Leaving Microstock

[Mirco Vacca]

Good morning everyone,

I know that i am between many experience stock photographers and i would love to have some opinion/help from you .......... .

First of all i am not a full time photographer. I am doing this next to my regular job. I still want to continue doing stock photography wat is now most editorial that is not news related. So general lifestyle images of shopping people, cityscapes and so on for editorial use.

I know that many will not like me for that but i started to enter stock with microstock like almost 5 years ago. So i am the one that helped to make that drastic changes in traditional agencies. Sorry for that . Anyway.... now i dont want to do both microstock and "traditional stock" anymore since my time will be less and i only want to concentrate on one direction. Especially because i will be father on february . I understand that i should not use your opinion fully to make my decision because there are different experiences from different people. I only would like to know if you think that only Microstock will be the future. I know that everything can happen and you are not future tellers but i hope we can still swim on traditional boats for at least a while more. I earn money from Microstock but if i would stop it i would have a lot more images to add to Alamy.....like 5000 more. After all this upload work i think the right decision will be to choose between one of them and i have to say i prefer more the environment of Alamy and co. Actually i feel that i am competing against myself.

I am thinking to leave microstock for good and concentrate only on Alamy/*****/******
My head is all the time going up and down.....diffcult decision. I dont ask you to make decision for me but only what is your opinion about my maybe to plan move.

I thank you allready and i am looking forward for your message.

[John Morrison]

Congratulations on 5,000 images here, Mirco, and for the prospect of becoming a dad (I'm afraid the one won't pay for the other ).

 

Microstock is a bit of a 'dirty word' round here... contributing, as many think, to the poor prices achieved by stock photographers. I would not contribute to microstock myself. I'd like to say I value my skills and my pictures at more than a few pennies... but, of course, some sales on Alamy are little better.

 

My only advice to you would be to take more time to build up a strong set of pix here, and keyword them better. Otherwise your ranking will go down, and you'll have a big portfolio of pix that clients don't see.

[Mirco Vacca]

Congratulations on 5,000 images here, Mirco, and for the prospect of becoming a dad (I'm afraid the one won't pay for the other ).

 

Microstock is a bit of a 'dirty word' round here... contributing, as many think, to the poor prices achieved by stock photographers. I would not contribute to microstock myself. I'd like to say I value my skills and my pictures at more than a few pennies... but, of course, some sales on Alamy are little better.

 

My only advice to you would be to take more time to build up a strong set of pix here, and keyword them better. Otherwise your ranking will go down, and you'll have a big portfolio of pix that clients don't see.

 

Thanks John.... i know about the wont paying the other issue .  Thats why i dont want to have 3 babies. My son, Alamy and co and Microstock. So i will say to Microstock goodbye. Thanks for you message!

[losdemas]

Firstly - I am not really one to give advice, only my opinion!  Reason being that I have a small portfolio, only half a dozen sales under my belt with Alamy, and almost no experience compared to many others here.

 

However, for what it's worth, in your position, I would first sort that keywording out, both here and on the images which you are thinking of migrating to Alamy.  Once that's done, wait a few months and then migrate your images over - if that's what you choose to do.  The reason I say this, is that things move slowly over here in Alamy-world and until you have given the new keywording strategy time to take hold (which could take months ), then your images (even 10,000 of them) will likely be buried near the bottom of a big pile of more than 40,000,000!  Giving the new keywords time to bed-in will allow you to retain that income that you already have (however small) over on the Microstock sites until the sales start to kick in here.  Then move everything over.

 

Having said that, there are those on Alamy who submit to Microstock with some success and will have their opinions (owing to their success - here and there - doubtless more valid than mine!) to offer.

 

Good luck, whatever your decision, I wish you much success - with both photography and parenthood!

[Mirco Vacca]

Firstly - I am not really one to give advice, only my opinion!  Reason being that I have a small portfolio, only half a dozen sales under my belt with Alamy, and almost no experience compared to many others here.

 

However, for what it's worth, in your position, I would first sort that keywording out, both here and on the images which you are thinking of migrating to Alamy.  Once that's done, wait a few months and then migrate your images over - if that's what you choose to do.  The reason I say this, is that things move slowly over here in Alamy-world and until you have given the new keywording strategy time to take hold (which could take months ), then your images (even 10,000 of them) will likely be buried near the bottom of a big pile of more than 40,000,000!  Giving the new keywords time to bed-in will allow you to retain that income that you already have (however small) over on the Microstock sites until the sales start to kick in here.  Then move everything over.

 

Having said that, there are those on Alamy who submit to Microstock with some success and will have their opinions (owing to their success - here and there - doubtless more valid than mine!) to offer.

 

Good luck, whatever your decision, I wish you much success - with both photography and parenthood!

 

You also thanks for your valueable input!

 

Mirco

[PatrioticAlien]

I pass through the difficult moments in life, really difficult times on grass, during my seven years of my career. All of a sudden I felt comfortable.

Marat Safin

[dov makabaw]

I guess we all go through many moments of doubt on the way. It took me a few years to organize my portfolio so as to get the most out of Alamy. I have looked but have yet to find another agency which suits me and my photography better. I would not presume to be able to advise you which is the best option for you and your style of photography. It sounds as if you have already made up your mind and are looking for confirmation that you have made the right decision. As most people on this Forum are Alamy users or contributers I suspect that they may have difficulty being objective.

 

dov

[Mirco Vacca]

I guess we all go through many moments of doubt on the way. It took me a few years to organize my portfolio so as to get the most out of Alamy. I have looked but have yet to find another agency which suits me and my photography better. I would not presume to be able to advise you which is the best option for you and your style of photography. It sounds as if you have already made up your mind and are looking for confirmation that you have made the right decision. As most people on this Forum are Alamy users or contributers I suspect that they may have difficulty being objective.

 

dov

 

Hello dov,

 

Like i said i dont expect somebody making my decision. I just want to see what other people would do with their own portfolio and if they also are on both boats. The "right decision" is a difficult term and right can always turn out wrong. Exactly like most say here.

 

Thanks for giving your part.

 

Mirco

[Bill Brooks]

Mirco:

 

I am shoveling trouble on this forum, but I would suggest you put your images in both Microstock and Alamy. Just designate each image as either microstock or Alamy. Why must you quit microstock? For the record I do not have any microstock, but that is because I am lazy.

 

You need to work on your captioning and keywording. You are doing well for someone whose first language is not English but it still needs work.

 

In your captioning, rather than stating the obvious, that anyone can see by looking at the image, why not give the caption writer some facts to work with? The 4 W plus How. Try to answer What, Where, Who, Why, and sometimes How. 

 

Are you using a translation program? Some members of my extended family cannot speak a work of english, but I can communicate with them through a translation program on my iphone. Type in all of your keywords in your native language and then output english. There must be a translation program for your computer.

[Mirco Vacca]

Mirco:

 

I am shoveling trouble on this forum, but I would suggest you put your images in both Microstock and Alamy. Just designate each image as either microstock or Alamy. Why must you quit microstock? For the record I do not have any microstock, but that is because I am lazy.

 

You need to work on your captioning and keywording. You are doing well for someone whose first language is not English but it still needs work.

 

In your captioning, rather than stating the obvious, that anyone can see by looking at the image, why not give the caption writer some facts to work with? The 4 W plus How. Try to answer What, Where, Who, Why, and sometimes How. 

 

Are you using a translation program? Some members of my extended family cannot speak a work of english, but I can communicate with them through a translation program on my iphone. Type in all of your keywords in your native language and then output english. There must be a translation program for your computer.

 

Thanks Bill for your honousty. Very appreciated. I was saying to quit microstock because then i could add them all here on Alamy. Many editorial images on Microstock are not sold yet so i can add them here as RM. Would be like 5000 images more here ....

 

I will check my caption again.... thanks for your time to look at my portfolio.

 

Mirco

[AlanC]

I'd agree that there's no reason you shouldn't continue with both Alamy and microstock - although the micro subscription sites, IMO, are best avoided except perhaps for your poor sellers.  But that's just how I play it, your mileage may vary.

 

That said though, I don't find Editorial very succesful in microstock, so if as you say you have several thousand editorial images that haven't sold there you might well be better off to remove those and put them here as Alamy RM.  At least if they do sell, you ought to get a bit more for them!

 

Best of luck anyway...