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jhuls · Joined: 02 Jan 2012 Posts: 1046

good luck, I know stock is time consuming so it's hard if you don't have a lot of time to devote to it. Your portfolio looks good though.

kitkat73 · Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 2:38 am

Great thread Jenn and your portfolio is awesome - wish I had half your talent! I'm sure you'll achieve all your goals with time, no worries. :)

I'm a newbie, joined in September 2011 and have slowly been building my port. A good week at the beginning was 4 DLs, but reached a small milestone today...have averaged 1 DL/day for March, which includes 2 ODDs. Hope I can repeat it or better it next month! More ODDs would be nice - my tally is 12 since joining. Still waiting on an elusive EL...I won't hold my breath!

My port is tiny with not high CV but it sometimes amazes me what sells. At the moment images of Bendigo and St Kilda have been selling quite well in Australia. My Italy images regularly sell in Europe.

Being on SS motivates me to go out and shoot and I'm constantly learning (heaven knows I have a lot to learn). I have a Word document where I copy and paste the words of wisdom from the seasoned pros on here!

My priority recently was upgrading my glass from kit lenses. I shoot Canon and recently acquired a 24-105mm f/4 and 70-200mm f/2.8 (thanks to those who gave me advice on these some months ago). Result = cannot afford proper studio lighting just yet so doing the best I can with natural light. Also have the 50mm f/1.4 which I highly recommend to other newbies - cheap and sharp!

Anyway, onwards and upwards I say!
-Kathy

jhuls · Joined: 02 Jan 2012 Posts: 1046

Kathy, love your Australia stuff. Having unique things like that are definitely a plus. I know I have been building my port quite quickly but I have more time to spend on it than most people so I guess I am lucky.

Love to see how everyone is getting on after starting. I hope to see us all getting pay raises and reaching milestones together.

drskn08 · Joined: 05 Nov 2011 Posts: 383

Oh.. this thread is for me. How could i miss it lol probably jenn posted this when i was on vacation.
Well i became ss contributor on 28th jan on my 3rd attempt. i am from india and my pix belong to india only. i have around 70 images right now and ofcourse i will increase it. But i am not inspired from my sales in march. I used to get daily sales in feb with very little port so i thought i had almost got the trend of ss but my occasional sales in later half of march force me to think again what should i submit. I am not getting time to visit outside my town but still i will try to improve my port. Goal is to attain my centuary and i need to buy a tripod 1st [plz dun laugh ;)]

pb054680 · Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 3:41 am

Hello everybody,

My name is Paul and I am living in The Netherlands. I have a fulltime job as a technician on a laboratory related to a hospital. As a hobby photographer I spent my spare time in taking photos of macro- and closeup-photography. On hollidays I like to take landscape-, wildlife- and travelpictures. I am also quite new in the microstock world. For two months I am a member here on Shutterstock and was lucky to get accepted in one time. Within 2 hours I had also my first sale of a koi carp. This image has already 11 downloads which makes me very happy.

Here are some of my statistics: I have 91 images in my portfolio and have sofar 101 downloads including 8 ODD's. My acceptance ratio is 78% at the moment.

What are my goals? In April I will receive the milestone of 100 images online, I don't think that is difficult. My other goal is to proceed with digitalizing my old slides of my travels from 1993 to 2005 and uploading the best ones. Countries I visited are Ecuador (incl. Galapagos Islands), Iceland, Uganda, Chile (Patagonia), New Zealand, Costa Rica. After that and I am still motivated I have more time to spent on making images of subjects I really like and also trying to make some pictures which are more microstock related.

Greetings, Paul

jhuls · Joined: 02 Jan 2012 Posts: 1046

Saurabh, glad to see you found this thread. I think as you increase your portfolio you will find your sales increasing. Stock is a puzzle for me, I don't know why we can do better with one month with less images, and worse another with more. I sometimes try to make calculations in my head on what I will be making a month when I have x amount of images in my portfolio, but I know that it is pretty much just a guessing game. I could be making more than my figures or significantly less. We are at the mercy of the buyers, and what they want.

Paul, I am glad to see you have found success even when you only have limited time to devote to stock. It seems you have found a good balance. For me stock is full time, I am still enjoying it even at my fast pace. My hope is to upload like crazy for the rest of this year and then, taper off a bit and approach it more like you do in the future.

drskn08 · Joined: 05 Nov 2011 Posts: 383

really a puzzle Jenn. You are right. We can just upload good quality pix and that too continuously. But for me there should be good sales of new images as we used to hear from old players otherwise it would be bit boring. Thank god finally i see few double and triple sales of few images from my last batches at the end of month. Feb was Definitely better than March. Hopefully April will be better with increase in port(fingers crossed :-))

digigandalf · Joined: 11 Jun 2005 Posts: 5401 Location: Twinsburg, OH

I've refrained from posting in this thread since I'm not a newbie, but I thought I might interject a thought here:

You want discouraging? My first month here, June 2005, I made a whopping 40¢. (No, that's not a typo!) Two whole DLs! Of course, if you look at the earliest images in my port, you can see why.

Took 6-7 months (can't remember now) to reach a payout. Took a while longer to find a few niches (areas of strength that not everyone and their grandmother are doing), and now I'm making more than Mike Ledray and Yuri Arcurs combined!!! (Uh, and if you believe that, I've got a hot real estate offer for you!) Let's just say, perseverance is the key here, or one of them at least. Sales go up, sales go down, but as Dave said earlier, slow and steady wins the race.

I have to say, if I had had early ports like yours, Jenn, and some of the others I've looked at in this thread, I'd have had a lot faster start. So keep at it, but also take a break from it from time to time to avoid burnout or going stale.

pb054680 · Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:38 am

nahariyani · Joined: 11 Feb 2012 Posts: 9

Hi there,

I'm a new contributor at SS (actually, a very new one - only 2 weeks or so), working in vector art. At the moment, my portfolio is rather small, about 50 images; however, I'm going to do my best to make it more essential ☺.

As a newbie I have a question (OK, I know I'll make laugh some of you but anyway ☺.) On the main contributor's page, there is a map representing sold pictures and statistics at the upper right corner. At the moment, watching the pictures flashing on the map and pressing F8 every now and then is the best reality show I've ever seen. However, while watching it, I found a weird thing: while new pictures continue flashing, there is a long delay with their number/my earnings updates - or, when updated, sometimes the number is one or two purchases less that I saw on the map... Could anybody please comment this?

Thank you in advance,
Alex

okiepony · Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 5:45 pm

Alex - the map only shows your last 10 downloads. However, sometimes it goes crazy and repeats some of the downloads so it makes it look like there are more.

For example, right now my map will flash through 15 images if I refresh it. However, it shows the last five twice. Sometimes, also, it will place a pic that was downloaded some time earlier in the wrong spot of the sequence. If you remember where that pic was purchased you'll realize it was the same place as some time earlier and it's just showing it again, but in the wrong order.

nahariyani · Joined: 11 Feb 2012 Posts: 9

Sari, thank you for your fast response! However, it's now always the case :) The very last time, I had 4 pictures on my map and then another one (not sold yet, from a new batch) appeared while one of those four disappeared. I waited a bit and pressed F8 ☺. Then again and again... Nothing changed even in an hour. Actually, that was the reason of my post here... I am just trying to figure out how long this delay could last.

hhltdave5 · Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 6:37 pm

nahariyani · Joined: 11 Feb 2012 Posts: 9

Hi Dave,

Yes, I knew it but thank you anyway ☺.

drskn08 · Joined: 05 Nov 2011 Posts: 383

i waked up today morning and saw 2 ODs of same pic. So happy to see that. I wish one day i awake and see my 1st EL. :-)