Stock Photography Month 1 - January 2024
I have just stepped into the realm of Stock Photography pretty much as of January 2024 - and because I really appreciated a lot of the videos I watched and blogs I read to get me started, I wanted to put out a monthly play-by-play of what I’m up to, what I’m earning, and what it actually looks like to create a stock portfolio from Month One. You can either watch it over on YouTube or read the blogs here and follow along!
So grab a coffee, and I’ll share what I've learned from my first month doing stock, my agency choices, how many assets I have up and my super exciting sale in January and I am genuinely not even kidding when I say it brings me a severely disproportionate amount of joy! Seriously, ask my kids.
THE COURSE THAT GAVE ME A GOOD KICKSTART
Early in the New Year, I did a short course on Udemy and it shortcutted everything for me (is “shortcutted” even a word? lol). It was only about 2 hours long, but it was PACKED - I took PAGES of notes, and I even got a little certificate. :)
The tutor was really thorough and when you’re serious about stepping into stock photography properly or upping your game - you should totally do this course. It was updated at the end of 2023, so it’s still relevant. Now I can’t even tell you this guys name, and I can’t even find it on Google - but his YouTube is called Microstock life, and he’s got some good videos free on YouTube too. But the course covers EVERYTHING stock - right up to AI and how to use it for both workflow and asset creation - so if you’re seriously considering this as an income stream for yourself and your family - go check that out. Udemy often even has crazy sales - like $10 courses - so there’s NO excuse not to do this one.
AGENCIES I’M USING
So - after taking some advice from the guy who ran the course, plus a few other YouTubers and an excellent blog post I read, I picked 5 agencies I’m going to start with specifically for photography ( as opposed to videography, AI and Design work).
Adobe Stock
Shutterstock
DepositPhotos
Pond5
And Alamy
As as side note - I had signed up for Shutterstock about 2 years ago and loaded like 10 photos that I made about $1 off in the past 2 years, but everything else, I signed up with in mid-January. So when I talk about my portfolio of work - it’s pretty much identical on every site.
I loaded 45 images up to 3 of the 5 sites. Only photos at this point, no videos, and all 45 are the same images. So every site has the exact same images - which, if you didn’t know, you’re allowed to do. You can choose to contribute some images exclusively to one agency if you choose - but some agencies require you to be an exclusive CONTRIBUTOR - so not just exclusive for the images you you choose, but your entire body of stock work is now exclusive to that agency - so just make sure exactly what you’re signing up for.
But for me - all 5 of these agencies I’ve just gone as non-exclusive.
As at the end of January, Adobe hadn’t accepted any yet, Shutterstock accepted all, Alamy had accepted all, DepositPhotos was reviewing my application images, and Pond5 was reviewing my drivers license for ID. (**Use the screen grabs here). So bottom line, at the end of January - my images were only available on Shutterstock and Alamy.
I decided to choose 5 agencies to start with - cos once you’ve done the hard work of researching what to photograph, actually doing the photography, editing, keyword research, titling your image and coming up with a description - you may as well upload those images to multiple sites all at once. I’m going to give it a year with all 5, and see how they all perform.
JANUARY’S PLAN
January’s plan was simple: Clean out all my old images and see if there’s any in there I could upload. That knocked off three birds with one stone - I could find images I already had so I didn’t need to take new photos, while cleaning out and deleting most of my old raw’s to free up space, and editing all my old images that I’d taken and never dealt with - plus re-editing some old ones that I didn’t do a great job of in the first place!
I managed to get through from September 2018 when I first picked up a DSLR, to the end of 2021. And that took me pretty much all month, taking into account school holidays. I put up the first 45 over the space of a week or so about mid-month, and I’ve got a few extra ready to go up this month from that cull.
I didn’t make any specific upload goals for January. I just wanted to figure out and sign up with some agencies, find some old photos I could use for stock, upload them and see how that went. See if I would even be accepted as a contributor for starters.
FEBRUARY’S GOOD / BETTER / BEST GOALS
Early in February I got accepted to Pond5 and DepositPhotos - I uploaded the initial 45 to them as well, and they have all been accepted by DepositPhotos, and half are still under review at Pond5. So part of February is to just catch up with the initial 45 images on all 5 sites, and settle into the agencies.
As for uploads, I’ve set a “good/better/best” set of goals for total UPLOADS in each PORTFOLIO. Because I can control the amount of uploads I put up in a month - but not the amount that are accepted each month. So I’m staying in the realm of what I have control over - which is uploads.
So good is 150 total images uploaded to each portfolio - an extra 105 photos this month, better is 200 - an extra 145 photos this month, and best is 300 total assets uploaded to each portfolio. I tend to aim for “better” - but if the month gets busy, I can still go for good, or if things are going well, I can stretch to “best”.
I’m going to get those images to submit from a few places this month:
Two of our kids birthdays are this month - so I’ll take photos of cakes, etc that I can put up.
There’s some local events happening that I’ll take some photos of cos I take my camera almost everywhere… and
I also still have 2022 and 2023 to go through to pull out more images I can use for stock - which I know there will be a lot more, as my photography got a lot better in those years and I snapped at every opportunity I got!
So I’m pretty confident that between all of those, I’ll be able to pull out at least an extra 100 to achieve this month’s “good” goal, minimum. Even if they’re just pretty flower photos.
March will be a different strategy - but I’m just doing things in steps.
WHAT KIND OF IMAGES AM I SUBMITTING
So, this is REALLY interesting: I watched a YouTube video where the guy said that he did an experiment, and after years of doing stock photos, took down all the ones that had never sold - like 90% of his portfolio - on one site. And he said his income tanked after that. Basically, it showed that the other 90% of the portfolio was leading people to the 10% that got sold. So don’t think that EVERY photo is going to perform, or that if it’s not earning you money it’s still not working to be a part of your brand. Another photo might get someone’s attention and take them to your portfolio, which is where they find the exact one they want. It’s the old 80/20 rule - 80% of your sales are going to come from 20% of your effort.
With that in mind, I decided not to do any specific photo types for these first few months - in other words, nothing strategic. Simply cleaning out old photos, putting up anything I think might be accepted and that I’m proud of, and not putting any additional pressure on myself. Let’s just first see what gets accepted and what gets rejected.
I have had a few rejected, but I was able to resubmit them under Editorial - but that’s a whole other video!
THE SALE
Last but not least, is THE sale in January, which is severely disproportionate to the amount of joy this sale gave me… I made… wait for it…. a whopping 69c. And I’ve already got a second sale in February for another whole 10c. And truthfully, as dumb as that sounds - I am SO excited. I genuinely basically bounce around the house announcing to everyone that I made money off my photos. Lol. I even text my Mum. I told her she should be happy for me, cos it’s part of her retirement fund, and she said that if she managed to match that income, she should be ready to retire in another 65 years!
These were both through Shutterstock and I’m genuinely excited to see how the rest of the month goes. I check the sites daily if not more than that. I might be addicted.
CONCLUSION
This is going to be a monthly series, so feel free to follow along on the blog or head over to my YouTube channel if you’re curious. And, on a serious note, if you’ve got any questions or want me to talk about anything specifically to do with stock - make sure to drop it below. There is ALWAYS room in the stock landscape for more contributors and if I can help you somehow on your journey, PLEASE let me know.
