March Totals

Record moth with total commissions at $60.61, helped by a sale on Alamy. Dreamstime is my best site apart from Alamy, although 123reg has started to pick up. Also had a few sales from isign.

I found out that my images are not for sale with extended license on Fotolia, I'm stuck on an asking price. I'll have to ask in the forums and see what the going rate is.

I'm consistently missing my upload targets. I'm just going to try and get as many as possible so as not to get too down hearted. I have to be realistic with work and other responsibilities. On Dreamstime, which is pretty average as far as acceptance goes, I'm averaging 21 uploads a month. Well below my 80 target. I'm going to stay positive and as long as the commissions are increasing I'm at least happy.

New Years Resolutions!

Following slack uploading and picture taking in the last couple of months of last year, I have made some New Years targets. Armed with a diary and plan of 20 shots per week uploaded, I am going to try to get a 1000 images by the end of the year.

I've learnt the need to be more systematic and to plan the shoots before had. I'm going to list 52 subjects to shoot twice a week, uploading, hopefully, 10 from each session. I'll plan these a few weeks in advance to give time to get props and learn the techniques needed, and try to keep the pace throughout the year.

So far this year, having a couple of weeks off of the day job, I have been able to complete three shoots uploading around 30 images, all of a decent standard.

I also have the goal of joining Shutterstock, so far I have been refused 3 times. With the new shooting schedule I'm hoping to have enough new and quality pictures to be accepted by them.

Lets see what happens.......

November Totals

I'm fealling very pleased with myself this month. I've gone from $6 odd last month to over $50 this month. This was due to an extended license sale on istock and a repeat purchase of a file sold last Dec on Alamy. I'm happy but know there will be a drop next month. I've uploaded a few more files with an extra 100 across all sites. I really need to pick this up for next month. Almost time to make some new year resolutions.

October Summary

This month my total earnings were $6.55 with 1069 pictures online across 11 sites. Up on last month. Still very modest but in the right direction I suppose.

I set myself a loose goal to upload 10 images a week. I kept to this for 2 weeks, but I'm struggling to keep this rate up. A busy couple of weeks at work and a lack of inspiration have been my biggest problems. I purchased a new flash this month to help with some studio shots but a delay in delivery and me not being able to work out how to get both my flashes working together has slowed me down. 

Looking to November, I'm going to try to upload a total of 20 good images this month, but more importantly work out a shoot list and do the research needed to take the pictures. I'm finding I'm really limited by my technical capabilities at the moment. I need to try to divide my time between coming up with concepts, researching shooting techniques, shooting, key wording and uploading. 

These are my graphs:

Uploading, keywording, uploading....

Over the last couple of days I've been going through a list of top microstock sites and applying as a contributor. Once accepted I've been busy laboriously and inefficiently uploading and keywording my images.

I've found Yuri Arcurs' keywording tool useful so far.

I'm now working through each agency at a time to get them all up to date with my base portfolio of 60 odd images that have been accepted by Istockphoto.

I can see the need to workout a more efficient workflow so that I'm only keywording once. All the agencies differ in how time consuming the process is, but each would be easier if I had the metadata sorted on the computer first. I'll be researching this once I have the first set of uploading done.

Agencies I've applied to are:

Dreamstime - Accepted
Bigstockphoto - Accepted
Fotolia - Accepted
Crestock - Accepted
Depositphotos - Accepted
Shutterstock - Declined. Have to wait 30-days to resubmit.

Introduction: My Background....

After reading Steve Heaps blog, where he describes his progress in microstock, I was inspired to try the same thing. The rewards are modest and the work hard, but the freedom of this type of work is very appealing. In short I think its worth a go.

I'm an amateur photographer so this will be done in my spare time. This isn't a guide as such, but a record of my learning. I'll share the fruits of my research, my workflow, and a truthful record of the amount of time I've put in and the results I get.

It would be great for people to join in and share their experience.