The Microstock Photography Blog

It has been 2 full months now that I’ve tested the Microstock waters.

I feel like I’ve learned a great deal and am making progress - but much more slowly then I would prefer.

Lessons learned so far:

1. I suck as a photographer

… alright alright.. maybe I don’t suck - but it is challenging to meet the standards of the sites themselves, and more importantly of the fellow photogs. I am continually amazed and impressed by the quality of work that my fellow photogs exhibit. It both inspires and depresses me a bit. But I remind myself that it is a great learning process and I will get better.

2. Shoot More. Shoot More. Shoot More.

I can complain that I don’t have time - but that will always be the case excuse. You cannot learn, publish, sell and expand creatively unless you are actively taking pictures. Sometimes I find myself mired in work, writing, reading — and not what I should be doing Shooting.

3. Patience

The stock (and microstock) gig is all about patience. Microstock is about volume and time (isn’t everything..)

The more images you build up, longer the sell - more successful you will be. So I just keep rocking myself back and forth and repeating ‘I can be successful, I can be successful.. patience.. patience..’ even though I’ve only got 20 photos in my library.

4. Focus

Get it .. focus.. HA!.. (sorry). It is worthwhile to focus stock photos on certain themes or areas of interest.

I will write up and entire post on this tomorrow. From reading blogs, posts and other much more successful photogs I’m always amazed not just by their creativity and skill - but by the expanse and variety of pics and themes. There are many ways to be successful.

5. Shutterstock hates me.

They do. really. My 3rd attempt at acceptance is rolling around this week. I’m crossing my fingers.

My previous attempts failed in part because I did not pay attention at all - They reject the entire batch of 10 photos if any less then 7 are acceptable. My first attempt I did not pay attention to which of the 10 photographers that they accepted - and which they found undesirable. So I resubmitted many of the same ones.. and of course was rebuffed. As shutterstock shows up as one of the most profitable sites I’m eager to jump in.

Results to Date (from August thru Ocbtober):

Breakdown of my sales so far: Site / $$ / # Downloads

istockphoto | $5.84 | 9

dreamstime | $6 | 6

fotolia | $0.33 | 1

bigstockphoto | $0.5 | 1

stockxpert, luckyoliver,albumo,snapvillage = 0

Images: On each site I have roughly 20 images uploaded. Very small set of pictures.