Status update...

We've moved, and are halfway through our stay in temporary housing while we wait to close on our new house. I did bring a good portion of my "studio" gear with me, and had a pretty good week of shooting/uploading.

I also watched the lynda.com course on Access 07. And just spent a few hours playing with pivot tables, which totally rule. Here's what I ended up with, my history of microstock to date:
Time, numbered 23 to 29, is by week. As in, the 23rd to 29th week of 2009. Sorry for my crappy labeling of the axis.

Crestock and Canstockphoto are not included, as I didn't see the point entering in the image acceptance data for sites that haven't sold any images yet. If they show me some earnings, I'll add them to my spiffy new relational database.

Some observations: Two sites I added late, Shutterstock and StockXpert, are kicking butt for me, relatively speaking. Fotolia took a long time to kick in, but is looking good of late. IStockphoto and Dreamstime sold a couple of images early on, then nothing since, although I am still building my portfolios everywhere.

Basically, there's a table of agencies, a table of images, a table of accepted images (date, agency, which image), and a table of image sales. Getting it all set up was a lot of typing, but now when an image is first accepted, I add a line to the images and the acceptance tables. (Subsequent acceptances reference the already-added image.) And each time an image sells, I enter where and for how much. Then I can track sales in all sorts of interesting ways. Like, for any image I pick: Which sites accepted it? At which sites did it see sales? What is it earning per week/month/agency/whatever? Very interesting, but overall I think it's better to focus on just taking better pictures, and more of them...

We'll see how it goes.

Another site, and some more sales

Sales #3 and #4 have gone through! #3 was another Dreamstime sale, while #4 was at a new site for me, Shutterstock.

#3:


#4:


I sent in my first batch of "application" photos to Shutterstock a month ago, but they had some problems. In addition to whatever problems there were with the images, the inspectors didn't feel the model releases had a sufficiently high resolution. When 7/10 of your batch isn't accepted, you are locked out of Shutterstock for 30 days.

When I first see a rejection, I still get the same feeling I got with that first iPhoto or Shutterstock rejection. It's pretty much: "Screw them, what do they know anyway." And so on...

And then I take a deep breath, and try to take an objective look at my submission in light of their critique. The inspectors are almost always right. Whether it's an ugly shadow I somehow didn't notice, or slight under- or overexposure, or even barely readable or incorrectly filled-out model releases.

I try to keep in mind that this whole process is a fantastic learning opportunity for me. Not only do I get free, professional feedback on my images, but I actually make a little money on the good ones!

I should emphasize little here. My earnings to date, on 4 sales, are a whopping: $3.87.

That's not a complaint. I am just starting out. Ask me in a year or two if I'm happy with the financials of this project. Then ask me if I am taking better pictures. (I can already answer that one with a big "hell yes!".)

First iStockphoto sale!

More good news today! I made my first sale at iPhoto.com. Another $1.14, can you say, "ca-ching"?

Meanwhile I'm working on figuring out my two new Alien Bees AB-400's. I didn't spring for wireless triggers, so I'm trying to trip them as slaves using my on-camera and/or off-camera SB-600 flashes. Had some issues getting them to fire 100% of the time until I put away the speedlights and just used the on-camera flash. Now that that's working I'm playing with the power settings to get lighting I like.

First Sale!

Since I last wrote, I rethought Dreamstime. I wasn't going to submit anything there, since they won't accept the iStock model release and I didn't want to have to deal with double the paperwork. Reading their forums though, I changed my mind. Someone else had posted an "I quit" message (due to rejections) but got so much support and encouragement from the DT community that he ended up staying. He got great advice, and changed his perspective on the whole process, and mine changed as well. So I filled out their releases, and uploaded a bunch of images. I've also kept up with iStock and Fotolia uploads, and even loaded a few up on crestock.

This morning, I had my first sale, at Dreamstime. I'm surprised how good $1.50 can feel...

Packing

I'm taking the girls to see the grandparents, but not without my camera (plus just a few lenses, filters, flashes, laptop, chargers, SD cards, etc..) About a month ago I bought a Lowerpro 200 single-strap backpack thingy. I almost got the smaller 100, but figured I could use a little room to grow. And before I could really even use it, it's way too small. So I had to order one of these:

Found it on Amazon.

It looks big, but it was surprisingly easy to fill up... I'm pretty sure it won't fit under the seat in an airplane, but it should fit overhead. (It better!)

On the stock front, no sales yet, but I'm seeing a few views at least on both Fotolia and iStockphoto. I uploaded a bunch of stuff to Dreamstime, only to find out they don't accept iStock's model release (everyone else does). So, I guess I'm out of luck there- no way I'm filling out 2x the paperwork just to add one more agency.

I've been watching a lot of online lessons. Mainly the ones at Lynda, which are great. I'm about 7-8 hours into a 14h Photoshop for Photographers class at the moment, and learning a lot. I got the first month of Lynda for free with my Photoshop purchase, but I'll definitely subscribe when that runs out. There's so many great classes there.

I also began setting up a gallery at a domain I bought and had hosted. GoDaddy made it easy to get squared away, and Lightroom plus SlideShowPro plus a custom watermarking action in Photoshop and I'm almost all set. I still need to come up with a top-level "home" page. Might try the Dreamweaver 30day demo for that.

Off to CT in the morning.

Doing my happy dance again.

"Welcome to iStockphoto.com, the designer's dirty little secret. Congratulations, the iStockphoto administrators have determined that your files are commercially and technically ready for iStockphoto.com. Please begin uploading at your convenience."

Now, even though 3 images were "accepted" in my application, I still have to start over from scratch. So I started uploading, and boy does the default uploader at iStockphoto blow. Very slow, very hands-on, not fun.

So a quick google of "better iStockphoto uploader" found me: DeepMeta - Manage your iStockphoto portfolio, which RULES. I can get all the uploads ready in their free app, then start the batch upload and walk away. Thank you DeepMeta, you rock.

Just FYI, my third approved image was a chess photo from yesterday's post.

Trying again...

Tried again for a few minutes with a semi-cooperative model, and got some more shots to submit. I sent 6 to fotolia for review, and since iStockphoto already accepted 2 earlier, I only had to submit one this round! Not only that, they reset my timer, so it was only 3 days. Now, if today's is rejected I think it'll go back to 6, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I am very lucky to have such a great model at hand! I think I'm mostly limited by my ability to come up with ideas that are fun or interesting enough to keep her entertained while I shoot... I'll have to work on that. Maybe tomorrow we can break out some power tools...