CEPIC New Media Conference: Making Millions with Microstock, One Euro at a Time (Part II)
Tyler Olson – MicrostockGroup – A meeting place for microstock photographers
Tyler Olson - MicrostockGroup
Tyler Olson, full time microstocker, lymph and “leaf” of MicrostockGroup, has recently published the interesting results of the 2009 microstock survey, based on 413 people/contributors answers Microstock Survey – 2009 Results. During the panel Making Millions with Microstock, One Euro at a Time, Tyler presented some more insights and statistics extracted from the survey and from other sources.
First of all, “Why do microstock photographers insist on ruining the stock photography industry?”; because “It's fun!”.
It's fun
Microstock is open to everyone. The most part of the microstock contributors has a small portfolio, here some stats from iStockcharts:
- ~30,000 iStock Photographers with at least 1 image
- 7% (1782) of iStock photographers have a portfolio over 1000 images
- 1.4% (408) over 2500 images
It's profitable
- paid as little as $0.20/download but with several downloads per day
- zero cost to have images online
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buyers need images, and LOTS of them
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it’s very reliable profit
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very quantifiable profit
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for the hobby photographer, everything is profit
Microstock pays off for those who make an effort
- On iStock 50% of the images belong to ~7% of photographers (numbers are repeating themselves, a similar proportion was presented by Yuri Arcurs regard his portfolio).
- On iStock 50% of the image sales belong to ~2% of photographers
How much can I make?
The long tail is also well represented in this slide, with 89% of the photographers polled with a microstock income < 25,000$ (most of them in the lower part…).
The average RPI / Year of the 388 photographers is USD 9.26, with a sensible difference:
- income < USD 25,000 –> RPI USD 5.35
- income > USD 25,000 –> RPI USD 17.85
Finally, Tyler's 5 tips for microstock success, with a special indication for those who are coming from the traditional stock photo market and have to learn dealing with image rejections…
Slides courtesy of Tyler Olson
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