We asked few microstock communities to share some useful tips that helped to earn more money or work less and here’s what we got. Here you will not find cliche tips typical for spammy online blogs, but practical and actionable tips you can implement yourself. Tips are split into 3 big sections based on their relevancy, but they have a common goal: to up your microstock game.
Table of Contents:
Selling
Leave contact information for commissioned work
Make sure your author’s page, in the agencies you’re registered at, has some way to contact you. Not once and not twice clients reach out for some customizations or custom work altogether. This applies more to vector artists and illustrators than to photographers or videographers, but it’s a good idea anyways. You need to have your doors open for opportunities to come.
Participate in the free collection in Adobe Stock
Every now and again Adobe Stock sends invitations to offer the work, that is sold less, to be included in it’s Free Collection. There are two main benefits:
- Adobe pays you a single payment for giving your work for free (remember, this file wasn’t sold much otherwise)
- there’re links to your other files from the page where the customer get can the free one and it ultimately leads to more sales
There are other ways to attempt the same trick. For example, Alexandre Rottenberg attemps to increase exposure through providing free downloads via Unsplash or Pixabay - he wrote about that in this blog too.
Embrace alternative marketplaces
There are three most-known groups here:
- print-on-demand (selling physical products with prints of your designs, like RedBubble)
- fine art (selling framed pictures, like Fine Art America)
- book covers (selling cover images for physical and digital books, like Arcangel)
Those are all different kinds of marketplaces and it makes sense to familiarize yourself with them. Check out an in-depth article from Steve Heap about what content sells on Fine Art and an interview with Archangel’s sales director to get a grasp about Archangel. Note that the book cover marketplace requires content exclusivity - it means you cannot upload it to other agencies, it pays rarely (like once per year), but the earnings are from a few hundred to a thousand dollars.
Take on the seed-funded briefs in iStock
Briefs in iStock (thanks to Reddit user Gullible-Leave4066 for this tip!) is a list of customer-requested content and what is great about it is that Getty has a seed fund attached to them.
“So I get in the range of $200-400 if I can submit 20+ images/video. And sales of each asset are generally around 80-100 bucks each on top of the seed funds.” Reddit user
It means you will get some expenses covered to produce the content: model costs, props, etc. and, additionally, you are likely to get several $80-100 one-time sales of that photo. Although iStock is not the most well-paid agency for sure, there are hacks like this to get additional income. Note that most probably the content will belong to iStock in such case, as it does for Shutterstock Custom, discussed ealier.
Self-host selling your content
The whole reason you can sell 1 photo on a few different marketplaces at the same time is that the license you’re granting is non-exclusive. In the same spirit, really nothing prevents you from selling the same content .. yourself. This requires setting up some sort of a shop and there’re a few viable options for this:
- Pixify as a plugin for Shopify. Currently, an experiment is run by Luisa Fumi who is trying this out.
- Symbiostock plugin for Wordpress. There’re many other plugins for Wordpress and you can even use a default WooCommerce option.
- Creative Market - somewhere in between being self-hosted and a typical agency, it can give you an experience of what it feels like to run your shop.
- Etsy - there’s a lot of digital content on Etsy and while the origins of some of it are not legal (content stolen from microstocks was reported there), it can be used as a shop platform for you
The biggest question is how you can promote this and one possible way is to have it as a link in your default agency profile as a “homepage”. This can work well for on-demand downloads from agencies: customers who don’t have subscription licenses will opt for cheaper prices on your site (they are cheaper than on Shutterstock, but you get much higher profit).
Sell illustrations or photos in packs
A known trick to boost sales or recycle less-selling artworks is to organize them in packs. Originally used mostly on Creative Market, but then transferred to other agencies too, this becomes handy not only for immediate profits but also for ranking boost. You can create packs of works, that sales, together with the ones, that does not, and price it higher. The important note thought is that on Creative Market you can set your own prices for packs, but, for example, on Shutterstock you can still get $0.1 payment for it. So just make sure you’re using it at a right place.
Use a referral system for profits or mentorship
Most agencies offer a referral system where you get paid if a client comes to the agency website through your link or a new contributor registers via your link. The payment schema is different for these two, but, in both cases, it’s time-limited for about 2 years and it has a cap on how much you can receive. Nevertheless, it’s a good option, and here’s why. You can use the “contributor part” in two ways:
- one is obviously where you get referrals and you are paid when they are getting paid
- the second is less obvious: you can offer or ask for mentorship in exchange for becoming a referral
Either way it costs nothing for both of you, but what you can gain (or give) is feedback and help from a more knowledgeable person.
Track your sales statistics
This applies only if you have at least a couple of hundred files in your portfolio. Track your analytics not for the sake of tracking, but to find out what you can optimize. Did you find a topic that sells well? Double down on it. Anything that got never sold? Repurpose to packs or remove from your portfolio to improve the ranking.
You can do that with more professional tools like Microstockr and Stock Performer or just by exporting your sales data in CSV from Shutterstock, and running some simple Excel on top.
Content
Do not use the same keywords for series
In a recent interview with Adobe Stock, Yuri Arcurs shared a valuable tip for optimizing the keywording process when shooting a series of photos. When doing keywording, Arcurs suggests setting only half of the keywords the be the same for each photo and adding different keywords otherwise. With this method, each photo in the series will have a unique set of keywords that make it more likely to appear in search results. This takes more work, but can lead to increased exposure and ultimately, more sales. Also Arcurs says that this is a typical newbie mistake - to use keyword presets for everything and not having a keyword variability for visually similar shots.
Cut and sell photos from 8K videos
One way to earn more from 8K (yes, 4K is already the norm) videos is by utilizing separate frames and selling them as photos (this is another tip from Yuri Arcurs interview). By doing so, you can monetize the video even more, especially if you already have model releases for your models. There’re tricks to it: it could be challenging to find a crisp frame so it’s not applicable every time.
Do not upload the complete series at once
It helps to be strategic with what you upload and when. A helpful tip (thanks to user cobalt from MicrostockGroup forum!) is to start by uploading only a few files from new production and monitoring their performance. If those files sell well, gradually adding more content from the same series could be a good idea. Additionally, you can post-process some of the files with a different look - this could create more visual options for buyers. Also, this approach can save time by only uploading the best files first, leaving more time for shooting and promotion.
Pay extreme attention to niches
It might be tempting to dismiss the word “extreme” here, but it really means a high level of “extreme”. In fact, Yuri Arcurs mentions this as the number 1 thing that helps their team to be the best stock content producer in the world. They are creating content of different styles (artistic, formal) of people of very specific combination of gender, profession, age and origin. There’re so many things that point to such attention to niches. For example, the “blue ocean strategy” also mentioned in the MicrostockGroup forum by user Annie:
In marketing there are recommended ways to do well in a saturated market.
- Niche Down. The more you can niche down, the better. A good niche is obviously one where your competition has not entered or over-supplied to, and there is still a gap between the buyer’s needs and the products available for sale.
It certainly requires a separate blogpost, but the more unique content you can produce - the better. Of course, it does not have to be “random” unique content - it still has to be required by some group of customers. You can check out this blogpost about how to find content ideas backed by data.
Follow trends and seasons - for real
Whether you’re niching down or not, it’s important to follow the trends. One of the recent examples was the COVID-19 pandemic: in the Steve Heap’s report he mentions how producing pandemic-related content brought him $1,600 in 2021 - not bad for only a couple of photos.
You might think that such things happen once in a lifetime, but you will be wrong. Here’s just a couple of trends that are happening at the time of publication of this blogpost: Russian invasion of Ukraine, the rise of generative AI, financial crisis and bank collapse in US and world etc. Riding these trend waves is an obvious choice if you want to earn from microstocks.
Seasonal topics like religious or national holidays are a more obvious choice - and that’s why they already have more competing content. But this is the place where niching down helps a lot.
Note that almost all media in the world will be doing some coverage of these (even holidays) and frequently their publishing houses already have subscriptions at Shutterstock/iStock.
Leave that copy space on your images
A way too common mistake of the new and seasoned contributors is producing content that buyers don’t need. Buyers on microstock agencies are mostly marketers and they are mostly looking for illustrative material that they can add text to. Of course, not in 100% of cases but this is the largest use-case. If you’re always submitting content that does not have room for text, you’re shooting yourself in the foot with this.
Upload to multiple agencies
An obvious tip in hindsight, but there are still people that upload only to a single marketplace! Not all agencies are selling equally well and not all agencies are selling all content that you upload. Diversification is THE strategy not only for financial instruments types of content you produce, but also marketplaces you sell it on.
Note that your earnings will not get multiplied by the number of agencies you’re at. Here the good old Pareto principle works: 20% of agencies bring 80% of income. These 20% are usually Adobe Stock, Shuttestock, Depositphotos, iStock, and Dreamstime - the bare minimum you should consider.
You can take a look at a recent breakdown of Steve Heaps’s earnings if you’re interested in more statistics.
Use AI as a tool
With the rise of generative AI, there’re two main options for you: generate images or use chatbots like chatGPT to optimize metadata. Generating images does not necessarily mean you will sell them: you can use the tool creatively to help you get started or to get unblocked, to boost your creativity and speed up your process. This topic is covered here in great detail so I will recommend checking it out. As for the chatGPT use-cases, you can rephrase or summarize image descriptions and come up with more marketing-focused keywords. Definitely worth trying out at least once!
Techniques, learning and gear
Get a small and portable gimbal
Many videographers use gimbals and the progress there does not stand still. As reported by Theo, he finally found the one. Zhiyun Crane M2-S is smaller and more portable than what he used before. It doubles as a tripod if needed, provides stabilization, does robotic pans from A-B and produces simply better results in all aspects. For him it simply means much less work in post-production.
Learn about digital color
Color is one of the main components, present in literally every artwork, be it a photograph, an illustration, or a video (other components, accordingly to Jay Maisel, are Light and Gesture). Since you’re working in a creative field, it makes a lot of sense to learn about it. There’re chances you will reevaluate at least some of the things you were doing before, especially in the post-processing, but also in creating art. One highly recommended resource is a book LIFELIKE, available for free online. But it can be anything, even a guide on color for ProCreate from YouTuber Art with Flo.
Setup backups for your files
As the saying goes, people can be divided into 2 groups: those who are not making backups and those who are already making them. So don’t wait for the disaster to happen, join the latter group early. Also major agencies do not allow you to download back your content, unless for a special arrangement, so having your own backups is crucial. There are two main ways to do backups: have an offline storage with SSDs or online cloud-based solution. Each of them has it’s benefits and drawbacks and it’s up to you to choose.
Organize your work with project management
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” James Clear, author of “Atomic Habits”
Selling on microstocks is a business, even if it’s just 1 person. And to run a business effectively you need to have some processes, even if it’s not your full-time job. There are a few pieces of advice that come into this category:
- Set daily or weekly goals. Being specific greatly helps with maintaining focus and motivation.
- Create a content calendar (more on this here). Know what you need to create in advance.
- Schedule your work. Allocate specific parts of the day for shooting, editing, keywording, or uploading.
- Use a simple project management tool like Tweek or Trello (or one of it’s million clones)
- Make a system to organize your files and adhere to it
Another tip, shared by Lily Kavliuk, is to measure time when you’re working on some specific artwork. When you have limits set, you will be working at a certain tempo and not be spending 15 minutes picking the best shade of pink.
Use Xpiks for keywording and uploading
Really, this is what users replied in Shutterstock Worldwide contributor Facebook group and in Stock Coalition Facebook group, when I asked them for tips. Citing the user from Facebook:
“Getting an Xpiks license and using it extensively. A huge time-saver! Output of metadata increased a lot.” Sascha Schmidt
It helps to streamline keywording and uploading process, automate the routine tasks. If you’re still not using Xpiks, you should try it out. Even the free version is a huge time-saver, not even speaking about Pro features. You can also check out other user’s testimonials. Using Xpiks early and saving metadata to your files will greatly help you in the future when you will scale to more agencies.
Fly drones (also inside)
Drones have become an increasingly popular tool for photographers and videographers, and for good reason. For starters, it allows for the production of video content, which is a valuable addition to any portfolio. Additionally, drones can capture unique and interesting angles that would be difficult or impossible to achieve with traditional photography equipment. Not to mention that you don’t need to walk yourself! There’s a great blogpost about getting started with drone for microstocks. One tip worth mentioning here, also coming from that Yuri Arcurs interview, is that they use drones also inside instead of expensive video equipment!
Shoot with a green screen
The cheapest way to travel (for the purpose of creating stock content) is to have a simple green screen setup at home. Work smart, not hard! Even with the basic setup and some Photoshop skills you can produce content that otherwise was inaccessible to you. You can produce everything from video to photography.
Another part of this puzzle is having rights for the background you will be using. And here comes a second secret tip: take pictures always even if you don’t know what you will be using them for immediately. Having this collection of pictures (that needs to have keywords for searchability) is paramount for creating backgrounds for green screen photos.
Stay connected to the community
Not only you can get tips like these, but also an inspiration or motivation. Lily Kavliuk in her book (in Ukrainian) mentions that following other contributors also serves her as a reminder to prepare content for seasonal trends (like the “St. Valentine’s Day”) and as a motivation when somebody shares a big sale.
So go register at the MicrostockGroup forum or Stock photography subreddit, follow some other blogs and also subscribe to this one.
Bonus: experimentation and education
Although it sounds less specific, investing time in education and experimentation will pay off immensely. Try something you never did. Here are just a few things you may consider:
- shoot with tethering on
- try to switch into typography from vector illustration
- try to shoot video if you only did photo
- learn to work with a model (experiment on your relatives or friends)
- watch that course on post-processing (e.g. learn adding sun flares)
If you don’t know where to start, I can recommend a good investment of $3 to buy a book called “Hidden Secrets to Getting Your Photos Sold” (thanks to reddit user daltica for the tip!). It has only 28 pages, but contains lots of useful advice - you can find it on Amazon or Apple Books. Or watch that interview that was mentioned many times.
More
Thank you for reading this far. I hope you found at least something you can implement or try right away. You are more than welcome to share your own tips: feel free to email [email protected] and we’ll include the best of them here.
