The Long Tail
Posted by mattantonino | Posted in Agencies, Challenges, Earnings, Goals, Microstock World, business | Posted on 24-11-2008
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We’re going to be talking about Chris Anderson’s book The Long Tail on this blog in the coming weeks.? First of all, you can download the miniature ebook here:? The Long Tail
Read that but understand one thing – it’s vital to your success in microstock.? The number one selling image on Istock for stock legend Yuri Arcurs has 8537 downloads.? While that’s a TON of downloads, Yuri is going to make over $1 million dollars this year and 8537 downloads accounts for under $25,000 of that and that’s over four years.? $6,000-8,000 a year is a VERY small portion of what Yuri will make.
So how do you make $1 million a year?? You don’t have just one photo.? Your long tail in microstock is the vast majority of photos that only make a few sales each month or year.? According to the book, “a quarter of Amazon?s
book sales already come from outside its top 130,000 titles.” The average Barnes & Noble only CARRIES 130,000 books.? All that extra profit – you can’t get it if you don’t offer it.
Quick 3 Rules from The Long Tail (for those who don’t read it)
1) Make everything available.
2) Cut the price in half – now lower it.
3) Help me find it.
We’re going to evaluate those one by one. For now, I think that’s enough.? Read the article.? Get on the same page so we can have this conversation.
The Long Tail, Part 1
The Long Tail, Part 2
The Long Tail, Part 3
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I’m curious about this Matt, I really am. I have images represented by a boutique stock agency, but nothing in microstock. It is something I consider. Would love to talk with you about here one day soon.
Stock has always interested me. I keep saying I am going to work on it during the winter, but I haven’t had the time.
This is great Matt. I would love to delve into the stock world. Thanks for doing this.
Love your approach to marketing! Always a great blog with valuable info. Love the new look, too.
Matt, I think you’re spot on in terms of how the Long Tail applies to microstock. It’s something we’ve thought quite a bit about as well and I’m looking forward to seeing how the discussion evolves.
Wonderful advise. I have always been interested in stock, but haven’t taken the time to figure out how it works. Thanks for the information!
Thanks for sharing all this information…..I have been afraid to dive into stock myself, but you’re making it a little less frightening!
Let’s plan a live chat for sometime after Thanksgiving – we’ll use the OSP Chat room and I’ll talk stock. How’s that?
Rahul – thanks for the comment on The Long Tail – I’m interested in going down the “business of microstock” route as I think that’s a *mostly* unexplored area.
I am interested Matt, I have 30’000 images in my archive, 8000 analogic, but no experience, but my site.
How does it work? How does it cost?
SwissCharles
[...] Antonino has a great post on NiltoMil about the Long Tail and it’s applicability to microstock photography. I think the core of Matt’s thesis is [...]
I was thinking of getting into a bit of stock photography on the side…reading with interest. Thanks!
Alan
[...] Matt’s series on the Long Tail and microstock got me thinking and I decided to do some quick searches on human emotions on Dreamstime to see if anything interesting showed up in the data. [...]
I like that you posted this article. However why are you telling everyone to undercut the market and drive the price of photography down? Undermining only hurts everyone in the end because the buyer can always get it for cheaper until you end up with companies like istockphoto and more royalty free companies. Is your blood sweat and tears really worth only $1? I spend much more than that on every shoot I do. As the price of photography plummets, so does your ability to stay afloat in an already highly competitive industry. Don’t undermine the industry just to make a quick buck because you are just shooting yourself, and everyone else, in the foot point blank.
Zach,
Thanks for the comment on my microstock blog. It’s sort of the point here to talk about microstock. It’s what I do and here’s what I care about: I like money. We’ve ALREADY “ended up with” companies like IStock and Shutterstock. Why are people still having this conversation about microstock vs. traditional stock? The traditional stock photography model is dead. I didn’t kill it. And don’t blame me for the lack of Kodak film in the stores either. Even if I never shot film.
M