Lookstat offers a trial of their new keywording & uploading back office services.? 25 images will be uploaded to up to 10 sites for no charge, no strings, no payment info given.

Now, before anyone asks, you do have to provide your microstock site credentials.? If you aren’t comfortable with providing this to a service provider you need read no further.? Understandably, you’re not going to be interested in this service.? That’s the first stage of getting setup.

Onto my trial!

I ftp’d the 25 images to Lookstat and a few days later started getting confirmation of the accepted and denied images.? I did nothing much in the middle except look at the keywords and approve them.? While in this step you can update, add, remove, change anything you want.? They did a pretty good job on mine though and I didn’t change a lot.

For me, the trial went extremely well.? The images were uploaded, they were almost entirely approved and the rejections were for image stuff not keywords or model releases.

The PROS

Most of the non-creative work taken care of for you.

Better keywording than you probably do on your own.

More time to be shooting & editing.

The CONS

Cost – contact Lookstat for details but it’s not the cheapest service.

Time – the ramp-up time killed me. FTPd the files, waited…waited…then started seeing them.

Handing over credentials – some people will find this a major con.? I don’t, but …

Doing 10 sites for me meant that I had to do the rest on my own – which means either waiting longer to get the keyworded images to sub to my other sites.

Conclusions: Am I going to do it?

For now, no.? During our wedding offseason I’m full time at stock so I have all the time in the world now to edit, keyword, upload and push images through.? This is MY job for the next 6-8 months.? Unfortunately once weddings start in June I will lose all the momentum I build this winter.? I may use Lookstat then to keep uploading for me.? The more images I can get edited between now and June the better, no matter how many I can keyword and edit.? I’m still going to shoot to do as much as I can but it feels really great knowing there’s some backup to keep my flow going.

I encourage any Q&A in the comments – I know Rahul reads them and will respond.? I would love for him to jump in and explain the ramp-up time better than I can as well as anything else he’d like!

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!

I received a note this week from Brian at ThinkTank that the new Street Walker bags are out!? I’m excited about these!? I may even try to convince Brian to send us one so we can get into it!? haha

First of all, you can download the full press release here.

The StreetWalker comes in 3 configurations – StreetWalker, SW Pro and SW Harddrive.? The HD one fits a laptop in it – VERY cool!!? The Pro is little bigger than the SW and the HD is a bit larger than the other two.

I’m excited about this bag because it’s something I need – a way to transport while ON a shoot.? My current bag is the ThinkTank Accelleration.? I LOVE my Accelleration but it’s HUGE.? It’s actually a very heavy bag to carry and Sarah can’t use it.? She loves her Rotation 360 but it doesn’t work as well as she’d like at carrying a “lot” of gear.? We need something in the middle of the two and this may fit.? The ability to carry the laptop around as well is super bonus!? When I don’t want to bring our Airport International Roller this is awesome!

Just a disclaimer, we ARE sponsored by ThinkTankPhoto although I’d tell them if I didn’t like this bag.? If you’d like to order a new StreetWalker or other ThinkTank bag please use our referral link:? http://thinktankphoto.com/cameraclub/ and enter the code CC-166.? This way ThinkTank knows we’re sending them customers and will continue to sponsor us in the future!?

It?s always great when a project starts to gather momentum. I wanted to take a moment to AGAIN thank my blog readers for coming to see what I?m up to. I know the last month has been off but it?s going to get really exciting around here VERY soon. October 8th and counting!

There have been a few bits mentioned about NiltoMil.com that I think warrant posting about:

1) Image of the Day at Snapvillage for 100 Yard Dash – my #1 most popular image ever.

2) We?re doing an interview with Moodboard, a stock photo site that seems to have some cool options for selling your images.

3) More SnapVillage blog love – Inclusion in their ?Top 20 Microstock Resource Sites?

4) Google loves us more. We?re up to #4 on ?microstock blog?, #3 on ?microstock blogs?, #7 on ?microstock earnings? and #1 for ?microstock goals? (no quotes on any search). We?re no Microstock Diaries yet. Lee is a fantastic blogger and anyone not reading him is missing a TON of great info. All we can do is try to be another voice in a growing sea.

Adding all this love to our TWO new sponsorships (ProPhotoRental.com and ThinkTankPhoto.com – see WeWillExplore.com for more details) and we?re feeling really excited to get back to work and ready to rock this winter in microstock. We have 5 more weddings before the end of the season. I will finish our last edits hopefully on November 9th, the day after our last wedding. Once that happens, I?m full time microstock for 6 months. Excitement!!!

If you?re following our microstock TRIPS at http://www.wewillexplore.com you may already know this but we secured our first sponsor for the trip today. Pro Photo Rental has agreed to sponsor us with some gear for our trip in exchange for some images from their lenses and telling you & them what we think of the gear. This is great news! We?re going to have much more access to cool lenses & such as well as the ability to branch out of our ?normal? gear and shoot with some fun stuff we don?t normally get to use.

So that?s the first major announcement on our trip. More will be released soon – we may have a new sponsor to announce in the next week as well as a working outline of the trip.