So by now most of you know that Bigstock is no longer BigstockPhoto and 123RF has also redesigned.  I’m surprised for a few reasons:

* Shutterstock (who owns Bigstock now) said the redesign proves they want to move forward with BSP.  What’s the idea of that?  Just keep stock photo buyers happy?  I like it but I wish they’d let us submit to one place and distribute on both networks.  I have many images on BSP that aren’t on SS – I’d like them combined.

* Both 123RF and Bigstock went for the black/white/grey look.  Very simple, clean, easy designs. I’ll be honest – I like both.  But they look VERY similar now!

I’m glad stuff is where I’m used to finding it, somewhat.  Bigstock’s bulk tool seems to be gone, replaced with a much better one at a time engine.  Still wish it worked more like Canstock or even SS.  Submissions are so much easier at those places without the “delay” of javascript.  I don’t want smooth transitions – I want SPEED.

Bigstock listed a lot of new changes here.  I want to look at a few more closely.

• A new and enhanced search engine (interesting – will have to search my stuff later)
• Additional search engine optimizations for Google and others
• Improvements to the collection: checking metadata and enhancing the search algorithm

I’m interested to see how their changes play out.  I would love for BSP to kick it up a notch and remain a player, even growing.  We just saw IStock kill StockXpert and the contributor side of that pretty much sucked (told you I’d be honest!)  I would be grateful and glad to see Shutterstock market and push Bigstock for one-off downloads.

As far as 123RF, their official twitter (does Alex run this ship?) says “The redesign of 123RF is NOT the END, it’s only the beginning!”  I sure hope so!  I’d like to see the beginning of shorter wait times for reviews, less of the truly bad “poor lighting” rejects and of course more dollars and cents.  PS: Note to 123RF, fix the “Check FTP uploads” screen – it doesn’t scroll right.  It looks a right mess.

What do you think of the changes?  Good, bad, indifferent?

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.

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

As if wedding season here wasn’t busy enough, we just bought a new house!

So here’s my shoot idea:  I’m going to shoot the ENTIRE thing.  Shoot the packing the moving out, the empty new place, cleaning it up, boxes packed, the moving van/truck, new colors on the wall, colors half on the walls as its being done – all sorts of moving concepts.

I’m very excited to get back to work.  The summer months are always an incredibly difficult time for me to concentrate on stock – we shot 20 weddings in 15 weeks and we have 4 more over the next 2 weeks.  After that, I’m FREE!  NiltoMil will be BACK and ready to rock.

Anyhoo – so BSP is now a part of the SS empire, SXP is part of the Getty universe.  It really is going to come down to those 2 until it starts to fracture again, isn’t it?  I love business – it’s so predictable.  Fracturing, consolidation, aging, breaking apart…

What’s up in your lives since the beginning of the summer?  Just update me – products (ISyndica? Lookstat?), people, places you’ve gone – I’m just interested in the people part of having this blog right now – what have YOU been doing since we last really caught up? 

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.

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

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.

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!