• Edit and submit 80 more images for June.
• Edit and submit 100 images in July.
• Complete 8 more food shoots in June.
• Complete 12 food shoots in July.
• Catch up on small site submissions (DP, SF, etc.)
• Submit 40 more iStock images in June.
• Submit 100 iStock images in July.
• Finish July with $1000+ in stock income.
• Get at least 2 new advertisers for NiltoMil including a top banner advertiser to replace DepositPhotos.

We will revisit this post July 31st to see how I have done!  What are your goals for stock in the next month and a half?

Brides and weddings and such are the main thrust of our business.? We own a studio of 4 photographers, each shooting 15-30 weddings a year.? I do all of the editing, most of the marketing and a good deal of the shooting for it.? It has been interesting balancing a “shoot and edit quickly” type of thing like weddings with a “Shoot and then photoshop as good as you can no matter what” type of stock shoot.? I think sometimes I try and edit stock too fast which is why it ends up in rejection mode.

Taxes basically suck.? The more money I make from stock, the more I pay in taxes.? With our wedding business we have figured out where the expenses will go, what we’re spending on so we’re not paying taxes on EVERYTHING, etc.? Stock is basically using the same gear I already have, a few travel receipts and tons of income proportionally speaking.? Making $6000-10,000 in a year is good.? But when you only keep $3500-6000 of that, you have to wonder what you’d need to make for it to be worth it!

Oh and our business plan – we are creating a software for small service business management that will basically do everything – track clients, appointments, shoots, income, invoices, tasks to be done, everything.? It’s going to be amazing and should be done late summer, early fall assuming we can find ANYONE to finance us.? If and when that happens I’ll be sure to post about it as well.? I’m really excited for the possibility of solving some of our problems as well as helping others with it.

So that’s my last few weeks – Sarah’s still shooting and I’ve done some editing.? I think I have 300 edited but not yet keyworded to get on.? That should be a good goal for the next few weeks – keyword everything, edit more, get a few 100s submitted.

Coming up soon on NiltoMil: Picniche’s toolbars, Photoshop tutorials including “Editing without a mouse” and “Workflow Speed 2.”? With the trouble Cushystock has given me lately I may also pull out a Prostockmaster vs. Cushystock post.? Stay tuned (and visit the sponsors to the right who help keep us here!)

Ok, I know Powerweek was over awhile ago and I haven’t written.? To be honest I needed time to think about my next steps.

Here’s what happened

I submitted 550 images in 4 days.? Easily enough to beat the 700 in 7 days mark.? The “fail” for Powerweek v3 was our image quality.? On day 4, we had a BUNCH of images reviewed across many sites.? And the results were absolutely terrible.? Not my editing, not my keywording – but I had 4000 trip images to sort through and many were unusable at 100%.? I hadn’t noticed that while culling in Lightroom but upon closer inspection I knew it was going to be a hard week.

The second major issue we ran into was overdoing it.? Honestly it’s not a great idea to submit 1000 images in one week.? You lose the benefits of continued growth and spread as well as you “feed the beast” once instead of continually, which results in another loss for you.

1) My process ARE better.? I could easily edit and key MORE images than I should rationally submit in a week.? I like that.

2) I still need to get more new images up – we had several shoots since Powerweek which has kept me busy and one of our major goals is to improve our photography dramatically in the next 12 months.? I definitely think that will help all around.

3) Our trip images were not what we needed.? We had a great time, I’ve sorted through and picked another 1200 or so we can use but overall the images themselves were iffy at best and not very good stock.? Lesson learned.

What’s Next?

I think my next goal will not be a Powerweek but a Growth Month.? I would love to grow our gallery fast still.? I think a better way than 700 in a week and 150 for the rest of the month would be 50 new images uploaded 3 times per week.? 150 new images a week for a year is not enough but I can add some in whenever possible to add to that.? I still want 10k up by the end of this year although I’m not certain I will close N2M if I do not, given our new education.

I still need – I still hunger.? I have to work on my lessons and what is next for us.

What is a Powerweek?

Basically I’ve cleared my schedule for the next 7 days.? I will be doing *nothing* except microstock from Sunday March 8th through Saturday March 14th.? I will track the total number of images submitted to my top 10 agencies.

Why do it?

I think I can get 700 images up in one week and break 1000 for the month.? But it’s not been done.? As far as I know about, the record for NEW image uploads in one month to the top 10 agencies is 1035.? I would like to break that mark one week!

What happened in Powerweek 1 and 2?

Powerweek 1 resulted in 400 new images in 4 days.? I quit 3 days short of goal because I simply ran out of images.? I believed it was easier to shoot 1000 new images than get them up to the agencies but that is incorrect.? To quote myself “The single most difficult and time consuming part of the microstock process is to shoot stock worthy images.” I learned that you need a backlog when you start.

Powerweek 2 resulted in about 400 new images in 3 days.? I quit before the halfway mark because I was simply going too fast to too many agencies.? I was submitting 200 images a day to 15 agencies.? My upload speed is decent but I waited too long to upload the first batch.? Do not upload 200 at a time.? The upload time kills you!

How will this time be different?

So I just admitted to “failing” by not completing Powerweek v1 or v2.? In truth I’m not sure how much 800 images in 2 weeks is failing but I have learned.

1) I’m only uploading to 10 agencies for the next 7 days. I will have a backlog of images to go to the others later if necessary.

2) I’m uploading batches of 50, not 200. 50×10 = 500 total images per upload.? That should take 1/6th of my previous batch time.? I’ll make up for the smaller batches overnights when I do 100 at the end of the day.? That should allow me to do 200 per day if I can edit that quickly.

3) I have my backlog! I have 3200 images to edit now.? I will not run out.

4) My processes are better. I edit faster, keyword smarter and don’t waste my time on borderline images.

5) Need. I have to get through as many images as possible to earn as much as possible so that we can schedule our next trip.? The more we make the better, of course.? I like money.

So, wish me luck and see you in 8 days!

(Short version: I’m going to bust some chops.? Don’t like it, fix it.)

• Categories – I would love to know the stats on images bought through categories vs. keywords.? Are these seriously necessary?
• Shutterstock refusing to update the photographer side of the site (views, easy image management, etc).
• Banning & removing contributors for having differing opinions on how things should work.
• Fotolia flat out changing the rules mid-stream without telling anyone ALL THE TIME.
• Flat sales in a down economy – this is when we should be picking up new business partners for life.
• 123RF‘s negative review wording “bad this” “poor that” “Snapshot” – ack!
• Editorial captioning rules that are ridiculous – and this includes almost every site that allows editorial images.
• Some sites show off work on their main page that has blown highlights, poor lighting, and looks awful.? It wouldn’t be accepted if you submitted it today – don’t show it off!
• Submission processes that take too long: IStock, Fotolia and several smaller sites – I’m talking to you.? This is a time-oriented business.? Make it FAST for us.
• Small sites that promise to do things different and get no sales.? Ever.? That’s not different.? That’s the same if you’re a small site.? Here’s a hint: photographers + images + sales = more of all of the above.? Thousands of images with no buyers, thousands of buyers with few images – neither works.? Stop trying to do it overnight and BUILD your site.
• Inconsistency.? I subbed 50 to a site and 45 were rejected.? I resubmitted in anger the same exact 45 with *no* changes and 43 were accepted.? Please. Fix. This.
• Make things easy – how many times do I have to repeat this on the list for stock sites to get it?? Not just submissions – make getting our money easy, make resubbing for missing model releases easy, make updating an image data easy. (thank you Bigstock for nailing this!)
• If I submitted an image 3 years ago and I have better PS skills now, allow me to replace the image with a better upload without losing all my stats, views, etc.
• Sites without FTP annoy me.
• Great looking/usable sites without views/sales/revenue – what IS that?? You have the site right.? Just sell.? If you can’t sell, close the business.? This business is ALL sales.
• Get rid of images 4+ years old with no sales.

Okay I’m done for now.? Please feel free to comment, wish me luck in my next career…(laughing), etc.? Someone has to say it.

(chart taken from StockXpert top portfolios)

Figuring out where I rank on stock sites is a curiosity more than a necessity.? I don’t need to know – my goal is $1,000,000 regardless of whether Yuri or Lise has made $55,000,000 or what Lumaxart is doing.? However, it’s interesting to compare progress and see where we’re at and where we reach in what time periods.

Here are the tracking tools I’m aware of:

Istock Charts

Bigstock Gallery Size Listing

StockXpert Gallery Size Listing

(Araminta Studios has a great listing but it’s currently offline.)

As far as my own rankings are concerned, I only? have rough estimates of past results and all of today’s current data.? These rankings are for GALLERY SIZE only.

IStock – last time I looked, I was roughly 7900th.? Today I’m 7213th.

Bigstock – last time I looked, I was on page 9 ranked roughly 420th.?? Today I’m ranked 267th and on page 6.

StockXpert – last time I looked, I was roughly 750th.? Today I’m ranked 338th.

So it looks like there are roughly 350ish photographers with? larger galleries than I have online.

What would it take to make progress?

On IStock, just 100 new images would raise my ranking from 7213 to 4480.
Also on Istock, just 300 new images would raise my ranking from 7213 to 2375.
Real progress would be 369 new images and top 2000.

On Bigstock, just 130 images raises me to page 5 and rank #240.?
On Bigstock, just 750 images would raise our ranking from 267th to 144th.
Real progress would be 1360 new images, bringing us in the top 100.

On StockXpert, just 100 images would raise us from 338 to 295th.
On StockXpert, just 620 images would raise us from 338 to 200th.
Real progress would be 1738 images and would take us from 338 to 100th.

3000 new accepted images (my goal for 2/28/09) would give us the following rankings:

Istock (140 new images max) – 3180th.
Bigstock (3000 new images) – 43rd.
StockXpert (3000 new images) – 60th.

So that Istock one may be a bit of a reach – but top 100 on the other sites?? Totally doable.? Where do you rank?? Post below and you’ll always have it to look back on – and compare to!

? Tomas Marek, Dreamstime.com

While NiltoMil covers a wide variety of topics from SEO on Technorati to shooting with models, the main point of its existence is to document our progress from $0 to $1,000,000.? As such, the end of the year is a good time for 2008 wrap up and goal setting for next year.

As of December 31st, our total earnings will be just a shade over $6,500.? While a decent amount of money, we will not get to $1,000,000 with years like that.? Obviously there’s? a need to greatly increase our number of salable images quickly.

Goals in microstock may be measured by many different statistics:? RPI, earnings, download rates, sell through, approval percent, size of your portfolio, etc.? For NiltoMil, we’ll focus on the obvious two: portfolio size and earnings.

My goal for 2009 portfolio size is to have more than 10,000 accepted images by 12/31/09 on most of my sites (Istock will be an exception of course, Fotolia may be as well).? Shutterstock, 123RF, Bigstock, Dreamstime, MostPhotos and StockXpert should *definitely* hit this goal for me to be successful.

My goal for 2009 earnings is to earn $25,000 in stock photography for the year. While not “huge” by any definition, this would be around $2000 a month for the year and would represent the figure that would continue our journey in a positive direction.

So here’s a reason to continue reading NiltoMil.? I am not going to stick around and pretend to be something I’m not.? Too many people set goals and fail to reach them, yet still continue the journey unfazed.? I often share my experiences and ideas in hopes of helping you.? If I can’t help myself first, I can’t help you.

If I fail to reach both goals by 12/31/09, NiltoMil.com will close for good whether I continue to shoot microstock or not.

So wish me luck!? I wish you luck in 2009 in reaching all of your goals.? (Luck wishing appreciated by clicking “Comment” below)

Track our progress at the NiltoMil Spreadsheet

? Tomas Marek, Dreamstime.com

It’s not quite the end of the year but it’s a great time to review my last year of microstock.

We were not microstocking in January or February. While we’d been part of this industry and have had images online since 2004, we uploaded very few new images in 2007 and the start of this year.

A conversation in late February prompted me to start researching more about microstock photography. I found out about the success of people like Yuri Arcurs, Andres Rodriquez, IOFoto and Vegas Visions Studios. I learned more about Lise Gagne and started reading Microstock Diaries and Micropayment Photography.

As March started up, I thought it may be a good idea to change direction from my “search for passive income” to my current NiltoMil.com site so I changed format for this blog to strictly microstock.? A search for other blogs to monitor and read quickly pulled up several on my feedreader. I currently read:

Microstock Diaries – Lee Torrens’ great site

All You Need to Know about Microstock Photography – Todd’s site

Yuri Arcurs blog – Uhh…by Yuri, of course.

Pixels Away – Marek

JRTB – by JRTB

Captured Little Moments – no longer a microstock blog

Lookstat – Rahul Pathak’s microstock stat tracking service

Snapvillage – although not updated frequently enough for a company blog

Microstock Photography Blogspot – CJ’s site

Microstock Junction – Lorraine’s blog

Driftless Ramblings – Allen

PDTNC – a new one on my list

MelastMohican

(now that I’ve added the links, let’s see who has Google Alerts setup for their names/blog? names)

Once March was over, I knew we could “do” this microstock thing.? We went from an income of $85 to $189 with little effort.? Our portfolios increased by approximately 90 new images per site.? April and May we turned up the speed to see what we could do.? We grew portfolios by 300 and then 350 images a month.? Our income in the same time grew from $189 to $350 and then $450.? The increases from our work showed us our future in this business.? We started to believe we could get enough images online to pay our bills and then much more with new images.? I still believe a consistent effort will get us there very quickly.

June and July were also months things improved.? Our income rose to a high of $575 on 1250 images.? Not bad but we hadn’t seasoned in images at Dreamstime OR Fotolia and we had not done nearly a single new image on Istock – plenty of room to grow!

August through October are difficult months for us – wedding season is cranked up, we’re shooting a lot and editing all the time and NOT for microstock.? We added zero new images from August 1 through Nov 1st on most sites and our income dipped to 66% of our high.? The strangest thing that happened was Dreamstime kept rising.? No matter what we did, Dreamstime income gained & gained as the images seasoned in – definitely an advantage to multiple pricing levels!

November ended our run of NO microstock work as we added 50-100 new images across most site and finished pushing some queued images we had left there from July/August.? Our income rebounded from $380 in October to $450 in November – more in line with our income from May when we were starting to add more images.

We learned a LOT in microstock this year – from how to add IPTC data before upload to how to upload to multiple agencies at once.? Both are huge timesavers, which matters a LOT in the micro world.? We also made new microstock friends – Todd at Micropayment Photography, Lee at MSD, Leaf (Tyler) at Microstock Group, Bobby at VVS and many many others.? We continue to learn from those photographers and microstock afficionados and a lot of our success is attributable to their influences, help and work on getting us up to snuff quickly and efficiently.

Our two microstock and travel sponsors came on board this year – ThinktankPhoto and Pro Photo Rental.? Both provided us with new gear to use on our October trip and we appreciate their support and hope 2009 is productive for all of us!

This year we increased our income from $2700 total to $6400+.? We have more than doubled but that’s not good enough by far.? Our goals for 2009 are to increase from ~$500 to ~$5000 a month by next December.? We would like to add roughly 10-15k images to our portfolios and we’d love to start pushing IStock images harder.? Our goal is to reach $50k on our total earnings as fast as we can.?? That’s a good start on our ultimate and real goal of hitting $1,000,000.

Another goal for 2009 is to add more sponsors/advertisers to N2M.? We keep them fairly well contained so they don’t take over the whole site but by adding advertisers, we are able to become 100% focused on microstock AND this blog – to spend the time to help, educate, learn and teach that we need.

So that’s 2008 – and here comes 2009.? Don’t forget that you can follow our progress on here and also at our spreadsheet on Google.

Thank you ALL for reading NiltoMil.com? I appreciate everyone who’s taken their time to bookmark, subscribe, read us, link to us, and sponsor us.

123RF – 100 pending
BigstockPhoto – 100 pending
Dreamstime – 108 pending
Fotolia – 5 pending (haha!)
Istock – ok 0 pending
Shutterstock – 100 pending
StockXpert – 84 pending

So now the only thing to do is wait.? Wait and keep editing, keywording and readying more files.? Just as a bonus, I’ve created the wild horse image in 900x600px as a free download for personal use only.? If you use a larger desktop and want a larger wallpaper version leave me a comment and I’ll put up an 1800×1200 tomorrow.? The image was taken at Assateague, Virginia of a truly wild horse.? This guy fends for himself full time.? Would have loved to be closer but this part of our trip was one of the most memorable.

Here’s the issue – you run into bottlenecks, tie-ups – places that slow you down.? It doesn’t matter where that place is, somewhere along the line you will hit it if you’re fast enough.? Does anyone remember Power Week v1?? My bottleneck was not having enough images to process.? I could literally edit images faster than Sarah & I were shooting them.? I ran out of images after editing 400 in 3 days.

Fast forward to Power Week v2 – I’ve now got a backlog of almost 4,000 shots from our trip to edit & upload.? I will NOT run out of images this week.? So what now?

My internet upload speed.

I edited 200 images yesterday.? After about 4 hours of work on those same images today I had them ready to upload.? I pushed upload SIX hours ago.? I was out for a few hours this morning and pushed images at 6:30 pm.? It’s almost 1am and I am 31% done with my upload!!? According to this speed, if it stays constant, it will take anywhere from 19 to 24 hours to complete my UPLOAD.? In the meantime, I’ve already edited another 85 files.? By the end of that 19 hours, I should have another 150 to upload.? I am pushing the VERY limits of my upload speed.

I think my next post will focus on ALL of the steps in this process – so I can find & eliminate bottlenecks before this happens.? But for now, just know that if you submit 200 images to 123RF, Bigstock, Dreamstime, FeaturePics, Fotolia, ImageCatalog, MostPhotos, Shutterstock, StockXpert and Yaymicro at the same time, you will beuploading for a LONG time.

No image with this post – I’m too busy and too lazy at the same time.