Sending footage to stock agencies can be a daunting task. Beside the amount of data to transfer, filling out file description on each website is time consuming.
Even with a high speed internet, uploading one movie to several agencies can take few hours. If you have a slow connection then it can became very challenging. One way to get around that is to use PicWorkFlow, a web distribution platform. I also use stocksubmitter, a stand alone application to speed up the uploading process.
Files preparation
Open Stocksubmitter to browse your video folder and it will generate automatically for each movie a 1920*1080 or 1280*720 image (with the corresponding file name). You can then enter manually title, description and keywords.
Distribution
Use your favorite ftp software to upload movies and their corresponding images to PicworkFlow.
Once the transfer is over, log into Picworflow platform to import your movies (it take only few seconds) and distribute them in few clicks to your agencies.
Finalizing uploads
For Shutterstock, Pond5 and ClipCanvas, Picworflow developed a firefox plugin with which you can fill out the movie informations in one click.
If the plugin is not available for your agency, you will have to use the copy/paste protocol from stocksubmitter and submit your footage.
In addition to save time, this workflow will allow you to have a good record of your footage on your computer as corresponding images have title, description and keywords embedded on them.
PicWorkflow (referral link included) service is not free but very affordable: it costs 1 US cent to upload 22MB of data hence for a clip of 200MB it will cost you around 10c. Taking into account the time you save and the selling price of a clip it is worth it. 100c are giving away every month allowing you to upload 2 clips to 5 channels for free so you can test the platform.
My best stock agencies in 2013 were Pond5 and Shutterstock. I put my referral links below if you want to sign up with them. Cheers!
The end of the year is coming soon and I wanted to share some trends I observed for my portfolio since 2009. I uploaded regularly (every month) but less in 2012 compared to 2011 and a lot less compared to 2010 to focus on footage and right managed pictures.
Earnings variation among my top 5 photo agencies between 2009 and 2012
2010/2009
2011/2010
2012/2011
Shutterstock
+40%
+11.5 %
- ?
Fotolia
+111%
-19.6 %
- ?
Dreamstime
+2%
+10.1%
- ?
Istock
-26 %
-43 %
+ ?
123RF
+61%
+61%
+ ?
Note: no uploads to Istock in 2010 and 2012.
Shutterstock (1570 images) is still my number one agency since 2009 with very stable earnings and taking now close to 50% of my total microstock earnings (the figure was 30% in 2010).
Fotolia (1808 images ) and Istock (522 images) portfolio value peaked in 2010 and 2009 respectively with
no sign of recovery.
Dreamstime had a very slow progression over the years (1511 images)
Surprisingly, 123RF (2098 images) still managed to increase value but is still far
away from Shutterstock.
Amongst the low earners, YAYmicro (2196 images) and Mostphotos (2097 images) are doing the
best. Stockfresh, Photodune, Veer are dissapointing.
Complelety dead (at least for me): bigstockphoto, Panthermedia, Crestock, Zoonar.
Conclusions:
Shutterstock and 123RF were able to increase portfolio value despite not uploading much the past two years. In addition, Shutterstock is still able to sell pretty well some
of my pictures uploaded in 2007 and 2008.
Istock and Fotolia experienced a dramatic downfall for over 2 years now due a less favorable search engine placement and technical platform problem.
Competition is getting tougher in microstock as databases are getting bigger and bigger (Shutterstock has now more than 21 millions pictures on line (compared to 9 millions at the end of 2009).
This leaves some answered questions for 2013:
Will the gap between Shutterstock and other agencies grow bigger following their successfull IPO in October 2012?
Will successfull footage agencies like Pond5 be able to get some market share in 2013?
What agencies will close the door in 2013?
If Jon Oringer reads me, will Shutterstock increase commissions in 2013 ?:)
I will updated this post at the end of the year but you can follow my updates on Twitter. You can also join my facebook photo page here. I put some referral links if you interested to join the agencies below
April photo sales were 25% down from last March which follows the trend observed also last year. Audio and video had another BME, both combined taking 30% of total earnings.
Photo
Shutterstock finished number one, very far from its BME, followed by Fotolia and Dreamstime. One good surprise came from Mosphotos with a BME finishing number 6 amongst all agencies.Istock still gloom and doom, 40% down from April 2010.Overall, photo sales are 18% up compare to April 2010.
Video
Another BME with 3 clips sold at Pond5, 2 at Clipcanvas and one (also the first) at CSP.
Audio
Best month ever with Pond5 taking most of the earnings.
Stay tuned for more blog updates in May and in the meantime, you can follow my updates on Twitter. You can also join my facebook photo page here.
March was a good month with decent photo, video and audio sales with the respective following split between media: 81%, 14% and 5%.
Photo
Shutterstock finished number one once again, only few dollars away from a BME, Fotolia and Istock falling well far behind. 123rf and Veer performed quite well and ended up very close to Istock who is clearly goes downhill for more than a year now. Dreamstime also did not perform very well this month.
Video
Few dollars away from a new a BME. Four clips were sold at Pond5 and one at Shutterstock. No sales to report at Revostock and Clipcanvas this month.
Audio
Another best month ever with Pond5 taking most of the earnings.
Stay tuned for more blog updates in April and in the meantime, you can follow my updates on Twitter. You can also join my facebook photo page here.
The end of the year slow down did not kick in yet as earnings this month were very close to numbers in September which was my best month of this year. Photo is always the best earning media (89%) followed by video (7.5%) and audio (3.5%).
Reporting by media
Photo
Shutterstock is leading again this month with a new BME (helped by 2 EL) followed by Fotolia with a BME also. Istock is third this month performing a bit better than usual. Dreamstime is not to far off a BME as well.
Video
Two sales this month including one at Pond5 with a $50 commission and one at Istock with $5 commission, no need to comment on this one:) No sales at Revostock and Clipcanvas. Since Isyndica is not around anymore and because of my slow connection speed, I upload my clips to Pond5 only.
Audio
With a bit more than 3% of total earnings, audio had another BME this month with sales at Pond5 and Revostock.
As usual, stay tuned for more blog updates in November and in the meantime, you can follow my updates on Twitter. You can also join my facebook photo page here.
As expected, sales picked up as often microstock sales reach a peak in September and this month was not exception being a BME in both Photo and Audio. Compared to last year at the same period, microstock photos sales are up 30% which is in line with the increase of my portfolio size.
Photos is still the main earner with 86%, following by video (11%) and audio (3%). A lot of things happened this month: Isyndica distribution platform is closing down:( This service will be greatly missed and I want to thank personally Sebastien and Hugo for their hard work and for having raised new standards in media distribution platform technology.
Another big news this month, is coming from Istock which decided to cut down commission for non exclusives from 20 to 15% . I personally stopped sending pictures to Istock 4 months ago now and I do not plan resuming uploads there. If you are an exclusive contributor and looking to give up your crown I can recommend the following five agencies: Shutterstock, Dreamstime, and Yaymicro (interesting 3rd party program) and Stockfresh (a venture from previous Stockxpert's owners).
Reporting by media
Photo
Shutterstock finished far ahead of all sites with a record number of on demand sales, finishing close to a BME. Second was Fotolia, only few cents from a BME and 3rd was Veer helped by three extended sales. Istock was number 4 with a dramatic decrease in earnings of 100% compared to September 2009.On a positive note I had my first sale at Alamy this month, hope more will follow:)
Isyndica Analytics screenshot
Video
Pond5 had a BME with sales making most of my video earnings this month.However, no sales at Revostock, Shutterstock and Clipcanvas....
Audio
Audio represents only 3% of total earnings but had its BME this month with 4 sales at Pond5 and 1 at Revostock.
As usual, stay tuned for more blog updates in October and in the meantime, you can follow my daily updates on Twitter. You can also join my facebook photo page here.
Photo sales slowed down considerably compared to last month but a BME in video and few audio sales boosted earnings. Video sales this month accounts for 20% of total earnings and audio 1.5%.
Reporting by media
Photos
Microstock earnings were up 12% compared to last year at the same period despite a constant uploading all year. Istock is the agency with the biggest loss with earnings down to 60%. Shutterstock was slow this month but with still enough sale volume to lead the pack, FT and IS lagging not too far behind.
After a slow April, earnings increased sharply for all medias: videos and audio had their BME. Overall , earnings were not higher than March 2010 (DepositPhoto upload bonus skewed the results). Photo is still the largest media in term of earnings (84 %), followed by video (13%) and audio (3%).
You will notice that my Isyndica analytics graph below includes Shutterstock now. To add this channel, simply go your Shutterstock downloads stat page, and save the earnings spreadsheet for a specific period. You can then upload the csv file to your Isyndica Analytics.
Reporting per media
Photo
3 BME this month for Shutterstock, Veer and Yaymicro. Sadly, Istock is still underperforming, very far from its best month in May 2009 ($172.29). No downloads to report at Graphic leftovers, 3DStudio, Cutcaster and Mostphotos and only 1 sub sale at DepositPhoto.
Video
BME this month with three HD clips sold at Pond5 and one at Clipcanvas. No sales at Revostock and I am still waiting (should I?) for my first sale at Shutterstock.
Audio
BME with 6 sales at Pond5. No sales to report this month at Revostock.
As you might have noticed, I changed the format of my earnings this month giving up tables for charts. Overall, earnings this month did not increase as they did last year between March and April. It was a slow month with sale commissions 35% down compared to last month and only 1% up compared to April 2009. Royalty percentages for each media are reported below with photo and audio taking 92% and 3% of the total earnings, respectively.
You can access 2009-2010 monthly earnings from Microstock Charts here.
Photo
No BME to report this month. Shutterstock led the pack, Istock earnings dropped 43% compared to last month lagging behind FT. Among the low earners agencies, it is 123RF who performed the best.
Video
It was a slow month for footage with only one sale at Pond5 despite the addition of new clips.
Audio
Surprisingly, audio did not finish far behind video and even had a best month ever.
If you are not a Isyndica user yet, you can take advantage of their 30% off on subscriptions. They also offer free syndication on new uploaded items until the 7th of May. You can use my link to signup and do not forget to enter the coupon code HAPPYBDAY on the checkout.
This month was a BME for microstock (beating September 2009) with combined multimedia royalties reaching over $700. It is also the first month I've sold photos, videos and audio alltogether.Microstock photos alone had a 70% increase in earnings compared to March 2009.
More than 1000 photos were licensed this month, but no extended sales to report. Shutterstock was once again the best agency followed closely by Istock and Fotolia (first BME since 2 years....). Depositphotos ranked 4th due to their promotion program but I expect to go way down next month. I have also a BME to report at GraphicLeftovers, the easiest agency to contribute if you are an Isyndica user. No sales at all this month at 3DS, Mostphotos and Cutcaster. Taking into account the 17 agencies, cumulative RPI was quite stable at $0.8 compared to last year. The average $ per download went down to $0.58 to the large volume of sales at DepositPhotos.
Thanks to Lee Torrens from Microstockdiaries and Amos Struck, you can see my 2009-2010 earnings history here.
Videos
Videos royalties represent a bit more than 9% of my multimedia sales. No sales yet to report at Shutterstock, Istock and Revostock.
Audio
I had my first 2 sales at Pond5 this month with an average of $3.5 per download, a value between photo and video. My files are distributed to 4 agencies so far. Audio represents however only 1% of my multimedia sales.
For more daily updates, you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Until next month!
You also visit my interactive photo wall made by Cooliris. You can create your own for free also.
No BME to report in any of the big photo agencies but February was quite good considering it had only 17 business days. My total earning including photos, videos and sounds and referrals was just above $500. You will find my detailled earnings per media below:
Isyndica Analytics screenshot
Photos
Microstock photos earnings were up 68% compared to February 2009 with Shutterstock, Istockphoto and Fotolia taking 71% of the total. Midstock agencies did ok with 12% of total photos sales. Stockxpert closed down the 11th of February so I signed up in two new agencies and both accounts are already showing a positive balance offsetting the loss of stockxpert earnings.
The first agency is Depositphotos (DP) which attracted a lot of attention with their shock and awe promotion program by paying contributors up to $100 if they upload 500 pictures. Apparently this program has been closed down March 1st. Uploading is quite fast despite the fact at least one category has to be selected. Ranking determines the commission rate which is 44% (for non exclusive photographers) and increases to 46% after 500 sales.
The second agency, Graphic Leftovers (GLO), primarily sells vectors but do sell pictures as well. Upload
process is a breeze as it is fully integrated in the Isyndica platform via an API : you don't even need to push
your uploads on the site. GLO offers a generous 52% commission to all contributors.
I had my first sales at AlwaysHD ($25 for one HD1080) and Pond5($10 for one HD720) and I am still waiting for my first sales at Revostock, Shutterstock and Istock. It is not much but enough to represent 7% of my total multimedia earnings.
Audio
No sales to report this month with about 20 files online at Revostock, Pond5 and Audiomicro.
All multimedia files included (photo,video,audio), january earnings were just above the $400 mark with not even a BME to record. Detailed earnings by categories are reported below:
Photos
Microstock agencies performed poorly this month, although sales picked up nicely in the last week of the month. Earnings are just 28% higher than those in January 2008 despite having larger portfolios. Shutterstock had a solid month following by Fotolia and Istock, very close to each others. Small agencies and midstock
agencies did not sell as much as they usually do.
Videos
I had my second sale at Clipcanvas (141 clips on line) which netted me 42 euros. I am still waiting for my first sale at Pond5 and Shutterstock. Due to a lengthy review process, I have only 6 videos on line at Istock and no sales to report despite getting a lot of views (as high as 600 per files....).
Audio
Like mentioned on my previous post, I just started submitted sound effects to several agencies so it is bit early to expect sales especially with only 16 files at Pond5.
In addition to pictures and HD videos, I started this month distributing audio to different agencies. My goal is more to have recordings to support my pictures and videos than rather to increase my microstock earnings. After looking for a suitable recorder, I ordered a Zoom H2 from Amazon. The zoom H2 has a low price tag ($150) and a great sound quality, capable recording at 360-degree and comes with a 1GB SD card and earplugs. If you are looking for a more advanced recorder you can have a look at the Zoom H4n.
Wav files recorded at 44.1 kHz 16 bits are accepted pretty much by all agencies although some are taking 48 kHz 16-bit as well. As the Zoom H2 can record at 96 kHz 24-bit, I use these settings and downsample files before submission.
Like with pictures, agencies are looking for noise-free high quality files and Istockaudio even specify that the signal should be in the final range of -4db to -6db. I use Audacity, a free and open source software, to remove noise if necessary and amplify my audio files.
Like any submission in microstock, quality is preferred over quantity so sounds with a different twist have more chance to be sold. Keywording is quite different than in video and photo and it is advisable to add words to describe the mood of the file in the metadata.
For information, I put in a table below a list of agencies I upload to, along with some, I hope, useful informations. Being an Isyndica user, I take the advantage of their platform to distribute my audio files in few clicks.
I am far from being a sound expert so please feel to post a comment if you find any mistakes on this post. Thanks and happy recording!
If you want to sign up to start selling your audio, feel free to click on my affiliate banners below:
December was pretty good considering that sales dried up in the last week of the month and that I do not have any christmas related pictures on my portfolio. I had quite a few extended licence sales at SS, DT and Veer and the latter was also my only BME this month. Sales at 3DStudio made a come back this month after a three months drought.Istock sales took a dip with less than $100 but still managed to be my second best earning agency and the one with the highest RPI. If my total RPI was quite low this month at 0.51, it is worth mentioning that 0.95 was my all time highest $/dl since I started microstock.
Overall, including referral and midstock sales, my december earnings were just above the $450 mark which is a 100% increase over December 2008.
Videos
No sales to report this month and I am still building my portfolio, uploading videos to six agencies although their distribution is far from being even. Clipcanvas is my largest library so far with over 100 videos on line, the other five having less than 50. I am getting a lot of views at Istock with only three clips but reviews are painfully slow.
Isyndica screenshot
Earnings table (US dollars)
2009 goals
As far as my 2009 goals, the main one which was to make $500 a month with microstock pictures was reached once in September and the months after that were also close to this number. some of them will be only be reached sometime in January like the commission increase to $0.36 at SS and the silver rank at Fotolia. I also managed to increase my portfolio to more than 1000 pictures on most agencies but missed my 500 portfolio target at Istock. I had 3 more pictures with flames at IStock as expected. Midstock sales are still a bit lower than I was expected although they represented 20% of my total sales in October 2009.
November was on track for a BME until the first half of the month, but the second half was noticeably slower and I ended up finally with a second BME. Only one BME to report at CSP with Istock finishing first, ahead from SS (despite 15 OD sales) and FT. Sales were dissappointing at SXP and DT (with RPD decreasing for the third consecutive month). I am still on the process to upload my entire portfolio at Veer and I am glad to report my first sale there. So overall, my earnings reached almost $600 this month when I include midstock sales and referrals. A slowdown is expected in December so unless a EL sales spree happens, I will probably keep September in my records as 2009's BME with $508.82.
Video
No sales yet but I managed to increase my portfolio at Pond5 (54) and Clipcanvas (91). I have also 39 clips accepted at Shutterstock, 9 at Revostock, 5 at AlwaysHD and 1 at Istock (this clip was pending for a month in the queue...).One of my clip was on the front page of Clipcanvas for a week but unfortunately it was not sold once :( I noticed that video previews looked much better at Clipcanvas than they do at Pond5...
Update: I just found out that my first HD clip (720p) was sold on Clipcanvas at the end of month. I received for this sale a commission of 30 €. You can see this clip here.
Stay tuned for more blog updates in December and in the meantime, you can read my daily updates on Twitter.
A quick memo about the requirements of the HD stock footage agencies I contribute or plan to contribute to. I will update this table from time to time but feel free to leave a comment if you find that some informations are outdated...Thank you.
September was a new BME and for the first time my microstock earnings (minus referrals) were above $500 which was initially my goal in 2009. SS had a BME this month (with 2EL and 9 OD sales) , the first one since June 2008 but IS is still number one this month (with 1EL sale), beating SS by only $1...
Another BME to report at BSP with a first EL sale and another BME at SCP with just regular sales which is quite encouraging. Amongst the newcomers, 3DS had a noticeable slow down this month with only two sales and Veer earnings graph is desesperatly flat.... No sign of life at YAY and Cutcaster either...
Luckily, sales at Panthermedia and SmugMug brought my monthly earnings just above the $600 mark.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I started contributing to footage agencies in September by sending HD clips to Shutterstock, Pond5, Revostock, Clipcanvas. My application is still pending at Istock and AlwaysHD. I immediatly wrote off Fotolia from my uploading list due to their low price policy. I will start disclosing my footage stats only next month since a lot of my clips are pending approval at the moment.
The Isyndica platform was very useful to upload these huge HD clips and I can still decide to distribute them later on in few clicks to Stockxpert and Canstock if their footage sales are taking off.
Will October will be another BME? I hope so and you will find daily updates on my Twitter account.
I recently invested in a HD camcorder (a Legria HF 200, twin of the Vixia HF200 in the USA) to get into stock footage. In this post, I will talk about my first impressions about switching from photo and video and the differences I came across during capture and editing.
Equipment and capture
The HF200 camcorder is surprisingly small and light (340g). However, it lacks a wide angle lens. Luckily, I managed to get down to a 31.6 mm (from 39.5 mm) without any loss of quality by adding a WCON 08B converter. Similarly, the TCON 17B brings the 592.5 mm to a 859.1 mm. When I shoot video, my SLR viewfinder is replaced by a very convenient multi-angle LCD screen. If a 8GB card is more than enough to record 10MP raw pictures, it is not so much for HD videos so I am currently using a 16GB class 4 SD card. The Legria comes short in battery life since I can record only about 1h of footage. Often the battery gives up before the card is full which never happened with my DSLR. Unfortunately, replacement batteries are much more expensive than for my DSLR as well…
Like in photo, I use aperture priority quite a lot and occassionaly speed priority. I almost always use manual focus (which is surprisingly precise on the LCD screen) to avoid changes in focus while recording footage which happen sometimes when focus is set to automatic.
Photo and video are quite similar but also very different. The big difference is that in video you have to predict the action and how it will play. If we take the basic scene of a autumn leaf on the grass; in photo, composition, control of the depth of field, exposure will be the main parameters before pointing and shooting.
In video, these parameters are still there but you have to compose also with external elements like the wind and the light that can sometime make your sequence more powerful.
While I do not really pay attention to the wind while taking pictures, I learned that it can be in video, your best friend or your worse enemy. Wind can give some movement to a static scene but also if you don’t have a steady tripod it can ruin all your footage.
In some ways, I found video more restrictive since you cannot do vertical shooting for example and it is, with the HF200 at least, difficult to change the focus while recording. At the same time, video brings more freedom since you can pan and zoom.
Processing time….
Instead of processing raw files, I work now with AVCHD which is a compressed format developed jointly by Sony and Panasonic.
I found out quickly that if the AVCHD format sounds appealing (you take your SD card from the camcorder and open directly files from it on your computer), its processing can be quite a headache. Few softwares are capable of rendering correctly AVCHD and its conversion can be tricky (files have to be converted to Quicktime, the format accepted by all agencies). I am still working on a standard workflow but I found out that scenes with fast moving subjects are the most difficult to render properly in Quicktime. Apparently it comes to the fact that I record 1080i (i stands for interlaced) and that computer displays are progressive... I am not sure that HF200 progressive mode is really true progressive so following some advices I will shoot interlaced from now on, the customer can easily deinterlace the video if needed.
It comes with no surprise that processing videos takes longer than processing pictures (even when doing HDR or panorama). Process a 20 seconds clip can take anywhere between 4 minutes and 5 minutes depending on what corrections are applied. It can last more than an hour if you speed up your videos to do timelapse.
Process AVCHD files definitely put my laptop (Core2Duo 2GHz, 3GB RAM) to the test….
Storage of raw footages can also be an issue so an 1TB hardrive should come handy especially if you want to store these few GB timelapse videos....
Uploading
When it comes to uploading, there is a huge difference between photo and video: if a 10 MP picture weights between 3 and 5 MB, a 20 seconds HD1080 clip can be between 200 and 250 MB, the equivalent of about 50 pictures.... Uploading 20 HD clips can be a daunting task without a high speed internet access and I would consider that a 1Mbps upload speed is a minimum to have.
As I rather want to upload once, I use picWorkflow (referral link included) platform to distribute my videos across different agencies. Amazingly, once on the platform , my 200 MB clips are redistributed in a matter of seconds......
Final submission
Unfortunately, there is not yet an equivalent to the IPTC system for videos which means extra work: you have to copy paste title, description and keywords in each agency. Until such system comes up, the best option I found is to keep a document with all my metadata and simply copy/paste the different fields from there.
Conclusion
Stock footage has definitely its technical challenges: processing and uploading are both much more time consuming than for photos. On the bright side, it is an opportunity to learn video capturing and editing. Also on the money side, there are much less submitters in footage than in photo, prices are higher so it might be a good time to enter before it is getting too difficult (see my previous post). At the time of writing, Shutterstock have 138,000 clips on line (with more than 8 millions pictures) and Pond5 200,000 clips. In January 2011, Pond5 has more than 510,000 clips, Shutterstock more than 230,000.
If you want start selling your footage online, I would recommend for a start Pond5 and Revostock . My referral links are below!
