Micro Tricks & Tips,The Microstock World         11 comments

All in one place and organized by microstock agency, I present to you the canonical list of rejection reasons microstock agencies use to kick your photos (not vectors or videos)? to the curb.
There are two quick notes on this:
1) It’s incomplete – IStock and StockXpert refused to give me a list.? The 123RF list was given to me by Alex and should be fairly complete.? The Bigstock list is fully done.? I believe I caught every Fotolia and Shutterstock reason.? The other lists are created from my own rejections, a …

 Micro Tricks & Tips         2 comments

Today is going to be fun I hope – I’m going to show you how I edit.? I don’t claim it’s the ONLY way.? I’m not even sure it’s the BEST way.? But it’s fast.? REALLY fast.
This image was shot over grey instead of white because I like the flexibility of being able to isolate on white OR having some texture to a background if I want to colorize the available texture with some sort of blend mode.? For stock, I’d always turn this white though and let the buyer …

 Challenges,Micro Tricks & Tips,The Microstock World         1 comment

(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 …

 NiltoMil News,The Microstock World         4 comments

First of all, I know this is my second post on exclusivity in the last week and so it may appear that I’m considering it.? At this point, we are not.? I do want to consider what exclusivity agencies offer and why it may be beneficial in our future or for others.
123RF
Type of Exclusivity: Per image.
Method: “May be arranged” – asked support and they had no idea.
Terms: An exclusive agreement may be arranged for a better commission.
Dreamstime
Type of Exclusivity: Per image or per photographer.
Method: Per image – …

 Micro Tricks & Tips,NiltoMil News,The Microstock World         2 comments

Welcome back to another exciting episode of SlowLinks, my version of Speedlinks but with far too many for it to be considered speedy.
Today’s SlowLinks book list is all about books you should read in the coming year.? I listed books about photography, microstock, business, branding, personal advancement and growth as well as organization and motivation.
These have been accumulated through conversations with other photographers, small business owners and in my own reading.? I tend to read a *lot* of business books and own about 99.9% of the books on the …

 Challenges,NiltoMil News,The Microstock World         4 comments

? 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 …

 NiltoMil News         3 comments

Here’s a hint: no matter how good of a photographer you are today, you’ll either be better in three years or you won’t be a microstock photographer any longer.? Standards improve so fast, so much that if you aren’t constantly learning a “new trick” you are going to get? surpassed extremely quickly in image quality, control of light, etc.
We have made it a priority for the last year to improve our work.? I think it has improved a thousandfold and I’m still learning.? One way to do that is by …

 NiltoMil News,The Microstock World         Comments Off

A sunset at Acadia National Park
Since I left stock in July it seems a bit has changed around us.
- Shutterstock hit 5 million images?? Congrats to them!
- Bigstock accepts editorial images now – finally!
- Yuri started video blogging.
- Getty and Jupiter merged.? WTF?!
- PhotoPlus Expo went off well – with many microstock stars there including our friend at Microstock Diaries, Lee Torrens.
Anything else I need to know?? I?m trying to get caught up but imagine walking away from your house for 4 months and life kept happening around you – …

 Micro Tricks & Tips,The Microstock World         Comments Off

Microstock is a fairly new and thus still growing industry, especially on the net.? So right now I?ve found few ways to stay on top of what?s going on, but I wanted to share some with you in case you found me and didn?t know what *else* you needed to be reading.
Forums

Microstock Group – 1200+ members, lots of forums specifically directed at each agency.
TalkMicro – 550+ members, simpler forum structure, but basically one big ?category dump? for MS.

Blogs

Microstock Diaries – Lee Torrens – his personal goal to get microstock earnings …