful as hoping cellphones will go away and phone booths will make a comeback.

Link

Shutterstock to issue press passes

2007-06-05T09:51:00.000+01:00

Shutterstock has decided to join the big boys (Getty etc) and help its contributors get press passes to events. In return for assistance in getting the press pass, the contributor must agree to a 2 year exclusive deal with Shutterstock. This only seems fair.

What this does however, is shift the goal posts. Photos like this have traditionally been sold for large amounts. Time will tell whether Shutterstock can create the volume of sales to justify this from a business perspective (though I must admit that the thought of getting special access to events may make it worthwhile regardless – at least initially).

The big question is how will Getty and the like respond. Their photographers are use to getting big bucks for these and soon, the magazines will be able to get a full edition filled with just one shutterstock subscription. They cant try and block shutterstock securing passes as this will be seen as anticompetitive behaviour. Getty’s biggest ally may be the event themselves as they might not like photos from their event being sold for so little.

The practicalities have also to be sorted out. Big events like say the MTV awards may get lots of applications. Shutterstock will only be able to secure a few passes at the most so they will only support the contributors that have the right gear and the experience. As such, for the majority of the contributors, this new scheme might not apply.

It will also be interesting to see how this applies to countries other than the US. Will the photos generate enough downloads (since US is the biggest market) for them to help out those in other countries??

Note that at this stage, they will not be providing general passes and will be reviewing it on a case by case basis. As far as other companies go, iStock currently issues business cards to exclusive members but these dont carry any official backing from them. It will be interesting to see how iStock respond as thier hands may be tied by their owner, Getty. Scoopt (also owned by Getty) sells celebrity shots but these are "one off" shots where Getty's photographers are not around.

It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. In the mean time, here is their press release:

Shutterstock on the Red Carpet™

New York, New York—June 5, 2007—No more velvet ropes—at least not for Shutterstock® photographers. Shutterstock®, the world’s largest subscription-based stock photo agency, today announced the debut of a new program: Shutterstock on the Red Carpet. Working directly with its submitting photographers—a global network that exceeds 60,000—the company will work to facilitate the acquisition of coveted press passes, whether at film premieres, award shows, concerts or political rallies. While taking steps to secure preferred access for its photographers, Shutterstock will expand its library of celebrity images, a popular category among buyers. Shutterstock on the Red Carpet is the first such program to launch in the stock photography industry and represents an unprecedented level of support by an agency for its photographers.

Shutterstock is already a go-to source for the creative community: with a photo library numbering almost two million premium images, it has photographs and vectors in categories ranging from people and animals/wildlife to business and science. With Shutterstock on the Red Carpet, the company is positioning itself to be a leading resource for the entertainment/celebrity sector as well. As for photographers, the benefits are obvious: they will be positioned to take photographs that are almost guaranteed to sell well on the site.

“At Shutterstock we are very aware that our success is tied to the caliber of our photo library, and for that we are indebted to our photographers,” said Jon Oringer, Founder and CEO of Shutterstock. “If there’s something we can do to help them get the best, most desirable photographs, we’re going to do it. Shutterstock on the Red Carpet came from that kind of thinking—and we wish our photographers well on the red carpet!”

Shutterstock on the Red Carpet™: How it Works
Photographers work directly with a Shutterstock customer service representative to expedite the press pass application process—these representatives are available via email at presspass@shutterstock.com. Each event requires different information to issue a press pass, so Shutterstock asks that photographers be as specific as possible about their needs. There is a form online at http://submit.shutterstock.com/redcarpet.pdf ; photographers must fill out one per event and a Shutterstock Support staffer will respond within 24 hours. In return for enlisting Shutterstock’s press pass acquisition services and increasing their potential earnings by taking photos in a much-downloaded category, photographers must agree to sell resulting images exclusively at Shutterstock. (Note: these photos must meet the same standards of quality to be added to the site as would any other submission).blockquote>

Fotolia v2 - upgrades and payrise [updated]

2007-06-04T14:48:00.000+01:00

[update - Fotolia have delayed the launch of their new site. They hope to get it up this weekend now. At least they postponed the upgrade rather than go through with it in an imcomplete state. Hopefully it will be up this weekend as it has been painfully slow their for the past week.]

30/5/2007 - The long awaited upgrade to Fotolia is nearly here.

The biggest news is that there is a payrise. While commission % are not changing, 1 credit which use to be worth US$1 is now worth US$1.36. Time will tell whether this effects the amount of downloads (ie. people buy less because it costs more) but it shouldn't which means that we get a 36% payrise - GREAT!

Other changes at Fotolia include more servers, a recode of the site, scrapping the exclusive buy out, a Database clean out and vector support. There have been a few complaints about the speed of the website (which can be extremely slow - very off putting for buyers - so hopefully this upgrade will address this issue.

I will give some more feedback once it is online.

From Fotolias blog:

Exclusive Buy Out license

Due to fraud issues and declining buyer interest, we have removed the Exclusive Buyout licenses. New licensing models will be introduced soon

Credit Value

We finally feel it is time to raise our prices however it will not be a drastic change. 1 credit will now cost $1.36 . This value is more accurate and equal to our other international countries who use the Euro as a basis of payment. This should be good news for photographers who will now see a 30% increase in commissions overnight.

Data base clean up

It is time for us to clean the database. Since the beginning of Fotolia, the quality of images has really increased. We have received millions of images and it is now the time to clean the database and give a chance to new images that sell as good as the oldest ones. Quality is and always will be the key to attract good buyers. After the launch of V2, images with no sales for 18 consecutive months will be removed from the Fotolia database.

Prices Changes

To simplify and improve the efficiency of the customer experience we have developed a new pricing system in V2. This new pricing model will bring in more customers and thus more commissions for all photographers.

New version

The Fotolia team is very excited about the V2 release. We have totally rebuilt the core code and infrastructure of the Fotolia website however maintaining pretty much the same design. V2 will increase stability, performance, and allow for new future opportunities. Searching, editing, and uploading have all been optimized to increase speed, accuracy, and performance. Some of the new features will include Vector support (SVG Files), image folder organization, and a flash upload system. Additional details will be published immediately following the V2 release to more fully describe the new features.

Corbis to enter Microstock in July

2007-06-02T08:10:00.000+01:00
Corbis originally stated it would enter the microstock market in the second quarter. They must be a little behind schedule as they have now informed the world via an interview with Cnet (well that is where I found out about it), that they will be opening shop in July.

Other than this article, I have been able to find any other detail. The pricing and commission structure is still unknown but it looks from the article that they will not be trying to attract exclusives. This seems sensible, at least at the start as there is no incentive to do so while they are building up customers.

It will also be interesting to see if they start off with photos from their existing portfolio (Corbis owns the rights to lots of photos - the cost of buying these is one reason they have never made a profit). Also on how strict they are with the review. Most new sites are more lax as they try to get their numbers up to critical mass. However, if Corbis already has a lot of its own photos on the site, it may launch with the critical mass needed, and therefore be able to be strict from the start.

One thing is know and that is that this will be an important city to be on. With a possible future tie in with Microsoft (Corbis is owned by Bill Gates) the potential is huge. They will not only target corporates (photos for PowerPoint presentations), but also home users (wallpaper and screen-savers for desktops) and students (photos for reports written in word).

So will I be joining - definately.

Extracts of article:

Corbis to take 'microstock' plunge
By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
June 1, 2007, 4:00 AM PDT

For the small army of photographers looking for Web sites to sell images at low prices, there already are many choices: Dreamstime, Fotolia, iStockphoto, Stockxpert, 123rf, BigStockPhoto, CreStock, LuckyOliver, Can Stock Photo, Shutterstock.

This month, Corbis, an established but traditional seller of stock photos, will add its name to the list as part of an effort to attain profitability. Until now, the company has missed out as this "microstock" market blossomed, with networks growing to encompass thousands of photographers and buyers. Gary Shenk, Corbis' president and, come July 1, its chief executive, is unworried about the timing.

Corbis, the other company Bill Gates founded and an established seller of stock photography, is about to take on a host of smaller rivals--and one bigger one--in the budding "microstock" realm of low-cost Web-based photo sales.

Corbis, the last of the big three stock-art firms to venture into the microstock realm, is counting on its microstock site as one of three major sources of revenue growth.

"It's by no means too late," Shenk said. "We feel the microstock industry is still at the top of the first inning. Nobody's really emerged with the ultimate experience."

The growth of microstock sites has been fueled by the increasing quality of digital cameras, the eagerness of amateur photographers to make a little supplementary income, and an appetite for low-cost, royalty-free photos. Corbis' two biggest rivals moved into the microstock business in 2006, sending a clear message that the microstock business was to be taken seriously. Jupiterimages acquired a 90 percent interest in Stockxpert, and stock art leader Getty Images acquired iStockphoto.

The head of one microstock rival, Fotolia, said he's unworried about Corbis' arrival as a direct competitor. "They have the name of Corbis, but it's a new business," said Oleg Tscheltzoff, Fotolia's co-founder and president. "What makes a microstock site successful is the customers," and Corbis will have to attract a new set.

There often are incentives for stock photographers to sell their work exclusively through one site--iStockphoto lets top exclusive photographers keep 40 percent of the proceeds compared to 20 percent for ordinary members, for example--but Corbis is counting on photographers spreading their eggs among several baskets.

"One thing we have going for us is that photographers are submitting to multiple sites. Very few are exclusively submitting to one site," Shenk said.

That assessment was one factor in Corbis' decision to build its own microstock site rather than purchase an existing one. "None of these companies out there have enormous barriers to entry or competitive advantage," Shenk said. "We decided building it ourselves, given the valuation environment, was a much better way to go."

Corbis can offer microstock members something most others can't: access to the higher-end stock art market. "We're using the microstock as a farm club to find great photographers who can sell their photographs on the main Corbis Web site," Shenk said.

Microstock sites may have shaken up the stock photo business, but Shenk plans on doing some shaking of his own by taking the microstock business into new domains.

"Right now the microstocks are still operating as mini-Corbises and mini-Gettys, selling into a very low end of the professional market," Shenk said. "The big opportunity is finding a much broader customer base--people who may never have bought a picture before (such as) kids putting pictures in school reports."

The other threat is whether cheaper sites will gobble up business by luring away otherwise high-paying customers. Shenk's counterpart at Getty, CEO Jonathan Klein, thinks the issue is legitimate but minor.

"I think cannibalization is a fact of life--and completely overblown," Klein said. But in a reference to the iStockphoto acquisition, he added, "If I have to be cannibalized, I'd rather cannibalize myself and find a new customer base."

Shenk agrees that microstocks generally involve new customers. "Nine out of ten customers of microstocks would never contemplate (buying) a picture at Corbis or Getty. The vast majority of microstock customers haven't even heard of Corbis."

The cannibalization issue may be slight, but the flip side is that Corbis can't benefit from a well-recognized, trusted brand.

And though microstock appeals to some commercial buyers, such as those who produce annual reports and PowerPoint presentations, Shenk believes all the emphasis on microstock has distracted competitors from more lucrative customers.

"While other companies are racing to the bottom of the market," Shenk said, "we're capturing a lot of share in the large, commercial part of our marketplace."

Link

My Microstock results for May 2007

2007-06-02T01:43:00.000+01:00

Another solid month of earnings in May. Off my best ever months but still a solid effort. I haven't uploaded anything for the past 2 months so it is good to see things are still ticking along. Hopefully I will get around to uploading some more this month. I have photos or NOrthern Ireland, New Zealand and the French Riviera to edit, keyword and upload so hopefully I will be able to get 50 - 100 of these accepted at all the sites this month.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

26% shutterstock
17% dreamtime
7% Fotolia
15% istockphoto
8% bigstockphoto
6% 123RF
11% StockXpert
5% Featurepics
0% Canstock
0% Galastock
4% LuckyOliver (BEM)

shutterstock is again the top performer. Downloads was slightly down but this was more than compensated by the increase in payouts. StockXpert has settled down to its long term average after a stellar month a couple of months ago. dreamtime also did well. Infact, it is interesting to see how the sites are settling down to return close to their all time average (as far as percentages go).

Fotolia had a bit of a dip but hopefully the upgrades to their website this weekend will improve the experience to the buyer.

Dreamstime enters cellphone wallpaper market

2007-06-01T16:06:00.000+01:00

A press release was made on Thursday announcing Dreamstime was partnering with Boom Bucket to supply wallpaper to mobile phones.

The release and Dreamstimes website was short on details as to how this will actually work but I ahve always thought that cell phones where an large untaped market. You just have to look at the back of most weekly magazines (in the UK)that target teens/young adults to see that the market is taking off.

I will add more details as I find out.

Press release
Dreamstime partners with Boom Bucket Mobile to provide images that speak louder than words
Global Microstock Agency Enters Telecommunications Arena

Brentwood, Tennessee, May 31, 2007. Dreamstime and Boom Bucket Mobile, two global leaders in their innovative and extraordinary areas of business, have joined together to make images available no matter where you are. Dreamstime CEO and co-founder, Serban Enache, announced the microstock agency’s unique partnership with Boom Bucket Mobile to provide the best-of-the-best photos and images to Boom Bucket Mobile customers.

Boom Bucket Mobile is a mobile content provider that works with carriers, aggregators and other mobile content companies throughout the world. [In addition to the U.S., Boom Bucket Mobile has distribution in the EEU and North America, and is expanding operations in Asia and Japan.] Specifically, Boom Bucket Mobile offers on-demand access to wholly-owned, royalty-free mobile wallpapers, animations, ringtones, and video in the mobile content marketplace.

To meet the overwhelming demand for personalized cell phone screensavers, the partnership with Dreamstime will increase the available images to Boom Bucket Mobile customers to more than 1,000,000 at the very first day of the launch.

A seven-year old community agency designed with the user in mind, the simplistic features, friendly direction and easy navigation will make it effortless for Boom Bucket Mobile customers to discover a “picture perfect.”

Boom Bucket Mobile customers will be able to download high quality candid shots, graphics, sketches, artwork, scenic backgrounds and more on the fly.

"Dreamstime's spectacular gallery of photos will make for one-of-a-kind, individual content for our customers around the world,” said Piper Carr, Director of Strategic Development for Boom Bucket Mobile. “The depth of Dreamstime’s royalty-free collection could make this the largest general catalogue of images available for mobile. Moreover, the ability for our sources to obtain content and communicate with the vast Dreamstime photographer community directly is a visionary, avant-garde business concept.”

With over 300,000 customers all over the globe, Dreamstime provides imagery to a wide variety of clients in the creative market from the private sector to Fortune 500 companies (including the world’s largest advertising agencies, magazines, television stations and production companies).

“This partnership enables us the opportunity to not only expand the Dreamstime community, it enables us to share our photos with new customers to generate more awareness for our photographers,” said Dreamstime executive Enache. “Dreamstime’s dynamic relationship with Boom Bucket Mobile will be ‘explosive’ for both agencies to allow us a permanent place in our respective industries and perhaps even become a household name!”

About Boom Bucket Mobile

Boom Bucket Mobile was founded in 2006 to deliver cutting edge media to the mobile space. With offices in North American and Europe, Boom Bucket was founded by veterans of mobile application development, content and technology. Boom Bucket Mobile is a labor of love created by artists for mobile consumers who love art. In addition to Dreamstime images, Boom Bucket Mobile provides the largest customizable royalty-free sound library in the world, material from local artists, flash animations, video libraries and custom content development.

Microstock photographers average $3,900 in 2006

2007-06-01T12:09:00.000+01:00
PDN has just released its survey on which the average microstock photographer makes $3,900. However, 58% of the responants earned less than $1,000 (sample of 865 microstockers). No doubt the pro will use this article to show there is no money in microstock (they averaged $85,400) but you have to remember that those pros will be doing it full time compared to probably only 1-5% of microstockers. To the other 95% of us, this is just extra money and at an average of $3,900 comes in very handy to buy new cameras/lens for us to continue our hobby. It also shows that if 58% earn less than $1,000, there must be a few who earn a lot more than $3,900.

Another statistic in the article is average $ per download. The figures in the study pretty much reflect my own experiences at Dreamstime, Istock and Shutterstock:

In all, nothing surprising out of the survey but good proof that it is a good way to money some money out of a hobby.

Why sell for as little as 20c

2007-05-21T16:46:00.000+01:00
The common criticism of Microstock is that we sell our photos for nothing and that this devalues the industry.

When researching my last post - Earn $300 a day on microstock I came across Yuri Arcurs website. In his website, he explains why he sells on microstock and not at one of the larger agencies, like Getty, where he could earn $100's per sale.

"Selling my pictures this cheap makes some old school photographers angry. Photography is filled with tradition, and before digital cameras became accessible, stock photographers selling their pictures on agencies like Corbis of Getty Images were paid very well. Some (like me) think that they were paid a little too well. Charging $300 for a one-time usage of a picture of a flower was not unheard of, and this is still the price estimates found at Corbis and Getty Images today. In 2000, istock started a revolution in the stock photography field by selling pictures online (not by catalogue as in the old days) and selling these pictures as low as $1 per each picture. This price drop started a heated debate and an almost warlike conflict between the new microstock photographer (at the time mostly semi-professional or amateur photographers) selling their pictures for as low as $1 and other timers use to get an overly high price for their pictures. The old timers accused the microstokers of destroying their own ability to make real money by under pricing the value of their pictures and were also somewhat angry that these new pictures put an “unfair” mark on their own highly priced pictures.
…
I have considered being a Getty of Corbis photographer, but after reviewing their contract and looking at the sells of other Getty photographers, I was able to estimate that I would actually lose income by become one. So it seems that “underpricing”, as the microstockers were accused of, has gradually shown to be a “best pricing” polity instead, with great side effect: Breaking apart an old price conspiracy."

The reason I started with microstock is the ease of entry. The likes of Corbis and Getty would never accept me (they are like an old boys club). After selling for a while it also seemed to make sense. On forums like DPreview, the Pros critisised the microstockers but when they set out the large amounts they are earning, the amounts are matched by an equally large portfolio, resulting in an average price per photo per year similar to what I make. Sure my portfolio isn't as big but then I don't do this full time.

The selling for 20c each is also slightly misleading. From my sales, the average I earn from each DL is (approximately per sale - not per photo per year):

25c shutterstock This will increase to 30c folling the pay increase this month.
77c dreamtime
64c Fotolia
71c istockphoto
76c bigstockphoto
58c 123RF
110c StockXpert
190c Featurepics
80c LuckyOliver

You also have to remember that microstock works on volume (the walmart of photography). As such, while shutterstock pays out the least per download, it actual pays out the most per month due to the volume of sales generated by its subscription model.

Stockxpert move and stock footage

2007-05-18T13:03:00.000+01:00

I was reading Alan Mecklers blog (CEO of Jupiter Images - Owner of Stockxpert), which noted that Stockxpert have moved their servers to Peoria (I assume in the US) from Hungary. They have increased the power of the servers and hopefully this will stop any fears people use to have that the business was based in Eastern Europe (the capital of internet crime).

Also note the last line that they are planning on doing stock footage in the near future.

Stockxpert.com moved.
Alan Meckler
May 07, 2007

That is the servers running the site are now in Peoria instead of Budapest, Hungary.

I am not a technical person, but this was an interesting and somewhat complex move. First our crack tech team based in Peoria and backed by our colleagues in Budapest oversaw a three month operation. Significant hardware was purchased and we now have 4x the amount of front-end processing power (Apache/PUP)in a load balanced configuration that allows growth over the Web site. We are also geared up for huge growth including a soon to be launched stock footage option on Stockxpert.

Earn US$300 a day on microstock

2007-05-18T06:01:00.000+01:00

Some people treat microstock as a hobbie (like me). Some people treat it as a job. Then there are a few that treat it as a business.

Yuri Arcurs is one of those people. In a resent post at Shutterstock, he announced that he had finally passed the 1000DL a day mark. In total on the 9 May 2007, Yuri (User name Logos on Shutterstock) sold 1170 photos and made a total of US354.50 from photo sales on one site alone. He probably isn't selling that much each day at the moment (especially on weekends) but that is an annualised $129,000 a year.

But remember this is just one site he submits to. He submits to 16 sites, some better than others. At istock he has sold over 56000 photos (he is constrained by istocks upload limits), nearly 14,000 photos at Dreamstime, and over 10,000 at fotolia (second top contributor).

Asked how he got to that point he said "Two years of 60+ hours per week. + Assistants and reinvesting almost every cent."

On his website Yuri states"In one year I sell around 400,000 individual licenses for the use of my pictures, which is equal to the amount of sales my biggest istock competitor has in her entire carrier.

With the help of my assistants I produce around 400 pictures per month. I keep a staff of about 10 – 12 designers, stylists, make-up artists, computer assistants, marketing managers, editors at all times."

Yuri is one of the top microstockers around (he ranks himself number two) and is someone to look upto.

Dreamstime has new search engine

2007-05-14T19:30:00.000+01:00

Dreamstime has introduced a new search engine. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet but my DL are up for this month.

Press release:

Dreamstime Goes to Titanic Depth to Discover the Picture Perfect

Dreamstime is pleased to introduce its super-powered search
engine--a technological advancement that will deliver the picture
perfect at the touch of a button.

We've built and installed a 100% custom search engine to find THE
photo you're looking for! The Dreamstime database of nearly 1.25
Million has been meticulously refined and the Dreamstime search engine
finely tuned to seek out and pin-point optimum photos based on overall
community success and history (i.e., image quality, editor´s choice,
buyer´s experience, and photographer´s history of success, such as
repeat purchases, quality, diversity, etc.). So, the photo you're
looking for will surface at the forefront almost every time!

...And if it doesn't, Dreamstime invites, YOU, the community, to
FLAG and report any photo that appears to be completely misplaced in
the search category.

Back from Holiday - Posts will start again

2007-05-14T19:03:00.000+01:00
I have just got back from a one month holiday so sorry about the lack of posts. I took my laptop but forgot the power cable and all the computers at friends/family were on annoyingly slow dial up connection.

I am now back on the broadband so will try and get more articles and news flashes up on the blog.

Microstock photography results for April

2007-05-02T22:01:00.000+01:00

I am overseas at the moment so just a quick post to update the stats for April:

23% shutterstock
17% dreamtime
14% Fotolia
20% istockphoto
5% bigstockphoto
5% 123RF
10% StockXpert
3% Featurepics
0% Canstock
0% Galastock
3% LuckyOliver

500 DL at iStock

2007-04-30T21:28:00.000+01:00
Well I finally made 500 DL at istock today not that I will be going exclusive there.

It took me a while to get this as I gave up with iStock due to the number of rejections I was getting. However, my workflow has now improved and after I saw both the number of DL increasing, and the $ per DL increasing, I thought it was about time to start uploading again. It is now up to my second/third best producing microsite (with half the pictures).

Hopefully the next milestock wont take so long.

Here is the photo that brought me up to the 500 which incidently is my top seller (at 58). Thank you everyone who has bought this or rated it (or any of my other photos).

Link

Payrise at Shutterstock, but .....

2007-04-23T22:28:00.000+01:00

Shutterstock have announces their long signaled payrise for the year. As expected by many, the payrise was 5c per image representing a 20% increase on the previous payout. The payrise takes effect from 1 May.

But ...

The payrise only applies to those accounts where total sales is greater than $500. My guess is a vast majority of their photographers haven't reached this target so it will be costing them nothing. However, it does reward those who have earned them a reasonable sum.

While it could have been better, it is reasonable fair (would have been better to see 30c and 35c for the big earners). IN a sense it is a teired systems as used by some of the other sites (Fotolia and Istock)

New features at LuckyOliver - the Slideshow

2007-04-22T09:05:00.000+01:00

LuckyOliver is starting to add some of the new features they promised at the beginning that they said would set them apart from the competition.

The first is "the slideshow". A premium placement section (like the paid ads in google searchs). The bonus for the photog is that you can set your own price and you get 50% commission. The downside is it is only avaliable to those with over 100 sales and in the future it will cost to get this placement (it is free for the first 90 days).

I can see pros and cons for this and at this stage, I would question why you would pay to get placement on a site where sales are still slow. But for 1 token (lots of people have these already so why not use them) getting premium placement might drive the sales?

To read the full details, have a look at this link.

They have also launched a forum. Nothing new - most sites have one but theirs is different, they call it the odditorium. The difference is it has no subforums but a search feature that works on keywords. I think this is good as I find it annoying to hve to look into several subforums just to find the new posts.

Have a look here.

Another article on Corbis

2007-04-14T09:58:00.000+01:00
While Corbis doesn't do microstock yet, I keep posting these articles as it is clear they are on a big press offensive trying to get their name out there. They have just changed CEO and it keeps being reported they will be starting microstock shortly. I imaging that once they strat, they will start with a bang.

As always, Extracts from the article with a full link at the bottom:

A Photo Trove, a Mounting Challenge
By KATIE HAFNER
Published: April 10, 2007

“Think about how visual the world is,” said Barbara Coffey, a senior research analyst at Kaufman Brothers in New York who follows the stock photography market. “We have pictures on our cellphones. If I can get a reasonably clear picture and the rights are cleared and I pay $2 for it, then why would I pay Corbis $200?”

The rise of the microstock companies has been of particular concern to Corbis. For all its new lines of business, the company still gets some 88 percent of its revenues from image licenses, yet commands only about 11 percent of that market. Getty Images dominates the market with a 40 percent share.

Getty, which has grown quickly since its start in 1995 with the backing of its wealthy co-founder, Mark Getty, has a foothold in microstock thanks to iStockPhoto, which it bought last year for $50 million.

Mr. Shenk said Corbis would announce its plans for the microstock business sometime this quarter. As for the question of how a high-end company enters that business without cannibalizing its more expensive products, Mr. Shenk said the idea was to find a new kind of customer, people who would never envision buying pictures from a Corbis or Getty.

In that vein, Mr. Shenk said Corbis would make its service as easy to use as the iTunes store of Apple and hinted that Corbis would also be following the crowdsourcing model.

“More interesting and innovative things are happening on the pages of Flickr these days than on Corbis and Getty,” said Mr. Shenk, referring to the photo-sharing site owned by Yahoo. “If we can use this type of opportunity to find the next great group of Corbis photographers, that also makes it a great opportunity for us.”

Link

iStock to sell images to mobile phones

2007-04-10T17:38:00.000+01:00

iStock have just announced a new deal to sell photos as wall paper on mobile phones. The plan is for a pilot scheme in the UK with 5000 photos but to roll it out worldwide with their full library.

No work yet on how much they will be sold for but I assume it will be the same as a small photo - $1.

I have always thought this is a huge market ready to be exploited.

Extract from article (full link below):

iStockphoto and AMUSE launch UK Mobile deal
April 10, 2007
Calgary, Alberta – iStockphoto®, the world’s most visited stock imagery and video site, has selected AMUSE Entertainment Group B.V. to take its stock photography images into the mobile sector. The pilot phase of the program will be launched in the UK and will allow mobile users to download wallpapers from a selection of 5,000 of iStockphoto’s quality images. Images will be found within a dedicated mobile storefront accessed through the iStockphoto website, and marketed and promoted jointly by iStock and AMUSE. Images will be made available to UK mobile phone subscribers on the 3, Orange, O2, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone networks and will be delivered via mBlox, the world’s largest mobile transaction network.
“People want their gadgets to feel uniquely theirs, including their mobile phones,” said Garth Johnson, vice president of business development at iStockphoto.

LINK

Interview with iStock CEO

2007-04-05T20:42:00.000+01:00
Another article, this time an interview with istock CEO Bruce Livingstone. Talks about how it all started (from photo sharing site) and what the new batch of competition is going to do to istock(ironically from photo sharing sites like Flickr).

Extracts of the article are below with a link to the full article at the bottom:

iStockphoto sees new rivals everywhere
CEO Bruce Livingstone is bracing for online competitors to do to him what he did to the traditional stock-art market.
By Stephen Shankland Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: April 4, 2007, 4:00 AM PDT

iStockphoto Chief Executive Officer Bruce Livingstone thinks of his company as Web 1.5.
The site, where members can sell their photos or graphics as "stock art," employs the Web 2.0 idea of user-generated content. But Livingstone founded iStockphoto in 2000 when the Web 1.0 e-commerce idea still prevailed. The company resembles eBay: when a customer buys an image, iStockphoto charges the seller a commission.
iStockphoto survived the dot-com bust by selling stock art for dramatically lower prices--as little as a buck a pop--and became profitable at the end of 2002. At present, 35,000 members upload about 30,000 images each week and customers download one every 2.5 seconds. A year ago, Getty Images, the dominant seller of stock art, acquired iStockphoto for $50 million.
Other "microstock" companies including Fotolia, Dreamstime and Shutterstock remain rivals, and photo-sharing sites pose a new threat. A revamped Zoomr will let photographers sell their images and keep 90 percent of the proceeds, compared with just 20 percent to 40 percent for iStockphoto. And there's talk that Yahoo's photo-sharing juggernaut, Flickr, might move into stock art.

Link

Article on Microstock vs Macrostock

2007-04-05T16:17:00.000+01:00
This is a very long article from the Business 2.0 Magazine

It is quite interesting as it gives background to the macro sties (Getty and Corbis) and the microsites (Fotolia, Shutterstock and Dreamstime). It details the issues the macro sties face, how they are addressing it and why micro sites wont kill of the macro sites.

I have only pasted in extracts so a link to the full article is below:

Photo wars: A $2 billion business gets rough
The giants of the stock photo business--Getty Images and Corbis--are being challenged by a flock of tiny "microstock" agencies. And it's become a game that almost anyone can play, reports Business 2.0 Magazine.

By Robert Levine, Business 2.0 Magazine
April 4 2007: 9:15 AM EDT
…
Tscheltzoff is the president of Fotolia, one of a new breed of so-called microstock houses--born of the Internet and Web 2.0--that are challenging the giants and could soon start cutting into their market share.
While the big two offer exclusives on great photos at prices that range from a few hundred dollars to more than $10,000 apiece, these startups sell pretty good pictures for a good deal less--often just a dollar or two. Unlike Getty and Corbis, which compete fiercely to work with the top artists, the microstock firms get most of their photos the way Wikipedia gets its entries, by "crowdsourcing" work from interested amateurs or beginning pros.
…
Although Fotolia sold 4 million images last year, it doesn't offer the quality or the exclusivity that ad agency art directors demand, so it can't charge premium rates.
…
In a Manhattan Starbucks, a continent and a sensibility removed from the Corbis and Getty offices, Tscheltzoff is describing how Fotolia is trying to play David to the industry Goliaths. The company offers 2.2 million images taken by 25,000 photographers, but it employs only 18 people--all but three of whom work from home.
"We IM and talk on Skype," says Tscheltzoff, a Frenchman who splits his time between New York City and Paris. When he needs to take a meeting, he says with a sweep of his hand, "this is my office." Today's rent is a small iced coffee, which he sips as he explains how his business works.
As he describes it, the microstock model is the picture of efficiency. Submissions pour in electronically from photographers, who get 50 percent or more of the proceeds of each sale. The company has few inventory concerns, no shipping issues, and hardly any operating costs. The business broke even after eight months, Tscheltzoff says. (He won't reveal much more, except that annual sales are less than $10 million.) The biggest expense is marketing: selling the company to both prospective contributors and potential customers.
"If you don't have buyers, you don't get photos," he says. "And if you don't have photos, you don't get buyers."
Other microstock sites--there are several large ones and dozens of smaller entries--tell a similar story, although the details differ. Jon Oringer, founder and CEO of Shutterstock, based in New York City, sells low-cost photos by subscription--25 photos a day for $199 per month or $1,999 per year.
…
Let's make one thing clear: These aren't necessarily arty photographs. Most microstock images are provided by amateurs looking for extra pocket money--many of Shutterstock's photographers make $200 to $300 a month--and at best they shoot the kind of pictures top art directors refer to dismissively as "stocky."
"The creatives won't choose the microstock photos because they're not tasteful," says Josette Lata, former head of art buying at JWT. "If it's a photo of a mother and a baby, you don't want them both looking at the camera and smiling."
But even stocky pictures have their uses--magazines trying to save money on images that will run small, Fortune 500 firms putting out internal newsletters, and, above all, bloggers and website designers. That's where microstock could really hurt Getty and Corbis.
…
In February, during the company's earnings call, Corbis announced that it will build its own microstock site. In an interview with Business 2.0, Corbis president Gary Shenk insists that the company has nothing to fear from its tiny competitors. It just makes sense for Corbis to get a foothold in that business.

Link

Sign up to Stockxpert now and receive 5 free credits

2007-04-04T10:19:00.000+01:00

Quite simple really.

If you aren't signed up to Stockxpert yet, do so now and you get five free credits.

This is a great way for designers to try out the site.

I am not sure how long this offer lasts so click on the link and if you see the promotion, then it is still on:

Total number of photos on the Microstock sites

2007-04-04T08:49:00.000+01:00

I haven't provided the total number of photos on line recently so thought I would provide an update.

From a desingers point of view (they are the ones that buy the photos so are very improtant), the number of photos is very important, after the quality of the photos on the site. From a submitters point of view, we want what the the designers want but we also want to have a bigger share of the total online photos (ie. if you have 10% of the photos on the site, you should earn more than if you just have 0.1% of the photos online).

Therefore, it is intersting to compare the number of photos on each site. So here gos. These are from the last time I looked but give you an indication:

Fotolia 2,820,839
shutterstock 1,671,459
istockphoto 1,576,000
dreamtime 1,093,949
bigstockphoto 997,000
123RF 700,000
StockXpert 478,000
Featurepics 229,550

Well, as you can see Fotolia is the biggest, but there total number is disputed as it may include rejected images. shutterstock claims to be the biggest and Fotolia hasn't said anything to dispute this.

dreamtime made it to the 1 million recently and bigstockphoto is nearly there to.

I am earning more from StockXpert than their total numbers suggest so number of photos cant be used as a direct proxy for earnings.

As an interesting comparison, the macrostock site Alamy has over 8 million images.

Canon leads digital camera sales

2007-04-03T22:20:00.000+01:00
I find camera rivally both interesting and pointless (who cares what brand you have, as long as it takes good pictures). However, as a canon user, in both DSLR (20D) and point and shot (ixus 55), I will brag about the following statistics.

Of major interest though is that Canon has almost 50% of the DSLR market (most microstock users use DSLR cameras due to higher quality and more control). Nikon comes in second with 33% to leave the other 6 or so companies with about 15% between them (not much).

Also of interest is the DSLR market is growing at 30% per annum. Huge growth in at a time when everyone wants small products (just look at how thin and small mobiles are now).

Article:
Canon leads in digital camera shipments in 2006, according to IDC
Canon Inc., Tokyo, Japan, took the top market share in global digital camera shipments in 2006, and Samsung Electronics, Seoul, South Korea, jumped to fifth place from ninth a year ago, Framington, Mass.-based researcher IDC said.
Canon shipped 19.7 million digital cameras in 2006, accounting for 18.7 percent of the overall market. Canon's shipments jumped 23.3 percent from 2005, accoridng to IDC.
Industrywide digital camera shipments in 2006 rose 14.5 percent to 106 million units from a year earlier, driven by the strong popularity of DSLR models geared toward photo enthusiasts and professionals and growing demand in emerging markets, IDC said. DSLR shipments grew 39 percent to 5 million units last year.
Sony Corp., Tokyo, Japan, was No. 2 in the market with a 15.8 percent share, up from 15.2 percent in 2005, benefiting from its entry into the DSLR market, according to IDC. Eastman Kodak Co., the only U.S. company among the top five digital camera makers, ranked third with 10 percent, a drop from its 14.2 percent share a year earlier. Japan-based Olympus Corp., which came in fourth, trimmed its share to 8.6 percent from 9.8 percent in 2005.
"The big winner in 2006 was Samsung, who displaced Nikon and became the fifth-largest seller of digital cameras in the world," said Christopher Chute, an IDC analyst.
Samsung expanded its market share to 7.8 percent in 2006, a huge jump from the 3.8 percent it had a year earlier. Its shipments more than doubled, IDC said.
Nikon Corp., Tokyo, Japan, the world's second-biggest maker of professional cameras after Canon, ranked No. 6 in the overall digital camera market with a 7.6 percent market share in 2006.
Canon also dominated the growing DSLR market, securing a 46.7 percent share in 2006, with its shipments rising 30.7 percent from a year earlier. But its share was trimmed from the 49.5 percent it had in 2006 amid increased competition from rivals. Nikon secured the No. 2 position in DSLRs with a 33 percent market share. Its shipments jumped 35.9 percent. Sony, which bought the DSLR unit of Konica Minolta Holdings shipped 326,240 DSLRs in 2006, accounting for 6.2 percent of the market.

Dreamstime - promotion for competition winner

2007-04-03T16:35:00.000+01:00
Dreamstime have negotiated a new way to promote their website which is going to have major advantages for the monthly winner of their competition - a 2 page spread in a digital magazine with a circulation of 90,000!!!

press release is below:

Starting next month you can be recognized as a published photographer and a Dreamstime competition winner! You'll be given a two-page spread in FlipNews to showcase your winning photographs together with a short description of yourself and hyperlinks to your Dreamstime portfolio page. FlipNews is a digital format magazine which is distributed world-wide to over 90,000 subscribed readers.

Their IT and web-savvy readers includes those interested in creating FlipBooks and e-Book publishing; and in improving photography skills and writing skills. They are also likely consumers of computer hardware and software; and purchasers of images and graphics for publication content. Assignment will be launched one month in advance. This prize is bi-monthly and will be awarded to the first place of the assignment. Photographers can win it only once, so if you have previously won it, the second place will be featured instead.

Full link

Microstock photo results for March 2007

2007-04-01T17:11:00.000+01:00

March was a best ever month, with record receipts at 4 sites and second best at 2 others.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

23% shutterstock 2nd BEM
19% dreamtime BEM (best ever month)
8% Fotolia 2nd BEM
21% istockphoto (BEM)
4% bigstockphoto
4% 123RF
17% StockXpert (BEM)
1% Featurepics
0% Canstock
0% Galastock
4% LuckyOliver (BEM)

shutterstock had another great month but the surprise was how much StockXpert and dreamtime caught up. istockphoto also put in a solid performance as the rest of my backlog of photos went up there.
The best thing is that the increases are not due to mearly having more photos on line but also due to an increase in downloads (DL) and a general increase in the payout per DL. I will try and put some numbers togehter on this for another blog shortly.

Adobe announces Photoshop CS3 release

2007-03-29T11:56:00.000+01:00
Since they released CS3 in beta version, it comes as no supprise that the new version is now being released.

For microstock photographers, CS3 (basic version) will be the ultimate photo editing software. Is it overkill for what is needed. probably depending on how much post processing you do. I currently use Photoshop Elements 2 so it is by no means necessary. However, I am considering it, to reduce my workflow (all of what I do I will be able to do in one program) and for some of the additional features (layer mask, Raw, HDR). Just have to pay the price now which at £485 for the basic version, is not cheap.

Full press release below:

Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended Push the Boundaries of Digital Imaging
London — March 27, 2007 —
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Photoshop® CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended, two new editions of the professional industry standard for digital imaging. Photoshop CS3 software is a major upgrade, offering new innovations in editing power and productivity for designers and photographers. The addition of an entirely new version of Photoshop, Photoshop CS3 Extended, means creative professionals can now discover new dimensions in digital imaging, harnessing everything in Photoshop CS3 plus groundbreaking tools for 3-D, motion graphics, image measurement and analysis. Photoshop CS3 Extended expands the boundaries of digital imaging, simplifying the workflows for professionals in architecture, engineering, medicine, and science.
Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended will be available as stand-alone applications or key components of Adobe’s expanded Creative Suite® 3 family, also announced today (see separate press releases). The software will be available as a Universal application for both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs and will support both Microsoft® Windows® XP and Windows Vista. Customers will experience increased levels of performance and speed running Photoshop CS3 on Intel-based Macintosh systems and the latest Windows hardware.
“This is the year in which Photoshop reinvents itself," said Deborah Whitman, vice president of product management for Digital Imaging at Adobe. “In this landmark release, we took the professional industry standard and greatly expanded the possibilities for designers and photographers, while challenging it to shine across a whole new set of tasks. We’re delivering Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended to a new breed of cross-media creative professional and stretching the limits of what can be done by architects, scientists and doctors.”
Advanced Tools for Designers and Digital Photographers in Photoshop CS3
Photoshop CS3 beta testers have confirmed the release as a must-have for designers and photographers. With new features for advanced compositing, designers can automatically align multiple Photoshop layers or images based on similar content. The Auto-align Layers command quickly analyzes details and moves, rotates or warps layers to align them perfectly, and the Auto-blend Layers command blends the color and the shading to create a smooth, editable result.
With the latest version of Camera Raw, photographers can process raw images with increased speed and superior conversion quality, with its support for over 150 raw formats, JPEG and TIFF files, compatibility with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom™, and new tools such as Fill Light and Dust Busting.
Image Analysis, 3-D and Motion Support in Photoshop CS3 Extended
Photoshop CS3 Extended software includes everything in Photoshop CS3 plus additional specialised features such as support for 3-D and video workflows, animation and in-depth image analysis. With support for popular 3-D formats, creatives can render and incorporate rich 3-D content into their 2-D compositions, including texture editing on 3-D models. Using the Enhanced Vanishing Point, designers can measure in perspective and also export from Enhanced Vanishing Point to a 3-D model. For video post-production, Photoshop CS3 Extended now includes video-format and layer support to edit video files frame by frame. The resulting video can then be exported to a variety of formats including Flash®. Pioneering new uses in areas such as manufacturing and medicine, the Measurement Log palette calculates a range of values within an image, the Scale Marker easily adds a scale graphic to any image, and the new Count tool tallies features in an image simply by clicking on them.
“We estimate that 98 percent of all video games on the shelf were created with Photoshop,” said Michael Casalino, senior environment artist for Electronic Arts Sports. “The enhancements in Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended will make the software even more indispensable to us, with functionality like the new 3D editing tools allowing users to seamlessly incorporate 3D content into the image-editing workflow.”
New to Photoshop CS3 and the Adobe Creative Suite 3 family, Adobe Device Central (see separate release) radically boosts the productivity of creative professionals who develop content for mobile handsets.
Adobe Photoshop Family
Adobe offers the right Photoshop for all types of users. Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended are at the heart of the Photoshop family. The portfolio also includes Adobe Photoshop Lightroom™, which provides a complete digital darkroom for professional and serious amateur photographers; Adobe Photoshop Elements with editing and sharing options for photography enthusiasts; and the free Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition, which meets the needs of the casual photographer.
Pricing and Availability
Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended will begin shipping in April 2007 to customers in the United States and Canada, and will be available through Adobe Authorised Resellers and the Adobe Store at www.adobe.co.uk/store. Estimated street price for Adobe Photoshop CS3 is £485 and £755 for Photoshop CS3 Extended. Upgrade pricing is available.

Getty acquires Scoopt

2007-03-24T22:42:00.000Z
Getty continues on the buying spree (though the proposed purchase of Jupiter has been called off) by buying Scoopt.

While note a microstock agency, this could come in very useful to microstockers who happen to have their camera around when some news worthy event happens. having an outlet to get those photos to the news agency quickly is important to getting good money from it. YOu never know when you will get a news worthy picture so why not join up (link below) and dont forget to carry your camera (or atleast a picture phone) everywhere you go.

See the press release below:

Getty Images Acquires Scoopt With Vision of Making Citizen Photojournalism More Accessible to the Mainstream Media
Monday March 12, 9:00 am ET

Amateur Photographers Who Find Themselves in the Right Place at the Right Time Will Soon Have Exposure to a Worldwide Audience
SEATTLE, March 12 -- Getty Images, Inc. today announced its acquisition of Scoopt, an emerging source for user- generated editorial content. Scoopt is an aggregator and distributor of photographs and videos captured by eyewitnesses who have an accidental front row seat to headline-making moments.
In the coming months, news, sport and entertainment imagery from Scoopt that meets Getty Images' stringent editorial quality standards will be released exclusively at www.gettyimages.com/editorial, where it will benefit from worldwide visibility and promotional support. Additionally, Getty Images will invest in technology upgrades and other enhancements to Scoopt in order to make the site more accessible to customers, and to better position it for future growth.
"New technology has made it easier to capture and distribute imagery, leading to citizen photojournalism that is increasingly relevant to the news cycle," said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images. "While this genre will never replace the award-winning photojournalism for which we're known, it's a highly complementary offering that enables us to meet the evolving imagery needs of a broad customer base."
Since the founding of Scoopt in 2005, the site has supplied the media with arresting imagery from major world events, including:
· The tragic Manhattan plane crash that killed New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor in October 2006; digital images captured by a bystander were emailed to Scoopt and appeared on the front page of The Times of London
· Fierce January 2006 storms in the U.K., which brought devastation and disruption to large parts of the country
"User-generated content is serving a valuable role in today's communication landscape; safeguards to validate its authenticity are critical," said Hugh Pinney, director of Editorial Photography at Getty Images. "By implementing rigorous quality standards, we can deliver powerful imagery captured from a unique perspective while ensuring journalistic integrity."
Citizen photographers who submit imagery to Scoopt retain copyright while granting the agency a 12-month exclusive license that authorizes re-license to one or more publishers. Contributors will benefit from increased visibility and an extensive network of media contacts, earning a significant percentage of the value for each license issued. Both Getty Images and Scoopt encourage contributors to be respectful and follow a code of ethics for image capture. Submission guidelines and additional details about Scoopt's growing photographer community can be found at Scoopt .
Getty Images plans to fully integrate Scoopt into its organization, harnessing the team's knowledge of user-generated editorial content. "We're very much looking forward to taking our business to the next level by collaborating with the world's leading imagery provider," said Kyle MacRae, founder of Scoopt. "This acquisition will exponentially expand our customer base and establish a strong foundation for long-term growth."
The Scoopt team will continue to operate out of the site's base in Glasgow, Scotland, servicing customers under the leadership of Getty Images' Hugh Pinney. Existing relationships with Scoopt partners and affiliates will remain in place until further notice.
Click here if you want to sign up to Scoopt .

Corbis to enter Microstock

2007-03-23T22:32:00.000Z
Corbis, one of the main macrostock agencies, has announced that they plan to enter microstock in the next few months. This will add to the other major macrostock agencies who already have microstock agencies:

Getty : istockphoto (bought last year for $50m)
Jupiter : StockXpert
Inmagine : 123RF

What hasn't been said is whether they intent to buy one of the existing stock sites or whether they are going to start from scratch.

Extract from article:

Title: Micro-stock momentum
Date: 21 March 2007
In an exclusive interview, Steve Davis, CEO of Corbis, reveals the company's new ambitions in the micro-stock market and why he isn't concerned about Getty's recent spending spree. Katie Scott reports
Corbis says it intends to enter the micro-stock market, competing with archrival Getty Images for a slice of one of the fastest growth areas in royalty-free picture licensing.
In an exclusive interview with BJP, Corbis CEO Steve Davis said the company is aiming for a leadership position in the market for low-cost micro-stock imagery, where images are typically supplied by amateur photographers and sold for as little as $1. He promised that Corbis will make a splash with the launch of a new service in 'the next few months'.

http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=439022

Feb microstock photo statistics

2007-03-01T23:08:00.000Z

Well ... February went off like a frog in a sock. Not quite a best ever month but well up on last month and definately recovered from the christmas slowdown.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

33% shutterstock (BEST EVER MONTH - BEM)
14% dreamtime
7% Fotolia
19% istockphoto (BEM)
6% bigstockphoto
7% 123RF
7% StockXpert
3% Featurepics
0% Canstock
0% Galastock
3% LuckyOliver (BEM)

shutterstock out did itself again with another best ever month. New uploads certainlyl helped it along but I was consistantly getting DL from my old photos too so it is not just the "new photo effect" which is evident at shutterstock .

istockphoto is starting to come into its own after a recent push to get more of my photos on their. There upload system is the worst and is restricted to 15 per week which isn't good when you are trying to play catch up.

dreamtime did well and they have just introduced new prices this month. It will be interesting to see if income improves.

The next four were pretty even, though a late come back by StockXpert saved the day for it. Apparently they changed the search criteria.

Janurary Microstock photo results

2007-02-01T23:05:00.000Z

Well the month got of to a slow start but picked up nicely. I haven' really submitted any photos for the last 3 months so numbers are a bit down due to this and the holiday season. Will be uploading more photos shortly so hoping that the earnings start increasing again (I have some purchases I want to make).

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

25% shutterstock
16% dreamtime
21% Fotolia
18% istockphoto
6% bigstockphoto
9% 123RF
3% StockXpert
1% Featurepics
1% Canstock
0% Galastock this site appears to be dead and I wouldn't bother.
1% LuckyOliver

Fotolia had a great month and I think the original time I spent getting my photos there is now paying off. Uploading there is a bit cumbersome but the sales volumn is picking up and is now proving worthwhile. Fotolia has a huge portfolio of photos and their marketing is picking up. They are also a multi-language sites and have quite a focus in Europe which is a developing market (judging by time of sales, the main market is still the US).

123RF is going strong. I think this is a site to watch out for as it is nice and easy to uplaod to, sales are on the up and it is backed by one of the big macrostock companies.

shutterstock continues to be my pick as it continues to get consistant high sales, so if you haven't joined up yet, have a look:

December Microstock photo results

2007-01-21T23:02:00.000Z

A bit late for my December update but I was away for 3 weeks and then came back to no broadband. Since Jan will be finished soon, just a quick update.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

20% shutterstock
20% dreamtime
20% Fotolia
17% istockphoto
3% bigstockphoto
9% 123RF
11% StockXpert

Pretty even at the top this month. Shows the benefit of being on all sites. If I was only on the best producing site, I would be missing out on a significant bit of income.

November Microstock photography results

2006-12-01T22:59:00.000Z

I didn't quite do as well as last month but that was an anomaly. This month continues the gradual growth that I have been seeing since I began. I only uploaded about 7 photos this month so the increase is not due to more photos, just a better return on the photos already there.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

30% shutterstock (BEST EVER MONTH - BEM)
13% dreamtime
8% Fotolia
19% istockphoto (BEM)
7% bigstockphoto
9% 123RF
9% StockXpert
1% Featurepics
2% Canstock
0% Galastock
0% LuckyOliver

shutterstock out did itself again with another best ever month and a new best ever day pretty much every week. Designers are obviously flocking to this model (subscription model) so this is definitely the place to be.

Microstockphoto - October results

2006-11-01T22:54:00.000Z

It was my best ever month..

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

20% shutterstock (BEST EVER MONTH - BEM)
17% dreamtime (2nd BEM)
9% Fotolia (BEM)
13% istockphoto (BEM)
4% bigstockphoto
25% 123RF (BEM)
7% StockXpert
1% Featurepics
2% Canstock
1% Galastock
1% LuckyOliver

123RF is high this month as I had an Extended License sale (EL) on which I earned a lot more that the normal 0.3 - $2. An EL is where the buyer gets additional rights with the purchase, for example being able to do bigger print runs. Most sites do them but to date, I have only had a couple. Due to the small size of my portfolio, this messed up the percentages a bit. Normally it is only about 7% with the others obviously picking up the difference.

I have also added above the smaller sites that I upload to. As you can see, not a lot going on there. I am supporting them in the hope they will take off but at this point, it doesn't look like they will be catching up to the big boys any time soon.

shutterstock continues to be my pick as it continues to get consistant high sales, so if you haven't joined up yet, have a look:

My guess for the site to improve most is Fotolia . It has a huge portfolio of photos and their marketing is only starting (they are less than 1 year old). They have multi-language sites and have quite a focus in Europe where the other sites dont seem to be as focused.

Galastock and LuckyOliver - the new microstock sites

2006-10-12T22:49:00.000+01:00

In the past couple of months, a couple of new microstock sites have popped up: LuckyOliver and Galastock. I have now got my photos onto them and can report sales at both, though very slow. This is to be expected as they haven't started marketing yet.

LuckyOliver looks very slick and appears to be run my marketing people as they are trying to be unique to get market share. Galastock is more traditional. It will be interesting to see if they survive as the market seems pretty competitive.

If you want to have a look, click on the links or the banner above and you will get taken there:

LuckyOliver
Galastock.

September Microstock photo result

2006-10-01T22:47:00.000+01:00

I uploaded another 20 photos this month so that the portofolio keeps growning. Depending on the site, I now have between 100-200 photos on each (acceptance of 50-100%). Most of my shots are travel shots so they do not get big downloads (people shots and business shots apparently do best) but I get a steady, but slow, stream of DL, even on the older photos.

Below are percentages for the month to show how I have been going:

20% shutterstock
26% dreamtime
6% Fotolia
10% istockphoto
5% bigstockphoto
6% 123RF
16% StockXpert

I do submit to another few sites but they dont have enough sales to warrent a mention. The sites above are the ones that are worthwhile unless you have a really large portfolio.

With solid sales this month, the pick of the months is dreamtime :

My guess for the site to improve most is Fotolia . It has a huge portfolio of photos and their marketing is only starting (they are less than 1 year old). They have multi-language sites and have quite a focus in Europe where the other sites dont seem to be as focused.

Mircostock article at MSN

2006-09-21T22:45:00.000+01:00
Here is the Article. The links to the two sites in the article are - shutterstock and istockphoto - both of which feature in my regular end of month summaries.
 