-Lee

These pictures are selling OK on microstock, some of them pretty well on SS if accepted. Generally, SS sees them as low commercial value. I am planning to link them directly to pictures in my Featurepics portfolio. Perhaps, it’s time to start working on a midstock portfolio.

There are hundreds of websites in the style “make money fast and easy, everyone can do it” = waste of time. But there are pretty few with real information (thanks Lee:) and those could bring you money. Its a lot of hard work and its a long run.

Thanks for the link.

I must say that in the roughly 2 months since I’ve started selling my vectors through my own website, I’ve been surprised at the response. I have had 6 sales so far of the complete Design Elements icon set, at $49 per sale. I’m not sure if these are from microstock buyers who came to my website and bought the icons at the discounted price as opposed to buying them from one of the micro companies, or just people who happened upon my website from somewhere else. Either way, it seems to be working well. I price the images at my site so that they are cheaper than at the microstock agencies, but more than what my royalty percentages would be if I sold them through the agencies. I make more on the sale, the buyer gets a discount, everyone is happy. I definitely plan to get more of my stuff available through my own website. It’s also an added incentive to promote the website, since the website itself if now a marketplace. If I promote the site well, I can get more sales directly through the site, more referrals, more click-throughs to the microstock sites, etc. I look at it more as promotion of my brand, with my website as the star attraction. From there, whether people buy from my store, from istock, from SXP, wherever, I benefit from it all.

I think you are touching interesting subject in this post. With all marketing microstock agencies are doing, and with thousands microstock contributors I don’t think promoting anybody’s microstock portfolio via their website will work.

What can work (and what really works, at least for some) is promoting microstock business in general and getting referrals via personal website/blog. Two great examples I know are Zastavkin and Dolgachov (I am not sure how well it works for you Lee). They both successfully built large communities of stock contributors and got great number of referrals.

Running a community is great, but it takes much efforts; and it’s not easy to make a new community when the niche is already occupied. So many microstock contributors are trying to get referrals by publishing an article “how to earn money from your photos” on their websites. Most of them aren’t very successful because their articles don’t have much visibility. Possible solution to that (and that’s one of the things I am trying to do) is to get your site/article on top of search engines (using SEO and various promotion venues).

Fine art prints is completely different story. There are not that many services focusing on printing fine-art photos on demand. Mainly redbubble, imagekind, and artistrising. Redbubble says very directly that while they provide the tool for selling artistic images, it’s up to the artists themselves to promote their art. Imagekind seems to be at similar position although they don’t say it so directly. That could possibly change now after Cafepress has bought Imagekind – perhaps they will do more marketing.

MicroStock Diaries has brought up a topic well worthy of reflection for stock photographers with websites or contemplating creating websites. My photo site definitely could, and should, be more effective in achieving goals of presenting and promoting my non-stock and stock work.

For stock photographers very understandably dismayed by small profit realized by certain EL licenses, and for photographer’s that perhaps never happened to think of directly selling their photography on posters and other items, Lee’s inclusion of photogs’ websites that include links to print houses is very practical and useful. Once again, thank you, Lee.

This is one portfolio website that every shot impresses me.
http://www.fotobyimran.com/