I’m looking for guest bloggers on a couple of topics.  I’ll keep this short.

- graphic designers, microstock buyers – what are you looking for, what’s the thought process, frustrations, etc.

- agency heads for interview style posts – bring your own agenda. Want to talk about DT keyword flags? Your new site?  Lemme know!

- iStock exclusivity – why, how, etc.  I know a lot of people, some very successful, use this method. Why don’t the rest?  Will we eventually?

- web gurus: how  can photographers market themselves on their own sites or do it better?  Hotlinking to our own images?  Are there solutions to do this entirely within our own branding?  And not cart-style like Photocart?

I’d love to have you!  I get: one exclusive  post to be posted here on N2M.  I reserve the right to edit and you reserve the right to remove the entire article if you don’t like my edit.  You get: link back to your own site, blog, portfolio, agency, etc. in the post.

Guest blogging is a great way to gain exposure and market yourself. As most of us bloggers  know Problogger loves guest blogging too.

During the last few months one of my major goals has been to shoot more food photography.  I am really interested in the subject, I enjoy all aspects of it, and I think I can do it well (eventually).

So my past few months have been focused on learning – studying food photos, “becoming” a foodie, learning styling techniques – I never wanted to jump straight into food but rather be a food person who knew how to photograph.  I’ve been studying food, food photos, collecting recipes, deciding on what I want to focus on. In learning to “be” a food stylist/chef  you learn about presentation.

Thus my thought for the moment – become involved in the shots you want to shoot.  You shoot sports?  Go PLAY sports more – referee for the kid leagues, shoot hoops more at the park and watch more games.  See how the pros present sports.  You want to shoot business people?  Get deeper into business – meet with SCORE, talk about business planning and attend a seminar so you can see how someone has designed their speech.  Desire to shoot more animals & nature?  Interact – get out there, follow wildlife, hunt (with or without the gun), track animals – learn their behaviors.

— Related tangent —

When I first started learning to be a wedding photographer I listened to everything wedding photographers said. Advertising, marketing, sales, websites, SEO, photography & lighting, everything!  Eventually it dawned on me that photographers were good at making images.  I should learn advertising from an advertising specialist.  I no longer pay much attention to wedding photographers when they speak on subjects other than booking or shooting weddings.  The thought is very similar to what I’m talking about above.  Learn to be great at your subject – not just aware of it.

Sometimes when I want to shoot something I just pull it up, shoot it, wonder why it doesn’t sell.  I think the main reason is because someone else understands the subject while I just wanted a good photo of it.  Can I take good photos?  Yes.  Absolutely!  I shot models for years – and then I realized that because I don’t enjoy it all that much, the images weren’t high-class.  I can shoot well enough but the connection wasn’t there.  The question is – how involved are you in the shoot?

It doesn’t make sense for a city-dweller to go shoot cows and barns.  It doesn’t make sense for a sporty jock to shoot ballet.  Who are YOU and what can you shoot better than everyone else?

Let me quote myself.

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 (10k images, $25k for the year) by 12/31/09, NiltoMil.com will close for good whether I continue to shoot microstock or not.

At this point in the year it is obvious that I will not reach 10k approved images OR $25,000 this year.

I am modifying what I wrote above.  I am not going to destroy or delete Nil. I am going to stop posting earnings, stop posting ideas until they are working better.  I AM going to keep Nil up for the archives and the posts that often get referenced.  I AM going to continue to put up posts of interest to me – whether that’s of interest to anyone else or not.  My journey will continue.

I need to help myself first.  I need to figure out the steps I should be taking to reach my goal  and when I do, I’ll be back full force with the full effort I can give Nil.  Until then, expect sporadic updates on what I’m doing, how stock is going and what I am trying to do to improve.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank our new NiltoMil sponsor, Corbis for supporting NiltoMil and helping us along the journey.  I don’t factor any advertising earnings into my quest for $1,000,000 but I do appreciate the boost and wanted to thank them publicly.

Many of you know but some may not – Corbis has transformed SnapVillage into the Veer Marketplace.  Veer looks great – my images have been transferred and I await the results now.  I hope to see some movement there soon.  Keep an eye on my Veer chart for the results.

Thanks again Corbis!

Ah June.  Smells of bbq, flowers and sales worth dog poop.

As always my chart (which was done on the 1st btw!) is here.  And for Lee who is self-proclaimed lazy, I’m posting a June chart:

The work … well … let’s see.  For the month I started strong and have had a terrible last two weeks.  I had some personal stuff come up that has interfered with “work.”  I would say for the month I did about 4 days of uploading at about 2  hrs a day so 8 hrs of work.  My income increased from last month by $47 and I earned a total of $455.02. I did no shooting for stock in June and added only about 160 new images to my galleries.  That’s consistent with the time I think I put in.  So my income increased slightly on very little work.  Eh.

Two BME’s – StockXpert continues to burn up the charts, continuing in 3rd on my charts behind only SS and DT.  CutCaster also earned $4.02 breaking the previous high of $3.19.  Heh.   Other notes: Canstock had another Fotosearch DL, the 5th one in 5 months.  I like that.  I have many non-earners that may get permanently removed very soon.

At the halfway point of the year I think it’s important to take a look at where I am.

I’m not shooting enough.
I’m not editing enough.
I’m not uploading enough.

That about sums it up – decent return for almost no work I’ve done but wow, ok.  I am done playing around now.

My upload strategy of late has been momentum.  I think if we upload consistently rather than doing Power Week then nothing, we’re going to be better with sales and have a better acceptance ratio.  So far that has proven to be true.  I am now almost a full week into this consistent strategy and what I’m finding is that sales on SS, DT and SXP are rising.  Fotolia always takes awhile and BSP/123RF don’t sell enough to notice trends yet.  This consistent approach is also good for my portfolio.  Let’s take a look at where I was/am as an update.

• Shutterstock 1/1 – 1441
• Shutterstock 6/7 – 2395




• Dreamstime 1/1 – 1570
• Dreamstime 6/7 – 2346




• Fotolia 1/1 – 646
• Fotolia 6/7 – 1696




• StockXpert 1/1 – 1365
• StockXpert 6/7 – 2758




• Bigstock 1/1 – 1540
• Bigstock 6/7 – 2857

5 full months of uploading has nearly doubled my gallery on many sites, +700 or 900 new images on many other sites.  However, I’m nowhere near where I need to be on images, sales or earnings to get what I want.  So this change, along with some other new things I will be doing, will hopefully get me closer to goal.

So from now on, I’m uploading 25 a day 5 days a week, every week.  I think 500 new approved images a month is going to have to be a “good enough” goal.  If I can manage that, by the end of this year I will have 3500 new images or over 5000 on every site (except IS of course!)

Another goal that will happen this month – I’m adding at least a couple batches to DeepMeta for Istock, submitting more to Fotolia and trying to create some images that may sell better than things I have now.  We need to improve out quality to keep up with the best in this business!

I learned a huge lesson in the last 3 months. That lesson:

“Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort.” – Charles Givens

What I mean to say, exactly, is that stock is a momentum game. The more quality images you upload, the more people visit your gallery and thus the more sales you have overall. The first bit of starting requires a harder push than later on but you must start and (here’s the lesson of the day) KEEP GOING.

I’ve watched the downloads of several major contributors this month and last. They nearly always are consistently uploading. Image totals go up here and there and the contributors continue to be successful. Another thing I did was watch a few contributors with totals near mine. Some went up, some did not.  For the most part these type of users make up the majority of active contributors – those who are basically spinning their wheels.  The last group needs no monitoring.  They are the contributors who submit a few times, don’t make $10,000 and go away never to be heard from again.

I’m concerned only with the group that uses momentum in its favor.  This group uploads consistently, 50-200 images  a week almost every week.  This group also seems to make most of the money in microstock.

So what is it that keeps the momentum going?  What keeps a contributor going?  I think they are obsessed.  One of my favorite quotes ever is by John Irving.  He said the secret to business was “You’ve got to GET obsessed and STAY obsessed.”  Many start there – how do  you continue your obsession?  What makes you enjoy the business?

Recently I was away for a few months, reconsidering what I wanted to do in microstock.  Over the summer last year I lost my momentum and it really hurt my sales and my mood.  I have in the last few weeks been kicking it back into gear.  It’s time to run again.  I am obsessed with microstock again.  I want to learn, move forward, WIN.  I want to hit goals, hit higher ones and hit ones so high I have to reset them all.  I am officially OBSESSED with microstock and it’s time to get back to good.  I’m not going to let summer stop me this time.  I am shooting again, editing again, uploading again – with more consistency and less “flurry.”  Powerweeks work against me – that’s figured out.  Moving forward in a consistent manner is the goal.  We shall see!

Thanks for reading – I really appreciate all of you guys.  Leave me a comment and I’ll stop by to see what you’ve been working on too!

March was up overall but not a BME.  Kind of sad given a Powerweek in the middle of the month should have spurred new heights but when 50%+ gets rejected you don’t get very far.

Detailed results are here.

So let’s see, Shutterstock still hasn’t gained the momentum I need simply because I’m not consistent enough.  I’m going to make myself cry if this keeps up!  Dreamstime was down $15-20 from my last few months.  Istock was in the right range.

The good news was the other big agencies: Fotolia was BME at $83.68, BSP also a BME at $31.50 and SXP a BME at $43.50.

Overall March earnings: $550.15

That’s good enough for second best month ever ($575.46 is overall BME).  I would be happier if SS was picking up momentum but in June I had $398.59 with 1247 images online and now $241.97 with 2143 online.  Sad!

Portfolio size average for my top 6 agencies is now 1903.  Fotolia’s 1599 brings that total down but SS, DT, 123, BSP and SXP are all now over 2000.

Coming soon: my first year back and what’s next for N2M.

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.

Yes!  My goal was to hit $500 for only the third month ever (first since my BME last July) and I did it!

Full earnings spreadsheet is here.

With February’s income totaled, I have reached $508.89

BME: IStock, Fotolia, CanStock (DT $1.10 off)

Shutterstock went up $45 this month, a decent start but not where I want to be.  I expect Shutterstock to be well into the $300s for March.  I am starting to gain traction there again so I hope to regain my momentum.

Dreamstime nearly hit a  BME but failed by $1.10 to reach it.  It was my third month in four with basically $103.

IStock is the same old, same old.  Still 89 images but a new BME of $17.81 so whatever change they made to Best Match has helped me lately.  My last two months are my best two months in 4 years.

Fotolia did the expected and more than doubled this month due to my doubling of portfolio size.  Last month I went from 646 images online to 1350 and now at 1599 so a huge leap from Fotolia was expected and received.  Fotolia became just my third agency to start crossing the $50 barrier.

123RF and Bigstock did about usual.  No surprises.  I would like to see some growth though.  These two were earning $22-30 for me in June and same now but I’ve added nearly 800 new images!

StockXpert continues to improve.  my second $30+ in a row with only my EL month beating it (2nd BME).  I like the reviews there, I’m climing up their user charts and everything is starting to go well for me there.

The only other real surprise this month was Canstock.  I have been dumping my portfolio on Canstock because of the new Fotosearch acquistion of CSP and so far so great!  My previous *FOUR YEAR* earnings were $61 on around 125 images and lately on 470 images.  I finished uploading my portfolio so I now have just over 2000 images there and this month made $26.55 which is HALF of my all-time earnings there!  It won’t make me rich but it’s a start for Canstock.  When Canstock finishes 5th on your list, you know something is weird!

Yaymicro, FotoMind, MostPhotos and most of my small and new sites (Image Catalog, CutCaster, Vivozoom) all were at $0 for the month.  When I do Powerweek I will NOT be uploading to those sites.

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