Hi & welcome back! NiltoMil is officially off and running again – I’m keywording, submitting, pushing images and then working on shooting some new today.  I’m going to be pushing some older images even though I know they won’t sell as well as I’d like simply because I want the momentum to begin NOW not in a month when I get new stuff edited.

I’m ready for 2010!  January will be a very poor month since I’m starting so late but February should show some recovery.

In the last 6 months when I was mainly gone:

• Shot weddings – and we have 4 other photographers who shot during that time as well.
• Sold my house/bought a new house – a fixer-upper.  We’ve been working on it almost everyday since Nov 20th for 12+ hours per day.
• Delved into the food styling/preparing/photo world.  I’ve read almost every post on Still Life With, Matt Bites, and many other foodie blogs.  I’ve devoured four entire food photography books including Rinder/Smith’s new book and Lou Manna’s classic.
• Redesigned our business brand
• Traveled to Maine, twice.  Traveled to NYC.

Now that I’m back my goal is to create an income that will pay my mortgage first, other bills later.  Our mortgage is $680.  This is an achievable goal that I do have to reach for. I’ll do a more extensive goals post in the next week or so but that’s the start of it.

Current BME: $575.46, July 2008

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!

Total Earning: $555.49

So April was both a good month and a bad month, depending on your point of view.   The good news is that my earnings rose $5 even with a sizable drop from SS, IS, and FT.  Last month those three combined for $340 while this month just $289.  However, Dreamstime recovered up $13 and Canstock and Bigstock had a BME.

My gallery size stayed very near the same numbers as March as SS went up 27, DT 26 and SXP 72.  So that is mainly the bad news.

The good news is that April marks the first time *ever* I have had three $500 months in a row and both my 3 and 6 month averages are the highest they have ever been.  I haven’t beaten my overall BME yet in 2009 but it is reachable for May.  My 3 month average is up $35 from last month, my 6 month is up $25 and my 12 month is up $26.  While not amazing numbers they are all UP.

Two Best Month Ever’s – the previously mentioned Bigstock and the upcoming Canstockphoto.  Prior to Feb. 1, 2009 I had *total* made rougly $60.70 over FOUR years.  In the last 3 months, I have earned $93.70!  Yes, Canstock is back.  In fact, my 3 month average at Canstock is $22.43 which is my 5th best agency of 18.

As they are throughout the month and at the end of every month, detailed results are available here.

Others reporting microstock income:

Microstock Diaries

jrtb

CJ Photography

Driftless Ramblings

PDTNC

MelastMohican

Pixels Away

Bankizdjec

Microstock Experiment

MyStockPhoto

Did I miss any?  Comment below and I’ll add you for next month!

Don’t be surprised if the overall layout of NiltoMil changes soon – I’ve seen some really great looking sites and I think I know how I want to make this easier for me to post more content.  That would seem to be the goal so I will look into it.

* NOTE: I had to change Canstock stats after this post was release.  At 11:55pm last night I had a Canstock Medium FotoSearch sale for $26.40 which drastically changed some info and resulted in this being my 2nd best month ever.

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.

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.

Microstock Diaries

jrtb

CJ Photography

Microstock Junction

Driftless Ramblings

PDTNC

MelastMohican

Pixels Away

Bankizdjec

Microstock Experiment

If you have files that have not sold during the last 24 months, you can decide to offer them to the Free Images API and receive 0.5 credits for each file submitted. Of course, your files will remain on the Fotolia website and may be sold at any time, but they will also be offered for free via the Free Images API.

Offer Conditions

For each unsold file added to the Free Images API, the contributor receives 0.5 credits to their Fotolia account. A file added to this Free Images API will still remain on the Fotolia website and may be sold at any time. When an unsold file is added to this Free Images API, the contributor can not remove the file from this section for at least 18 months. Files from the Fotolia Free files API will be distributed through partners sites using the Fotolia free site API as well as the Fotolia free files section After 18 months, the contributor will have the ability to remove this file from the Free Images API if they so choose.

Procedure

Files which may be added to this Free Images API will be displayed in the Member home > My files > Unsold files section. You just have to decide which files you wish to add to the Free Images API. Upon submission to the Free Images API your credits will be immediately added to your Fotolia account.

Exclusivity and Commission Changes

I was going to post the section on here about Fotolia dropping comissions, changing EL structure, etc. but I have since heard that “a new, corrected version of the newsletter will go out “soon”.”

I don’t believe Fotolia made a mistake.  I think they again changed everything without warning us, let the fallout happen, and will change things that must be changed.  This *again* points to my earlier rant about changing the rules without telling us…it’s bad business.

Conclusions

The Free API thing is “ok” if you want a few bucks.  Maybe you’re $3 from payout and you can add a few images to the freebie collection to make it this month.  Fantastic for you.  I may do this with my wife’s account as she’s made like $47 in 4 years on 20 images.  Put them all in, 10 credits and she makes payout and is “done” on FT.  No worries there.  For me?  I’m not sure – maybe I’ll look over some older files that haven’t sold.

As far as dropping comissions, changing EL structure, etc.  Fotolia – please understand that you keep doing this and eventually people are going to give up on you.  Really.

Most bloggers in microstock are very polite, respectful and friendly to everyone.   I try to be the same but there are some times and some issues that push my buttons and I think it’s appropriate to respond to issues that come up.  I would like to say that I will talk to, help and work with any agency that wants to listen.  On the other hand, I don’t feel bad for the agencies that get upset by criticism and don’t change.

(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.

The most time consuming part of the uploading/pushing in microstock is categorizing images on certain microstock websites.  The worst offenders are Dreamstime, Bigstock, Fotolia, and Shutterstock.  Categorizing takes time and the more time you spend, the less you are earning per hour.

I use two methods to ensure I spend as little time on categories as possible.  The first is to know the categories on each site.  The second is to “type” categories rather than mouse to them.

Know Categories

The first thing you need is a list of categories on each site.  I’ve saved you a LOT of time and put together a canononical list of categories on these four sites.

Download the list here

It’s a printable word document (four pages) that lists every category and subcategory on each site.

Type Categories

Bigstock

Click the first category and close it.  Type the first letter of the main category until you reach the one you want.  Tab, then type the first letter of the sub category.  For instance, Objects > Over White = O Tab O.  People > Men = P Tab M.  When you’ve finished the first category press tab again to go to the second and repeat through all three categories.  When you get quick at this you should be able to do all three categories much faster than clicking directly on them.

Dreamstime

Dreamstime gives us a bit of a headache for a couple of reasons.  First, many categories start with the same letter.  Industry, IT&C, Illustrations…  So what we do to save time is click to open the first category, click the first letter of the main category then simply scroll and click the right subcategory.  Not as time-saving as the rest but effective nonetheless.  Unfortunately because the categories are “all in one” on Dreamstime, there’s no simpler way.

Fotolia

Simply put there is no fast way to categorize at Fotolia.  I *ABHOR* categorizing here.  I put it off for so long.  If you have been watching my charts you know that I made a real “job” of Fotolia last month and added over 1000 new images!  I simply had that many stored up from not doing them.  THE most important part of categorizing at Fotolia is knowing the categories.  Please refer to the chart often and make it as fast as possible.

Shutterstock

The terms of service at Shutterstock include categories and descriptions so I’ve included them on the list above.  They are the best to type other than Bigstock.  I do end up tabbing a LOT though – but for me it’s faster.  To type categories, open & close the first one as you did with Bigstock.  Now type the first letter until you get the category you want.   (ie. A = Abstract, AA = Animals/Wildlife, T=Technology, TH or TT = The Arts, TR or TTT = Transportation)  Note – Shutterstock includes “VECTORS” as a category on their list but this category doesn’t actually exist.  I included it because they did.

After the first category, press tab.  Now type the second category.  Press tab (space if you need to check the first box), tab (space if you need to check the second box), tab (type “I” for “I will include it now” for a model release, “E” for Editorial, no release needed) and then tab all the way to the next category on the next image.  Basically you can tab all the way through Shutterstock’s submission process and you should.  It takes you through the keywords of the second image, etc. but you will get back to categories and once you know how many tabs between each field you can easily just type your way through the form without ever once touching the mouse after the first two clicks to open and close the first category.  I can submit a batch of 50 Shutterstock in about 5 minutes or less.  I will time it soon.

Batch and Groups

I was reminded by Adelaide that one other speed tip on categories is to do bulk/recent whenever possible.  Bigstock lets you select “Import from previous image” so series’ are great there.  Dreamstime, Fotolia and IStock also allow you to do batch/bulk categories.   Using these tools will also speed up your categorization.  Thanks for the reminder!

Ok?  Conclusions?

So that’s it.  I type my way through almost every set of categories I possibly can.  I have a cheat sheet to know what those categories are and I spend as little time doing the boring humdrum work of stock as possible.

Hope the sheet and the tips help!

January – blessed January!  How do I love thee?

It was absolutely fantastic to get back to uploading with any sense of regularity.  I only uploaded about 200 new images during our busy bridal show/booking month but 200 is more than enough to get me back on track!

As always, our spreadsheet of microstock earnings is here.

The January numbers were great!  In fact, this was our best month since I stopped uploading last July (other than the ridiculous ELs from SS in Nov (3 of them!)  The final total for all this excitement was 424.82

To put that in perspective for us, Shutterstock was actually down a few dollars.  We had SIX BMEs – Dreamstime, IStock, FeaturePics, Crestock, ImageCatalog and SnapVillage.  Also, StockXpert would have been a BME but we had an EL in Nov.  Our old BME was $19.10 though and so this month’s $30 would have destroyed that!

IStock – no clue.  No new images but it was almost TWICE my BME.  I’ve had almost that many images online for FOUR YEARS and never gone up over $10 really.  $17 was a huge leap.  There’s some speculation that it was a result of all their Best Match changes.  We’ll see if it continues (plus I’m going to be uploading to IStock this month like mad so we’ll see if that helps!)

FeaturePics had a … slightly insane month!  I actually repriced all of my images to $10 from $2 before.  I only had 2 sales but those 2 sales resulted in $15.75, or 61% of my all-time FeaturePics earnings.  It was TRIPLE my prior BME.  I’m going to be working on some ideas to push my FeaturePics gallery around the next 6 months so we’ll see if I can’t keep getting a few sales there each month at the new price.

Check out my Fotolia gallery size increase on the spreadsheet – from 465 last April to 646 as of Dec 31st to 1350 as of tonight!  I over doubled my Fotolia gallery in one month!  The power of the push, I guess.  I worked hard on Fotolia (while watching TV) so we’ll hope that pays off over this month and beyond.

Other interesting bits – I passed 2,000 images on FotoMind and MostPhotos and will pass it on a bunch of other sites this month.  Gotta keep pushing!  You’ll note there are *new* agencies on the list – more on that in a future post…

My BME total is $575.46 and I’ll state for the record now that I hope February can beat that.  I’m only $150 away so I think I can make that up without much problem.  I wouldn’t be surprised to go well over $600.  I have a big month ahead – some news coming soon on our next stock photo trip as well!

Other sites reporting earnings:

Microstock Diaries

jrtb

CJ Photography

Microstock Junction

Driftless Ramblings

PDTNC

MelastMohican

Pixels Away

Bankizdjec

Microstock Experiment

Any I’m missing?  This list is getting rather comprehensive!